Your father.
"Note especially," said the young man, "the initial Q on each of the
three envelopes. You will observe that the tail in every instance is
defective in just the same way."
Sure enough, the tail of every Q was broken off short near the root,
like the rudimentary tail anatomists find in Genus Homo. Mr. Queed
looked at her with scholarly triumph.
"I suppose that removes all doubt," said she, "that all these came from
the same person."
"Unquestionably.--Well? What do they suggest to you?"
A circle of light from the green-shaded desk-lamp beat down on the three
singular exhibits. Sharlee studied them with bewilderment mixed with
profound melancholy.
"Is it conceivable," said she, hesitatingly--"I only suggest this
because the whole thing seems so extraordinary--that somebody is playing
a very foolish joke on you?"
He stared. "Who on earth would wish to joke with me?"
Of course he had her there. "I wish," she said, "that you would tell me
what you yourself think of them."
"I think that my father must be very hard up for something to do."
"Oh--I don't think I should speak of it in that way if I were you."
"Why not? If he cites filial duty to me, why shall I not cite paternal
duty to him? Why should he confine his entire relations with me in
twenty-four years to two preposterous detective-story letters?"
Sharlee said nothing. To tell the truth, she thought the behavior of
Queed Senior puzzling in the last degree.
"You grasp the situation? He knows exactly where I am; evidently he has
known it all along. He could come to see me to-night; he could have come
as soon as I arrived here three months ago; he could have come five,
ten, twenty years ago, when I was in New York. But instead he elects to
write these curious letters, apparently seeking to make a mystery, and
throwing the burden of finding him on me. Why should I become excited
over the prospect? If he would promise to endow me now, to support or
pension me off, if I found him, that would be one thing. But I submit to
you that no man can be expected to interrupt a most important life-work
|