The Virtuous Woman Read Online Free PDF Page A

then, maybe we could go to the Rader Agency.”
    “No, he doesn’t work for them anymore. He quit even before I left, which was about a year ago.”
    “What was his name?”
    “Francis Key.”
    “What’s he doing now?”
    “He got a case of religion and decided he wanted to do something different. For a while he thought he’d be a preacher, but that didn’t work out. He never felt comfortable with it. We got pretty close. He had always been a literary sort. Better educated than the rest of us. He didn’t tell too many people, but he told me he wanted to write novels with a Christian outlook.”
    “Why, that’s wonderful!” Cara exclaimed. “But I don’t think I’ve read anything by him.”
    “That’s because he never sold anything—at least not that I know of. You know how it is. A starving artist in an attic somewhere. You went through some of that yourself, didn’t you, Mr. Winslow?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “Well, that’s what Francis did. He quit work and wrote night and day until he ran out of money. Then he came back to the agency and worked long enough to get enough to support himself for a while again. Smartest man I’ve ever met. Intuitive about finding lost people. Nobody knew how he did it. I guess it’s like Beethoven. He wrote symphonies, but I doubt if he could tell anybody how he did it. It was that way with Francis. He’d come up with something that none of the rest of us ever thought of and just wouldn’t let go until he’d solved the mystery.”
    “Do you know where we could find him?”
    “I have an old address for him. I think he might still be there. He’s a rather strange fellow, but if I had your problem, I’d go straight to Francis Key.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    The Winslows Find Their Man
    As Cara and Phil made their way down Hester Street in Lower Manhattan, Phil pointed up at a tenement building. “I had some Jewish friends who lived in this area when I first came to New York. A man named Paul Jacobs and his family. Lost track of them, but they were good people.”
    “Has the street changed much? That was a long time ago, Phil.”
    “It hasn’t changed a whole lot. Still full of peddlers. And what I remember most is the wash hanging out on all the balconies.”
    The street had not changed all that much from what Phil remembered. Peddlers with trays suspended around their necks approached them, urging them to buy shoelaces, matches, and ribbons. Others shoved pushcarts around, and even in the bitter cold of early March the babble of vendors hawking their wares hung on the air.
    “I thought that the city had gotten rid of most of these old tenements,” Cara commented.
    “They have torn down a lot of them, but I suppose there’ll always be tenements in New York.”
    The two made their way down the street until finally Phil located the building they were looking for. “I think this is it,” he said doubtfully. “Not much to look at, is it?”
    The building was gray with age, and as they entered the front door, they were met with the rank smells of cooked cabbage mingled with unwashed bodies and worse. “I rememberthis smell,” Phil said grimly. “I guess that never changes.” He looked at Cara and said, “It’s on the fifth floor. You think you’re up to it?”
    “Yes, I can do it.”
    They climbed up the dark staircase, passing children who screamed as they flew up and down the steps, most of them going out to play in the streets, the only playground they knew. Some of them stared curiously at the couple. An old man, a Hasidic Jew, stood aside to let them pass. “Good afternoon,” Phil said.
    The man stared at him, his earlocks dangling as he bowed his head. “God bless you,” he said.
    “And you too, sir,” Cara replied.
    As they climbed they had to stop once to let Cara catch her breath, and by the time they reached the fifth floor, both were winded. “I’m glad there’s not ten stories,” Phil said. “Are you all right?”
    “Yes, I’m fine.”
    He