JOSIE SETS A TRAP
Jimmy Blaine did not now just what he was expecting but he knew it
was not a quiet, business-like young person like Josie who showed
no shyness and at the same time no brazenness, but with the utmost
composure stated the case and put it up to the management whether
or not it was worth while to pursue the scoop unearthed by the cub
reporter. As soon as Jimmy breezed in, all on fire for more sensational
news, Mr. Cox introduced him to the visitor. Josie gave him a boyish
handshake and then plunged into the matter in hand.
“In the first place I am a detective, Josie O’Gorman from Washington
and late of Dorfield. My father--”
“Not the O’Gorman!” from Mr. Cox.
“Yes,” beamed Josie. “I am here with Burnett & Burnett to catch the
shoplifters that have been busy lately.”
Jimmy surreptitiously produced a pencil and endeavored to get hold of a
linen cuff, but Josie stopped him:
“Please, Mr. Blaine, none of this is for publication as yet. You can
get the whole story in good time and it will be a good one I am sure. I
have come to the newspaper for help because in my experience the live
wires are on newspapers and not on the police force. I cannot say for
sure that the police of Wakely would bungle, but I can say that the
police of Dorfield would and have. My father believed in the press as a
great detective power and I have had more help from a young newspaper
man in Dorfield than all the police; in spite of the fact that Chief
Lonsdale of Dorfield is my very dear friend. But this young Dulaney--”
“Not Bob Dulaney of the --th Regiment?” cried Jimmy.
“Yes--Bob Dulaney!”
“Gee! This is great! Shake again!” cried Jimmy. “I’ve spent many a
night lying in the mud near Bob, over there.”
“Then you know Danny Dexter, too?”
“Know him? Know him like a book! Why Danny was my Father Confessor.
Many a time he’s told me what’s what. You see, I was the kid of the
regiment and some of the fellows seemed to think it was up to them to
make me walk chalk. I walked it all right.”
“We’ve no doubt you did,” twinkled Mr. Cox.
“Well, Danny Dexter married my best friend; but that’s another story
and we’d better get back to business. Please let me say that I’m glad
I came to the newspaper for cooperation as I’m pretty sure a friend of
Bob Dulaney and Danny Dexter is going to be on the job and deliver the
goods,” said Josie.
Jimmy Blaine grinned happily, proud that his boss should hear him
praised through his friends.
Josie plunged into a recital of the Kambourians and how she had been
mystified by them from the moment she saw them on the street that first
Sunday in Wakely. She told of the baffling likeness the youth had to
someone she had seen before; of her finding board in the same apartment
house with them, by chance as it were; of Miss Mary Leslie’s encounter
with a beggar in the hallway and of her identification of this beggar
as the man whose habit it was to sit all day at the front entrance of
Burnett & Burnett’s. She then touched on Major Simpson’s laughable
mistake concerning her own character.
“He thinks I am the shoplifter and has had me under surveillance ever
since I have been employed by his firm. I only grasped this fact
yesterday. I knew he was following me around but I was conceited enough
to fancy it was my methods that interested him. I thought maybe he knew
I was my father’s daughter and was trying to learn something.”
Jimmy gasped:
“Then you are the one he thinks he has trapped.”
“The same! Thank you for making me such an irresistible vamp.”
“What! What! Is your story not true?” Mr. Cox looked both alarmed and
irritated.
“It’s practically what old Simpson told right out at the boarding house
table. Of course I kind of--er--er--embellished it a little, but the
story is almost as he gave it--doughnuts and coffee and all.”
“It is what Major Simpson thinks is true, but suppose I go on with
my tale. I am sure Mr. Blaine wrote the matter up quite correctly
according to newspaper etiquette--certainly there is no handle
for legal trouble,” soothed Josie. “If I don’t mind being called
a beautiful criminal I am sure Mrs. Leslie should not mind being
published as a fascinating widow. Anyhow, no names were used, so what’s
the difference?”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Mr. Cox, smoothing out his troubled brow.
“Pray proceed. Your story is most interesting.”
“Please tell us--did you return the goods to Mr. Burnett?” asked Jimmy.
Then Josie told of the twisted newspaper and her discovery of the lace
and gold mesh bag and her taking the articles to Mr. Burnett. She also
told of having tried to locate the haughty Miss Fauntleroy.
“And now--to sum up: Miss Fauntleroy is a fake and wishes to conceal
her address. The newspaper I bought from the old woman who sits at the
rear entrance of Burnett & Burnett’s had passed through the hands of
Miss Fauntleroy and she put the stolen goods in the paper and twisted
it up and returned it to the old woman.”
“Golly!” was all Jimmy could say. “And this Miss Fauntleroy?”
“It came to me all of a heap this very day that it was she to whom the
young Kambourian had the haunting likeness. I had seen her in the
store and been rather interested in her because she seemed different
from the other employees. She is evidently the daughter of the house
and the old beggar is none other than the mother, Madame Kambourian.
The father begs at the front door, the mother at the back, and the
daughter takes what suits her fancy and deposits it now with Mamma and
now with Papa.”
“But you said this Madame Kambourian was handsome,” objected Mr. Cox.
“Handsome and not at all old--hardly old enough to be the mother of the
youth.”
“Yes, but age is easier to assume than youth. She had on a clever
make-up. I wonder how much she takes in each day, selling papers and
never having the change.” Then Josie proceeded to tell all that she
had overheard through the open window, and how this was made possible
because of the janitor’s having been too lavish with the owner’s coal.
“Now we must round up the whole bunch. The boy is mixed up in it
somehow, though he is still a mystery to me. I could not gather just
exactly what he does to increase the family income but I am sure it is
something of which he is not proud. I feel rather sorry for the boy
because I am sure he’d like to cut the whole bunch and be honest. The
entire family is interesting to me. The man and woman seem so fond of
each other and so considerate. I’ll give you my word they are much more
loving than many married couples one sees.”
“You have not seen this Miss Fauntleroy there, have you?” asked Mr.
Cox. “You are not really sure that she belongs there.”
“Not so sure that I could swear to it in a court of justice, but so
sure that I could safely say I’d eat my hat if she is not,” laughed
Josie. “I think she must be twin sister to this boy. I don’t want to
brag, but when I get a hunch like this it is apt to be right.”
“Well then, let’s proceed on the assumption that Miss Fauntleroy is in
reality Miss Kambourian. What next?”
“Next we must plan a campaign of watchful waiting. I will take charge
of the interior of Burnett & Burnett’s, keeping a never closing eye on
Miss Fauntleroy. I must have help to look after the beggar at the front
and the one at the back as well as the Kambourian apartment, both front
and back.”
After much thought and discussion Mr. Cox and Josie, with the alert
intelligence of Jimmy Blaine to advise with them, decided the thing was
too big not to call in the assistance of the police. The blue coats
might bungle, but at least they could be set to watch the alley behind
the apartment house and report anything out of the way.
“We’ve got a new chief here who is not so hide bound as the old one
was; in fact, he is very down-to-date in his methods. I am sure he will
cooperate with us. Call him up, Jimmy, and see if he is at his office.
Sunday is no more of a holiday to the police than to newspaper men.”
The chief proved to be having a holiday in spite of its being Sunday,
but an alert young sergeant answered the call and even expressed
himself as willing to come to the newspaper office instead of having
the newspaper office come to him. The tale was quickly told. Sergeant
Tanner agreed with Josie on the plan of procedure.
“Who am I, anyhow, to take issue with the daughter of the great
O’Gorman? I reckon you are a chip off the old block, Miss, because if
you had not been you never would have caught that Markle bunch. We know
all about that here in Wakely. We know how you tracked down that chap
in Atlanta, too, the one who had put his step-sister-in-law in a bug
house and was planning to marry her and cop the fortune. We know about
the kidnapping case in Louisville, also. You see we aren’t named Wakely
for nothing. Anyhow we are awake enough to keep up with the detective
news.”
Josie could not help being flattered by Sergeant Tanner’s recognition
of merit but she merely blushed a little and said:
“It was all luck, absolutely nothing but luck that made me successful
in those cases.”
“I hope your luck will keep up,” said Mr. Cox.
“Of course plain clothes men are what we will need,” said the sergeant,
“and I think I’ll be one of them. Shall I take over the apartment house
and the entrances to Burnett & Burnett’s?”
“All right!” agreed Jimmy ruefully, “but what’ll I be doing? I want to
get in on this somewhere.”
“You might be an inside man and help me in the shop,” said Josie.
“Somebody must watch Major Simpson or he’ll bungle things.”
Sergeant Tanner was much amused over the poor Major and his bungling.
“He’s a terrible dub at detecting. If he had called us in on this
shoplifting trouble we might have helped him but old Simp thinks he
knows it all and he is as ignorant of the game as a new born babe.
Now, Miss O’Gorman, I’ll detail some sharp men to keep an eye on the
apartment house to-night and others to look after it every minute of
the day to-morrow.”
“And I’ll come in the shop and buy things and even make up to Miss
Fauntleroy,” suggested Jimmy.
“Don’t get too much in evidence,” cautioned Josie. “And Sergeant
Tanner, be sure to keep a watch over the blind beggar man in front. As
for the woman with papers, I have an idea she will not come to work for
a day or so, not in the guise of an old woman, at least.”
Josie felt it wise to see Mr. Burnett for a moment before returning
home to inform him how matters were progressing and to ask his approval
of the move she had made in taking both newspaper men and police force
into her confidence.
He approved highly. “Between the two you will be sure to get help. As
for poor old Simpson, I wish he would have a slight indisposition that
would keep him away from the store to-morrow. Hasn’t he messed things
up, though?”
“Perhaps not! Anyhow I am hoping the Kambourians are so foreign they
don’t read the American newspapers. The chances are they know nothing
of the publicity given the matter.”