"Oh!" she said, turning at once--"_Did_ you!"

He nodded, gloomily. "However, there was not a cent of money in it."

If he had racked his brains for a subject calculated to detain her--which we may rely upon it that he did not do--he could not have hit upon a surer one. Sharlee Weyland had a great fund of pity for this young man's worse than fatherlessness, and did not in the least mind showing it. She came straight back into the room and up to the table where he sat.

"Does it help you at all--about knowing where he is, I mean?"

"Not in the least. I wonder what he's up to anyway?"

He squinted up at her interrogatively through his circular gla.s.ses, as though she ought to be able to tell him if anybody could. Then a thought very much like that took definite shape in his mind. He himself had no time to give to mysterious problems and will-o'-the-wisp pursuits; his book and posterity claimed it all. This girl was familiar with the city; doubtless knew all the people; she seemed intelligent and capable, as girls went. He remembered that he had consulted her about securing remunerative work, with some results; possibly she would also have something sensible to say about his paternal problem. He might make an even shrewder stroke. As his landlady's agent, this girl would of course be interested in establishing his connection with a relative who had twenty-dollar bills to give away. Therefore if it ever should come to a search, why mightn't he turn the whole thing over to the agent--persuade her to hunt his father for him, and thus leave his own time free for the service of the race?

"Look here," said he, with a glance at his watch. "I'll take a few minutes. Kindly sit down there and I'll show you how the man is behaving."

Sharlee sat down as she was bidden, close by his side, piqued as to her curiosity, as well as flattered by his royal condescension. She wore her business suit, which was rough and blue, with a smart little pony coat.

She also wore a white veil festooned around her hat, and white gloves that were quite unspotted from the world. The raw February winds had whipped roses into her cheeks; her pure ultramarine eyes made the blue of her suit look commonplace and dull. Dusk had fallen over the city, and Queed cleverly bethought him to snap on an electric light. It revealed a very shabby, ramshackle, and dingy office; but the long table in it was new, oaken, and handsome. In fact, it was one of the repairs introduced by the new management.

"Here," said he, "is his first letter--the one that brought me from New York."

He took it from its envelope and laid it open on the table. A sense of the pathos in this ready sharing of one's most intimate secrets with a stranger took hold of Sharlee as she leaned forward to see what it might say.

"Be careful! Your feather thing is sticking my eye."

Meekly the girl withdrew to a safer distance. From there she read with amazement the six typewritten lines which was all that the letter proved to be. They read thus:

Your father asks that, if you have any of the natural feelings of a son, you will at once leave New York and take up your residence in this city. This is the first request he has ever made of you, as it will be, if you refuse it, the last. But he earnestly begs that you will comply with it, antic.i.p.ating that it will be to your decided advantage to do so.

"The envelope that that came in," said Queed, briskly laying it down.

"Now here's the envelope that the twenty dollars came in--it is exactly like the other two, you observe.--The last exhibit is somewhat remarkable; it came yesterday. Read that."

Sharlee required no urging. She read:

Make friends; mingle with people, and learn to like them. This is the earnest injunction of

Your father.

"Note especially," said the young man, "the initial Q on each of the three envelopes. You will observe that the tail in every instance is defective in just the same way."

Sure enough, the tail of every Q was broken off short near the root, like the rudimentary tail anatomists find in Genus h.o.m.o. Mr. Queed looked at her with scholarly triumph.

"I suppose that removes all doubt," said she, "that all these came from the same person."

"Unquestionably.--Well? What do they suggest to you?"

A circle of light from the green-shaded desk-lamp beat down on the three singular exhibits. Sharlee studied them with bewilderment mixed with profound melancholy.

"Is it conceivable," said she, hesitatingly--"I only suggest this because the whole thing seems so extraordinary--that somebody is playing a very foolish joke on you?"

He stared. "Who on earth would wish to joke with me?"

Of course he had her there. "I wish," she said, "that you would tell me what you yourself think of them."

"I think that my father must be very hard up for something to do."

"Oh--I don't think I should speak of it in that way if I were you."

"Why not? If he cites filial duty to me, why shall I not cite paternal duty to him? Why should he confine his entire relations with me in twenty-four years to two preposterous detective-story letters?"

Sharlee said nothing. To tell the truth, she thought the behavior of Queed Senior puzzling in the last degree.

"You grasp the situation? He knows exactly where I am; evidently he has known it all along. He could come to see me to-night; he could have come as soon as I arrived here three months ago; he could have come five, ten, twenty years ago, when I was in New York. But instead he elects to write these curious letters, apparently seeking to make a mystery, and throwing the burden of finding him on me. Why should I become excited over the prospect? If he would promise to endow me now, to support or pension me off, if I found him, that would be one thing. But I submit to you that no man can be expected to interrupt a most important life-work in consideration of a single twenty-dollar bill. And that is the only proof of interest I ever had from him. No--" he broke off suddenly--"no, that's hardly true after all. I suppose it was he who sent the money to Tim."

"To Tim?"

"Tim Queed."

Presently she gently prodded him. "And do you want to tell me who Tim Queed is?"

He eyed her thoughtfully. If the ground of his talk appeared somewhat delicate, nothing could have been more matter-of-fact than the way he tramped it. Yet now he palpably paused to ask himself whether it was worth his while to go more into detail. Yes; clearly it was. If it ever became necessary to ask the boarding-house agent to find his father for him, she would have to know what the situation was, and now was the time to make it plain to her once and for all.

"He is the man I lived with till I was fourteen; one of my friends, a policeman. For a long time I supposed, of course, that Tim was my father, but when I was ten or twelve, he told me, first that I was an orphan who had been left with him to bring up, and later on, that I had a father somewhere who was not in a position to bring up children. That was all he would ever say about it. I became a student while still a little boy, having educated myself practically without instruction of any sort, and when I was fourteen I left Tim because he married at that time, and, with the quarreling and drinking that followed, the house became unbearable. Tim then told me for the first time that he had, from some source, funds equivalent to twenty-five dollars a month for my board, and that he would allow me fifteen of that, keeping ten dollars a month for his services as agent. You follow all this perfectly? So matters went along for ten years, Tim bringing me the fifteen dollars every month and coming frequently to see me in between, often bringing along his brother Murphy, who is a yeggman. Last fall came this letter, purporting to be from my father. Absurd as it appeared to me, I decided to come. Tim said that, in that case, he would be compelled to cut off the allowance entirely. Nevertheless, I came."

Sharlee had listened to this autobiographical sketch with close and sympathetic attention. "And now that you are here--and settled--haven't you decided to do something--?"

He leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at her. "Do something!

Haven't I done all that he asked? Haven't I given up fifteen dollars a month for him? Decidedly, the next move is his."

"But if you meant to take no steps when you got here, why did you come?"

"To give him his chance, of course. One city is exactly like another to me. All that I ask of any of them is a table and silence. Apart from the forfeiture of my income, living here and living there are all one. Do!

You talk of it glibly enough, but what is there to do? There are no Queeds in this city. I looked in the directory this morning. In all probability that is not his name anyway. Kindly bear in mind that I have not the smallest clue to proceed upon, even had I the time and willingness to proceed upon it."

"I am obliged to agree with you," she said, "in thinking that your--"

"Besides," continued Doctor Queed, "what reason have I for thinking that he expects or desires me to track him down? For all that he says here, that may be the last thing in the world he wishes."

Sharlee, turning toward him, her chin in her white-gloved hand, looked at him earnestly.

"Do you care to have me discuss it with you?"

"Oh, yes, I have invited an expression of opinion from you."

"Then I agree with you in thinking that your father is not treating you fairly. His att.i.tude toward you is extraordinary, to say the least of it. But of course there must be some good reason for this. Has it occurred to you that he may be in some--situation where it is not possible for him to reveal himself to you?"

"Such as what?"

"Well, I don't know--"

"Why doesn't he say so plainly in his letters then?"