A HINT FEOM ANNIE BOYLE
Josie was late. In the breakfast room she found but one guest besides
herself, an old lady with a putty face. But there was also a young girl
seated at a near-by table who was grumbling and complaining to the maid
who waited upon her.
"It ain't my fault, Miss Annie," protested the maid. "The cook says you
ordered your breakfast half an hour ago, an' then went away. We tried
to keep it hot for you, and if it's cold it's your own fault."
"I was talking with Mr. Kauffman," pouted the girl, who seemed a mere
child. "I've a good notion to order another breakfast."
"If you do, cook will tell your father."
This threat seemed effective. The girl, with a sour face, began eating,
and the maid came over to take Josie's order. The tables were near
enough for conversation, so when the maid had gone to the kitchen Josie
said sweetly:
"That Mr. Kauffman's a nice man, isn't he? I don't wonder you forgot
your breakfast. Isn't this Miss Annie Boyle?"
"Yes," was the answer. "Do you know Abe Kauffman?"
"I've met him," said Josie.
"He an' Pa used to be good friends," said Annie Boyle, who did not seem
at all shy in conversing with strangers, "but Pa's soured on him
lately. I don't know why. P'raps because Abe is a German, an'
everybody's tryin' to fling mud at the Germans. But Abe says the
German-Americans are the back-bone of this country, and as good
citizens as any."
"He don't seem to like the war, though," remarked Josie carelessly.
"Well, do you know why? Abe's had two brothers and five cousins in the
German army, and all of 'em's been killed. That's why he's sore on the
war. Says his brothers deserved what they got for not comin' to America
an' bein' American citizens, like Abe is. But I know he's dreadful
sorry 'bout their bein' killed just the same. German folks seem to
think a good, deal of their families, an' so jest to mention the war
makes Abe rave an' swear."
"That's foolish," said Josie. "He'll get himself into trouble."
"Abe's no fool; he knows how far he can go, an' when to stop talkin'.
He'll cuss the war, but you never hear him cuss'n' the United States.
He told me, just a while ago, that the war'll make him rich, 'cause
he's smart enough to use it for his own good. But he said I mustn't
talk about that," she added, with a sudden realization that Josie was
regarding her curiously. "Abe an' me's chums, an' what he says is
between us. P'raps he was only jokin', 'bout gettin' rich. Abe's a
great joker, anyhow."
That this was a rather lame retraction was apparent even to Annie
Boyle. She gave Josie a suspicious look, but Josie's face was
absolutely expressionless. The maid was placing her order before her
and she calmly began her breakfast. A moment later, the old lady rose
and tottered out of the room.
"Gee! I wish I had her money," remarked Annie Boyle, looking after her.
"She's got a wad of stocks an' just has to cut coupons off 'em. Lives
here easy an' don't worry. If I had her dough I'd--" She stopped
suddenly.
"Money's a good thing to have," said Josie. "There's Tom Linnet, now;
he's going to buy a cigar store."
"How'd you know?" asked Annie quickly.
"Why, he told me."
"Oh; are you an' Tom friends?"
"We're not enemies. Tom's in luck to have so much money."
"Wall," said Annie, "he's a fool to flash it all of a sudden. Pa took
him for night clerk when he didn't have a cent--and it wasn't so long
ago, either. He gets his board an' five dollars a week. Folks are goin'
to wonder where he got all his fine clothes, an' them di'monds, an' how
he can afford to buy Barker's cigar store. I asked Abe about it an' Abe
says he guesses Tom got the money from an aunt that jus' died."
"Perhaps he did."
"Well, where'd he get the aunt? Tom's got two brothers that are
peddlers an' a father who's a track-walker, an' he's got a mother what
takes in washin'. If there's an aunt, she's some relation to the rest
of the family, so why didn't she leave them some money, as well as
Tom?"
"I don't know, but I'm glad Tom is so well fixed," answered Josie,
rather absently, for her eye had fallen on the menu card beside her
plate, and the menu card had somehow conveyed a new thought to her
mind. She picked it up and examined it critically. Part of it was
printed in a queer, open-faced type--all capitals--while the balance of
the list of dishes had been written in with pen and ink. These printed
bills would do for a good many breakfasts, for they mentioned only the
staples, while the supplementary dishes were day by day added in
writing.
"I wonder who prints your bills-of-fare?" she said to Annie Boyle.
"Why do you wonder that?" demanded Annie.
"I like the type, and I want to get some cards printed from it."
"We print our own bills," said the child. "There's a press an' type an'
the fixings in a room in the basement, an' Tom Linnet used to print a
new card every day for all the three meals. He did it at night, you
know, between two an' six o'clock, when nobody's ever around the hotel.
They was swell bills-of-fare, but Tom claimed he couldn't do so much
printin', although that's part o' the night clerk's duty, an' Pa
thought it used up too much good cardboard at war-time prices. So now
we jus' get out a new bill once a week, an' write the extry dishes on
it."
"That does very well," said Josie. "Does Tom still do the printing?"
"Yes. Pa hired him as night clerk 'cause he'd worked in a printin'
office an' could do printin'. But since Tom got rich he don't like to
work, an the bills ain't printed as good as they used to be."
"This looks pretty good to me," said Josie, eyeing it approvingly.
"I guess, if Tom wasn't goin' to leave, Pa would fire him," asserted
Annie, rising from the table. "Good mornin', miss; I'll see you again,
if you're stoppin' here."
After she had gone, Josie finished her breakfast thoughtfully. Three
distinct facts she had gleaned from Annie Boyle's careless remarks.
First, Tom Linnet had acquired sudden riches. Second, the type used on
the hotel menu cards was identically the same that the disloyal
circulars had been printed from. Third, between the hours of two and
five in the mornings, the night clerk's duties permitted him to be
absent from the hotel office.
Josie decided that Annie Boyle had not been admitted to the inner
confidences of the conspirators, and that Tom Linnet was their tool and
had been richly paid for whatever services he had performed. She was
now gathering "clues" so fast that it made her head swim. "That chance
meeting with Kauffman, at Kasker's," she told herself, "led me directly
into the nest of traitors. I'm in luck. Not that I'm especially clever,
but because they're so astonishingly reckless. That's usually the way
with criminals; they close every loop-hole but the easiest one to peep
through--and then imagine they're safe from discovery!"