She knew that she ought to feel troubled when she saw Mr. Schmidt emerge from his secret sanctum and approach her, looking about as friendly as a thunder cloud, but, instead, that irrepressible girl felt amused as though she were embarking upon another interesting adventure, and she actually smiled to greet him. Bobs was depending upon her natural quick-wittedness to save her from whatever avalanche of wrath was about to descend upon her.
She had glanced beyond the man, then suddenly she stared as though amazed at what she saw back of him. The shopkeeper, noting this, turned and observed that in his haste he had neglected to latch the door labeled “No Admittance,” and that a draught of air had opened it.
Beyond plainly were seen several workmen engaged in making antique furniture. Mr. Schmidt looked sharply at the girl, trying to learn, if possible, how much of his secret had been revealed to her.
His anger increased when he saw that her eyes were laughing. “What puzzles me,” she was saying, innocently, “is how you can make things look worm-eaten as well as time-worn.”
Whatever accusations might have been on the lips of Mr. Schmidt when he approached Roberta, they were never uttered. Instead he turned and walked rapidly back to his workshop and closed the door, none too quietly, but in a manner that seemed to convince Miss Peerwinkle that she and Miss Dingley need no longer guard the entrances.
How Bobs wanted to laugh, but instead she walked over to Nell Wiggin, who had been collecting the few things that she had at the shop.
“Have you given notice?” Roberta inquired.
“I wrote a note and asked Miss Peerwinkle to give it to Mr. Schmidt. Come, let us go.”
Half an hour later Nell Wiggin was packing her few garments in a suitcase, while Roberta tied up the precious books. Two hours later the new agent of the model tenements was established in the sunny apartment and her row of red-bound books stood on one shelf of the built-in bookcase.
“Now I will wire my brother Dean that he may come as soon as he wishes; and oh, how I do hope that will be soon,” Nell said as she happily surveyed the pleasantest place that she had ever called home.
The message was sent when they were on their way to the Pensinger mansion for lunch.
“I must not remain long,” the new agent told Gloria, “for I promised Mrs. Doran-Ashley that I would be on duty at one.”
Every little while during that noon meal Bobs would look up with laughing eyes. At last she told the cause of her mirth. “I am wondering what Mr. James Jewett thinks of his assistant detective,” she remarked. “I am so glad that I gave the name Miss Dolittle. Now I can retire from the profession without being traced.”
“Oh, good, here comes the postman,” Lena May declared as she rose and went to the side door to meet the mail-carrier. Gloria looked up eagerly. She was always hoping that Gwendolyn would write. The letters that she had sent to the Newport home of the schoolmate whom Gwendolyn had said that she was going to visit, had been returned, marked “Whereabouts not known.”
There were two letters and both were for Bobs. One was a bulging missive from her Long Island friend, Dick De Laney, but it was at the other that the girl stared as though in uncomprehending amazement. The cause of her very evident astonishment was the printed return address in the upper left-hand corner. It was “Fourth Avenue Branch, Burns Detective Agency.” Then she glanced, still puzzled, at her own name, which was written, not typed.
“Miss Roberta Vandergrift,” she read aloud. Then suddenly she laughed, and looking up at the other girls who, all interest, were awaiting an explanation of her queer conduct, she exclaimed: “The amateur detective has been detected, but how under the shining heavens did Mr. James Jewett know that my name wasn’t Miss Dolittle?”
Gloria smiled. “You haven’t much faith, it would seem, in his ability as a detective. What has he written, Bobs?”
There were few words in the message:
“Miss Vandergrift, please report at this office at once, as we have need of your services. Signed. J. G. Jewett.”
“Well, I’ll be flabbergasted!” Roberta ejaculated. “But I must confess I am curious, and so I will immediately, if not sooner, hie me down that way. Wait a jiff, Miss Wiggin. I’ll walk along with you.”
When Roberta and Nell were gone, Gloria found the bulging letter from Bobs’ oldest friend, Dick De Laney, lying on the table unopened. The girl who was so loved by that faithful lad had quite forgotten it in her new interests. Gloria sighed. “Poor Dick,” she said to Lena May as she placed the letter on a mantel, “I wish he did not care so much for Roberta, for I fear that she does not really care for him.”
True it was that at that particular moment Bobs was far more interested in learning what Mr. Jewett had to tell her than in any message that a letter from Dick might contain.
CHAPTER XVI
A NEW “CASE” FOR BOBS
The outer office of the Fourth Avenue Branch of the Burns Detective Agency was vacant when the girl entered, but almost instantly the door of the inner office opened and Mr. Jewett himself stood there. His pleasant face brightened when he saw his visitor. Advancing with his right hand extended, he exclaimed: “Miss Vandergrift, I am almost surprised to see you. I really feared that you had deserted your new profession.”
“But—Mr. Jewett—I—that is—my name. I told you that it was Miss Dolittle.”
The young man drew forward a chair for her, then seated himself at his desk, and again Roberta realized that, although his face was serious, his gray-blue eyes were smiling.
“The letter I sent to you was addressed to Miss Roberta Vandergrift,” he said, “and, since you have replied in person, am I not justified in believing that to be your real name?”
Bobs flushed. “I’ll have to acknowledge that it is,” she said, “but the other day when you asked me my name, I didn’t quite like to give that of our family and so, at random, I chose one.” Then the girl smiled frankly at him. “I couldn’t have chosen a worse one, it seems. Miss Dolittle did not impress my late employer as being a good name for a clerk.”
“You are wrong there,” the young man told her, and at last there was no mistaking the fact that he was amused. “Mr. Schmidt decided that you did too much and not too little. I don’t know when I have been so pleased as I was over the fact, which so disturbs him, that you were able to drive the better bargain. Mr. Schmidt has excelled in that line, and to have a mere slip of a girl obtain one thousand dollars for a book, the mate of which brought him but five hundred dollars, is humiliating to say the least.”
Then, leaning forward, the young man said, with evident interest: “Miss Vandergrift, will you tell me what happened?”
Roberta’s expression was sphinx-like. “I understand, Mr. Jewett,” she replied, “that one need not give incriminating evidence against oneself.”
Then her eyes twinkled. “And what is more,” she told him, “I don’t believe that it is necessary. This office seems to have ferreted out the facts.”
“You are right,” the young man confessed, “and now I will tell you just what happened. It seems that while you were out for lunch Mr. Schmidt, or one of his assistants, discovered that the rare book was missing. He phoned me at once and reported that his head clerk believed that you had taken the book. She had found you so absorbed in it earlier in the day that you had not even been conscious of her presence.
“I assured Mr. Schmidt that I believed he was on the wrong trail, but he insisted that a detective be sent to watch your actions. This was done, and that night the report delivered to this office was that you had visited an old second-hand book shop on Third Avenue; that from there you had mailed one book, and had then taken another to Mr. Van Loon, sold it, and had delivered the money to the old bookseller.
“Our natural conclusion was that the stolen book was the one that you had sold, but when Mr. Van Loon was reached by telephone, he stated that the first of the volumes was the one that he had purchased for one thousand dollars.
“We said nothi
ng of all this to Mr. Schmidt, as we wished to see if the book that you had mailed was the one that had been taken from the antique shop.
“It was not until the following noon that the book was delivered, and almost immediately afterward Mr. Van Loon appeared and purchased it for five hundred dollars during the absence of Mr. Schmidt.
“We were then forced to conclude that the old bookseller on Third Avenue had been the thief, and we sent at once to his shop to have him arrested, only to discover that with his wife, Marlitta, he had sailed for Europe at daybreak.
“However, our detective reported that Miss Dolittle was at the shop, having all of the old books heaped upon a cart. Being truly puzzled by the case, I decided to follow it up myself, which I did, reaching the place in my closed car just as you were being driven away on the book-laden truck. I followed, unobserved, and when you descended in front of the Pensinger mansion, with which place I am familiar, I decided that you lived there. To verify this I visited the grocer who has charge of the place.
“I made a few purchases and then said casually to the grocer: ‘I see the old Pensinger mansion is occupied. People been there long?’
“Mr. Tenowitz, as I hoped, was garrulous and told me all he knew about the three Vandergrift girls who had taken possession of the place. He said the one answering to your description was called Roberta.
“Of course the grocer really knew little about you, but it was not hard for a detective to learn much more about a family that, for generations, has been so well known in New York. But there is one thing I do not understand, and that is your evident interest in that old second-hand dealer in books.”
“I will tell you gladly,” Roberta said, and she recounted the story from the moment when she had caught a first glimpse of the spray of lilacs, unconsciously telling him more than her words did of how touched her heart was by the poverty and sorrow that she was seeing for the first time.
When she paused, he looked thoughtfully out of the window. “I don’t know that I ought to permit you to continue in this line of work,” he said. “A girl brought up as you have been can know nothing, really, of the dangers that lurk everywhere in this great city.”
“Oh, Mr. Jewett!” Bobs was eager, “please let me try just once more; then, if I fail again I will endeavor to find a profession for which I am better fitted.”
“Very well, I will,” was the smiling reply, “for this case cannot lead you into places that might be unwise for you to visit. In fact, I am sure that it is a case that will greatly interest a young girl.”
Mr. Jewett paused to take a note book from his pocket. While he was scanning the pages Roberta leaned forward, waiting, almost breathlessly eager.
Mr. Jewett, glancing up from his note book, smiled to see Bobs’ eager, interested expression. Then he told her about the case. “A certain Mrs. Waring-Winston, who is prominent in society, has a daughter who, although brought up in a convent, is determined to go upon the stage. Her mother has tried every form of persuasion to prevent this unfortunate step, and at last she decided that a year of travel in Europe might have the desired effect, and so she engaged passage upon a steamer which is to sail next week.
“Mrs. Waring-Winston believed that if she could interest the girl in other things just now, on their return to this country she might entirely abandon her determination to become a chorus girl. The mother assured me that Winnie, her daughter, is not talented enough to advance beyond that point.
“But the girl, it would seem, has more determination and self-will than she has talent, for when her mother informed her of the plans she had made, although outwardly seeming to acquiesce, she was inwardly rebellious as her subsequent actions proved, for that night she disappeared.
“Three days have passed and she has not returned. Mrs. Waring-Winston did not report the matter at once, believing that Winnie must have gone to stay with girl friends in the suburbs; but yesterday, having inquired at all possible places where her daughter might visit without having found a trace of her whereabouts, Mrs. Waring-Winston, in desperation, appealed to us, imploring us forever to keep the matter secret. We, of course, agreed to do this, and it was then that I determined to send for you, believing that a young girl could find Winnie sooner than one of our men.”
“Do you think, Mr. Jewett, that the daughter of Mrs. Waring-Winston has joined a theatrical troupe in this city?” Bobs inquired.
“I think that it is more possible that she has joined a troupe that either has or soon will leave town to tour the country, but of course we must first visit the playhouses in the city. I have two other women working on the case, as I wish if possible to cover all of the theaters today. I have assigned to you a group of Broadway playhouses that you can easily visit during the matinee performances. Here is a photograph of the missing girl.”
Roberta looked at the pictured face. “How lovely she is!” was her comment. “I do not wonder that her mother wants to protect her. How I do hope that I will be able to find Winnie and persuade her to wait, at least, until she is eighteen years of age before choosing a profession.”
The girl rose. “It is one-thirty,” she said. “Perhaps I had better be starting. Do I have to have a pass or something of that sort in order to be admitted to the theaters?”
Mr. Jewett also rose and pinned a badge under the lapel of the girl’s jacket. “Show that,” he told her, “and it will be all the pass that you will need.”
Then as he held open the door, he smilingly added, “Good luck to you, Miss Dolittle Vandergrift.”
Bobs flashed a merry smile back at the young man. “I sincerely hope that I will do more than I did last time,” she said, but, when she was seated in the taxi which was to take her to her destination on Broadway, her thoughts were not of the little would-be actress, but of Gwendolyn. Day after day Roberta had noted that, try as she might to be cheerful, her oldest sister, the one who had been Mother to them all, grew sadder and more troubled.
“Glow will not be really happy,” Bobs was thinking, “until Gwen comes back to us. I cannot see where she can be, for she had only one month’s allowance with her and she could not live long on that.”
Bobs’ reverie was suddenly interrupted by the stopping of the taxi, and, looking up, the girl found that they were in front of one of the festively adorned theaters. With a rapidly beating heart, she descended to the walk, made her way through the throng, showed her badge and was admitted. At her request an usher led her behind the scenes.
Bobs felt as though she were on the brink of some momentous discovery.
CHAPTER XVII
BOBS TRIES ACTING
When they were behind the scenes, a short, flashily attired man advanced to meet Roberta and the usher departed. For one panicky moment Bobs wondered whether she should tell that she was a detective. Would the director wish her to interfere with his plans, as she undoubtedly would be doing were she to take from him one of his chorus girls?
The alert little man, however, did not need to be told, for he had caught a glimpse of Roberta’s badge when a projecting bit of scenery had for a moment pulled at her coat.
Rubbing his hands, and smiling ingratiatingly, he said in a voice of oily smoothness: “Is it one of our girls, ma’am, that you’re wishing to see?”
Bob realized that he had guessed her mission and so she thought best to be perfectly frank with him and tell the whole story. The little man seemed greatly relieved, and shook his head many times as he talked. “No such girl here,” he assured her. “I’d turn her over to her Ma if there was. Come and see.”
The small man spun around with the suddenness of a top, and Bobs could not help thinking that his build suggested the shape of that toy. Then he darted away, dodging the painted trees with great dexterity, leading the way down dark aisles among the scenes that were not to be used that day.
At last they reached the dressing rooms. “Look in all of ’em,” he said. “Don’t knock. Just walk in.”
Then, with a flourish of his plump
diamond-bedecked hands, which seemed to bestow upon her the freedom of the place, the small man gave another of his top-like spins and disappeared among the scenery.
Roberta found herself standing near a door on which was a large gilt star.
No need to go in there, she decided, for of course the girl whom she sought would not be the company’s star, but since she had the open sesame of all the rooms, why not enter? She had always been wild to go behind the scenes when she and her sisters had been seated in a box in this very theater.
Little had she dreamed in those days that now seemed so far in the past, that day would come when she would be behind the scenes in the role of an amateur detective.
As Roberta stood gazing at the closed door, she saw it open and a maid, dressed trimly in black and white, hurried out, leaving the door ajar.
Glancing in, Bobs saw a truly beautiful young woman lounging in a comfortable chair in front of a long mirror. The maid had evidently been arranging her hair. Several elaborate gowns were hanging about the room. Suddenly Roberta flushed, for she realized that a pair of darkly lashed eyes were observing her in the mirror. Then the beautiful face smiled and a slim white hand beckoned.
Entering the small dressing room, Roberta also smiled into the mirror. “Forgive me for gazing so rudely,” she apologized, “but all my life I have wished that I might meet a real star.”
The young woman turned and with a graceful yet indolent gesture bade Roberta be seated on a low chair that was facing her.
“Don’t!” was all that she said, and the visitor thought that even that harsh word was like music, so deep and rich was the voice that uttered it.
Bobs was puzzled. She looked up inquiringly: “Don’t what?” she asked.
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