The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan Part 31

"You say you thought you heard someone in your father's room after the party that night. Is there anyone who would know about the fan and come prowling around to get it?"

"I wish I knew that, Phil. Just now I can't imagine what has happened to it."

"I know what I'm going to do, Bet. I'm going to go down to the police office and talk to Chief Baldwin, tell him the whole story and ask his advice. I'll do that at once. Enough time has been wasted."

Phil was away before Bet could stop him, even if she had tried. And when Chief Baldwin heard only part of the story, he decided to hear the rest on the spot and returned to the Manor with Phil.

Chief Baldwin went over the whole house with Bet and Phil. In the attic he saw the footprints still on the floor, in the dust, and Uncle Nat told him of following the same marks in the snow, to the main road.

"Why didn't you get me on the job, then, I'd like to know? Why did you delay?"

"We all thought it was one of the village boys who was not invited, and decided he'd try to break up the party."

"Still, with Colonel Baxter away, you should have let me know at once.

I sort of feel responsible and if anything happened to Bet when he was away I'm sure he'd blame me."

In spite of her anxiety, Bet had to laugh. "You're as bad as Auntie Gibbs. Her responsibility weighs heavily on her, and when Dad is out of town, she almost sets me crazy."

"You see, Bet, we all think so highly of your father that we do not take any chances in displeasing him. Now about this fan! Who was the last person to have it?"

"I was," answered Phil without hesitation. "I took it from Laura Sands because she was being careless, and I put it on Colonel Baxter's desk in the den."

"Have you asked Laura Sands about it?" inquired the Chief.

"Yes, and she says that Phil took it away from her."

The Chief insisted on going over the rooms again carefully, but still the fan was not found.

"The best thing to do," said Chief Baldwin, as he saw Bet's troubled face, "is to put a good detective on the job. And we'll find the queen's fan, I promise you that."

"When can you find it? Before Monday? Dad may be back on Monday."

Everybody laughed. "Well Bet, that's asking a little too much, even of the Chief, just when the fan will be found. But I give you my word, it will be recovered."

Bet felt somewhat better after the optimistic talk with Chief Baldwin and for that night, at least, she laid aside her worries.

But Phil was not at all rea.s.sured by Chief Baldwin's promise. He was unhappy and despondent as he told his mother the whole story from beginning to end.

"I'm terribly uncomfortable, because I was the last to handle it, Mother," confided the boy. "Would anyone have imagined that such a thing could happen?"

"Are you sure you did return it? Perhaps it is in the pocket of your overcoat. I'm going to see," and his mother left the room.

But Phil knew the fan was not there. And that night he was disturbed even in his dreams and woke at intervals with the feeling that all the troubles of the universe weighed him down.

The next morning he was again with Chief Baldwin and Amos Longworth, the detective, a tight-lipped stranger with narrow eyes, who had been chosen to look into the matter. Together they went to the Manor and looked over the rooms as before. Longworth examined the footprints in the dust and in the snow outside. "That's some foot! I should think you'd be able to trace a man by that foot. It's a whale!"

"And that's why we thought it was someone masquerading. No one in our crowd has a foot that size."

But if Phil was nervous and depressed over what had happened up to this time, he had reason to be still more concerned when the detective accompanied him home and began to question him privately. Before an hour had pa.s.sed, Longworth had made him confess that he and his mother were very poor and that he might have to leave school to work. Also that he realized the fan was very valuable.

"Yes, I knew the fan was worth a lot of money. Colonel Baxter told us so. It's painted by a famous French artist and was at one time the property of Marie Antoinette. It was given to her by Louis XV. That's enough to make it very valuable."

"You know all about it, I see. So you put it in your pocket?"

"No. I took it to the Colonel's den, and put it on his desk."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't you feel any temptation to take it and sell it to get money?"

"No, sir, I did not! Such a thought never entered my head. It belonged to Colonel Baxter. He is my friend and I would not hurt him in any way--or Bet either."

Mrs. Gordon came in and was introduced and while she spoke of the theft of the fan and her unhappiness at Phil's part in the matter, the detective did not again take an aggressive tone. Yet his narrow eyes showed suspicion.

Not being able to get word to her father, Bet brooded over the loss of the fan and it took all the ingenuity of her three friends to keep her cheerful. For the first time they found Bet inclined to be irritable.

"Now please don't mind me, girls! I'm just worried almost sick. If Dad hadn't added that last line about saving the estate, I wouldn't feel so badly about it. I'm afraid he's had some serious business trouble, and if anything happens to the fan through my carelessness, what shall I do?"

"Well, everything is being done that can be done, as far as I see,"

said Joy, who was in no mood for dancing now that Bet was unhappy.

"But it's such slow work! And being just a girl, I have to sit here twiddling my thumbs, not doing a single thing to find the fan,"

exclaimed Bet indignantly.

"There ought to be some way in which we could help. Let's try to think of something." It was the quiet Shirley who spoke, and, coming from her, the suggestion seemed possible, for Shirley was always so well balanced in all her thoughts that the girls often looked to her when they had perplexities to overcome.

"There's one thing sure, that fan didn't just up and walk out by itself. Somebody took it out!" exclaimed Kit.

"And another thing that's sure, is that it was on the desk, for Phil said he put it there," said Bet emphatically.

"Maybe he just thought he did!" sighed Joy.

"No, we've gone into all that, Chief Baldwin, Mr. Longworth, Uncle Nat and everybody. There isn't any question about it," declared Bet.

"Phil put the fan on the desk, I know he did!"

"Then, _who_ took it?" demanded Shirley. "Who would know that it was valuable? And who would want it?"

"Say Shirley, if you ever get tired of photography and want a new job, you'd better be a detective," laughed Kit. "Go on, ask some more questions and maybe we'll hit on the right solution to the mystery."

The girls laughed, but Kit added: "No fooling, girls! I know a woman in Arizona who trapped a cattle rustler all by herself, and if she did that, why can't we find the fan?"

"That's right. The Merriweather Girls should be able to find a clue.

I'm sure Lady Betty would have done so in less than no time," remarked Joy.

"Perhaps she would. I wonder," said Bet sadly.