A BOARDING HOUSE HERO
When Major Simpson received the frantic message from Mrs. Leslie
informing him the watermelons had come, for a moment he stood aghast,
not knowing at all what she meant. Slowly a wary smile overspread his
rotund countenance and he exclaimed:
“By golly! There’s a woman for you! I’ll bet my gold-headed cane
that somebody had caught on to the lemons and she realized I would
have intelligence enough to grasp her meaning if she substituted
watermelons. Of course--of course--picnics back in the grove behind
the church--ice cold watermelons--ice cold lemonade. Even had she said
fried chicken I should have been wise. Well, well! I must not neglect
my digestion for this little shoplifter. Since she is safe in the hands
of my good friend Polly Bainbridge I can eat my dinner in peace. I
wonder whether or not the stolen goods are still on the wretch. I fancy
not, but once we get our clutches on her she will divulge where she
has hidden the loot.”
Major Simpson was star boarder in the very select house run by Mrs.
Celeste White. The place was called “Maison Blanche”. Mrs. White seemed
to think that her name Celeste gave her sufficient reason for assuming
a French air. For that reason at Maison Blanche the bill of fare was
always the menu. The baking dishes were casseroles, the napkins,
serviettes. She made desperate efforts to have old Aunt Maria called
the chef but that worthy person objected.
“No’m! I ain’t no shelf an’ I ain’t gonter be laid on none fer many a
day yit. I’m a plain cook as fer as what you call me is consarned but
I’m plain an’ fancy as fer as cookin’ is consarned. An’ what I cook air
a gonter be called by the right name s’long as it air in my kitchen.
When it gits as fer as the precinct of the butler’s pantry it kin
begin ter change its name an’ not befo’. I cooks maccaroni an’ cheese
in a bakin’ dish but Miss White she make a pass over it an’ by the
time the boa’ders gits settled in they seats my maccaroni an’ cheese
air fergetti O’ Gratty Ann. I don’t know who this here Gratty Ann is
but she sho mus’ a been a great one fer the eatin’s since she got so
many things named after her. They even got pertatters named her name
only Miss White, she calls ’em pums. This Gratty Ann an’ that there
Cassy Roll got they patent hitched on ter mos’ eve’y thing these days.
In ol’ times Sally Lum an’ Brown Betty wa’ the onlies oomans what got
they names in the cook book an’ now them two has ter take a back seat.
The times air sho quare. Miss White she don’t even let cawfy be plain
cawfy, that is when they dishes it up in them little doll baby cups,
but she got ter name it after some low flung pusson called Demmy Task.
I don’t know who Demmy Task is but she mus’ be a stingy one.”
In the kitchen Aunt Maria ruled supreme, while in the parlor Major
Simpson was monarch of all he surveyed--from the great Mrs. Celeste
White herself down to the humble little Miss Willie Watts who rented
Mrs. White’s attic room which she pleased to call a studio. Here Miss
Willie made crayon portraits of the living and the dead for a living,
and for pleasure she painted fancy pictures illustrating striking bits
in mythology as well as her favorite songs. These pictures painted
merely for the love of what the poor little woman called “her art” she
never sold, because nobody ever bought them. But she was very generous
with them at Christmas and on birthdays and weddings. According to Miss
Willie Watts everything must be decorated--no space go to waste. Art
abhorred a bare space as much as Nature did a vacuum.
Major Simpson was the recipient of several of Miss Willie’s efforts.
“The Lovers’ Tryst,” painted in a wooden mixing bowl, was touching
indeed. Of course the poor man never did know what he was expected to
do with a wooden bowl so he did nothing with it--just had it around.
The small rolling pin tastefully decorated in new born cupids and
suspended by silken cords and tassels attached to the handles, he
guessed was meant for a cravat holder and so the vivid pink cupids
peeped out from behind the old gentleman’s sober ties, constantly
reminding him that the fool that the cynics tell us is born every
minute may also be a lover.
On this evening Major Simpson was in his glory. The paying lady guests
at Maison Blanche were gathered together in the parlor, listening in
wrapt admiration while the star boarder recounted with becoming modesty
the almost superhuman intelligence he had exercised in tracking down
the desperate criminal, little Josie O’Gorman. Of course he named no
names for fear that by some means the terrible truth might be conveyed
to his victim and she might escape.
“How thrilling!” trilled a sweet young thing of some forty summers.
“Oh, Major, you are wonderfully clever! I wish I might see you work.
How will you proceed now? Will you swear out a warrant and go and
arrest the wicked creature?”
“No, no, not yet! It is most important to round up all of the girl’s
confederates. In the mean time she is safe in the apartment of my
friend, the widow from my county--”
“A widow!” exclaimed Miss Willie Watts. “So she is a widow?”
Miss Willie was a contented little woman and envied no woman anything
except a dead husband. In her heart she had always longed to be a
widow. Her imagination could not picture for her a live husband but she
could easily see herself in a widow’s ruche with a long crepe veil. Her
imagination even carved a name on the tombstone marking the grave over
which she mourned so piteously. It was not always the same name, for
Miss Willie allowed herself to be fickle in regard to her imaginary
dead husbands; but for many months now she had thought how blissful it
would be to be called the Widow Simpson and how handsome the name Major
Sylvester Simpson would look on an imposing marble shaft--“beloved
husband of Willie Watts”--or should it be Wilhelmina? Willie would look
so boyish on a tombstone.
Had Major Simpson realized the little artist was regarding him in “that
bony light” no doubt he would have refused to let his cravats hang over
the cupid covered rolling pin, but he merely counted her as one of the
many lovely ladies who did him homage at the Maison Blanche, listening
to his stories and applauding his cleverness.
“Burnett & Burnett could hardly get along without you,” murmured Miss
Willie, thinking of herself as cruel even to imagine the efficient
righthand man of the department store as carved on a tombstone.
“Well, they won’t have to. I could retire to-morrow if I chose, but the
work of a detective is so engrossing that once one has engaged in it,
it is impossible to relinquish it.”
“Have you always been one?” asked the sweet young thing.
“Not officially--but at heart, always.”
“I wonder you did not get in Government Secret Service. You would have
been invaluable,” cooed one of the ladies.
“Ahem! Yes, but Burnett & Burnett needed me.”
“Of course--but how noble of you to stay in Wakely when the logical
place for you to be was Washington,” declared Miss Willie. Then she
asked vaguely: “Do they bury Secret Service agents in Arlington?”
Nobody knew, so nobody answered, and Miss Willie blushed furiously,
fearing that Major Simpson might guess the foolish thing that was in
her mind when she asked the seemingly inconsequent question. Miss
Willie had a way of breaking into a conversation following her own
train of thought rather than the subject under discussion, and the
guests at Maison Blanche were accustomed to her peculiarity and paid
little attention to it. One solemn looking old lady, who said little
but missed nothing, gave a deep gurgling chuckle. This old lady’s
name was Mrs. Trescott. She had occupied a small back bedroom at Mrs.
Celeste Waite’s for as many years as Major Simpson had occupied the
large front one.
Mrs. Trescott’s chuckle was fortunately drowned by the dinner gong.
The boarders trooped in and fell on the _purree de pois_ with the same
gusto they would have employed had it been called plain pea soup. As
soon as the first pangs of hunger were satisfied the conversation of
the parlor was resumed.
“But, Major Simpson, you haven’t told us what this naughty girl looks
like,” said one of the ladies. “Of course she is beautiful and charming
and very chic.”
“No, I don’t think she is any of these things,” said the Major. “She
is quite insignificant looking and her clothes are not of the latest
style, though they are of very rich material. Her shoes are quite good
and she is intellectual and well educated; speaks French with a good
accent and reads Greek. Those high-brow crooks are the worst of all and
the hardest to catch.”
“_Boeuf a la mode_ to-day,” said Mrs. White by way of informing the
assembled company that French with an accent was eaten at her table if
not spoken. And one of the young men at the far end of the room said in
a hoarse whisper:
“That means biled beef.” But Mrs. Celeste White never heard anything
she did not want to hear.
There were three persons at Maison Blanche that might have been called
thorns in the flesh or flies in the amber. They were two frivolous
young men and one young woman who utterly refused to play the game of
its being a French _pension_ and who openly made game of Major Simpson,
calling him Sherlocko and asking him where Dr. Watsonia was. They had
all their fun to themselves, however, as the other inmates loved to
look upon their dinner as table d’hote and were sure that Major Simpson
in flesh and blood was much cleverer than Conan Doyle’s fictitious
detective. Mrs. Trescott was the only person who derived any amusement
from the bad manners of the three young persons and she could not help
giving her famous gurgling chuckle when any of their witty remarks
touched her risibles.
“Did you say pois meant cat?” one of the men asked.
“No, peas! Why?” from the girl.
“Oh, I thought it must mean cat or maybe kitten because it’s called
purry and it sure does purr as it is taken in out of the cold. Listen!”
Everybody involuntarily stopped eating and listened except one deaf old
lady who was drinking her pea soup with such gusto that the noise she
made did sound ridiculously like the purring of a cat.
Mrs. Trescott chuckled and the three naughty ones giggled.
“Oh, Mrs. White, you should hear the thrilling things Major Simpson has
been telling us about a wicked shoplifter at Burnett & Burnett’s,” said
one of the ladies as the soup dishes were removed and there was a lull
in the business of eating.
“Shoplifter?” asked one of the young men known as Jimmy Blaine. Jimmy
was a cub reporter on a morning paper and his life was lived with his
ear cocked for news. “Do tell us about it Sher--Major Simpson.”
The Major, forgetting all about Jimmy’s profession and glad of the
chance to entertain a new audience, one that had heretofore been a
scoffing one, plunged again into the tale of how he had run down Josie
O’Gorman to her lair. He waxed eloquent over the account of Mrs. Leslie
and her doughnuts and coffee, even mentioning the pink parasol he had
given that lady in her childhood.
“And now all we have to do is round up the whole gang through this slip
of a girl. She thinks she is clever but she is no match for Sylvester
Simpson.” The Major sat back and beamed on his listeners, visibly
swelling with pride.
“Hope he don’t bust on me,” Jimmy’s side partner, Kit Williams,
whispered to the naughty young woman who was always ready to giggle.
“Tell us the name of this awful young person,” begged Jimmy.
“Oh no, young man! When you get to be as old as I am and as experienced
you will realize that one mustn’t tell names and tales too.”
At this juncture Aunt Maria poked her head in the dining room door and
announced:
“Miss Celeste, Major Simpson’s phone air a ringin’ lak sompen wa’ on
fiah. I’d go up an’ answer it myse’f if it would do any good--but when
folks wants Major Simpson they wants him an’ I reckon they couldn’t use
no substerchute.”
“Ah, no doubt a development!” said the Major as he hurried to his room
to quiet the persistent ringing of the telephone bell.
He returned before the next course of the table d’hote was served.
His genial pink face was beaming and like Kilmansegg, father of the
immortal one of the golden leg:
“Seem’d washing his hands with invisible soap
In imperceptible water.”
“Just as I said--a development,” he declared. “It was Mr. Theodore
Burnett on the telephone. He informs me that the articles, purloined
from his establishment this forenoon, have been returned.”
“Oh, how thrilling! Did he say by whom?” asked the coy one.
“That was not necessary. I did not even ask him who returned them. I
knew.”