“Oh, my dear, I am so mortified that I let that bigoted old man make such a fool of me,” wailed Mrs. Leslie. “He doesn’t know the first thing about the detective business, either. And I thought he was so clever. You see he is the first one I ever knew and he talked so knowingly. The idea of his leaving a cuff link in the drawer! And to think of his spending all this time tracking down a detective! Anybody could see with half an eye that you are as honest as the day is long. Josie, I am going to do anything you tell me to keep your identity concealed from old Major Simpson. I don’t care if he does belong to one of the most respectable families in our county, with his ancestral home right next to mine—and I don’t care if he did give me a pink parasol when I was a little girl. He is a poor detective and that is what I am interested in.”
“That’s the way to talk,” said Josie, and the girls laughed so merrily that Mrs. Leslie joined in. “But what line of subterfuge are we to decide on? It is really very important to keep the poor man fooled for a few days yet.”
“I’ll phone him again and tell him the watermelons are to be with me for some time—I mean lemons—and he need have no fear of losing them.”
CHAPTER XII
A BOARDING HOUSE HERO
When Major Simpson received the frantic message from Mrs. Leslie informing him the watermelons had come, for a moment he stood aghast, not knowing at all what she meant. Slowly a wary smile overspread his rotund countenance and he exclaimed:
“By golly! There’s a woman for you! I’ll bet my gold-headed cane that somebody had caught on to the lemons and she realized I would have intelligence enough to grasp her meaning if she substituted watermelons. Of course—of course—picnics back in the grove behind the church—ice cold watermelons—ice cold lemonade. Even had she said fried chicken I should have been wise. Well, well! I must not neglect my digestion for this little shoplifter. Since she is safe in the hands of my good friend Polly Bainbridge I can eat my dinner in peace. I wonder whether or not the stolen goods are still on the wretch. I fancy not, but once we get our clutches on her she will divulge where she has hidden the loot.”
Major Simpson was star boarder in the very select house run by Mrs. Celeste White. The place was called “Maison Blanche”. Mrs. White seemed to think that her name Celeste gave her sufficient reason for assuming a French air. For that reason at Maison Blanche the bill of fare was always the menu. The baking dishes were casseroles, the napkins, serviettes. She made desperate efforts to have old Aunt Maria called the chef but that worthy person objected.
“No’m! I ain’t no shelf an’ I ain’t gonter be laid on none fer many a day yit. I’m a plain cook as fer as what you call me is consarned but I’m plain an’ fancy as fer as cookin’ is consarned. An’ what I cook air a gonter be called by the right name s’long as it air in my kitchen. When it gits as fer as the precinct of the butler’s pantry it kin begin ter change its name an’ not befo’. I cooks maccaroni an’ cheese in a bakin’ dish but Miss White she make a pass over it an’ by the time the boa’ders gits settled in they seats my maccaroni an’ cheese air fergetti O’ Gratty Ann. I don’t know who this here Gratty Ann is but she sho mus’ a been a great one fer the eatin’s since she got so many things named after her. They even got pertatters named her name only Miss White, she calls ’em pums. This Gratty Ann an’ that there Cassy Roll got they patent hitched on ter mos’ eve’y thing these days. In ol’ times Sally Lum an’ Brown Betty wa’ the onlies oomans what got they names in the cook book an’ now them two has ter take a back seat. The times air sho quare. Miss White she don’t even let cawfy be plain cawfy, that is when they dishes it up in them little doll baby cups, but she got ter name it after some low flung pusson called Demmy Task. I don’t know who Demmy Task is but she mus’ be a stingy one.”
In the kitchen Aunt Maria ruled supreme, while in the parlor Major Simpson was monarch of all he surveyed—from the great Mrs. Celeste White herself down to the humble little Miss Willie Watts who rented Mrs. White’s attic room which she pleased to call a studio. Here Miss Willie made crayon portraits of the living and the dead for a living, and for pleasure she painted fancy pictures illustrating striking bits in mythology as well as her favorite songs. These pictures painted merely for the love of what the poor little woman called “her art” she never sold, because nobody ever bought them. But she was very generous with them at Christmas and on birthdays and weddings. According to Miss Willie Watts everything must be decorated—no space go to waste. Art abhorred a bare space as much as Nature did a vacuum.