The Female Detective (29 page)

Mrs. B. had not yet done clapping her hands; Jenny still had the creeps; and Mary was recovering her eighth stagger on the kitchen sofa.

It was five o'clock. Tat—tat!

The shock was so great that Mary nearly had her ninth. Upstairs Jenny tore. A letter—yoop, she had caught her breath—Miss Nelly's handwriting.

You see, Papa, I'm quite safe. When shall I come home with my present? Advertise in the second column of the
Times
. Good-bye; love to all.

N
elly
.

Quite safe—then Old B. was in a rage again. Mrs. B., who was quite sure she had got the tic-doloureux by this time, all owing to staring at the broken drawing-room window, per the experimental ladder, beat her hands in such an agony that she looked quite low.

“No; she should never darken his doors again—never. No; he would never own her again. Yet she must have got away somehow! No; not once more.”

But Old Bang was soft-hearted, and very curious. He would have come round sooner or later, but the agony of the mystery made short work of his indignation.

The next day but one, the following appeared in the second column of the
Times
:—

Dear Nelly—return home. All is forgiven. Bring your present.

That afternoon, a cab drove up to the door—in it Nelly and her present—Jack Wilson.

I've a respect for Old Bang, so I shall not dilate upon how he tried to play Brutus and broke down, and performed the part of a clear-headed father.

“You know, sir,” said Jack, “I shall have more than seven thousand pounds in the three per cent. Consols before I am Trunk's age.”

“And the seventeen preference shares?” Old B. began.

“In the Great Northern? Well, I've got seven of them already, for Uncle Trunk gave 'em me this morning—oh, yes, Trunk's my maternal uncle—for the clever way in which I won Nelly here.”

“And how the devil did you do it, sir?”

“Why,” remarked Jack Wilson, a dashing, clear-headed young man, “I just went round the corner, and bribed the Fire-escape. Don't tell any one, or you may get the fireman into a row.”

“No, I wont,” said Old B., in a mild and an annihilated manner; “no; not at all.”

But he did; or how should I come to know it?

Wasn't it odd?

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