“All right! all right!” cried the poor distracted Mrs. Leslie. “I promise to do what you ask of me--but somehow it seems mighty inhospitable. I wish my suspicions had never been aroused.”
“Exactly! But now that they are aroused I am sure you will live up to the traditions of your excellent family and do your duty in spite of any gentle feminine compunctions you may have.”
The major had read his hostess aright. His appeal to the traditions of her family were too much for her, and although her sympathy could but be enlisted with the supposedly desperate young criminal lodging with her, she felt she must uphold law and order, and before her guest took his pompous departure she had promised him faithfully to communicate with him if the slightest suspicious action on the part of Josie evinced itself.
The jaunt to Linden Heights had consumed a good part of Josie’s afternoon but it had given her food for thought and cheered her up. Nothing so cheered Josie as a problem to solve. Why should the handsome, chilly Miss Fauntleroy give a fictitious address? Why should she be so cross and heartless in her manner with the fraudulent old beggar woman? Not that the beggar women had seemed to mind; on the contrary she had seemed highly amused by the tongue lashing from the proud beauty. Rather a pleasant old beggar woman she seemed. It was rather nice of her not to want to sell Josie the rumpled newspaper. She had seemed really distressed that she should have taken it. That was because she, Josie, had been decent to her. Josie smiled and patted the bulging pocket of her neat sport coat which still held the rumpled journal. No doubt the old woman was a fraud but she was at least a kindly, goodnatured one.
As Josie turned the corner at Meadow Street she could plainly see two persons coming down the steps at No. 11. She was sure that one of them was Major Simpson and the other one the youth who lived in apartment 3, and whose identity was still a mystery to her. However, the problem of who the young man might be troubled Josie very little at that moment. What occupied her thoughts was why should Major Simpson be coming from that apartment house. Could he have been trying to find her whereabouts? If so, had the Burnetts disclosed the fact that she was employed by them, over his head as it were?