The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(360)

                “If there is one thing more than another that I like, it is to shop, so I expressed my willingness to oblige her, and that afternoon I set out with a nice little sum of money to buy her some clothes. I should have enjoyed it more if she had let me do my own choosing—I saw the loveliest pink and green blouse—but she was very set about what she wanted, and so I just got her some plain things which I think even you, ma’am, would have approved of. I brought them home myself, for she wanted to apply immediately for the place she had seen advertised, but, O dear, when I went up to her room—”



                             “Was she gone?” burst in Lena.

                “O no, but there was such a smudge in it, and—and I could cry when I think of it—there in the grate were the remains of her beautiful silk blouse, all smoking and ruined. She had tried to burn it, and she had succeeded too. I could not get a piece out as big as my hand.”

                “But you got some of it!” blurted out Lena, guided by a look which I gave her.

                “Yes, scraps, it was so handsome. I think I have a bit in my work-basket now.”

                “O get it for me,” urged Lena. “I want it to remember her by.”

                “My work-basket is here.” And going to a sort of etagère covered with a thousand knick-knacks picked up at bargain counters, she opened a little cupboard and brought out a basket, from which she presently pulled a small square of silk. It was, as she said, of the richest weaving, and was, as I had not the least doubt, a portion of the dress worn by Mrs. Van Burnam from Haddam.

                “Yes, it was hers,” said Lena, reading the expression of my face, and putting the scrap away very carefully in her pocket.

                “Well, I would have given her five dollars for that blouse,” murmured Mrs. Desberger, regretfully. “But girls like her are so improvident.”

                “And did she leave that day?” I asked, seeing that it was hard for this woman to tear her thoughts away from this coveted article.

                “Yes, ma’am. It was late, and I had but little hopes of her getting the situation she was after. But she promised to come back if she didn’t; and as she did not come back I decided that she was more successful than I had anticipated.”

                “And don’t you know where she went? Didn’t she confide in you at all?”



                             “No; but as there were but three advertisements for a lady-companion in the Herald that day, it will be easy to find her. Would you like to see those advertisements? I saved them out of curiosity.”

                I assented, as you may believe, and she brought us the clippings at once. Two of them I read without emotion, but the third almost took my breath away. It was an advertisement for a lady-companion accustomed to the typewriter and of some taste in dressmaking, and the address given was that of Miss Althorpe.

                If this woman, steeped in misery and darkened by crime, should be there!

                As I shall not mention Mrs. Desberger again for some time, I will here say that at the first opportunity which presented itself I sent Lena to the shops with orders to buy and have sent to Mrs. Desberger the ugliest and most flaunting of silk blouses that could be found on Sixth Avenue; and as Lena’s dimples were more than usually pronounced on her return, I have no doubt she chose one to suit the taste and warm the body of the estimable woman, whose kindly nature had made such a favorable impression upon me.


CHAPTER XXIII

                RUTH OLIVER