The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-05-29

les. uOuSHt yOU Spohcu UP
something pretty good. did you. when
you got together and snapped stories
with a discharged employee of mine,
faxed up the red hair. and came
around here pretending to be Rhoda
Mcfarland"
Il am Rhoda Mcfarland" she told
him furiously. 81 don't know who you
think am. I don't know what you're
talking about"
IL don't mind telling you what I'm
talking about. I'm talking about what
happened to Professor Mcfarland six
years ago. when he got on a train
here In Chicago to go back to the
coast. He'd been east TO read pa
per before the Oil Chemists institute
and he found young girl on the train
across the aisle from him crying be-
cause she'd had her pocketbook stolen
after she'd got on the train.
"He was sorry for her and paid
her fare. pullman and all, so
they wouldn't put her off the train.
According to his story that was all he
did. And she promised him her
friends would pay him back the money
as soon as she got to the coast. But
what she did was to make complaint
before the district attorney out there
that he'd taken advantage of her.
"He claimed it was a frame-up. and
when il went to trial the jury
acquitted him, although he couldn't
show any reason why anyone should
want to frame him that way and no
one else could, either. And the scan
dal of the trial cost him his job at the
university.
$50 he came back here and told me
his story, and | believed him and gave
him a job He felt disgraced about it.
He was like a man hiding out from
the police; didn't want anybody to
know who he was or what he was do
ing. Well. l could see how he felt so
| never told a soul anything about it.
l even paid him his wages in cash
every week.
claire Cleveland couldn't have
found out anything about him, even if
she'd tried TO. He never came near
my office nor where l lived. He
worked at place fixed up for him.
and | used TO go around there once
week to see how he was getting on
and to pay him his money. I'm dead
sure he never told his daughter any
thing about that California mess. She
was nothing but a kid. He'd have
;& hn'd al
everybody else in sight. And if you
want tO know who | think you really
are. | don't mind telling you that
either. l believe you're the one per-
son alive today who really knows
whether Walter Mcfarland was telling
the truth or not"
Until he'd finished she hadn't seen
what he was driving at. And when
she did she could do nothing but stare
at him, COMPOUNDED by the mere mon
strousness of his mistake. To COM
plete her discontinue she found she
was beginning to cry.
"You can cry, can you? Well, 1t
worked with him but it won't with me-
So you may as well . :"
He broke off there and what had
interrupted him both made her blink
away her tears and checked their COM
ing. A sort of little trap-door in the
front of Napoleon had silently fallen
forward and revealed. as he reached
toward it, a telephone instrument
inside.
Forster seemed rather startled by
the message he was Getting. whats
that?" he barked. "Who does he say
he is? All right" after listening for
minute, 'Ill see him, but not in here
Have him shown up % tie library. I'll
see him there And find DeGraw and
tell him l want him.
He put the telephone back and
clicked the little trap-door shut upon
it. Then he pressed an electric but
ton on his desk.
I'm going to leave you here for
WHILE" he said to Rhoda, ito think
things over, and you'd better think
straight, if you can. I'm going to get
this Cleveland woman. I've got her
now. as far as that goes. But I've
got nothing personal against you. And
if you can make up your mind, by the
time / come back, to come through
clean and tell me the whole conspiracy,
I'll let you CO."
His ring had been answered while
he was speaking, not by Conley, but
by a sort of overgrown page in livery
He helped the old man to his feet and
conducted him to the door Rhoda had
come in by.
Rhoda sank back in her chair. What
possessed her mind was the story For
ster had been telling her about the
girl he'd preposterously taken her to
be. Did he really believe that? Was
there a scrap of genuine doubt in his
mind that she was Walter McFarland's
daughter? Wasn't the whole thing
bluff to put her on the defensive and
brighten her into doing, eventually,
whatever ii was that he wanted her to
do? II would have been a rather sat
isfactory explanation if she could
intellectually have adopted ii, if
for no other reason than that 1t
brought him out in clearer, less am
biguous light.
But she found she couldn't adopt it
He wasn't a much better actor than
she was. His manner while he had
been trying to convince her that be had
been led Dy nothing but disinterested
benevolence in trying to find her had
been sleek and shy, utterly uncon-
vincing. But some of the things he'd
told her she knew to be true Her IA
Their had been paid every week regu-
larly, through the whole four wears