The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 14

"'Maria, I can't remember whether you sent me up here to change my clothes or to go to bed.'"

"I can believe it!" chortled Neale O'Neil. "He has made some awful breaks in school. But I don't believe _he_ ever owned that bracelet, Aggie."

The first person who displayed interest in the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Post_ about the bracelet, save the two young people who put it in the paper, proved to add much to the mystery of the affair and nothing at all to the peace of mind of Agnes, at least.

Agnes was busy at some mending--actually hose-darning, for Ruth insisted that the flyaway sister should mend her own stockings, which Aunt Sarah's keen eyes inspected--when she chanced to raise her head to glance out of the front window of the sewing room. A strange looking turnout had halted before the front gate.

The vehicle itself was a decrepit express wagon on the side of which in straggling blue letters was painted the one word "JUNK," but the horse drawing the wagon was a surprisingly well-kept and good looking animal.

The back of the wagon was piled high with bundles of newspapers, and bags, evidently stuffed with rags, were likewise in the wagon body.

The man climbing down from the seat just as Agnes looked did not seem at all like the usual junk dealer who pa.s.sed through Milton's streets heralded by a "chime" of tin-can bells.

He was a small, swarthy man, and even at the distance of the front gate from Agnes' window the girl could see that he wore gold hoops in his ears. He was quick but furtive in his motions. He glanced in a birdlike way down the street and across the Parade Ground, which was diagonally opposite the old Corner House, before he entered the front gate.

"He'd better go around to the side door," thought Agnes aloud. "He must be a very fashionable junkman to come to the front of the house.

And at that I don't believe Mrs. McCall has any rags or papers to sell just now."

The swarthy man came straight on to the porch and up the steps. Agnes heard the bell, and knowing Linda was busy and being likewise rather curious, she dropped her stocking darning and ran into the front hall.

The moment she unlatched the big door the swarthy stranger inserted himself into the house.

"Why! who are you?" she demanded, fairly thrust aside by the man's eagerness.

She saw then that he had a folded paper in one hand. He thrust it before her eyes, pointing to a place upon it with a very grimy finger.

"You have found it!" he chattered with great excitement. "That ancient bracelet which has for so many generations been an heirloom--yes?--of the Costello. Queen Alma herself wore it at a time long ago. You have found it?"

Agnes was made almost speechless by his vehemence as well as by the announcement itself.

"I--I--What _do_ you mean?" she finally gasped.

"You know!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, rapping on the newspaper with his finger like a woodp.e.c.k.e.r on a dead limb. "You put in the paper--_here_. It is lost. You find. _You_ are Kenway, and you say the so-antique bracelet shall be give to who proves property."

"We will return it to the owner. Only to the owner," interrupted Agnes, backing away from him again, for his vehemence half frightened her.

"Shall I bring Queen Alma here to say it was her property?" he cried.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You have found it!" he chattered with great excitement.]

"That would be better. If Queen Alma--whoever she is--owns the bracelet we will give it to her when she proves property."

The little man uttered a staccato speech in a foreign tongue. Agnes did not understand. He spread wide his arms in a gesture of seemingly utter despair.

"And Queen Alma!" he sputtered. "She is dead these two--no! t'ree hundred year!"

"Mercy me!" gasped Agnes, backing away from him and sitting suddenly down in one of the straight-backed hall chairs. "Mercy me!"

CHAPTER XII--GETTING IN DEEPER

"You see, Mees Kenway," sputtered the swarthy man eagerly, "I catch the paper, here." He rapped the _Post_ again with his finger. "I read the Engleesh--yes. I see the notice you, the honest Kenway, have put in the paper--"

"Let me tell you, sir," said Agnes, starting up, "_all_ the Kenways are honest. I am not the only honest person in our family I should hope!"

Agnes was much annoyed. The excitable little foreigner spread abroad his hands again and bowed low before her.

"Please! Excuse!" he said. "I admire all your family, oh, so very much! But it is to you who put in the paper the words here, about the very ancient silver bracelet." Again that woodp.e.c.k.e.r rapping on the Lost and Found column in the _Post_. "No?"

"Yes. I put the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper," acknowledged Agnes, but wishing very much that she had not, or that Neale O'Neil was present at this exciting moment to help her handle the situation.

"So! I have come for it," cried the swarthy man, as though the matter were quite settled.

But Agnes' mind began to function pretty well again. She determined not to be "rushed." This strange foreigner might be perfectly honest.

But there was not a thing to prove that the bracelet given to Tess and Dot by the Gypsy women belonged to him.

"How do you know," she asked, "that the bracelet we have in our possession is the one you have lost?"

"I? Oh, no, lady! I did not lose the ancient heirloom. Oh, no."

"But you say--"

"I am only its rightful owner," he explained. "Had Queen Alma's bracelet been in my possession it never would have been lost and so found by the so--gracious Kenway. Indeed, no!"

"Then, what have you come here for?" cried Agnes, in some desperation.

"I cannot give the bracelet to anybody but the one who lost it--"

"You say here the owner!" cried the man, beginning again the woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapping on the paper.

"But how do I know you own it?" she gasped.

"Show it me. In one moment's time can I tell--at the one glance," was the answer of a.s.surance. "Oh, yes, yes, yes!"

These "yeses" were accompanied by the emphatic tapping on the paper.

Agnes wondered that the _Post_ at that spot was not quite worn through.

Perhaps it was fortunate that at this moment Neale O'Neil came in.

That he came direct from the garage and apparently from a struggle with oily machinery, both his hands and face betrayed.

"Hey!" he exploded. "If we are going to take Mr. Pinkney out on a cross-country chase after that missing pirate this afternoon, we've got to get a hustle on. You going to be ready, Aggie? Mr. Pinkney gets home at a quarter to one."

"Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, turning eagerly to greet the boy. "Talk to this man--do! I don't know what to say to him."

The boy's countenance broadened in a smile.