A SKELETON KEY
It was dusk when Josie fitted the great brass key into the door of the
Higgledy-Piggledy Shop. The place looked very large and bleak and Josie
felt small and lonesome, but she said to herself that it was no time to
give way to such weakness. She did not switch on the light, although
the amateur plumbers and electricians had not left until everything was
in O. K. condition. Instead she produced a small search light and with
its aid went to work on a mysterious bit of business. Peering along the
shelves, she put her hand on the book of her father’s notes, the one
with the home-made binding. Diving into the tray of a small trunk, she
produced a handful of papers covered with cryptic hieroglyphics similar
to those found in the precious notebook. With deft fingers she ripped
the back from the notebook, carefully placing the contents in a large
pocket in her petticoat. Securely pinning it with a huge safety pin,
then smoothing out the loose papers she had extracted from the trunk,
she proceeded to do a clever and neat job of amateur book binding
sewing on the old back of the notebook. Then she put the book between
the ponderous tomes where it had been before.
Patting her pocket where reposed the precious notes and also the
huge brass key which she had removed from the door after locking it,
Josie then made her way by the packing boxes and debris, that all the
willing workers had not been able to clear away on that busy Saturday
afternoon, back to the bedroom. Her little iron bed was made up with
fresh linen and pretty dimity spread and looked very inviting to the
tired girl.
“I’d certainly like to tumble in,” she yawned, “but this is no time for
sleep. Father always said: ‘Work first and then sleep!’”
Shutting the door to the partition which divided her bedroom from the
shop, she turned on the shaded reading light which Danny had placed at
the head of the bed, under the directions of Mary Louise, and drawing
up a low chair she unpinned the notes and drew them from her pocket.
“Dear Father!” she sighed. “What a man he was!”
Detective O’Gorman had taught his daughter the code in which he made
his notes and Josie could read the hieroglyphics as easily as she
could printed English. She could write it as rapidly as a first-class
stenographer can short-hand. Turning over the leaves she came to one
that riveted her attention.
“Exactly!” she muttered. “He could have been a great novelist if he had
not have been so busy being a great detective. There never were such
accurate, concise descriptions. Here are their aliases too: my, what a
lot of names they can answer to--and as many crimes as names if one can
only catch them in the act. They have so many confederates they always
go scot free. Won’t my father be proud of me if I am the one to get
them? I mean to be that one, too.”
She put the notes back in her pocket, pinning them carefully as before.
Then she produced from another pocket a small revolver which she
examined critically.
“I’m not going to use it, but it must be ready--in case--”
She stopped suddenly.
“What’s that? Tenants stumping around overhead? Rats in the
wainscoting? There are rats.” She listened intently, switching off the
light hanging over her bed.
“That old-fashioned brass lock will be easy to open with a skeleton
key,” she decided. “If they are coming here it will be only a moment
before they are in the room.” Grabbing her tell-tale hat and gloves and
small bag, she dived under the bed, the pretty dimity spread hanging
down on the side making a curtain for her retreat.
The town clock was striking twelve as the skeleton key finally unlocked
the door. Josie lay very still listening eagerly.
“We might just as well switch on the light,” said a man’s voice.
“A bit imprudent, but, of course, nobody in this stupid old town would
notice.” The voice was undoubtedly Mrs. Markle’s.
“I fancy everybody, even the police force, is asleep by now,” laughed
the man.
Josie felt for her detective’s badge pinned in the breast pocket of her
dress, and smiled happily in her retreat behind the dimity spread.
“Here is the book, Felix, exactly where that dull little O’Gorman girl
put it. Do you think you will ever be able to make out the code?”
“Sure! There is no code I can’t work. It may take time but it will be
great fun to find out what that old devil O’Gorman thought of us. It
will be helpful too to find out exactly what he knew; and think of
destroying all trace of our identity.”
“Umhum! I am dull and my father was a devil,” mused Josie. “Two more
reasons for catching you red-handed, you Markles!”
“Here are the scissors,” went on the rich voice of Mrs. Markle. “Let
me rip out the notes, Clumsy! Here, these blank papers can be stitched
in their place. The girl will no doubt not think of opening this book
for weeks, maybe never, but she knows the code and might want to read
the notes sooner. There you are! Now put it back in between those big
books. Now shall we be off?”
“Let’s look around now that we are here. This is a clever idea of that
O’Gorman girl’s, to run this shop. Are you sure she is so dull?” asked
the man.
“Sure! She has a fish eye and a face like a dumpling.”
“O’Gorman had too, and he wasn’t dull,” said Mr. Markle with some doubt
in his tone.
“Oh, trust me, Felix, to know when a woman has sense. I don’t believe
she even has any humor.”
Josie smothered a giggle and drew her little revolver from her pocket.
The interlopers were pushing open the door of her bedroom and without
further ceremony switched on the light. The girl could see their feet
from her hiding place, and exceedingly shapely, well shod feet they
were.
“A pretty snug place,” said Felix. “Nothing worth lifting, however.”
“Not now, but wait until they begin to stock up with antique furniture
and jewelry and what not. There will be plenty then. I am going to give
them lots of work so I can come here often. One will get to know very
desirable persons through these girls. That little soft fool, Mary
Louise, knows everybody and she is very much interested in this venture
and is going to push it for all it is worth. My first job for them is
laundering those napkins I have just finished.”
“Oh, what a clever pet it is!” and Felix stopped and kissed Hortense.
“A man never had such a partner before, I am sure.”
“What an old goose you are!” Her voice was as pleased and affectionate
as any woman’s might have been who had won her husband’s approbation by
some wifely act.
“Come on now! Let’s get out. We have what we came for and I am eager to
get busy on that old devil O’Gorman’s code.”
They switched off the light and locked the door carefully. Josie
scuttled from under her bed and ran to the front window. Peeping
down into the faintly lighted street she saw the Markles walking off
affectionately, arm in arm.
“And poor man, he is going to master Father’s code so he can read
Francis Thompson’s ‘The Hound of Heaven,’” and Josie allowed herself a
good laugh.
The notes Mr. Markle had so carefully carried off were nothing more
than Josie’s lessons she had written out when her father was teaching
her the code.
“Maybe it will do them some good,” said the girl with a feeling akin
to sympathy in her heart. “I feel kind of sorry for the poor wretches.
Father said he always felt sorry for criminals.”
As the girl undressed she recited “The Hound of Heaven.”
“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd tears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat--and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet--
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’”