Arthur Somers Roche

“ Innocent as a babe unborn, eh? Don’t suppose you know anything at all about the New York office wiring Portland that you’d be on the night train from New York, wearing a blue greatcoat and checked cap, and that you might not be able to come up to the office, so for us to have some one at the station to help out? ”

“ Furthermore, please accept my assurances that I did not spy upon either of you in New York. I have not the slightest imaginable interest in either of you.”
Now, no woman likes to be told emphatically, even under such circumstances as these, that a man whose age is not too remote from her own, has no interest whatsoever in her. Especially if the man who tells her so puts an indescribable emphasis upon his words, making it seem clear that she doesn’t even possess the slightest sex appeal for him. ”

“ But it is hard to look haughtily indifferent and proudly innocent when a handsome old gentleman and a lovely girl look at you with eyes of contempt. Especially is it hard when in your hand you hold the evidence that has damned you. I could not be the hero that Weatherbee Jones, when misunderstood, sometimes is. I’m afraid that I slunk to my seat, where I read the telegram that was so innocent, but that yet must seem so patently guilty. t read:
William Odlin, Madison Avenue, New York City. ”

“ But one becomes tired of explanations. I saw no reason why I should offer another to people so ready to suspect me, and who themselves were under some cloud of suspicion that caused detectives to take undue interest in them. ”

“ That man who missed the Portland train had evidently been following my new acquaintances in the car ahead. He had watched them buy their tickets to Portland and had then, probably, slipped off to send a telegram to the Portland branch of the agency for which he worked. And as there were only two great detective agencies who maintained Portland branches, as I happened to know from my newspaper work, this wise individual and the man who had missed the train must be employed by either the Greenhams or the Healy agency. ”

“ I been held back by people that’s jealous of me. If I turn this trick myself I’ll get coin enough and rep enough to start an agency of my own. The chief ain’t never worried about me; I ain’t worrying about him. Now go ’way and leave me alone.
“When you get ready to climb down from your high horse and treat me right and quit making a goat of me maybe I’ll talk business. But you might as well understand right here and now that I’m looking out for Jim Ravenell. The people that retained us ain’t the only people that want what that old bird in the car ahead has got. Other people will bid for it. ”

“ That is why I went back to the smoking-car. And there, grinning at me in apparently admiring welcome, was my friend of the Portland railroad station. He was alone in the car. Indeed, the four of us, Major Penrose, Miss Gilman, myself and this man were the only passengers on the train. People don’t travel to Summer resorts in Maine very much in the Winter.
“I hand it to you, friend,” cried the burly gentleman. “Smooth as they come, flossy as they make ’em. ”