But the trunk was empty, incredibly empty! My courage rose again, and I glanced at Miss Octavia triumphantly. I even jerked out the trays to allay any lingering suspicion. Why had I ever doubted Hezekiah? Who was she, the golden-haired daughter of kings, to be caught in a trunk? She had slipped up the ladder while I talked to her aunt and was even now hiding on the roof; but it was not for me to make so treasonable a suggestion. Miss Octavia might press the matter further if she liked, but I would not help her to trap Hezekiah.
Miss Hollister did not, to my surprise and relief, suggest an inspection of the roof. She nodded her head gravely and passed out into the hall.
"Mr. Ames, if I implied a moment ago that I doubted your story of the dropping of that tan pump from a Beacon Street roof or window, I now tender you my sincerest apologies."
She put out her hand, smiling charmingly.
"Pray return to the occupations which were engaging you when I interrupted you. You have never stood higher in my regard than at this moment. To-morrow you may tell me all you please of the ghost and the mysteries of this house, and I dare say we shall find the bones of that British soldier somewhere beneath the foundations. As for that trifling bit of leather you hold in your hand, it's rather passé for Beacon Street. The next time you tell that story I suggest that you play your game of drop the slipper from a window in Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. Still, as I always keep an umbrella in the check-room of the Parker House, I would not have you imagine that I look upon Boston as an unlikely scene for romance. The last time I was there a Mormon missionary pressed a tract upon me in the subway, and I can't deny that I found it immensely interesting."
Hezekiah on the roof was safe for a time. Miss Octavia's gentle rejection of my Beacon Street anecdote and her intimation that Hezekiah had been an unbilled participant in the comedy of the ghost had been disquieting, and in my relief at her abandonment of the search I loitered on downstairs with my hostess. I wished to impress her with the idea that I was without urgent business. Hezekiah would, beyond doubt, amuse herself after her own fashion on the roof until I was ready to release her. As I had quietly locked the trunk-room door and carried the key in my pocket I was reasonably sure of this. Humility is best acquired through tribulation, and as Hezekiah sat among the chimney-crocks nursing one stockinged foot and waiting for me to turn up with her lost slipper, it would do her no harm to nibble the bitter fruit of repentance with another biscuit. I should find her much less sure of herself when I saw fit to seek her on the roof. It was a pretty comedy we were playing, but it was best that she should not too complacently take all the curtains. Hezekiah's naughtiness had been diverting up to a point now reached and passed, but the time had arrived for remonstrance, admonition, discipline. And it should be my grateful task to point out the error of her ways and urge her into safer avenues of conduct. Such were my reflections as I attended Miss Octavia in her descent.