The Simeon Chamber Read Online Free PDF

letters was a faint pencil scrawl: Simeon C.
     
    “What do you make of this?” Sam pointed to the stamp. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
    He turned the pages over and examined the script again. On the last page his eyes caught a name, unmistakably a signature, written in a bold hand unlike the delicate text that preceded it. He didn’t dwell on it but returned his eyes to the woman.
    “Have you shown these to your stepfather?”
    “No.” Jennifer expelled a soft sigh.
    “It wouldn’t do any good. It would only lead to another argument and I don’t know if I can handle that right now.”
    “But maybe he can answer your questions.”
    “I think he probably can, but he won’t.”
    Bogardus scanned each of the heavy pages with the magnifying glass but could not make out the script. It was composed of uniform letters, precisely drawn. From a distance they could pass for printing, but closer examination revealed minute wisps of ink where the writing instrument had been lifted between words.
    “My stepfather has given me a good life, everything that I could ever ask for,” said Jennifer. “When I first asked him questions about my father, after these papers came, all he would say was that the man died in the war. He told me he never met or knew my father and that my mother never talked about him.”
    “Your mother must have talked to you about your father, told you who he was.”
    “For whatever it’s worth. She said his name was James Spencer. According to my mother he was a naval lieutenant stationed at Treasure Island.”
    Sam listened to her story. James Spencer had disappeared without a trace during the war. To longtime residents of San Francisco the unsolved mystery of the Ghost Blimp had become part of local mythology and the story was embellished with each telling. In August 1942
    a naval blimp on routine antisubmarine patrol off the coast drifted back over the city, its engines silent. Following
    hours of aimless wafting on the updrafts of ocean breezes the craft had turned the serenity of a quiet residential district into chaos as it settled onto Bellevue Avenue. The blimp was abandoned. The two-man crew who had boarded at Treasure Island only hours before were never found.
    Jennifer finished her story and looked intently across the desk at Bogardus. There was a momentary silence. Sam wasn’t sure he could really do anything for the woman. And yet the story of her father’s disappearance and the seemingly ancient papers spread before him offered a curious diversion from the monotony of legal memoranda, depositions and interrogatories. And then there was Jennifer Davies herself. He had certainly wasted his time on less provocative enterprises in the past.
    He rose from his desk, pushing both hands deep into his pockets, and walked slowly toward the window overlooking the bay. It wasn’t really a legal matter. She could just as easily have consulted a private investigator; in fact, she probably should have. But Bogardus was intrigued by the papers and most of all by the signature on the last page.
    He turned and looked at her. “I seriously doubt if there’s anything I can do for you. From what you tell me this really isn’t a legal matter.” His tone was more in the nature of a disclaimer than a rejection. “What did you hope to discover from adoption records?”
    “I’m not really sure. Maybe to find where my father was born. A place to begin looking. I’m not even sure that James Spencer was my father. It’s only what my mother told me. With this …” She pointed toward the note on the lawyer’s desk.
    “I think I am more confused than anything else.
    I thought that perhaps you could help.”
    “You’re assuming a lot. First of all that these papers are in fact a link to your father. For that proposition all we have is an unsigned typed note. It could be a hoax. Do you know anyone who might do something like this as a joke?”
    “Not that I can think of.”
    His gaze