Part 11 (1/2)

”Now I will wire my brother Dean that he may come as soon as he wishes; and oh, how I do hope that will be soon,” Nell said as she happily surveyed the pleasantest place that she had ever called home.

The message was sent when they were on their way to the Pensinger mansion for lunch.

”I must not remain long,” the new agent told Gloria, ”for I promised Mrs.

Doran-Ashley that I would be on duty at one.”

Every little while during that noon meal Bobs would look up with laughing eyes. At last she told the cause of her mirth. ”I am wondering what Mr.

James Jewett thinks of his a.s.sistant detective,” she remarked. ”I am so glad that I gave the name Miss Dolittle. Now I can retire from the profession without being traced.”

”Oh, good, here comes the postman,” Lena May declared as she rose and went to the side door to meet the mail-carrier. Gloria looked up eagerly.

She was always hoping that Gwendolyn would write. The letters that she had sent to the Newport home of the schoolmate whom Gwendolyn had said that she was going to visit, had been returned, marked ”Whereabouts not known.”

There were two letters and both were for Bobs. One was a bulging missive from her Long Island friend, d.i.c.k De Laney, but it was at the other that the girl stared as though in uncomprehending amazement. The cause of her very evident astonishment was the printed return address in the upper left-hand corner. It was ”Fourth Avenue Branch, Burns Detective Agency.”

Then she glanced, still puzzled, at her own name, which was written, not typed.

”Miss Roberta Vandergrift,” she read aloud. Then suddenly she laughed, and looking up at the other girls who, all interest, were awaiting an explanation of her queer conduct, she exclaimed: ”The amateur detective has been detected, but how under the s.h.i.+ning heavens did Mr. James Jewett know that my name wasn't Miss Dolittle?”

Gloria smiled. ”You haven't much faith, it would seem, in his ability as a detective. What has he written, Bobs?”

There were few words in the message:

”Miss Vandergrift, please report at this office at once, as we have need of your services. Signed. J. G. Jewett.”

”Well, I'll be flabbergasted!” Roberta e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”But I must confess I am curious, and so I will immediately, if not sooner, hie me down that way. Wait a jiff, Miss Wiggin. I'll walk along with you.”

When Roberta and Nell were gone, Gloria found the bulging letter from Bobs' oldest friend, d.i.c.k De Laney, lying on the table unopened. The girl who was so loved by that faithful lad had quite forgotten it in her new interests. Gloria sighed. ”Poor d.i.c.k,” she said to Lena May as she placed the letter on a mantel, ”I wish he did not care so much for Roberta, for I fear that she does not really care for him.”

True it was that at that particular moment Bobs was far more interested in learning what Mr. Jewett had to tell her than in any message that a letter from d.i.c.k might contain.

CHAPTER XVI.

A NEW ”CASE” FOR BOBS

The outer office of the Fourth Avenue Branch of the Burns Detective Agency was vacant when the girl entered, but almost instantly the door of the inner office opened and Mr. Jewett himself stood there. His pleasant face brightened when he saw his visitor. Advancing with his right hand extended, he exclaimed: ”Miss Vandergrift, I am almost surprised to see you. I really feared that you had deserted your new profession.”

”But--Mr. Jewett--I--that is--my name. I told you that it was Miss Dolittle.”

The young man drew forward a chair for her, then seated himself at his desk, and again Roberta realized that, although his face was serious, his gray-blue eyes were smiling.

”The letter I sent to you was addressed to Miss Roberta Vandergrift,” he said, ”and, since you have replied in person, am I not justified in believing that to be your real name?”

Bobs flushed. ”I'll have to acknowledge that it is,” she said, ”but the other day when you asked me my name, I didn't quite like to give that of our family and so, at random, I chose one.” Then the girl smiled frankly at him. ”I couldn't have chosen a worse one, it seems. Miss Dolittle did not impress my late employer as being a good name for a clerk.”

”You are wrong there,” the young man told her, and at last there was no mistaking the fact that he was amused. ”Mr. Queerwitz decided that you did too much and not too little. I don't know when I have been so pleased as I was over the fact, which so disturbs him, that you were able to drive the better bargain. Mr. Queerwitz has excelled in that line, and to have a mere slip of a girl obtain one thousand dollars for a book, the mate of which brought him but five hundred dollars, is humiliating to say the least.”

Then, leaning forward, the young man said, with evident interest: ”Miss Vandergrift, will you tell me what happened?”