Where Theres a Will | Page 9

that she looked pale. She was a nervous creature, although she could drink more spring water than any human being I ever saw, except one man, and he was a German.
Well, I promised to be careful. I've seen them fast before, and when a fat man starts to live on his own fat, like a bear, he gets about the same disposition.
Mrs. Biggs started back, but Miss Cobb waited a moment at the foot of the steps.
"Mr. Van Alstyne is back," she said, "but he came alone."
"Alone!" I repeated, staring at her in a sort of daze.
"Alone," she said solemnly, "and I heard him ask for Mr. Carter. It seems he started for here yesterday."
But I'd had time to get myself in hand, and if I had a chill up my spine she never knew it. As she started after Mrs. Biggs I saw Mr. Sam hurrying down the path toward the spring-house, and I knew my joint hadn't throbbed for nothing.
Mr. Sam came in and slammed the door behind him.
"What's this about Mr. Dick not being here?" he shouted.
"Well, he isn't. That's all there is to it, Mr. Van Alstyne," I said calmly. I am always calm when other people get excited. For that reason some people think my red hair is a false alarm, but they soon find out.
"But he MUST be here," said Mr. Van Alstyne. "I put him on the train myself yesterday, and waited until it started to be sure he was off."
"The only way to get Mr. Richard anywhere you want him to go," I said dryly, "is to have him nailed in a crate and labeled."
"Damned young scamp!" said Mr. Van Alstyne, although I have a sign in the spring-house, "Profanity not allowed."
"EXACTLY what was he doing when you last laid eyes on him?" I asked.
"He was on the train--"
"Was he alone?"
"Yes."
"Sitting?"
"No, standing. What the deuce, Minnie--"
"Waving out the window to you?"
"Of course not!" exclaimed Mr. Van Alstyne testily. "He was raising the window for a girl in the next seat."
"Precisely!" I said. "Would you know the girl well enough to trace her?"
"That's ridiculous, you know," he said trying to be polite. "Out of a thousand and one things that may have detained him--"
"Only one thing ever detains Mr. Dick, and that always detains him," I said solemnly. "That's a girl. You're a newcomer in the family, Mr. Van Alstyne; you don't remember the time he went down here to the station to see his Aunt Agnes off to the city, and we found him three weeks later in Oklahoma trying to marry a widow with five children."
Mr. Van Alstyne dropped into a chair, and through force of habit I gave him a glass of spring water.
"This was a pretty girl, too," he said dismally.
I sat down on the other side of the fireplace, and it seemed to me that father's crayon enlargement over the mantel shook its head at me.
After a minute Mr. Van Alstyne drank the water and got up.
"I'll have to tell my wife," he said. "Who's running the place, anyhow? You?"
"Not--exactly," I explained, "but, of course, when anything comes up they consult me. The housekeeper is a fool, and now that the house doctor's gone--"
"Gone! Who's looking after the patients?"
"Well, most of them have been here before," I explained, "and I know their treatment--the kind of baths and all that."
"Oh, YOU know the treatment!" he said, eying me. "And why did the house doctor go?"
"He ordered Mr. Moody to take his spring water hot. Mr. Moody's spring water has been ordered cold for eleven years, and I refused to change. It was between the doctor and me, Mr. Van Alstyne."
"Oh, of course," he said, "if it was a matter of principle--" He stopped, and then something seemed to strike him. "I say," he said; "about the doctor--that's all right, you know; lots of doctors and all that. But for heaven's sake, Minnie, don't discharge the cook."
Now that was queer, for it had been running in my head all morning that in the slack season it would be cheaper to get a good woman instead of the chef and let Tillie, the diet cook, make the pastry.
Mr. Sam picked up his hat and looked at his watch.
"Eleven thirty," he said, "and no sign of that puppy yet. I guess it's up to the police."
"If there was only something to do," I said, with a lump in my throat, "but to have to sit and do nothing while the old place dies it's--it's awful, Mr. Van Alstyne."
"We're not dead yet," he replied from the door, "and maybe we'll need you before the day's over. If anybody can sail the old bark to shore, you can do it, Minnie. You've been steering it for years. The old doctor was no navigator, and