Kerry (29 page)

“Oh, is it necessary to do that?” asked Kerry distressed, “I don’t know whether I’m justified in going so far—”

“Can’t do no harm, miss. But it looks ta me like this guy might be a real one mebbe. Anyhow, I’ll bring the chief and see what he says. Might be some old hand. Anyhow we’ll find out if it is the same man that has this room.”

So the policeman walked away and presently returned with another one, and they two inspected both rooms again and hunted for fingerprints in each. They said little and Kerry did not know whether or not they got any fingerprints.

“This door has been opened with a key!” announced the chief, examining it carefully. He tramped upstairs and got the key from Dawson’s door. Locked Kerry’s door with its own key, and then unlocked it with Dawson’s key. Then he stood back and looked at the two dismayed women.

“There you are!” he said significantly. “Better get that lock changed before that guy gets back again! But I don’t guess you’ll need to hurry. I think it likely he’ll stay hid for a few days anyhow after this.”

Mrs. Scott scuttled down to her telephone and somehow managed to get a new lock on Kerry’s door, late though it was.

While Kerry was at work putting her room to rights, and going carefully over everything to make sure nothing else was gone, Mrs. Scott was down in her kitchen getting a nice little supper.

“Just a cup o’ soup and a wee bit of salad to hearten you,” she explained as she brought it up on a tray, and Kerry was cheered by the kindliness and companionship of the good woman.

As the policeman had prophesied, Dawson did not return that night. Mrs. Scott, having reflected all night on the fact that Dawson possessed a latch key to the front door, had the front door lock changed the first thing in the morning. When Dawson did return—if Dawson did return—he would not find it so easy to get in.

Two days went by and no Dawson, and then came a letter from a New Jersey town, saying he had been suddenly called away for a few days. It enclosed a New York draft to pay for his room for another month. Mrs. Scott sat down and looked at it for a few minutes and then she summoned her policeman and laid the matter before him. He looked wise, nodded his head and said, “Jus’ what I thought!” and went mysteriously off with the letter.

K
erry had duly inquired for Holbrook the next morning and found that he had not been well and had gone off on his vacation. That meant two weeks at least before she could tell him what had happened. Meantime a lot more things might happen. However, she was probably foolish about it. What, after all,
could
happen?

The days went by and Kerry was very busy. The proof of her father’s book was coming off the press, and she was spending her days going carefully over it, correcting, and revising in places. This work made her as happy as anything material could do, and she went back to the house every night dead tired.

She had ceased to look for a letter from McNair. He had forgotten her, that was all. That was to be expected. What was she to him except a casual stranger whom he had helped to find the way of life? She had great reason to be grateful to him always for the peace that had come to her heart. There was no more tempest and rebellion. She had accepted the fact that she was here on the earth as a sort of college to fit her for the heavenly home, and that she was to look for her joy hereafter, not here. Yet unconsciously, always when she entered the hall, her eyes went to the table where the mail was put. There were only two other lodgers, one in the second story back, and one in the third story back. One was a dressmaker who went out by the day, and sometimes came home very late at night, a sad oldish woman. The other was a trained nurse who had been off on a chronic case ever since Kerry had been there. She had never seen either of them, but there were frequent letters for both, which lay on the hall table sometimes when she came in. But there was never anything for her.

One night about ten days after the ransacking of her room Kerry came in a little later than usual and found Mrs. Scott watching for her.

“Come in a wee bit,” she said, “I want to talk to you, darlin’. Here’s a bite of hot scones and honey I’ve saved for ye, and a hot bit of meat I had left. You’re lookin’ peaked and white. I doubt you don’t eat enough in them restaurants! Just the same thing day after day and all taste alike.”

Kerry accepted the supper gratefully, for indeed she had not stopped to take more than a milk shake on her way home. She felt too tired and warm, for the weather had been unusually hot that day.

“And now,” said Mrs. Scott when she had set out a supper fit for a king on her little kitchen table with its white cloth and delicate old china, “now, darlin’, may I ask ye a personal question?”

“Why surely,” said Kerry, opening her sweet eyes in surprise, “you certainly have a right after all you have done for me.”

“Well, then, darlin’, why don’t ye answer my boy’s letters?”

“Letters?” said Kerry. “What letters? I’ve had no letters!”

“Oh, yes ye have, darlin’,” said Mrs. Scott, studying the girl’s open face with a puzzled expression. “I saw the letters myself, took ’em in and noted the handwritin’. I never forgets handwritin’, not especially when it belongs to one whom I honor and love as me own. And I saw his name right up in the corner of the envelope, Graham McNair, Los Angeles, California. Three letters there was, two in one week, and one the next week, and I laid ’em all neat on the hall table like I always do, and they was gone soon as you come home, for I went out in the hall to see each night after I heard you come in. I says to myself, I says, she’ll be tellin’ me a message from him, forbye, or mebbe a bit of what he said to her, but never a word did you say. And then I thought, well, why should she? She counts me a stranger, of course. But I was that happy knowin’ you had a letter from him whom I love as if he was my own, and that’s true!”

“Why, but you dear Mrs. Scott! I never got a letter from Mr. McNair, just that telegram you brought up to my room that second morning after I came. He said he would write, but he never did. You must have made a mistake. It must have been somebody else’s letter.”

“Oh, na, I made na mistake,” said the woman lapsing into a Scotch word now and again in her excitement. “It was him all right, and it was you. Three letters! The first one was in a government envelope with a stamp made on it. I remember them each. One was a long envelope—long and narrow. The third one was big and square.”

“Well—but—” said Kerry bewildered, but Mrs. Scott cut in again.

“The reason I dare to ask is, my boy has written ta me. He says would I please find out if anything is the matter with you, or if you just didn’t want to correspond with a stranger. He says he meant no harm, but perhaps you feel he was not properly introduced. Perhaps you think he was forward in writin’ at all.”

There were tears in Kerry’s eyes now, and her voice shook.

“Oh, but Mrs. Scott,
my dear!”
she insisted. “I never got any of those letters at all! Never a one. I looked and looked at that hall table every night hoping one would come. I wanted at least to be able to write and thank him for all that he had done for me, but I had no address. I never realized you might have it or I would have asked you. But surely, Mrs. Scott, you wouldn’t think I would do such a mean thing as not to answer his letters. Why, he’s a prince of a man, of course. I felt honored that he was so kind to me, and helped me. How ungrateful I would be not to notice his letters. I thought he had been too busy to write, and likely had forgotten me by this time.”

“Forgotten ye, nothin’. As if any man with eyes in his head could forget that hair, and them sweet eyes—”

“Oh, Mrs. Scott!” said Kerry growing rosy, and the tears dashing down over her hot cheeks. “But where—oh where—! If there were letters where are they? Could they have fallen down behind the table?”

“I’m not that dirty, me darlin’,” said Mrs. Scott indignantly. “That table is pulled out twice a week and dusted. No, it’s somebody has took ’em, that’s what!”

“But let us go and look!” pleaded Kerry jumping up and running out to the hall.

Mrs. Scott came with a flashlight, and together they stooped and searched the floor and the corner.

“There’s a big crack behind the baseboard!” said Kerry, poking in it with a hairpin. “But there’s nothing behind there.”

It was then that Mrs. Scott’s sharp eyes spied the bit of white sticking out from under the linoleum.

“The rascal!” she said suddenly and pounced down upon it, ripping up the edge of the linoleum in a hurry with strong angry fingers. “The rascal! So that was what he was doin’ and I never thought of it after!”

“Who? What?” said Kerry eagerly as Mrs. Scott fished out a long white envelope.

“The rascal!” said Mrs. Scott, ripping up some more of the linoleum. “I come out in the hall one day and seed him down on his knees a workin’ away under this table, and as soon as I come out he gets up and he says, quite polite, ‘I dropped my pencil under the table and I was after it,’ says he. And I, fool that I was, thinks nothing of it until now. Why, they might a lain there till doom’s day, and we never known if you hadn’t insisted on coming out to look. And me that proud of my dustin’ I wouldn’t look!”

But Kerry was not listening. She had gathered the envelopes to her heart, one after another as Mrs. Scott fished them out, and was now halfway up the stairs.

“You will excuse me while I read them, won’t you, Mrs. Scott, dear?” she called back, filled with sudden compunction.

“Sure I will, me darlin’, an’ think nothin’ of it, but it’s the last time I take in a lodger without references. The very last time!”

Kerry, up in her room, was opening her letters with fingers that trembled with eagerness. Joy was surging over her in waves that threatened a sweet engulfing.

Kerry had just sense enough left to look at the dates on the postmarks and get the first letter first.

It was brief, and evidently written at the station just as the train was leaving.

The second letter was longer, and went more into detail concerning the business that carried him away so quickly. It contained advice about her new life in the strange city, where to go, what to do for her own refreshment, a list of churches and other places where she would be likely to hear real spiritual preaching and teaching, the address of a bookstore where she would find helpful books, suggestions about where to go for good music.

It was pervaded all through with a brotherly care for her that filled her with contentment and made her feel as if he were right there beside her talking to her. It touched also on the man Dawson. He said he hoped sincerely that she would have no further trouble with him, and that she was scarcely likely to as he would be afraid of arrest if he tried to put over any more tricks, but in case she did have trouble the matter should be at once put into the hands of the proper authorities, and Mr. Holbrook would surely be willing to assist her in that. In case of any sudden emergency of course she would call the nearest police.

This advice gave Kerry relief, because she had feared that perhaps she ought not to have let Mrs. Scott go quite so far in what she had said to the policeman. Perhaps it might only complicate matters.

The third letter was not so formal as the other two. It began “My dear Kerry.” She caught her breath, and her eyes grew starry. She felt like a starved person with food suddenly put before her. Her eyes greedily picked up the words from the paper so fast she could hardly gather the sense.