The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [4940]
In the afternoon Rudolph came.
"Where's Anna?" he asked briskly.
"She is in her room. She is not well."
If Rudolph suspected anything, it was only that Anna was sulking. But later on he had reason to believe that there trouble. Out of a clear sky Herman said:
"She has had a raise." Anna was "she" to him.
"Since when?" Rudolph asked with interest.
"I know nothing. She has not given it to me. She has been buying herself a watch."
"So!" Rudolph's tone was wary.
"She will buy herself no more watches," said Herman, with an air of finality.
Rudolph hesitated. The organization wanted Herman; he had had great influence with the millworkers. Through him many things would be possible. The Spencers trusted him, too. At any time Rudolph knew they would be glad to reinstate him, and once inside the plant, there was no limit to the mischief he could do. But Herman was too valuable to risk. Suppose he was told now about Graham Spencer and Anna, and beat the girl and was jailed for it? Besides, ugly as Rudolph's suspicions were, they were as yet only suspicions. He decided to wait until he could bring Herman proof of Graham Spencer's relations with Anna. When that time came he knew Herman. He would be clay for the potter. He, Rudolph, intended to be the potter.
Katie had an afternoon off that Sunday. When she came back that night, Herman, weary from the late hours of Saturday, was already snoring in his bed. Anna met Katie at her door and drew her in.
"I've found a nice room," Katie whispered. "Here's the address written down. The street cars go past it. Three dollars a week. Are you ready?"
Anna was ready, even to her hat. Over it she placed a dark veil, for she was badly disfigured. Then, with Katie crying quietly, she left the house. In the flare from the Spencer furnaces Katie watched until the girl reappeared on the twisting street below which still followed the old path - that path where Herman, years ago, had climbed through the first spring wild flowers to the cottage on the hill.
Graham was uncomfortable the next morning on his way to the mill. Anna's face had haunted him. But out of all his confusion one thing stood out with distinctness. If he was to be allowed to marry Marion, he must have no other entanglement. He would go to her clean and clear.
So he went to the office, armed toward Anna with a hardness he was far from feeling.
"Poor little kid!" he reflected on the way down. "Rotten luck, all round."
He did not for a moment believe that it would be a lasting grief. He knew that sort of girl, he reflected, out of his vast experience of twenty-two. They were sentimental, but they loved and forgot easily. He hoped she would forget him; but even with that, there was a vague resentment that she should do so.
"She'll marry some mill-hand," he reflected, "and wear a boudoir cap, and have a lot of children who need their noses wiped."
But he was uncomfortable.
Anna was not in her office. Her coat and hat were not there. He was surprised, somewhat relieved. It was out of his hands, then; she had gone somewhere else to work. Well, she was a good stenographer. Somebody was having a piece of luck.
Clayton, finding him short-handed, sent Joey over to help him pack up his office belongings, the fittings of his desk, his personal papers, the Japanese prints and rugs Natalie had sent after her single visit to the boy's new working quarters. And, when Graham came back from luncheon, Joey had a message for him.
"Telephone call for you, Mr. Spencer."
"What was it?"
"Lady called up, from a pay phone. She left her number and said she'd wait." Joey lowered his voice confidentially. "Sounded like Miss Klein," he volunteered.
He was extremely resentful when Graham sent him away on an errand. And Graham himself frowned as he called the