CHAPTER VII.PEGGY IS PUZZLED.
CHAPTER VII.
PEGGY IS PUZZLED.
“Hello, Gid,” hailed Roy, thinking that perhaps the ne’er-do-well, who conducted a small blacksmith shop some distance off, might be able to throw some light on the mystery.
“Hello, yourself,” was the response in a harsh, gutteral voice as Gid drew in his reins and the conveyance came to a stop. Roy raised his hat to Hester Gibbons and nodded coldly to Fan Harding.
“Good gracious, what’s been happening?” shrilled out the girl.
“An accident,” said Roy, and went on rapidly to explain what had occurred.
“And the worst of it is,” the boy went on, “that besides the accident Miss Bancroft has suffered a serious loss. A wallet containing valuable jewelry has vanished entirely.” Roywatched Fan Harding closely as he spoke and thought that he saw him change color. It might have likewise been fancy, but he could have sworn that the girl, too, looked confused. Gid puckered up his lips and emitted a whistle.
“Lost a wallet with jewelry in it, eh?” he repeated.
“Have you looked everywhere for it?” asked Fan Harding, with an appearance of great solicitude.
“Everywhere we can think of,” rejoined Roy. He turned to Jimsy, who had just joined him. Jimsy looked despondent and worried. A glance at his countenance convinced Roy that the jewel case was still missing.
“I’ll get out and help you look for it myself,” said Fan Harding suddenly. “It’s awfully queer. Miss Bancroft remarked when she left the bank that she would take particular care of the jewels.”
“I wonder if any one passed on this roadwhile we were unconscious?” queried Roy, looking narrowly at Fan.
To his surprise, the other answered with a great show of frankness.
“It’s very odd,” he exclaimed, “but I myself must have gone by this place not more than a few moments after the smash-up. I was on my way to Gid Gibbons’s blacksmith shop to get a part of my motor-cycle fixed up. I guess if I hadn’t been bending over my brakes as I rode down hill I’d have seen the place myself.”
“Guess so,” struck in Gid, with a grin; “no one never accused you of being blind.”
“My motor-cycle was in worse repair than I thought,” went on Fan, “and so I left it at Gid’s place and accepted his offer to ride into town with him.”
This all sounded plausible enough. Yet Roy noted that Fan had not mentioned his little excursion into the wood with the pistol. What was he trying to conceal? What had been his mission there?
While these thoughts flashed through Roy’s mind Gid and his daughter had followed Fan’s example and now joined the searchers. By this time, Jess, under the doctor’s ministrations, was able to sit up. Her face was pale as marble, partly from suffering, for her ankle still gave her considerable pain, and partly from agitation at the loss of the jewels.
There was a sudden puffing of an auto, and presently Mrs. Bancroft herself, in a smaller car than the wrecked one, was driven into the group by one of the employees of her husband’s estate. As gently as possible, after first explanations had been made, Jess broke the news to her. Mrs. Bancroft, a tall, stately woman, went white as she heard.
“One of those jewels, a ruby, was an heirloom that has been in the family for years,” she exclaimed. “I would not have lost it for all the others. Has every place been searched thoroughly?”
“Everywhere, mamma,” responded Jess.
“Bin over ther ground with a fine tooth comb, mum,” said the uncouth Gid.
Mrs. Bancroft raised her lorgnette and regarded the unabashed Gid with a look tinged with some disgust. But Gid merely showed his yellow fangs, in what he intended to be a pleasant smile, in reply, and lifted his hat with clumsy gallantry.
“What was the last you saw of the jewels?” asked Mrs. Bancroft of her daughter, after Jess had been tenderly carried to the other auto and made comfortable.
“It was just before we started down the hill,” was the reply. “I felt to see if it was safe under the seat just before the car got away from me.”
“Then they were there just before the accident, of course,” put in Mrs. Bancroft. “And now they are missing in this mysterious way.”
“Well, they couldn’t have walked off,” said Fan; “somebody may have taken them while you were unconscious. Unless––”
He stopped and glanced at Roy, who felt hisface flushing angrily. There had been a queer intonation in Fan Harding’s tones.
“Unless what?” put in Jess, looking at Fan Harding directly in the eyes. His dropped under the scrutiny of the straightforward girl.
“I suppose you mean unless I took them,” struck in Roy, angrily. There was a hard note of defiance in his tones which sounded strange there.
Fan Harding glanced at him quickly and then said in a low voice:
“Well, it does look odd, you know, and––”
“Don’t dare to say another word like that!”
Peggy, her soft eyes blazing, stepped forward before Mrs. Bancroft could stop her. Gid Gibbon’s daughter watched the angry girl with a contemptuous smile. But Fan Harding went white and shrank back.
“I—I didn’t mean anything,” he stammered.
“Children! Children!” exclaimed Mrs. Bancroft, “no more of this. It seems that there is a mystery here, and perhaps some day it will besolved. But in the meantime I wish no suspicion, or doubt even, cast on any one.”
If they had been watching Fan Harding they would have seen his face brighten up at this. Muttering something in an undertone to Gid, he slunk off, accompanied by his disreputable blacksmith companion and the latter’s daughter, Hester, as she went, flung back a glance of contempt at the others, of which they took not the slightest notice.
Dr. Mays elected to return home by means of Mrs. Bancroft’s auto. He declared, laughingly, that he had had quite enough excitement that morning for a man of his years. A few moments after the departure of Fan and his strange companions therefore, Mrs. Bancroft’s auto, towing the injured car by means of a rope brought along for that purpose, set out on its return journey. Jimsy rode beside his sister, who made a brave effort to bid a cheery good-bye to the young aviators.
But, somehow, all of them felt that a constrainthad been suddenly born among them, arising out of the mystery of the missing jewels. The next day posters, announcing a reward for the recovery of the jewels, were hurriedly struck off at Sandy Bay printing office, and distributed throughout the town and the surrounding country. In due course the Prescott household, of course, received one, and the perusal of it did not add to their cheerfulness.
The bills gave a description of the accident and the circumstances, and Roy could not but feel that any logical person reading the things would come to the conclusion that Roy Prescott probably knew more about the facts of the case, at least, than any one else.
In addition to the disconcerting bills the regular police officials of Sandy Bay visited the Prescott home and interrogated Roy, to Peggy’s huge indignation. But worse was to come; private detectives also came and questioned and cross-questioned him at great length. Roy could not but feel with all this that he was an object ofsuspicion, but he bravely went about as before and tried to hide his inner thoughts as closely as possible.
Jess soon recovered and was up and about once more. The four young folks interchanged visits and motored and “aeroed” together as freely as before, but they somehow all felt that the air was charged with some influence that made things quite different to what they had been before the accident and the subsequent mysterious vanishing of the jewels.
Peggy privately made up her mind, with a truly feminine intuition, that Fanning Harding had something to do with the affair. Recalling his strange visit to the wood, she even visited the place by herself one day to see if she could light upon any clew that might serve to clear things up. But, as might have been expected, she found nothing.
Her trip over had been made in the Golden Butterfly. Disappointed at her lack of success, for she had almost allowed herself to believe thatshe would, in some queer fashion, happen upon a clew, the girl was preparing to return, when something happened.
A rod, connecting a warping lever with the right wing of the monoplane, snapped with a sharp crack.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Peggy to herself, “what shall I do?”
She looked about her as if seeking for information from her surroundings. All at once she became aware that two men had emerged from the wood behind her and were watching her closely.
Plucky as the girl was, she felt her heart beat a little quicker as she gazed. There was something so very piercing in their scrutiny.
Suddenly one of them stepped forward, and Peggy saw, to her astonishment, that she knew him. More astonishing still, the man was trembling and whitefaced as if in alarm at something.
It was Morgan, the butler at Mrs. Bancroft’s.
“Why, Morgan, whatever are you doing here?” exclaimed Peggy as she breathed more freely.
The man hesitated. His companion, whom Peggy could now see was an employe about the Bancroft stables, came to his rescue.
“Why, miss, we’ve been doin’ a bit of trapping in the woods there.”
“Yes, miss, that’s hit,” struck in Morgan, a stout, puffy-faced Englishman with “side burns.”
“A bit o’ poaching, as you might say, miss. I ’opes you won’t tell on hus.”
“Good gracious, no,” laughed Peggy, immensely relieved to find that the two men were not strangers. “I thought you looked scared when you saw me, Morgan.”
“Yes, miss. You see, I haint used in hold England ter see young ledies a flyin’ round like bloomin’—bloomin’ pertater bugs, hif you’ll pardon the comparison, miss. But ’as yer ’ad han h’accident?”
“I have,” rejoined Peggy, restraining an impulseto say “I ’ave.” “It’s not much. If there was a blacksmith shop round here I could get it fixed in a jiffy. It’s just this rod that’s snapped.”
“Why, miss,” puffed Morgan, “Gid Gibbon’s place isn’t more than a few paces, as you might say, from ’ere. Why don’t you take that rod there? Hi’ll h'escort yer.”
“Why, that’s so,” agreed Peggy, “how stupid of me not to have thought of it. Gid can fix it in a few minutes.”
Selecting a small wrench from the tool box Peggy deftly unbolted the broken rod, and then, with Morgan and his companion as guides, she set off across the fields for Gid’s shop, which she now recalled was a short distance up the road, but hidden from the spot where the Butterfly had dropped by a patch of woods.
“By the way, Morgan,” the girl asked, suddenly, “has anything more been heard of the missing jewels?”
To Peggy’s astonishment the man started and stammered.
“Yes, miss—that is—no, miss. I means, miss, that there ain’t been no news, miss, hof hany kind, miss.”
Peggy nodded without appearing to note the man’s confusion.
“It’s a queer affair, miss,” put in Morgan’s companion, whose name was Giles.
“It is, indeed,” rejoined Peggy. “I do wish it could all be cleared up.”
“Same ’ere, miss, hi’m sure,” struck in Morgan, mopping his puffy face. He seemed to have, in great part, recovered his composure.
“Well, there is the blacksmith shop,” said the other man presently, as they emerged from the fields upon the road through a sliding gate. He pointed to a long, low, ramshackle structure at the cross-roads. Beside it stood a fairly neat cottage and beyond this again a brand new shed, from which proceeded a great sound of hammering.
As Morgan and Giles left her, to make a shortcut home across lots, Peggy set off at a briskpace, holding the broken rod in her hands. She almost dropped the bits of metal an instant later in a great surprise that she encountered.
The door of the brand new building opened and out stepped Fanning Harding, in overalls and jumper. Suddenly he became aware of Peggy’s advancing figure and halted, staring at her.