“Next, I must let Captain Lonsdale know what I know and maybe he can put a watch on that freight. Gee, I hate to ask help, but I must remember the way Josie works and how the important thing with her is always to get the criminal landed, whether she does it herself or not being of no importance.”
CHAPTER XVII
JOSIE MAKES A FIND
Josie’s impatience amounted almost to a fever, as she awaited the hour for dinner with Mr. Cheatham. The day after Christmas had been a busy one for her. She felt she must write a detailed account to Ursula of her visit with the Trasks. Also Captain Charlie Lonsdale and Bob Dulaney must be communicated with and the rest of the day was taken up in unearthing everything concerning Cheatham and Miss Fitchet that a female detective could hope to learn in a day.
Aunt Mandy was intensely interested in all Josie had to tell her of her cousins at Peewee Valley and her excitement knew no bounds when she learned that the young woman upon whom she looked as her own especial boarder, since her husband had sent her to Miss Lucy Leech’s, should have had Christmas dinner with such “highupity pussons” as the Trasks.
“An’ you done knowd young Mr. Teddy Trask at school! Well, bless Bob, if life ain’t complexicated.”
Josie had felt it wise to account for her acquaintance with young Trask to Aunt Mandy and her mistress. He was to come for her to take her to Mr. Cheatham’s dinner party and Josie knew boarding houses and the curiosity of the boarders well enough to be sure she must account for being friends with a young man as well known in Louisville as the handsome Teddy Trask. She had cautioned Teddy to ask for her by her right name and not the assumed one.
“I’m sorry I got going with a dual personality,” she said, “but it’s done now and Miss Lucy Leech thinks I’m named O’Gorman and Mr. Cheatham thinks I am Miss Friend. It was a break on my part to be so free with aliases. I can’t forgive that kind of stupidity. Sometimes one loses out on a job just because of such carelessness.”
Josie always had a dinner dress neatly packed in her emergency kit, as she called the suitcase she kept ready to take on a trip, and now that she was to dine with Mr. Cheatham she was thankful that she would be suitably clad.
“You’s de kinder boa’der to make money on,” Aunt Mandy declared, when Josie told her she would not be home for dinner. “Mos’ boa’ders eats in reg’lar. Looks like dey’s scairt dey won’t git dey money’s wuth an’ even when dey gits ’vited out dey comes home fer a filler. Why, honey, I’s knowd boa’ders what’ll tu’n on de light in dey rooms when dey’s goin’ out, ’fraid dey won’ git dey rights. But Miss Lucy kin tell ’em wha ter git off, when dey gits too proudified and boa’derish. I tell yer Miss Lucy ain’t never been one ter be back’ards in comin’ for’d when boa’ders gits rampageous. She’ll rar’ up on her hin’ legs an’ tell ’em what’s what.”