“i’m not just tired,” announced jane patterson, dropping into the hammock on mary louise’s porch after the tennis was over. “i’m completely exhausted! i don’t believe i can even move as far as our house—let alone walk anywhere.”
“oh, yes, you can,” replied mary louise. “you’ll feel lots better after you get a shower and some clean clothing. four sets of tennis oughtn’t to do you up. many a time i’ve seen you good for six.”
“i know, but they weren’t so strenuous. honestly, you and max ran me ragged. i tell you, mary lou, i’m all in. and i couldn’t walk up that hill to miss grant’s house if it meant life or death to me.”
“but think of poor elsie! she may need us now.”
“oh, what could we do?”
“i don’t know yet. but we have to go to find out just what was stolen, if for nothing else. she may know by this time.”
“then why not let the boys drive us up?” asked jane, with a yawn.
[64]
“you know why. we can’t let them into the secret: they’d tell everybody. and i bet, if the thing got out, miss grant would be so mad she’d have elsie arrested then and there. no, there’s nothing for us to do but walk.... so please go get your shower.”
wearily jane struggled to her feet.
“o.k. but i warn you, i may drop in my tracks, and then you’ll have to carry me.”
“i’ll take a chance.”
mary louise met another protest from her mother, who tried to insist that her daughter lie down for a little rest before supper. but here again persuasion won.
“really, i’m not tired, mother,” she explained. “it’s only that i’m hot and dirty. and we have something very important to do—i wish i could tell you all about it, but i can’t now.”
her mother seemed satisfied. she had learned by this time that she could trust mary louise.
“all right, dear,” she said. “call jane over, and you may all have some lemonade. freckles said he had to have a cold drink.”
[65]
the refreshments revived even jane, and half an hour later the two girls were walking up the shady lane which led towards the grant place. it wasn’t so bad as jane had expected; the road was so sheltered by trees that they did not mind the climb.
once inside the hedge they peered eagerly in among the cedar trees for a glimpse of elsie. but they did not see her anywhere.
“she’s probably in the kitchen helping hannah with the dinner,” concluded mary louise. “let’s go around back.”
here they found her, sitting on the back step, shelling peas. she was wearing her old dress again, and the girls could see that she had been crying. but her eyes lighted up with pleasure at the sight of her two friends.
“oh, i’m so glad to see you girls!” she cried. “i wanted you so much, and i didn’t know how to let you know. you see, i don’t even have your address—though that wouldn’t have done me much good, because i’m not allowed out of the gate, and i haven’t any stamp to put on a letter. the only thing i could do was pray that you would come!”
“well, here we are!” announced mary louise, with a significant look at jane. “now tell us why you specially wanted us.”
[66]
“i wanted you to assure aunt mattie that you really did give me those dresses and things. right away she said i must have bought them with her money. though how she thinks i ever had a chance to get to any store is beyond me. she knows i never leave this place.”
“how did she find out about them?” inquired mary louise. “you didn’t show them to her, did you?”
“no, i didn’t. she found them while she was searching through my things this morning, to see whether i had her money hidden anywhere.”
“that’s terrible!” exclaimed jane. “oh, how dreadful it must be to be all alone in the world, without anybody who trusts you!” something of the same thought ran through mary louise’s brain at the same time.
“tell us just what has happened today, since we left,” urged mary louise. “has anybody been here?”
“no. not a soul. but aunt mattie put me through a lot more questions at lunch, and afterward she gave my room a thorough search. when she found my new clothes, she was more sure than ever that i was the thief. she told me if i didn’t confess everything right away she’d have to change her mind and call the police.”
“did she call them?” demanded jane.
[67]
“not yet. it’s lucky for me that she hasn’t a telephone. she said she guessed she’d send william after supper. so you can see how much it meant to me for you girls to come over now!”
mary louise nodded gravely, and jane blushed at her reluctance in wanting to come. if elsie had gone to jail, it would have been their fault for giving her the clothing!
“when can we see your aunt?” inquired mary louise.
“right now. i’ll go in and tell her. she’s out on the front porch, i think.”
elsie handed her pan to hannah and went through the kitchen to the front of the house. she was back again in a moment, telling the girls to come with her.
they found the old lady in her favorite rocking chair, with her knitting in her lap. but she was not working—just scowling at the world in general, and when elsie came out on the dilapidated porch an expression of pain crossed her wrinkled brows. whether it was real pain from that trouble in her side which she had mentioned, or whether it was only a miserly grief over the loss of her money, mary louise had no way of telling.
“good-afternoon, miss grant,” she said pleasantly. “how is your kitten today?”
a smile crept over the woman’s face, making her much more pleasant to look at.
[68]
“she’s fine,” she replied. “come here, puffy, and speak to the kind girls who rescued you yesterday!”
the kitten ran over and jumped into miss grant’s lap.
“she certainly is sweet,” said mary louise. she cleared her throat: why couldn’t the old lady help her out by asking her a question about the clothing?
but elsie, nervously impatient, brought up the subject they were all waiting for.
“tell aunt mattie about the dresses and the coat,” she urged.
“oh, yes,” said mary louise hastily. “your niece told us, miss grant, that she never gets to riverside to buy any new clothes, so when i noticed we were all three about the same size, jane and i asked our mothers whether we couldn’t give her some of ours. they were willing, and so we brought them over this morning.”
“humph!” was the only comment miss grant made to this explanation. mary louise could not tell whether she believed her or not and whether she was pleased or angry.
“you didn’t mind, did you, miss grant?” she inquired nervously.
[69]
“no, of course not. elsie’s mighty lucky.... i only hope when she’s working as somebody’s maid that they’ll be as nice to her. it helps out, when wages are small. for nobody wants to pay servants much these days.”
a lump came into mary louise’s throat at the thought of elsie’s future, which miss grant had just pictured for them. she longed to plead the girl’s cause, but she knew it would do no good. especially at the present time, with miss grant poorer than she had ever been in her life.
the old lady’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and she looked sharply at mary louise.
“see here!” she said abruptly. “you two girls are the only people besides those living in this house who know about this robbery, and i don’t want you to say a word of it to anybody! understand? i don’t want the police in on this until i am ready to tell them. or my other relatives, either. i expect to get that money back myself!”
all three girls breathed a sigh of relief: it was evident that the police would not be summoned that evening. and both mary louise and jane gave their promise of utmost secrecy.
“but we’d like to help discover the thief, if we can,” added mary louise. “you don’t mind if we try, do you, miss grant—if it’s all on the quiet?”
[70]
“no, i don’t mind. but i don’t see what you can do.” miss grant looked sharply at elsie, as if she thought maybe her niece might confess to these girls while she stubbornly refused to tell her aunt anything. “yes,” she added, “you might succeed where i failed.... yes, i’ll pay ten dollars’ reward if you get my money back for me.”
“we think it might have been a robber,” remarked mary louise, to try to divert miss grant’s suspicious eyes from her niece. “he could have slipped in while you were at supper.”
“it wasn’t a robber,” announced miss grant, with conviction. “if it had been, he’d have taken everything. the most valuable things were left in the safe. my bonds. they’re government bonds, too, so anybody could see the value of them—except a child! no, it was somebody right in this house!”
and she laughed with that nasty cackle which made jane so angry, that, she said afterward, if miss grant hadn’t been an old lady, she would have slapped her then and there in the face.
“or maybe it was one of your other relations,” said mary louise evenly.
“possibly. i wouldn’t trust harry grant or corinne pearson. or corinne’s mother, either, for that matter!”
“how about mrs. grant?”
[71]
“my sister-in-law? no, i don’t think she’d take anything. and i know it wasn’t john—or either of the servants.... no.” she looked at elsie again. “there’s your culprit. make her confess—and you get ten dollars!”
she paused, while everybody looked embarrassed. but she was enjoying the situation. “i’ll make it ten dollars apiece!” she added.
“it isn’t the money we want, miss grant,” said mary louise stiffly. “it’s to clear elsie of suspicion.”
“nonsense! everybody wants money!”
mary louise took her notebook out of her pocket.
“would you tell us just how much money was taken, miss grant?” she asked. “and—all about it?”
“yes, of course i will. there was a metal box in the safe with five hundred dollars in gold——”
“gold!” exclaimed jane. “i thought you were supposed to turn that in to the government!”
“you mind your business!” snapped miss grant.
“we will—we will!” said mary louise hastily. “please go on, miss grant!”
[72]
“five hundred dollars in twenty-dollar gold pieces,” she repeated. “then there was eight hundred and fifty dollars in bills—all in fifty-dollar notes. i have the numbers of the bills written down in a book upstairs. would you like to copy them down, mary louise?”
“yes, indeed!” cried the latter rapturously. miss grant was treating her just like a real detective!
“come upstairs, then, with me, and you can see the safe and my room at the same time.” the old lady turned to her niece, who was still waiting nervously beside the door. “go back to your work, elsie,” she commanded. “hannah will be wanting you.”
the girl nodded obediently, but before she disappeared she softly asked mary louise, “will you and jane be back again tomorrow?”
“yes, of course,” was the reply. “you can count on us.”
miss grant gathered up her knitting and picked up her kitten from the porch floor, where it had been rolling about with a ball of its mistress’s wool.
“i may want you girls to walk over to the bank with me tomorrow,” she remarked. “unless john happens to come here in his car. i’ve about decided to put my bonds into a safe-deposit box at the bank.”
“we’ll be glad to go with you,” mary louise assured her.
[73]
the old lady struggled painfully to her feet and led the way through the house, up the stairs to her room. both girls noticed the ominous creak which these gave when anything touched them, and jane shuddered. it must be awful to live in a tumble-down place like this!
miss grant’s room on the second floor was at the front of the house, just as elsie had said, and one window overlooked the porch. it was furnished with ugly, heavy wooden furniture, and a rug that was almost threadbare. along one wall, opposite the bed, was a huge closet, in which, no doubt, miss grant kept those old dresses which she had offered to corinne pearson. and the most astonishing thing about the bedroom was the fact that it contained not a single mirror!
(“but, of course,” jane remarked afterward, “you wouldn’t want to see yourself if you looked like that old maid!”)
off in the corner was the iron safe, with the only comfortable chair in the room beside it. here, evidently, miss grant spent most of her time, rocking in the old-fashioned chair and gloating over her money.
[74]
now she hobbled directly to the safe and opened the door for the girls to look into it. “you can see how the lock has been picked,” she pointed out. “it’s broken now, of course.” she suddenly eyed the girls suspiciously, as if they were not to be trusted either, and added, “the bonds aren’t in there now! i hid them somewhere else.”
mary louise nodded solemnly.
“yes, that was wise, miss grant.... now, may i write down the numbers of the bills that were stolen?”
after she had concluded this little task, she went to examine the windows. they were both large—plenty big enough for a person to step through without any difficulty. but the one over the porch proved disappointing, for the roof of the porch was crumbling so badly and the posts were so rotted that anyone who attempted to climb in by that method would be taking his life in his hands.
“i always keep that window locked,” said miss grant, following mary louise. “so you see why i don’t think it was a burglar who took my money. locked—day and night!”
mary louise nodded and examined the other window. it was high from the ground; there was a tree growing near it, but not near enough to make it possible for a human being to jump from a branch to the window sill. only a monkey could perform a trick like that!
[75]
mary louise turned away with a sigh. she was almost ready to admit that the robbery was an inside job, as miss grant insisted.
“may we see inside the closet before we go?” she asked as an afterthought.
miss grant nodded and opened the door, disclosing a space as large as the kitchenettes in some of the modern apartments. miss grant herself used it as a small storeroom for the things that she did not want to put up in the attic.
“anybody could hide here for hours,” jane remarked, “without being suffocated.”
“which is just what i believe elsie did!” returned miss grant, with a smirk.
and the girls, unhappy and more baffled than ever, went home to their suppers.
