"Phyl, do come away from that window; you've been staring out into the dark ever since dinner." Janet spoke from the depth of her favorite chair where, as usual, she was ensconced with a book and Boru. Tonight Sir Galahad was cuddled down on her shoulder as well, for his own mistress was restless company. Boru eyed the interloper with open disapproval. There was a truce of sorts between the two animals; a truce not in any way to be confused with a peace. Boru's bared teeth and Sir Galahad's arched back were constant signs that a state of war existed between them.
"What under the sun are you looking at?" Janet went on impatiently. "You give me the fidgets."
"Oh, read your book," Phyllis said without turning. "I'm only star gazing."
"Read? How under the sun can I, with Galahad and Boru making faces at each other under my very nose. Come and take your cat, or I will dump him on the floor; he's making Boru miserably jealous."
Phyllis sighed and turned reluctantly from the window.
"Poor old kittens, didn't his Aunt Jan love him? Well, it was too bad! Come to his own mistress." She picked up the cat and held him in her arms. Galahad purred contentedly and rubbed his silky ear against her soft cheek.
Unconsciously Phyllis returned to the window. There was a light in the window of the house across the yard. It was the same window where only a few days ago the caretaker had fitted the wire screen with so much care. To-night the shade was down, but a shadow passed and repassed, looming large and mysterious behind it.
"What under the sun is he doing in that room?" Phyllis pondered, encouraging the mysterious reasons that fitted through her head and enlarging upon them.
A prodigious sigh from Janet interrupted the most thrilling story of all, and she gave up and returned to her place on the sofa.
"Do you realize that just forty-eight hours ago we were having the time of our lives?" Janet demanded.
"It seems years ago to me," Phyllis replied. "What fun it was! I don't think I ever had a better time at any party I ever went to."
"Well, I never went to any other party,"—Janet laughed—"unless you'd call the church fair at Old Chester a party, and I don't. I call it a nightmare." She made a wry face as memories assailed her.
"How about the tea party we gave at grandmother's?" Phyllis inquired. "We had fun at that, wearing each other's dresses, do you remember?"
"Of course, but I wouldn't call it a party,"—Janet frowned, trying to think of a better word. "I think it was an experience," she said at last.
Phyllis laughed. "What makes you say that?" she asked.
"Well, if you had heard the things those girls said aboutmetome, thinking I was you, why, you'd understand," Janet said, and she smiled a little wistfully.
"Jan," Phyllis asked suddenly, "tell me something honestly and truly. Do you ever miss Old Chester?"
Janet thought for a minute and then shook her head.
"No, I honestly don't," she said slowly. "And I can't make myself, somehow."
"Do you try?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"But why?"
"Because I think I ought to. It seems so thankless of me to go whole days without even remembering there is such a place."
Phyllis jumped up from the couch, tumbling Galahad to the floor and threw her arms around her.
"Oh, you darling!" she exclaimed. "I could hug you to death for saying that. You're such a queer dick that sometimes I get scared to death and think surely you are pining for the country, and then I want to die of misery. You're so quiet and queer sometimes."
Janet return her twin's hug with interest.
"You want me to be like you," she laughed, "and I never will be. I suppose I've been quiet so long that it is a habit. I just can't help thinking long thoughts, I always have, you see, but, oh, Phyl, they're all happy thoughts these days," [Transcriber's note: line missing from book.]
"And you don't miss a single person, ever?" Phyllis persisted.
Janet hesitated; she wanted to be quite honest.
"Well," she said at last, "I do miss Peter once in a while; that is, I wish he were here to talk things over with, and sometimes when I read something I like awfully much I sort of wish I could tell him about it," she finished lamely.
Phyllis nodded in perfect understanding. She knew that Peter Gibbs held the same place in Janet's thoughts that her girl friends held in hers.
"I wish I had seen him," she mused. "It's so much more fun to talk about a person you know than to have to imagine all about them. Whatever possessed him to run away just before I came? I think it was downright mean of him, and some day I'm going to tell him so."
"Tell him Christmas vacation,"—Janet laughed. "He is going to be with Mrs. Todd at the Enchanted Kingdom, and so we'll probably see him."
"And so we will probably see him,"—mimicked Phyllis. "I guess there won't be much doubt about that,"—she yawned, and as if in answer to her thoughts the clock struck nine.
"Let's go to bed; school to-morrow," she said sleepily. "Thank goodness Christmas is not so very far away. I'm going to lie in bed just as late as ever I want to, in Old Chester."
Janet smiled to herself. She pictured Martha's shocked surprise at the very idea of staying in bed just for the fun of it, but she did not disillusionize Phyllis.
Monday morning is always a restless time at school, for the girls are all too busy living over the events of the week end to settle down to lessons, and this particular Monday, coming as it did just after Muriel's party, made it even harder than ever.
The four girls, Phyllis, Janet, Daphne and Sally, were the center of attraction, for the rest had only heard in part the story of their exchange of partners and they wanted it all.
"I heard that Jerry Dodd was sick in bed all yesterday," Rosamond teased. "He laughed so hard that he broke something in his side."
"You mean he ate so much," drawled Daphne. "I told him if he insisted upon eating the sixth chicken pattie he would be sorry, and now I hope he is."
The girls were all sitting on desks as near as they could get to Sally and Janet.
"Dancing school begins next week," Eleanor announced. "Who's going this year?"
"You and Janet are, aren't you?" Rosamond asked Phyllis.
"I haven't asked Auntie Mogs yet, but I suppose we are," Phyllis replied. "How about you, Daphne?"
"Oh, yes, might as well." Daphne knew all there was to know about dancing, but she did not consider that any reason for stopping.
"We're going of course," Eleanor said, "and, Sally, of course you'll come."
But Sally shook her head. She had been unusually quiet, but none of the girls had noticed it. Now they all looked at her in surprise.
"Oh, but, Sally, why?" Rosamond demanded.
"What's all this?" Madge Cannon stopped to join the group on her way to senior row. "Sally not going to dancing school? Preposterous! It won't be any fun without her. What's the trouble?"
"Wouldn't be worth while," Sally said shortly.
"Worth while! Sally Ladd, what are you talking about?" Phyllis demanded. Something in the expression of Sally's eyes made her realize that she was not joking.
"I mean I won't be here after Christmas," Sally said in a dull level tone, and she stared straight before her as she spoke.
"Won't be here?"—the girls gazed at her in stupefied astonishment.
"You don't really mean that you are going to boarding school?" Eleanor demanded. "You said something about it at the beginning of school but no one believed you."
"Well, it's true," Sally said dismally. "Mother had a letter this morning from the head of the school and it's all arranged."
"Oh, Sally—" the girls were speechless, each tried to picture the loss of Sally, first to herself, and then to the school; then they looked at Phyllis and Janet and then at Daphne, and realized that their sorrow could not be compared to theirs. One by one they slipped away, and the four girls were left alone.
"Oh, Aunt Jane's poll parrot, do say something," Sally said at last. There were tears in her voice, and the girls were quick to notice them.
"Oh, Sally, why didn't you tell us?" Phyllis asked.
"Didn't get a chance," Sally replied; "and anyway I couldn't somehow."
Janet put her hand over her friend's and squeezed it. There was nothing to say.
"It's—it's all wrong,"—there was more feeling in Daphne's voice than her usual drawl permitted.
The bell fell on their silence a minute later.
It was not until the study hour was almost over that Phyllis realized that Muriel had not come. Sally's news had completely swamped all other thoughts. She put up the lid of her desk and under its cover slipped a note back to Janet. She read it and passed it to Sally, who shook her head and looked puzzled.
"Hope she isn't sick," she whispered.
Muriel did not arrive until study hour was over, and the girls were chatting in the ten-minute interval.
"Hello!" Phyllis greeted her as she slipped into her seat. One look at her face made her add:
"Why, what is the matter?"
Muriel's eyes were red and swollen, and she looked as though she had been crying for hours. Phyllis did not show as much concern as she might have, for it was a well-known fact that Muriel cried very easily.
At Phyllis's question, she buried her head in her arms and started to sob.
"Something terrible has happened," she managed to say. "I'm so nervous I simply can't stop crying. I've been interviewed by policemen and detectives all morning and I am frightened to death."
Phyllis put her arm around her consolingly.
"But what has happened, dear? Tell us," she begged.
"Oh, it's too terrible for words!" Muriel was certainly prolonging the agony.
"What is?" Sally demanded sharply.
"Chuck's little cousin has been kidnapped!" It was out, and Muriel looked up long enough to judge the effect on her hearers and then fell to sobbing again.
Phyllis felt something in her throat contract.
"Little Don?" she asked.
"Yes, and, oh, dear, just because I'd seen him in the park yesterday I had to answer all kinds of questions, and I'm all nervous and tired out."
The girls looked at the crumpled heap in disgust. It was like the Muriel of this year to insist on being the central figure.
They went back to their desks in thoughtful silence.
Phyllis sat beside Muriel, quite unconscious of her tears; her hands were clenched, and her eyes saw nothing but Don's impish little face.
Chuck was waiting at the corner of the street when school closed that afternoon, but it was not for Muriel that he watched. He wanted to talk to Phyllis. He was desperately unhappy and he had to talk to some one. Boys, even his best friends, were not sympathetic enough. Muriel would be sure to blub; Chuck had seen her that morning. Daphne would drawl and that would drive him crazy, so it was for Phyllis that he waited, sure of her ready sympathy, for she had loved Don.
Phyllis came down the steps with Janet and Sally and Daphne, but as soon as she saw him she left the girls and hurried towards him.
"Oh, Chuck, Muriel has told us about Don, and I want you to know how terribly we all feel," she said sincerely. "Have you had any news?"
"Only a letter for my uncle, telling him to go to some old house way up in Bronxville and to bring a lot of money with him," Chuck replied. "The police tell him not to go, but I think he will; you see the letter says if he doesn't come that they will hurt Don."
"Oh, how dreadful, how detestable!" Phyllis exclaimed. "How could any one be so wicked, and to Don above all people!" Chuck looked at her quickly. He expected to see tears in her eyes, but instead he saw anger—flashing burning anger.
"When does the letter tell him to be at the house?" she asked abruptly.
"A week from to-day."
"Why not sooner, I wonder."
"Because they figure that the longer Uncle Don has to wait the readier he'll be to give them what they want. As if he cares how much money it is as long as he can get Don back again!" Chuck looked down the street and tried to keep his eyes clear from the tears that had threatened to flood them all morning. He too was seeing little Don's chubby face.
"My mother is with Uncle Don now," he went on after a minute's pause, "but there isn't much she can do or say. She's almost as heartbroken as he is. It—it's pretty tough on the little chap," he ended with a queer choke.
As they turned the corner, the girls joined them, and added their sympathy. But Chuck was in no mood to answer their questions, so with an abrupt "s'long" he turned at the next street and left them.
"Let's go up to the snuggery," Janet suggested. "I don't feel up to much to-day."
"Neither do I," Sally said. "I can't think of anything but Don, poor little mite. I hope they are kind to him."
"Oh, Sally, for pity's sake stop!" Phyllis spoke so sharply that the girls turned to look at her: her eyes were still flashing but her lip trembled.
"I can't bear it," she added more softly.
"Sorry," Sally said penitently, and they walked in silence until they reached the house.
"Auntie Mogs, we're all very unhappy," Janet began as they stopped to greet Miss Carter in the hall. "Little Donald Keith has been kidnapped. Muriel Grey cried all through school, and Sally is not coming back after Christmas."
It speaks well for Miss Carter's understanding of her two nieces that she did not have to ask for a more concise statement but accepted Janet's explanation in its entirety.
"How very sad," she said at once. "Poor Mr. Keith must be almost frantic, and Mrs. Vincent too. I wish there was something I could do, though I know them so slightly. Sally dear, your mother told me this morning that you were not going back to school after the holidays and I am so very sorry. The girls will be desolate without you. How do you do, Daphne. I am very glad you came home with the girls. I like to see you four together. Go into the dining-room and have some luncheon right away," she directed. "Perhaps that will make you feel better. What are you going to do this afternoon?"
"Nothing special," Janet replied.
"Then I will ask a favor of you all,"—she followed them to the dining-room and took her place at the head of the table.
"We'll grant it before we hear it,"—Daphne's drawl sounded very soft and musical.
"Of course," Sally agreed.
"What is it, Auntie Mogs?" Janet inquired.
Miss Carter smiled delightedly.
"That's very sweet of you, but wait until you hear what it is I want you to do. This afternoon my class from the settlement is coming here for tea after I have taken them to the Art Museum. There are ten of them; all girls about your own age. I intended to give them chocolate and cake, as it is so cold to-day, and Annie was going to serve it, but this morning a telegram came saying her sister is very ill, so Annie is leaving on the three o'clock train for Buffalo and that leaves only Lucy. Will you do the waiting and serving for me?"
"Why, of course, we'd love to," they all answered together.
"I can make delicious hot chocolate," Sally announced, "so I might stay in the kitchen and help Lucy."
"And have first whack at the cakes; I think not," Daphne replied firmly.
"Now, my Aunt Jane's poll parrot, was ever any one so misunderstood?" Sally turned to Miss Carter for sympathy.
"Never, my dear, I am sure Daphne's suspicions are unjust." Auntie Mogs laughed. "But I must hurry away or I will be late and that's one thing my children can't forgive. Poor darlings, they have so few outings that they hate to waste a minute of their precious time."
"Why don't you take them to the zoo?" Phyllis spoke for the first time, her voice sounded very tired but she smiled. "They'd like it a heap better than the museum."
"No, dear, I think you're wrong. They are all very anxious to see the pictures," Auntie Mogs replied, "but perhaps we'll stop in for a minute to see your beautiful Akbar on our way home."
She left them and hurried off, and again an unhappy silence fell upon them as they finished their luncheon.
"Let's go up to the snuggery," Janet suggested; "we don't have to help Lucy for hours yet."
They climbed the stairs, followed by Boru and Galahad, and finally settled themselves comfortably in the little room.
"Let's do our math," Sally suggested. "It's awfully hard. Taffy, you can help us."
They pulled out the table and were soon at work. Phyllis tried to keep her mind on the problems before her, but her eyes wandered to the window where she could see that the shade across the yard was still pulled down. She welcomed Annie's interruption a few minutes later.
"Please, miss," she said, "Lucy finds that there is no chocolate in the house, so will you please telephone for some and tell them to bring it over right away."
"No, I'll go for it instead, Annie." Phyllis jumped up, glad of an excuse to be alone.
"Thank you, miss." Anne went downstairs, to assure Lucy that the chocolate would surely be there on time.
"Too bad," Janet said, looking up from her paper. "We'll all go with you, Phyl."
"Don't bother. The math is coming along so well with Taffy's help, keep on with it. I won't be a second, and I don't mind going alone a bit. I'll take Boru with me; he looks as though he wanted a run. How about it, old fellow?"
Boru wagged his tail, looked at Janet, and then followed Phyllis, barking lustily.
Once in the air with the stiff chill breeze in her face and Boru frisking beside her, she threw off some of the depression that was making the day horrible. The grocery was only a couple of blocks away, and she soon had her package and was on her way home.
As she turned the corner she found herself face to face with Miss Pringle. She was carrying a heavy suit case.
"Why, what are you doing in this neighborhood?" she asked, smiling.
Miss Pringle stopped, started forward and stopped again.
"Why—er—er—I—how do you do?" she stammered, so plainly ill at ease that Phyllis looked at her in amazement.
"We had a wonderful time at our masquerade," she said in an attempt to make conversation.
"Yes, yes, to be sure, dear me, good-by, young lady—I—" She was indeed flustered, and Phyllis could hardly repress a smile, for Miss Pringle's hat was well over one ear, and the dotted veil that should have covered her face was whipping itself into ribbons off the back of her head.
"But you haven't told me what you are doing down here?" Phyllis insisted.
Miss Pringle looked really troubled.
"I can't, indeed I can't, young lady," she almost cried. "I must go—I must indeed." She hurried on, keeping to the inside of the street and gazing about her furtively.
"Now, what under the sun is old Pringle up to?" Phyllis mused. "I never saw her so flustered. Well, come on, old man, let's take a little walk before we go in. They'll never miss us, and you needn't tell Galahad."
Boru looked up and cocked one ear rakishly, as though he thoroughly enjoyed the joke.
"Here, sir." Ten minutes later Phyllis gave the command, and Boru stopped running so suddenly that he almost tripped on his nose.
Phyllis slipped her hand under his collar and pulled him behind the high stoop that they were just passing. She had seen Miss Pringle coming towards them almost a block away, and she had no desire for another conversation with her. She watched her approach, wondering where she was going, and hoping that she would enter some house before she reached their hidingplace.
Miss Pringle was still walking close to the houses and seemed to be in a terrible hurry. Her hat bobbed more than ever, and the short coat she wore bulged out in the wind, making her indeed a comical figure.
When she reached a house that was boarded up, she paused and looked quickly behind her. It looked as though she were alone on the street. Phyllis watched her, interested in spite of herself, and saw her bob down and disappear into an area way.
"Of course," she said to Boru, as she loosed him from her hold, "I might have known where she was going. The Blaines' caretaker must be a relation of hers. I saw him at her house that day. She must be going to stay with him. But why under the sun was she so mysterious about it, I wonder? And why doesn't she stay in the basement instead of occupying Miss Amy's dressing-room, and why the screen?"
Still very much puzzled, she walked home. The immediate preparations for the tea party occupied her for the remainder of the afternoon.
Days passed, and still no news of little Don. Chuck now made it a habit to wait for Phyllis and walk home with her and Janet.
Each day the greeting was the same.
"Any news?" and always Chuck shook his head and answered, "Not yet."
Friday morning Janet woke up with a sore throat and a headache, and Miss Carter kept her home. Phyllis went to school as usual, and in the afternoon Chuck met her.
"The week's almost up," he said after the usual question had been asked and answered, "and Uncle Don is determined to go on Monday with the money. He's had a letter since the first, you know, telling him to double the sum."
"Will they have Don there at the house waiting for him?" Phyllis inquired.
"No, indeed. There's not a word about that. The detectives say that they will probably try to take the money by force; perhaps knock Uncle Don senseless. They don't want him to go, but they have to admit that they haven't a single clew."
"Oh, Chuck, isn't it hateful not to be able to do a single thing to help?" Phyllis's voice rang with real emotion.
"You bet," Chuck agreed. "I lie awake at night thinking all kinds of things and planning what I'd do if I ever caught those brutes, but that doesn't do much good. I wish Uncle Don would let me go with him on Monday. I'd take a gun along and do a little holding up on my own hook."'
"But that would only make things worse; they'd be sure to do something awful to Don then," Phyllis reasoned.
"Suppose so," Chuck was forced to admit. "I don't suppose I'll see you to-morrow, will I?" he added.
"Why not?" Phyllis inquired. "Come over to the house in the afternoon and we can go for a walk."
Chuck looked at her gratefully. "Thanks, guess I will; I'll be over about two." He lifted his cap as they reached the steps of the house and turned to go. "Tell Janet I'm sorry she is sick," he called back, and Phyllis nodded as Annie opened the door.
She found Janet up and dressed, but playing the invalid up in the snuggery.
"Any news?" she called, as she heard Phyllis's step on the stairs.
"Not yet, and the week's almost up," Phyllis replied sadly.
"Did you walk home with Chuck?"
"Yes, and he said he was very sorry you were sick and he sent you his love."
"Thanks, but what are they going to do?"
Phyllis gave a little shudder.
"Don't use that awful word 'they,'" she said. "It always means the kidnappers to me, and somehow or other every time I hear it I seem to see bandits with gold ear-rings and red handkerchiefs tied round their heads, and they are always doing something horrible to little Don."
"I know," Janet agreed sympathetically, "only I don't think oftheyas that kind of bandit. I wish I did. It wouldn't be half so hard to find them and have a real old fight, but these creatures that have stolen Don are men and they look just like everybody else."
"Except inside," Phyllis added.
"Of course, but their insides don't help. We can't see anything but their everyday outside looks," Janet reminded her.
Phyllis was thoughtful for a little, then she said slowly, "I'm sure I don't know why I should feel so terribly about it; worse than the rest of you, I mean, but somehow I do. Don was such a darling that day that I met him in the park, and I've sort of loved him ever since, and now to think that he's shut up somewhere and can't get out, and that perhaps he's being badly treated and starved. Oh, Jan, I just can't bear it, and if I feel like this just imagine his poor father!"
"But surely they—the detectives—will find him,"—Janet tried to console; "and anyhow Monday something is bound to happen."
"Yes, and worrying won't help, and it's unkind to you, poor darling,"—Phyllis smiled with determination. "How is the throat, and the head by this time?"
"Oh, loads better. I feel perfectly well; but it's such fun being an invalid. I told Annie to bring luncheon up here. Auntie Mogs is out and I waited for you."
"Angel, you must be starved to death, but here comes Annie now. I can hear her venerable boots creaking up the stairs."
Annie appeared with a tray, and Phyllis busied herself putting the table where Janet could reach it comfortably.
"Filet of sole and that nice sauce that Lucy knows I love; how nice." She sat down opposite Janet, and for the time being gave herself up to cheering her.
"Sally and Daphne are coming over to-morrow morning. They both sent their love and everybody was so, so sorry you were sick. I had to answer questions all morning. Even old Ducky Lucky said she hoped you'd be better, though I really think she has grave doubts as to whether I was not masquerading as you."
Janet laughed.
"I never thought I could miss school so much," she said, "but it has seemed ages since you left. Auntie Mogs has been an angel; she read to me all morning and only went out because I simply made her."
The afternoon wore on slowly. Phyllis did not go out, but insisted on reading aloud to Janet.
In the middle of the afternoon the room grew stuffy, and she went to open the window. Of chance she looked down on the roof below her and just across the yard. Something white caught her eye.
Something white caught her eyeSomething white caught her eye
Something white caught her eyeSomething white caught her eye
"Jan, come here a second," she said breathlessly, and Janet hurried to her side.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Look down there," Phyllis pointed. "What do you see?"
Janet looked. "Why, it seems to be a white mitten," she said.
Phyllis faced her squarely, her breath was coming in short little gasps. For a second Janet did not understand, then the bond of understanding that so closely bound them, as twins, together made her see what was going on in Phyllis's mind.
"Don?" she asked quietly.
Phyllis nodded and stared harder at the tiny mitten, and her thoughts raced. For Janet's benefit she voiced them.
"The wire screen, first, then Don talking to the caretaker."
"When?" Janet interrupted.
"The day we went in Taffy's car up to Miss Pringle's. Then I saw him. As we left he went in. Then last Monday, remember, I told you I saw Miss Pringle go in that house?"
"Yes, you described her hat and the funny way she acted."
"And now there's a baby's mitten under the window. Of course it doesn't prove anything but—" Phyllis broke off abruptly and went out of the room. When she returned she had a pair of field glasses with her and she looked at the roof through them.
"There's a blue band on the edge of it," she said, handing the glasses to Janet. "Look, and don't leave the window until I get back," she directed.
She hurried to the telephone and got the Vincents' house on the wire and asked to speak to Chuck. His voice answered her after a little wait.
"Chuck, this is Phyllis Page speaking," she said. "I don't want to give you any false hopes, but something queer has happened. I've found a little white mitten, and I think it belongs to Don. No, don't ask questions. I haven't time to answer them. Just find out from Don's nurse what his mittens were like and then come straight over here, and be sure not to say anything to your mother or your uncle, for I may be all wrong."
She hung up the receiver before Chuck could reply and hurried back to the snuggery. Janet was still looking out of the window as though she feared the mitten might fly away if she took her eyes from it.
They waited until the door bell announced Chuck's arrival. Phyllis flew down the stairs to meet him.
"Here," he said, by way of greeting and he handed her a white mitten.
Phyllis took it eagerly; it had a blue border, and it was handmade after a pattern of long ago.
"Nannie always makes them," Chuck explained. "Where's the one you found?"
"Come up here and I'll show you."
Janet gave the glasses to Chuck as soon as he entered the snuggery and Phyllis pointed to the roof below and using as few words as she possibly could she explained about the caretaker and Miss Pringle.
"I've got to get that mitten," Chuck announced. "Is there a window below this to your roof?"
"Yes, from the butler's pantry," Phyllis told him. "You could crawl along the fence to that roof easily. It's only a little way."
"Then I'll do it now," Chuck decided.
"Oh, but you mustn't," Phyllis protested. "If any one saw you from one of the windows they'd know what you were doing and then all sorts of awful things might happen."
Chuck reluctantly agreed, and they all thought hard for the next few minutes.
"I think I have it," Phyllis said at last. "There are only two people in the house that we know of, the caretaker and Miss Pringle. Now if some one rang the bell when the caretaker was out, Miss Pringle would have to come to the door. That would leave the coast clear for you."
"Go on," Chuck prompted.
"There's nothing else," Phyllis answered. "We will just have to wait until the caretaker goes out."
Chuck groaned at the thought of time wasted.
"When's that likely to be?" he demanded.
"About sunset. He takes care of some of the furnaces in the neighborhood, so he'll be gone for quite a while," Phyllis told him.
"I'll go and watch at the corner," Chuck decided.
"What are you going to do if you find the mitten is Don's?" the practical Janet asked, and Phyllis and Chuck looked at each other.
"Notify the police," Chuck said at last, but Janet shook her head.
"It might be too late. Miss Pringle's sure to be suspicious if Phyllis rings the bell and then has nothing to say, and she may take Don away." She spoke as though the mitten had already been identified.
"I'll tell you," said Phyllis. "Chuck, you watch at the corner, and when you see the caretaker go you come back and go over the roof. I'll ring the bell then and I'll talk my head off to Miss Pringle. If the mitten is Don's, you climb up to the window. We've a ladder in the cellar."
"And I can take it across the yard and help you haul it up," Janet announced. "It's not a bit heavy."
"Go on," Chuck said again.
"You go into the room and get Don and—" Phyllis paused; the window seemed at a dizzy height now that she thought of it as a descent for Don.
"I'll take him downstairs and straight out the front door," Chuck exclaimed. "I'd like to see a dozen Miss Pringles stop me."
Phyllis looked at him and decided that it would indeed take more than the weak flutterings of the old costume-maker to stop him.
He hurried down the stairs, and they heard the door slam behind him.
"We'd better get the ladder," Janet suggested.
They went down into the cellar and found it close by the door. It was only a matter of minutes before they had it waiting in readiness in the yard. Luckily Annie and Lucy were too busy preparing supper to notice them.
They were back in the house just in time to meet Chuck.
"He's gone," he announced, "and there was another man with him, and I heard him say he was due down town by five o'clock."
"Are you sure he was the caretaker?" Phyllis inquired, and Chuck gave a satisfactory description.
"Then I'm off," she said as she hurried into her coat. "Give me time to get there before you start."
She hurried to the house on the next street and rang the bell violently, and waited; then she rang it again, three short rings.
"Perhaps I can make her think it's a telegram," she thought, and her scheme was rewarded, for after a little wait she heard some one scuffling downstairs. The door creaked as the bolt was drawn back, and then it opened a crack.
"What do you want?" Miss Pringle's voice quavered as she asked. Phyllis put her foot in the crack as she had seen villains do in the movies.
"Why, I just came around to see you for a minute, Miss Pringle," she said sweetly. "I saw you come in here the other day, so I knew where to find you and so to-day when the girls were wondering what had become of you I told them I knew and they asked me if I would come and see you and ask you if you would make the costumes for our Christmas play. It's to be a queer sort of play, and we want very original costumes, and, of course, you are the only person in the world that can advise us." Poor Phyllis was forced to pause for breath, but Miss Pringle had only time to whisper a flurried, "Oh, no young lady," before she was off again.
"The play is all about India and the heroine—Daphne Hillis is to take the part—is a little slave, but of course she turns out to be the queen in the end, and Madge Cannon is to be the prince, and the important parts will be filled by the seniors and juniors. Just a few of our class are to be in it, but I'm one of them and so is my twin. We look so alike that we are to be pages, you know, and,—" a sound on the stairs made her heart stand still but she went bravely on—"I never told you what a lark we had at our masquerade, did I? It was really a perfect circus, everybody mixed us up,"—Miss Pringle attempted to say something, and Phyllis interpreted it her own way.
"But of course you're more interested in the play, as you say. Well there have to be ever so many costumes. Daphne alone has three, one when she is the slave and another for the queen, and the third when the king condemns her to be beheaded. It's so sad, you know. He says 'Off with her head' and then Daphne lays her beautiful head on the block and the executioner lifts his terrible sword and—" she stopped.
Daphne's fair head was saved by the timely arrival of Chuck, carrying the sleeping Don.
Miss Pringle gave a scream of terror and tried to shut the door, but Phyllis's foot made that impossible.
"Out of my way," Chuck commanded in a voice so strong that, coming as it did on top of Phyllis's description of swords and executioners, poor Miss Pringle lost all the little presence of mind she had. She fell back limply, and Chuck gained the street.
Phyllis took her foot out of the door and closed it gently on the limp figure.
"Give him to me," she begged, as she caught up with Chuck.
"He's too heavy, but look at him all you want to; it's really Don, Phyllis, and you found him." Tears were running down Chuck's face, but he didn't even know it.
Phyllis took one of the little hands that hung limply across his shoulder and kissed it gently.
At the corner they found Janet, and a big burly policeman who was just hanging up the receiver of a police 'phone attached to the telegraph pole.
"So you've found the little man, glory be!" he exclaimed. "It will be a pill for the force to swallow, but they deserve it! To think I have passed that house every day and never suspected. Well, I'll be after making up for lost time now by watching it like a cat until his nibs comes home and then off he'll go!"
"And the woman?" Phyllis inquired.
"Sure, she'll go with him to keep him company,"—the policeman grinned at what he really considered fine wit, tightened his belt importantly and grasping his night stick more firmly he walked down the street and stopped in a business like way before Miss Pringle's door.
The girls escorted Chuck back to the house. Auntie Mogs had returned during their absence and met them at the door.
"Children, where have you been? I have been so worried—" She stopped abruptly, as her eye fell on Chuck and his precious armful.
"Not little Don?" she asked excitedly.
"Yes, Auntie Mogs, we've found him." Phyllis's explanation tumbled out in hysterical phrases, the other two adding their own version, and in the midst of it Don woke up.
"I want to go home," he said sleepily and then, seeing Chuck, he opened his blue eyes wide in wonder.
"Give him to me," commanded Auntie Mogg, and she hugged him tight in her arms as she comforted and petted him.
Chuck, almost too excited for speech, called up his mother on the 'phone.
"Come straight over to Miss Carter's and bring Uncle Don with you," he said excitedly. "We have news for you, wonderful news."
He left the 'phone, grinning.
"I guess Mother had her hat on before she hung up the receiver,"—he laughed. "She didn't even wait to say good-by."
"No wonder," Auntie Mogs said, her lips brushing Don's gold hair.
"I want my daddy," Don announced. "I want to tell him lots of fings about that bad mans and that silly old woman who said she was my nurse. I told her she was not any such fing 'cause Nannie's my nurse, isn't she?"
"Of course she is, darling," Miss Carter assured him.
Don looked about him and smiled suddenly at Phyllis.
"You're my girl," he said, dimpling, "and that's your twin."
Phyllis was on her knees beside him in a minute, and he rumpled her hair contentedly until Annie ushered in Mrs. Vincent and Mr. Keith, all out of breath.
"Chuck, what is it?" Mrs. Vincent asked eagerly.
For answer Miss Carter put Don into her arms.
The next few minutes were taken up by repeated explanations, while Don, held tight by his father's big hand, helped out by many illuminating bits of information about "ve bad mans and the silly woman."
"And I have you to thank, my dear." Mr. Keith held out his hand to Janet as they rose to go.
Chuck laughed, "Wrong guess, Uncle. This is the one," and he pointed to Phyllis.
Mr. Keith laughed, and took Phyllis's hand and gave it a mighty squeeze.
"Some day I will thank you for what you have done for me," he said huskily, "all of you. You have made me the happiest man in the world."
Mrs. Vincent kissed both the girls, and there was a glint of tears in her soft gray eyes as she shook hands with Miss Carter.
Chuck was the only one who was quite master of himself. He nodded, as befitted a hero, to them all, until he came to Phyllis.
"S'long," he said, taking her hand. "I'll see you to-morrow at two."
"So will I," Don's baby voice called from the depth of his father's shoulder; "and every day after that as long as I ever live," he added stoutly.