Mary had listened to the foregoing harangue with a sinking heart. It was easy to gather from her mother’s part in the conversation what the old gentleman’s share had been. She well knew her mother’s failing, if failing it was, a love of a mystery and how she had always flattered herself that she knew human nature. She also knew that her mother’s kind heart always got the better of what she was pleased to call ‘her better judgment,’ and if matters should come to a showdown that she would probably expend more energy in her endeavor to protect a criminal than in convicting one. Mary was sure that her friend was innocent and it was sorely against her will that she was made to promise that in the event of Josie’s return to the apartment she would say nothing to her about lace, mesh bags, shoplifting or portly old private detectives.
“Just be perfectly natural in your manner,” commanded her mother. “Behave as I do—not that I think she will return. It would be entirely too dangerous now that she suspects Major Simpson has been here. She certainly realizes that I saw the purloined articles.”
“But her clothes! What will she do without her clothes?”
“Why, my dear, criminals of that sort never stop for clothes. She may have rooms all over the city as far as we know and as many aliases as she has rooms. There is no telling how long she has been living in Wakely. Major Simpson says these robberies have been going on ever so long at Burnett & Burnett’s and he rather thinks this girl may be responsible for all of them.”
“Oh, Mother! I can’t believe this is really you talking this way. Why, Josie is almost like a sister to me I have grown so fond of her, and I am sure she loves you dearly. If we should have suspicion cast on us she would not believe we were wicked but would do her best to help us. After all, you have not a thing to go on but what a silly old man says.”
“Major Silvester Simpson is far from being a silly old man. He is an elegant, courtly gentleman,” Mrs. Leslie retaliated with some heat. “He is not only from our county but from the very best blood in the county, and what he says and thinks has much more weight with me than protestations of innocence from a little Miss Nobody.”
Mary felt that silence was the only thing with which to combat her mother’s argument, so with a sad face, and wiping away a few tears that she could not keep back, she endeavored to lose herself in a book until Josie should return, for certain she was that their little lodger would return.
Mary and her mother were usually in accord and both of them felt exceedingly uncomfortable that a disagreement had arisen. Mrs. Leslie busied herself with her embroidery, looking up every now and then at her daughter and sighing involuntarily. Mary endeavored to read but tears would dim her eyes which necessitated a furtive use of her handkerchief. Both of them missed the gay intimate chatter that it was their custom to indulge in. Mary was the first to break the silence.
“By the way, Mother, I saw another beggar in the hall. This time it was an old woman, at least her hair was gray, though she certainly could step along at a lively rate. I saw her actually running up the steps exactly as though a mad dog was after her. I was coming in our door and my impression was that she was going in No. 3, but it looked kind of prying for me to wait and see. That Mrs. Kambourian must be a very charitable lady with the tramp mark on her door.”
“Well, well! What have we come to? I think you and I had better go back to the country, Mary, what with beggars and shoplifters right in the same house with us. Now in the country we never had such things happen.”