The Window at the White Cat | Page 6

Fred," I said earnestly. "Keep that to yourself, will you? And you too, Edith? It's a queer story, and I'll tell you sometime."
As we left the dining-room Edith put her hand on my shoulder.
"Don't get mixed up with those people, Jack," she advised. "Margery's a dear girl but her father practically killed Henry Butler, and Henry Butler married my cousin."
"You needn't make it a family affair," I protested. "I have only seen the girl once."
But Edith smiled. "I know what I know," she said. "How extravagant of you to send Bobby that enormous hobby-horse!"
"The boy has to learn to ride sometime. In four years he can have a pony, and I'm going to see that he has it. He'll be eight by that time."
Edith laughed.
"In four years!" she said, "Why, in four years you'll--" then she stopped.
"I'll what?" I demanded, blocking the door to the library.
"You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unattractive man who gets past forty without being sought and won by some woman. You'll be buying--"
"I will be thirty-nine," I said with dignity, "and as far as being sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed by Fred's misery that I don't intend to marry at all. If I do--if I do --it will be to some girl who turns and runs the other way every time she sees me."
"The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed. "What's that thing Fred's always quoting: 'A woman is like a shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.' "
"Upon my word!" I said indignantly. "And you are a woman!"
"I'm different," she retorted. "I'm only a wife and mother."
In the library Fred got up from his desk and gathered up his papers. "I can't think with you two whispering there," he said, "I'm going to the den."
As he slammed the door into his workroom Edith picked up her skirts and scuttled after him.
"How dare you run away like that?" she called. "You promised me--" The door closed behind her.
I went over and spoke through the panels.
"'Follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows'--oh, wife and mother!" I called.
"For heaven's sake, Edith," Fred's voice rose irritably. "If you and Jack are going to talk all evening, go and sit on his knee and let me alone. The way you two flirt under my nose is a scandal. Do you hear that, Jack?"
"Good night, Edith," I called, "I have left you a kiss on the upper left hand panel of the door. And I want to ask you one more question: what if I fly from the woman and she doesn't follow?"
"Thank your lucky stars," Fred called in a muffled voice, and I left them to themselves.
I had some work to do at the office, work that the interview with Hunter had interrupted, and half past eight hat night found me at my desk. But my mind strayed from the papers before me. After a useless effort to concentrate, I gave it up as useless, and by ten o'clock I was on the street again, my evening wasted, the papers in the libel case of the Star against the Eagle untouched on my desk, and I the victim of an uneasy apprehension that took me, almost without volition, to the neighborhood of the Fleming house on Monmouth Avenue. For it had occurred to me that Miss Fleming might not have left the house that day as she had promised, might still be there, liable to another intrusion by the mysterious individual who had a key to the house.
It was a relief, consequently, when I reached its corner, to find no lights in the building. The girl had kept her word. Assured of that, I looked at the house curiously. It was one of the largest in the city, not wide, but running far back along the side street; a small yard with a low iron fence and a garage, completed the property. The street lights left the back of the house in shadow, and as I stopped in the shelter of the garage, I was positive that I heard some one working with a rear window of the empty house. A moment later the sounds ceased and muffled footsteps came down the cement walk. The intruder made no attempt to open the iron gate; against the light I saw him put a leg over the low fence, follow it up with the other, and start up the street, still with peculiar noiselessness of stride. He was a short, heavy-shouldered fellow in a cap, and his silhouette showed a prodigious length of arm.
I followed, I don't mind saying in some excitement. I had a vision of grabbing him from behind and leading him--or pushing him, under the circumstances, in triumph to the police station, and another mental picture, not