Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman Part 19

"The children are safe and not unhappy," smiled Mrs. Waller, "so we must content ourselves for a few hours in realizing that."

"I am going to telegraph my friend Mrs. Danny Dexter--Mary Louise--and tell her to prepare the children for the great happiness in store for them. Or would you rather surprise them?"

"It is hardly fair to keep them in ignorance of their dear father's being alive just for the pleasure we might get in surprising them,"

said the mother.

"That is so like you, Mary. I can't see how I ever could for one instant have forgotten all your goodness," and Stephen Waller held his wife closer, in spite of Josie's presence.

They had a merry little dinner that evening in the hotel, having the dining room to themselves. The host was all smiles and good cheer. He felt in a measure responsible for reuniting this interesting couple.

Had he not received with hospitality this young detective person who was, to say the least, mysterious? Had he not told her first of the poor soldier who had mislaid his memory? Had he not made her wise as to the general unworthiness of Dr. Harper and his skinflint methods of never throwing business to the hands of the local hotel keeper? Had he not cheerfully reserved the best room in the house for days and days for this strange little person?

And so Captain and Mrs. Waller and Josie were perfectly willing to include him in the general festivities. Josie felt that the reunited pair should have a tete a tete dinner but they would not hear of her leaving them.

"Stephen must hear all you have to tell of the children," said Mrs.

Waller. "To think of the little things telling you of their porridge and of those bowls being instrumental in restoring their father to us.

It sounds like the most romantic novel."

"Not at all," insisted Josie. "There has been too much coincidence in this reality for it to go down as fiction. All the teachers of story writing would tell you that. They might allow one bit of coincidence but not so much as has occurred in this realistic plot. It wouldn't even go down as a detective tale. I have had too much lost motion in my plans for even that. I needn't have taken the job of canva.s.ser in the first place. That was plain foolishness and if I hadn't have run against that peach of a girl, Alice Chisholm, I'd have been a total loss to my boss, the man introducing household necessities and jeweled novelties. I am wasting money even now in retailing that room at Mrs.

Denton's. A good detective wastes neither time nor money."

"Well, thank goodness we are real people and not characters in a novel," laughed Captain Waller. "We are together and a dear girl brought us together by her intelligence and diligence. If she is not the type out of which a good detective tale can be manufactured then so much the worse for the detective tales. Give me a live girl every time and never mind the plot.

"The only thing I can't reconcile to reality is Chester Hunt. Why, he has been like my own brother--at least I have felt that way about him, ever since my mother married his father when I was nothing but a little shaver. My stepfather only lived two years and then my mother had the raising of Chester. He was five years older than I was and I always looked up to him. He is so handsome and so clever."

"Handsome is as handsome does," said Josie "and if he had been a little cleverer he would not have trusted that fake Swedish maid who had no word to express her nationality but bane for been.

"Listen! Mrs. Waller, you must not get excited, but I think I hear Mr.

Chester Hunt's voice."

CHAPTER XVIII CHESTER HUNT CONFESSES

The dining room of the little hotel opened directly into the lobby and the proprietor's desk could be plainly seen from where our friends were seated at dinner. It was Chester Hunt leaning over the desk and demanding from the proprietor the best room and bath.

"I have been ill, man, and I must be comfortable."

"But the room with the bath is occupied," the landlord objected.

"Well, get them out of it. I telegraphed for reservations. You surely got my wire."

"I did not, but it was occupied whether you wired or not," bristled the proprietor.

Finally Chester Hunt must content himself with another room, without the bath.

"Dinner?"

"Naturally."

Captain and Mrs. Waller's faces were as though they had been carved of stone as Hunt, all unconscious of their presence, entered the dining room with something of the superiority in his manner that Josie had felt he a.s.sumed for the benefit of those he did not consider his equals. His face showed he had been ill. He paid no attention to the other occupants of the dining room, but seated himself at a table to one side. He was facing Josie. Mrs. Waller's back was towards him and Captain Waller's profile was in his direct line of vision. Mrs. Waller raised her eyes to her husband's face. No graven image could have been more immovable. Josie gave her attention to Chester Hunt's countenance, determined not to miss his expression when first he became aware of Stephen Waller's presence. She felt reasonably certain of his not recognizing in her his one-time jewel of a general house-worker.

Having given his order for dinner Chester Hunt finally deigned to notice that there were other occupants of the hotel dining room. He gave a cursory glance in the direction of the three persons at the table near him. A spasm of terror crossed his face. There was a sound of grating on the tesselated floor, as he pushed his chair back. His mouth opened in an involuntary gasp. Josie noted his agitation but she could but admire his quick command of himself. In a moment his face had a.s.sumed its normal suavity. It was evident that he had decided that he had been startled with nothing but a resemblance. This man in the hotel dining room could not be his stepbrother. Stephen was dead.

Hunt's eyes traveled uneasily to the lady whose back was towards him.

Those lines were unmistakable! That poise of the small head, the way the hair grew at the nape of the neck--it was Mary Waller, his brother's wife! Wildly he looked at the third person at the table.

Where had he seen her before? He couldn't for his life remember, but that countenance was familiar.

There were certain things about Chester Hunt that Josie could not help admiring, archvillain though she knew him to be. His good looks of course she must approve of, his debonair grace and easy bearing; but what she respected about him was his quick grasp of a situation. She saw the moment he recognized the fact that he was in the same room with his long lost stepbrother and his wife he became convinced the game was up and he must make the best of it and begin salvaging what he could from the wreck he had made of his affairs through his inordinate ambition and brotherly affection was his cue. He immediately jumped from his seat and hurried across the room, his hands out and his face beaming with a joy that he a.s.sumed with the ease of a consummate actor.

"Stephen! My brother! I am overcome with joy! My boy, we thought you were dead--Mary and I. I am here now to take Mary from the sanitarium where they have effected a most marvelous cure on the poor girl. My dear brother! My dear sister!"

Funny Stephen did not respond. What could they know? He looked again at the little person seated at the table with his brother and his wife.

Where on earth had he seen her before? What connection had she with this affair? He hardly expected much warmth from Mary. She had been queer of late, but Stephen had always been devoted to him.

"Tell me where you have been, dear boy. Don't be so--so mysterious. I have been looking after your affairs to the best of my ability."

"Yes?" was all Captain Waller would say.

"You might know I would. Stephen, you are unappreciative. Where have you been hiding? Why am I, your own brother, the last person to hear that you are alive and, I hope, well and returned to the bosom of your family?"

Captain Waller's face lost its frozen expression. His cheeks, which had been deadly pale from the moment he heard the voice of Chester Hunt, now flushed painfully. He sprang from his chair and stood facing the other man.

"Where are my children?" was all he said.

"Oh, they are all right--in good hands. If that is what is eating you, old fellow, you can drop your heroics and embrace your brother."

"What good hands?"

"When Mary got sick--of course you must know how very ill she has been--I hardly knew what to do with the kids. They had got a bit unruly because of their mother's being in such a bad way and naturally my first care was for her and I felt it wiser to have them away from her for the time being--"

"So you got some of our good friends at home to look after them? That was natural and right."

"No-o, I did not. The fact was Polly and Peter were pretty difficult and n.o.body really wanted them--that is n.o.body whom I might have trusted--so I sent for a cousin of mine, a very worthy, high-principled young woman, Miss Dingus. You have heard me speak of her. I saw a good deal of her after I left Atlanta. She is a cousin of my father's.

Cousin d.i.n.k, we call her. I was sure she would take good care of the children and give them the proper surroundings and education until their mother could resume charge of them. I get weekly reports from her and she says they are thriving--"

"And where does this Cousin d.i.n.k live?"

"She is in Chicago. She writes me she is devoted to the kids and gives them the greatest care. Polly has had a little trouble with her throat lately but the doctor a.s.sured Cousin d.i.n.k it was not infectious."

"How long is it since you have seen them?"

"Eh--eh--some time, now!"

Captain Waller looked at Chester Hunt sadly. Josie saw pity mingled with indignation in his expression. Mrs. Waller said nothing and never once took her eyes from her husband's face. Nevertheless she was listening to every word that pa.s.sed between the two men.

"I'll telegraph Cousin d.i.n.k immediately to prepare the children for the great surprise," Hunt continued.

"You need not trouble to do that," said Captain Waller. "I reckon they know we are on the way to get them by this time. Eh, Miss O'Gorman?"