THE CLUE IN THE FILM
The letter was from Uncle Bob Benson to Ursula. Josie felt justified in
reading it, in order that she might get all the light possible on the
doings of Cheatham. It was a sad little letter, evidently written by a
very sick man. The writing was shaky and dim, with many words almost
illegible, but Josie managed to make them out.
Uncle Ben was deeply contrite at having left his sister and her
children when no doubt they needed him most. He had just learned of his
sister’s death and showed much feeling and distress. He wrote:
“But soon I may join her, dear Ursula, if one so unworthy as I can hope
to join a saint in Heaven. I have not many weeks to live, but am hoping
I can reach Louisville to die, if I can but muster enough strength to
start on the journey. In the meantime I am instructing my lawyer to put
my affairs in order and am making a will leaving what small fortune I
have amassed to you, my dear niece. I am not including my nephews in
my will, as I think it best for boys to have to hustle for a living
and not have things made too easy for them. I am sure they are well
provided for by the estate your father left.
“I am writing you all this although I am hoping to spend my last days
under your tender and forgiving care. I am hoping also that that man
who married your mother has left Louisville, now that he can no longer
control that poor, sweet, misguided woman. I cannot forgive myself for
having left her to his merciless power. I shall be with you in a few
weeks now and, in the meantime, love me if you can and try to forgive
me.”
That was all. Josie found herself weeping over the letter. Her
rage knew no bounds when she thought of Cheatham’s keeping such a
communication from Ursula. No doubt it was on receipt of this letter
that he had sent Miss Fitchet to spy upon his stepdaughter in Dorfield.
The more bulky letter was from Toler & Smith, a firm of attorneys at
Kimberly. Ben Benson was dead and Toler & Smith had been appointed
administrators of his last will and testament. They enclosed a copy of
his will, in which his whole estate, amounting to about one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, had been bequeathed to Ursula. Toler expected
to arrive in Louisville during the month of January, or perhaps
earlier. Cheatham deliberately kept the knowledge from Ursula and no
doubt his game was to say he had either not received the mail or had
forwarded it to the girl.
Josie decided that Ursula must come to Louisville immediately.
“I’ll telegraph in the morning,” said Josie. “I can’t bear to get
the poor girl out on the midnight train, and in the meantime I must
get some sleep, in spite of the fact that my brain is going around
like a whirligig. Now let’s see. We’ve got a lot of evidence against
Cheatham that he is as crooked as a snake, but we have nothing to prove
he kidnaped little Philip or caused him to be kidnaped. Where is the
child? All of the money from the diamond mines will mean nothing to
Ursula if her baby brother isn’t found.”
The problem spun over and over in Josie’s mind, until at last she
dropped asleep. It seemed to her she had only lost consciousness a
moment when she heard a brisk knocking on her door. It was broad
daylight. A glance at her watch informed her it was eight o’clock.
“Here am a letter fo’ you, honey,” Aunt Mandy was calling as she kept
up a steady tapping on the door. “One er them there ’portant ’pistles
wiv a blue stamp an’ a boy a-ridin’ fer dear life on it. I reckon some
er yo’ folks mus’ be daid ter be in sich a hurry ter let you know ’bout
it.”
Josie jumped from her bed and opened the door.
“I do hope I’m not late for breakfast, Aunt Mandy! It won’t take me
a minute to get down. I don’t want Miss Lucy to be telling me what’s
what.”
“Lawsamussy, honey, any time befo’ nine ’ll go in dis house,” Aunt
Mandy went off grinning happily over the quarter Josie had slipped into
her hand.
The special delivery letter was from Ursula and there was much in it
to cause our little detective to ponder. Could it be that she was
wrong and Cheatham had nothing to do with the crime of carrying off
little Philip? Josie sat hunched up in bed, lost in thought. She
read over and over Ursula’s copy of the letter found under her door.
One thing sure, Ursula had better take the next train to Louisville.
Sitting hunched up in bed and thinking was not getting anywhere, so
Josie quickly got ready for breakfast. Teddy must be communicated with
immediately, but that young man had caught an early trolley from Peewee
and before Josie finished her breakfast he was ringing Miss Lucy’s
doorbell and eagerly asking for Miss Josie O’Gorman.
“I must talk to you somewhere, but where?” asked Josie. “A
boarding-house parlor is hardly the place for a chat, and it’s too cold
and sloppy to talk while we walk.”
“How about my office?”
“All right, if it is private.”
“Well, I share it with two other fellows and there is a flapper
stenographer and I must say lots of people loaf on us.”
“I tell you, let’s go to an early movie,” said Josie. “There is no
place on earth so quiet and private as an early movie. How soon do they
open up here?”
“One of them makes a specialty of being open all the time with a
continuous performance. Let’s go there.”
Before acting on this plan, Ursula was wired to come to Louisville at
once.
“She can’t get here until late this afternoon and in the meantime we
can snoop around. Ho! for the cinema!” said Josie.
The motion picture theatre was dark and warm. The performance was
beginning as the young people entered. They were the only ones on
pleasure bent so early in the morning and had the place to themselves,
except for two men in the center of the house who were evidently
left-overs from the night before and were now peacefully sleeping.
“This is not much of a place, except that they do run a good news
reel,” apologized Teddy. “They get the happenings of the world hot off
the bat.”
“I dote on the Travelaughs and news reels,” said Josie. “I go to the
movies a lot just to be quiet and in the dark and think. I follow the
show with half my brain and think with the other half.”
“Well, what do you say to watching the news reel and then talking
business through the slapstick comedy that is sure to follow?”
Josie thought that a fine plan and gave her attention to the screen,
upon which this item was soon displayed:
“A large fire in Cincinnati on Christmas Day did much damage
and injured several persons. The crowd has gathered to see the
firemen search the smouldering ruins for the charred remains of
a night watchman who is supposed to be under the debris.”
Josie clutched Teddy’s arm, as the picture followed.
“Look! Look at that woman on the left, dragging a little boy by the
hand. I mean that woman with her head on one side, who is hurrying
along the sidewalk. Oh, now they are gone! I must see them again.
Teddy! Teddy! That little boy is Philip Ellett and I believe in my soul
the woman is Miss Fitchet! I never laid eyes on her before but Ursula
told me how she carried her head on one side and how she walked in a
zigzag course. Could we possibly see that news reel again?”
“We could wait until the show begins again or perhaps we could get the
manager to run it over for us,” said Teddy.
“That would be fine, but I fancy waiting is our only chance. I don’t
really see the use in viewing it again. I am as sure the little boy was
Philip as I can be of anything. Seeing it again wouldn’t help matters a
bit. The caption read that it was Cincinnati on Christmas Day. That is
where they have taken the boy. I’ll just light out for Cincinnati.”
“And I’ll go too,” declared Teddy.
“Not at all, my dear fellow! If you go trapesing off to Cincinnati, who
is to meet Ursula when she arrives on that night train? She may need
your protection and need it badly. I’ll bet you a hat that Cheatham
is meeting every train that comes in. But I haven’t had time to talk
to you at all about what I have discovered and now I must fly to the
station and get the first train out for Cincinnati. We didn’t get much
business discussed in the movies after all.”
“Well, there’s a train out in half an hour. Let’s jump in a taxi and
you can go by Miss Lucy’s and get your grip and catch the train too, if
you are the hustler I think you are.”
Josie agreed, and they rushed to Miss Lucy’s where, with a flying
good-bye to Aunt Mandy, with instructions to take good care of her
mail and assurances that she would return in a day and maybe sooner,
Josie was quickly back in the taxi with the excited young man.
“I won’t have time to tell you all about these letters,” said Josie,
“but I am going to give them over to your keeping and you hang onto
them through thick and thin, until Ursula has her rights. Be sure to
meet her on the train arriving at seven and take her to Miss Lucy’s.
Tell Aunt Mandy to give her my room. I wish I had thought about that
before. Perhaps I’ll have time to telephone from the station.”
“I’d like to take her out to my mother,” suggested Teddy.
“Sure you would, but she had better be right here in town, where we can
put our hands on her. Watch out for Cheatham, though. Don’t tell anyone
about the letters I purloined from his desk. He may take action if he
finds out about it and have me arrested for housebreaking or something.
The thing to do is to keep quiet. He won’t know the papers are gone
unless he gets wind of what we are up to and goes over his pigeonholes.”
The taxi drew up at the station, giving Josie five minutes to spare
before the Cincinnati train was called. She flew to a telephone booth
and in a moment had Aunt Mandy on the wire.
“Aunt Mandy, please, if Mr. Teddy Trask brings a young lady to the
house this evening, take good care of her and put her in my room. She
is a great friend of mine, also of Mr. Trask’s, and she is in deep
distress, so I am sure you will be kind to her.”
“Lawd love you, sho I will! I reckon she done los’ some er her foks.
Anyhow, I’m gonter take de bes’ care er any frien’ er yourn.”
“Thank you! Thank you!” and Josie hung up the receiver.
As she darted from the booth she ran straight into Mr. Cheatham. He
looked slightly puzzled as she bowed to him. Evidently he had forgotten
that such a person existed. He took off his hat and gave a perfunctory
nod. His brow was furrowed and he looked worried. Suddenly he saw Teddy
and evidently the sight of the young man refreshed his memory as to who
Josie was.
“Ah! seeing your friend off?” he asked endeavoring to be cordial.
“Yes. Are you going on a trip?”
“Well, er--, just a little business trip to Cincinnati. I will be gone
only a short while. Please tell your sister, if you should happen to
mention the fact that you saw me starting off, that I expect to be back
in plenty of time to keep our engagement for to-morrow evening.”
“Certainly!” said Teddy, but Josie noticed that his jaw shot out in a
very pugnacious angle as he answered.
“Good-bye, Josie!” and Teddy held her hand in a firm grip. “I’ll tell
the world you are some sport.”
“Good-bye, Teddy! It is mighty nice to have seen you and I hope we
shall meet again soon. Thank you for all your kindness.” Her tone was
that of a conventional young lady saying farewell to an old schoolmate
she had happened to run across. Teddy realized she was putting on the
social graces for the benefit of Mr. Cheatham, who was watching the
parting with some show of interest.
Josie was almost sorry she had acted so well when, after the train
pulled out, Cheatham sank in the seat by her and with an evident effort
began to try to make himself agreeable. Of course she realized fully
it was because he felt it incumbent upon him to pay some attention
to a young person, no matter how unattractive in his eyes, who was
evidently a close friend of the brother of Anita Trask.
“I’ll meet him halfway,” was her resolve, and forthwith she began a
line of so-called flapper talk that completely overwhelmed the man.