“What time is it?” demanded Miss Stoddard sharply.
“I don’t know. My watch was stolen, you know,” replied Mrs. Weinberger, looking accusingly at Mrs. Hilliard, as if it were her fault.
“You never heard anything about those watches, did you?” inquired Miss Stoddard.
“No,” replied the manager, keeping her eyes away from Mary Louise. “There was a night watchman that night, but he said he didn’t see any burglar or hear any disturbance.”
“The night watchman couldn’t watch four watches,” Mary Louise remarked facetiously.
“Yes, there were four stolen,” agreed Mrs. Weinberger. “I suppose Mrs. Hilliard told you?”
Mary Louise flushed: she must be more careful in the future.
“I think that bleached-blond chorus girl took them,” observed Miss Weinberger. “She was here then and left the next day. That name of hers was probably assumed. ‘Mary Green!’ Too common!”
Mary Louise wanted to write this in her notebook, but caution bade her wait till the meeting was over.
The door opened, and an old lady came in, leaning on her cane. She was past eighty, but very bright and cheerful, with beautiful gray hair and a charming smile.
Mrs. Hilliard sprang up and offered her the best chair in the room and introduced Mary Louise to her. Her name was Mrs. Moyer.
Now the meeting began: the guests returned the books they had borrowed and discussed new ones to purchase. At half-past nine a maid brought in tea and cakes, and the evening ended sociably.
Thankful to slip off alone to write her observations in her notebook, Mary Louise went to her own room.
CHAPTER IV
A Midnight Visitor
Mary Louise put on her kimono and stretched herself out comfortably on her pretty bed, with her notebook in her hands. What a lovely room it was! What a charming little bedside table, with its silk-shaded lamp, its dainty ice-water jug—and its telephone. For that convenience especially she was thankful: she’d far rather have a telephone than a radio. Little did she realize how soon she was to find that instrument so useful!
She opened her notebook at the page upon which she had written the guests’ names, and counted them. Fourteen people besides herself, and of that number she had met only five. Rather a slow beginning!
“If I only had Jane here, she’d know everybody in the place by now,” she thought wistfully. “Jane is clever, but she does jump at conclusions. Maybe I’m better off alone.”
She glanced at the notebook again and resolved not to bother yet with the names of people she hadn’t met. She’d concentrate instead upon the five that she did know. She began at the beginning with the girl with whom she had danced and eaten supper.
“Pauline Brooks couldn’t be guilty,” she decided. “Because she came to Stoddard House only a few days ago for the first time. After the first two robberies had taken place. So she’s out.…
“Now I’m not so sure about Miss Henrietta Stoddard. She might even believe she had a right to steal things, because she was cheated out of her inheritance. Yes—I’ll watch Miss Stoddard carefully.
“Next those two Weinberger women. Hardly possible, when the mother lost her own watch. Of course, thieves sometimes pretend to have things stolen, just to establish their innocence, the same way murderers often wound themselves—for alibis. But, just the same, I believe those women are honest. They’re pretty well off, too, to judge from their clothes and their jewelry.”
She came to the last person she had met—the old lady who had come to the book-club meeting with a cane—Mrs. Moyer. Mary Louise’s face broke into a smile. Nobody in her right senses could suspect a person like that!
That was all. Except the secretary, Miss Horton, whom she had met at the desk.
Mary Louise closed the notebook and put it on the table beside her. That was enough for tonight; now she’d try to get some sleep. She put out the light and opened the window. Snow still covered everything except the streets and the sidewalks, and the moon shone over the roofs of the buildings beyond. Right below her side window was a fire escape, which made her feel somehow safe and secure.
It was not nearly so quiet here as in Riverside; automobile horns honked now and again, and the sound of trolleys from the street in front was plainly heard. But Mary Louise was not worried about the noise, and a few minutes after she was in bed she was sound asleep.
How many hours later she was awakened by a dream about Margaret Detweiler, Mary Louise had no way of knowing, for she had left her watch on the bureau. She thought she had found Margaret alone in an empty house, cold and starving to death, and she was trying to remember just what principles of first aid to apply, when she awoke and found it was only a dream.
But something, she realized instantly, had awakened her. Something—somebody—was in her room!
Her first sensation was one of terror. A ghost—no, a gypsy, perhaps—who would clap a gag over her mouth and bind her hand and foot! But before she uttered a sound she remembered where she was and why she was there. A delirious feeling of triumph stole over her, making her believe that success was at hand for her in her sleuthing. If this person were really the Stoddard House sneak thief, Mary Louise could lie still and watch her, for the room was light enough from the moon and the street lamps to show up the intruder quite plainly.
Ever so cautiously, without turning her head or making any kind of sound, she rolled her eyes toward her bureau, where she could sense the intruder to be. Her reward was immediate: she saw a short person in dark clothing standing there, carefully picking up some object.
“My purse—and my watch!” Mary Louise thought grimly. The little engraved watch her father had given her last Christmas.
The figure turned around and silently crept towards the door. But sudden, swift dismay took possession of Mary Louise, making her tremble with fear and disappointment. The thief was not a woman, whom she could hope to identify as a guest at Stoddard House. He was a man!
He turned the key in the lock so quietly that only the tiniest click could be heard. Then, just as softly, he closed the door again and vanished into the hall.
Mary Louise gasped audibly with both relief and disappointment. Relief that he was gone, disappointment that he was a common, ordinary burglar whom she could not hope to catch.
Nevertheless, she meant to do what she could, so she turned on her light and reached for the telephone beside her bed. In another moment she had told her story to the police, and, so perfect were their radio signals, in less than five minutes one of their cars stood at the door of the hotel.
Meanwhile, Mary Louise had hastily thrown on a few clothes and run down the stairs to warn the night watchman.
The halls were lighted all night, as well as the lobby of the hotel; she did not see how the burglar could escape without attracting the watchman’s notice.
She found him quietly smoking a pipe on the doorstep. He said he had seen nobody.
“I think the burglar came in through the window from the fire escape,” Mary Louise said.
“Don’t see how he could,” returned the man. “I’ve been around there at the side for the last half hour. Nobody came along that alley.”
Baffled, Mary Louise summoned Mrs. Hilliard on the house phone, and by the time she stepped out of the elevator the two policemen had arrived.
“The thief must be hiding somewhere in the building,” concluded Mary Louise. “Waiting for a chance to slip away.”
“We’ll have to make a search,” announced Mrs. Hilliard. “You guard the doorway and the stairway, Mike,” she said to the watchman, “and one of you officers go around the first floor and see whether the windows are all securely locked—in case the burglar escaped through one of them. Then the other officer can come with Miss Gay and me while we search the floors above.”
Immediately the plan was put into effect, and the searchers began on the second floor, looking first in the corridors and closets and empty rooms, then knocking at the doors of t
he guests’ rooms.
Pauline Brooks’ door was the first they went to, and here a light shone under the cracks.
“Sorry to disturb you, Miss Brooks,” called Mrs. Hilliard, “but a sneak thief has gotten into the hotel, and we want to find him. May we come in?”
“Just a minute,” replied the girl. “Till I put on my bath robe. I was out late—at a dance, and I’m just undressing now.”
“What time is it, anyway?” asked Mary Louise. “You see, my watch was stolen.”
“It’s only a few minutes after one,” replied the policeman.
A moment later Pauline unlocked the door, and the three people entered. The room was very untidy: clothing had been flung about everywhere, and two open suitcases occupied the chairs.
“Look in the closet,” advised Mrs. Hilliard.
“There’s nobody there,” answered Pauline. “I’ve just been in it. But you might look under the bed. That’s where men always hide in the bedroom farces.”
“You wouldn’t think this was a ‘bedroom farce’ if you’d just lost your watch and your purse,” remarked Mary Louise sharply.
“I’m sorry, Mary Lou,” apologized Pauline. “You see, I didn’t know that you were the victim.”
“We’ve got to get along,” interrupted the officer. “There’s nobody here—I’m sure of that.”
They passed on to the other rooms, waking up the guests when it was necessary, apologizing, explaining—and finding nobody. In only two of the rooms besides Pauline’s had they found lights burning. Miss Granger, the artist, was still working on some drawings she was making for a magazine, and Miss Henrietta Stoddard, who explained that she was “such a poor sleeper,” was reading a book. But both these women said that they had heard no disturbance.
When the search was completed and the group returned to the first floor of the hotel, the watchman and the officer had nothing to report. The windows on the ground floor were all securely locked, the latter announced, and the former said that no one had escaped by the front door or the fire escape.
“It’s either an inside job or your young friend dreamed it,” one of the policemen said to Mrs. Hilliard.
“It couldn’t be an inside job,” returned the manager. “For there isn’t any man who lives in the hotel.”
“And I didn’t dream it,” protested Mary Louise. “Because my watch and my purse are gone, and my door was unlocked. I locked it myself when I went to bed last night.”
“Well, we’ll keep an eye on the building all night,” promised the policeman as he opened the door. “Let us know if you have any more trouble.”
When the men had gone, Mrs. Hilliard persuaded Mary Louise to come to her apartment for the rest of the night. She had a couch-bed in her sitting room which she often used for her own guests.
Mary Louise agreed, but it was a long while before she fell asleep again. She kept listening for sounds, imagining she heard footsteps in the hall, or windows opening somewhere in the building. But at last she dozed off, and slept until Mrs. Hilliard’s alarm awakened her the next morning.
“You had better go down to the dining room for your breakfast, Mary Louise,” said the manager. “I just have orange juice and coffee, up here—if I go into the dining room I am tempted to overeat, and I put on weight.”
“All right,” agreed Mary Louise. “I want to go to my room for fresh clothing anyway—I just grabbed these things last night in a hurry.… Mrs. Hilliard, what do you think of last night’s occurrence?”
“I don’t know what to think. I was convinced that all our robberies before this were inside jobs, because our watchman was so careful. But now I don’t know. Of course, this may be something entirely different. We’ll see if anything happens tonight. You’re sure it was a man, Mary Louise?”
“Positive. He wore a cap pulled down over his head, and a mask over his eyes. He had on a dark suit—sneakers, too, for I couldn’t hear him walk.”
“Did he have a gun?”
“I don’t know, because I pretended to be asleep, so he didn’t need to defend himself. He got out so quickly. Where could he have vanished to?”
Mrs. Hilliard shook her head with a sigh.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said.
“Of course, he might have had an accomplice,” mused Mary Louise. “Some woman may have let him out her window to the fire escape. Still, the watchman was keeping his eye on that.…” Mary Louise’s tone became dreary. “I guess I’m not much use to you, Mrs. Hilliard. I don’t think I ought to take the salary.”
“You mean you want to go home, Mary Louise?”
“Oh no! I wouldn’t leave now for anything. But I mean I probably shan’t be any help in finding a thief like that. So I oughtn’t to accept any pay.”
“Don’t worry about that,” returned Mrs. Hilliard, patting Mary Louise’s arm affectionately. “You just do the best you can. Nobody can do more. I’d really like it proved that none of our guests is the thief. I’d much rather find out that it was a common burglar.”
Reassured, Mary Louise went to her own room and dressed. By the time she reached the dining room the guests who held positions had already eaten their breakfasts and gone, and the others, who had nothing to do all day, had not yet put in an appearance. It was only a little after eight, but the dining room was deserted.
“I wish I had somebody to talk to,” she thought sadly as she seated herself at a little table by a window. The sunlight streamed in through the dainty ruffled curtains, there were rosebuds in the center of her table, and a menu from which she could order anything she wanted, but Mary Louise was not happy. She felt baffled and lonely.
She ordered grapefruit first, and just as she finished it, Mrs. Weinberger came into the room. She made her way straight to Mary Louise’s table.
“May I sit with you, Miss Gay?” she asked. “My daughter won’t eat breakfast for fear of gaining a pound, and it’s so lonesome eating all by yourself.”
Mary Louise smiled cordially.
“I think so too, Mrs. Weinberger,” she replied. “I’ll be delighted to have you.”
“Do you feel nervous after last night? It must have been terrible to be right in the room when the burglar got in. I was away when my watch was stolen.”
“Tell me about it, Mrs. Weinberger,” urged Mary Louise.
“I was over in Mrs. Moyer’s room,” the woman explained, after she had given her order to the waitress, “and my daughter went out of my room and couldn’t remember whether she locked the door or not. Anyway, I discovered that my watch was gone when I was dressing for dinner.” She sighed. “It was very valuable—a present from my late husband.”
Mary Louise had an inspiration.
“I believe I’ll visit some pawnshops today, to ask about mine,” she said, “and I can inquire about yours at the same time, if you want me to, Mrs. Weinberger.”
“Yes, indeed! But I am afraid it is too late now. Mine was an old-fashioned watch—we used to wear them pinned on our dresses, with a brooch. Mine had seven diamonds on it in front, and my initials ‘E. W.’ in tiny pearls on the back.”
“Did you advertise?”
“Yes, of course. But nothing came of it. My daughter thinks that transient guest—a chorus girl named Mary Green—stole it. We tried to trace her, but we couldn’t find her name with any of the theatrical companies in town at the time.”
“She never came back here to Stoddard House?”
“Oh no.”
“And were the other watches stolen the same day?”
“Yes. Mrs. Hilliard’s was taken during the supper hour, but she had laid it down on the desk, so that was her own carelessness. But the Walder girls had theirs taken while they were asleep—just as yours was.”
“What were theirs like?”
“Plain gold wrist-watches, with their initials—R. W. and E. W. Their names are Ruth and Evelyn.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can,” concluded Mary Louise. “And now let’s talk about somet
hing pleasant.”
So for the rest of the meal she and Mrs. Weinberger discussed books and the current moving pictures.
CHAPTER V
Another Robbery
Mary Louise had three separate plans in view for the morning. First, she would visit as many pawnshops as possible in the vicinity and ask to see their displays of watches. Second, she meant to go to Strawbridge and Clothier’s department store and find out whether Margaret Detweiler had worked there, and why and when she had left. And third, she wanted to find some pretext to call on Miss Henrietta Stoddard in her own room and observe her closely.
As she walked out of the dining room she met Mrs. Hilliard going towards her little office on the first floor.
“Could I see you for a moment, Mrs. Hilliard?” she inquired.
“Certainly, my dear. Come into the office with me.”
Mary Louise followed her into the room, but she did not sit down. She knew how busy the hotel manager would be on Saturday morning.
“I have decided to visit some pawnshops, Mrs. Hilliard,” she said. “I have my own watch to identify, and I got a pretty good description of Mrs. Weinberger’s today. But I want you to tell me a little more about the other things that were stolen.”
“The silverware had an ivy-leaf pattern, and the initials ‘S. H.’—for Stoddard House—engraved on it,” replied the woman. “The vase was an old Chinese one, of an odd size, with decorations in that peculiar red they so often use. I believe I can draw it better than I can describe it. But I feel sure you’d never find it in a pawnshop. Whoever stole that sold it to an antique dealer.”
However, she picked up her pencil and roughly sketched the vase for Mary Louise, giving her a good idea of its appearance. At the same time she described the painting which had been stolen from Miss Granger’s room—an original by the American artist Whistler.
Mary Louise wrote all these facts in her notebook and kept the drawing.
“That’s fine, Mrs. Hilliard,” she said as she opened the door. “I’m going out now, and I’ll be back for lunch.”
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 33
