Part 7 (1/2)
”You'll have to pay her,” she said. ”Shall I run up and get your purse?”
She went, and as she reached the hall, Billy entered. He gazed at Kitty's garments closely, making mental note of them for future comparisons, and as he stood aside to let her pa.s.s he held one hand carefully out of sight behind him. It held a package--an oblong package, sharply rectangular in shape. A close observer would have said it was a box such as contains fifty cigars when it is full, but it was not full. Billy had taken one of the cigars out when he made the purchase at the station cigar store.
VII
THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE
When Billy Fenelby had taken his box of cigars up to his room he came down again, but he did not go anywhere near Bobberts' bank, as he should have gone had he intended depositing in it the thirty per cent. of the value of the cigars, which was the duty due on cigars under the provisions of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. He walked out to the veranda and got into the hammock and began to read the morning paper.
From time to time he let it hang down over the edge of the hammock, as if it bored him, and he glanced at the door as if he hoped someone would come out of the house. The paper was not very interesting that morning, and Billy had other things to think of. He had volunteered to keep an eye on Kitty, and to find out definitely, if he could, whether she was smuggling s.h.i.+rt-waists and other things--or had already smuggled them--into the house, contrary to the provisions of the tariff. He felt that the more he saw of girls the less he liked them, and that the more he saw of Kitty, particularly, the less he fancied her, but if he was going to do this amateur detective business he wanted to begin it as soon as possible, and he watched the door closely. He wanted to see whether Kitty would still wear the pink s.h.i.+rt-waist she had worn at breakfast, or the white one she had worn the evening before, or whether she would dare to wear another.
The sudden departure of Bridget had upset the domestic affairs somewhat, and Kitty and Mrs. Fenelby were busy in the kitchen, but after the dishes were washed, and the rooms set to rights, and the beds made, and Bobberts given his bath, Kitty came out. It had been a long and tedious morning for Billy. There is nothing so helpless as a detective who can't work at his business of detecting, and when the job is to detect a pretty girl, and she won't show up, the waiting is rather tiresome. At one time Billy was almost tempted to go in and ask her to come out, and he would probably have gone in and snooped around a bit, if she had not appeared just then.
Kitty came out with all the brazen effrontery of a hardened criminal. That is to say she came out singing, and with her hair perfectly in order, and looking in every way fresh and charming.
Billy recognized this immediately as the wile of a malefactor trying to throw an officer of the law off the scent, but he was not to be discouraged by it, and he jumped out of the hammock and went up to her. She still wore the pink s.h.i.+rt-waist, and it was very becoming.
She looked just as well in it as if she had paid the lawful ten per cent. duty on it. It is not the duty that makes that kind of a s.h.i.+rt-waist pretty; it is the way it is made, and the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. The girl that is in it helps some, too. It is a fact that a s.h.i.+rt-waist looks entirely different on different girls. You have to consider the girl and her s.h.i.+rt-waist together, as a whole or unit, if you are going to be able to recognize it when you see it again, and Billy was ready to consider it that way. If he ever saw that pink confection with that saucy chin and merry face above it again he meant to be able to recognize the combination. That is one of the duties of a detective.
”Let's go out under the tree,” he said, ”and sit down, and--and talk it over. I have something I want to talk about.”
”Talk it over,” said Kitty, lifting her eyebrows. ”Talk what over?”
You couldn't nonplus Billy that way, when he was in pursuit of his duty.
”Well,” he said, ”we--that is, I didn't thank you for bringing me up that collar this morning. I want to thank you for it.”
”Yes?” said Kitty. ”Well, here I am. Thank me. You did thank me once, but I don't care. Do it again.”
”Thank you,” said Billy.
”You're welcome,” Kitty said, and then they both laughed.
”What do you think of this Domestic Tariff business?” asked Billy, seeking to lead her into some admission of which he could make use as proof of her smuggling.
”I think it is a simply splendid idea!” Kitty declared. ”I am sure no one but Tom could have thought of it, and the very minute I heard of it I went into it body and soul. It was so clever of him to conceive such an idea, and such a simple way to build up an education fund for dear, sweet, little Bobberts! And isn't it nice of Tom and Laura to let us be in it and pay our share of the duty.
It makes us feel so much more as if we were really part of the family.”
”Doesn't it?” said Billy. ”It makes us feel as if we had a right to be here--when we pay duty and all that. I feel like bringing in a lot of stuff just so that I can pay duty on it. I was thinking about it this morning, and about that little joke of mine about not bringing in that collar last night, and I felt what I had missed by leaving it out on the porch, so I got up and went down for it. That was how you happened to meet me in the hall--I wanted to get it and bring it in so I could pay the duty, and be in the fun myself. You don't think I was going to smuggle it in, do you?”
”Oh, no!” said Kitty, with a long-drawn o. ”n.o.body would be so mean as to smuggle anything into the house, when the duty all goes to dear little Bobberts. It is such fun to pay duty, just as if the house was a real nation. It is like being part of the nation, and you know we women are not that. We can't vote, nor anything, and a chance like this is so rare that we enjoy it immensely. You didn't think it was queer that I should go down so early in the morning to get your collar and bring it in, did you?”
”Well, of course,” said Billy, doubtfully, ”it wasn't your collar, you know. It was my collar.”
”I know it was,” Kitty admitted frankly, ”but you know how little we women can bring into the house. Hardly anything. We shop and shop, but we hardly ever really buy anything, and all the time I am just crazy to be paying duty, and to know whether it is ten per cent. or thirty per cent., and all that, as if I was a man, and so, when I happened to think of that collar that you had left down here on the porch railing, I saw it was my chance, and I decided to come down and get it and bring it into the house, so I could have the fun of paying the duty on it. So I came down and got it. And just as I reached the landing on my way up I met you, and I was so surprised that I just handed the collar to you.”
”Of course,” said Billy. ”That was just the way it was, except that _I_ had just reached the landing on _my_ way up, when you handed me the collar. _You_ couldn't have just reached the landing, because if you had we would have been going up the stairs together, side by side, and we were not doing that. _I_ was going up the stairs, and just as I reached the landing you came from somewhere and handed me the collar.”
”Isn't that what I said?” asked Kitty sweetly. ”It amounts to the same thing, anyway, doesn't it? I had the collar, and you got it. I suppose you paid the duty on it?”
”Me?” said Billy. ”Not much! I didn't bring it into the house; you brought it in. You have to pay the duty.”