Initials Only Part 25

"You will start to-morrow."

"Wish it were to-day."

"And you will first inquire, not for O. B., that's too indefinite; but for a young girl by the name of Doris Scott. She holds the clew; or rather she is the clew to this second O. B."

"Another woman!"

"No, a child;--well, I won't say child exactly; she must be sixteen."

"Doris Scott."

"She lives in Derby. Derby is a small place. You will have no trouble in finding this child. It was to her Miss Challoner's last letter was addressed. The one--"

"I begin to see."

"No, you don't, Sweet.w.a.ter. The affair is as blind as your hat; n.o.body sees. We're just feeling along a thread. O. B.'s letters--the real O. B., I mean, are the manliest effusions possible. He's no more of a milksop than this Brotherson; and unlike your indomitable friend he seems to have some heart. I only wish he'd given us some facts; they would have been serviceable. But the letters reveal nothing except that he knew Doris. He writes in one of them: 'Doris is learning to embroider. It's like a fairy weaving a cobweb!' Doris isn't a very common name. She must be the same little girl to whom Miss Challoner wrote from time to time."

"Was this letter signed O. B.?"

"Yes; they all are. The only difference between his letters and Brotherson's is this: Brotherson's retain the date and address; the second O. B.'s do not."

"How not? Torn off, do you mean?"

"Yes, or rather, neatly cut away; and as none of the envelopes were kept, the only means by which we can locate the writer is through this girl Doris."

"If I remember rightly Miss Challoner's letter to this child was free from all mystery."

"Quite so. It is as open as the day. That is why it has been mentioned as showing the freedom of Miss Challoner's mind five minutes before that fatal thrust."

Sweet.w.a.ter took up the sheet Mr. Gryce pushed towards him and re-read these lines:

"Dear Little Doris:

"It is a snowy night, but it is all bright inside and I feel no chill in mind or body. I hope it is so in the little cottage in Derby; that my little friend is as happy with harsh winds blowing from the mountains as she was on the summer day she came to see me at this hotel. I like to think of her as cheerful and beaming, rejoicing in tasks which make her so womanly and sweet. She is often, often in my mind.

"Affectionately your friend, "EDITH A. CHALLONER."

"That to a child of sixteen!"

"Just so."

"D-o-r-i-s spells something besides Doris."

"Yet there is a Doris. Remember that O. B. says in one of his letters, 'Doris is learning to embroider.'"

"Yes, I remember that."

"So you must first find Doris."

"Very good, sir."

"And as Miss Challoner's letter was directed to Derby, Pennsylvania, you will go to Derby."

"Yes, sir."

"Anything more?"

"I've been reading this letter again."

"It's worth it."

"The last sentence expresses a hope."

"That has been noted."

Sweet.w.a.ter's eyes slowly rose till they rested on Mr. Gryce's face: "I'll cling to the thread you've given me. I'll work myself through the labyrinth before us till I reach HIM."

Mr. Gryce smiled; but there was more age, wisdom and sympathy for youthful enthusiasm in that smile than there was confidence or hope.

BOOK III. THE HEART OF MAN

XXIII. DORIS

"A young girl named Doris Scott?"

The station-master looked somewhat sharply at the man he was addressing, and decided to give the direction asked.

"There is but one young girl in town of that name," he declared, "and she lives in that little house you see just beyond the works. But let me tell you, stranger," he went on with some precipitation--

But here he was called off, and Sweet.w.a.ter lost the conclusion of his warning, if warning it was meant to be. This did not trouble the detective. He stood a moment, taking in the prospect; decided that the Works and the Works alone made the town, and started for the house which had been pointed out to him. His way lay through the chief business street, and greatly preoccupied by his errand, he gave but a pa.s.sing glance to the rows on rows of workmen's dwellings stretching away to the left in seemingly endless perspective. Yet in that glance he certainly took in the fact that the sidewalks were blocked with people and wondered if it were a holiday. If so, it must be an enforced one, for the faces showed little joy. Possibly a strike was on. The anxiety he everywhere saw pictured on young faces and old, argued some trouble; but if the trouble was that, why were all heads turned indifferently from the Works, and why were the Works themselves in full blast?

These questions he may have asked himself and he may not. His attention was entirely centred on the house he saw before him and on the possible developments awaiting him there. Nothing else mattered. Briskly he stepped out along the sandy road, and after a turn or two which led him quite away from the Works and its surrounding buildings, he came out upon the highway and this house.

It was a low and unpretentious one, and had but one distinguis.h.i.+ng feature. The porch which hung well over the doorstep was unique in shape and gave an air of picturesqueness to an otherwise simple exterior; a picturesqueness which was much enhanced in its effect by the background of illimitable forest, which united the foreground of this pleasing picture with the great chain of hills which held the Works and town in its ample basin.

As he approached the doorstep, his mind involuntarily formed an antic.i.p.atory image of the child whose first st.i.tches in embroidery were like a fairy's weaving to the strong man who worked in ore and possibly figured out bridges. That she would prove to be of the anemic type, common among working girls gifted with an imagination they have but scant opportunity to exercise, he had little doubt.

He was therefore greatly taken aback, when at his first step upon the porch, the door before him flew open and he beheld in the dark recess beyond a young woman of such bright and blooming beauty that he hardly noticed her expression of extreme anxiety, till she lifted her hand and laid an admonitory finger softly on her lip:

"Hus.h.!.+" she whispered, with an earnestness which roused him from his absorption and restored him to the full meaning of this encounter.