“All right, my dear. Corinne wore red with her white dress. Imitation rubies, I suppose. Earrings and necklace and two bracelets.”
“Oh!” gasped Mary Louise. “That’s what I want to know. Thank you, Miss Tracey, thank you just heaps!”
Chapter XIV
Bad News
Mary Louise’s first impulse, upon leaving Miss Tracey’s home, was to rush right over to Corinne Pearson with a demand to see the necklace which she had worn at the dance the night before. But she had not taken more than a few steps before she saw the foolishness of such a proceeding. In the first place, Corinne would not be likely to show her the necklace; in the second place, Mary Louise could tell nothing by examining it. She wasn’t a connoisseur in rubies; it was doubtful whether she could spot a real stone if she saw one. No, nothing was to be gained by a visit to the Pearsons’ at this time.
So instead she directed her course towards home, resolving to discuss the whole affair with her father, if he had returned from his business trip, as her mother had expected.
She found him on the porch, reading the Sunday paper and smoking his pipe. He was a big man with a determined chin and fine dark eyes which lighted up with joy at the sight of his daughter.
“Mary Lou!” he exclaimed, getting up out of his chair and kissing her. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t be home to see me!”
“I just had to see you, Daddy,” returned the girl. “I need your help.”
“Sit down, dear. Your mother tells me that you are engaged in some serious business. I feel very proud of my detective daughter.”
“I’m afraid I’m not so good after all,” she replied sadly. “Now that I’m really up against a hard problem, I don’t know which way to turn. I’d like to tell you about it, if you have time.”
She seated herself in the hammock and took off her hat. It was lovely and cool on the shaded porch after the heat of the Riverside streets.
“Of course I have time,” Mr. Gay assured her. “Begin at the beginning.”
“I will, Daddy. Only, first of all, you must promise not to tell anybody—except Mother, of course. Miss Grant seems to dread publicity of any kind.”
“Why?”
“The reason she gives is that she firmly believes some member of her own family to be guilty and wants to avoid scandal. But I think there’s another—a deeper reason.”
“And what do you think that is, Mary Lou?”
“A desire to keep her possession of a ruby necklace a secret. She kept it hidden in the mattress of her bed and never mentioned it to anybody except one trusted nephew.”
Mr. Gay wrinkled his brows. “I guess you had better tell me the facts in order, dear.”
Mary Louise settled herself more comfortably in the hammock, and told her story, just as everything had happened. When she finally came to the description of the robbery the previous night, and of her own shameful treatment at the hands of the thief, her father cried out in resentment.
“Don’t tell Mother about my being bound up and put in the closet,” she begged. “It would worry her sick.”
“It worries me sick!” announced Mr. Gay. “And I don’t want you to spend another night at that dreadful place.… In fact, I forbid it!”
Mary Louise nodded: she had been expecting the command.
“Then may I bring Elsie Grant home with me while her aunt is in the hospital?” she asked.
“Yes, I suppose so—if your mother is willing.” But his consent was rather reluctant; Mary Louise sensed his distrust of the orphan.
“Daddy, do you think Elsie is guilty?” she asked immediately.
“I don’t know what to think. You believe that your intruder was a woman, don’t you? Then, if it was a woman in Miss Grant’s family, how many possible suspects have you?”
Mary Louise checked them off on her fingers. “Old Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Pearson, Corinne Pearson—and Elsie.”
“Which are most likely to have heard about the necklace? Old Mrs. Grant and Elsie, I should say, offhand.”
“Yes,” agreed his daughter. “And I’m sure Mrs. Grace Grant wouldn’t steal. Besides, she’s too old to get down a ladder.”
“Hold on a minute!” cautioned her father. “You’re not sure that your thief got away in that manner. Suppose, as you are inclined to believe, she was at Dark Cedars when you arrived last night, and suppose she did hide in the closet until she thought you were asleep. When she finished her job, why couldn’t she have walked down the stairs and out the door—it must unlock from the inside—while you were still locked in the closet?”
“That’s true. But wouldn’t Elsie have heard her?”
“Probably. But, then, she’d have been likely to hear anybody getting out of a window.… Yes, I think suspicion points to the young girl, with one possible exception.”
“You mean Corinne Pearson?”
“No, I don’t. I think the very fact that she wore a red necklace to the dance practically proves her innocence. If she even knew her aunt owned a ruby necklace, she wouldn’t have done that, after she was caught in another theft.”
Mary Louise sighed: she felt as if her visit to Miss Tracey had been wasted time, and she said as much to her father. But he reassured her with the statement that real detectives make many such visits, which may seem to lead to nothing, but which all have their part in leading to the capture of the criminal.
“Then whom else do you suspect, Daddy?” she asked.
“The most obvious person of all. The person who had every reason to believe that there was something valuable hidden in Miss Grant’s bed from the way the old lady guarded it. The person who made up all the stories about ghosts to throw you girls off the track. I mean Hannah, of course.”
“Hannah!” repeated Mary Louise in amazement. She had never thought of her as guilty since her interview with her that very first day.
“You may be right, Daddy. But if she was going to steal, why did she do it at night, when we were there? She had plenty of chance all day alone at Dark Cedars—except for William, her husband.”
“Yes, but then you would immediately suspect her or William. This threw you off the track.”
Mary Louise pondered the matter seriously.
“I still can’t believe that, Daddy. Knowing Hannah as I do, I would stake my word on the fact that both she and old Mrs. Grant are absolutely honest.”
“Well, it may not have been a member of the family at all,” observed Mr. Gay. “Maybe it was an outsider, someone who had heard a rumor about the necklace and visited the house systematically at night, searching for it. That would account for those strange noises and the disturbances. It might even have been the person who owned the necklace in the first place, who would know, of course, that it was still at Dark Cedars. There is only one thing to do that I can see, and that is to notify the pawnshops and jewelers all over the country.”
“But that would take forever,” protested Mary Louise. “And besides, we couldn’t mention Miss Grant’s name without her permission.”
Mr. Gay smiled; there was a great deal for Mary Louise to learn about the detective business.
“It wouldn’t take any time at all,” he said. “The police have a list of all such places and a method of communication. And Miss Grant’s name need not be mentioned—my name is sufficient. But I wish we could get a more accurate description of the necklace.”
“I wish we could. I’ll try to see Miss Grant again tomorrow.”
“It doesn’t make so much difference, however,” her father told her. “If the rubies are real, they can easily be detected. It isn’t likely that many ruby necklaces are being pawned at the same time.”
“Will you do this for me, Daddy?” asked Mary Louise, rising from the hammock and opening the screen door. “I just want to say ‘hello’ to Mother, and then I must be on my way. I’m due back at Dark Cedars at two o’clock.”
Mr. Gay frowned.
“Must you go, dear? I don’t forbid it, in broad daylight, but I don’
t like it.”
“Yes, I must get my suitcase, Daddy. And bring Elsie back, if she wants to come.”
“All right, Mary Lou. I’ll drive you over, if our dinner isn’t ready. And I’ll come back for you about five o’clock, so that I’m sure of getting you home here safely before dark.”
It was a simple matter for Mary Louise to gain her mother’s consent to bring Elsie Grant home with her. Believing the girl to be just a poor downtrodden orphan, Mrs. Gay adopted a motherly, sympathetic attitude, totally unaware that both Jane Patterson and Mr. Gay suspected the girl of the crime. She was delighted that her daughter had decided to leave Dark Cedars.
“It’s bad enough to have your father away on dangerous work, without having to worry about you too, Mary Louise,” she said as she kissed her daughter good-bye. “Be back in time for supper.”
“I will,” promised the girl. “Daddy is going to drive me over and come back for me.”
During the short ride in her father’s car the theft was not mentioned. If possible, Mary Louise wanted to forget it for the time being. She hated to go to Dark Cedars and eat Hannah’s dinner as Elsie’s guest and all the while suspect one or the other of them of a horrible crime.
Mr. Gay left Mary Louise at the hedge, and she ran up the path lightly, just like an ordinary girl visiting one of her chums for a Sunday dinner. But Elsie did not come out to meet her, and she had to knock on the door to gain admittance.
In a minute or two Hannah answered it.
“Hello!” she said. “Ain’t Elsie with you?”
Mary Louise shook her head.
“No. She said she’d stay and help you,” she replied. “Didn’t she tell you about what happened last night?”
“No!” Hannah’s eyes opened wide. “Was the spirits here again?”
“Somebody was here,” answered Mary Louise. “Haven’t you been up in Miss Grant’s room?”
The woman shook her head.
“No, I ain’t. I’ve been too busy out in the garden helpin’ William and gettin’ dinner ready. I figured you girls’d make your own bed. Elsie always did most of the upstairs work.”
“Well, I couldn’t very easily make the first bed I slept in,” remarked Mary Louise. “Because the mattress was torn to pieces.”
“Miss Mattie’s?” gasped Hannah, in genuine terror. She looked so frightened that Mary Louise could not believe she was acting.
“Yes. Somebody bound and gagged me and locked me in the closet and then proceeded to strip the bed. They must have found Miss Grant’s precious necklace—for that’s what it was, John Grant said.”
The servant woman bowed her head.
“May the Lord have mercy on us!” she said reverently. “It’s His way of punishin’ Miss Mattie fer keepin’ the thing her dead mother warned her agin’.” She looked up at Mary Louise. “Eat your dinner quick,” she said. “Then let’s get out of here, before the spirits come agin!”
“But where’s Elsie?” insisted Mary Louise, knowing that it was no use to argue with Hannah about the “spirits.”
“She went off soon after you girls left. I thought she changed her mind and went to Sunday school. She had on her green silk.”
“And hasn’t she come back all morning?” demanded Mary Louise in dismay.
“Nary a sign of her.”
Mary Louise groaned. This was bad news—just what she had been fearing ever since her conversations with Jane and with her father. If Elsie had run away, there could be only one reason for her going: she must be guilty!
“I had better go right home and see my father,” she said nervously.
“You set right down and eat your dinner, Miss Mary Louise!” commanded Hannah. “You need food—and it’s right here. You ain’t a-goin’ to take no hot walk on an empty stomach! Besides, Elsie may come in any minute. She probably run down to show them colored people her pretty green dress.”
Mary Louise’s eyes brightened.
“Abraham Lincoln Jones’s family?” she inquired.
“Yeah. Elsie’s awful fond of them. They kind of pet her up, you know.”
Mary Louise smiled and sat down to her dinner. The food tasted good, for it was fresh from the garden, and Hannah was an excellent cook. But all the time she was eating she kept her eyes on the door, watching, almost praying that Elsie would come in.
“Maybe you had better not touch that room of Miss Grant’s,” she cautioned Hannah. “I think it might be better to leave it just as it is—for the sake of evidence. My clothes are in your old room now, and I’ll get them from there.”
“Don’t you worry!” returned the woman, with a frightened look in her eyes. “I ain’t givin’ no spirits no chance at me! I’m leavin’ the minute these dishes is done, and I ain’t comin’ back day or night. If Elsie ain’t home by the time I go, you can take the key, Miss Mary Louise, and turn it over to Miss Mattie.”
Mary Louise nodded: perhaps this was for the best.
“I’ll leave my suitcase on the porch while I run down to see the Jones family,” she said, as she finished her apple pie. “And you had better clear out the refrigerator and take all the food that is left, because, if I find Elsie, I’ll take her home with me.”
“Maybe she’s havin’ a chicken dinner with them colored people,” returned Hannah and for the first time since Mary Louise’s arrival she smiled.
CHAPTER XV
An Alibi
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?”
“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.
“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 ro
lled 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 kidnapped.”
“Nobody would want to kidnap Elsie Grant. She’s too poor—and her aunt would never pay ransom money.”
Mrs. Jones chuckled.
“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.
“That’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 poison.”
“But you think the gypsies have gone away, Mrs. Jones?” questioned Mary Louise.
“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.
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