Part 16 (1/2)

Roberta thought a moment, then looked up brightly. ”I believe I do. At least I know a Hungarian. His name is Mr. Hardinian and he is doing social welfare work. He speaks perfect English, however, and may have been born in this country. Suppose we go over to his clubhouse and interview him.”

Then, as she rose, she added: ”You will like Mr. Hardinian. He has such beautiful eyes.”

Ralph laughed as he also arose. ”Is that a girl's reason for liking a man?” he inquired. Then he added, ”Would I were a Hungarian that I might have interesting eyes. As it is, mine are the plain, unromantic American variety.”

Roberta smiled at her new friend, but what she said showed that her thought was far from the subject: ”Before we go, I want to be sure that my sister, Gwen, is comfortable.”

Gwendolyn was sleeping so quietly that Roberta believed she would not awaken before Lena May's return, and so, beckoning the lad to follow, she left the house, closing the door softly. Ralph turned and looked back at the upper windows of the rooms that were not occupied, as he inquired: ”Do you have a hunch that the old mansion holds the clue we are seeking?”

Roberta's reply was: ”Only the ghost of Marilyn knows.”

When the two partner-detectives were in the small, luxurious car, and going very slowly, because of the congested traffic down First Avenue, Ralph said: ”Tell me a little about your sisters and yourself that I may feel better acquainted.” And so, briefly, Roberta told the story of their coming to the East Side to live.

”I say, Miss Vandergrift, that certainly was hard luck, losing the fine old place that your family had supposed was its own for so many generations.” Then the lad added with sincere admiration: ”You girls certainly are trumps! I'm mighty glad I met you, and I hope you'll be glad, too, some day.”

”Why, Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, I'm glad right this very moment,” Roberta a.s.sured him in so impersonal a manner that the lad did not feel greatly flattered. Indeed, he was rather pleased that this was so. Being the son of a famous judge, possessed of good looks, charming manners and all the money he wished to spend, Ralph had been greatly sought after by the fond mothers of the girls in his set, if not by the maidens themselves, and it seemed rather an interesting change to meet a girl whose interest in him was not personal.

After a silent moment in which the lad's entire attention had been centered on extricating his small auto from a crush of trucks, vegetable-laden push-carts and foreign pedestrians, he turned and smiled at his companion. ”Let's turn over to Central Park now,” he suggested.

”It's a little round about, I'll agree, but it will be pleasanter riding.”

It was decidedly out of their way, but a glance at her wrist watch a.s.sured Roberta that Lena May would have returned to be with Gwen by that time, and so she was in no especial hurry.

How beautiful the park seemed after the thronged noisy East Side with its mingled odors from tobacco, fish markets, and general squalor.

”There, now we can talk,” Ralph said as he drove slowly along one of the winding avenues under a canopy formed by wide-spreading trees. ”What shall it be about?”

”You,” Roberta replied. ”Tell me about yourself.”

”There isn't much to tell,” the lad began. ”My brother Desmond and I grew up in a happy home. During the winter months we attended a boys' school up the Hudson, and each summer vacation we traveled with our parents. We have been about everywhere, I do believe. Desmond and I were all in all to each other. We were twins. Perhaps that was why we seemed to love each other even more than brothers usually do. I did not feel the need of any other boy companion, and when at last we entered college we were permitted to be roommates. In our Soph.o.m.ore year, Desmond died, and I didn't much care what happened after that. It seemed as though I never could room with another chap; but at last the dormitories were so crowded that I had to take a fellow in. That was two years ago, and today d.i.c.k De Laney is as close to me as Desmond was, almost, not quite, of course. No one will ever be that. But, I tell you, Miss Vandergrift, d.i.c.k is a fine chap, clear through to the core. I'd bank on d.i.c.k's doing the honorable thing, come what might. I'm a year older than he is, and he won't finish until June, then he's coming on here to little old New York and spend a month with me. I say, Miss Vandergrift, I'd like to have you meet him.”

Roberta smiled. ”I've been waiting for you to come to a period that I might tell you that d.i.c.k De Laney and I were playmates when we wore pinafores. You see, they were our next-door neighbors.” Bobs said this in so matter-of-fact a tone that Ralph did not think for one moment that this could be the girl his pal had once told him that he loved and hoped to win.

If only Ralph had realized this, much so might have been saved for one of them.

CHAPTER XXIII.

PARTNER-DETECTIVES

It was five-thirty when the partner-detectives left the quiet park, where long shadows were lying on the gra.s.s and where birds were calling softly from one rustling tree to another.

”It seems like a different world, doesn't it?” Bobs said, as she smiled in her friendliest way at the lad at the wheel. She had felt a real tenderness for her companion since he had told her about Desmond, and she was glad that an old friend of hers had been a comfort to him.

”It does, indeed,” he declared with a last glance back at the park. ”I like trees better than I do many people. We have some wonderful old elms around our summer home in the Orange Hills. When my mother returns I shall ask her to invite you four girls to one of her week-ends, or to one that she will plan just for me, after d.i.c.k comes.”

Then, as they were again on the thronged East Side, the lad said:

”Seventy-sixth Street, beyond Second, you said, didn't you?”