Her chum smiled. “We couldn’t be so cruel,” she replied. “Besides, it wouldn’t be honest.” She raised her voice. “Miss Grant, we have some money for you.”
“Money? My money?” The old lady’s voice was as eager as a child’s. For the moment she forgot all about the pain in her side and came downstairs more rapidly than she had done for many a day.
Both girls watched her in surprise. She looked different today—much younger. Instead of the somber old black sateen which she usually wore, she was dressed in a gray gown of soft, summery material, and her cheeks were flushed a pale pink. Her black eyes were alight with vivacity.
“You’re not fooling me?” she demanded fearfully.
Mary Louise reached into her blouse and produced the roll of bills.
“No, Miss Grant. We have eight hundred dollars here—your money! The numbers on the bills correspond to the figures you gave me.”
“Where’s the other fifty?” asked the woman greedily. “Did you keep it yourselves?”
“No, of course not. We don’t know where it is. But if you sit down, Miss Grant, we’ll tell you our story.”
The spinster reached out her hand for the roll of money and clasped it as lovingly as a mother might fondle her lost child.
“Come into the parlor,” she said, leading the way from the hall, “and tell me all about it.”
The girls followed her into the ugly room with its old-fashioned furniture, and saw for themselves the chaos which Hannah had been describing. Instinctively Mary Louise glanced at the windows to determine how an intruder could enter, for she did not believe Hannah’s story of the ghosts. Although the shutters were half closed, she could see that the catch on the side window had been broken. But everything in this house was so dilapidated that perhaps no one had noticed it.
When they were all seated, Jane told the story of the previous evening’s adventure, stressing the part that Silky had played at the end. Miss Grant was impressed and actually asked to see the wonderful little dog. Mary Louise replied that he was waiting for them on the porch.
“So it was Harry Grant after all!” the old lady muttered. “I’m not surprised. But I still believe Elsie had some part in it—and got the gold pieces for herself. She’d rather have them than the paper money.”
“Oh no, Miss Grant!” protested Mary Louise. “We’re going to track them down too. We want to go over to Harry Grant’s now, if you’ll write us a note of introduction and explanation. He may have the gold at his house—it isn’t likely that he’d carry it around.”
“Possibly. But I don’t believe I’ll write a note—I think I’ll go along with you! I want to talk to that good-for-nothing nephew of mine myself—if he’s home. And he probably is, since you got the money.... Yes, and I’m going to put this money and my bonds in the bank!” She hesitated a moment. “If you girls get me back that other fifty-dollar bill, I’ll give you a reward.”
“We don’t want a reward, Miss Grant,” objected Mary Louise. “If you’ll just let us take Elsie with us to a picnic the young people in Riverside are planning, we’ll be satisfied.”
“I’ll think about it,” replied the woman. “Hannah!” she called. “You go up and get my bonnet, and a brown paper package that’s underneath it in the box. I’m going to Riverside.”
“You ain’t a-goin’ a walk, Miss Mattie?” demanded the servant in horror.
“Of course I am. I haven’t any car. John may not be over for several days.”
“But your side——”
“Fiddlesticks! Do as you’re told, Hannah.”
The girls hated to leave without seeing Elsie, but they knew that Hannah would tell her what had happened. Besides, they would probably return with Miss Grant; perhaps they could get Norman or Max to drive them over. Jane chuckled at the idea of putting the old lady in the rumble seat—just for spite!
Silky came darting up to them as they came out of the door, and Miss Grant reached over and patted his head. (“It’s her one redeeming trait,” thought Mary Louise—“her kindness to animals.”)
“I’m glad you brought him,” she said, “in case we meet anybody like that man you encountered last night!”
They proceeded slowly, although the road was downhill; every few minutes Miss Grant stopped and held her hand over her side. Mary Louise wondered what they would do if the old lady collapsed, and decided that Jane would have to run for a doctor while she and Silky stayed to protect her and administer first aid.
But they reached the Riverside bank without any such mishap, and Miss Grant attended to her business while the girls waited outside. Then, very slowly, they walked the three blocks to the home of Harry Grant.
“He is back!” exclaimed Mary Louise jubilantly as she recognized the battered old car in the driveway. “I didn’t expect he would be. I thought he’d stay away as long as that fifty-dollar bill lasted him.”
“Maybe he didn’t have it,” remarked Miss Grant.
Jane turned on her angrily.
“You think we kept that, don’t you, Miss Grant?” she demanded.
“No, no! Nothing of the kind!”
Before they had mounted the porch steps, Mrs. Grace Grant had rushed out of her house in amazement and stood gazing at her sister-in-law as if she were a ghost. She was a woman of about the same age, but much pleasanter looking, with soft gray hair and a sweet smile. As Elsie had said, nobody could believe anything bad about Mrs. Grace Grant.
“Why, Mattie, this is a surprise!” she exclaimed. “It’s been five years at least——”
“It’ll be more of a surprise when I tell you why I’m here, Grace,” snapped the other, sinking into a chair on the porch with a sigh of relief. “I’ve got bad news. I’ve been robbed.”
“Robbed?”
“Yes.” In a few words the spinster told the story of her loss of thirteen hundred and fifty dollars, and of the two girls’ offer of assistance in discovering the thief. “Of course, I suspected Elsie immediately,” she said, “but it seems I made a mistake. Or partly a mistake, for there is still five hundred missing—all in gold. But these girls found out who took the bills and have got them all back for me—all but fifty dollars.”
“Who was the thief?” demanded Mrs. Grant excitedly.
“Your son Harry!I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Grace.”
“I don’t believe it!” protested the other woman. “What proof have you, Mattie?”
“Tell the story, Jane,” said Miss Grant. “I’m too tired.” She leaned against the back of her chair in exhaustion.
Briefly Jane related the incidents of the previous evening, describing their perilous ride in Harry Grant’s car. The story rang true; Jane repeated the very words the young man had uttered as he drove away, words which Mrs. Grant recalled easily. Before she had finished, the unhappy mother was crying softly.
“What are you going to do to him, Mattie?” she asked finally. “Have him arrested?”
“That depends on him,” replied her visitor. “If he gives me back the other bill, maybe I’ll let him go. I don’t want to drag the Grant name into the papers if I can help it.... Is he home?”
“Yes. He’s upstairs, dressing.”
“Just getting up, eh?”
“He was out late last night.”
“Carousing with my fifty dollars, I suppose.”
“I hope not.” Mrs. Grant rose and went through the screen door. Five minutes later she returned with her son.
As Elsie had remarked, Harry Grant was a good-looking man. He was stylishly dressed, in an immaculate linen suit, and he came out smiling nonchalantly at his aunt, as if the whole thing were a joke.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” he exclaimed, staring incredulously at Mary Louise and Jane. “Are these the girls Mother says I took for a ride last night?”
“It’s a terrible car,” remarked Jane.
Miss Grant stamped her foot to put a stop to what she considered nonsensical talk.
“Tell me just how you managed to steal my money, Harry,” she commanded. “And where the other fifty-dollar bill is—and my five hundred in gold.”
The young man’s chin went up in the air.
“I didn’t steal your money, Aunt Mattie,” he said. “I was never inside your bedroom in my life—at least, not since I was grown up!”
“Don’t lie, Harry! How did you get it if you didn’t steal it out of my safe?”
“It was given to me.”
“By whom?” Miss Grant looked scornful: she couldn’t believe any such foolish statement.
The young man hesitated. “I don’t think I ought to tell that,” he replied.
“Oh yes, you ought! And you have to, or I’ll have you arrested,” threatened his aunt.
“Tell the truth, dear,” urged his mother. “Whoever stole that money deserves to suffer for it.”
“All right—I will! It was Corinne—my niece, Corinne Pearson. She took it. Eight hundred and fifty dollars in bills. She gave me eight hundred dollars—half of it to spend for her, and half for myself. I was to buy a certain evening gown and cloak in a shop in New York with which she had been corresponding. With my four hundred I was going to get a new car and drive back to Riverside and announce that I had a present for Corinne, because I was sorry for her about the party, and because I had put a good sale through. That’s all.... It simply didn’t work.”
“Corinne!” repeated Miss Grant. “I’m not surprised. I always did suspect her.... And has she the other fifty dollars?”
“Yes, I believe she kept that for slippers and the beauty parlor,” answered Harry.
Miss Grant got up from her chair.
“You surely haven’t any of the gold, have you, Harry?” she inquired.
“No. Corinne didn’t say anything about any gold pieces. You can’t use them now, anyhow.”
“No doubt she’s keeping them put away,” surmised the old lady. “Come, girls! We’re going to the Pearsons’ now.”
“Can I drive you over, Aunt Mattie?” offered Harry jovially.
“I wouldn’t put a foot in that rattletrap for anything in the world!” was his aunt’s ungracious retort.
So she hobbled down the steps with Mary Louise and Jane beside her and Silky close at their heels.
The Pearsons’ home, an attractive house of the English cottage type, was half a mile from Mrs. Grant’s, in the best residential section of Riverside. Mary Louise, noticing Miss Grant’s increasing weakness, suggested a taxicab.
The old lady scorned such a proposal.
“Use your common sense, Mary Louise!” she commanded, in that brusque manner which Jane so resented. “You know I’ve lost five hundred and fifty dollars, and now you suggest that I throw money away on luxuries like taxicabs!”
“I’ll pay for it,” offered the girl. “I have my purse with me.”
“Fiddlesticks!”
The hot sun of the June day poured mercilessly down upon their heads as they made their slow progress along the streets of Riverside, but Miss Grant refused to give up, although it was evident that she was suffering intensely. When they finally reached the porch of the Pearson home she almost collapsed.
Corinne Pearson was sitting in the swing, idly smoking a cigarette when the little party arrived. She was a blonde, about nineteen years of age, pretty in an artificial way. Even her pose, alone on the porch, was theatrical. She rose languidly as her great-aunt came up the steps.
“Mother’s inside, Aunt Mattie,” she said, ignoring the two girls completely. “I’ll go and tell her that you are here.”
Miss Grant opened her eyes wide and looked sharply at Corinne.
“Don’t trouble yourself!” she snapped, gasping for breath. “It’syouI came to see, Corinne Pearson!”
The girl raised her delicately arched eyebrows.
“Really? Well, I am honored, Aunt Mattie.” There was nothing in her manner to indicate nervousness, and Mary Louise began to wonder whether Harry Grant’s story were really true.
“You won’t be when I tell you why I’m here! Though of course you can guess.” Miss Grant paused and took a deep breath. “It’s about that money you stole from my safe!”
“What money?” The girl’s indifference was admirable, if indeed she were guilty, as Harry Grant claimed.
“You know. Eight hundred and fifty dollars in bills and five hundred in gold pieces.”
Corinne laughed in a nasty superior way.
“Really, Aunt Mattie, you are talking foolishly. I’m sorry if you have been robbed, but it’s just too absurd to connect me with it.”
“Stop your posing and lying, Corinne Pearson!” cried the old lady in a shrill voice. “I know all about everything. Harry Grant has confessed.”
Mary Louise, watching the girl’s face intently, thought that she saw her wince. Anyway, the cigarette she was smoking dropped to the floor. But her voice sounded controlled as she spoke to her great-aunt.
“Please don’t scream like that, Aunt Mattie,” she said. “The neighbors will hear you. I think you had better come inside and see Mother.”
“All right,” agreed the old lady. Then, turning to the girls, she requested them to help her get to her feet.
“I’ll help you,” offered Corinne. “These young girls can wait out here.”
“No, they can’t, either! They’re coming right inside with me!”
Corinne shrugged her slim shoulders and opened the screen door. Her mother, a stout woman of perhaps forty-five, was standing in the living room, which opened directly on the porch.
“Why, Aunt Mattie!” she exclaimed. “This is a surprise. You must be feeling better——”
“I’m a lot worse!” interrupted the old lady, sinking into a chair beside the door. “Your daughter’s the cause of it, too!”
“My daughter? How could Corinne be the cause of your bad health, Aunt Mattie? You’re talking foolishly.”
“Don’t speak to me like that, Ellen Grant Pearson! Your daughter Corinne’s a thief—and she stole my money, out of my safe. Night before last, when she went upstairs to get that old lace dress of mine.”
“Impossible!” protested Mrs. Pearson. “You didn’t, did you, Corinne?”
“Certainly not,” replied the girl. “I think Aunt Mattie’s mind is wandering, Mother. Send these girls home, and I’ll call up Uncle John. He’ll come and drive Aunt Mattie back to Dark Cedars.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind!” announced Miss Grant. “There’s not a thing the matter with my mind—it’s my side and my breathing.” She turned to her two young friends. “Jane, you tell them all about everything that has happened since I was robbed.”
Jane nodded and again related the story, telling of their wild ride in Harry Grant’s car, the capture of the satchel with the bills in it, and concluding with Harry’s confession concerning Corinne’s part in the crime. Mrs. Pearson leaned forward in her chair, listening to the recital with serious attention, but her daughter acted as if she were bored with such nonsense and wandered about the room while Jane was talking, rearranging the flowers on the tables and lighting herself a fresh cigarette.
“It isn’t true, is it, dear?” asked Mrs. Pearson eagerly.
Corinne laughed scornfully.
“It’s just too absurd to contradict,” she replied. “Uncle Harry made it all up about me just to save his own face.” She turned about and faced her great-aunt. “You know yourself, Aunt Mattie, that if I had stolen that money I wouldn’t pay him four hundred dollars just to buy me some clothes in New York. It’s all out of proportion.”
Miss Grant nodded: she could see the sense to that. A hundred dollars would have been ample commission.
“May I say something?” put in Mary Louise meekly.
“Certainly,” replied Miss Grant.
The girl felt herself trembling as all eyes in the room turned upon her. But she spoke out bravely, disregarding Corinne’s open scorn.
“I believe I can explain why Miss Pearson divided the money evenly with Mr. Harry Grant,” she said. “It was a clever trick, to throw the suspicion on him. Because you know, Miss Grant, if you saw him drive home with a new car, wouldn’t you naturally jump to the conclusion that he had bought it with your money?”
The old lady nodded her head: the idea sounded reasonable to her.
“And as for Miss Pearson’s evening dress and cloak,” continued Mary Louise, “if she didn’t buy them in Riverside, you’d probably never know what she paid for them, or suspect them of being particularly expensive.”
“That’s true, Mary Louise,” agreed Miss Grant. “I’d never dream anybody would spend four hundred dollars for two pieces of finery.”
Exasperated with the discussion, Corinne Pearson started towards the stairway.
“I’m not going to listen to any more of this ridiculous babble!” she said to her mother, with a scathing glance towards Mary Louise. “You’ll have to excuse me, Aunt Mattie,” she added condescendingly. “I have a date.”
“You stay right here!” commanded the old lady. “I’m not through with you. You hand over that other fifty-dollar bill!”
Corinne shrugged her shoulders and looked imploringly at her mother, as if to say, “Can’t something be done with that crazy woman?”
Mrs. Pearson looked helpless: she didn’t know how to get rid of her aunt.
The situation was apparently at a standstill. Corinne Pearson wouldn’t admit any part in the theft, and Miss Grant refused to allow her to go off as if she were innocent. But Mary Louise, recalling Harry Grant’s explanation of the use to which Corinne had put that last fifty-dollar bill, had a sudden inspiration. She stood up and faced Mrs. Pearson.
“May I use your telephone?” she asked quietly.
“Why, yes, certainly,” was the reply. “Right there on the table.”
Again all eyes in the room were turned upon Mary Louise as she searched through the telephone book and gave a number to the operator. Everybody waited, in absolute silence.
“Hello,” said Mary Louise when the connection was made. “Is this the Bon Ton Boot Shop? Yes? Can you tell me whether you took in a fifty-dollar bill yesterday from any of your customers?”
It seemed to her that she could actually feel the tenseness of the atmosphere in that room in the Pearsons’ house while she waited for the shop girl to return with the information she had asked for. Her eyes turned towards Corinne to see how the question had affected her, but Mary Louise could not see her face from where she was seated. In another moment the voice at the other end of the wire summoned her thoughts back to the phone. And the answer was in the affirmative!
“So you did take in a fifty-dollar bill?” Mary Louise repeated for the benefit of her listeners. “Could you possibly read me the number engraved on it?”
Her hand trembled as she fumbled for her little notebook in which the notations were made, and Jane, guessing her intention, dashed across the room to assist her. When the salesgirl finally read out the number on the bill, Mary Louise was able to check it with the one marked “missing.” It was the identical bill!
“Will you keep it out of the bank for an hour or two—in case we want to identify it—for a certain purpose?” she inquired. “My name is Mary Louise Gay—Detective Gay’s daughter.... Oh, thank you so much!”
She replaced the receiver and jumped up from the chair, squeezing Jane’s arm in delight. She noticed that Miss Grant’s black eyes were beaming upon her with admiration and that Mrs. Pearson’s were shifting uneasily about the room. Corinne was standing at the window with her back to the other people.
Suddenly she burst into hysterical sobs. Wheeling about sharply, she turned on Mary Louise like a cat that is ready to spit.
“You horrible girl!” she screamed. “You nasty, vile creature! What right have you——”
“Hush, Corinne!” admonished Miss Grant. “Be quiet, or I’ll send you somewhere where you will be! Dry your eyes and sit down there in that chair and tell us the truth. And throw that cigarette away!”
Frightened by her great-aunt’s threat, the girl did as she was told.
“I suppose you won’t believe me now when I tell you that I didn’t take any gold pieces,” she whined. “But that’s the solemn truth. I admit about the bills——”
“Begin at the beginning,” snapped Miss Grant.
“All right. It was night before last, when Mother and I walked over to ask you for money for a dress. It means so much to me to look nice at the dance on Saturday night——”
“I don’t care what it means to you,” interrupted the spinster. “Go ahead with your story.”
“Well, I thought it was pretty stingy of you not to help me out, Aunt Mattie,” continued Corinne. “But I never thought of taking the money till I went up in your room.”
“How did you get the safe open?”
“That’s the queer part.It was open!I thought you had forgotten to close the door.”
Miss Grant gasped in horror.
“I never forget. Besides, I saw that the lock had been picked. Somebody did break it, if you didn’t, Corinne.”
“There wasn’t a bit of gold there, Aunt Mattie. I’m willing to swear to that!” Corinne looked straight into the old lady’s black eyes, and Mary Louise could see that her aunt believed her and was already trying to figure out who else was guilty.
“No, you didn’t have time to fiddle with a lock,” she agreed. “I can believe that.... I think I was right in the beginning: Elsie must have stolen the box of gold pieces.”
“Of course!” cried Corinne in relief. “That would explain it perfectly. An ignorant child like her would want only the gold—that’s why the paper money and the bonds were untouched. Did you lose the bonds too, Aunt Mattie?”
“No, they were still there. I put them in the bank today, with the eight hundred dollars these girls got from Harry Grant.... Well, Corinne, you did give your uncle Harry that money then?”
“Yes, I did. For the exact purpose he told you about.”
Mary Louise sighed. They were right back where they started, with only this difference: that while Elsie had been suspected of the theft of the whole amount in the beginning, now she was thought to be guilty of stealing only the gold. But stealing is stealing, no matter what the amount, and Mary Louise was unhappy.
Miss Grant grasped hold of the arms of her chair and struggled to her feet. She stood there motionless for a moment, holding her hand on her side. The flush on her cheeks had disappeared; her face was now deathly white. Both girls knew that she could never make that climb in the heat to Dark Cedars.
“You won’t do anything to Corinne, will you, Aunt Mattie?” pleaded Mrs. Pearson fearfully.
“No—I guess not. Go get me—” Mary Louise expected her to ask for aromatics, to prevent a fainting fit, but she was mistaken—“go get me—my fifty dollars—what you have left of it, Corinne. You can owe——”
But she could not complete her sentence: she reeled, and would have fallen to the floor had not Mary Louise sprung to her side at that very second. As it was, Miss Grant fainted in the girl’s arms.
Very gently Mary Louise laid her down on the davenport and turned to Mrs. Pearson.
“Water, please,” she requested. But it failed to revive the patient.
“I think she ought to go to the hospital, Mrs. Pearson,” she said. “There’s something terribly wrong with her side.”
Mrs. Pearson looked relieved: she had no desire to nurse a sick old lady in her house, even though she was her aunt. She told Corinne to call for an ambulance.
It was not until two white-uniformed attendants were actually putting her on the stretcher that Miss Grant regained consciousness. Then she opened her eyes and asked for Mary Louise.
“Come with me, child!” she begged. “I want you.”
The girl nodded, and whispering a message for her mother to Jane, she climbed into the ambulance and rode to the hospital with the queer old spinster.
Mary Louise sat in the waiting room of the Riverside Hospital, idly looking at the magazines, while the nurses took Miss Grant to her private room. She couldn’t help smiling a little as she thought how vexed the old lady would be at the bill she would get. Corinne Pearson had carelessly told the hospital to have one of the best rooms in readiness for the patient.
(“But, if she had her own way, Miss Grant would be in a ward,” thought Mary Louise.)
However, it was too late now to dispute over details. The head nurse came into the waiting room and spoke to Mary Louise in a soft voice.
“Miss Matilda Grant is your aunt, I suppose, Miss——?” she asked.
“Gay,” supplied Mary Louise. “No, I’m not any relation. Just a friend—of her niece.”
“Oh, I see.... Yes, I know your father, Miss Gay. He is a remarkable man.”
Mary Louise smiled.
“I think so too,” she said.
“As you no doubt expected,” continued the nurse, “an operation is absolutely necessary. The nurses are getting Miss Grant ready now.”
“Has she consented?”
“Yes. She had to. It is certain death if the surgeon doesn’t operate immediately. But before she goes under the anesthetic she wants to see you. So please come with me.”
A little surprised at the request, Mary Louise followed the nurse through the hall of the spotless hospital to the elevator and thence to Miss Grant’s room. The old lady was lying in a white bed, attired in a plain, high-necked nightgown which the hospital provided. Her face was deathly pale, but her black eyes were as bright as ever, and she smiled at Mary Louise as she entered the room.
With her wrinkled hand she beckoned the girl to a chair beside the bed.
“You’re a good girl, Mary Louise,” she said, “and I trust you.”
Mary Louise flushed a trifle at the praise; she didn’t know exactly what to say, so she kept quiet and waited.
“Will you do something for me?” asked the old lady.
“Yes, of course, Miss Grant,” replied Mary Louise. “If I can.”
“I want you to live at Dark Cedars while I’m here in the hospital. Take Jane with you, if you want to, and your dog too—but plan to stay there.”
“I can’t be there every minute, Miss Grant. Tomorrow I’ve promised to go on a picnic.”
“Oh, that’s all right! I remember now, you told me. Take Elsie with you. But go back to Dark Cedars at night.Sleep in my room.And shut the door!”
Mary Louise looked puzzled; she could not see the reason for such a request.
“But there isn’t anything valuable for anybody to steal now, is there, Miss Grant?” she inquired. “You put your money and your bonds in the bank today.”
The sick woman gasped for breath and for a moment she could not speak. Finally she said, “You heard about last night from Hannah? And saw the way things were upset?”
“Yes. But if the burglars didn’t take anything, they won’t be likely to return, will they?”
Miss Grant closed her eyes.
“It wasn’t common burglars,” she said.
Mary Louise started. Did Miss Grant believe in Hannah’s theory about the ghosts?
“You don’t mean——?”
“I don’t know what I mean,” answered the old lady. “Somebody—living or dead—is trying to get hold of something very precious to me.”
“What is it, Miss Grant?” demanded Mary Louise eagerly. Oh, perhaps now she was getting close to the real mystery at Dark Cedars! For that petty theft by Corinne Pearson was only a side issue, she felt sure.
The old lady shook her head.
“I can’t tell—even you, Mary Louise! Nobody!”
“Then how can I help you?”
“You can watch Elsie and try to find out where she hid my box of gold pieces. You can keep your eye open for trouble at night—and let me know if anything happens.... Will you do it, Mary Louise?”
“I’ll ask Mother—at least, if you’ll let me tell her all about what has happened. It won’t get around Riverside—Mother is used to keeping secrets, you know, for my father is a detective. And if she consents, I’ll go and stay with Elsie till you come home.”
Tears of gratitude stood in the sick woman’s eyes; the promise evidently meant a great deal to her.
“Yes, tell your mother,” she said. “And Jane’s mother. But nobody else.”
Mary Louise stood up.
“I must go now, Miss Grant. Your nurse has been beckoning to me for the last two minutes. You have to rest.... But I’ll come in to see you on Sunday.”
She walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind her and thinking how sad it must be to face an operation all alone, with no one’s loving kiss on your lips, no one’s hopes and prayers to sustain you. But, sorry as Mary Louise was for Miss Grant, she could not show her any affection. She couldn’t forget or forgive her cruelty to Elsie.
Her mother was waiting for her on the porch when she arrived at her house.
“You must be starved, Mary Louise!” she exclaimed. “I have your lunch all ready for you.”
“Thanks heaps, Mother—I am hungry. But so much has happened. Did Jane tell you about Miss Grant?”
“Yes. But I can’t see whyyouhad to go to the hospital with her when she has all those relatives to look after her.”
Mary Louise shrugged her shoulders.
“They don’t like her, Mother—and consequently she doesn’t trust them.”
“Do you like her?” inquired Mrs. Gay.
“No, I don’t. But in a way I feel sorry for her.”
Mary Louise followed her mother into the dining room and for the next fifteen minutes gave herself up to the enjoyment of the lovely lunch of dainty sandwiches and refreshing iced tea which her mother had so carefully prepared. It was not until she had finished that she began her story of the robbery at Dark Cedars and of her own and Jane’s part in the partial recovery of the money. She made no mention, however, of the bandit who had tried to hold them up, or of the queer disturbances at night at Dark Cedars. She concluded with the old lady’s request that they—Mary Louise and Jane—stay with Elsie and watch her.
Mrs. Gay looked a little doubtful.
“I don’t know, dear,” she said. “Something might happen. Still, if Mrs. Patterson is willing to let Jane go, I suppose I will say yes.”
Fifteen minutes later Mary Louise whistled for her chum and put the proposition up to her.
Jane shivered.
“I’m not going to stay in that spooky old place!” she protested. “Not after what happened there last night.”
“‘Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?’” teased Mary Louise. “Jane, I thought you had more sense!”
“There’s something uncanny about Dark Cedars, Mary Lou, and you know it! Not just that the house is old, and the boards creak, and there aren’t any electric lights. There’s somethingevilthere.”
“Of course there is. But that’s the very reason it thrills me. I don’t agree with Miss Grant and just want to go there because I believe Elsie is guilty of stealing that gold and that maybe we can find out where she has hidden it. Somebody else took it, I’m sure—and that somebody keeps coming back to Dark Cedars to getsomethingelse. Something valuable, ‘precious to me,’ Miss Grant called it. And we’ve got to catch them!”
“You didn’t tell your mother that?”
“No. I told her about only what has actually been stolen so far. No need to alarm her. And will you do the same with your mother?”
Jane rose reluctantly.
“I suppose so. If you’ve made up your mind to go through with it, you’ll do it. I know you well enough for that. And I don’t want you over there at Dark Cedars alone—or only with Elsie. Even Hannah and William are moving out, you remember.... Yes, I’ll go. If Mother will let me.”
“You’re a peach, Jane!” cried her chum joyfully.
It was several hours, however, before the girls actually started to Dark Cedars. Arrangements for the picnic the following day had to be completed; their suitcases had to be packed, and their boy-friends called on the telephone. It was after five o’clock when they were finally ready.
From the porch of Mary Louise’s house they saw Max Miller drive up in his car.
“I’m taking you over,” he announced, for Mary Louise had told him that she and Jane were visiting Elsie Grant for a few days.
“That’s nice, Max,” replied Mary Louise. “We weren’t so keen about carrying these suitcases in all this heat.”
“It is terribly hot, isn’t it?” remarked Mrs. Gay. “I’m afraid there will be a thunderstorm before the day is over.”
Jane made a face. Dark Cedars was gloomy enough without a storm to make it seem worse.
“Come on, Silky!” called Mary Louise. “We’re taking you this time.”
“I’ll say we are!” exclaimed her chum emphatically.
Elsie Grant was delighted to see them. She came running from behind the hedge attired in her pink linen dress and her white shoes. Mary Louise was thankful that Max did not see her in the old purple calico. His sense of humor might have got the better of him and brought forth a wisecrack or two.
As soon as they were out of the car she introduced them to each other.
“You didn’t know we were coming for a visit, did you, Elsie?” she inquired. “Well, I’ll tell you how it happened: Your aunt Mattie is in the hospital for an operation, and she wanted Jane and me to stay with you while she was away.”
The girl wrinkled her brows.
“It doesn’t sound like Aunt Mattie,” she said, “to be so thoughtful of me. She must have some other motive besides pity for my loneliness.”
“She has!” cried Jane. “You can be sure——”
Mary Louise put her finger to her lips.
“We’ll tell you all about it later,” she whispered while Max was getting the suitcases from the rumble seat. “It’s quite a story.”
“Is Hannah still here?” inquired Jane. “Or do we cook our own supper?”
“Yes, she’s here,” answered Elsie. “She expects to come every day to work in the house, and William will take care of the garden and the chickens and milk the cow just the same. But they’re going away every night after supper.”
Max, overhearing the last remark, looked disapproving.
“You don’t mean to tell me you three girls will be here alone every night?” he demanded. “You’re at least half a mile from the nearest house.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Max, we’ll be all right,” returned Mary Louise lightly. “There’s a family of colored people who live in a shack down in the valley behind the house. We can call on them if it is necessary.”
“Speaking of them,” remarked Elsie, “reminds me that William says half a dozen chickens must have been stolen last night. At least, they’re missing, and of course he blames Abraham Lincoln Jones. But I don’t believe it. Mr. Jones is a deacon in the Riverside Colored Church, and his wife is the kindest woman. I often stop in to see her, and she gives me gingerbread.”
Mary Louise and Jane exchanged significant looks. Perhaps this colored family was the explanation of the mysterious disturbances about Dark Cedars.
Mary Louise suggested this to Elsie after Max had driven away with a promise to call for the girls at nine o’clock the following morning.
“I don’t think so,” said Elsie. “But of course it’s possible.”
“Let’s walk over to see this family after supper,” put in Jane. “We might learn a lot.”
“All right,” agreed Elsie, “if a storm doesn’t come up to stop us.... Now, come on upstairs and unpack. What room are you going to sleep in—Hannah’s or Aunt Mattie’s—or up in the attic with me?”
“We have to sleep in your aunt Mattie’s bedroom,” replied Mary Louise. “I promised we would.”
Elsie looked disappointed.
“You’ll be so far away from me!” she exclaimed.
“Why don’t you sleep on the second floor too?” inquired Jane.
“There isn’t any room that’s furnished as a bedroom, except Hannah’s, and I think she still has her things in that. Besides, Aunt Mattie wouldn’t like it.”
“Oh, well, we’ll leave our door open,” promised Jane.
“No, we can’t do that either,” asserted Mary Louise. “Miss Grant told me to close it.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed her chum. “What next?”
“Supper’s ready!” called Hannah from the kitchen.
“So that’s next,” laughed Mary Louise. “Well, we’ll unpack after supper. I’m not very hungry—I had lunch so late—but I guess I can eat.”
Hannah came into the dining room and sat down in a chair beside the window while the girls ate their supper, so that she might hear the news of her mistress. Mary Louise told everything—the capture of the bills, the part Harry Grant played in the affair, and Corinne Pearson’s guilt in the actual stealing. She went on to describe Miss Grant’s collapse and removal to the Riverside Hospital, concluding with her request that the two girls stay with Elsie while she was away.
“So she still thinks I stole her gold pieces!” cried the orphan miserably.
“I’m afraid she does, Elsie,” admitted Mary Louise. “But there’s something else she’s worrying about. What could Miss Grant possibly own, Hannah, that she’s afraid of losing?”
“I don’t know for sure,” replied the servant. “But I’ll tell you what I think—if you won’t laugh at me.”
“Of course we won’t, Hannah,” promised Jane.