"Would he go bareheaded, and without his indigestion tablets?" demands Mrs. Jake.
"If it was another bargain like that lot of army raincoats, he'd go in his pajamas," says Zosco.
But Matilda shakes her head. She's sure something awful has happened to Jake. Now that she thinks it over she believes he must have had something on his mind. Hadn't they noticed how restless he'd been for the past few days? Yes, both the squatty women had. And the funny little guy in the long-tailed cutaway brought up how Jake had quit playing billiards with him, even after he'd offered to start him 20 up.
"But that don't mean anything," says Zosco. "Jake never could play billiards anyway. Hates it. He's no sport at all, except maybe when it comes to pinochle. He's all for business. Don't know how to take a real vacation like a gentleman. I'm always telling him that."
Gradually we'd all drifted into the big drawin' room, but Jake continues to be the general topic. We couldn't help but get kind of interested in him, too. When a middle-aged storekeeper from Saginaw gets up from dinner, wanders out into a quiet, respectable community like ours, and disappears like he'd dropped from a manhole or been swished off on an airplane it's enough to set you guessin'. By askin' a few questions we got the whole life history of Jake, from the time he left Lithuania as a boy until he was last seen gettin' a light for his cigar from the butler. We got all his habits outlined; how he always slept with a corner of the sheet over his right ear, couldn't eat strawberries without breaking out in blotches, and could hardly be dragged out to see a show or go to an evening party where there were ladies. Yet here on a visit to Villa Nova he goes and strays off like he'd lost his mind, or gets himself kidnapped, or worse.
"Why," says Mr. Robert, "it sounds like a real mystery, almost a case for a Sherlock Holmes."
I don't know why, either, but just then he glances at me. "By Jove!" he goes on. "Here you are, Torchy. What do you make out of this?"
"Me?" says I. "Just about what you do, I expect."
"Oh, come!" says he. "Put that rapid fire brain of yours to work. Try him, Mr. Zosco. I've known him to unravel stranger things than this. I would even venture to say that he has hit on a clue while we've been talking."
Course, a good deal of it is Mr. Robert's josh. He's always springin' that line. But Zosco, after he's looked me over keen, shrugs his shoulders doubtful. Mrs. Jake, though, is ready to grab at anything.