Blair, nervously playing with a key, stood by the fire in the drawing-room. Mrs. Kent had excused herself and gone upstairs. In the dining-room, across the hall, he could see Kathleen gleaning over the supper table while the maid cleared away the dishes. In spite of his peevishness, he smiled to see her pick up one of the stuffed eggs on a fork, taste it, and lay it down with a grimace. At the other end of the drawing-room Mr. Kent, leaning on his cane, was rummaging among some books. “Here we are,” said the antiquarian, hobbling back with several heavy tomes. “Here is Clarendon's History. Now I want to read you what he has to say about that incident in 1645, then I will read you my manuscript notes, to show you how they fill up the gaps. Kathleen!”
“Yes, Dad,” answered Kathleen, coming into the room.
“Will you get me my glasses, dear?”
“Yes, indeed,” and she ran across the room to fetch them from the bookcase where he had left them. She seated herself on the arm of her father's chair. She was a charming and graceful figure, swinging the slender ankle that the Scorpions afterward described with imaginative fervour as “a psalm,” “a fairy-tale,” and “an aurora borealis.” They none of them ever agreed as to the dress she wore that evening; but Eliza Thick, who was perhaps the most observant, declared that it looked like a chintz curtain. I think it must have had small sprigs of flowers printed on it. Her eyes, exclaimed the broken-hearted gas-man, were like “a twilight with only two stars.” Perhaps he meant a street with two lamps lighted.
“Oh, I'm so glad you're going to read your notes to Mr. Blair,” she said, mischievously. “They are so fascinating, and there's such a jolly lot of them.”
“Perhaps Mr. Kent's eyes are tired?” said Blair, hastily.
“Not a bit, not a bit!” said Mr. Kent. “I don't often get such a good listener. By the way, what happened to that nice young curate? I hope the gas-man didn't injure him?”
Kathleen looked at Blair with dancing eyes.
“He had to go,” declared Blair. “He was awfully sorry. He asked me to make his apologies.”
“Perhaps the Bishop sent for him suddenly,” said Kathleen.
“Well,” resumed Mr. Kent, “I shall begin with the Battle of Naseby. After that memorable struggle, a portion of the royalist forces—”
The front-door bell trilled briskly.
“Oh, dear me,” sighed poor Mr. Kent, looking up from his papers. “The fates are against us, Mr. Blair.”
The Scotch terrier had been lying by the fire, caressed by the toe of Kathleen's slipper, as she sat on the arm of her father's chair. Suddenly he jumped up, wagging his tail, and barked with evident glee. A tall, dark-eyed girl, a little older than Kathleen, pushed the hall curtains aside and darted into the room.
“Joe, you darling!” cried Kathleen. “How's your leg?”
“What do you mean?” asked Joe. “Which leg? What's wrong with it?”
“Well, Joe, my dear, this is a jolly surprise,” said Mr. Kent, laying aside his books. “We heard you were laid up. Some misunderstanding somewhere. We've got a friend of yours here, you see—Mr. Blair.”
Blair wished he could have sunk through the floor. He would have given anything to be with the other four in the darkness of the cellar. His ears and cheeks burned painfully.
“How do you do, Mr. Blair,” said Josephine, cordially. “There must be some mistake, I've never met Mr. Blair before.”
“My dear Joe,” cried Kathleen, “I do think we have all gone nuts. Look here!” She took three sheets of paper from the mantelpiece. “Did you or did you not send us those telegrams?”
Joe ran her eye over the messages, reading them aloud.
“Miss Kathleen Kent:
“My friend Blair of Trinity now in Wolverhampton for historical study staying at Blue Boar nice chap American—”
Here Joe raised her eyes and looked appraisingly at Blair, whose confusion was agonizing.
“may he call on you if so send him a line sorry can't write hurt hand playing soccer love to all. Joe.”
“Frederick Kent: Unavoidably detained Oxford hurt leg playing soccer wish you could join me at once very urgent. Joe.”
She bent down to the terrier which was standing affectionately at her feet.
“Well, Fred, old boy,” she said, patting him, “did Joe send you a telegram, heh?”
“Mrs. Philip Kent: Have found very good cook out of place am sending her to you earnestly recommend give her a trial reliable woman but eccentric name Eliza Thick will call Sunday morning. Joe.”
“My dear Kathleen,” said Joe, “you flatter me. I never sent any of those messages. Do you know any other Joes?”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Kent,” said Blair. “But I must tell you. I sent two of those telegrams, and I think I can guess who sent the other. Miss Eliza Thick herself.”
“You!” exclaimed Mr. Kent and both girls in the same breath.
“Yes, Mr. Kent. I blush to confess it, but you and your family have been abominably hoaxed, and I can see nothing for it but to admit the truth. Painful as it is, I prefer to tell you everything.”
The two girls settled themselves on the couch and Mr. Kent, bewildered, sat upright in his chair. The dog, satisfied that everything was serene, jumped on the divan and lay down between Joe and Kathleen. The unhappy Blair stood awkwardly on the hearth rug.
“Last January,” he began, “a gentleman by the name of Kenneth Forbes, an undergraduate of Merton College (now studying the gas meter in your cellar), was in Blackwell's book shop, in Oxford, browsing about. Lying on a row of books in a corner of the shop he happened to see a letter, without an envelope. He picked it up and glanced at it. It had evidently been dropped there by some customer.
“The address engraved on the paper was 318, Bancroft Road, Wolverhampton. It was dated last October and the letter began: 'Dear Joe, Thank you so much for the tie—it is pretty and I do wear ties sometimes, so I sha'n't let the boys have it.' In the upper left-hand corner were four crosses, and the words 'These are from Fred.' The letter was signed 'Kathleen.'”
The two girls looked at each other.
“It so happened,” continued Blair, “that the man who found the letter had promised to write, the very next day, the first chapter of a serial story for a little literary club to which he belonged. At the time when he found this letter lying about the bookshop he was racking his brain for a theme for his opening chapter. A great idea struck him. He put the letter in his pocket and hurried back to his room.
“His idea was to build up a story around the characters of the letter. He had no idea whom it ............