Bab: A Sub-Deb by Mary Roberts Rinehart Read Free Book Online Page B

were a lot of letters on the top, all addressed to him as Grosvenor. It struck me suddenly as strange that if he was only visiting, under an assumed name, in order to see me, that so many people should be writing to him as Mr. Grosvenor. And it did not look like the room of a man who was visiting, unless he took a freight car with him on his travels.
    THERE WAS A MYSTERY. All at once I knew it.
    My letter was not on the desk, so I opened the top drawer. It seemed to be full of bills, and so was the one below it. I had just started on the third drawer, when a terrable thing happened.
    "Hello!" said some one behind me.
    I turned my head slowly, and my heart stopped.
    THE PORTERES INTO THE PASSAGE HAD OPENED, AND A GENTLEMAN IN HIS EVENING CLOTHES WAS STANDING THERE.
    "Just sit still, please," he said, in a perfectly cold voice. And he turned and locked the door into the hall. I was absolutely unable to speak. I tried once, but my tongue hit the roof of my mouth like the clapper of a bell.
    "Now," he said, when he had turned around. "I wish you would tell me some good reason why I should not hand you over to the Police."
    "Oh, please don't!" I said.
    "That's eloquent. But not a reason. I'll sit down and give you a little time. I take it, you did not expect to find me here."
    "I'm in the wrong apartment. That's all," I said. "Maybe you'll think that's an excuse and not a reason. I can't help it if you do."
    "Well," he said, "that explains some things. It's pretty well known, I fancy, that I have little worth stealing, except my good name."
    "I was not stealing," I replied in a sulky manner.
    "I beg your pardon," he said. "It IS an ugly word. We will strike it from the record. Would you mind telling me whose apartment you intended to--er--investigate? If this is the wrong one, you know."
    "I was looking for a Letter."
    "Letters, letters!" he said. "When will you women learn not to write letters. Although"--he looked at me closely--"you look rather young for that sort of thing." He sighed. "It's born in you, I daresay," he said.
    Well, for all his patronizing ways, he was not very old himself.
    "Of course," he said, "if you are telling the truth--and it sounds fishy, I must say--it's hardly a Police matter, is it? It's rather one for diplomasy. But can you prove what you say?"
    "My word should be suficient," I replied stiffly. "How do I know that YOU belong here?"
    "Well, you don't, as a matter of fact. Suppose you take my word for that, and I agree to beleive what you say about the wrong apartment, Even then it's rather unusual. I find a pale and determined looking young lady going through my desk in a business-like manner. She says she has come for a Letter. Now the question is, is there a Letter? If so, what Letter?"
    "It is a love letter," I said.
    "Don't blush over such a confession," he said. "If it is true, be proud of it. Love is a wonderful thing. Never be ashamed of being in love, my child."
    "I am not in love," I cried with bitter furey.
    "Ah! Then it is not YOUR letter!"
    "I wrote it."
    "But to simulate a passion that does not exist--that is sackrilege. It is----"
    "Oh, stop talking," I cried, in a hunted tone. "I can't bear it. If you are going to arrest me, get it over."
    "I'd rather NOT arrest you, if we can find a way out. You look so young, so new to Crime! Even your excuse for being here is so naive, that I--won't you tell me why you wrote a love letter, if you are not in love? And whom you sent it to? That's important, you see, as it bears on the case. I intend," he said, "to be judgdicial, unimpassioned, and quite fair."
    "I wrote a love letter" I explained, feeling rather cheered, "but it was not intended for any one, Do you see? It was just a love letter."
    "Oh," he said. "Of course. It is often done. And after that?"
    "Well, it had to go somewhere. At least I felt that way about it. So I made up a name from some malted milk tablets----"
    "Malted milk tablets!" he said, looking bewildered.
    "Just as I was