Two Little Women on a Holiday Part 33

"Yes. Of course, I didn't think anything about it at the time, but now I remember it distinctly. That's why I wanted to go home and tell Mother all about it, and ask her if I ought to tell Mr. Forbes about Alicia."

"I see. I don't know myself what you ought to do. I've been thinking it might be Alicia all the time. I hate to suspect her, as much as you do.

But if she ran back, and went to that table, and then the jewel that laid there was gone, it certainly looks queer. Decidedly queer."

"Well, what shall I do?"

"I suppose you'll have to keep still, unless you're actually accused of taking it. You can't very well tell on Alicia."

"That's what I think."

"But if they really accuse you,--and Mr. Fenn has already done so."

"Oh, Fenn! I don't care what he says. If Mr. Forbes doesn't think I took it, I don't want to say anything about Alicia."

"Well, let's wait and see. After what you've just told me, I think she did take it. But I don't WANT to think that."

Now, in the next room, Alicia and Bernice were talking confidentially and in low tones.

"Of course, Dolly must have taken it," Alicia said, slowly.

"I can't believe that," said Bernice. "I know Dolly Fayre awfully well, and I just about 'most KNOW she couldn't do such a thing."

"I daresay she never was tempted before. You can't tell what you may do until there's a sudden temptation. She might have thought it was no harm, when Uncle Jeff has so many of such trinkets. She might have thought he'd never miss it--"

"No," dissented Bernice. "Dolly never thought out those things. If she did take it, it was just on the spur of the moment, and, as you say, because of a sudden irresistible temptation. And the minute after she was doubtless sorry, but then she was ashamed to confess or return it."

It was luncheon time then, and the girls went downstairs together, with no disclosures of their suspicions of each other.

At the luncheon table the subject was freely discussed.

Dolly explained to Mrs. Berry that, after she had telephoned she was going home, she felt that it was a cowardly thing to do, and that she ought to remain and see the matter through.

"You see," Dolly said, smiling, "it was a sudden temptation, when I got to the station, to go home. Just the sight of the ticket office, and the train gates, gave me a wave of homesickness and I wanted to see Mother so terribly, that I thought I'd just go. But as soon as I'd telephoned, I realised that I oughtn't to do it, so I came right back here. I didn't telephone I'd changed my mind, for I thought I'd be here so soon. Mrs. Berry, what do you think became of the earring?"

"I don't know, I'm sure, my dear. I don't think I could ever believe that any one of you girls took it with any wrong intent. Did one of you just borrow it? To study it as a curio or anything like that?"

"No!" cried Bernice. "That's absurd. If I'd wanted to do that I should have asked Uncle's permission."

"Of course you would," and good Mrs. Berry sighed at the undoubted fallacy of her theory.

It was during luncheon that the telephone bell rang, and Geordie Knapp invited the girls to a matinee at the Hippodrome.

"They must come," he said to Mrs. Berry, who had answered his call.

"Please let them. It's a big party. We've three boxes; my mother is going with us, and all the rest are young people. I know your girls will like it."

"Of course they will," Mrs. Berry replied. "I'll be glad to have them go. Wait; I'll ask them."

The invitation was heard with delight, and Bernice answered Geordie for the others that they'd all be glad to go.

"Good!" cried Geordie. "We'll call for you in our big car. Be ready on time."

They promised and hastened through luncheon to go to dress.

"I'm glad you're going," kind Mrs. Berry said; "it'll take your minds off this old earring business. Have a real good time, and don't even think of anything unpleasant."

So the girls started off in gay spirits, resolved not to worry over the lost jewel.

During the intermission at the matinee Dotty chanced to be talking to Geordie alone, and she told him about the mystery, and asked him what he thought. The boy was greatly interested, and asked for all the details. So Dotty told him all, even of Dolly's seeing Alicia return to the room and go to the table by the window.

"Jiminy crickets!" said Geordie, "that looks bad! But I can't believe Alicia would take it, nor any of you others. Let me talk to Alicia; I won't accuse her, you know, but maybe I can gather something from the way she talks."

So by changing of seats Geordie found opportunity to talk to Alicia about the matter. To his surprise, she willingly discussed it, and, moreover, she made no secret of the fact that she suspected Dolly of taking it. She said she felt sure that Dolly did it, meaning no great harm, but probably being over-tempted. "Why," said Alicia, "she said only at luncheon that when she was at the Railroad Station she was so tempted to go home to her mother that she very nearly went. So, you see, she is given to sudden temptations and I suppose she can't always resist them."

Geordie considered. "I don't believe she took it, Alicia," he said; "either it's slipped behind something, or else somebody else got in and took it. It never was one of you four girls! I'm SURE it wasn't If I could be over there for an hour or so, I'll bet I could find it. I'm pretty good at such things. S'pose I go home with you after the show; may I?"

"Oh, I wish you would! If you could find that thing, you would be a joy and a blessing!"

And so, after the performance was over, Geordie Knapp and Ted Hosmer both went to Mr. Forbes' house with the four girls.

Alicia asked her uncle's permission for them all to go up to the museum rooms, and he gave it. He was not entirely willing, for he rarely allowed visitors to his collections, but Alicia coaxed until he gave in.

"It can't be that Alicia took it," Dotty whispered to Dolly, "for she is so willing to have Geordie investigate."

Ted Hosmer was as anxious as Geordie to hunt for the earring, but when he reached the rooms of the collections he was so interested in looking at the specimens that he nearly forgot what they came for.

"Look at the birds!" he cried, as they pa.s.sed through the Natural History room on the way to the antiques.

"You like birds?" asked Dolly, as she saw his eyes brighten at the sights all round him. "Yes, indeed! I've a small collection myself, but nothing like this! I study about birds every chance I get. Oh, see the humming birds! Aren't they beautiful?"

But Dolly persuaded him to leave the birds and b.u.t.terflies and go on to the antique room.

Here the girls told their two visitors all about the earring and its disappearance. Mr. Fenn was not present, for which Dolly was deeply grateful.

Mr. Forbes watched the two boys quizzically. Then he said,

"Go to it, Geordie. Do a little detective work. If any of my four visitors took it, make them own up. I won't scold them; I'm anxious only to know which one it was."

"You don't really think it was any of them, I know, Mr. Forbes, or you wouldn't speak like that," said Ted. "I know you think as I do, that some queer mischance or accident is responsible for the disappearance.

But WHAT was that accident, and WHERE is the jewel?"

The two boys searched methodically. They did not look into cupboards or drawers; they asked questions and tried to think out some theory.

"Could any one have come in at the window?" asked Ted.

"No chance of that," said Mr. Forbes, "considering the window is in the fourth story, and no balcony, or any way of reaching it from the ground."

Geordie stuck his head out of the window in question.

"Who lives next door?" he said, looking across the narrow yard to the next house.