A Court of Inquiry | Page 3

outside the door, looking into the dimness. I could not find the scarf. I would not turn up the light. I searched and searched vainly.
"Let me give you something to see by," said the Skeptic, and before I could prevent him he had bolted into the room and turned up the lamp. "Here it is," said he, and caught up some article of apparel from the dressing-table. "Oh, no--this must be--a sash," said he, and dropped it. He stood looking about him.
"Go away," said I sternly. "I'll find it."
"I don't think you will," said he, "in this--er--this--pandemonium."
I walked over to the dressing-table and put out the lamp. "Now will you go away?" said I.
"You were expeditious," said he, making for the hall, and stumbling over something as he went, "but not quite expeditious enough. Never mind about the scarf. I think I'll let the Philosopher take the Girl Guest to walk--the Gay Lady's good enough for me. I say"--as he moved toward the staircase and I followed--"don't you think we'd better move the Philosopher in to-morrow?"
"To-morrow," said I with assumed conviction, "it will be different. Please reserve your judgment."
I tried to reserve my own. I did not go into Althea's room again until the next evening at the same hour. I found ten articles strewn where five had lain before. A bottle of something green had been tipped over upon the white embroidered cover of my dressing-table. A spot of ink adorned the edge of the sheet, and the condition of the bed showed plainly that an afternoon nap upon it had ended with some letter writing. I think Althea's shoes had been dusted with one of my best towels. I did not stay to see what else had been done, but I could not help noting three more brown scratches on my white wall.
* * * * *
At the end of the week Althea went away. When she had gone I went up to her room. I had been at work there for some time when a tap at the door interrupted me. The Skeptic stood outside with a hoe and a bushel-basket.
"Want some help?" offered he.
"It's not gentlemanly of you to notice," said I weakly.
"I know it," said he. He came in and inverted the bushel-basket on the hearth and sat down upon it. "But the door was always open, and I couldn't help seeing. If it wasn't shoes and a kimono in the middle of the floor it was a raincoat and rubber boots. Sometimes I stopped to count the things on that dressing----"
"It was very ungentlemanly of you!"
"Guilty," he admitted again--but not meekly. There was a sparkle in his eye. "But it isn't often, you see, that a man gets a chance to take notes like this. An open door--it's an invitation to look in. Now, the Gay Lady doesn't leave her door open, except by chance, but I know how it looks inside--by the Gay Lady herself."
"How?" I questioned, my curiosity getting the better of me. "I mean--how can you tell by the look of the Gay Lady that she keeps her room in order?--for she certainly does."
"I knew it," said he triumphantly.
"But how?"
"And I know that you keep yours in order."
"But how?"
"Oh, you think we are creatures of no discernment," said he. "But we can see a few things. When a woman, no matter how pretty, pins the back of her collar with a common brass pin----"
I felt of the back of my white stock. Of course I never use them, but his eyes are so keen and----
He laughed. "The Philosopher liked Miss Althea."
"She has many lovely qualities----" I began.
"Of course. That sort always have. It's their beautiful good-nature that makes them so easy on themselves. Er--by-the-way----Well, well----"
The Skeptic's gaze had fallen upon the brown marks on the white wall, above the lamp. There were now twenty-seven in all. He got up from his bushel-basket and walked over to them. He stood and studied them for a minute in silence. Finally he turned around, looked at me, made a dive for the bushel-basket and the hoe, and hurried out of the door.
"I'll bring up a pail of whitewash," he called.
* * * * *
I shall ask Althea again some time. She really has a great many lovely qualities, as I said to the Skeptic. But there is a little room I have, which I do not call a guest-room, into which I shall put Althea. It has a sort of chocolate paper on the walls, on which I do not think the marks of matches would much show, and it has a general suitableness to this particular guest. I have sometimes harboured small boys there, for the toilet appointments are done in red on brown linen, and curling irons could be laid on them