“Certainly not, Miss Lawton. I realize that many of your protégées here may come of unfortunate antecedents. If you feel that you can trust her, use her. Do you feel equally sure of the other members of your Club?”
“Absolutely. I feel that they all really love me; that they would do anything for me they could in the world, and yet I have done so little for them––only given them the little help which I was able to bestow, which we should all do for those less fortunate than ourselves.... Why did you ask me, Mr. Blaine, if I felt that I could trust the girls who have placed themselves under my care?”
“Because we may have need of them in the future. They may be of the most vital assistance to us in this investigation, should events turn out as I anticipate and they prove worthy of the charge it may be necessary for me to impose on them. But enough of that for now. If at any time you wish to see me, personally, telephone me as you did this morning and I will meet you here.”
The detective left her in the office of the secretary, and as he made his adieus to them both he cast a last quick, penetrating glance at the girl behind the desk. Again that vague sense of resemblance possessed him. With whom was she connected? Why was her name so significantly withheld?
In the meantime Guy Morrow, from his post of observation in the window of the little cottage on Meadow Lane, had watched the object of his espionage for several fruitless days––fruitless, because the actions of the 61 man Brunell had been so obviously those of one who felt himself utterly beyond suspicion.
The erect, gray-haired, clear-eyed man had come and gone about his business, without the slightest attempt at concealment. A few of the simplest inquiries of his land-lady had elicited the fact that the gentleman opposite, old Mr. Brunell, was a map-maker, and worked at his trade in a little shop in the nearest row of brick buildings just around the corner––that he had lived in the little cottage since it had first been erected, six years before, alone with his daughter Emily, and before that, they had for many years occupied a small apartment near by––in fact, the girl had grown up in that neighborhood. He was a quiet man, not very talkative, but well liked by his neighbors, and his daughter was devoted to him. According to Mrs. Quinlan, Guy Morrow’s aforesaid land-lady, Emily Brunell was a dear, sweet girl, very popular among the young people in the neighborhood, but she kept strictly at home in her leisure hours and preferred her father’s companionship to that of anyone else. She was employed in some business capacity downtown, from nine until six; just what it was Mrs. Quinlan did not know.
Morrow kept well in the background, in case Mr. Pennold should put in an appearance again, but he did not. Evidently that conversation overheard by Suraci had been a final one, concerning the securities at least, and no one else called at the little cottage door over the way, except a vapid-faced young man to whom Morrow took an instant and inexplicable dislike.
Morrow made it a point to visit and investigate the little shop at an hour when he knew Brunell would not be there, and found in the cursory examination possible at that time that its purpose seemed to be strictly legitimate. 62 A shock-headed boy of fifteen or thereabout was in charge, and the operative easily succeeded in engaging his stolid attention elsewhere while, with a bit of soft wax carefully palmed in his left hand, he succeeded in gaining an impression of the lock on the flimsy door. From this he had a key made in anticipation of orders from his chief, requiring a thorough search of the little shop––orders which for the first time in his career, he shrank from.
He made no effort to scrape an acquaintance with Brunell himself, but frequently encountered, as if by accident, the daughter Emily, on her way to and from the subway station. If she recognized in him the young lodger across the street, she made no sign, and as the days passed, Morrow, the man, despaired of gaining her friendship, save through her father, whom Morrow––the operative––had received orders not to approach personally.
Before he had seen her, had he known that the old forger possessed a daughter, he would have laid his plans to worm himself into the confidence of the little family through the girl, but having once laid eyes upon her face in all its gentle, trusting purity, every manly instinct in him revolted at the thought of making her a tool of her father’s probable downfall.