CHAPTER IX
JOSIE FINDS A FRIEND
The hall bedroom that Mandy had decided was the suitable place for Josie proved to be clean and comfortable. To be sure it was a third floor back, but Josie liked to be high up and she also liked the outlook on the back yards of the neighbors.
“Yonder’s de ol’ Ellett place,” pointed Aunt Mandy. “It’s some run down, but it wa’ sho a el’gant home in de ole days. I reckon dat ol’ skinflint Cheatham will en’ by buildin’ ’partments dar. Some say he cyarn’t git a clar title or he’d a been tearin’ down an’ puttin’ up befo’ now. Yonder’s him dis blessed minute! Done step out ter view his prop’ty.”
Josie craned her neck to see the rear of poor Ursula’s home, and if possible to get a good look at the villain, Cheatham. At any rate he was in Louisville and not flying across the continent with poor little Philip.
“First, I must see the police here,” she decided ruefully. Seeing the police—any police but her old friend Captain Charlie Lonsdale—was a sore trial to Josie. Like most private detectives she was inclined to look down somewhat on the regular force, but she was more interested in having the wrongdoer tracked than in gaining honor and glory by being the one to bring him in.
“The important thing is to find little Philip and unless Captain Charlie has already wired the Louisville police it is up to me to see them.”
One reason for Miss Lucy Leech’s success in running a boarding house was that she attended strictly to her own business and let the guests of her home attend to theirs. She had not gotten rich on this policy, as it is said one may do, but she was at least able to keep her house well filled and to save a comfortable sum for her old age, which was in truth upon her, although she did not realize it. Now that the new and somewhat mysterious young boarder, so highly recommended by the hackman and the porter, decided to brave the slush and the fog and go for a walk on Christmas morning, Miss Lucy asked no questions and in consequence was told no lies. Josie thanked her in her heart and went bravely forth.
Two things were happening to the weather. The sun was clearing away the fog and no longer looked so like an orange, and the thermometer was dropping rapidly. Josie was glad of both changes. It was good to find Louisville not the dismal place she had thought it on arriving, but a very pleasing city. A fog is beautiful to an artist but the lay brother prefers a clear day. As for the drop in temperature, it meant less slush and easier walking and a bracing atmosphere that made Josie sniff the air like a colt that has been pent up long in a stable.
The young detective missed the homely friendliness of the Dorfield chief, but had a feeling that the police force of Louisville was really very adequate. The captain in charge was an alert, business-like person, who took hold of the facts, as Josie expressed it to herself, “like a woman.”
“Now what are your plans?” he asked. Josie liked him because he didn’t call her “miss.” Captain Charlie would have said: “What are your plans, miss?” Josie liked being a girl but she hated being “missed” when she was at work.