“Simpkins? Nobody has been here of that name.”
“No, Simpson—Major Simpson—perhaps he has acquaintances in the building. There was no reason why I should jump to the conclusion that he had been here, certainly no personal reason.”
Josie did not push her inquiry because she realized that for some reason or other Mrs. Leslie was concealing something from her in regard to Major Simpson. What it was she could not divine, but the lady’s heightened color and strained, artificial manner meant something besides the usual Saturday baking. Her deliberate misunderstanding of the name of Simpson was too apparent to fool the astute Josie. She came to the conclusion that the old detective had been calling on Mrs. Leslie and for some reason she had been told by him to keep the matter a secret.
“Mysteries and more mysteries!” thought Josie. “I wonder what Father would have said to this.”
As soon as she finished her luncheon of coffee and doughnuts she went to her room, determined to read a little in her leather bound book. She opened the top drawer. A sudden consciousness came to her that someone had been meddling there during her absence. In the first place her beloved book was not as she had placed it—close in the corner, back out—but had evidently been examined by someone and then tossed carelessly back into the drawer.
“Don’t be such an old maid!” Josie admonished herself. “It doesn’t mean a thing. Perhaps Mrs. Leslie had some curiosity about my belongings. It is pardonable for a poor lady who has mighty little to occupy her mind to open up a lodger’s drawer and snoop around a little.”
Wait, what was that? Certainly Mrs. Leslie did not wear heavy gold cuff links, in fact Josie had noted particularly that her landlady’s house dresses were all made with sleeves cut a little below the elbow and that she never wore cuffs. She, then, was not the meddler who had left evidence of his or her presence in Josie’s top drawer in the shape of part of a heavy gold cuff link. Josie picked it up gingerly. There was a large heavily engraved letter S on the flat button.
“If he had left a visiting card for me I could not be more certain that old Major Simpson has been calling,” laughed Josie to herself. “But why? And why is Mrs. Leslie so silent about it? And above all, how am I to act now? One thing sure, I must not let the poor dear lady know that I am on to the fact that she is concealing something from me. I don’t believe Mary is in on this mystery, whatever it is, but I’ll wait until she comes home and test it.”
Josie put the broken link carefully away in her purse and then sat down to do a little necessary mending on her coat, a button loose here and a tiny rip in one of the pockets. She drew forth the twisted afternoon paper, throwing it carelessly on the bed and again she thought of the proud Miss Fauntleroy and her rudeness to the old beggar woman. She heard Mary come in and her mother’s question:
“Did you bring an afternoon paper?”