HER FATHER'S OWN DAUGHTER
"I don't see why you take it so hard, Molly darling," said Judy as Molly
told her of the detectives' findings and of the perfidy they had
unearthed.
"Why, I fancy I am grieving that such wickedness can be in this world,"
sighed Molly. "I liked Madame Misel so much."
"Well, I never did like her," declared Judy.
Molly smiled, well remembering Judy's enthusiasm on arriving at
Wellington and telling of the interesting couple she had met on the
train.
"I know what you are thinking about--of course I said they were
interesting, but I never did like the woman much--she was too catty for
me."
This conversation was interrupted by the loud ringing of the telephone
bell, which proved to be a long distance call for Judy from Mr. Kean in
New York. His marching orders had come and he was to sail for France in
a few days, and for the first time on record he could not take his
little wife with him. Building roads and bridges in war time was very
different from times of peace, and France at that time was no place for
delicate little ladies.
"You had better come right up to New York on the next train," was his
ringing command. "Your mother needs you and I must see you, too."
"All right, Bobby! Meet me at the Pennsylvania Station. I'll take the
12.45--I am not going to let Kent come. He must be with his mother one
more day,--his mother and Molly. So long! Be sure and meet me!"
Then such a scrambling ensued! Kent must be persuaded he was neither
wanted nor needed, a few things hurled into a bag, her sketch book
tucked in her jacket pocket, and Judy was off like a whirlwind. She and
Kent ran all the way to the station only to see the train pulling out
as they stepped upon the platform.
"I can get it! Keep the old bag!" cried that young woman as she sprinted
down the track, her young husband running lightly by her side, laughing
in spite of himself. If you have never run after a train and caught it
you cannot realize the triumphant feeling Judy had as she grasped the
rail and swung herself up on the rear coach. Fortunately it was not a
vestibule train or she would have been shut out. Kent slung the bag up
after her and then stood in the middle of the track until his Judy was
lost in the darkness.
"What a girl she is!" he laughed to himself. "What a dear girl!"
The dear girl was rescued by a rather indignant brakeman and led through
the empty coach that happened to be hitched on to the train and finally
installed in the chair car, after many explanations and excuses had been
made to train conductor and then Pullman conductor.
Young women have no business on night trains with no tickets--certainly
no business in boarding those trains from the rear, thereby risking
their own necks and making the railroads liable to damage suits.
"But you see my father telephoned me from New York," she confided to the
train conductor, a grizzled looking old fellow with a decidedly military
bearing. "He is going to France next week and he simply had to see
me.--Perhaps you know my father," she added with a certain assurance
that everybody connected with railroads ought to know Bobby.
"More than likely!" was the grim reply. The conductor had no idea of
being cajoled into good humor by this daring girl.
"He is Mr. Robert Kean,--Bobby!"
The conductor was suddenly a changed creature.
"Know him! I should say I did! Bless my soul, if you don't look like
him--same eyes--same mouth! Ha, ha! See Bob Kean missing a train! Not
much!" and the erstwhile stern captain of the train now grasped Judy's
hand. "Come on, I'll see that you get a chair, Miss Kean. I'm certainly
pleased to make your acquaintance."
"I'm not Miss Kean any more,--I'm Mrs. Kent Brown now.--It was my
husband who pitched me and my luggage on the back end of the train."
"Married! By jiminy! I can't believe Bob Kean has a married daughter!
And your husband aided and abetted you in jumping on the back of fast
trains, did he?" and the once grim captain laughed aloud. "Well, I'm
glad you got a game husband. I don't know what your father would have
done with a 'fraid cat."
Judy's entrance in the Pullman caused some commotion. The old conductor
was laughing heartily and the brakeman was in a much pleasanter frame of
mind as he handed over Judy's bag to the grinning porter. There were
about eight persons in the chair car as Judy entered and Judy-like, she
immediately became intensely interested in them.
Of course, the spot of color made by a flashy dame in lavender attracted
her attention first, and then her companion in loud checks cried out to
be noticed. What a couple! Race track written all over both of them!
Even from three seats off Judy could smell the musk on the woman. The
man's face was hidden by the newspaper and the woman seemed to be
engaged in rapt contemplation of her beauty in the narrow little mirror
by her chair. To Judy's disappointment the gaudy dame whirled her chair
around so she could not see her face.
"I bet she's a peacherino!" she said to herself.
There were other persons in the train that proved interesting, too:
among them a mother and child who appealed to Judy's artistic sense; a
G. A. R. veteran who was sure he had been in worse battles than the
Marne; an ancient lady from Louisiana who made our young artist wild to
paint her white hair and patrician nose. Opposite Judy's chair was a
young man, (or was he a young man?) At least he was not an old man!
There were a few tiny lines around his twinkling bright blue eyes, but
his movements were as alert as a college athlete's, and his mouth,
though very firm, had the saucy expression of a street boy. Judy was
sure she had seen his face before. The way his hair grew on his forehead
in a so-called widow's peak reminded her vaguely of someone,--the cleft
chin she was sure she had known somewhere. He was interested in her,
too, she could plainly see. He had a pleasant, dependable expression,
the kind of look one felt meant that in time of trouble he would be a
good person to call on. He was making himself generally useful to the
madonna-like mother and child; he had assisted the ancient lady from
Louisiana to get up and sit down several times since Judy had so
unceremoniously boarded the car.
"I wish I knew where I had known him. His face is as familiar to me as
my own."
She felt in her jacket pocket for her sketch book. She must get an
impression of the mother and child, and the old lady was destined to be
sketched in, too. She longed to do the youngish-oldish person opposite,
but he was too close for her to permit herself such a familiarity. She
turned over the leaves of her book and suddenly came upon the page
given up to the Tucker twins and their friend Page Allison. What
delightful girls they were! Suddenly she could place the resemblance
seen in the gentleman across the aisle. Of course his forehead and
widow's peak were the same that Dum Tucker owned, and his cleft chin was
the identical one belonging to Dee Tucker. Could he be their father?
She remembered what the girls had told her of their delightful father.
He was a newspaper man in Richmond, Virginia, and according to the twins
was just about the most wonderful person in the world. Page Allison,
too, had given him praise, although not quite so wildly unstinted as his
daughters.
"I think I'll drop something and let him pick it up for me and get in a
conversation with him," Judy laughed to herself. "He is such a squire of
dames, he is sure to pick it up."
She turned the pages of her sketch book until she came to the quick
impressions she had made of Madame Misel at the war relief rooms.
"The wretch!" was her inward comment, and her thoughts went back to the
last days at Wellington. She looked up; her eye was again chained by the
gaudy lavender spot and she suddenly became conscious that she could see
the woman's face in the large mirror at the end of the Pullman. Her eyes
were down as she perused the pages of a magazine.
Another familiar face! Where under Heaven had she seen just that chin
and nose? Her eyes fell again on the open sketch book. Why, it is Madame
Misel--no other! With quick strokes she copied the sketch and then
cleverly added the beplumed hat, fluffy collar and fashionably cut coat.
The woman stood up for a moment to get something from the pocket of her
great coat, hanging on the hook at one side, and then Judy took in her
general contours standing, and added some draperies to the full length
figure she had also obtained of Madame Misel in the work room. High
heels were put on the flat, unstylish shoes. The straight severe dress
and basque were transformed into the fashionable, if gaudy, creation.
Judy was careful not to erase any of the original lines and all of the
new parts she sketched in in dots and dashes.
The gentleman opposite was plainly interested in what she was doing and
it evidently required all his self-control to keep from asking to be
allowed to see.
"They are the Misels and they are running away!" flashed into Judy's
mind. "It is up to me to stop them--but how? The gent in checks is
undoubtedly Misel. They can't fool me; I remember his ears too well and
the way his hands held things."
She glanced across the aisle and her eyes met the bright blue ones
belonging to the widow's peak and cleft chin.
"What would Bobby do in this case?" she asked herself.
"Use the sense God gave him and get help if he couldn't cope with a
thing single-handed," she answered herself.
She accordingly let her sketch book slide from her lap, rubber and
pencil hopping gaily after it.
"Oh, thank you so much!" she exclaimed as the squire of dames
immediately dived for the belongings and restored them to her. "I would
not loose my sketch book for worlds."
"I should say not! I have a daughter who is very much interested in
art,--in fact, she is studying in New York now,--her specialty is
sculpture, though."
"Yes, I know her! She is Dum Tucker!"
"You know my Dum! How wonderful! And how did you know she was--I was her
father?"
"By your widow's peak! I also know you are Dee's father by your chin."
Mr. Tucker changed his seat, taking the one by Judy.
"By Jove! You artists are a clever lot. You would make a great
detective, Mrs. Brown. You must excuse me for knowing your name, but I
heard you tell the captain what it was,--Mrs. Kent Brown. My girls have
written me how kind you have been to them and I have been dying to make
myself known to you, but was waiting for some kind of opening wedge."
"And I, too, Mr. Tucker, have been wondering where I had seen you, when
I found your girls' pictures in my little book. See! Here they are!"
"And little Page, too!" He exclaimed eagerly scanning the sketches. "You
are wonderfully clever at a likeness."
"Do you think so? I--Mr. Tucker--I deliberately scraped up an
acquaintance with you because I want you to do something for me," and
Judy looked frankly into the honest eyes of her new acquaintance.
"Why, Mrs. Brown, you know I am at your service."
"I was sure of you somehow, even if I had not been almost certain you
were related in some way to Dum and Dee Tucker. My little sketch book
told me that and it told me something else, too, but I must begin at the
beginning."
Judy, whispering, began with her meeting of the Misels, of her
interesting the Greens at Wellington, of Misel's substituting in French
at the college and of Madame's work in the war relief. Jeffrey Tucker's
eyes flashed as the newspaper man in him scented a rousing good story.
When Judy got to the part where she and her friends went out in the
night to hunt for adventure and found it in the manly shape of Misel
taking strenuous exercise for a cripple, he beamed with joy and felt in
his pocket for a pencil. Judy rapidly told him of the puppy's wounded
leg and of the tetanus germs as well as ground glass being found in the
dressings. He set his square jaw and looked as though he could eat the
kaiser and all his crew at one mouthful.
"And now I have come to the _denouement_!" gasped Judy, excitement
making her breathless. "If I could recognize you by your likeness to my
sketches, I fancy I could also recognize Madame Misel by sketches of
herself. I got two of her this morning at the war relief. The detectives
did not arrest them, as they want to get others in their dragnet, but in
some way the spies must have caught on to the fact that they were under
suspicion, as they sneaked away."
"Are you sure?"
"Sure as shooting! In fact they are on this train."
"No!" excitedly.
"Now, Mr. Tucker, you must compose yourself if we mean to catch the
creatures!"
"Certainly!" and the eager man sank back in his seat and tried to look
as though he were having a mild conversation with the attractive young
woman who had jumped on the back of the moving train.
"Now that is better! Keep that nonchalant expression for what I am going
to tell you----"
"All right, fire away!"
"They are on this coach, just three seats down.--Good boy, not to jump
out of your skin! Now I am going to show you my sketch of the woman
before and after. See, there is no doubt about her! You walk to the
smoker and on the way back get a good look at her face and I bet you
will be convinced."
Jeffrey Tucker did as he was bid, giving Madame Misel such a casual look
that he aroused no suspicion in her mind.
"Gee! This is great! I'd rather bag some of these spies than do big
hunting in the African Jungle. Now, most wise of all female detectives,
what do you advise? We must act quickly."
"I think you should take the conductors, both train and Pullman, into
your confidence, and then send telegrams to New York to have the spies
met with the proper reception. You can telegraph Bobby, I mean my
father, if you think it best, and he can get in cahoots with the Secret
Service people in New York. Bobby is the kind of man who doesn't let
things go wrong. When he bores a hole in the mountain it comes out on
the opposite side just exactly where he meant it to,--when he swings a
bridge across a river it stays swung,--there is no giving way of
supports and undermining from washings,--Bobby knows. If you telegraph
him, he'll have detectives there all right and they will have the
necessary warrants and handcuffs, too."
"Well then, Bobby it is!" and Jeffrey Tucker quickly took Mr. Kean's
address. Next the conductors were interviewed, and those good Americans
quickly complied with any and every request. A long and explicit
telegram was written to the gentleman who did not let mistakes happen,
another one sent to the chief of police, in case Mr. Kean should not be
at home to receive the telegram, (Jeffrey Tucker being the kind of man
who did not let mistakes occur, either,) and then there was nothing to
do but sit quietly in the Pullman and wait for the train to steam into
New York.
It seemed to Judy to be hours and hours, although the time certainly
passed pleasantly with the friends she made on the train. She and Mr.
Tucker talked to everybody except the two sporty looking individuals,
and they would have had the audacity to talk with them if they had been
given the slightest encouragement. But the Misels kept their backs
studiously turned to their fellow travelers and did not court
sociability.