The House of Torchy Part 20

But say, she knows how to salute, all right. Her way would break up an army, though. All the same, I guess I've earned it, for by Monday night I'll be up in a Syracuse shovel works, wearin' a one-piece business suit of the Never-rip brand, and I'll likely have enough grease on me to lubricate a switch-engine.

"It's lucky you don't see me, Vee," says I, "when I'm out savin' the country. You'd wonder how you ever come to do it."

CHAPTER IX

A CARRY-ON FOR CLARA

"Now turn around," says Vee. "Oh, Torchy! Why, you look perfectly----"

"Do I?" I cuts in. "Well, you don't think I'm goin' to the office like this, do you?"

She does. Insists that Mr. Ellins will expect it.

"Besides," says she, "it is in the army regulations that you must. If you don't--well, I'm not sure whether it is treason or mutiny."

"Hal-lup!" says I. "I surrender."

So I starts for town lookin' as warlike as if I'd just come from a front trench, and feelin' like a masquerader who'd lost his way to the ball-room.

In the office, Old Hickory gives me the thorough up-and-down. It's a genial, fatherly sort of inspection, and he ends it with a satisfied grunt.

"Good-morning, Lieutenant," says he. "I see you have--er--got 'em on.

And, allow me to mention, rather a good fit, sir."

I gasps. Sirred by Old Hickory! Do you wonder I got fussed? But he only chuckles easy, waves me to take a chair, and goes on with:

"What's the word from the Syracuse sector?"

At that, I gets my breath back.

"Fairly good deal up there, sir," says I. "They're workin' in a carload or so of wormy ash for the shovel handles, and some of the steel runs below test; but most of their stuff grades well. I'll have my notes typed off right away."

After I've filed my report I should have ducked. But this habit of stickin' around the shop is hard to break. And that's how I happen to be on hand when the lady in gray drifts in for her chatty confab with Mr.

Ellins.

Seems she held quite a block of our preferred, for when Vincent lugs in her card Old Hickory spots the name right away as being on our widow-and-orphan list that we wave at investigatin' committees.

"Ah, yes!" says he. "Mrs. Parker Smith. Show her in, boy."

Such a quiet, gentle, dignified party she is, her costume tonin' in with her gray hair, and an easy way of speakin' and all, that my first guess is she might be the head of an old ladies' home.

"Mr. Ellins," says she, "I am looking for my niece."

"Are you?" says Mr. Ellins, "Humph! Hardly think we could be of service in such a case."

"Oh!" says she. "I--I am so sorry."

"Lost, is she?" suggests Mr. Ellins, weakenin'.

"She is somewhere in New York," goes on Mrs. Parker Smith. "Of course, I know it is an imposition to trouble you with such a matter. But I thought you might have someone in your office who--who----"

"We have," says he. "Torchy,--er--I mean, Lieutenant,--Mrs. Parker Smith. Here, madam, is a young man who will find your niece for you at once. In private life he is my secretary; and as it happens that just now he is on special detail, his services are entirely at your disposal."

She looks a little doubtful about bein' shunted like that, but she follows me into the next room, where I produces a pencil and pad and calls for details businesslike.

"Let's see," says I. "What's the full description? Age?"

"Why," says she, hesitatin', "Claire is about twenty-two."

"Oh!" says I. "Got beyond the flapper stage, then. Height--tall or short?"

Mrs. Parker Smith shakes her head.

"I'm sure I don't know," says she. "You see, Claire is not an own niece.

She--well, she is a daughter of my first husband's second wife's step-sister."

"Wha-a-at?" says I, gawpin' at her. "Daughter of your---- Oh, say, let's not go into it as deep as that. I'm dizzy already. Suppose we call her an in-law once removed and let it go at that?"

"Thank you," says Mrs. Parker Smith, givin' me a quizzin' smile.

"Perhaps it is enough to say that I have never seen her."

She does go on to explain, though, that when Claire's step-uncle, or whatever he was, found his heart trouble gettin' worse, he wrote to Mrs.

Parker Smith, askin' her to forget the past and look after the orphan girl that he's been tryin' to bring up. It's just as clear to me as the average movie plot, but I nods my head.

"So for three years," says she, "while Claire was in boarding-school, I acted as her guardian; but since she has come of age I have been merely the executor of her small estate."

"Oh, yes!" says I. "And now she's come to New York, and forgot to send you her address?"

It was something like that. Claire had gone in for art. Looked like she'd splurged heavy on it, too; for the drain on her income had been something fierce. Meanwhile, Mrs. Parker Smith had doped out an entirely different future for Claire. The funds that had been tied up in a Vermont barrel-stave fact'ry, that was makin' less and less barrel staves every year, Auntie had pulled out and invested in a model dairy farm out near Rockford, Illinois. She'd made the capital turn over from fifteen to twenty per cent., too, by livin' right on the job and cas.h.i.+n'

in the cream tickets herself.

"You have!" says I. "Not a reg'lar cow farm?"

She nods.

"It did seem rather odd, at first," says she. "But I wanted to get away from--from everything. But now---- Well, I want Claire. I suppose I am a little lonesome. Besides, I want her to try taking charge. Recently, when she had drawn her income for half a year in advance and still asked for more, I was obliged to refuse."

"And then?" says I.

Mrs. Parker Smith shrugs her shoulders.

"The foolish girl chose to quarrel with me," says she. "About ten days ago she sent me a curt note. I could keep her money; she was tired of being dictated to. I needn't write any more, for she had moved to another address, had changed her name."

"Huh!" says I. "That does make it complicated. You don't know what she looks like, or what name she flags under, and I'm to find her in little New York?"