the wooden shack where the jones family lived was picturesque in its setting among the cedar trees behind miss grant’s home. in summer time mary louise could understand living very comfortably in such a place. but, isolated as it was, and probably poorly heated, it must be terribly cold in winter.
she ran down the hill gayly, humming a tune to herself and smiling, for she did not want the colored family to think that her visit was anything but a friendly one. as she came to a clearing among the cedar trees she saw two nicely dressed children playing outside the shack and singing at the top of their lungs. they beamed at mary louise genially and went on with their song.
“do you children know miss elsie grant?” she shouted.
they both nodded immediately.
“sure we know her! you a friend o’ hers?”
[194]
“yes,” answered mary louise. “i’ve been visiting her, up at her aunt’s place. but she didn’t come home for dinner, so i thought maybe she was here.”
“no, ma’am, she ain’t,” replied the older child. “you-all want to see ma?”
“yes, i should like to. if she isn’t busy.”
“ma!” yelled both children at once, and a pleasant-faced colored woman appeared at the door of the shack. “here’s a frien’ of miz elsie’s!”
the woman smiled. “come in, honey,” she invited.
“i just wanted to ask you whether you had seen miss elsie this morning,” said mary louise.
mrs. jones opened the bright-blue screen door and motioned her caller into her house. there were only two rooms in the shack, but mary louise could see immediately how beautifully neat they were, although the color combinations made her want to laugh out loud. a purple door curtain separated the one room from the other, and some of the chairs were red plush, some brown leather, and one a bright green. but there was mosquito netting tacked up at the windows, and the linoleum-covered floor was spotless.
“set down, honey,” urged the woman, and mary louise selected a red-plush chair. she repeated her question about elsie.
“yes and no,” replied mrs. jones indefinitely.
[195]
“what do you mean by ‘yes and no,’ mrs. jones?” inquired mary louise.
“i saw her but didn’t have no talk wid her,” explained the other. “she was all dressed up in a fine dress and had a bundle unde’ her arm. i reckoned she was comin’ down to visit us, but she done go off through de woods. why you ask, honey? she ain’t lost, am she?”
“she didn’t come back for dinner,” answered mary louise. “so hannah and i were worried.”
mrs. jones rolled her eyes.
“runned away, i reckon. miz grant didn’t treat her good.”
“but miss grant isn’t there—she’s in the hospital.”
“you don’t say!”
“yes, and i wanted to take elsie home with me while she was away. so you wouldn’t think she’d want to run away now.”
“no, you wouldn’t. not when she’s got a nice friend like you, honey. mebbe she was kidnaped.”
“nobody would want to kidnap elsie grant. she’s too poor—and her aunt would never pay ransom money.”
mrs. jones chuckled.
[196]
“you right ’bout dat, honey, fo’ sure. miz grant’s de stingiest white woman eve’ lived. wouldn’t give away a bone to a dog if she could help he’self. served her right ’bout dem chickens!”
mary louise turned sharply. “chickens?” she repeated, trying to keep her voice calm.
“yes. her chickens is bein’ stolen all de time. half a dozen to oncet—and me and abraham won’t lift a finger to put a stop to it!”
“you know who has been taking them?” asked mary louise incredulously.
“we knows fo’ sure, honey. but we ain’t tellin’ no tales to miz grant.”
“suppose she accuses your husband?” suggested mary louise.
“dat’s sumpin’ diff’rent. den we’d tell. but it’d be safe enough by dat time. de gypsies has wandered off by now.”
“gypsies!” exclaimed mary louise. “did they steal the chickens?”
“dey sure did. we could see ’em, sneakin’ up at night, by de light of de moon. if miz grant eve’ catched ’em, it’d sure go right bad wid ’em. she hates ’em like pison.”
“but you think the gypsies have gone away, mrs. jones?” questioned mary louise.
[197]
“i reckon so, or dey’d be stealin’ mo’ chickens. but we ain’t seen nor heard ’em fo’ several nights. guess dey done cleaned out of de neighborhood.”
mary louise cleared her throat. she wanted to ask this woman what she knew about the robbery at dark cedars, but she did not like to seem abrupt or suspicious. so she tried to speak casually.
“since you know about the chickens being stolen, mrs. jones, did you happen to hear anything unusual last night at dark cedars?”
“lem’me see.... las’ night was sattiday, wasn’t it? abraham done gone to lodge meetin’ and got home bout ten o’clock, he said. no, i was in bed asleep, and we neve’ wakened up at all.... why? did anything happen up there? mo’ chickens took?”
“not chickens—but something a great deal more valuable. a piece of jewelry belonging to miss grant.”
“you don’t say! was dere real stones in it—genu-ine?”
“yes.”
the colored woman shook her head solemnly.
[198]
“abraham always say de old lady’d come to trouble sure as night follows day. de mean life she’s done lived—neve’ goin’ to church or helpin’ de poor. she neve’ sent us so much as a bucket of coal fo’ christmas. but we don’t judge her—dat’s de lord’s business.”
“did you know she kept money and jewels in her house?” inquired mary louise.
“no. it warn’t none of our business. abraham ain’t interested in folks’ money—only in der souls. he’s a deacon in rive’side colored church, you know!”
“yes, i’ve heard him very highly spoken of, mrs. jones,” concluded mary louise, rising from her chair. “if you see elsie, will you tell her to come to our house? anybody can direct her where to find the gays’ home, in riverside.”
“i sure will, miz gay. dat’s a perty name.... and you a perty gal!”
“thanks,” stammered mary louise in embarrassment.... “and good-bye, mrs. jones.”
she stepped out of the shack and waved to the children as she passed them again on her way back to dark cedars. glancing at her watch as she climbed the hill, she observed that it was only half-past three. what in the world would she do to pass the time until her father came for her at five o’clock?
[199]
it occurred to her as she approached miss grant’s house that she might try to interview hannah concerning her whereabouts the preceding night, and she was thankful to catch sight of the woman in the back yard, talking to william, her husband. it was evident from both the old servants’ attitudes that they were having an argument, and mary louise approached slowly, not wishing to interrupt.
william groben looked much older than his wife, although hannah was by no means a young woman. hadn’t she claimed that she had done the house-cleaning for forty years at dark cedars? even if she had begun to work there in her teens, mary louise figured that she must be fast approaching sixty. but william looked well over seventy. he was thin and shriveled and bent; what little hair he had left was absolutely white. there could be no doubt about william’s innocence in the whole affair at dark cedars: a frail old man like that could not have managed to handle a healthy girl like mary louise in the manner in which the criminal had treated her.
“there ain’t no use sayin’ another word, hannah,” mary louise heard william announce stubbornly. “i ain’t a-goin’ a-change me mind. duty is duty, and i always say if a man can’t be faithful to his employer—”
[200]
“i’ve heard that before, never mind repeatin’ it!” snapped his wife. “and nobody can say i ain’t been faithful to miss mattie, fer all her crankiness. but we’ve got a little bit saved up, and we can manage to live on it, with my sister jennie, without you workin’ here. in a place that’s haunted by spirits!”
the man looked up sharply.
“how long do you think four hundred dollars would keep us?” he demanded. “besides, it’s invested for us—to bury us. you can’t touch that, hannah. no, i want me regular wages. i like good victuals!”
“so do i. but what’s the use of good victuals if you’re half scared of your life all the time? i’ll never step inside that there house again!”
william shrugged his shoulders.
“do as you’re a mind to, hannah—you always have. and i’ll go on livin’ over to jennie’s with you. but i’m still workin’ here in the daytime. i couldn’t let them chickens starve and the garden go to seed. and what would become of the cow?”
“you could sell her and turn the money over to miss mattie.”
william smiled sarcastically.
“and have her half kill me for doin’ it? not me! besides, it wouldn’t be fair to the poor old lady in the hospital. dependin’ on me as she is. no, siree! duty is duty, and i always say——”
[201]
“shut up!” yelled hannah in exasperation. and then, all of a sudden, she spied mary louise.
“don’t you never get married, miss mary louise,” she advised. “i never seen a man that wasn’t too stubborn to reason with. did you find elsie?”
mary louise shook her head.
“no. mrs. jones saw her cutting across the woods this morning. but she didn’t stop there.”
“i guess she must have them gold pieces of her aunt mattie’s after all, and took her chance to clear out when the clearin’ was good. can’t say as i blame her!”
mary louise sighed: that was the logical conclusion for everybody to come to.
“so i think i’ll go home now, hannah,” she said. “i won’t wait for my father to come for me. and shall i take the key, or will william want to keep it?”
“you take it,” urged the old man. “i don’t want to feel responsible for it. my duty’s outside the house.”
hannah handed it over with a sigh of relief.
“i’m that glad to get rid of it! and you tell miss mattie that i’m livin’ at my sister jennie’s. i’ll write the address down for you, if you’ve got your little book handy.”
[202]
mary louise gladly produced it from her pocket: this was easy—getting hannah’s address without even asking for it.
“is this where you were last night?” she inquired casually, as the woman wrote down the street and number.
“yes. at least, except while we was at the movies. my sister jennie made william go with us—he never thought he cared about them before. but you ought to see him laugh at laurel and hardy. i thought i’d die, right there in the globe theater.”
william grinned at the recollection.
“they was funny,” he agreed. “when the show was over, i just set there, still laughin’!”
“they almost closed the theater on us,” remarked hannah. “it was half-past eleven when we got home, and that’s late for us, even of a saturday night.”
mary louise chuckled. she couldn’t have gotten any information more easily if she had been a real detective. yet here was a perfect alibi for hannah; if she had been at the movies until half-past eleven, she couldn’t have stolen that necklace from dark cedars. maybe that bit of detective work wouldn’t make an impression upon her father!
[203]
“of course, i can check up on it at the globe theater,” she decided in her most professional manner.
she held out her hand to hannah.
“it’s good-bye, then, hannah—and thank you for all the nice things you cooked for me.”
“you’re welcome, miss mary louise. and if you come over to see me at my sister jennie’s, i’ll make some doughnuts for you.”
“i’ll be there!” promised the girl, and with a nod to william, she went around to the porch to get her suitcase.
thankful that it was not heavy, she walked slowly down to the road and on to riverside. she had plenty of chance to think as she went along, but her thoughts were not pleasant. hannah’s alibi only made elsie’s guilt seem more assured. and how she hated to have to tell her father and jane of the girl’s disappearance! there was bound to be publicity now, for the newspapers’ help would have to be enlisted in the search for the missing orphan. miss grant would have to know the whole story, including the theft of the necklace....
mary louise shuddered, hoping that she would not be the bearer of the evil tidings to the sick old lady.
[204]
