The Green Jacket (Mystery Classics Series). Jennette Lee
like regret was in the man's face, striving to touch the thick lips; and Milly looked at it with eyes that held a quick light—as if some joy came to her.
"Good-by," she said. "Write to me some day about the children. I shall want to hear about them."
He took the hand awkwardly, and dropped it and moved to the door. At the door he looked back.
"Good-by," he said.
"You'll write to me," said Milly, "about the children."
He held up a clumsy hand and looked at it. "I don't know it—to write," he said slowly. "But Karl he write. He learn in the school already." He looked at her, as if the words were shaping in a deep place and groping toward her. "I thank you," he said slowly. "You make good man for me. I thank you."
She nodded, and a little quick mist seemed to come between her and the clumsy figure passing through the door and closing it with careful hand. . . . The man had kept straight for ten months. She had little fear for him now. And something passed with him, out through the door, a kind of grim will to keep straight that she had been watching shape itself for ten months. He was stronger than he knew! She turned with a little sigh and gathered up a handful of papers from the table and went out. She had suddenly remembered Tom Corbin in the up-town office—probably chafing and fuming at delay!
She went quickly toward the entrance of the building, thinking only of Tom waiting in the office, and Tom's impatience. But in the revolving outer door she paused.
A young man in the opposite compartment had smiled to her and touched his hat. They both moved forward, and the door swung round and he was still in the opposite compartment, begging her, with a little gesture, to wait for him.
She stepped back into the hall, and when the door swung round, bringing him to her side, she greeted him with a smile.
"Did you want to see me?"
"I thought you wanted to see me," he said half-whimsically. His shoulders straightened a little as he said it, and he looked down at her. "It's my last day, isn't it?" he suggested with a quiet look.
"So it is!" Her face lighted. "I am sorry— But some one is waiting for me in the up-town office. I can't ask you to come again, of course." She held out her hand. "So thank you, and good luck to you!"
He took her hand slowly. "Thank you," he said, looking down at her a little quizzically. "But you don't cheat me out of a visit, like that! I shall come again." The words were deliberate and there was a quiet intentness in his face.
"You want to come?" she asked. A little flush seemed to travel across her grayness.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world!" he replied. The quiet glance did not leave her face.
A little look of reserve touched its flitting color, and she spoke half-doubtingly.
"I am not sure when I——"
But he brushed it aside. "Oh—you can't put me off! When a man has been calling on you, regularly, for at least a year, he has some rights, surely!" There was something almost grave in the laughing protest of the words, and she met it with a long, quiet look.
"Very well." She consulted the tablet-slip that she took from her green purse, and he took a step forward, looking down at her and at the slip almost with an air of proprietorship.
"Put it up, please, Miss Newberry," he said quickly. "I am not going to trouble a busy woman like you with whims. . . . Perhaps you will let me call on you some evening?" He was looking at her intently, and she returned the look, the flush flitting again in her face.
"Why, of course!" she said cordially. "I shall be glad to see you any time. . . . Only—" She paused a moment. "I am often away from home, you know."
"Then I shall come again—if I find you out. You will not get rid of me so easily—with an excuse!" And he touched his hat and moved away through the swinging door.
Her eyes followed the tall figure passing into the crowd. At the edge of the sidewalk he turned and looked back and raised his hat gravely to her, before he disappeared in the crowd. There was something almost significant in the gesture, and with a little sigh she replaced the tablet in the green silk purse and snapped it thoughtfully. . . . Then suddenly she remembered again Tom Corbin, waiting in the office up-town—and she hurried out.
Chapter IV
He looked up a little cynically.
"I hope you haven't hurried!" he said with stern politeness.
She smiled at the gesture that accompanied the words.
"I was detained." She took off her hat and put it in the closet and seated herself by the desk, looking at him tranquilly.
"Now we can talk!" said Corbin with satisfaction.
"Yes— Do you mind if I knit?"
"Not at all. Go ahead!" The response was light, but his eye had a cautious, waiting look, as she reached to the drawer beside her and gazed into it
Her hand stayed itself and passed thoughtfully across the edge of the drawer before it lifted the amber needle from the top of the knitting and drew them both from the drawer.
She held up the maze of green wool and looked at it with amused eyes, and at the row of stitches that gaped helplessly along the top.
Corbin fidgeted a little.
"Funny thing—knitting!" he said.
She assented and inserted the needle carefully through the gaping row of stitches. Her whole attention was absorbed in them.
"Anything wrong?" demanded Corbin irritably.
"No-o," she replied. "It is better to hold on to both needles when you take it up." A little smile finished the row and she held it up with the needle in place.
"That's the way it was," she announced.
"Oh—bother!" said Corbin. "I was just looking round," he explained after a minute.
"Yes, I know. . . ." Her fingers were flying nimbly through the wool, and her gaze rested on him placidly. "Did you find anything that interested you? " she asked kindly.
"Not much. I should have to work on your cipher first."
"Yes?" She beamed on him. "It's very simple."
"Everything about you is simple, Milly." He was tilting a little in his chair. "Even the Sargent case was simple, I suppose—" His tone was thoughtful and his eye rested on the file-case across the room. . . . "That meant a whole lot of money for somebody," he said softly.
"Not for me," returned Milly quickly.
He looked at her and whistled meditatively between his teeth.
"Why not?" he said.
She rested her knitting on her lap. "That's what I'm going to tell you, Tom. It's my method," she added, "if you choose to call it a method."
She sat for a moment in silence, looking at him.
"Go ahead!" suggested Tom.
She sighed a little and took up the knitting. "I know you won't like it," she said hesitatingly.
"I can't tell till I hear, can I?" A little impatience flicked the words and she smiled.
"No—of course not! I'm only trying to think of some way of saying it that won't sound so absurd to you. It's like this—" She drew out a needle and turned the row of green wool and looked at it and smoothed it a little. . . . "You see, Tom, you and I don't want the same things—" She raised her eyes.
He regarded her mildly.
"That is why I left you— I want a chance to say what shall be done with the criminals I catch."
He