Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/238

 to disturb the thing. It was so safe there, buried in the old overcoat. He was so safe. But wasn't he willing to run a little risk for Sheilah?

He got up and turned on the light, drew a chair up to the dining-room table, and spread out the evening paper before him. He turned to the advertising section. His eyes fell almost immediately upon an offer of a closed Ford sedan, 'almost as good as new,' for two hundred dollars. Why, it occurred to him, the doll-house would pay for a car for Sheilah! And two doll-houses would pay for its upkeep afterward. He guessed he would go out and take a walk. He could always think things out better underneath the stars.

Now, four weeks later, sitting on the edge of the gravel-pit, it looked to Felix as if his plan was really going to succeed. He didn't think there was a detail he had overlooked, a possibility of discovery he hadn't anticipated. He had rehearsed the story he had prepared for Sheilah over and over again.

A woman in Chicago (Chicago, because it was so far removed) had bought the doll-house. The woman's name was Kauffman (Felix had consulted the Chicago telephone-directory just to make sure such a name existed in Chicago) and her address was some big number in the thousands on a street he'd forgotten. Should Sheilah insist on more detail, he would tell her that he had the woman's letter put