Breakfast was late next morning, and there were some heavy eyes at the pretty table. Belle was pale and nervous, and Mary, too, wore an anxious look on her face. Even the plump and jovial Mrs. St. Clair was not quite herself. Her eyes had a puzzled, absent-minded expression, as if she were trying to remember something that had almost faded out of her memory. But she forced herself to smile and talk with her young guests, and only the Motor Maids really noticed her abstraction.
“What do you intend to do to-day, Percival, dearest?” she asked her son.
“Don’t you remember, mother, that Billie is to take some of us and the side-seated wagon the others over to Mrs. Ruggles? I wrote her to expect us by two this afternoon, and we’ll be hungry enough by then to eat everything in sight.”
“Who is Mrs. Ruggles?” asked Billie, who was not yet familiar with various picturesque and interesting characters living around West Haven.
“Wait until you see her,” replied Mrs. St. Clair. “She is a queer old woman, but she has a great many friends and you can’t help liking her, and her food—dear me, you never imagined such meals as she can get up.”
“Now, don’t go and give things away, mother,” remonstrated Percy. “The others have all met Mrs. Ruggles, but Billie hasn’t and neither has Miss Alta, and we might as well give them a little surprise.”
“It seems to me that West Haven is full of surprises,” observed Billie. “Papa and I used to wander about the world together like two vagabonds, but in all that time we never had so many adventures and excitements as I have had here.”
“Well, there won’t be any excitement about this trip,” said Percy. “It’s just a ride across the country to the shore, one grand, large meal, and then home again in time for another feed, and you’ll all be ready for bed.”
It was arranged for those who were to driveto start well ahead of the others in the “handicap race,” as Percy called it, in order to get to Mrs. Ruggles’ at the same time. The Motor Maids went in “The Comet” with their particular friends, which was tacitly agreed upon, and Roly Poly McLane drove with Belle and Fannie and three boys in the St. Clair trim-looking depot wagon. They were not even to take the same road as the motor car, but were to go by a short cut over a road too sandy for automobiles.
Mrs. St. Clair, who was not to be in the party, inspected each girl with motherly interest before the start. She appeared to have an endless store of wraps, ulsters, sweaters and fur coats, veils and scarfs, which she bundled on her guests without the slightest regard for sex or size.
“Young people never know how to keep warm,” she said. “Especially girls. They always think warm clothing is unbecoming, when really nothing is more unbecoming than purple noses and blue lips. Percival, my darling, don’t you think you’ll need your ear muffs?”
“No, mother,” answered her son firmly, “not on the first of November.”
“Oh, I implore you, my son; I entreat you,” cried the importunate woman, and Percy, with admirable patience permitted her to slip them on his ears, though he promptly removed them when the motor car had turned into the road and he could no longer see his mother waving her handkerchief.
“I must look remarkably like Dr. Cook,” he said, laughing, as he removed some of the layers of wraps and scarfs his mother had loaded him with.
“The Comet” was in splendid trim that morning.
“He gets cranky and unmanageable exactly like a human being,” Billie had often said about him, but to-day he appeared almost to take human enjoyment in the long stretch of hard-beaten road and the crisp autumn air.
“Does this mysterious Mrs. Ruggles live in a palace or a hut?” asked Billie, after a while, her curiosity increasing as the salty breeze straight from the ocean reminded her that they were approaching the coast.
“It’s a little of both,” replied Percy.
“She’s a queen, herself, Mrs. Ruggles is,” put in Ben.
“I believe she thinks she is one, really,” said Elinor. “If she doesn’t like a person, she almost says, ‘Off with his head.’”
“But I thought you said she was a cook?”
“She is,” answered Merry. “She’s a queenly cook and a cookly queen.”
“You are all a lot of crack-brained, foolish people,” exclaimed Billie, exasperated. “I feel as if ‘The Comet’ couldn’t take me fast enough to satisfy my curiosity about Mrs. Ruggles.”
She put on the third speed and the red motor took to the course like a young race horse as he rounds the curve toward home. It was a long and rather chilly ride before they reached the abode of Mrs. Ruggles. The young people found themselves buttoning their wraps around them quite gratefully and snuggling down in the car.
“Here we are,” said Percy, at last.
Billie stopped the car and examined with much curiosity a quaint old house, rather tumbled down at second glance, but with an air of comfort about it that no amount of disrepair could overcome.
Smoke was pouring out of the middle chimney and the reflection on the small window panes indicated that there was a roaring fire in the front room.
What the place looked like on the inside was nothing more nor less than an old Spanish inn. Billie did not know this because she had never seen one, but the room reminded her vaguely of something very romantic and picturesque, and what was most curious about the place was that the outside seemed to have no connection whatever with the inside. They were not even related to each other by distant kinship. Outside were the dignified gray walls and gabled windows of an old seashore house. The inside appeared to be one very large room. The uneven floor was paved with red tile and in a big stone fireplace at one end burned an enormous fire of driftwood. From the blackened rafters hung garlands of red peppers, bunches of herbs and strings of onions and garlic. Shining copper vessels were ranged on shelves and around two sides of the room ran a gallery with steps leading up from one end.
“Am I in a dream,” cried Billie. “I feel as if I had been transported somewhere suddenly.”
“Isn’t it fascinating?” said Elinor. “The old house has been in Mrs. Ruggles’ family for two hundred years. It used to be a sort of sailors’ inn, and there are many stories connected with it. But here she comes herself. She’s just as wonderful as her house.”
Mrs. Ruggles was certainly a remarkable figure. She was very tall, one of the tallest women Billie had ever seen, with coal black hair, shiny dark eyes, rather too close together, a beaked eagle nose, and a very determined mouth, with a slightly humorous curve to the lips, which softened her somewhat stern face.
She wore a most outlandish dress for that part of the world, of striped red and black cotton, but she was scrupulously clean, and the coarse cotton kerchief tied around her neck was as white as snow. Her stockings also were white, and she wore men’s low shoes of enormous size, even for a woman of her height.
The boys and girls all shook hands with her as if she were an old friend. She called themby their first names and when she was introduced to Billie she gave her a long, keen look that seemed to read the young girl’s most hidden and secret thoughts. She walked with an erect carriage and majestic tread, and Billie had a feeling that she had been introduced to a personage.
“She’s a great old girl,” said Merry Brown, when Mrs. Ruggles had disappeared into the back regions of the house to finish cooking the dinner. “She can sail a boat as well as anybody along this coast. She fishes, digs for clams, catches lobsters in traps, and does all the things the fishermen around here do and more, too, because she is the jim dandiest cook in the county.”
“Hasn’t she any husband or family?” asked Billie.
“She was married twice. Ruggles, the second husband, was an Irishman. He was a fine fellow, a sea captain, but he died long ago. Her children are floating about the country somewhere.”
“What was her name before she married? Nothing like Ruggles, I am sure.”
“No, it was Sabater. Mrs. Ruggles’ father was captain of a schooner which carried freightup and down the coast. They say her grandfather was a great old fighter and came near being hanged as a spy by both sides in the Revolution.”
It was all very interesting, and Billie was still asking questions of the others when the carriage arrived with the rest of the party.
“Why, where is Fannie?” they demanded, noticing her absence from the depot wagon.
“She complained of a headache and went home,” answered Belle. “We met one of your vehicles on the road, Percy, coming from town, and she got in and drove back.”
“Too bad,” answered Percy. “But she’s very sensible if she doesn’t feel well. It’s a long drive and fairly chilly when it gets late.”
Fannie was not much missed, however, from the jolly party which now gathered around the crackling wood fire. Presently the inn-keeper, fish-woman, queen, whatever she was, led the girls up the narrow flight of stairs at one end of the room to the balcony, on which opened a row of little bedrooms, like ship cabins. She was a very silent, busy woman, and she did not lingerwhile they smoothed their rumpled locks and washed the dust from their faces.
Billie, who also was not one to linger at the dressing table, went out on the gallery and stood looking down into the picturesque room. The place fascinated her and she strolled along, peeping into the other small rooms, where, no doubt, Mrs. Ruggles’ father and grandfather had put up many a seafaring guest in years gone by.
At the other end of the gallery were more rooms, and she could not resist the temptation to glance into them while she waited for the other girls. Two of the doors were open, one into a large empty room and one into a scantily furnished bedroom. The next door was half closed. Should she look in? Billie hesitated. It was very impolite of her, but she knew that old Mrs. Ruggles lived alone, and there could be no one to intrude on. She pushed the door gently and looked in, then retreated quickly. The room was not empty, after all. In the immense, old-fashioned bed so high that it was necessary to stand on a foot stool at one side in order to plunge into it, lay a woman. Billie thought she was asleep atfirst. Her eyes were closed and her long black hair was spread back of her on the pillow like a dusky mantel. The young girl stood transfixed on the threshold. Then the woman opened her eyes and looked straight into Billie’s.
“I beg your pardon,” said Billie politely, and backed away, her heart beating so fast that she almost choked for breath.
The others were just going downstairs, chatting and laughing together, even Belle Rogers, who seemed, somehow, softened and quite different. There was no chance to tell about the strange woman just then, and Billie kept her knowledge to herself. But the large dark eyes haunted her memory and she could not forget the face, of which she had caught only a fleeting glance.
Then came the dinner. Mrs. Ruggles did not wait on the guests. The dishes were placed on the table and they helped themselves, while Merry and Percy, with napkins over their arms, like well-trained butlers, removed one set of plates and brought on another.
Perhaps these young people, who were notepicures by any means, did not realize how delicious Mrs. Ruggles’ dinner really was. But an older and more experienced person would have appreciated some of those delightful concoctions of rice and pimentos, soup thick and rich, fowls done to a turn, and a dish of corn meal and chopped meat and tomatoes, like a Mexican tamale. But they enjoyed it and the pudding that followed and the cups of strong black coffee.
It was a merry meal, too, with jokes and songs and much laughter. Mrs. Ruggles moved ponderously about the room or sat silently by the fire. Occasionally her face lit up with a delightful smile, and she would turn and beam approvingly at Percy or Merry or Roly Poly McLane, who were the chief fun-makers.
After dinner Billie seized an opportunity to speak to the strange woman.
“We had a splendid dinner, Mrs. Ruggles,” she said. “I should think you would have lots of people stopping here in this delightful place.”
“The Inn is closed now,” she answered. “I don’t rent my rooms any more.”
“And you have no guests at all?” asked Billie.
Mrs. Ruggles looked at her for so long that Billie felt desperately uncomfortable.
“No,” she answered shortly, and began clearing off the table with a scowl that reminded Billie of some one somewhere.
In the meantime, Mrs. St. Clair, left to the quiet seclusion of her own home, became forthwith a very determined and resolute character.
First she summoned to her aid the old colored butler, who had been with her many years, and together they searched every part of the house where she had been the night before. They went over the attic thoroughly and satisfied themselves that the lost pearl necklace could not have been dropped there. They hunted through the downstairs rooms, shook out the sofa cushions, looked under the rugs and behind curtains. There was not a crack nor cranny of the rooms she had lately frequented that Mrs. St. Clair and old Randolph did not scour.
Like many another easy-going, amiable soul, Mrs. St. Clair, when roused to action, was capable of the most surprising, almost fierce determination,and when Fannie Alta returned, pleading the excuse of a headache, she hardly recognized in the white intense face, the rosy, dimpled countenance of the widow.
Fannie retired to her room, but when Mrs. St. Clair went to the telephone in the upper hall, she crept to the door, opened it a crack, and overheard snatches of this conversation:
“Do you happen to have a good detective? That’s fortunate. The famous Mr. Bangs home on his vacation? Has a motor cycle? Very well, he ought to get here in an hour. Tell him to hurry. Thank you. Good-by.”
A tray of luncheon was brought to Fannie, but she ate very little. She sat in her room thinking hard. Then, with a sudden resolution, she jumped up and began to move about. First she packed her valise. Then, tying her handkerchief about her head, she put on a very woe-begone expression and left the room. Mrs. St. Clair was in the living room, a maid told her, and Fannie found her pacing nervously up and down the bright, chintz-hung place.
“I am afraid you are not feeling so well, MissAlta,” the widow said politely, but with just a shade of coldness in her tone.
“I am much worse,” answered Fannie. “I feel quite ill. I wish to return to my mamma. May I be driven home?”
Mrs. St. Clair hesitated and a very strange expression came into her face.
“You may go in a few hours, Miss Alta. There is no one to take you just now. Randolph is needed here and the other men are off working on the place. Perhaps you had better lie down in your room until I can arrange to send you back. Did you try the aromatic spirits of ammonia?”
“If no one can take me,” said the Spanish girl irritably, not taking any notice of the question, “I shall walk.”
“But I thought you were ill?”
“I am, but the walk will help my head.”
“No, I cannot permit it,” said Mrs. St. Clair firmly. “Go to your room and in another hour you will be sent home.”
Fannie started to reply, but she checked herself and left the room. Mrs. St. Clair, stripped ofher smiles and good-natured pleasantries, was not a person to be disobeyed, and Fannie was quick to recognize that fact.
She had hardly reached the second floor, when she heard the whirring sound of a motor cycle, followed almost immediately by a quick ring of the bell. Fannie leaned far over the banisters, and when she turned to go to her room, after a small, dapper-looking man had been admitted, she was somewhat embarrassed to find Mrs. St. Clair’s maid looking at her with an expression of extreme amazement.
Fannie hurried to her room and for the next fifteen minutes stood irresolutely first on one foot, then on the other. Finally, with an air of determination, she opened her satchel.
In the sitting room downstairs Mrs. St. Clair and Mr. Bangs were in close conference.
“I do not really know the girl, Mr. Bangs. She is a Cuban or a South American, or something. Her name is Alta and she was brought here by my son’s guest. It is impossible for me to accuse a visitor in my own house of stealing the most valued and handsomest possession I havein the world. She is a queer little creature and looks sly and unreliable to me. But, of course, that is not really evidence. What I have been racking my brain all night and morning to recall is whether it was not she who, when she helped me off with my ghost dress last night, fumbled at my neck a moment.
“It amounts to this, Mr. Bangs,” the widow continued after a pause, “I can’t get over the impression that she has stolen my necklace. The other children here I have known all their lives. My servants have been with me for years, and she is the one suspicious person in the house. Now, what I want you to do is to help me to find out the whole thing without arousing her suspicions. If she is the thief, she may return the necklace, and be sent back to town before the others arrive, and it will be easy enough to make excuses. You are a very able man, Mr. Bangs, and I know that you are only home for a rest, but I do so need your help. Now, what do you advise?”
“Have you looked among her things yet?” asked the detective.
“No, because the conviction only came to me after she returned. I did have suspicions, I will admit, but I put them aside. When she came back I saw that she was uneasy and anxious, and only a few moments ago she asked to be sent home.”
“H-m,” mused the detective. “Suppose,” he continued, “that you call her down and let me talk to her as if I needed her assistance, she being the only member of the party available.”
The advice was acted upon, and presently Fannie, still with the handkerchief swathing her forehead, looking very nervous and pale, entered the room.
“Miss Alta,” began the widow kindly, “I am sorry to have disturbed you when you were ill, but we are in great trouble and we thought perhaps you might help us. Did you know that last night I lost my beautiful pearl necklace, the most precious thing I have in the world?”
Fannie showed great surprise.
“Did it not come unclasped and slip?” she suggested.
“I have reason to believe that it did not slip from my neck, because we have searched the place thoroughly. It must have been taken. I talked it all over with the other girls last night and they helped me look for it, but now I need some one else, and in their absence I have sent for you. Mr. Bangs, who is a detective, has come down to lend me his aid, and we thought we might take you into the conspiracy with us.”
The widow paused for breath.
Fannie sat down and folded her hands nervously.
“I do not see how I can help,” she said, after a pause.
“Possibly you cannot,” put in Mr. Bangs, “but Mrs. St. Clair thought you might have noticed something unusual, and being a guest were too polite to speak of it. For instance, were you standing near Mrs. St. Clair when she removed the sheet and pillow case?”
“Yes,” said Fannie, “there were several of us in the party.”
“Did you notice who unpinned the sheet for Mrs. St. Clair?”
Fannie paused a long time without replying.
“It was not you who did it?”
The young girl compressed her lips and looked the detective squarely in the eye.
“The girl who unpinned the sheet was Mary Price,” she replied, “and since you are determined to question me, I will tell you.”
She drew a deep breath, looked first at the detective, then at Mrs. St. Clair, and proceeded:
“I did notice that she removed the sheet from your shoulders and her actions were very strange. But, knowing what I did, I was not surprised, and I am not surprised to hear now that you have lost something valuable, Mrs. St. Clair,” she went on, more and more glibly, as she saw she was gaining the interest of the other two.
“What were Miss Price’s actions?” asked the detective, taking Fannie’s statements in the order she had made them.
Fannie frowned.
“Oh, I do not know. She was strange. She behaved strangely and she went away at once.”
“You mean she left the room?”
“I cannot say. I saw her no more until supper.”
“Where were you?”
“Oh, I was about, dancing, playing, laughing with the others,” replied Fannie carelessly.
“You said a moment ago you knew something about Miss Price. Will you tell us what it is?”
“Ah, but I hesitate. It is unkind to spread so terrible a story.”
“We will treat it confidentially,” said the detective drily.
“A great many people know it already,” went on Fannie. “The whole school knows it, in fact. Miss Gray, the principal, and some of the teachers, who have lost money and articles. I, myself, have good reason to know it.”
“What is it that you know?” asked the detective.
“That Mary Price is a thief. She has been stealing all the autumn from the other girls and the teachers at the High School.”
“Oh, impossible! I will not believe it,” cried Mrs. St. Clair. “Dear, sweet, quiet Mary. There must be some mistake, Miss Alta. Youshould be more careful how you spread such dangerous gossip. Mary Price and her mother have many devoted friends in West Haven.”
“You may ask Miss Gray, then. She will tell you,” said Fannie stiffly.
“Just to verify your statement, Miss Alta, I will telephone Miss Gray this instant,” exclaimed the widow angrily, leaving the room and hastening upstairs to the telephone.
While she was gone, and she was away some time, the detective began to question Fannie. He was a very experienced man in his profession and he pressed her so skillfully that several times she tripped in her answers and finally grew excited.
“I tell you it is true,” she cried. “She not only is a thief, but she has a confederate. Billie Campbell is her assistant. Perhaps you think I took the necklace,” she burst out at last. “You have the right to search among my things. I had no way to know that suspicion rested on me. If I took the necklace, it will still be among my things.”
“Don’t get excited, Miss Alta, nobody has accused you of anything. We simply needed yourvaluable evidence. Why do you say Miss Campbell is a confederate to the thieving?”
Fannie had gone farther than she intended, however, and she refused to give any more information. But the detective saw that when she was angry and frightened, she would talk, and after a pause, he said:
“You perhaps know that you are the only person in the household on whom suspicion might rest.”
“I don’t see why I should be suspected,” she exclaimed hotly, “when Mary Price is already known to be a thief——”
“Perhaps you have a grudge against Miss Price?”
“I have not,” she cried, stamping her foot.
“Did no one ever suspect you of taking the things at the High School? You know that often happens—one girl is blamed for another’s——”
Fannie flew into a passion.
“I tell you Billie Campbell and Mary Price are thieves. They have a whole box of valuable things they have stolen, stored away in Mrs. Price’s safe.”
“What sort of things?”
“Jewelry,” burst out Fannie, then stopped and bit her lip. “But I may be mistaken about that,” she added, trying to speak calmly.
Mrs. St. Clair hurried into the room with the necklace in her hand.
“Where did you find it?” asked Mr. Bangs.
“I found it,” she began, then paused. “It was found,” she added. “You may go, Miss Alta. Thank you very much. And if you care to go back to town, Randolph will drive you in at once.”
When Fannie had left the room, the widow beat her hands together, and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I found it in Mary Price’s bag,” she said. “And Miss Gray tells me that it is true. Mary has been suspected of stealing all autumn.”
It was late when the young people returned from Mrs. Ruggles’. They were in gay spirits and Mrs. St. Clair could hear them talking and laughing in the hall, first the motorists and then the ones who had driven. She did not go down to meet them and they scattered to their rooms to wash their faces and smooth their wind-blown locks. There was no time to dress for supper.
“I don’t see how I can face them,” she said to herself. “I’m so unhappy, and I’m afraid they will notice that I have been crying.”
But she bathed her temples in cold water, put on a cheery-colored silk dress, and went downstairs when the gong sounded for supper. Down trooped the boys and girls with sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks. The sound of their happy laughter reached her below and she pressed herhand to her heart and sighed deeply. Then her expression hardened:
“Little wretch,” she exclaimed. “She should be well punished, and she shall be, too.”
“‘Soup of the evening, beautiful soup,’” sang Merry, dancing a jig in the hall:
“‘Beautiful soup so rich and green,Waiting in a hot tureen!’”“‘Who for such dainties would not stoop?Soup of the evening, beautiful soup,’”
continued Rosomond, seizing Merry’s hands and whirling with him up and down the hall until they both fell in a laughing heap on the floor.
“Oh, we have had such a good time,” cried Billie and Mary together, taking each a hand of Mrs. St. Clair.
“It has been such glorious fun,” went on Billie, “and we are just as hungry for supper as if we hadn’t eaten enough food to feed a regiment this afternoon.”
“And such fine food, too, Mrs. St. Clair,” said Mary. “I think it was the most delightful party I have ever been to.”
“I am glad you were so happy,” replied Mrs. St. Clair, making an effort to smile and succeeding very poorly.
Mary, who was as sensitive to changes in manner as an aeolian harp is to the slightest breeze, looked at her hostess quickly and noticed the red rims on her eyelids.
“Aren’t you feeling well, dear Mrs. St. Clair?” she asked gently.
Mrs. St. Clair put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked into the clear dark eyes.
“I am quite well, Mary. A little upset over something that happened to-day. That is all.”
“You mean the pearl necklace?”
“Yes.”
“I am so sorry. I wish we could have found it for you.”
“It has been found, Mary,” said the widow, turning her head away so as not to see Mary’s face.
“Oh, you did find it? I am so glad. Where was it?”
“Supper is served, Mrs. St. Clair,” said Randolph,opening the door to the dining room, where the others were already waiting.
“We will talk about where it was found later,” she said to Mary, who gave her a puzzled look, as she followed into the room.
When supper was over, the boys and girls scattered about the various rooms. Roly Poly and Nancy got up charades. Billie curled up in a big easy chair by the fire. She had got most of the wind in her face and she was very sleepy. No one noticed, therefore, when Mrs. St. Clair, drawing Mary’s hand through her arm, led her out of the room.
“I want to see you upstairs, Mary,” she said. “Will you come to my little private sitting room? There is something I wish to talk with you about.”
Mary was still wondering what in the world could be wanted of her, when Mrs. St. Clair drew her into a pretty little pink boudoir at the end of the hall. The door to the next room had been left open, but Mary did not notice a small, dapper man sitting there in a high-backed cretonne chair.
The pearl necklace was lying on a table in the boudoir. Mrs. St. Clair picked it up and held it out to Mary.
“Did you ever see it closely before, Mary?” she asked.
“No, I never did,” answered the girl, with enthusiasm. “How beautiful it is. No wonder you were so unhappy. But where did you find it?”
“That is just why I brought you in here, Mary. I wanted to ask you if you could guess where the necklace had been found at last.”
Mary suddenly became very grave. She was beginning to notice now that Mrs. St. Clair was in an unusually serious frame of mind and that something must have happened concerning the necklace which the others had not heard.
“I don’t understand,” she said, after a pause. “Why should I guess?”
“Is it possible, Mary,” exclaimed the widow, “that even after you were told I had found the necklace you were not just a little frightened, a little uneasy? Didn’t you suspect when I asked you to come up here with me that I was going to speak to you about the necklace?”
Mary looked at her in wonder for a few minutes. Then a light dawned on her.
“It’s Fannie Alta again,” she said, in a low voice. “She must have put the necklace among some of my things.”
“Then you do know where I found the necklace?” cried the widow triumphantly.
“I can guess,” said Mary. “You found it in my suit case. It’s the second time she’s done something like that.”
“Mary, Mary—don’t blame it on any one else. I did find the necklace in your valise——”
Mary stood up. Her eyes were blazing and her small slender frame was shaken with emotion.
“Do you mean to insinuate that I stole your pearl necklace?” she cried.
Her words rang out in a high, clear tone that made the small man in the next room stir uneasily.
“How else did the necklace get into your bag, Mary?”
“Do you mean to insinuate that I stole your pearl necklace?”“Do you mean to insinuate that I stole your pearl necklace?”
“Fannie Alta put it there. She put twenty dollars into my pocket not long ago and tried to accuse me of taking that, and when I gave it back to her she hadn’t a word to say.”
“But, Mary, Fannie is not your only accuser. Miss Gray tells me that you have been suspected of many thefts since school opened.”
“Oh, oh!” cried Mary. “How dare she? How dare any one? What have I done that these people should try to make me out a thief? Oh, mother, mother!”
“That is just why I brought you up here to-night, Mary. On account of your sweet, lovely mother. I want you to make me a promise in return for what I am going to do for you. I promise not to push this matter any farther. It shall never reach your mother’s ears. She will be spared all distress and misery, if you promise me never again, as long as you live, to steal. It was not nice of you, Mary, staying here as my guest, to steal from me. Will you make me that promise?”
Mary did not reply. She sat down and clasped her hands in her lap. Once or twice her throat quivered with the little sob, which so went to Billie’s heart. She pressed her hands togetherand closed her eyes for a moment. Her face was so pale that Mrs. St. Clair thought she was going to faint, but her lips were moving.
“Oh, God, help me,” she prayed softly. “Tell me what to say.”
Presently her agitation ceased altogether. She opened her eyes and looked calmly at the widow.
“No, I will not promise you that, Mrs. St. Clair, because I have never stolen anything in my life. I would prefer that my mother should know about this. I don’t wish to keep it from her. She would never believe me guilty, no matter what the evidence was against me, even if I had to go to jail. You say you found the necklace in my bag? How did you happen to look for it there?”
“You see, I believed that Fannie Alta had taken it, and when we brought her into the living room and urged her to tell what she knew, she accused you. I would not believe it, however, until I had called up Miss Gray. It was only after that that I looked in your bag.”
Mary stood up.
“I know that things look very black for me,Mrs. St. Clair. I don’t understand why, but there is a conspiracy in the High School. It seems to have formed around Billie and me in particular. But there is something else, too. Something is going on in West Haven—something too big for us to understand. Billie and I are in it, and Fannie Alta is in it, and sometimes I think even Belle Rogers is, too. I don’t know what it all means, or why it should have anything to do with making me a thief, but I am not a thief, and I did not put the necklace in my bag. Good-night. I will not see you again. As soon as morning comes, Billie and I will go back in the motor. I know she will take me if I ask her.”
Mary walked quietly out of the room.
“That’s a girl of fine spirit,” thought Mr. Bangs. “The case is certainly interesting enough to keep me here another week.”
Mary went straight to her room that night and packed her bag. When Billie came up a little later she found her kneeling beside her bed, her face hidden in her hands. It seemed to the unhappy young girl in her misery and danger that no human power could aid her.
When Billie heard the story, she was so angry with Mrs. St. Clair and Miss Gray and Fannie Alta that she took an imaginary aim and pitched both shoes across the room with all her force.
“Oh, my dear, my dear,” she cried, throwing her arms about her friend’s neck with affectionate fervor, “you have at least one devoted friend who will stand by you through everything.”
Mary was touched by Billie’s devotion and by and by the two girls dropped off to sleep in spite of their troubled hearts.
But they were up and dressed before any oneexcept the servants was stirring in the house. Randolph, greatly amazed, and imploring the young ladies to wait and take at least a cup of coffee, led the way to the carriage house where the motor had been left.
“Tell Mrs. St. Clair,” said Billie, “that I was called home early and will write to her.”
No one knew but the colored servant, and he did not understand, that Mary and Billie had refused to eat anything in a house where one of them had been called a thief.
“Mary, tell your mother the whole story,” said Billie, as she dropped her friend at “The Sign of the Blue Tea Pot.” “Tell her not to be uneasy. Your friends know you are innocent and it is all obliged to come out right.”
Then she dashed around the Square, turned up Cliff Street, and stopped at the home of Miss Helen Campbell.
“No, I haven’t had breakfast,” she said to the old man servant, who opened the door. “I’ll eat with Cousin Helen if she hasn’t breakfasted.”
“Miss Campbell will not eat any breakfast this morning, Miss Billie,” replied the butler.
“Is she ill?”
“No, Miss,” the old man lowered his voice, “but she’s wearing her black dress.”
Billie frowned.
“Is it an anniversary?” she asked.
“No, Miss. That’s just the queer part. It ain’t the anniversary. We know when that comes now. But something’s happened.”
“Nothing to do with papa?” she asked anxiously.
“No, no, Miss.”
“I’ll have some breakfast, then,” she said. “I’m very hungry from the ride in town.”
Billie ate a hurried but hearty meal alone.
“I never can do anything when I’m empty,” she often said, and instinctively she felt that trouble of some sort was brewing.
After breakfast she tapped on her cousin’s door.
“Come in,” came the tremulous answer, and Billie entered a darkened room.
Miss Campbell, looking faded and pale and wearing a black crepe dress, was sitting alone at the far end of her apartment. Her hands werecrossed on her breast like a mediæval saint’s, and she looked the very picture of hopeless misery.
“Dear Cousin Helen, what has happened?” cried Billie, running to the little lady and kneeling beside her chair. “Is it something very terrible?”
Miss Campbell put her arm around the girl’s neck and two tears slipped down her faded cheeks.
“Billie, Billie, why have you deceived me so?” she exclaimed. “How could you have done this terrible thing? Oh, my dear, my dear, I have been so unhappy, and Mrs. Price, too. We have wept together.”
“What in the world?” cried Billie.
“The jewels, my dear. The box of wonderful jewels that you have kept. How could you have done such a thing? I know many young girls who would have been tempted by them. But not you, my dear, dear Billie. And Mary, too. Oh, heavens, I am so unhappy!”
Miss Campbell was so shaken by her sobs and weeping that Billie was obliged to wipe her eyes with her own handkerchief.
“But, dearest Cousin,” she said at last. “We haven’t done anything dishonest, or that we might be ashamed of. How did you find out about the box and who told you such a slander about us?”
After being bolstered up with aromatic nerve drops and eau de cologne, Miss Campbell was able to speak coherently.
“Yesterday a man came here to see me. He sent up his name and the message that he wished to speak to me about something in regard to you, so I had him shown in. And then, my child, he told me such a story. How his motor car had been wrecked on the very day we went to Shell Island and a box of jewels belonging to his wife had fallen in the sand. He had good reason to know, he said, that you had found the jewels and, instead of trying to find the owner or answering advertisements and notes, had kept them all this time in Mrs. Price’s safe. He gave me a list of the jewels and an exact description. I went at once to Mrs. Price. We found the combination, opened the safe, and got out the box. There they were, just as he had described them. Oh,my dear, what mortification! What will your father say?”
“Did you give him the jewels?” exclaimed Billie, without waiting to make explanations until this important point was settled.
“The man was very insistent. He has threatened to arrest you and Mary and even Mrs. Price. Think of that! For harboring stolen goods.”
“Did you give them to him?” cried Billie, impatiently.
“No, Mrs. Price refused to let him have them until she had seen you and Mary. For my part, I should have given them to the man and let him go. We had a terrible scene with him, but Mrs. Price was firm. She said it would do no harm for him to wait until she had seen you and she would not allow him to take them.”
“Thank heavens for that,” burst out Billie. “Then the box is in Mrs. Price’s safe?”
“No, I had it brought here for safe-keeping. The man was so angry he made threats and I thought it would be better to get it away from Mrs. Price’s at least.”
“What was the man’s name?”
“Lafitte. He wrote it on a piece of paper.”
“Lafitte?” echoed Billie. “What did he look like?”
“I cannot really recall, my dear. I was so agitated. But I think there was something wrong about one eye.”
“He had only one eye,” Billie almost shrieked in her excitement.
“I believe so, and only one arm. But you will see him. He will be back this morning.”
“Cousin Helen, he will never come back. He is a thief and a robber and a smuggler. He is everything that is wicked and bad. I don’t know how he found out that we had the jewels, but he has been hot on our track ever since. I will tell you the real story of the jewels and then you will see what an injustice you have done us.”
When Billie had finished the strange tale, Miss Campbell looked at her with a peculiar expression.
“It’s a very remarkable story, my dear. And if I did not know you as well as I do, I could almost think you had imagined it. And I wasthere all the time. You should have confided in me. The woman was insane, I suppose.”
“She was not,” insisted Billie. “She was perfectly sane and very beautiful. The man who calls himself ‘Lafitte’ is not the right person, and he shall not have the jewels until I hear from her or from the right Lafitte. You may be sure he will not dare have me or any one else arrested. We know too much about him already.”
“But what are we to do with the things, child? They have brought nothing but trouble on you since you have had them.”
“Suppose you put them in your safety box at the bank for a few days. There is something much more important than this at stake now. Mary has been accused of being a thief by Mrs. St. Clair and Miss Gray. It is a terrible thing. Mrs. St. Clair wouldn’t listen to reason.”
Billie related to her cousin what had happened the day before and the chain of events which led up to it.
“Oh, poor dear Mrs. Price! My unfortunate friend. What shall we do, Billie?” exclaimed the sympathetic little woman.
“I don’t know yet, Cousin Helen. The whole thing is too much for me, but I have a scheme. Are there any detectives in West Haven?”
“Call up the police station,” her cousin suggested, and presently Billie’s voice could be heard in the hall:
“Have you a good detective? Bangs, you say. Send him to Miss Campbell’s please; upper Cliff Street, and the sooner the better. Good-by.”
Mr. Bangs made three calls on that memorable Monday. The first was to Billie, as you already surmise. If he recognized the strong undercurrent which connected the strange adventures of the Motor Maids during the past two months, he said nothing, but listened gravely to the young girl’s account of the happenings in Boulder Lane, the box of jewels, the cases of rifles at Seven League Island, and so on through the events which have been told in this history.
When Billie had finished, she paused and waited for the detective to speak, but he sat silently twirling his thumbs and looking down at the floor with half-closed eyes.
Billie was slightly irritated.
“I have sent for you, Mr. Bangs,” she continued with some dignity, “because, while I am certain of two things, I’m not at all sure of thethird. The first is that Fannie Alta has some very good reason for trying to prove that Mary is a thief. The second is that this smuggler who has been trying to steal the jewels has something to do with it.”
“And what is the third, Miss Campbell?” asked the detective, smiling, without looking up.
“That is what I want you to tell me,” exclaimed Billie restlessly. “There is a third. It is the missing link. And it is what I wanted you to find out for me. I have thought and thought and puzzled and puzzled, but I can’t make it out. I believe with all my soul that there is some wicked force back of the whole thing.”
Mr. Bangs raised his eyes at last and looked at the young girl with evident admiration.
“You are taking the first step toward making a good detective, Miss Campbell,” he said. “You have expressed it in three words. It is the missing link we need to get at in this business and it is what I must find.”
Billie flushed with pleasure at this professional praise. She had never had occasion to play thepart of detective before. But devotion and loyalty to her friend had sharpened her wits.
“Now, why?” asked the detective. “Isn’t Miss Alta the missing link?”
“That is the strangest part of the whole business. She is a piece of the link, I think, but then she has nothing against Mary and me. There would be no object to what she has done unless she had.”
“You did not know that she accused you of being the confederate of your friend or that she knew that you had the box of jewels hidden in the safe?”
“What?” cried Billie, with amazement. “But how did she know——” she began.
“Yes, how?”
Billie sat looking down at her hands. She was not thinking of those slender, strong fingers, which appeared to clasp each other with a friendly grip. Her thoughts were busy going back over the past few weeks.
“I think I’ve found the missing link,” she said at last, with a serious look in her eyes, as she turned toward the detective. “Belle Rogers isthe missing link. I can’t understand why I haven’t thought of it before, but it seemed so incredible.”
“Miss Campbell,” put in Mr. Bangs severely, “I am afraid you are not such a good detective, after all. You have left out one of the most important things. You did not tell me that some one besides your three friends knew about the jewels.”
Billie had omitted the story of the confusion of the two suit cases at Shell Island. She had really quite forgotten it and Mr. Bangs chuckled with amusement when he heard how Belle had opened and examined all the contents of another girl’s suit case out of pure curiosity.
“Then she must have read the name on the card, too,” he said presently.
“I suppose so.”
“Now, tell me, Miss Campbell, what is the grudge which this young lady perhaps has against you and your friends?”
“Oh, it’s only a silly schoolgirl affair,” replied Billie. “I am ashamed to tell you, because it seems so utterly trivial in comparison to otherthings. She was angry because I wouldn’t join her club and because we saw her the night of the fire with her hair up in rubber curlers.”
The detective laughed outright.
“That’s a woman’s reason for taking revenge,” he said.
“And she was angry again because I took her into the wrong room, when the hotel was burning and we had to escape over the roof.”
“Humph!” exclaimed the detective. “Insult piled onto injury, eh? So this Miss Rogers is a very vindictive character?”
Billie hesitated. It went against her straight-forward, honest nature to malign even Belle Rogers.
“She has been spoiled all her life,” she said, “and you know how spoiled children must have their own way. That is all. She was angry because she planned to make me a member of her club and queen it over me as she does over the others, and I disappointed her. Her mother and friends have taken good care always that she should never be disappointed and she just didn’t know what the feeling was, I suppose.”
“She must be quite a remarkably spoiled young woman to go to such lengths for such a trivial offence. But we sometimes get in deeper than we intend, you know.”
The detective rose to go.
“Good day, Miss Campbell,” he said, giving her hand quite a warm grip, considering what a quiet, cold individual he had seemed at first. “You will hear from me again, soon. I had not intended to work when I came down here. You know I am a West Haven boy. My father was old Bill Bangs, the jailer. You probably have heard of him. He was a famous character in his day. I came home to rest and see my people, but when a detective scents a good case he is not apt to let it slip by, even on a holiday.”
“And you think this is a good case?”
“It’s a corking one,” he replied, as he closed the door after him.
Billie and Mary did not go to school that famous Monday. Billie had no mind to face the curious looks she felt certain would be turned upon her by the other girls, because news travels quickly in any school. Mary was lying on hermother’s bed with a throbbing sick headache. All day Mrs. Price sat beside her daughter and held her hand. At intervals she bathed her temples with eau de cologne and whispered:
“My dearest, it will come out all right. Mother loves you and believes in you and so does Billie. Don’t sob like that for my sake, my little girl.”
Belle Rogers also stayed at home that Monday. Mr. Bangs discovered this fact on his second visit of the day when he was closeted for an hour or more with Miss Gray and Mrs. St. Clair in the principal’s private office.
After a tiresome interview with these two well meaning but mistaken ladies, in which he said little and they said much, he left the High School with a sigh of relief.
Presently he found himself in the fashionable district of West Haven. It was the second time he had climbed the street that day, but he was a calm little person, not easily heated by emotion or exercise, and when he rang the bell at the Rogers home, there was just the suspicion of a smile on his face. He sent up his card for MissRogers and word was brought back that Miss Rogers was ill and not to be seen. Then, with a pencil, he wrote across the face of the card, “Lafitte—Paris.”
In three minutes the swish of skirts down the steps announced that some one was coming.
“I hope it’s not the mother,” he said to himself.
But it was Belle, very pale, with violet circles around her eyes and a nervous quivering about the lips.
When Mr. Bangs left the Rogers house after spending three-quarters of an hour with Belle, he remarked as he strolled down the gravel driveway to the street:
“It will have to be an out and out confession from one or the other. If this one doesn’t give it, the Alta girl must. I shall pay my respects to Mme. Alta this evening.”
He had hardly passed through the great iron gateway leading into the street, when Belle, wearing a heavy veil and a long ulster, hurried after him. She carried a music roll under herarm, although she was not taking lessons, since she had been injured in the fire, but it was understood by the servant who opened the door for her that she was going to see Mme. Alta.
A ship had sailed into the little harbor of West Haven on Monday morning. She carried a load of lumber from down the coast and after showing her clearance papers and discharging her cargo with all due formality, she hoisted sails again and moved around the curve of the harbor into a deep inlet, where she rested at anchor in a position just opposite Boulder Lane.
Darkness fell very early that Monday afternoon as those who were not in their homes will remember.
Mr. Bangs will recall the inky blackness of the lowering sky, as he came out of the telegraph office, where he had wired to his chief to send down another man, and turned his steps toward the rooms occupied by Mme. Alta.
Our Motor Maids have not forgotten how they sped back to town after a swift ride in their beloved“Comet,” in the late afternoon, when they discussed the situation long and earnestly.
Three figures turned into Boulder Lane as the motor car flashed past, but the girls were too intent on their conversation to notice them. The first, who was a tall, stout woman, walked stoically along with the tread of a grenadier. She carried a large suit case with one hand and an enormous bundle with the other. Her two upper teeth protruding over her lower lip gave her that strange animal look which Billie had disliked so much. For it was Mme. Alta, as you have no doubt guessed, trudging up Boulder Lane. Her daughter, Francesca, walked behind. She also carried a suit case and a bundle. Occasionally she flashed a look of hatred back to the lights of West Haven, which place she had never loved.
Can this be Belle Rogers who brings up the procession, staggering under a heavy satchel and moaning and weeping as she stumbles along?
“I am glad I left word that I had gone out to spend the night,” she said to herself. “At least, they won’t know it for a while, and it will be too late then.”
It was a long walk before they reached the end of Boulder Lane and found themselves on the beach of the little cove. The lights of the ship made a rippling, cheerful track on the water, but Belle shivered when she saw the black hull outlined in the darkness.
Several men were waiting for them near a boat, which had been moored on the beach, and presently the three women climbed in; their luggage was piled at one end and they were rowed away in the darkness. Two wagons came lumbering up the beach, and half the night, Belle, who was tossing feverishly in her stuffy berth, trying to stifle her sobs, heard the sailors loading a cargo, while the boats plied back and forth from the shore to the ship.
There was no wind that night and an ominous silence seemed to brood over the sea. At last in the stillness, Belle slept. Toward morning she was awakened by the sound of a voice. A man in a small boat just below her porthole was calling up to some one on deck.
“Hello, Captain, it’s Ruiz. I’m coming aboard. We must sail by dawn. They’ve got word aboutus. If that girl has turned traitor, she shall pay for it.”
Belle could not hear the captain’s reply, but he must have made some objection to sailing that morning, for the man named Ruiz answered:
“Storm or no storm, I’m master here, and I say we sail at once.”
And sail they did without more argument. She could hear the sailors running about the ship. The masts creaked and groaned. Chains rattled. Presently the boat was in motion, and from her porthole she saw the familiar shores glide past her.
We cannot help pitying poor Belle in her misery and distress. She dragged herself from her berth—Fannie was still sleeping soundly—and put on her clothes. For the first time, she became aware of a sustained and ever-increasing sound. What she had mistaken in the beginning for the eternal noise of the waters, she recognized now as the wind. As she cast one long regretful look back to the shores of West Haven, which she had never really loved until now, the hurricane burst upon them with a roar like a thousand angry beasts.The ship went scurrying through the harbor entrance in the teeth of the gale.
Belle hurried upstairs to the deck, pulling on her ulster as she ran. Not a vestige of curl had the wet air left in her light gold hair; but for the first time in her life, since she had been old enough to remember, she had forgotten that she had any hair and she did not even stop to push back the damp, uneven locks from her eyes.
The boat had cleared the Black Reefs and was making for the open sea, when suddenly the demon wind played a trick on the captain of the little schooner and changed its tack. Down went the mainmast with a great crash. Through the shrieking of the wind, Belle could hear the curses and cries of the sailors and the yells of the captain. Mme. Alta appeared, looking more than ever like a walrus, in her greasy old black dressing gown. Fannie ran up behind her, making a great outcry.
The hurricane seemed to lift the ship in its arms and carry it along. Then, with a hideous grinding noise, the vessel stood perfectly still.
Some one screamed:
“We’re on the rocks!”
And Belle knew without being told that they had tossed onto the Black Reefs.
“Wake up, Billie,” cried Nancy, shaking her friend’s shoulder violently. “Get up and dress. We are all waiting below.”
“What’s happened?” asked Billie, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes.
“A ship is wrecked on the Black Reefs.”
Billie leaped from her bed and began to dress hurriedly.
“It must be a fearful sight,” she exclaimed, as she pulled on her clothes. “The poor sailors, will they be saved?”
“I haven’t heard,” answered Nancy, “but the whole town is rushing up the Cliff Road.”
“Tell Ben to get ‘The Comet.’ He can run it as well as I can now.”
“He has,” answered Nancy, with the privilege of friendship. “I made him get it while I routed you out.”
In another five minutes “The Comet,” with its load of boys and girls,—only Mary and Percywere missing,—was climbing Cliff Road in a driving hurricane of wind.
A straggling line of people hurried along the path toward the Life-Saving Station.
“Is that it?” demanded Billie breathlessly, when the car had come to a standstill opposite the light house.
“Yes,” replied Merry, looking through the glasses. “She doesn’t look much larger than a fishing smack from this distance, but she’s really a pretty big schooner and she’s in a bad fix, too. She has stuck right on the Serpent’s Fang, Ben. You remember that old fisherman showed it to us last summer when we were sailing? It’s a pointed rock that sticks up higher than the others and it looked to be a pretty fierce proposition to me.”
“The life-boat is being launched!” exclaimed Elinor.
They clutched each other in their excitement, while a boat, with six brave life-savers in it, leapt onto the crest of a big wave, only to be hurled back again.
“They’ll have to use the gun,” put in Charlie. “They’ll never make it in this sea.”
“What do you mean?” shouted Billie. It was almost impossible to be heard now above the noise of the wind.
But before any one could shout back an explanation, her attention was claimed by a man in a long, thick ulster, buttoned to his chin, and a vizored cap pulled well over his eyes. He had come to the front of the motor car and, bowing to Billie politely, he stood on tiptoe and beckoned to her to lean down.
“You’ll be surprised to hear that you have friends on that ship,” he said in her ear, and she recognized Mr. Bangs.
“Friends?” she repeated, in amazement.
“Wait and see,” he replied, as he moved away to join another man, who was leaning against a tree smoking a cigar.
“Look!” cried some one, and just as Billie shifted her gaze from the ship to the beach she saw a long black line shoot out over the water and light on the deck of the ship. It was very confusing then, what happened. There was agreat deal of shouting on shore and scurrying of sailors on the ship. Presently there seemed to be a double line of rope stretching out to the wreck.
After a long pause, Billie saw, creeping along one of the lines of rope, swaying and swinging almost to sea level, an object which appeared to be shaped like a pair of clumsy trouser legs with the head and shoulders of a human being above.
“It’s a woman,” cried Nancy, jumping up and down in her excitement, as she looked through the glasses. “It’s—it’s——”
“It’s Mme. Alta,” exclaimed Billie, as the woman was lifted onto the beach.
No one could explain why the music teacher should be found on a wrecked schooner, but Mr. Bangs and Billie exchanged meaning glances as Mme. Alta was supported into the Life-Saving Station.
The next time the buoy was drawn into shore it carried Fannie Alta, a shivering, wretched little figure, who followed her mother silently into the life-savers’ house.
“Who can the third one be?” said Billie out loud, although she was speaking to herself. “Can it be——”
She jumped out of the car and ran down the path to the beach, followed by her three chums. As she passed Mr. Bangs, he caught her by the arm and said in her ear:
“The missing link.”
No one but Billie and Mr. Bangs recognized Belle Rogers in the miserable object which now crawled out of the breeches buoy. Her face was blue and pinched with cold. Her damp hair hung in her eyes, and she moaned and sobbed most pitifully.
When she saw Billie, she flung her wet arms around the young girl’s neck.
“Oh, forgive me! Forgive me!” she wept.
A crowd of people gathered around them.
Billie patted her on the shoulder.
“I do forgive you,” she whispered, “and if you would rather not go into the station, we will take you home in ‘The Comet.’”
“Any place but home,” sobbed Belle, as Benthrew his ulster around her shivering shoulders and Nancy wrapped a scarf about her head.
The others had now recognized the poor girl, and with a generous impulse they tried to shield her from the gaze of the villagers.
“Will you go to Cousin Helen’s, then?” asked Belle, as they half carried her up the steep path.