“Land’s sakes!” cried Mrs. Leslie, who had an inborn respect for the law and all persons appointed to uphold it. But according to plays she had seen and the movies, a detective always wore a shabby brown derby and box-toed shoes. Here was her visitor, an acknowledged detective, in the smallest and neatest of polished oxfords, and from her chair she could plainly see a silk hat on the marble topped table in the reception hall, the kind of hat that might have been worn with impunity by presidents of republics or prime ministers of monarchies.
Having under her roof, or rather under her ceiling—because Mrs. Leslie had never felt that the roof of the apartment house belonged to her in the least—having under her ceiling a suspicious character was not nearly so exciting to that lady as harboring a live detective. She reasoned that Major Simpson must be an excellent detective since he had never divulged that it was in that capacity he served Burnett & Burnett, the opinion being in his county that he was a “kind of partner” in the firm.
Tales of mystery had always been Mrs. Leslie’s dissipation—it might be truthfully said her only dissipation—and now it was a delightful thing that what had hitherto been a dissipation should be put upon her as a duty. Surely everybody would consider it her duty to assist an old neighbor and family friend in any way possible.
“Help you! Indeed I will. Tell me what I must do first.”
“Tell me something of the life and habits of this young person, who has so imposed upon you.”
“Well, she is quiet, gentle, considerate and unassuming. I certainly have to give her that. She is never a mite of trouble but always helps Mary and me about any household tasks that come up, very much as though she were a daughter of the house.”
“Um-hum! Sly, very sly!” puffed the major.
“She is orderly and regular in her habits. Keeps her room as neat as a pin and never leaves anything lying around.”
“Afraid of giving a clue to her carryings-on. She is no doubt a hardened adventuress.”
Mrs. Leslie thrilled with excitement. She felt delightful cold chills running up and down her backbone and her eyes were snapping and her cheeks glowing as though under the spell of no less a person than Anna Katherine Green or Mary Roberts Reinhart. “The Bat” himself had not been able to make her shudder more happily. For the moment she lost all feeling for Josie, of whom she was really very fond, but thought of her only as a character in fiction and herself as the astute heroine who would track her to her lair.