Down by the bedside Roberta knelt and took one of the lifeless white hands in her own. “Oh, Gwen,” she implored, “why did you do it? You thought we didn’t want you. You believed that in all the world there was no one who loved you, no home in which you were welcome. Oh, how selfish I’ve been! Gwen, forgive me, Sister. I should have tried to help you. I was the one really who was selfish, for I wanted adventure. I didn’t try to think what it would mean to you; but O, I will, I will, Gwen, if only you will live. Why don’t you open your eyes, Gwen?”
Then, as there was no response from the apparently lifeless form on the bed, Bobs looked up at her friend as she implored: “Kathryn, why doesn’t Gwen open her eyes? Are we too late? O, don’t say that we are. It will kill Glow. She thinks that it is her fault that Gwen left. She feels that she turned one of Mother’s own daughters out of our home.”
Kathryn, who had been hunting about the room as though in search of something, as indeed she had been, gave an exclamation of relief and, going to Bobs, she held out a small vial. “Gwen isn’t dead,” she said. “It wasn’t poison that she took. Just a heavy dose of sleeping powder. However, she will probably continue in this deathlike sleep for hours, and yet she may soon recover. We have no time to delay. I will remain here while you go to the corner drug store and telephone to my hospital for an ambulance. Just say that it is for Miss De Laney and they will respond at once. While she is unable to protest, we will take her to your home.”
Bobs had arisen, but lovingly she stooped and kissed the white face that was so unlike the proud, beautiful one she had last seen on that never-to-be-forgotten day when they had planned leaving their Long Island home.
Tears fell unheeded as Roberta whispered to ears that could not hear: “And when you waken, Sister dear, you will be in a home that wants you, and our Gloria, who has tried to be Mother to us all these years will be at your side smiling down, and a new life will begin for you and for us all.”
Then, almost blinded by her tears, Roberta descended the long, dark flight of stairs and telephoned not only to the hospital, but also to Gloria, telling her the wonderful news and bidding her prepare Bobs’ own room for the sister who was coming home.
Two hours later Gwendolyn, who had not awakened, was lying in the comfortable bed in Bobs’ room. Her three sisters and their friend, Kathryn De Laney, stood watching her in the shaded lamp-light. The expression on the face of Gloria told more than words could have done what it meant to her to have this one of her dear mother’s daughters back in the home.
“And a real home it is going to be to her from now on if patient love can make it so,” Gloria said. Then to the nurse she turned, asking, “Will it be long before she wakens, Kathryn?”
“It ought not to be long,” was the reply, which had hardly been given when Roberta whispered eagerly, “Glow, I think Gwen moved.”
The eyes that looked so wearily out at them were about to close as though nothing mattered, when suddenly they were again opened with a brightening expression, and yet they did not look quite natural.
Holding out her arms toward the oldest sister, the girl on the bed cried eagerly: “Mother, I have come to you after all. I took something. I wanted to come——” Her voice trailed away and again she closed her eyes.
Gloria was the one of the girls who looked most like their mother. “Dear, dear Sister,” Glow said, trying not to sob, “you are home again. I am sure that our mother led us to you. Try to get strong. We will help you, Gwendolyn, for truly we love you. No one knows, little Gwen, how your big sister has wanted you. Can’t you try to forgive me for having spoken impatiently, if not for my sake, at least for the sake of our mother?”
Gwendolyn looked at the face bent close above her as though trying to recall the past. Then, reaching out a frail hand, she said, “I, Glow, am the one who should be forgiven.”
Then she closed her eyes, and a moment later Kathryn said that she was asleep, but that this time it was a natural sleep from great weariness.
“When she wakens again, give her broth, for I fear she is too nearly starved to take heavier food just now.”
CHAPTER XX.
A FAILURE THAT WAS SUCCESS
The day following that on which Gwen had been found, Detective Bobs had gone early in the morning to report at the Fourth Avenue Branch of the Burns Agency.
“Mr. Jewett,” she began at once, “as a detective I certainly am a failure.”
The young man laughed. “I’ll agree with you that in one way, you certainly are, but nevertheless you accomplished your mission.”
Bobs’ expression of blank surprise seemed to delight her employer. “But, Mr. Jewett, what can you mean? It was my sister whom I found. I did not find Miss Winston-Waring.”
“Yes you did, and you talked with her, or to her, rather.”
“Well, I’ll be flabbergasted!” Then Bobs apologized. “Pardon my lingo, Mr. Jewett. Our gardener’s boy used to say that when he was greatly astonished, and I certainly never was more so. When, in the name of mystery, did I talk to that young lady, and where?”
“It was at the first theater that you visited. Miss Winifred said that you came into the dressing room and that after two of the girls, called Pink and Bee, had talked with you awhile, you turned to her, for her mirror was nearest you, and asked her directly if she liked the life of a chorus girl. She did not know how to reply, for the truth was that her three days’ experience on the stage had greatly disillusioned her. She had found the rough ways of the girls repellent to her refined, sensitive nature, and she was afraid of the stage manager, whose criticisms were sarcastic and even unkind.
“While she was hesitating, Bee, it seems, had replied for her, and then it was that you had explained your mission. She, of course, had not given her real name, and so no one suspected that she was Miss Winifred Waring-Winston.
“Her pride alone kept her from following you and confessing her identity. She had declared to her mother that she would live her own life in her own way, and she could not bear to acknowledge her defeat. Too, there was one bright spot in her new profession, which was that the star, Miss Merryheart, had singled her out and was very kind to her.
“That same afternoon, it seems, after the matinee,” Mr. Jewett continued, “Miss Merryheart sent for her to come to her dressing room. The others were jealous and said things that were so unkind and untrue that the sensitive girl was almost in tears when she reached the room of the star.
“When the door had been closed and they were alone, Miss Merryheart placed kindly hands on her shoulders and looked deep into the tear-brimmed eyes. ‘Dear little girl,’ she said, ‘why didn’t you tell our visitor that you are Winifred Waring-Winston?’”
Of course the girl was amazed and greatly puzzled, for she had told Miss Merryheart nothing at all concerning her past or her identity, and so she asked her how she had known.
“The star replied: ‘I have been long on the stage and I know when a girl has been brought up in an environment different from the others. Too, I saw last night that you were greatly disillusioned, and I realized by the frightened, anxious glances that you cast about the audience that you feared someone might be there who would recognize you in spite of your disguise, and when our visitor today told me that in this city there was a home made desolate, a mother heart breaking because a little girl had run away to go on the stage, why shouldn’t I guess that you are the one?’
“Then she added: ‘Tell me your telephone number, dear.’
“And that,” Mr. Jewett concluded, “is how it chanced that an hour later Winifred was restored to the arms of her mother, who at once canceled her passage for Europe, as a year abroad would not be needed to disillusion the little would-be actress.”
“That wonderful Miss Merryheart!” Bobs said irrelevantly, “I love her and I want to know her better.”
Mr. Jewett smiled, “Miss Vandergrift, as you say, you are not exactly a successful detective, and yet, in both of the cases on which you have been engaged you have accomplished what might be called indirect success. For, even though you did help him to escape, you discovered the thief of the rare old book, and you have been instrumental in restoring a lost girl to her mother. Now, I have another case and one quite different for you. Do you wish to take it?”
Bobs laughed. “Mr. Jewett,” she said, “like Winnie, I fear that I, too, am disillusioned. I find that a detective is not allowed to have sympathy. Honestly, if my life had depended upon it, I couldn’t have turned that old man over to justice; but what is the new case?”
Roberta could not believe that she was hearing aright when he told her.
“Mr. Jewett,” she exclaimed, “will you kindly say that over again?”
The young man was finding his new assistant refreshingly different.
“I merely stated that I would like you to help us find the heir to the Pensinger Mansion, who—” he paused and snapped his fingers. “I declare,” he ejaculated, “I had quite forgotten for the moment that is your present home. All the better, for there may be some important evidence right on the premises. Come into my office and I will read all the data that we have filed up to the present.”
Very much interested, Roberta followed the young man, wondering what she was to hear.
When they were seated, Mr. Jewett said: “Perhaps you know something of the story of the Pensinger family?”
Roberta replied that she did; that a neighbor, Miss Selenski, had told about the lost daughter, Marilyn, and about her father’s strange will.
“There is little more known by anyone,” Mr. Jewett said. “Judge Caldwaller-Cory, whose father was Mr. Pensinger’s legal advisor and close friend, is very eager to find the heir before it is too late. Not many years remain before the property, according to the will, is to be sold, the money to be devoted to charity. Judge Cory declares that it haunts him, sometimes, as the old house is supposed to be haunted. He feels sure that Marilyn is not living, but she might have children, somewhere, who are in need. The judge never accepted the theory which some held, that the beautiful girl leaped into the East River on the night that her shawl was found on the bank. He believes that she was secretly married and that, with her lover-husband, she departed for his home country, Hungary.” Roberta nodded. “O, I do hope so!” she exclaimed so eagerly that Mr. Jewett smiled. But what he said was: “And so now, once again, the case is to be reopened, and, as the judge himself is very busy, he has turned the matter over to his son, who has recently become junior member of his father’s firm. Ralph Caldwaller-Cory is young and filled with fresh enthusiasms, and it is his wish that we put on the case a girl of about the age that Marilyn was at the time, if we have one in our employ. Since you had not notified me that you had ceased to be one of us, I told him that I would procure just the type of person whom I believed best fitted to assist us. Are you willing to undertake this case, Miss Vandergrift?”
Bobs smiled when she heard the name. “Gladly,” she said, rising, “and this time I hope I will not do little.”
CHAPTER XXI.
A NEW ARRIVAL
When Roberta reached home that day, she began to sniff, for the house seemed to be pervaded with a most delicious aroma.
“Ohee, fried chicken, if I guess aright!” she thought. The front room being vacant, she skipped down the long, wide hall and pounced into the sunny combination kitchen and dining-room. Lena May smiled over her shoulder to greet the newcomer. She was busy at the stove preparing the noon meal. Gwendolyn, made comfortable on a pillowed reclining chair, was lying in the sunshine near the blossoming window-box. She also smiled, though she was too weak and weary to speak. Bobs kissed her tenderly and then inquired: “Say, Lena May, why all this festiveness? It isn’t anyone’s birthday, is it?”
“You know it isn’t,” their youngest replied as she stopped to open the oven door, revealing a tin of biscuits that were browning within. Then, rising, she added: “But, nevertheless, we are celebrating. You see, Nurse Kathryn ordered chicken broth for Gwen and, having made that, I decided to fry the remaining pieces because we are going to have company for lunch.”
“Who, pray?” Bobs was removing her hat and coat as she spoke. Just then Gloria came in from the Settlement House and she inquired as she glanced about: “Hasn’t the company come?”
“Not yet.” Lena May looked at the old grandfather clock. “It lacks two minutes of being noon. They will be here promptly at twelve.”
“I do believe that you are all trying to arouse my curiosity,” Bobs said. “Well, the deed is done, so fire ahead and tell me who is to be the victim?”
“Victim, indeed.” Lena May tossed her curly head with pretended indignation. “I have nine minds not to give you a single piece of this delicious fried chicken because of that—that——”
Bobs helped her out. “Slam on, your cooking is what you really mean, but of course you can’t use slang, not even in a pinch. But, I say, is our honored guest fine or superfine?”
Gloria and Lena May exchanged amused glances. It was the former who replied: “The guest of honor is to be a young gentleman, and, as to his identity, you may have three guesses.”
This had always been their method of telling each other interesting news.
“Dick De Laney isn’t in town, is he?” Roberta inquired in so matter-of-fact and little interested a manner that again Gloria realized that her sister did not greatly care for the lad who had loved her since the pinafore days.
“Not that I’ve heard of,” Lena May said. “Now you may guess again.” But before this could be done, the heavy knocker on the front door was announcing the arrival of someone, and Gloria went to answer its summons.
Bobs skipped over to the stove as she said hurriedly, “Tell me quickly who is coming, so that I may be prepared.”
“Nell Wiggin and her brother Dean,” was the whispered reply. “He came in on the eleven-ten train. Nell went to meet him and I told her to bring him over here to lunch. I thought it would be pleasant for both of them.”
“You’re a trump,” Bobs began, but paused, for Gloria was opening the door, saying, “Sisters, here are Nell and her brother Dean.” Then to the tall, pale lad with the dreamy eyes she added: “This sister is Gwendolyn, who has been ill, and this is Lena May, fork in hand, symbolizing the fact that she is also our housekeeper. Roberta we call Bobs, for every family has need of a boy and Bobsy has always done her best to fill the requirements.”
The lad, unused to girls, acknowledged these introductions rather shyly. Bobs, knowing that he was conscious of his muscle-bound left arm, which he could not move, said at once in her merry, nonsensical manner: “If so many sisters won’t frighten you, Dean, I’ll retire from the role of brother and let you fill it.” Then she added, “I’m not going to call you Mr Wiggin. It is too formal.”
The lad flushed in his effort to reply, but Lena May saved him from further embarrassment by saying, “Nell, you and your brother may sit on either side of Gloria. Bobsy, will you serve the chicken? Gwen had her broth at eleven, so she isn’t hungry just now.”
Realizing that the lad who had lived only on remote New England farms would rather listen than talk, Bobs monopolized the conversation in her usual breezy manner, and often when she glanced his way she noted that the soft brown eyes of the lad were smiling as though he were much amused. But after lunch she spoke to him directly. “Dean,” she said, “your sister tells me that you love books.”
“Indeed I do,” the boy replied, “but I have seen very few and have owned only one.”
“My goodness!” Bobs exclaimed. “Come with me and I will show you several hundred.”
“Several hundred books,” the lad gasped, quite forgetting his self-consciousness in his astonishment at this amazing remark.
Bobs nodded mysteriously as she led the way to the room overhead, where in the dim light Dean beheld old books in dusty piles everywhere about.
There was a sudden glow of pleasure in the eyes of the boy which told Bobs that he was indeed a booklover. “What a treat this will be,” he exclaimed, “if I may browse up here when I wish.” Then he added as a new thought presented itself: “But, Miss Roberta, I must not spend my time in idle reading. I want to find some way to earn money.” Eagerly, anxiously, his eyes turned toward her. “Can you suggest anything that I might be able to do?”
For one panicky moment Bobs’ thoughts groped wildly for some profession that a one-armed lad might follow, then she had what she believed was a wonderful inspiration, and she said with her usual head-long impulsiveness: “I do, indeed, know just the very thing. You and I will start an old book shop and you may be manager.”
The lad’s pale face flushed with pleasure. “Do you really mean it, Miss Vandergrift?” he asked eagerly. “How I would like that.”
In her characteristic manner Bobs wanted to settle the matter at once, and so she tripped downstairs with Dean following.
She found that Gwendolyn had gone back to bed and that the kitchen having been tidied, the three girls were sitting about the fireplace talking softly together. When they heard Bobs’ inspiration, they all thought it a splendid plan, and Nell said that there was a vacant room adjoining the office of the model tenement that she had been told she might use in any way that she wished. As there was a door opening upon the street, she believed it would be an ideal place for an old book shop.
Rising, Nell continued: “I will telephone Mrs. Doran-Ashley at once to be sure that she is still willing that I use the room as I desire.”
This was done, and that most kindly woman in her beautiful home on Riverside Drive listened with interest to the plan and gave the permission that was requested. Moreover, upon leaving the telephone she made a note in her engagement book: “At the next board meeting suggest that a visit be made to the old book shop in the model tenement.”
When Nell returned with the information that they might do as they wished with the room, Bobs and Dean went at once to a lumber yard near the docks and ordered the shelves they would need. An hour later Antovich and several of his boy companions had carried the old books from the Pensinger mansion and had heaped them upon the floor of the pleasant vacant room, which opened directly upon the sidewalk on Seventy-eighth Street.
When Bobs left, Dean was busy with hammer and nails and happier, perhaps, than he had been in the twenty years of his life.
CHAPTER XXII.
A CASE FOR TWO
As Bobs left the small shop, she glanced at her watch, and finding that it was nearly four, she hastened her steps, recalling that that was the hour when she might expect a call from the young lawyer. As she turned the corner at the East River, she saw a small, smart-looking auto drawing up at the curb in front of the Pensinger mansion, and from it leaped a fashionably groomed young man. Truly an unusual sight in that part of New York’s East Side, where the clothes, ill-fitting even at best, descended from father to son, often made smaller by merely being haggled off at arm and ankle. No wonder that Ralph Caldwaller-Cory was the object of many an admiring glance from the dark eyes of the young Hungarian women who, with gayly colored shawls over their heads, at that moment were passing on their way to the tobacco factory; but Ralph was quite unconscious of their scrutiny, for, having seen Bobs approaching, he hastened to meet her, hat in hand, his good-looking, clean-shaven face glowing with anticipation.
“Have you found a clue as yet, Miss Vandergrift?” he asked eagerly, when greetings had been exchanged.
Roberta laughed. “No, and I’ll have to confess that I haven’t given the matter a moment’s thought since we parted three hours ago.”
“Is that all it has been? To me it has seemed three centuries.” The boy said this so sincerely that Roberta believed that he must be greatly interested in the Pensinger mystery. It did not enter her remotest thought that he might also be interested in her. Having reached the mansion, Bobs led the way up the wide stone steps, saying: “I do hope Gloria and Lena May are at home. I want my sisters to meet you.”
But no one was to be seen. Gwen was still in her room, while the other girls had not returned from the Settlement House.
“Well, there’s another time coming.” Bobs flashed a smile at her companion, then led the way to the wide fireplace, where comfortable chairs awaited them, and they seated themselves facing the still burning embers.
“I say, Miss Vandergrift,” Ralph began, “you’re a girl and you ought to know better than I just what another girl, even though she lived seventy-five years ago, would do under the circumstances with which we are both familiar. If you loved a man, of whom your mother did not approve, would you really drown yourself, or would you marry him and permit your parents to believe that you were dead?”
Bobs sat so long gazing into the fire that the lad, earnestly watching her, wondered at her deep thought.
At last she spoke. “I couldn’t have hurt my mother that way,” she said, and there were tears in the hazel eyes that were lifted to her companion. “I would have known that her dearest desire would be for my ultimate happiness.”
“But mothers are different, we will have to confess,” the lad declared. “Marilyn’s may have thought only of social fitness.” Then, as he glanced about the old salon and up at the huge crystal chandeliers, he added: “I judge that the Pensingers were people of great wealth in those early days and probably leaders in society.”
“I believe that they were,” Roberta agreed, “but my mother had a different standard. She believed that mental and soul companionship should be the big thing in marriage, and for that matter, so do I.”
Ralph felt awed. This was a very different girl from the hoidenish young would-be detective with whom he had so brief an acquaintance.
“Miss Vandergrift,” he said impulsively, “I wish I had a sister like you, and wouldn’t my mother be pleased, though, if you were her daughter. A girl, I am sure, would have been more of a comfort and companion to her when my brother Desmond died.” Then he added, after a moment of silence: “I can get your point of view, all right. I wouldn’t break my mother’s heart by pretending to drown myself, not even if the heavens fell.”
“I’d like to know your mother,” Roberta said. “She must be a wonderful woman.”
“She is!” the lad declared. “I want you to meet her as soon as she returns. Just now she is touring the West with friends, but, to get back to Marilyn Pensinger. From the little that we know of her family, I conclude that her mother was a snob and placed social distinction above her daughter’s happiness. But, the very fact that the father made his will as he did, proves, doesn’t it, that he loved his daughter more sincerely? He did not cut her off with a shilling when he believed that she had eloped with a foreign musician. Instead, he arranged so that a descendant of that Hungarian, whose name we do not even know, would inherit all that Mr. Pensinger possessed. But this isn’t getting us anywhere. Do you happen to know anyone who has recently come over from Hungary?”
Bobs smiled. “Wouldn’t that be grasping at straws?”
“Maybe, but do you?”
Roberta thought a moment, then looked up brightly. “I believe I do. At least I know a Hungarian. His name is Mr. Hardinian and he is doing social welfare work. He speaks perfect English, however, and may have been born in this country. Suppose we go over to his clubhouse and interview him.”
Then, as she rose, she added: “You will like Mr. Hardinian. He has such beautiful eyes.”
Ralph laughed as he also arose. “Is that a girl’s reason for liking a man?” he inquired. Then he added, “Would I were a Hungarian that I might have interesting eyes. As it is, mine are the plain, unromantic American variety.”
Roberta smiled at her new friend, but what she said showed that her thought was far from the subject: “Before we go, I want to be sure that my sister, Gwen, is comfortable.”
Gwendolyn was sleeping so quietly that Roberta believed she would not awaken before Lena May’s return, and so, beckoning the lad to follow, she left the house, closing the door softly. Ralph turned and looked back at the upper windows of the rooms that were not occupied, as he inquired: “Do you have a hunch that the old mansion holds the clue we are seeking?”
Roberta’s reply was: “Only the ghost of Marilyn knows.”
When the two partner-detectives were in the small, luxurious car, and going very slowly, because of the congested traffic down First Avenue, Ralph said: “Tell me a little about your sisters and yourself that I may feel better acquainted.” And so, briefly, Roberta told the story of their coming to the East Side to live.
“I say, Miss Vandergrift, that certainly was hard luck, losing the fine old place that your family had supposed was its own for so many generations.” Then the lad added with sincere admiration: “You girls certainly are trumps! I’m mighty glad I met you, and I hope you’ll be glad, too, some day.”
“Why, Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, I’m glad right this very moment,” Roberta assured him in so impersonal a manner that the lad did not feel greatly flattered. Indeed, he was rather pleased that this was so. Being the son of a famous judge, possessed of good looks, charming manners and all the money he wished to spend, Ralph had been greatly sought after by the fond mothers of the girls in his set, if not by the maidens themselves, and it seemed rather an interesting change to meet a girl whose interest in him was not personal.
After a silent moment in which the lad’s entire attention had been centered on extricating his small auto from a crush of trucks, vegetable-laden push-carts and foreign pedestrians, he turned and smiled at his companion. “Let’s turn over to Central Park now,” he suggested. “It’s a little round about, I’ll agree, but it will be pleasanter riding.”
It was decidedly out of their way, but a glance at her wrist watch assured Roberta that Lena May would have returned to be with Gwen by that time, and so she was in no especial hurry.
How beautiful the park seemed after the thronged noisy East Side with its mingled odors from tobacco, fish markets, and general squalor.
“There, now we can talk,” Ralph said as he drove slowly along one of the winding avenues under a canopy formed by wide-spreading trees. “What shall it be about?”
“You,” Roberta replied. “Tell me about yourself.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” the lad began. “My brother Desmond and I grew up in a happy home. During the winter months we attended a boys’ school up the Hudson, and each summer vacation we traveled with our parents. We have been about everywhere, I do believe. Desmond and I were all in all to each other. We were twins. Perhaps that was why we seemed to love each other even more than brothers usually do. I did not feel the need of any other boy companion, and when at last we entered college we were permitted to be roommates. In our Sophomore year, Desmond died, and I didn’t much care what happened after that. It seemed as though I never could room with another chap; but at last the dormitories were so crowded that I had to take a fellow in. That was two years ago, and today Dick De Laney is as close to me as Desmond was, almost, not quite, of course. No one will ever be that. But, I tell you, Miss Vandergrift, Dick is a fine chap, clear through to the core. I’d bank on Dick’s doing the honorable thing, come what might. I’m a year older than he is, and he won’t finish until June, then he’s coming on here to little old New York and spend a month with me. I say, Miss Vandergrift, I’d like to have you meet him.”
Roberta smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you to come to a period that I might tell you that Dick De Laney and I were playmates when we wore pinafores. You see, they were our next-door neighbors.” Bobs said this in so matter-of-fact a tone that Ralph did not think for one moment that this could be the girl his pal had once told him that he loved and hoped to win.
If only Ralph had realized this, much so might have been saved for one of them.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PARTNER-DETECTIVES
It was five-thirty when the partner-detectives left the quiet park, where long shadows were lying on the grass and where birds were calling softly from one rustling tree to another.
“It seems like a different world, doesn’t it?” Bobs said, as she smiled in her friendliest way at the lad at the wheel. She had felt a real tenderness for her companion since he had told her about Desmond, and she was glad that an old friend of hers had been a comfort to him.
“It does, indeed,” he declared with a last glance back at the park. “I like trees better than I do many people. We have some wonderful old elms around our summer home in the Orange Hills. When my mother returns I shall ask her to invite you four girls to one of her week-ends, or to one that she will plan just for me, after Dick comes.”
Then, as they were again on the thronged East Side, the lad said:
“Seventy-sixth Street, beyond Second, you said, didn’t you?”
“Yes. There is the Boys’ Club House just ahead,” Roberta exclaimed. Then as they drew up at the curb, she added: “Good! The door is open and so Mr. Hardinian probably is here.”
The young man whom they sought was still there, and as they entered the low wooden temporary structure which covered a vacant lot between two rickety old tenements, they saw him smiling down at a group of excited newsies, who were evidently relating to him some occurrence of their day.
He at once recognized Roberta and made his way toward her, while the boys to whom he had spoken a few words of dismissal departed through a side door, leaving the big room empty.
Bobs held out her hand as she said: “Mr. Hardinian, this is my friend, Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, and we have come, I do believe, on a wild goose chase.”
Ralph at once liked the young man with the lithe, wiry build and the dark face that was so wonderfully expressive.
He looked to be about twenty-four years of age, although he might have been even a year or two older. An amused smile accompanied his question: “Miss Vandergrift, am I the wild goose?”
The girl laughed. “That wasn’t a very graceful way of stating our errand,” she said, “so I will begin again. The truth of the matter is that Mr. Cory and I are amateur detectives.”
Again Mr. Hardinian smiled, and, with a swinging gesture that seemed to include the entire place, he said: “Search where you will, but I doubt if you will detect here a hidden wild goose.” Then, more seriously, he added: “Come, let us be seated in the library corner, for I am sure that your visit has some real purpose.”
Mr. Hardinian listened to the story of the Pensinger mystery, which, as little was really known about it, took but a brief moment to tell. At its conclusion he said: “Did you think. Miss Vandergrift, that I might know something about all this? I truly do not. Although I was born in Hungary, while I was still an infant my parents went to England, where I was educated, and only last year the need of my own people brought me here where so many of them come, believing that they are to find freedom and fortune. But how soon they are disillusioned, for they find poverty, suffering and conditions to which they are unused and with which they know not how to cope. Many of the older ones lose out and their children are left waifs all alone in this great city. I found when I reached here that they needed me most, the homeless boys who, many of them, slept huddled over some grating through which heat came, or in hallways crowded together for warmth, until they were told to move on. And so the first thing that I did was to rent this vacant lot and build a temporary wooden structure. Now with these walls lined with bunks, as you see, I can make many of the boys fairly comfortable at night.”
“I say, Mr. Hardinian,” Ralph exclaimed, “this is a splendid work that you are doing! I’m coming over some night soon, if I may. I want to see the place in full swing.”
“Come whenever you wish,” was the reply. And then, as Roberta had risen, the young men did also.
The girl smiled as she said: “Honestly, Mr. Hardinian, I knew in my bones that you would not be able to help us solve the mystery, but you were the only Hungarian with whom I had even the slightest speaking acquaintance, and so we thought that we would tell you the story and, if you ever hear anything that might be a clue, let us know, won’t you?”
“Indeed I will, and gladly. Good-bye! Come over Sunday afternoon at four, if you have no other plans. We have a little service then and the boys conduct it entirely.”
When they were again in the small car, Ralph was enthusiastic. “I like that chap!” he exclaimed. “I wish detectives could plan to have things turn out the way an author can. If I had the say of it, I’d make Mr. Hardinian into a descendant of Marilyn Pensinger and then he could inherit all of that fortune and use it for his homeless waifs.”
It was after six when the small car stopped in front of the Pensinger mansion, and Ralph declared that since he had a date with his dad, he could not stop to meet the other Vandergrift girls, as he greatly desired.
That night, when Ralph returned from an evening affair which he had attended with his father, he did not retire at once. Instead, he seated himself at his desk and for half an hour his pen scratched rapidly over a large sheet of white paper. He was writing a letter to Dick De Laney, his close-as-a-brother friend, telling him that at last the only girl in the world had appeared in his life.
“I always told you, old pal, that I’d know the girl who was meant for me the minute that I met her. But I do believe that she is going to be hard to win.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
ROMANCE BUDDING
Two weeks have passed since the evening upon which Bobs and her new friend, Ralph Caldwaller-Cory, drove together in Central Park and told each other briefly the story of their lives. It does not take interested young people long to become acquainted and these two had many opportunities to be together, for were they not solving the Pensinger mystery, and was it not of paramount importance that the poor defrauded heir of all those idle millions should be found and made happy with his rightful possessions? Of course no other motive prompted Ralph, the rising young lawyer, to seek the companionship of his detective-partner, not only daily but often, in the morning, afternoon and evening.
They had sought clues everywhere in the mansion, but the great old rooms had failed to reveal aught that was concealed. Too, they had long drives in the little red car that its owner called “The Whizz,” and these frequently took them far away from the thronged East Side along country roads where, quite undisturbed, they could talk over possible clues and plan ways to follow them.
And all this time Roberta really thought that Ralph’s interest in her was impersonal, for the lad dreaded revealing his true feeling until she showed some even remote sign of being interested in him.
“If I tell Bobs that I care for her, it might queer the whole thing,” was one thought suggested to him as he rode home alone one night through the quiet park. Another thought was more encouraging. It suggested, “But a girl’s pride won’t let her show that she cares. There is only one way to find out, and that is to ask.” And still another assured him, “There is every reason why Roberta Vandergrift should be pleased. You, Ralph, have wealth and position, and can restore to her all that she has lost.”
“Lots you know about Bobs,” the lad blurted out as though someone really had spoken to him. “My opinion is that Roberta isn’t really grown up enough as yet to think of love. She considers her boy friends more as brothers, and that’s what they ought to be, first and foremost. I’ll bide my time, but if I do lose Bobs, it will be like losing Desmond all over again.”
Meanwhile, although no progress had been made in solving the mystery, much progress was being made in other directions.
Gloria, with Bobs and Ralph, had attended a Sunday afternoon meeting of the Boy’s Club and Mr. Hardinian had walked home with them and had remained for tea. He was very glad to have an opportunity to talk with a young woman whose interest in welfare work paralleled his own, especially as he had one rather wayward boy whom he believed needed mothering more than all else.
Gloria’s heart indeed was touched when she heard the sad story that the young man had to tell, and she gladly offered to do what she could.
She invited the wayward boy to one of her game evenings at the Settlement House, and in teaching him to play honestly she not only won his ardent devotion but also saved him from being sent to the island reformatory for petty thievery.
After that Mr. Hardinian frequently called upon Gloria when he needed advice or help.
The little old book shop, during the eventful two weeks, had started, or so it would seem, on a very successful business career.
Because of the little memorandum that she had made in her note book on the day that Nell Wiggin had first telephoned to her, Mrs. Doran-Ashley did tell the ladies who attended the next model tenement board meeting about the shop, and asked them to visit it, which they did, being sincerely interested in all that pertained to their venture. And not only did they buy books, but they left others to be sold on commission. One glance at the fine face of the lad who was bookseller made them realize that, crippled as he might be, he would not accept charity.
“How’s business this hot day?” Bobs asked early one morning, as she poked her head in at the door. She was on her way down to the Fourth Avenue Branch of the Burns Detective Agency, where she went every day to do a few hours’ secretarial work for Mr. Jewett.
“We had a splendid trade yesterday,” the lad replied, as he looked up from the old book of poetry which he was reading. And yet, since he held a pencil, Bobs concluded that he was also writing verse as the inspiration came.
“How so?” she inquired.
“The shop had a visit from no less a personage than Mr. Van Loon, the millionaire book collector, of whom you told me. He bought several volumes that I hadn’t supposed were worth a farthing, and what he paid for them will more than cover our expenses up to date. I wonder how he happened to know about this out-of-the-way shop?”
“Oh, I guess he goes nosing around after old books, sort of ferrets them out, like as not. Well, so long! I’m mighty glad our shop is financially on its feet.”
As Bobs went on her way down the crowded First Avenue she smiled to herself, for it was she who had sent Mr. Van Loon a business-like letter announcing the opening of an old book shop, feeling sure that he would not miss an opportunity of seeing it if it held something that he might desire.
Fifteen minutes after her departure, Dean again heard the door open, and this time a dear little boy of three darted in and hid beneath a book-covered counter, peering out to whisper delightedly, “I’se hidin’! Miss May, her’s arter me.”