"He hasn't ever been heard of since?"
Mrs. Upjohn shook her head.
"And he left them without any money? I thought he stole it."
"I don't think so. Doctor Sanderson kept them afloat for some time, I believe, until Patty asked Sally here. Then he got Mrs. Ladue into Doctor Galen's hospital."
"M-m," Letty murmured slowly. She had a needle between her lips or she would have said "o-oh." She removed the needle for the purpose of speech. "So that's Doctor Sanderson's connection with the Ladues. I always wondered. It might have been 'most anything. His sister's up and coming. She'll have Dick Torrington if he don't look out. She's made the most of her visit."
Letty's murmur might have meant much or it might have meant nothing at all. At all events, Mrs. Upjohn let it go unchallenged, possibly because her curiosity was aroused by what Letty said later. She asked no questions, however. She only waited, receptively, for further communications on the subject of Henrietta and Dick. Miss Lambkin did not vouchsafe further information on that subject, but immediately branched off upon another.
"I'm told," she said, with the rapidity of mental change that marked her intellectual processes, "that John Hazen's house was in an awful state the morning after the fire. I went around there as soon's ever I could, to see what I could see, but the door was locked and I couldn't get in. I looked in the windows, though, and the furniture's all gone from some of the rooms, even to the carpets. There was a ladder there, and I went up it, and the bedroom was all stripped clean. I couldn't carry the ladder, so I didn't see the others. I made some inquiries and I was told that the furniture was all stored in the stable. That wasn't burned at all, you know. I thought that perhaps Patty'd been and had it moved, though it don't seem hardly like her. It's more like John Hazen himself. But he wasn't able."
Mrs. Upjohn smiled and shook her head. "It wasn't Patty," she replied, "or I should have known it. I guess it was Sally. Perhaps Doctor Sanderson helped, but it is just like Sally. She's a great hand to take hold and do things."
"You don't tell me!" said Miss Lambkin. "But I don't suppose she did it with her own hands. I shouldn't wonder," she remarked, "if she'd find some good place to board, the first thing you know. She might go to Miss Miller's. She could take 'em, I know, but she wouldn't have room for Doctor Sanderson, only Sally and her mother and Charlie. Charlie's a pup, that's what he is. But I can't see, for the life of me, what Doctor Sanderson keeps hanging around here for. Why don't he go home?"
Not knowing, Mrs. Upjohn, for a wonder, did not undertake to say. Miss Lambkin hazarded the guess that the doctor might be sparking around Sally; but Mrs. Upjohn did not seem to think so.