The New Girl at St. Chad's Part 30

CHAPTER XVII

Janie turns Detective

Honor being safely in her father's charge, we must leave her there for the present, and return to Chessington, to see what was happening in the meantime at St. Chad's.

Janie's slumbers had been quiet and undisturbed until half-past six, when she woke with a start, feeling almost ashamed of herself for being able to sleep when her friend was in trouble. She got up at once, and peeped round the curtain into the other cubicle, only to discover, too late, that the bird had flown. She looked on the dressing-table to see whether a note might have been left, but to her disappointment there was nothing. Honor had vanished mysteriously, leaving not the least sign or clue behind her. Where had she gone? Janie could scarcely venture a guess. Such a daring scheme as a return to Ireland did not even suggest itself to her less enterprising mind. Perhaps, she thought, Honor might have set out to try to find the man Blake, and ask him to come and show the Jubilee sovereign to Miss Maitland; but this seemed so at variance with her determination of last night that Janie could hardly consider it probable. She wondered if it were her duty to go and tell Miss Maitland immediately, but came to the conclusion that, as the bell would ring in a few minutes, she might put off giving the information until she had dressed.

Her news naturally caused the greatest consternation at head-quarters.

Steps were taken at once to inst.i.tute a search for the runaway. Miss Cavendish communicated with the police, who, exactly as Honor had antic.i.p.ated, enquired at the railway station and the pier at Dunscar, in case she had taken the train or the steamer; and caused the high roads to be watched. It did not occur to anybody that she would have ventured on such an undertaking as to cross the moors, and she had the advantage of several hours' start, so that, from her point of view, her plan was a success.

"You should have come to me instantly, Janie, when you made the discovery that she was gone," said Miss Maitland reproachfully. "We have lost at least three-quarters of an hour through your delay."

Poor Janie burst into tears. It had been very hard to be obliged to reveal the fact of her room-mate's flight at all. She felt that, utterly against her will, she had the whole time been the princ.i.p.al witness in Honor's disfavour, and that every word she had spoken had helped to confirm unjust suspicion. She would have made an attempt to plead her friend's cause if Miss Maitland had looked at all encouraging, but the mistress was anxious to waste no further time, and dismissed her summarily from the room.

Janie had taken the affair as much to heart as if the disgrace were her own. It seemed so particularly unfortunate that it should have happened, because, since their talk at St. Kolgan's Abbey, she had thought that Honor was making increased efforts, and that Miss Maitland had noticed and approved the change. Now all this advance appeared to be swept away, and in the opinion of both teachers and girls her friend was not fit to remain any longer on the roll of Chessington.

Although the Chaddites tried to keep their shame hushed up, the news leaked out somehow, and very soon spread through the entire College, where it instantly became the one absorbing topic of conversation.

Owing to her prowess at cricket, and her friendly, amusing ways, Honor had won more notice than most new girls among her two hundred schoolfellows; but, in spite of her undoubted popularity, she was universally judged to be guilty. The general argument was that the money was missing, that somebody must have taken it, that Honor was known to have needed it desperately, and that her action in running away showed above everything that she dared not stay to have the matter investigated.

Janie thought that no day had ever been so long. The hours seemed absolutely interminable. Her lessons had been badly prepared the night before, and won for her a reproof from Miss Farrar; and her thoughts were so constantly occupied with wondering where Honor had fled that she could scarcely attend to the work in cla.s.s, and often answered at random. Her head was aching badly, and her eyes were sore with crying, neither of which was conducive to good memory, or lucid explanations; so she was not surprised to find at the end of the morning that her record was the worst she had had during the whole term.

The afternoon was cool after the rain of the previous evening, and games were once more in full swing. Dearly as she would have liked to shirk her part in them, Janie was not allowed to absent herself; but she played so badly that she drew Miss Young's scorn on her head, to say nothing of the wrath of the Chaddites.

"You missed two catches--simply dropped them straight out of your hands! You're an absolute b.u.t.ter-fingers!" exclaimed Chatty Burns indignantly.

Janie was too crushed by utter misery to mind this extra straw. She retired thankfully to the pavilion as soon as she was allowed, feeling that missed catches or schoolmates' scoldings were of small importance in the present state of general misfortune.

"If I could only find out who took the sovereign!" she thought. "Honor certainly did not, so somebody else must have. Who? That's the question. I wish I were an amateur detective, like the clever people one reads about in magazines. They just get a clue, and find it all out so easily, while the police are on quite a wrong tack. The chief thing seems to be to make a beginning, and I don't know in the least where to start."

Neither tea nor preparation brought her any nearer to solving the difficulty. After supper she went into the garden, taking her work-basket and crochet with her. She was in the lowest of spirits, and blinked away some surrept.i.tious tears. Weeping was not fashionable at St. Chad's, being cla.s.sed as "Early Victorian", and she wished to hide her red eyes from the other girls; for this reason she hurried down the long gravel path behind the rows of peas and beans, and found a snug place by the tomato house, where there was a convenient wheelbarrow to sit upon. She had not been there more than five minutes when, to her surprise, she was joined by Lettice Talbot.

"I've been hunting for you everywhere, Janie!" announced Lettice. "I shouldn't have found you now, only I caught a glimpse of your pink hair ribbon through a vista of pea-sticks. Is there room for two on this barrow? Thanks; I'll sit down then. Look here! I want to tell you how glad I am that you stuck up for Honor last night. I know Maisie and all the rest think she took that wretched sovereign, but I declare I don't.

Poor old Paddy! I'm certain she never could; I would as soon have done it myself."

"I'm so thankful to hear you say this," exclaimed Janie. "I was afraid I was the only one who believed in her."

"A few of our set are beginning to come round; Ruth Latimer is certainly wavering, and so is Pauline Reynolds. But naturally they all say: 'If Honor didn't take it, who did?'"

"That's exactly what I should like to find out," sighed Janie.

"Miss Maitland is absolutely certain that she left it on her table, and that it was gone when she came back within a quarter of an hour; also, that it hadn't fallen down anywhere in the room," said Lettice, with the air of a judge weighing evidence. "Where is it, then?"

"I've thought and thought," replied Janie, puckering up her forehead, "but I can't get any nearer. If we could prove, now, that someone else had been in Miss Maitland's room, it might quite alter the case."

"Why, what an idiot I am!" exclaimed Lettice, suddenly bouncing up from the wheelbarrow.

"What's the matter?"

"It's only just occurred to me! I suppose a really clever person would have thought of it at once. I'm afraid my brains don't work very fast.

Oh, what a jubilee!"

"Lettice Talbot! Have you gone mad?"

"Not quite, but a little in that direction."

"Do explain yourself!"

"Well, you recollect when Honor climbed up to the window? We all went into the house afterwards, and then I ran back to fetch Maisie's work-basket. I saw a girl climb down the lime tree, and run away into the bushes."

"Are you sure?"

"I could not be mistaken."

"Then this is most extremely important."

"I know it is. I can't imagine how I never remembered it before. They may well call me 'Scatterbrains' at home! I certainly shouldn't have done for a barrister, if I'd been a boy."

"Could you tell who it was?"

"No, I wasn't near enough. I only saw her for a moment. If I had caught a glimpse of her face, it might have been of some use; but everybody wears the same kind of blue skirt and white blouse at Chessington, so it's quite impossible to recognize any particular girl when you see nothing but her back."

"Unless you could find somebody else who happened to have seen her too."

"No one else was there at the time."

"We must make enquiries," said Janie excitedly. "It really seems a clue. We won't leave a stone unturned, if we can help it."

"I should be very glad to get poor Paddy out of trouble," replied Lettice. "The slur on our house will be just the same, though, whichever Chaddite may be the culprit. It's only moving the disgrace from one person to another."

"We must see that the blame is put on to the right pair of shoulders, though; it's not fair for Honor to bear it unjustly."

"Indeed it isn't. What would be the best way to begin?"

"We need a witness. I wonder if Johnson was about at the time, and noticed anything?"

"A good idea! We'll go and find him. I believe I saw him just now, shutting up the greenhouse."

After a rather lengthy search, the girls at last discovered the old gardener putting away his tools in the potting shed.

"Johnson, please, we want to ask you a question," began Janie. "Were you near St. Chad's at nine o'clock on the night before last; and did you happen to see anyone climbing the lime tree that stands close to the house?"

Johnson stroked his chin reflectively.

"It couldn't have been last night," he replied, after a few moments'

consideration. "I was in Dunscar then. It must 'a been the night afore that. Aye; I did see one of you young ladies go up that lime tree. I remember it, because she climbed that smart you'd have thought she was a boy. In at the window she gets, and I watches her and thinks it's well to have young limbs. It's not much climbing you'll do when you're nigh sixty, and stiff in the joints with rheumatism besides!"

"What was she like?" enquired Janie eagerly.