“Sometimes,” replied the woman, “when it is a package.”
“Oh,” said Scanlon. “When it’s a package, eh? Never when it is anything else?”
“No.”
Once more Mr. Scanlon considered.
“That looks,” said he, “as if Miss Knowles were interested in the coming of something of some little bulk.” He stroked his shaven jaw and looked at the woman. “Now I wonder what it is she’s looking for?”
The woman returned the look, and again Scanlon saw she desired to say something, but did not know how to begin.
“What is it?” he asked. “If you’ve got any suggestions to make, don’t be backward.”
“If you would see her searching and looking,” said the woman, “there is a window near the stable. She always locks herself in that room.”
Mrs. Kretz then returned to her kitchen, and Scanlon leaned with his back against the wall and pondered. That he might the better do this, he took out his tobacco pouch and the little sheaf of papers; then he carefully shaped another cigarette. With the pale smoke hovering about him, he turned the question over carefully.
“It stands like this,” he told himself. “Something is doing that threatens to knock out a friend of mine. Said friend asks me to give him help. This I do. In the process of helping I run smack into the fact that the girl he’s in love with is on the cross. She stands in with the parties who are trying to get him. Mixed up in her efforts in his direction is a desire to see what’s inside all the packages which come to the house. I have a chance, maybe, to find our what the reason is—by peeping in at a window. Question before the committee on morals: Is it permissible to peep under such circumstances?”