Adventure, December 1914 — page 139: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Man With Nine Lives so to speak, a lot of loose money lying idle, to use some of it to make my position here secure. You can’t very well turn me out, you know, if—if I’ve done my best to get you out of arather unpleasant hole. That, I say, is my point of view, and it seems to me to be quite a sound one.” “You are rather casuistic, Mr. Adair, or should I say diplomatic? But your phrases don’t hide from me the fact that your intention was to do me a very great service. I won’t ask you why, just now, because I ought to be cooking your dinner, but afterwards I—I should like some sort of explanation, Mr. Adair. I felt that I had to come in to tell you how conscious I was that I had been horrid.”’ She was out of the room again before he could stop her, leaving him in a rather more confused state of mind than before. ‘“‘Now what is she driving at—that re- markable young woman? Isshe my debtor, and am I to play the part of a relentless creditor or—or what part am I to play? She said nothing about the brooch, which is the most curious part of the whole curious business.”’ Withdrawing the hand which contained it from his jacket-pocket, he examined it again, more minutely even than before. “There are my mother’s initials at the back, and the crest. Their presence would settle the question of the original ownership if there was nothing else. ‘IT must try to think this thing out. What became of my mother’s jewels I’m afraid I’m not in a position to say. It’s possible that they went with the rest of the things. Everything was sold, and since some of them were worth a great deal of money, there is no reason why they should have been spared—except that a good many of them were family heirlooms. In which case they ought to have gone on to Louisa. “Did we rob her of those as well—as everything else? With what holy thoughts she must think of us! We could not have stripped her more efficaciously had we been a band of brigands. And I did my share of the plundering better than any one else.” His thoughts had left the brooch and wan- dered afield. Now he brought them back to. it, turning it over and over between his fingers, as if by dint of scrutiny he could at a key to the thing which puzzled im. “I can understand how the jewels got to 137 Creed. It was his business to advance money on anything. They may have stood to him as security for money lent; but Winifred Dennis? I can conceive of no possible ex- planation of how she came to be in posses- sion of my mother’s brooch. “She doesn’t seem to have missed it. When she does, I wonder if I shall have cour- age to ask how it came into her hands? I have not been afraid of many things, or of many people—I say it with all due modesty; but it’s a truly singular fact that I am afraid of her. It really-is extraordinary, considering that she’s nothing but a girl. If she were a grown woman there might be some excuse—but a girl!” CHAPTER X A PUZZLE at evening Mr. Adair’s dinner con- sisted of a grilled sole and a roast chicken, both excellent of their kind. Heate of them with rather a sheepish air. Al- though he was hungry and the food was good, he was obsessed by the feeling that the cook was Miss Dennis. Relations between them had reached such a point that the con- sciousness of this fact filled him with a sense of vague discomfort. Then she did the waiting; that worried him still more. She flitted in and out of the room rapidly, noiselessly, whisking things away, replacing them with others with a dexterity which struck him as re- markable. on it all the while. He wondered how many things she was doing at once. She brought in a dish, took another out, returned to her cooking, dished up the food—and did it all without the slightest hitch. When did she eat herself— she and her mother? He supposed they did eat sometimes. When he had eaten his fill, and was dis- posed to look out on the world through rose- tinted glasses, then her real work began— the worst part of it. She had to wash up the plates and dishes and perform goodness only knew what other menial tasks besides for him. If he only had the courage to sug- gest to her that she should keep a servant! There was a moment when he almost had the courage. When she was removing the crumbs from the tablecloth with a brass scoop, she observed— comiclooolx He was inwardly commenting C©@