Free Kerry by Grace Livingston Hill

uneasiness kept cropping up in her spoiled heart.
    So while Kerry crouched in her corner of a dingy Liverpool station, and drowsed the night through, her mother in gala attire was going the rounds of night clubs, and learning what her bridegroom’s idea of fun really was, sipping, too, at his bidding—
more
than sipping as the hour grew later—at the wines her husband ordered, and simpering to him radiantly, “Oh, Sam, how funny you are! You always would have your little joke!”
    Sometime along about one o’clock the next day, Sam awoke to his genial, easy-going, unprincipled old self.
    Kerry? Oh, yes! He’d forgotten! Kerry! Of course,
Kerry!
He’d see about it right away. There must be a message down in the office right now. He’d left orders to that effect.
    They had come home to Sam’s more luxurious apartments, and Isobel was preening herself before a mirror more worthy of her beauty than the one in the cheap hotel. Isobel was thinking how she would show Kerry all the luxuries of the new place. Kerry would come and see it all. And Kerry would be repentant for all the harsh words she had said the day before as Kerry always was, and would kiss her and pat her, and call her beautiful little mother, the only little mother she had. And then everything would be lovely.
    That was probably the cause of this unwonted headache she was having now, her worry about Kerry! Kerry had made a scene! Kerry somehow was apt to make a scene when people didn’t go her way. She must speak to her about that! She must let her know—oh quite gently of course, and after she had been back an hour or so—how she had been the cause of her dear only little mother’s headache. And Kerry would be sorry. Isobel just doted on seeing Kerry repentant. She had such a sweet look in her eyes when she repented, and made Isobel feel oh so righteous and worthy!
    Sam Morgan returned in a couple of hours. He said that his lawyer had inquired at all the hotels in London and could find no such person registered. They had also questioned the people of the hotel where the Kavanaughs had made their residence for the past nine months and could get no information beyond the fact that Miss Kavanaugh had left in a cab with her baggage. They had been unable so far to locate the cab, as it must have been one of the cheaper sort, perhaps run by some private individual operating on his own account. The lawyer had appealed for more definite information before further search, and Sam Morgan found himself unable to give any beyond the fact that the girl was a “humdinger” for looks, and had hair like a flame.
    Isobel, when questioned by a detective, was most indefinite herself. She produced a snapshot or two of Kerry, and a list of places where Kerry enjoyed going—the art galleries, the libraries, a cathedral or two, and museums. But when they asked for a list of her young friends Isobel had to own that Kerry had no friends either young or old. She had always been her father’s close companion and had not seemed to need friends—at least she never seemed to speak of it. Of course she had acquaintances among the girls who were in school with her.
    There followed days in which telegrams were sent in various directions. One to the school she had attended in Germany. One to a pension where they had stayed for a time in Paris, one to a little villa in the South of France where they had gone once for Isobel’s health. Isobel unearthed all their past almost gleefully and brought it out from her memory day by day to spread before the lawyer and the detective, and grew excited and fascinated by this new game of hide-and-seek. She was almost proud of Kerry that she had remained so long successfully hidden. Kerry was clever. She had always said Kerry was clever.
    Day after day they lingered, the yacht waiting for their coming, Isobel being kept happy by much shopping, between visits of the detectives.
    Kerry’s note fell into the hands of the detectives, and the lawyer