The Thinking Machine Collected Stories Part 219

"No. I have no place to go. What is the nearest village or town?"

"Watertown, but you'd better stay and rest a while. You look all tuckered out."

"Oh, thank you so much," said the Girl gratefully. "But it would be so much trouble for--"

The Angel picked up the burlap bag, shook it inquiringly, then started toward the short stairs leading up.

"Please, please!" exclaimed the Girl suddenly. "I-I-let me have that, please!"

The Angel relinquished the bag without a word. The Girl took it, tremblingly, then, suddenly dropping it, clasped the Angel in her arms and placed upon her unresponsive lips a kiss for which a mere man would have endangered his immortal soul. The Angel wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and went on up the stairs with the Girl following.

For a time the Girl lay, with wet eyes, on a clean little bed, thinking. Humiliation, exhaustion, man's perfidy, disillusionment, and the kindess of an utter stranger all occupied her until she fell asleep. Then she was chased by a policeman with automobile lights for eyes, and there was a parade of hard-boiled eggs and yellow, lumpy biscuits.

When she awoke the room was quite dark. She sat up a little bewildered at first; then she remembered. After a moment she heard the voice of the Angel, below. It rippled on querulously; then she heard the gruff voice of a man.

"Diamond rings?"

The Girl sat up in bed and listened intently. Involuntarily her hands were clasped together. Her rings were still safe. The Angel's voice went on for a moment again.

"Something in a bag?" inquired the man.

Again the Angel spoke.

Terror seized upon the Girl; imagination ran riot, and she rose from the bed, trembling. She groped about the dark room noiselessly. Every shadow lent her new fears. Then from below came the sound of heavy footsteps. She listened fearfully. They came on toward the stairs, then paused. A match was struck and the step sounded on the stairs.

After a moment there was a knock at the door, a pause, then another knock. Finally the door was pushed open and a huge figure-the figure of a man-appeared, sheltering a candle with one hand. He peered about the room as if perplexed.

"Ain't n.o.body up here," he called gruffly down the stairs.

There was a sound of hurrying feet and the Angel entered, her face distorted by the flickering candlelight.

"For the land's sakes!" she exclaimed.

"Went away without even saying thank you," grumbled the man. He crossed the room and closed a window. "You ain't got no better sense than a chicken," he told the Angel. "Take in anybody that comes."

Chapter IV.

If Willie's little brother hadn't had a pain in his tummy this story might have gone by other and devious ways to a different conclusion. But fortunately he did have, so it happened that at precisely 8.47 o'clock of a warm evening Willie was racing madly along a side street of Watertown, drug-store-bound, when he came face to face with a Girl-a pretty Girl-a very pretty Girl. She was carrying a bag that clanked a little at each step.

"Oh, little boy!" she called.

"Hunh?" and Willie stopped so suddenly that he endangered his equilibrium, although that isn't how he would have said it.

"Nice little boy," said the Girl soothingly, and she patted his tousled head while he gnawed a thumb in pained embarra.s.sment. "I'm very tired. I have been walking a great distance. Could you tell me, please, where a lady, unattended, might get a night's lodging somewhere near here?"

"Hunh?" gurgled Willie through the thumb.

Wearily the Girl repeated it all and at its end Willie giggled. It was the most exasperating incident of a long series of exasperating incidents, and the Girl's grip on the bag tightened a little. Willie never knew how nearly he came to being hammered to death with fourteen pounds of solid gold.

"Well?" inquired the Girl at last.

"Dunno," said Willie. "Jimmy's got the stomach-ache," he added irrelevantly.

"Can't you think of a hotel or boarding-house near by?" the Girl insisted.

"Dunno," replied Willie. "I'm going to the drug store for a pair o' gorrick."

The Girl bit her lip, and that act probably saved Willie from the dire consequences of his unconscious levity, for after a moment the Girl laughed aloud.

"Where is the drug store?" she asked.

" 'Round the corner. I'm going."

"I'll go along, too, if you don't mind," the Girl said, and she turned and walked beside him. Perhaps the drug clerk would be able to illuminate the situation.

"I swallyed a penny oncst," Willie confided suddenly.

"Too bad!" commented the Girl.

"Unh unnh," Willie denied emphatically. " 'Cause when I cried, Paw gimme a quarter." He was silent a moment, then: "If I'd 'a' swallyed that, I reckin he'd a gimme a dollar. Gee!"

This is the optimism that makes the world go round. The philosophy took possession of the Girl and cheered her. When she entered the drug store she walked with a lighter step and there was a trace of a smile about her pretty mouth. A clerk, the only attendant, came forward.

"I want a pair o' gorrick," Willie announced.

The Girl smiled, and the clerk, paying no attention to the boy, went toward her.

"Better attend to him first," she suggested. "It seems urgent."

The clerk turned to Willie.

"Paregoric?" he inquired. "How much?"

"About a quart, I reckin," replied the boy. "Is that enough?"

"Quite enough," commented the clerk. He disappeared behind the prescription screen and returned after a moment with a small phial. The boy took it, handed over a coin, and went out, whistling. The Girl looked after him with a little longing in her eyes.

"Now, madam?" inquired the clerk suavely.

"I only want some information," she replied. "I was out on my bicycle"-she gulped a little-"when it broke down, and I'll have to remain here in town over night, I'm afraid. Can you direct me to a quiet hotel or boarding-house where I might stay?"

"Certainly," replied the clerk briskly. "The Stratford, just a block up this street. Explain the circ.u.mstances, and it will be all right, I'm sure."

The Girl smiled at him again and cheerfully went her way. That small boy had been a leaven to her drooping spirits. She found the Stratford without difficulty and told the usual bicycle lie, with a natural growth of detail and a burning sense of shame. She registered as Elizabeth Carlton and was shown to a modest little room.

Her first act was to hide the gold plate in the closet; her second was to take it out and hide it under the bed. Then she sat down on a couch to think. For an hour or more she considered the situation in all its hideous details, planning her desolate future-women like to plan desolate futures-then her eye chanced to fall upon an afternoon paper, which, with glaring headlines, announced the theft of the Randolph gold plate. She read it. It told, with startling detail, things that had and had not happened in connection therewith.