The girls sat down on the stiffly-placed chairs and looked about at the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien when they were first married--he very straight and stern-looking in his policeman's uniform, with very yellow b.u.t.tons, and Mrs. O'Brien with very red cheeks and much yellow jewelry painted into the picture by the artist at the bride's request. Mrs.

O'Brien had never owned any trinket of more value than her wedding ring!

There was a wreath of everlastings in a gla.s.s case, which had lain on the good man's coffin. And there was a framed "In Memoriam" card on the wall, together with a "Rock of Ages" worked on cardboard in red worsted by Norah herself, no doubt.

Everything was as clean as could be, however. And Nancy, on her part, was much more interested in the change she saw in Scorch, than in anything else.

"Why, Scorch! how you've grown!" she exclaimed.

"That's in spite of the way they overwork me at the office," he replied, grinning.

"And you've had that tooth put in!"

"Yep. Ye see, missing that tooth, when I bit into anything it seemed like I was tryin' to make a sandwich look like a Swiss cheese. It troubled my aesthetic taste. So I let the tooth carpenter build me another."

"And your hair stays lots flatter than it did," declared Nancy.

"Yep. Sweet oil. It works all right."

"Nonsense, Scorch! You talk just as slangily as ever."

"But he writes a lot better than he did," said Jennie, suddenly. "Did you notice in his last letter?"

"You're practising, Scorch," said Nancy.

"I'm goin' to night school, Miss Nancy," admitted the boy, with a grin.

"That's a good boy!" exclaimed Nancy.

"Well, learning is all right--even if a feller's goin' to be a detective," declared Scorch, earnestly.

"And I expect you're learnin' a lot yourself, Miss Nancy?"

"Some," returned his friend.

"She's at the top of her cla.s.s," Jennie declared, proudly. "Oh, she has us all beaten, Scorch."

"Sure," he agreed. "I knowed how 'twould be. There ain't n.o.body going to get the best of Miss Nancy."

"Unless it's that horrid Mr. Gordon," suggested Jennie, bringing the conversation around to the subject uppermost in all their minds.

"Ha!" exclaimed Scorch, looking mysterious at once, and hitching his chair nearer to the girls. "Were you on to what I said in my letter?"

"About the gray man? Yes!" cried Jennie.

"Did you ever see him?" asked Scorch.

"I--I don't know that I have," said Nancy, slowly.

"He ain't been snooping around that school?"

"Why, I haven't noticed anybody like that."

"A big man all in gray. He's some n.o.bby dresser! I thought he was the President--or Secretary of State at least--when he came into the office and asked for Old Gordon. I takes him in at once.

"Now, they knowed each other well, those two did. Old Gordon was startled and he tried to heave up out of his chair. But you know how _he_ is," added Scorch, with scorn. "Takes him ten minutes to work his way out from between the arms when he wants to get up. Don't know what he _would_ do if there was a fire any time."

"Why, Scorch!" admonished Nancy.

"Well," said the boy, "he tries to heave up, and can't, and sings out:

"'Why, Jim!'

"'h.e.l.lo, Hen,' says the man in gray.

"I hadn't shut the door--quite. Sometimes I don't," admitted the boy, with a wink. "I hears the gray feller say:

"'I just got back from Clintondale, Hen. What did you send that girl up there for, I want to know?'

"'What girl?' asks Old Gordon.

"'Nancy Nelson,' says the gray man

"'Sh!' sputters Gordon. 'Shut the door, Jim, if you're here to talk about _her_.'

"But before the other feller shut the door I heard him say:

"'Wouldn't no other school but Pinewood Hall do for _her_?' and Old Gordon snaps right back at him:

"'Nothing's too good for her, Jim, and you know it.'

"Well!" continued Scorch. "I could have bit off the doork.n.o.b; I was so mad when they shut the door on me. I couldn't hear another thing.

"The gray man was in there a long time. When he come out he looked mad, too. I didn't hear Old Gordon's buzzer for a long time, and so I slipped down to his door and tried it.

"When I peeked in, what do you think?" asked Scorch, mysteriously.

"What was it?" gasped Nancy.

"I never could guess!" exclaimed the eager Jennie.

"The old man had his head down on the desk, and his shoulders was heavin' like he was cryin'. Now, what do you know about _that_?"

demanded the boy, with the air of one throwing a bomb.

The girls were speechless with surprise.

CHAPTER XXIII