“Why don’t you like Mrs. Markle?” Josie asked Irene as they sat in Mary Louise’s car while she went in a shop on a housekeeping errand on their way home from the Higgledy-Piggledy after the strenuous day of unpacking and carpentering and plumbing.

“Why do you think I don’t like her?” and Irene tried not to give herself away to the astute Josie.

“Why, Irene dear, you couldn’t deceive a flea!”

“I hope I wasn’t rude to her. I try always to be extra polite to her.”

“Oh, you were polite enough, but your eyes are ‘wells of truth’ and one only has to look in them to know what your sentiments are.”

“I didn’t know that! Mercy, what am I to do? Put on smoked glasses?”

“Fortunately, you are inclined to like mankind, so won’t have to wear smoked glasses all the107 time,” laughed Josie. “But you haven’t told me why you don’t like her.”

“I have no reason for a strange feeling of distrust and abhorrence that comes over me when she approaches. I know she is beautiful and clever and charming and I fully realize that I am foolish to harbor such sentiments, but, try as I may, I cannot get rid of the feeling. It is one of nameless depression, a kind of smothered sensation.”

“Like some persons have when cats come in the room?”

“Exactly! Now do you think I am mean and silly?”

“No, not in the least! I think you perhaps have some kind of occult power that I wish I had myself. Now I don’t fancy the lady myself, but it is because her name is Hortense.”

“Why, what has that to do with her character?”

“Nothing on earth, but I have an antipathy to certain names and Hortense is one of them. Of course, I am well aware of the fact that there are many good Hortenses, as many as there are good Josies, but, somehow, it seems that I am not the one to meet the good ones. They are always a108 bit false, the Hortenses I have known. Now you are thinking I am silly. Confess!”

“No, not at all silly, but a bit unreasonable,” laughed Irene. “I fancy Mrs. Markle’s parents gave her that name and she had nothing to do with it.”

“I am not so sure of that. They may have named her plain Jane or even Maria or Hannah and she may have felt Hortense more in keeping. I’ll give it to her she has wonderful taste and Hannah would have been out of tone with her general make-up. Why do you think she wouldn’t let that young Mr. McGraw see her pin?”

“Why, wasn’t her reason given sufficient?” asked Irene.

“Not to me! Either there was something about the pin she did not want him to see or she wanted to get him to come to her apartment and call and thought that would be a good way to manage it.”

“Oh, Josie, you are hard on her!”

“Well, when you don’t like a person, you might as well find out why and that is what I am doing. I am just trying to analyze my emotions and find a cause for the effect. I must prove to myself109 for my own private satisfaction why the bristles stand up on my spine when the pretty lady comes around.”

“You did not show you felt that way in the least. I wish I could hide my feelings as well as you,” sighed Irene.

“Please don’t try to! You, with your instinct to detect evil, would prove too valuable to a would-be detective. Not that I am one,” quickly added Josie, who was determined not to let anyone know of her dual occupation.

After an early tea, Josie, in spite of objections raised by Mary Louise, insisted upon going back to her Higgledy-Piggledy apartment.

“I might just as well get used to it, honey. It is going to be in a mess for a while yet, but if I can be there early and late just so much the sooner will we begin operations. To-morrow is Sunday and I can have a nice long day to write letters that must be written and look over some papers. That won’t be too much like working on the Sabbath, and I can begin to work in dead earnest early Monday morning. I’ll see you at church to-morrow though, however.”

Josie refused the offer Mary Louise made of sending her home in her car but insisted her legs110 were made to use, and if she got too accustomed to riding around in cars, it would spoil her for more primitive forms of locomotion.

Josie did not go directly to her shop after leaving Colonel Hathaway’s, but slipping down a side street she walked quietly into the police station. Josie had a power inherited directly from her father of being almost invisible, that is she moved so quietly and was so unobtrusive in manner and dress that she could pass in a crowd absolutely unnoticed, and even where there was not a crowd, she had a way of effacing herself so that she might stand in one’s presence for minutes without being observed. And after she was observed, ............