Jennette Lee

“ And then, just as he was congratulating himself that he had a tool to his hand as fine and keen-tempered as Milly—and trusty—and that she would not be always making extortionate demands for salary or promotion—like a man—he seemed to love the work for itself—just as he was settling down comfortably to all this Milly had announced her intention of setting up an office of her own. ”

“ The smoke from his pipe drifted up against the blue of the sky. . . . He was recalling Milly as she appeared in his office, that first day, ten years ago. He had been puzzling over the Babcock case, he remembered— Everybody called it suicide. He had had his suspicion that it was not suicide, but murder, and somehow his suspicion must have leaked out. There had been a mysterious hint in the morning's paper. He was vexed with the whole business, and not in a pleasant mood. Then the door had opened and a young woman, hardly more than a girl, it seemed to him, had come hurriedly in. ”

“ After the Babcock case he had employed Milly at times—first informally, for shoplifting cases or salesgirl thefts, or as seamstress or chambermaid in some place where a man could not go without suspicion. Later, she had become a regular member of the force, and he had found himself depending on her more and more—not so much for facts and the combining of facts, as for a theory that would fit them. ”