“If the one hundred and fifty means his wages, he got mighty high ones,” Dennis remarked. “Still, Orbit looks like the kind who’d pay anything if he was suited and he said Hughes was a perfect valet, if you remember. The money deposited during the month might be his winnings at the races or cards and he was a lucky son-of-a-gun, but he seems to have lived up to nearly every cent.”
“Or lost it back again,” suggested McCarty. “Let’s have a look at the check-book.”
The stubs in the latter were not illuminating, for the dead man had evidently evolved a method of his own for noting those to whom he assigned checks and only hieroglyphics designated them. Laying aside this disappointing record McCarty turned to the little pile of letters which he had taken from the drawer of Hughes’ dresser and passed a handful to his companion.
“Here, Denny, sort these,” he directed. “You can tell by the writing if not by the names signed to them. If they’re love letters from women the more fools they, and ’tis no time to be squeamish!”
For a brief space there was silence, except for the rustle of paper and an occasional shocked exclamation from the scandalized Dennis, but at last he glanced up with a look of wonderment and exclaimed:
“Don’t it beat hell how much alike they are, all of them?”
“Who are?” McCarty asked absently.
“Women!” Dennis waved a huge paw in a vaguely comprehensive gesture. “American or foreign,—and you can tell the last by the strange words they put in when they can’t think of the English of them,—they all begin writing to him as if they was doing him a favor, the scoundrel! After a bit they start bossing him, and nagging and fault-finding, then they throw a bluff at ‘good-by forever,’ and the last of it’s always the same; begging him to come back! ’Tis well for us, Mac, that we’ve steered clear of them, for the both of us would have been wax in their hands!”
“Speak for yourself!” McCarty retorted. “No living woman could make a mark of me, though I’m giving none a chance! ’Tis funny they’d fall for a beefy, middle-aged guy like that, though, with the little mean eyes of him and the bald spot and all!”
“There’s no telling what they’ll take to!” asserted Dennis darkly. “There’s only one sensible female in the lot here; this one signing herself ‘Truda.’ She tells him kind but firm to stop writing to her or it’ll bring trouble to the two of them and it’s all damn’ foolishness, anyway.”