Chapter XVI: The Pink Envelope

For a moment Post-office Inspector Owen Sheridan stood staring stupidly at Dallas Worthington’s landlady, appalled by the significance of what the woman had just told him.

"Gone!" he exclaimed dazedly, at last, "and with her suit case. But didn’t she say where she was going, Mrs. O’Brien? Didn’t she tell you when she’d be back?"

"No, sir; not a word. She rushed out of the house like a creature possessed. In all the while I’ve known her I’ve never seen her in such a state. She’s usually such a calm, dignified young woman, as well you know, Mr. Sheridan. If it wasn’t that she left her trunk behind her, and that she don’t impress me as bein’ at all that kind of person, I’d be inclined to think that she’d skipped to beat her board bill; she owes me three weeks’ board. I’ve been gettin’ nothing but excuses and promises from her lately."

This was another staggerer for Owen. Dallas in need of money! He knew that the girl’s position as stenographer in Mr. Sammis’ real-estate office did not command a very big salary; but she had never once hinted to Owen that she was not earning enough to pay her expenses.

"Poor little girl," he mused tenderly. "She’s evidently been having a hard struggle to get along, and I never guessed it. But, thank goodness, she won’t have to struggle any longer. There’s nothing to prevent us from getting married now, and she can throw up that job as soon as she’s ready."

He was smiling to himself at the pleasant picture his mind drew of a cozy little flat, with Dallas, trim and dainty, pouring coffee at a breakfast table laid for two, when the strident voice of the boarding-house woman brought him sharply to his senses:

"Why a young woman that’s earning twelve dollars a week--which I understand is her salary, Mr. Sheridan--shouldn’t be able to keep out of debt when her board bill’s only eight, is something that I fail to understand. It isn’t as if she was a fancy dresser. She’s always neat, of course, but she never wears expensive clothes, and I can’t see why she should have to get three weeks behind in her board, when----”

Owen hastily took out his wallet, and withdrew twenty-four dollars.

"When Miss Worthington comes back, you can tell her that her board bill has been paid, without telling her who paid it, Mrs. O’Brien," he said, handing her the money. "And please don’t mention anything to anybody about her having been in arrears."

"I won’t, sir," the landlady assured him. "It ain’t no disgrace, of course, to be hard up; but, at the same time, I know it ain’t a subject that people like to have talked about. I’ll be very careful not to mention it, Mr. Sheridan."

"I sincerely hope that she’ll keep that promise," said Owen to himself, as he left the house. "Until this pink-envelope mystery is cleared up, it would be very awkward to have it become known that Dallas was so financially embarrassed that she couldn’t pay her board bill."

Then he smiled grimly, as it occurred to him that the only person from whom, in Dallas’ behalf, such knowledge should have been kept was himself. Of what use to request the landlady not to mention the matter to anybody, when he, the inspector in charge of the case, was already in possession of the incriminating information? He was the man who must find out what had become of the missing pink envelope. He was the man who must name the guilty person, and eventually make an arrest in the case. And, now that he knew that Dallas Worthington had suddenly vanished, a few minutes after she got possession of the only pink envelope which the letter box contained, what was he going to do about it?

He asked himself this question uneasily as he walked away from the boarding place. He told himself indignantly that it was preposterous to suppose for a minute that Dallas could be guilty of stealing the missing letter; that she could deliberately have deceived Carrier Andrews in order to get possession of the hundred-dollar bill which the pink envelope contained.

He was angry with himself for even considering the possibility of Dallas’ guilt. "A nice way to treat the girl I love--the girl I am going to make my wife!" he muttered. "It would serve me right if she threw me over entirely when she learns that I dared to doubt her. How foolish to suppose that her disappearance can have anything to do with the loss of that letter!"

Yet he knew very well that it was not foolish, from the standpoint of an impartial post-office inspector. He knew very well that, considering all the facts in the case, if it had been any other girl than Dallas Worthington, he would have decided with positiveness that the person to be charged with the crime was the young woman who had accosted Pop Andrews at the street letter box, and pleaded with the old mail collector until he handed her the letter.

He realized that he must do one of two things: He must scoff at Pop Andrews’ story, accuse him of having invented that yarn about handing the pink envelope to Dallas, charge the veteran carrier with being the thief, and place him under arrest; or else, accepting the carrier’s story as the truth, he must report to his chief that the missing letter had been stolen by a young woman named Dallas Worthington, who had not yet been placed under arrest because she had fled to escape the consequences of her act.

"It’s a ticklish proposition," reflected Owen. "I can’t very well accuse Dallas, yet I know very well that Pop Andrews is honest, and it would break the old fellow’s heart to accuse him of being a thief."