“And now,” she went on, in her nervous way, “I want you to do something right kind for me—not now—when Mrs. Raker goes; she’s a good soul, and I hope you’ll give her the envelope I’ve marked for her. Yes, sir, I want you to do something for me when she’s gone. Move in the four chairs from down-stairs—the pretty ones—all the rest are plain, so you can tell; and fetch me the tray with the wineglasses and the bottle of shrub—you’ll find the tray in the buffet with the red curtains down-stairs in my office. Then you go into the kitchen—I feel so sorry to have to ask a gentleman to do such things, but I do want them—and you’ll see a round brown box with Cake marked on it in curly gilt letters, and you’ll find a frosted cake in there wrapped up in tissue-paper; and you take it out, and get a knife out of the drawer, and fetch all those things up to me. And then, Amos Wickliff, all the friend I’ve got in the world, you go and stay outside—it ain’t cold or I wouldn’t ask it of you—you stay until you hear my bell. Will you?”
Amos took the thin hand, involuntarily outstretched, and patted it soothingly between both his strong brown hands.
“Of course I will,” he promised. And after Mrs. Raker’s departure he did her bidding, saying often to himself, “Poor lady!”
When the bell rang, and he came back, the wineglasses and the decanter were empty, and the cake was half gone. He made no comment, she gave him no explanation. Until Mrs. Raker returned she talked about releasing some of her debtors.
The following morning he came again.
“I declare,” thought Amos, “when I think of that morning, and how much brighter she looked, it makes me sick to think of her as dead. She had been doing a lot of things on the sly, helping folks. It was her has been sending the money for the jail dinner on Christmas, and the ice-cream on the Fourth, and books, too. ‘It’s so terrible to be a prisoner,’ says she. Wonder, didn’t she know? I declare I hate her to be dead! Ain’t it possible—Lord! wouldn’t that be a go?” He did not express even to himself his sudden flash of light on the mystery. But he went his ways to the armory of the militia company, the office of the chief of police (which was the very next building), and to the fire department. At one of these places he wrote out an advertisement, which the reporters read in the evening papers, and found so exciting that they all flocked together to discuss it.
All this did not take an hour’s time. It was to be observed that at every place which he visited he first stepped to the telephone and called up the jail. “Are you all right there, Raker?” he asked. Then he told where he was going. “If you need, you can telephone me there,” he said.
“I guess Amos isn’t taking any chances on this,” the youngest reporter, who encountered him on his way, remarked to the chief of police.
The chief replied that Amos was a careful man; he wished some others would be as careful, and as sure they were right before they went ahead; a good deal of trouble would be avoided.
“That’s right,” said the reporter, blithely, and went his lightsome way, while the chief scowled.