That afternoon, when the girls gathered for rehearsal, Hester, nor anybody else, appeared to play "the dark lady of the roses." Mr. Mann made no comment upon this fact, but he looked very serious, indeed.
The play was acted from the first entrance to the final curtain. The other characters had to speak of, and even to, the important and missing character, and it was plain to all as the play progressed that the absence of "the dark lady" was going to be a fatal hindrance to the success of the piece.
Even Lily Pendleton, Hester's last lingering friend, showed a good deal of spleen at Hester's action.
"I never will forgive Hessie," Lily said, almost in tears. And the other girls had to urge her over and over again to be sure and come herself on Thursday for the last dress rehearsal.
"If the piece is wrecked, let us be castaways together," begged Jess. "Don't anybody else fail. Promise, girls!"
They promised sadly. Mr. Mann had hurried away as soon as the last words were said.
"Too disgusted to even speak to us," Nellie said sadly. "I am real sorry for him, girls. He has tried so hard."
"He deserves a leather medal," said Bobby emphatically.
"And what do we deserve?" demanded one of the twins.
"I know what Hester Grimes deserves," said Bobby darkly.
It was not likely, however, that Hester Grimes would get her deserts. They were all agreed on that point, if on no other.
That Wednesday afternoon when the girls separated it was with drooping spirits--all but Laura Belding, at least. Perhaps it was because she always had so many irons in the fire that trouble seemed to roll off her young shoulders like rainwater off a duck's feathers.
At least, when she started for the street car that took her to the hospital before she went home, she was cheerful of countenance and smiling. She carried that same cheerfulness into the hospital itself and to Billy Long's ward.
The active Billy was, as he himself expressed it, "fed up" on the hospital by now. He was grateful for what they had done for him there and the way in which they treated him in every way, but confinement was beginning to wear on his spirits.
"Gee, Laura Belding!" ejaculated the young patient, seizing her hand with both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this side of eternity. Have they changed the hours? Aren't they twice as long as they used to be?"
"No, indeed, my poor boy," Laura said. "There are only sixty minutes in each. I wish I could shorten the time for you."
"Take it from me," growled Short and Long, having hard work to keep back the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. Don't let anybody tell you different."
But Laura caught his attention the next moment with Purt Sweet's trouble. What Chet had found out from Dan Smith, Hester Grimes' neighbor, interested the quick mind of Billy Long immensely.
"Gee! I knew it must be something like that. Sure! Purt is shielding somebody for Hester. That's it!"
"Have you no idea who it can be? The man who drove the car, I mean, or the one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? Hester has no brothers----"
"Say!" exclaimed Billy, "there is somebody who will know. If Purt was there at the party, so was Lil Pendleton."
"Lily!" exclaimed Laura. "I never thought of her."
"And if she is likely to be sore on Hester now, as you say you all are," Billy continued, "she won't be for shielding Hester or any of her friends or relatives. Let me tell you that!"
"I believe she must have been at the party. Hester invites her to everything of the kind she has; although she seldom invites any of the other girls of Central High."
"Go to it!" urged the patient "Ask Lil Pendleton. I'd like to have Purt cleared of this. I told that man from Alaska so. But, gee, Laura! I wish we could find some way of giving him the right steer."
"You mean you would like to help him find his name and identity?"
"Yep. He says sometimes he feels that he is just going to remember--then it all dissipates in his mind like a cloud. He's bad off, he is!"
"I am going to see him now. I have an idea, Billy."
"You're always full of ideas, Laura," the boy said admiringly. "I've been raking my poor nut back and forth and crossways, without getting a glimmer of an idea how to help him. He says if we can show him how to find his memory, he'll do all he can for Purt," Billy added wistfully.
"You are very anxious to help Prettyman Sweet, aren't you, Billy?" suggested the girl of Central High as she rose to go.
"You bet I am."
"Why? You boys never thought much of him before, you know."
Billy flushed, but he stuck to his guns. "I tell you," he said, "we never gave Purt a fair deal, I guess. He's all right. He isn't like Chet, or Lance, or Reddy Butts, or the rest of the fellows, but there's good parts to Purt."
"You think he has proved himself a better fellow than you thought before?"
"You bet!" said Billy vigorously. "He's been mighty nice to me; and I always was playing jokes on him, and--Aw! when a fellow lies like I do in bed and has so much time to think, he gets on to himself," added the boy gruffly. "Sending dead fish to other fellows isn't such a smart joke after all."
"I am going to see your friend, the Alaskan miner, now," the girl said, squeezing the boy's hand understandingly.
"If you find out some way of jogging his memory, I'd like to be in on it," Billy cried.
"You shall," promised Laura, as she tripped away.
By this time Laura was so well known at the hospital that nobody stopped her from going to the unknown man's private room where he was now established with his particular nurse. He hailed the girl's appearance almost as gladly as Billy Long had done.
"Your bright young faces make you high-school girls--and the boys, of course--as welcome as can be," he said. "I'd like to do something when I get out of this hospital in return for all your kindness to me. But if I can't get a grip on what and who I am----"
"I have thought of a way by which we may help you to that," interjected Laura. "You know, you must have been doing something all these years since you won your fortune in Alaska."
"Surely! But what became of my wealth? That is a hard question."
"Perhaps we can help you find out what you have been doing. Then you will gradually remember it all. Have you those bank-notes they say you carried in your pocket when you were brought in?"
"Why, they are in the hospital safe. I haven't had to use much of my money yet," he said, puzzled.
"I want to look at that money--all of it," said Laura. "It is too late to-night, but to-morrow afternoon I will come with my brother, and I wish you would have those bank-notes here. I have an idea."
"I'll do just as you say, Miss Laura," said the man. "But I don't understand----"
"You will," she told him, laughing, as she hurried away.
There was, therefore, much puzzlement of mind in several quarters that night--and Laura Belding was partly at fault. She retained all her usual placidity, and even on the morrow, when she went to school and found the other girls so very despondent about the play, she refused to join in their prophecies of ill.
This was the day of the last rehearsal. Mr. Mann had told them that he wished the actors to rest between this dress rehearsal and the first public performance of "The Rose Garden" on the following evening.
"I just know it will be a dreadful fizzle," wailed Jess, before Mr. Mann called the rise of the curtain.
Everything was in readiness, however, for a perfect rehearsal. The curtain was properly manipulated and the scene shifters, the light man, and all the other helpers were at their stations, as well as the orchestra in the pit.
The girls had been excused from studies at one o'clock--of course, greatly to Miss Carrington's disapproval. Since her "run-in" with the Lockwood twins, as Bobby inelegantly called it, the teacher had been less exacting, although quite as stern-looking as ever.
Dora and Dorothy, being cheerful souls, had recovered from their excitement over the incident in history class, and were so much interested in their parts in the play now that they forgot all about Gee Gee's ill treatment.
Indeed, when the curtain was rung up every girl in the piece was in a state of excitement. Although they felt that the failure of the part of "the dark lady of the roses" would utterly ruin some of the best lines and most telling points in the play, they were all ready to act their own parts with vigor and a real appreciation of what those parts meant.
Bobby, as the sailor lad, came on with a rolling gait that would have done credit to any "garby" in the Navy. Jess, as the swashbuckling hero, swaggered about the stage in a delightful burlesque of such a character, as the author intended the part to be played.
Then the lights were lowered for the evening glow and "Adrian" turned to point out the "dark lady"--that mysterious figure supposed to haunt the rose garden and for weal or woe influence the hero's house and his affairs.
Jess recited her lines roundly, pointing the while to the garden along the shadowy paths of which the dark lady of the roses was supposed to wander. With incredible amazement--a shock that was more real than Jess could possibly have expressed in any feigned surprise--she beheld the dark lady as the book read, moving quietly across the garden, gracefully swaying as she lightly trod the fictitious sod, stooping to pluck and then kissing the rose, and finally disappearing into the wings with a flash of brilliant eyes and the revelation of a charming countenance for the audience.
It was lucky that this signaled the curtain's fall on the first act, or Jess Morse would have spoiled her own good work by the expression of her amazement.
"Who is it?"
"Can it be Margit Salgo?"
"How very, very wonderful!"
These were some of the ejaculations of the girls behind the scenes.
At just the right moment the figure of the dark lady had glided from the dressing-rooms to the wings and gone on at the cue. Her acting gave just the needed touch to the pretty scene. Her appearance had been most charming. And, above all, the surprise had been "such a relief!"
"I'm so glad Hester got mad with us and refused to act," sighed Bessie Yeager. "Whoever this girl is, she is fine."
"Is it a professional Mr. Mann has engaged?" somebody wanted to know.
"Laura Belding! Laura Belding!" cried Dora. "What do you know about it?"
"I warrant Laura knows all about it," said Jess, recovered from her amazement. "It is just like Mother Wit to have saved us. And I believe I recognize that very charming Lady Mystery--do I not?"
"Isn't she splendid?" cried Laura, enthusiastically, "I knew she could do it. And Mr. Mann has been giving her an hour's training every day for a week."
"Goodness!" drawled Lily Pendleton, "how did you know Hester would cut up so mean?"
"Doesn't she always do something to queer us if she can?" snapped Bobby. "Laura, you are a wonder!"
"It is Janet Steele," declared Jess. "Of course! I should have thought of her myself. She is all right--just the one we needed."
And it took some courage on Jess' part for her to say this, for she knew that Chet Belding had expressed very warm admiration indeed of Janet Steele.
The rehearsal went off splendidly after that. Everybody was encouraged. The rotund little Mr. Mann beamed--"more than ever like a cherub," Bobby declared. They came to the final curtain with tremendous applause from the back benches where some of the faculty sat in the dark.
"And I do believe," said Nellie Agnew, in almost a scared voice, "that Gee Gee applauded! Can it be possible, girls? Do you suppose that for once she gives us credit for knowing a little something?"
"If she applauded, her hands slipped by mistake!" grumbled Bobby. "You know very well that nothing would change Gee Gee's opinion. Not even an earthquake."
It was late when the rehearsal was over, and Laura knew that Chet would be waiting outside with their car. She hurried Jess and Bobby, and even Janet, into their outer wraps as quickly as possible.
"For you might as well go along with us, Janet," Laura said to the new girl "We're going to the hospital first, but we'll drop you at your home coming back."
Just what they were to do at the hospital nobody knew save Laura and Chet, and they refused to explain. When they arrived at the institution they went directly to the private room now occupied by Mr. Nemo of Nowhere.
Billy Long, up in a chair for the first time, was present to greet the girls of Central High. And the man from Alaska seemed particularly glad to see them.
"Here is the money, Miss Laura," he said, producing a packet of crisp bank-notes. "I'd give it all to know just who I am. I seem to be right on the verge of discovering it to-day; yet something balks me."
"Oh, look at all that money!" crowed Billy, as Laura accepted the bills, while Chet, with the help of the interested nurse, arranged the bed-table and gave the man a pad and a fountain pen.
The head surgeon, who had taken a great interest in the case and with whom Laura had already conferred, tiptoed into the room and stood to look on.
"You bankers," said Laura, laughing, and speaking to the patient, "are always so much better off than ordinary folks. You pass out any old kind of money to your customers; but you never see a banker with anything but new bank-notes in his pocket."
The man listened to her sharply. A sudden quickened interest appeared in his countenance. The others heard Mother Wit's speech with growing excitement.
"See," said the girl of Central High, extracting one of the bank-notes from the packet "Here is another bill on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio. Did you notice that? Doesn't it sound familiar to you?"
She repeated the name of the bank and its locality slowly. "You have more bills of that same bank. But none like the one you gave Chet when you bought that lavallière for 'the nice little girl' you told him you expected to give it to."
The man stared at her. He seemed enthralled by what she said. Laura proceeded in her quiet way:
"Just write this name, please: 'Bedford Knox.' Thanks. Now write it again. He is cashier of your bank in Osage, Ohio."
Jess barely stifled a cry with her handkerchief. But everybody else was silent, watching the man laboriously writing the name as requested by Laura.
It was a disappointment. No doubt of that The man did not write the name as though he were familiar with it at all. But Laura was still smiling when he looked up at her, almost childishly, for further directions.
"Now try this other, please," said the girl firmly. "Two men always sign bank-notes to make them legal tender. The cashier and the president The president of the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio, is----"
She hesitated. The man poised his pen over the paper expectantly. Said Laura, briskly:
"Write 'Peyton J. Weld.'"
At her words Janet Steele uttered a startled exclamation. The man did not notice this. He wrote the name as Laura requested. Chet, looking over his shoulder and with one of the Osage bank-notes in his hand for comparison, watched the signature dashed off in almost perfect imitation of that upon the bank-note.
"You guessed it, Mother Wit!" the big boy cried. "Write it again, Mr. Weld. That is your name as sure as you live!"
The surgeon stepped quickly to the bedside and his sharp eyes darted from the bank-note in the boy's hand to the signature his patient had written. The man looked wonderingly about the room, his puzzled gaze drifting from one to another of his visitors until it finally fastened upon the pale countenance of Janet Steele.
Catching his eye, the girl stepped forward impulsively, her hands clasped.
"Uncle Jack!" she breathed.
"You--you look quite like your mother used to, my dear," the man in bed said in rather a strange voice.
The surgeon eased him back upon the pillows, and at a nod the nurse sent the visitors out of the room. In the corridor they all stood amazed, staring at Janet.
"Of course," Lily Pendleton confessed, "I was at Hester's party,"
"And Purt Sweet was there?" queried Laura earnestly.
"Mr. Sweet certainly was present, too," said the other girl. "You girls need not be so jealous if we are the only two from Central High that got invited."
"You can have my share and welcome," said Bobby.
"And mine, too," confessed Jess.
"These interrogations are not inspired by jealousy," laughed Mother Wit.
It was on Friday as the girls gathered for recitations that this conversation occurred. Lily Pendleton was inclined to object to having her intimacy with Hester Grimes inquired into.
"Do you remember what night that party was held, Lily?" asked Laura.
"Why, no. On a Saturday night, I believe."
"Quite so. And on a particular Saturday night," said Laura.
"You said it!" murmured Bobby.
"I don't know what you mean!" cried Lily Pendleton.
"But you will before I get through with you," said Laura. "Now, listen! You know about that man who had his leg broken on Market Street?"
"The one the police say Purt ran down with his car?"
"The same."
"Of course I do," Lily cried. "And Purt is as innocent as you are!"
"Granted," said Laura. "Therefore you will help us explain the mystery, and so relieve Purt Sweet of suspicion. For he refuses to say anything himself to the police."
"Why--why----What do I know about it?" demanded Lily.
"Do you know that the party was held the very Saturday night the man was hurt?"
"No! Was it?"
"It was. And Purt had his car up there at the Grimes' house."
"Did he? I didn't know. He went away early, I believe."
"And earlier still a couple of boys, or men, borrowed Purt's car without his knowing it--until afterward," Laura declared earnestly. "One of those fellows had to catch a train."
"Why, that was Hester's cousin, Jeff Rounds! He lives at Norridge. Don't you know?"
"Who was the other fellow?" asked Laura sharply.
"Why--I----Oh! it must have been Tom Langley. He lives next door to Hester. Do you know," said Lily, preening a little, "I think Tom is kind of sweet on Hessie."
"Good night!" moaned Bobby. "What is the matter with him? Is he blind?"
"He must have had very bad eyesight or he would not have run down that poor Mr. Weld on Market Street!" exclaimed Jess tartly.
"What do you mean?" gasped Lily. "Tom Langley has gone away for the winter anyway. He went suddenly----"
"Right after that party, I bet a cooky," cried Bobby.
"Well--ye-es," admitted Lily.
"Scared!" exclaimed Jess.
"The coward!" cried Laura.
"And left poor Purt to face the music," Bobby observed. "Well, old Purt is better than we ever gave him credit for. Now we'll make him square himself with the police."
It was Mr. Nemo of Nowhere, now Mr. Peyton J. Weld, who had the most to do with settling the police end of Purt Sweet's trouble. It was some weeks before he could do this, for the shock of his mental recovery racked the man greatly. For some days the surgeon would not let the young folk see their friend whose mind had been so twisted.
"I don't know but we did more harm than good, Laura," Chet Belding said anxiously, when they discussed Mr. Weld's condition.
"I don't believe so," his sister said. "At any rate, we revealed him as Janet's Uncle Jack, and the discovery has done Mrs. Steele a world of good already."
That the man who, for a time, had forgotten who he was and had forgotten a number of years of his life, finally recovered completely, can safely be stated. His very first outing from the hospital was in Purt Sweet's car, and the boy drove him first of all to the office of the Chief of Police.
Purt had refused utterly to make trouble for either Hester Grimes' cousin Jeff or for Tom Langley. Mr. Weld assured the Chief of Police that, although it was Purt's car that had struck him down on the icy street, Purt had not been in the car at the time.
Nor did the boy of Central High have anything to do with the accident. His car had been borrowed without permission by "parties unknown," as far as Mr. Weld was concerned, and to this day the police of Centerport are rather hazy as to just who it was that stole Purt Sweet's car and committed the assault.
"And I feel sort of hazy myself," Jess Morse said, when they were all talking it over at one time. "Mostly hazy about this Man from Nowhere. How did he so suddenly become Janet Steele's Uncle Jack?"
"And his name 'Peyton'?" added Nellie Agnew.
"Why, his middle name was John--they always called him by it at home," explained Laura Belding. "And, of course, Janet and her mother knew nothing about the name written on those Osage bank bills. I didn't suspect the relationship myself.
"But I began to be quite sure that he must have had something to do with the bank for which those bills were issued. And it seemed probable that, as he had so much money with him when he landed in Centerport, that he must be somebody in Osage of wealth and prominence. I wrote secretly to the postmaster at Osage and learned that the president of the Drovers' Levee Bank had gone East on a vacation--presumably to hunt up some relatives that he had not seen for some time."
"Sly Mother Wit!" cried Jess.
"Not such a wonderful thing to do," laughed Laura.
"Not half so wonderful," put in the irrepressible Bobby Hargrew, "as it seemed to the countryman who came to town and stood gazing up at the tall steeple of the cathedral. As he gazed the bell began to toll The hick stopped a passer-by and said:
"'Tell me, why does the bell ring at this time of day?'
"The other man studied the hick for a moment and then said: 'That's easy. There's somebody pulling on the rope.'"
"Well," said Nellie, when the laugh had subsided, "I guess Janet and her mother are glad our Laura had such a bright idea."
"Of course! They are going back to Osage with Mr. Weld when he has fully recovered. And so we shall lose an awfully nice girl friend," Laura declared.
"Gee!" sighed Chet. "And such a pretty girl!"
Jess said not a word.
Of course, all twisted threads must be straightened out at the end of the story; but our tale really ends with the performance of "The Rose Garden." That on Friday night was most enthusiastically received by the friends and parents of the girls of Central High.
It was a worthy production, and the girls deserved all the applause they received. It encouraged them to give two further performances, and altogether the three netted a large sum for the Red Cross. The play, in fact, was the means of raising more money for the fund than any other single method used for that object in Centerport.
The city "went over the top" in its quota of both memberships and funds, and that before Christmas. The girls of Central High could rest on their laurels over the holidays, knowing that they had done well.
"But wait till Gee Gee gets after us after New Year's," prophesied Bobby.
"Don't be so pessimistic," said Jess. "Maybe she won't."
"Why won't she?" demanded Dora Lockwood.
"Nothing will change her," sighed Dora's twin.
"Say!" gasped Bobby, stricken with a sudden thought, "maybe she'll get the pip, or something, and not be able to teach. That is our only hope!"
"Suppose we turn over a new leaf, as Miss Carrington won't," suggested Laura in her placid way.
"What's that?" demanded Bobby suspiciously.
"Suppose we agree not to annoy her any more than we can help for the rest of the school year?"
"There! Isn't that just like you, Laura Belding?" demanded Jess. "Suggesting the impossible."
This was said in the wings of the school stage during the last performance of "The Rose Garden." The curtain went up on the last act and the girls became quiet They watched Janet Steele, as the dark lady of the roses, move again across the stage. She was very graceful and very pretty. The boys out front applauded her enthusiastically.
Laura pinched Jess's arm. "Janet certainly has made a hit," she whispered.
"Well," admitted Jess, "she deserves their applause. And she just about saved our play, Laura. There is no getting around that."
THE END