The Window at the White Cat | Page 2

he--er--drink?"
"Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything of that sort by his physician. He played bridge for money, but I--believe he was rather lucky." She colored uncomfortably.
"Married, I suppose?" I asked casually.
"He had been. His wife died when I--" She stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her husband, after all! Oddly enough, the sun came out just at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet, on the dusty rug with its tobacco-bitten scars.
"It is my father," she said simply. I was absurdly relieved.
But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation from a new angle.
"You are absolutely at a loss to account for his disappearance?"
"Absolutely."
"You have had no word from him?"
"None."
"He never went away before for any length of time, without telling you?"
"No. Never. He was away a great deal, but I always knew where to find him." Her voice broke again and her chin quivered. I thought it wise to reassure her.
"Don't let us worry about this until we are sure it is serious," I said. "Sometimes the things that seem most mysterious have the simplest explanations. He may have written and the letter have miscarried or--even a slight accident would account--" I saw I was blundering; she grew white and wide-eyed. "But, of course, that's unlikely too. He would have papers to identify him."
"His pockets were always full of envelopes and things like that," she assented eagerly.
"Don't you think I ought to know his name?" I asked. "It need not be known outside of the office, and this is a sort of confessional anyhow, or worse. People tell things to their lawyer that they wouldn't think of telling the priest."
Her color was slowly coming back, and she smiled.
"My name is Fleming, Margery Fleming," she said after a second's hesitation, "and my father, Mr. Allan Fleming, is the man. Oh, Mr. Knox, what are we going to do? He has been gone for more than a week!"
No wonder she had wished to conceal the identity of the missing man. So Allan Fleming was lost! A good many highly respectable citizens would hope that he might never be found. Fleming, state treasurer, delightful companion, polished gentleman and successful politician of the criminal type. Outside in the corridor the office boy was singing under his breath. "Oh once there was a miller," he sang, "who lived in a mill." It brought back to my mind instantly the reform meeting at the city hall a year before, where for a few hours we had blown the feeble spark of protest against machine domination to a flame. We had sung a song to that very tune, and with this white-faced girl across from me, its words came hack with revolting truth. It had been printed and circulated through the hall.
"Oh, once there was a capitol That sat on a hill, As it's too big to steal away It's probably there still. The ring's hand in the treasury And Fleming with a sack. They take it out in wagon loads And never bring it back."
I put the song out of my mind with a shudder.
"I am more than sorry," I said. I was, too; whatever he may have been, he was her father. "And of course there are a number of reasons why this ought not to be known, for a time at least. After all, as I say, there may be a dozen simple explanations, and--there are exigencies in politics--"
"I hate politics!" she broke in suddenly. "The very name makes me ill. When I read of women wanting to--to vote and all that, I wonder if they know what it means to have to be polite to dreadful people, people who have even been convicts, and all that. Why, our last butler had been a prize fighter!" She sat upright with her hands on the arms of the chair. "That's another thing, too, Mr. Knox. The day after father went away, Carter left. And he has not come back."
"Carter was the butler?"
"Yes."
"A white man?"
"Oh, yes."
"And he left without giving you any warning?"
"Yes. He served luncheon the day after father went away, and the maids say he went away immediately after. He was not there that evening to serve dinner, but--he came back late that night, and got into the house, using his key to the servants' entrance. He slept there, the maids said, but he was gone before the servants were up and we have not seen him since."
I made a mental note of the butler.
"We'll go back to Carter again," I said. "Your father has not been ill, has he? I mean recently."
She considered.
"I can not think of anything except that he had a tooth pulled." She was quick to resent my smile.