Page:The house without a key, by Earl Derr Biggins (1925).djvu/24

 “Sure,” replied Kaohla. “Sure it’s all right.” They reached the street, and the boy turned quickly away “Good night,” he muttered.

Dan Winterslip stood for a moment, thoughtfully looking after him. Then he got into the car. “No hurry now,” he remarked to the chauffeur.

When he reappeared in his living-room, Miss Minerva glanced up from the book she was reading. “Were you in time, Dan?” she asked.

“Just made it,” he told her.

“Good,” she said, rising. “I’ll take my book and go up-stairs. Pleasant dreams.”

He waited until she reached the door before he spoke. “Ah—Minerva—don’t trouble to write your nephew about stopping here.”

“No, Dan?” she said, puzzled again.

“No. I’ve attended to the invitation myself. Good night.”

“Oh—good night,” she answered, and left him.

Alone in the great room, he paced restlessly back and forth over the polished floor. In a moment he went out on to the lanai, and found the newspaper he had been reading earlier in the evening. He brought it back to the living-room and tried to finish it, but something seemed to trouble him. His eyes kept straying—straying—with a sharp exclamation he tore one corner from the shipping page, savagely ripped the fragment to bits.

Again he got up and wandered about. He had intended paying a call down the beach, but that quiet presence in the room above—Boston in its more tolerant guise but Boston still—gave him pause.

He returned to the lanai. There, under a mosquito metting, was the cot where he preferred to sleep; his