Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/107

 postman, who would hand her the letter over the pickets and stand and chat for a minute or so.

His mother would go on cutting her flowers until she had forty blossoms, which she would arrange in vases in the cool, quiet north room overlooking the Merrimac, where she would seat herself on the hooded bench beside the fireplace for an undisturbed reading of his letter.

She was tall and spare and strong, his mother, with whitening hair simply arranged and clear, healthful color in her cheeks; and her calm resolute blue eyes would need no glasses to read.

So, having seen her, Calvin began, with his mind on her:

"The shirts you made for me fit perfectly. Thank you, mother. The neck bands are exactly right. I am well as usual and have plenty of exercise. I keep busy and I am sure to find myself a great deal busier than I have been.

"For I am assigned to the prosecution of Ketlar.

"I say, casually, 'Ketlar,' for I have no doubt that his fame has reached you before this. Here, even before he shot his wife, every one knew him. He was a hero, being a jazz band leader. . ..

"He is a boy, barely twenty-four years old, born of an unmarried mother who was a manicurist in a barber-shop. Ketlar was her name, of nationality indeterminate as yet. I have not personally seen her. The father, of course, is completely problematical.

"Ketlar's reward for ridding himself of his wife was to have been the Royle girl, who unquestionably was associated with him in the crime and who now is trying to free him.

"She lives, or lived, immediately above Ketlar, in an exact duplicate of his own flat, having moved into the building for the purpose of being near him when he had deserted his wife. The place is her home, where her mother sleeps off veronal and her father liquor.