Witch Winnie's Mystery, or The Old Oak Cabinet Part 2

He told Madame, as I learned later, that he must give up the position, as her pupils were all "too hopelessly elementary."

Madame was disappointed. Her art department had always been an attractive feature, and since the name of Professor Carrington Waite, late of the _Academie des Beaux Arts_, had appeared in her circulars, many had joined the school purely for the sake of the studio instruction. Madame explained this to the young artist.

He ran his fingers through his hair in despair. "Of what manner of use is it for me to remain?" he asked. "There is only one pupil sufficiently advanced to gain anything from my instruction, and that is Miss Smith.

The others made as much advance, perhaps more, under her teaching as they have under mine."

A happy thought came to Madame. "If I engage Miss Smith as your a.s.sistant, Professor Waite, perhaps she can translate your ideas into terms which will be intelligible by the students of lower intelligence or advancement, and possibly she can so enlighten some of them that they can profit later by your personal teaching."

This plan struck Professor Waite as practicable. He now only visited the studio for an hour each morning, during which time he criticised the work which had been done under my supervision during the previous day.

The new arrangement was an excellent one for me, for I profited by all his remarks, listening to them with the keenest attention, and thus received thirty lessons during the hour instead of one. As I had but three other studies, and these were in the senior cla.s.s, it was possible for me to give the necessary time by preparing all of my lessons in the evening. It was unremitting, incessant work, but my health was excellent, and art was my supreme delight. Moreover, Madame had offered me a salary of three hundred dollars beyond my school expenses, and it was perfect joy to be able to relieve father of this burden. I had a high ambition to go abroad some day and study art in Paris, and I wished to save as much as possible of my salary toward this purpose. I had the lower compartment in the safe, and here I laid away every dollar that I could spare, limiting myself in everything but my subscription to the Home of the Elder Brother; but for this outlet I would have grown n.i.g.g.ardly and avaricious. The same charity which made Winnie prudently retrench her propensity to lavish expenditure, and take thought carefully for the morrow, kept me from utter selfishness and penuriousness by keeping one channel of generous giving open and pulsing freely toward others.

Cynthia Vaughn's affairs were kept closely to herself. We sometimes fancied that she pretended to greater wealth and consequence than she really possessed. Certainly, if the sums of which she frequently spoke of receiving were at her disposal she was a veritable miser; for her subscription to the Home was the smallest of any girl in the King's Daughters' Ten; the presents which she ostentatiously bestowed upon Adelaide and Milly were cheap though showy, as was her own clothing.

The treasures which she committed to the cabinet safe were carefully locked in a small j.a.panned tin box, the key of which she kept in her pocket-book, and she was the only one of us whose belongings within the safe were so protected. We had perfect confidence in one another, and our funds lay open to the observation or handling of any one possessing the pa.s.s key in the match box. It is needless to say that up to the night of the robbery our security had been inviolate.

CHAPTER III.

THE ROBBERY.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Adelaide led the school in more respects than in the style of hats, and in the Amen Corner she reigned as absolute queen.

It may seem strange that this was so, for Winnie was the genius of our coterie. She was perhaps too active and restless. She seemed born to be a leader, but the leader of a revolt, while Adelaide had the calm a.s.surance of a princess who had no need to a.s.sert her rights, but to whom allegiance came as a matter of course. Even Winnie was her loyal subject and delighted in being her prime minister.

I have spoken of Winnie's fondness for reading and telling detective stories. It really seemed as if in so doing she was preparing us for the events which followed, and the time when every one of us felt that she was a special detective charged with the mission of finding a clue to a great and sorrowful mystery.

It all came about through the robbery.

On the eve of my birthday it so happened that there was an unusual amount of money in the little safe. Adelaide had returned from collecting her rents too late to deposit her funds in the bank. She looked very much relieved as she slipped a roll of bills, amounting to nearly one hundred dollars, into her pigeon-hole, and turning the key, deposited it in the match safe.

Winnie had that morning cashed a check just received from her father, and had brought back from the bank some crisp, new notes, with which she filled her envelopes for the coming month. Cynthia had ostentatiously and yet mysteriously dropped some silver dollars into her cash box, and even Milly had laid aside an unwonted sum, for her father had called at the school and contrary to his usual custom had given her five bright ten-dollar gold pieces. Milly seemed very happy as she slipped them into her snakeskin and tucked it into her own particular corner of the safe.

"Unlimited pocket money this month, eh! Milly?" I asked.

Milly laughed and shook her head.

"Don't know that I am obliged to account to you for everything," she said, saucily, but the sting was taken out of the speech by the kiss with which it was immediately followed, and I more than half suspected that Milly intended one of those gold pieces as a birthday present for me.

Late in the evening I counted over my own h.o.a.rd. We were all in the study parlor, with the exception of Winnie, and as I counted I looked up and saw that Adelaide and Milly were regarding me with interest, though their glances instantly fell to the books which they had apparently been studying.

"How much have you, Tib?" Adelaide asked; "enough yet to buy the steamer ticket for the ocean pa.s.sage?"

"No," I replied, "only forty-seven dollars as yet, but I hope to make it before the close of school."

"Of course you will," Milly replied rea.s.suringly.

Cynthia laughed raspingly. "You have almost enough now, if you go in the steerage," she sneered.

Adelaide suddenly threw a bit of drawn linen work belonging to Cynthia over the money, which I had spread out in the chair before me.

"What are you doing with my embroidery?" Cynthia snapped. "Did you mistake it for a dust rag?"

"Natural mistake," Milly giggled.

Adelaide lifted her finger warningly. "Hush!" she said, "I saw a face at the transom; some one was looking in from the studio."

Milly turned pale and clutched my hand, and we all looked at the transom with straining eyes. It was almost dark in the studio and for a few moments we saw nothing but some one was moving about, for we heard cautious steps, and a creaking sound just the other side of the door.

Presently a hat cautiously lifted itself into view through the transom.

It was a broad-brimmed, soft felt hat of the Rembrandt style, which Professor Waite sometimes wore. It moved about silently from one side of the transom to the other, descended, and appeared again.

"I never thought that Professor Waite would peep or listen," Cynthia whispered.

"He would not," I replied aloud. "He must be at work there hanging pictures or doing something else of the sort."

"Then he would make more noise," Cynthia suggested, as the hat continued its stealthy movements.

"It may be some one else who has put on the Professor's hat as a disguise," Milly gasped.

"That was the reason I covered up the money," Adelaide replied, in a low voice. "You had better put it away, Tib."

I hastily bundled my money into the safe and locked the door, and we sat for some moments quietly watching the transom, but the spectre did not come again. Winnie entered a few moments later and seemed greatly interested by our accounts of the incident.

"Do you suppose that it could have been one of that band of Italian bravos who has climbed up on the fire-escape and who intends to murder us?" she asked with an a.s.sumption of terror.

"Hush," I whispered, pulling her dress, and pointing to Milly whose eyes were staring with fright.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Winnie; "can't you tell when I'm joking? It was Professor Waite. Of course it was Professor Waite. He has been in love with Adelaide ever since she complimented him on his appearance at their first meeting. He is dying for a glimpse at her fair face, and as she won't join his painting cla.s.s he relieves his yearning heart by gazing over the transom."

There was more joking, and Milly's fears were as quickly quieted as they had been raised. Professor Waite had undoubtedly been at work in the studio, I insisted, and I knocked on the door and called his name.

No answer, and I tried to open the door, but the chest held it firmly in place. "Shall I look over the transom?" I asked.

"For pity's sake do not repeat Winnie's experience," Adelaide begged.

"Then I will look in by the corridor door," I said resolutely, and I stepped down the hall and into the studio. The door was open, so was Miss Noakes's door just opposite, and that watchful lady sat rocking and reading beside her little centre table. She was not too much absorbed, however, to give me a keen questioning glance--but she said nothing, for as a.s.sistant teacher in art I had a perfect right to frequent the studio.

The moon was shining in clearly through the great window, and every object was distinctly visible, but there was no one in the room. I opened the door leading to the turret staircase and listened; all was silent, and I screwed up my courage and descended, finding the door at the foot safely locked. The great Rembrandt hat lay on the chest in front of our door, and the Professor's mahl-stick, or long support on which he rested his arm when painting, leaned beside it. I could not see any change in the disposition of the pictures on the wall, or other indications of what the Professor had been doing, if indeed it was the Professor, and I did not know of his ever before visiting the studio at that hour. As I came out I noticed that Miss Noakes was still rocking before her open door, her slits of eyes glancing sharply up.

"Have you seen any one go into the studio lately?" I asked.

"No one has pa.s.sed through the corridor since the beginning of study hour, with the exception of Miss Winifred De Witt."

"Then this door must have been open all the time, and you have seen no one in the studio?"