Blaine repeated his assurances, and Morrow returned to the Bronx with considerably lightened spirits. The sight of the little cottage across the way, dark and deserted, brought a pang to his heart, but it also served to remind him of the duty which lay before him. He must find out whose hand had fired that shot at him from the house which had given him shelter.
Mrs. Quinlan had not yet retired. He found her reading a newspaper in the kitchen, with Caliban curled up in drowsy content beside the stove.
“Cold out, ain’t it?” she observed. “I went round to the store, an’ I like to’ve froze before I got back. They said they’d send the things, but they didn’t.”
“I’ll go get them for you,” offered Morrow. “Was it the grocery to which you went?”
“No, the drug store. I––I’ve got a new lodger upstairs at the back––an old gentleman who’s kind of sickly and rheumatic, and he asked me to get some 200 things for him. Thank you just the same, Mr. Morrow, but there ain’t no hurry for them.” Mrs. Quinlan’s wide, ingenuous face flushed, and for a moment she seemed curiously embarrassed. Could she have guessed that the revolver shot which had created so much excitement that afternoon had been fired from beneath her roof?
“A new lodger!” repeated Morrow. “Came to-day, didn’t he?”
“No, yesterday,” she responded quickly––too quickly, the operative fancied. The ruddy flush had deepened on her cheek, and she added, as if unable to restrain the question rising irresistibly to her lips: “What made you think he came to-day?”
“I thought this afternoon that I heard furniture being moved about in the room directly over mine,” he returned, with studied indifference.
“Oh, you did!” Mrs. Quinlan affirmed. “That’s my room, you know. I was exchanging my bureau for the old gentleman’s.”
“Let me see; that makes four lodgers now, doesn’t it?” Morrow remarked thoughtfully, as he toasted his back near the stove. “Peterson, the shoe clerk; Acker, the photographer; me––and now this old gentleman. What’s his name, by the way?”