Page:The Black Camel (IA blackcamel0000earl).djvu/141

“Sure—at the South Pole, for example. Put Hollywood out of your thoughts. Remember—Hawaii has the climate California thinks it has.”

“Poor kid!” said Mr. Bradshaw.

“Oh, Jimmy—it has been a dreadful evening, hasn't it?”

“It surely has. Think, Julie, think. You were closer to Shelah Fane than any one else. Have you no idea who did—this terrible thing?”

She shook her head. “I can't imagine. Of course, Shelah had enemies—all successful people have—she was envied, perhaps even hated. But I never dreamed any one hated her as much as this. It's just unbelievable, that's all.”

The boy sat down beside her. “Let's forget it for a while. How about you? What are you going to do now?”

“Oh—I suppose I'll go back where I came from.”

“Where did you come from? You haven't told me.”

“From a theatrical boarding-house in Chicago—I was traveling with my mother when she—she left me. Stage people, you see, all my folks—father too. Mother called San Francisco home, though she seldom saw it. But she was born there—so many good actors were, you know. And she———”

“She was one of the best, I guess,” said Jimmy Bradshaw.

“I thought so. I've got a grandmother there now—seventy-two, but she goes trouping occasionally—she's such a darling, Jimmy. I think I'll go to her, and get some sort of job—I could make good in an office, I believe. Grandmother would be glad to have me; we're all that's left of—us.”

Bradshaw pulled himself together. “If no one else want to speak, may I say a few words about Hawaii?