Part 5 (2/2)
”Divorce, more likely,” was Jimmie's professional opinion, but he had scant time to enlarge upon it before the waitress, outraged to the point of tears, broke out of her domain. She brought with her an atmosphere of long-dead beefsteak, chops and onions, and she shrilled for an answer to her question.
”What's the matter with 'em anyway? Ain't the dining-room good enough for 'em to eat in? It done all right for Judge Campbell's funeral this afternoon, and I found a real sweet wreath on that there whatnot in the corner. The candles wasn't all burnt up neither, an' I set out four of 'em on the four corners. It looks elegant, an' them tube-roses smells grand. An' when I told that young lady what's got the use of her eyes how glad I was they happened in when we was so well fixed for decorations, she looked awful funny. Most like she was cross-eyed.”
”They all seem to have eye-trouble,” Jimmie commented. ”Do you suppose they're running away from one of these here blind asylums.”
”Lunatic asylum, most likely,” the cheerful clerk contributed.
When the other two guests ceased from traveling in mola.s.ses and sarsaparilla and returned to their quiet hostelry, all these surmises had hardened into certainties, and were imparted to them with a new maze of suspicion, more dense, more deadly, and more strictly in accordance with the principles laid down in ”Dandy d.i.c.k, the Boy Detective.”
Madeline, the waitress, reported further particulars as she ministered to the creature-comforts of the traveling gentlemen dining alone among the funeral-baked meats. So interested and excited did these gentlemen become that they determined to interview, or at least to see, their mysterious fellow guests.
When their elaborate supper had reached its apotheosis of stewed prunes and blue-boiled rice, Hawley and Mead had gone out for a meditative and tobacco-shrouded stroll. They pa.s.sed through the hall and inspiration awoke in Jimmie.
”By gum,” said he, ”I know them now. I suspicioned them from the first by what Horace told me. But now I've got them sure. You mind that time I was down to New York and was showed over Police Headquarters, by professional etiquette?”
”Sure,” they all agreed. It was indeed a reminiscence, the details of which had been playing havoc with Rapidan's nerves for the past fifteen years. They felt that they could not bear it now.
”Well,” continued Jimmie, gathering his auditors close about him by the husky whisper he now adopted, ”I see them two fellers then. Mebbe 'twas in the Rogue's Gallery and mebbe it was in the cells. I ain't worked it down that fine yet, but I'll think and pray on it and let you know when I get light.”
When the staff and the commercial guests of the Empress Hotel were waiting to see illumination burst through the blue-shrouded protector, the bridal party was veering momentarily further from the normal. For the deserted bride, alone in the desolate best sitting-room, laid her head upon her arms and laughed and laughed. She had made one cautious descent to the ground floor in search of diversion, and meeting Jimmie, she found it. After a conversation strictly categorical upon his side and widely misleading upon hers, she had gone up stairs again and halted in the upper hall just long enough to hear Jimmie's triumphant:
”Well, we know _her_ name anyway.”
”What is it?” hissed Horace, while the porter relieved himself of a quid of tobacco so that nothing should interfere with his hearing and attention.
”Huh!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jimmie, ”you bin a hotel clerk two years and sold seegars all that time (when you could) and you don't know Ruby Mandeville when she stands before you.”
A box of the ”Flor de” that gifted songstress, was soon produced and pried open, and the effulgent charms of its G.o.dmother compared with the less effulgent, but no less charming figure which had just trailed away.
”It's her, sure as you're born,” cried the gentleman who traveled in mola.s.ses, absent-mindedly abstracting three cigars and conveying them surrept.i.tiously to his coat pocket.
”She's fallen off some in flesh,” commented Horace, as with careful presence of mind he drew out his daybook and entered a charge for those three cigars.
”But she don't fool me,” said Jimmie, ”she can put flesh on or she can take it off--”
”My, how you talk!” shrilled the chambermaid-bellboy, ”you'd think you was talkin' about clothes.”
”It ain't no different to them,” Jimmie maintained. ”That's one of the things us detekitives has got to watch out for.”
”What do you s'pose she's doing here?” asked the porter.
”Gettin' married again most likely. That's about all she does nowadays.”
Patty was still chuckling and choking over these remarks, when the door of the sitting-room opened cautiously and Kate Perry, swathed in her motor veil, looked in.
”Are we alone?” she demanded with proper melodramatic accent.
<script>