aunt’s companion, who is she? Do you know?” “A South Carolinian; good family; she has lived with my aunt as secretary and companion for a year; my aunt is very fond of her.” “That all you know? Well I have found out a little more; she used to live with a Mrs. James S. Hastings, a rich Washington woman. The lady’s only son fell in love with her; somehow the marriage was broken off.” “What was his name?” “Lawrence. They call him Larry. He went to Manila. Maybe you’ve met him there.” “Yes, I knew him; I don’t believe he ever was accepted by her.” “I don’t know. I have only had two days on her biography. Later, she went to Johns Hopkins Hospital. One of the doctors was very attentive[123] to her—but it did not come to anything. She didn’t graduate. Don’t know why. Then she went to live with Miss Angela Nelson, who died and left her money, away from her own family. There was talk of breaking the will; but it wasn’t done. Then she came to Mrs. Winter.” [123] The colonel was silent; there was nothing discreditable in these details. He had known before that Janet Smith was poor; that she had been thrown on the world early; that she must earn her own livelihood; yet, somehow, as Birdsall marshaled the facts, there was an insidious, malarious hint of the adventuress, bandied from place to place, hawking her attractions about, wheedling, charming for hire, entrapping imbecile young cubs—Larry Hastings wasn’t more than twenty-two—somehow he felt a revolt against the picture and against the man submitting it—and, confound Millicent! The detective changed the manner of his questions a little. “I suppose your aunt is pretty advanced in years, though she is as well preserved an old lady as I have ever met, and as shrewd. Say, wouldn’t she be likely to leave the boy a lot of money?” “I dare say.” The colonel was conscious of an[124] intemperate impulse to kick Birdsall, who had been such a useful fellow in the Philippines. [124] “If anything was to happen to him, who would get the money?” “Well, Mrs. Melville and I are next of kin,” returned the colonel dryly. “Do you suspect us?”
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