The Amazing Inheritance Part 13

Ka-kee-ta with his ax and a proud tilt to his frizzled head became a familiar sight in Waloo. He caused more excitement and roused more interest than the queen.

"Bring your bodyguard with you," begged the president of the Home for Aged Women, when Tessie consented to appear at an entertainment the directors had arranged to increase its revenue.

"And do please have your picturesque guard come, too," coaxed the committee from the Junior League, which had invited Tessie to open the ball which the League gave every year to raise funds for its philanthropic work.

So Ka-kee-ta, in his blue clothes, his hair freshly oiled, his tattooed face oiled also, so that he was redolent of rancid cocoanut, his ax in his hand, stood in the back of the royal box, where Granny, in smart black lace and jet beads, and Johnny, in a new scout uniform, and Tessie, wearing a wonderful dancing frock of blue and silver, were the cynosure of all eyes.

When Tessie was asked by a giggling committee if she wished to follow the royal custom and choose her partners, she had blushed and exclaimed fervently, "Gracious! I should say not! I want to be just like the other girls!"

There was a rush when her wish was made known, for every man in the ballroom wanted to be able to tell his friends that he had danced with a queen. Granny beamed at the pushing throng.

"The Gilfoolys always stood well with their friends," she said to no less a person than Mr. Kingley, who had stopped for a word with his former humble employee, and who remained to listen to Granny as she bragged of the Gilfoolys.

Tessie had never imagined there were so many attractive men in the world as she met at the Junior League ball. She was unable to dance a dozen steps with one before another cut in. It was confusing, if flattering, and she gave a little sigh of relief when Bert Douglas swung her through a doorway into a little ante-room.

"Lucky for me I know this place as well as my hat," grinned Bert, when he and Tessie were seated on a red velvet sofa. "Say," he went on even more radiantly, "is this evening real? Am I actually twosing here with a queen?"

"It doesn't seem real, does it?" murmured Tessie, her eyes shining.

"I hope that special representative never comes," went on Bert. "I'll hate to have you go to the Sunshine Islands!"

"I'll hate to go," confessed Tessie. She could never tell him how she would hate to leave Waloo. "I'm having such a good time here!"

"There was a funny thing happened to-day," Bert said lazily. "Did Mr.

Marvin tell you about it? A man came into the office and wanted to buy your kingdom."

"My kingdom!" Tessie was astonished and indignant. The idea of any one wanting to buy her kingdom before she had seen it.

"Yes. The Sunshine Islands. He said you might as well sell them because a white woman would never be allowed to reign over them."

"The idea!" Tessie was on her feet staring at him. "The very idea! I guess if my Uncle Pete could reign over them, Granny and Johnny and I can look after them! What did Mr. Marvin say?"

"He said he would take the matter under advis.e.m.e.nt and present it to you. That doesn't mean anything," he added hastily--for Tessie frowned and exclaimed again, "The very idea!"--"It's what lawyers always say.

They have to say something!"

"I don't like it! I mean I don't like any one wanting to buy my islands.

You can tell Mr. Marvin that the very first thing in the morning. The Sunshine Islands aren't for sale!"

"I was a fool to speak of it," mumbled Bert regretfully. He had not thought that she would be so concerned. "And don't think about it again.

No one can buy your islands if you won't sell them, you know. That's a peach of a frock!" He changed the subject abruptly and gazed admiringly at Tessie's blue-and-silver dancing frock. "And awfully becoming!" His admiration shifted to her puzzled little face. "You look like a--a--" he stammered as he tried to tell Tessie what she resembled--"a dream!" he finally decided. "Is that the royal jewel?" He bent forward to look at the Tear of G.o.d as it hung around Tessie's white neck. "Some pearl, isn't it?"

Tessie shook her head. "I have to wear it, but I don't like it, not a bit. It's beautiful, of course, and different, but it makes me think of all the kings and queens who must have worn it. I don't mind Uncle Pete, but some of those old cannibals before Uncle Pete civilized the islands make me shiver. But if I don't wear it Ka-kee-ta has a fit. H-sh! Some one is looking for me!" For in the hall she heard a voice call, "Tessie!

Tessie! Where has the child gone?"

And there in the doorway stood Granny in her black lace and jet, as fine a Gilfooly as ever was.

"Tessie, Tessie," she scolded. "This is no way for a queen to behave.

Queens don't go lalligaging with lawyers! They have to stay where folks can see them. Come right back to the ballroom with me. Ka-kee-ta has been in such a way. He missed you at once and made such a fuss I had to look for you."

"I wish Ka-kee-ta was in the Pacific Ocean," murmured Tessie, as she meekly followed Granny, for well she knew that Granny only told the truth when she said that queens did not lalligag with young lawyers.

"You've got a nerve, Bert Douglas!" exclaimed Mr. Bill, who met them at the ballroom door. "What do you mean by running away with Her Majesty?

You should be shot at sunrise!"

"Shoot if you please!" Bert looked triumphantly at Mr. Bill. "The queen and I had our little tete-a-two. Didn't we, Miss Gilfooly?"

"You must dance with every one," scolded Granny. "You can't pick and choose." Her fingers straightened the lace shoulder-straps of Tessie's frock.

"What's the good of being a queen," muttered Tessie, but she sounded more rebellious than she acted. She obediently danced with every one.

It was not until the ball was over, and a maid was throwing her wrap of velvet and fur over her shoulders that she missed something. She put her hand to her neck. Where was the Tear of G.o.d? The royal jewel no longer hung from her white neck. She turned deathly pale and ran from the coatroom.

"Mr. Bill! Mr. Douglas!" she stammered. "I've been robbed!"

"Robbed!" They gathered about her. It was true. They could see for themselves that the royal jewel was no longer around her neck.

"You never left the room but once," Mr. Bill remembered quickly. "And Bert was with you!"

Bert bristled indignantly. "What do you mean?" he wanted to know at once.

"The pearl was taken while Miss Gilfooly was dancing, or it dropped from her neck. You know where you took her. Suppose you look there,"

suggested Mr. Bill.

For a moment Bert looked as if he would refuse to follow Mr. Bill's suggestion, but if Mr. Bill meant what he said he meant, and not what Bert might think he meant, there was nothing to resent, and Bert hurried to the ante-room, keeping a sharp lookout in the corridor. He examined the ante-room carefully. He even slipped his hand down back of the seat of the red velvet sofa where he and Tessie had had such a pleasant little chat. He found several hairpins, a b.u.t.ton, a nickel, and two dusty lemon drops, but not one pearl. He had to go back to Tessie empty-handed. There were tears in her eyes.

"I don't dare tell Granny," she gulped. "She'll think I've been careless. And Ka-kee-ta!" She was frightened when she remembered Ka-kee-ta and his shining ax. "What do they do to queens who lose the crown jewels?" she wailed.

Mr. Bill put his hand on her arm. "Buck up," he begged earnestly. "It must be somewhere! We'll find it. Don't you worry! Who could have taken it?"

That was the question. Who could have taken it? A sudden thought made Tessie clutch Mr. Bill's sleeve, and stare at him and at Bert with frightened eyes.

"You know," she said, the words treading on each other in their haste to be spoken, "that there is a party in the Sunshine Islands that doesn't want me to be the queen! And you know the natives are awfully superst.i.tious and won't have anybody for their ruler unless he has the Tear of G.o.d. Do you suppose one of those rebels could have been here to-night and stolen the jewel so that the natives will refuse to have me for their queen?" Her blue eyes were very, very big and frightened, and her face was very white.

"Well, I'll be darned!" muttered Mr. Bill.

"That's it! That's it!" cried Bert eagerly. "You remember that white-headed, big-nosed chap who stole the record of your father's and mother's marriage from the Mifflin Court House?" he asked Tessie quickly. "Perhaps he was here and stole the jewel."

"He was freckled!" remembered Tessie with a gasp. "The clerk said he was freckled! I remember I thought that was funny, for men don't freckle.

It's boys. I danced with a freckled man this very night!" She gasped again. "And he asked a lot of questions about the islands. I never thought about it then. I thought he was just trying to be pleasant. What a fool I was!"

"That's the chap!" declared Mr. Bill.

"Who was he? What was his name?" demanded Bert.

"I don't remember," faltered Tessie. "I met so many men to-night. I don't remember any of their names. Oh, dear! What shall I do?" She looked from Bert to Mr. Bill, and when neither of them could tell her what to do she wished with all her heart that Joe Cary was there. Joe would tell her in a minute what to do.

"Well, Tessie, the party's over. It's time to go home." And Granny, who had been talking to the president of the Junior League, came toward them followed by Ka-kee-ta. Tessie shrank away as she saw the gleam of Ka-kee-ta's ax. "Had a good time, dearie?" Granny asked affectionately.