A PRACTICAL JOKE
Three weeks had passed since Margaret had paid her first visit to Eleanor
at Windy Gap, and during those three weeks she had kept steadily to her
word and was impersonating Eleanor as well as she could at The Cedars.
And as the days went by her task grew easier. She seemed to have slipped
into her place as a member of the household, and though it was a very
insignificant niche indeed that she filled, she did not mind that at all,
for she was aware that the more she kept in the background the less
chance there was of her secret being discovered. Perhaps on the whole,
too, she was happier than she had been during the first three or four
days. Of course, as she told herself seriously, she ought not, when once
her eyes had been opened to the wrongfulness of the deceit she was
practising, to have known a single happy moment, but somehow she found it
difficult always to feel ashamed and contrite, especially when she was
playing croquet with Edward. For in return for some lessons in French
conversation she was giving him he had offered to teach her croquet, and
though Margaret had been afraid that she was far too stupid to learn any
game, she was making astonishing progress under his tuition, and Edward
was already beginning to boast of the prowess of his pupil. And so, for
the first time in her life, Margaret fell under the fascination of a
game, and when she had a mallet in her hand it is to be feared that the
delinquency of her conduct ceased to trouble her.
Fat, chuckling Nancy, too, who seemed to be always brimming over with
good nature and good spirits, frequently sought her society, and Margaret
found it even more impossible to brood secretly over her misdeeds in
Nancy's society as when she was playing croquet. Of Maud she saw very
little. Sometimes for days together the eldest daughter of the house
scarcely spoke to her, vouchsafing her only the most careless and hasty
of nods as morning and evening greetings. Maud intended to be neither
rude nor unkind. The children's holiday governess simply did not interest
her, that was all, and as for going out of her way to amuse or entertain
her, Maud's blue eyes stared amazedly at her mother when one day Mrs.
Danvers ventured to suggest that perhaps Maud might take more notice of
Miss Carson.
"For I really am afraid she is having a very dull time here," said Mrs.
Danvers, her tone taking on a rather apologetic note as she encountered
the impatient expression on Maud's face. "I am sure I don't know what she
would do if it wasn't for Nancy and Edward."
"Well, with them to knock around with, and the kids to teach when they
come back, she ought not to find time hang heavy," Maud said carelessly.
"But as for asking me to take her about, why, mother, I simply couldn't.
The day isn't half long enough as it is for me to do all I want to do.
And after all, she wouldn't find it a bit amusing to come about with me.
Fancy her sticking down for hours at the club watching me playing tennis,
for that is what I am doing this afternoon, for instance. Besides, she is
so dreadfully slow. She bores me awfully."
"My dear," said her mother, "though you all find Miss Carson so slow just
because she knows nothing about tennis, or tennis people, or cricket
averages, or the difference between Rugby and Association football, I
think she is a very nice girl indeed, so gentle and so unselfish. David
and Daisy just love her, and I know if I want any little thing done for
me, a note written, or flowers put in water, or any little things of that
sort, I'd sooner ask her to do it for me than either you or Hilary."
"Well, and so she ought to make herself useful," said Maud, turning
restive at the merest hint of criticism from the mother who usually had
nothing but praise for her daughters. "After all, that is what she is
here for. She is paid for that, isn't she?"
"I am paying her nothing," Mrs. Danvers said.
"Well, she gets her board and lodging, anyhow, and a better time into the
bargain than she would be getting grilling away in an empty house at
Hampstead," Maud retorted. "And I think she ought to be jolly thankful to
be here."
This conversation was taking place in the morning-room by the open French
window of which Maud had stood while carrying on her share of it, and her
last speech had been uttered with so much vigour that as her back was
partly turned to the room she had not heard the door open. And though her
mother coughed once or twice in an agonised way, it was not until she had
quite finished all she had to say that Maud swung round and saw Margaret
standing with a pile of letters in her hand by her mother's chair.
[Illustration: MAUD SWUNG ROUND AND SAW MARGARET STANDING WITH A PILE
OF LETTERS BY HER MOTHER'S CHAIR.]
"I have finished these, Mrs. Danvers," she said quietly; "is there
anything else you would like me to do?"
Margaret had certainly gained in self-possession since she had come to
The Cedars. A fortnight ago if she had heard a remark of that sort about
herself she would have rushed in tears from the room, but now she seemed
to guess intuitively that the right thing and the kindest thing to do was
to pretend not to have heard it. Certainly from her manner Maud would
never have guessed that her speech had been overheard. Nevertheless, she
knew that Miss Carson could not have failed to hear every word, and
flushing darkly even through the sunburn of her cheeks, she fled out of
the room by the window, literally without a word to say for herself. And
when Mrs. Danvers attempted an apology on her daughter's behalf it was
Margaret's turn to show embarrassment.
"Please, please," she said earnestly, "do not think that I mind what Maud
said. You are all very kind to me, and Maud is quite right. It is much
nicer here than it would be in an empty house in Hampstead."
"That reminds me, my dear," Mrs. Danvers said. "Sit down here beside me,
and let us have a nice cosy chat about your future. What are you going to
do when you leave me at the end of the holidays? Are you going back to
the school?"
"Yes--yes; I--think so," said Margaret, beginning to stammer and get red
as she invariably did when Hampstead was mentioned. "At least, I--I don't
know."
"Well, I may be mistaken of course--thank you, my dear, if you will just
reach me my knitting, I can always talk so much better when I am
knitting. Well, as I was going to say, I have an idea that you would be
much happier teaching in a family than in a school. And I do wonder why I
cannot persuade you to let me write to my daughter, Mrs. Lascelles, about
you. I believe when she hears how much the children like you she would be
only too pleased to take you out to Los Angelos for a few years. She
would give you £50 a year--and your travelling expenses, of course. It is
a chance, I assure you, that many girls in your place would jump at, for
it is not, my dear, as if you were very highly certificated, you know.
She will have a lovely house out there, for her husband is a very rich
man, and they will treat you with every kindness and consideration. Now
may I write to her and say that you would like to go?"
Several times already in the course of the past few weeks had Mrs.
Danvers broached this subject to Margaret, but the latter had always
hitherto been able to avoid giving her a direct answer as to why she was
not willing to take the post. But what a thousand pities it was, Margaret
thought, that Eleanor could not accept it. Once the wild idea had
occurred to Margaret that she ought to accept it in Eleanor's name, and
manage somehow to change places with her at the very last moment--on
board the ship, even, perhaps; but fortunately she had seen the utter
folly of that notion before it had taken firm route in her mind. She did
not even know if Eleanor would have cared to go to Los Angelos had the
chance been offered to her, for though she had seen Eleanor twice since
the day on which she had first gone to Windy Gap, she had not been able
to broach the subject to her. For on both occasions Eleanor had been so
full of her own news, and their meetings had been of necessity so brief,
that by the time Eleanor had poured out all she wanted to say the moment
had come for them to part.
Margaret felt very much older than the girl who had left her
grandfather's house three weeks ago. A great deal of experience had been
pressed into those three weeks, and she had learned many things. Among
them she had learned what perhaps at the time she had scarcely believed
that there was, as Eleanor had said bitterly, a good deal of difference
in their respective positions, and that an escapade which could not be
visited very seriously on one might affect the other rather disastrously.
Margaret knew now that Mrs. Danvers, good-natured as she was, would
certainly have refused to take Eleanor in her place if she, Margaret, had
carried out her intention of confessing everything. But in spite of that
knowledge she still clung to the hope that the post at Los Angelos, which
was being so warmly pressed upon the false Eleanor Carson, might
eventually be offered to the real one! And so, if only for the sake of
keeping the place open to Eleanor, she felt that she could not refuse it
outright. What Eleanor meant to do when the holidays were over and they
had to take their own names again, Margaret did not know. As far as she
could judge from their brief, stolen interviews at Windy Gap, Eleanor
continued to be radiantly happy there and to be earning golden opinions
from Madame Martelli, and to be absolutely untroubled by any thoughts
beyond the immediate present. The fact that she could not be Margaret
Anstruther for ever never seemed as much as to enter her head. She gave
no thought to the future at all. And of course, Margaret reflected, if
she expected to be a celebrated Prima Donna by the end of the summer
holidays, that was all right, but if not, did she intend to stay on at
Windy Gap indefinitely and send her, the real Margaret, back to the
school in her place? If such a thing were possible, Margaret felt sure
that Eleanor would despatch her there with the utmost cheerfulness, and
consequently Margaret was deeply thankful that such a course was not
feasible, for Eleanor could hardly hope to pass another girl off as
herself in a school where she had lived for the last seven or eight
years. What, then, did Eleanor mean to do?
"My dear," said Mrs. Danvers reproachfully, breaking in upon Margaret's
perplexed musings, "you are not listening to a word that I am saying,
and what I want to have from you is a plain answer to the question why
you refuse to go to Los Angelos."
"I--I could not leave England," Margaret answered. "I--I should not be
allowed to."
"But, my dear, I understood from Miss McDonald that both your parents
were dead and that you are absolutely alone in the world. Who, then, has
authority over you? Unless," she added, a sudden look of enlightenment
coming to her face, "you are engaged to be married. Is that it?"
"Oh, no," said Margaret, "I am not engaged to any one. It is no one of
that sort at all."
"Then there is some one whom you wish to consult first. Now, who is it?"
By that time Margaret's confusion would have attracted the attention of
any one a degree more observant than Mrs. Danvers, but she saw nothing
suspicious in it; she was only bent on persuading Margaret to change her
mind. As she said, it seemed such a pity for Miss Carson to stand so
obstinately in her own light, for on the face of it a pleasant post
and £50 a year was better than £20 in a second-rate school.
"There is no one who I would have to consult exactly," said Margaret,
seeking vainly for a way of escape out of the tight corner into which she
had blundered, "only--only I could not go."
"But, my dear," repeated Mrs. Danvers, "I have it in your own words; you
said just now that you would not be allowed to leave England."
"No; yes, I mean," said Margaret, whose confusion was increasing so
rapidly that by that time she had very little idea what she was saying.
"I--I am sure I should be prevented. By the end of the holidays you--you
may not like me any longer, and not wish me to go."
"Now what a very strange idea for you to take into your head," said Mrs.
Danvers placidly. "Isn't that a strange idea Miss Carson has taken into
her head, Hilary--that by the end of the summer holidays we may not like
her any more?"
For just as Margaret had entered the room unperceived by Maud a few
minutes back, so Hilary had now come in unheard by Margaret, and had been
standing where Maud had stood--half in and half out of the window.
"Very strange," said Hilary, sending a swift glance at Margaret's averted
face; "was it meant as a prophecy?"
Margaret was saved the necessity of an answer, for at that moment Edward,
who was knocking the balls about on the croquet lawn, shouted to her to
come and have a game; and thankfully enough Margaret fled through the
open window.
"Her manners are rather casual to you, aren't they, mother?" said Hilary,
flinging herself down in the easiest chair in the room, and taking up the
local paper, which had been brought in by Martin a few minutes before.
"Oh, my dear, I don't mind," said Mrs. Danvers; "I am really getting
quite fond of her. She left in a hurry that way just now, I expect,
because she didn't like your little sneering speech at her. You know you
have rather a sharp, unkind way with you sometimes, Hilary. Why don't you
get on better with her?"
"Because I don't like her," Hilary said curtly.
"But, my dear, why not?"
"Because I don't. I heard you persuading her to go to Los Angelos just
now," she added. "Did she say she would go?"
"No; I can't get her to say she would like to go, nor yet to say she
won't go," said Mrs. Danvers. "Now I should have thought it was a chance
she would have jumped at. But no; girls are so queer and independent
nowadays, there is no accounting for them."
"It is very ungrateful of her when you have been good enough to bother
about it," said Hilary, who, though she was delighted to hear that so far
the post in her sister's household was unfilled, for she cherished dreams
of going out to California with Mrs. Lascelles herself, would not let
slip the opportunity of running Margaret down to any one who would
listen. "Did she say why she wouldn't go?"
"Well, she did and she didn't," returned Mrs. Danvers, actually laying
down her knitting for a moment as a recollection of the embarrassment
Margaret had shown returned to her. "As far as I can gather, it is
because she would not be allowed to do so by somebody or other, but who
that somebody was she did not clearly explain to me."
By a few dexterous questions Hilary got her mother to repeat the gist of
the conversation that had just taken place between herself and the
holiday governess, and when she had finished there was a queer little
gleam in Hilary's eyes that Margaret would not have liked to have seen.
"She would not be allowed to go, and when asked why not, had said that
she would be prevented." Hilary turned these phrases over in her mind,
and as soon as she could do so unperceived, wrote them down in a little
note-book that she carried in her pocket.
For though she had now given up the practice she had originally started
of plying Margaret with embarrassing questions, and letting it be plainly
seen that none of the embarrassment Margaret showed at them was lost upon
her, the watch she kept on her every look and action, though secret, was
none the less vigilant. Perhaps even more so than it had been at the
beginning of Margaret's stay, for Hilary was so fascinated by her new
occupation of amateur detective that almost every word Margaret uttered,
even down to a request that the salt might be passed to her at table, was
entered in that little note-book. She blamed herself bitterly, she told
Joan, for having undoubtedly put Margaret on her guard to start with; it
was a false step, she said with a frown, that it might take her weeks and
months to retrieve. "But she will be gone by that time," said Joan, "so
it won't be much use retrieving it then."
Hilary retorted that she had been speaking in a general sense, and then
changed the subject quickly lest Joan should discover how little sense of
any sort the answer contained.
Undoubtedly the relief that Margaret experienced when Hilary ceased to
cross-examine her at meal-times had much to do with her ceasing to
dislike her life at The Cedars as vehemently as she had done at first,
and so cautious was Hilary not to let Margaret suspect the close
observation under which she still kept her, that Margaret had almost come
to believe that she must have been mistaken in ever supposing that Hilary
knew she had something to hide.
Could Margaret have had a glimpse at the pages of that note-book,
however, she would have been quickly undeceived on that point. One entry
alone, which had been made only a few days before, would have filled her
with dismay. It occupied several pages and was headed, "The Clue of the
Handkerchief."
The incident to which this sensational headline referred had taken place
the previous Sunday afternoon, when most of the members of the family had
been sitting in deck-chairs, or lying on rugs, under the shade of the big
cedars on the lawn which gave the house its name. Some of the party were
reading, others were frankly sleeping, when the quiet that reigned had
been disturbed by Nancy, who came running over the grass waving a
handkerchief over her head. "Who's the owner of this pretty thing, this
pretty thing, this pretty thing?" she sang, to the tune of "Here we go
round the mulberry bush." Geoffrey, who had been sound asleep, woke, and
groaned aloud.
"Oh, go away, Nancy," he said; "can't you see that we are all reading?"
"I can't say I can," she retorted, glancing laughingly at his book, which
lay face downwards on the grass beside him. "And I want to discover the
owner of this handkerchief with the initials 'M. A.' on it."
"I am," said Margaret, as, without pausing to reflect, she stretched out
her hand for it.
"Oh, Miss Carson, Miss Carson," said Nancy, dangling her prize in the air
before dropping it on to Margaret's lap; "whose handkerchief have you
been stealing? 'M. A.' are not your initials."
Too late Margaret realised her mistake, and as she had done on the day
when she had failed to answer to her assumed name, she sent a quick,
apprehensive glance round the circle of faces to see if any one had
noticed her error. It appeared no one had, not even Hilary, on whose face
Margaret's uneasy glance rested last and longest. But Hilary's eyes were
fixed steadily on the pages of her book, and with a sigh of relief
Margaret slipped the handkerchief into her pocket. Little did she think
that when a quarter of an hour later Hilary rose and strolled slowly
away, it was to seek a retired corner, and under that startling headline
to make an extensive entry in the note-book.
But though it gave Hilary sincere satisfaction to be able to note that
Miss Carson laid claim to a handkerchief that was obviously not hers, she
was not able to deduce much from the discovery. However, she felt
convinced that she was laying the train to find out a great deal later
on, and as soon as she had collected a sufficient number of suspicious
facts, they would surely explain themselves.
When, as it often did, Margaret's conscience grappled very strenuously
with her, and told her that however much she might try to gloss over the
truth, she was behaving very badly to three people--to her grandfather,
to Mrs. Murray, and to Mrs. Danvers--poor Margaret would urge in her own
extenuation that though she had entered into the scheme entirely for her
own amusement she was now carrying it on solely to please Eleanor, and
that, wrong as it was, no doubt, to go on with it, it would have been
both cowardly and unkind of her to have thrown it up and by so doing
deprive Eleanor not only of the singing lessons by which she set such
store, and for which alone she had consented to the exchange, but a home
for the summer holidays.
"Her honour rooted in dishonour stood.
And faith unfaithful kept her falsely true."
Those lines sprang unawares to Margaret's mind one day when she was
rather sadly reviewing the position in which she had placed herself, and
they appeared to her to fit the situation so exactly that they were
frequently in her thoughts, and Hilary, to her intense gratification,
heard her murmur them to herself one day when she thought herself alone.
The quotation was one copied into the note book under the heading, "A
Guilty Conscience Speaks."
"Is there anything interesting in the _Gazette_?" asked Mrs. Danvers, as
Hilary idly opened the sheets of the local paper and spread them out on
her knee.
Hilary happened to be in one of her most irritable humours that morning;
even the faithful Joan found no pleasure in her society and had gone off
to bathe with Nancy and Maud. She said it was the heat that made her feel
slack and tired, and her mother said anxiously that she was afraid she
did too much, whereat Hilary laughed sardonically, for no one knew better
than she that she did nothing at all from morning to night. Why, even
Nancy, who at least ate chocolates whenever she could get them, and read
novels assiduously all day long and in bed too, might with justice be
said to lead a busier life than she did. But, though Hilary often felt
vaguely dissatisfied at the way in which she dawdled through the days,
she had not strength of mind to bestir herself to pass them otherwise.
After all, what was there for her to do? she asked herself irritably.
She was supposed to have finished her education, and though she was dimly
aware that she was shamefully ignorant, there seemed no especial object
in her getting out her lesson-books and poring over them by herself.
But it was not the thought of her neglected opportunities that was making
her so peevish this morning. She was cross because she could make nothing
out of the number of suspicious facts that she had collected about
Margaret. Of what use was it to have a note-book crammed full of
well-grounded evidence that Miss Carson was an impostor of some sort if
she could not gather from all the mass of material she had collected in
what way she was imposing on them. It was enough, she thought, to make
any one cross. And unless she could discover something definite against
Miss Carson, Joanna would take her out to Los Angelos with her. But that,
Hilary told herself with a little spasm of inward anger, should never
come to pass.
"Hullo, Hilary! got the _Gazette_?" said Jack who, followed by Noel, and
indeed the two boys were never very far apart, strolled through the
window at that moment. "After you with it, I say."
"I have only just begun it myself," said Hilary, coolly tightening her
hold upon it, "so I am afraid you will have to wait."
"Well, it didn't look to us from the garden as though you were reading
it at all," grumbled Jack, "so you might just as well hand it over to us.
We want to take it into the garden and see if there is anything in it
about----"
"About the cricket at the Park," put in Noel quickly.
"Well, you needn't have snapped me up so quickly," grumbled Jack to his
brother, but in so low a tone that neither Mrs. Danvers nor Hilary heard
what he said.
"Well, if there is anything about the cricket I haven't come to it yet,"
said Hilary, beginning to enjoy the possession of the paper now that it
was desired by some one else. "There is a lot about a big fancy fair that
Sir Richard and Lady Strangways are going to have at Wrexley, and about
the Regatta, and the dividends that the pier expects to get this
half-year from the roller skating, and the new play at the theatre, and
the usual lists of people staying at the hotels and boarding-houses. Who
on earth ever reads them through, I wonder? But oh, I say!" she exclaimed
suddenly, as turning over a page her eyes lighted on a column, half of
which was taken up with big headlines that occupied the middle of the
sheet. "I say, what do you think! There has been another burglary. That
makes the third within the last three weeks. Colonel Baker's house was
broken into last night, and all his silver plate was stolen, beside a
most valuable old bronze Etruscan vase, two cases of family miniatures,
and a collection of gold and silver coins. It----"
She was interrupted by a startled exclamation from Jack. "You don't mean
to say that that is in the paper already!" he ejaculated.
"Why, did you know about it before, then?" said Hilary, eyeing her two
brothers in surprise. "When did you hear about it? Have you seen Tommy
this morning?"
"No, we have not seen Tommy to-day, and how could we have heard about
it?" said Noel promptly. "What Jack meant to say was, has there really
been another burglary already?"
Seabourne had certainly been unfortunate in the matter of burglaries of
late. There had been three within as many weeks. One had taken place at
Walker's, the principal jewellers in the High Street; another at the
Grand Hotel, where a popular London dancer, Cora Anatolia by name, had
been robbed of all her jewellery; and now this one of which Hilary had
just read, when Colonel Baker's house, Chesham Lodge, had been broken
into. And in each case the thieves had got clear away.
Naturally enough the police considered that all these burglaries had been
perpetrated by the same gang; but in that they were wrong, for Master
Tommy Baker, aided by his two chums, Noel and Jack Danvers, had committed
the burglary at Colonel Baker's house the preceding evening as a
practical joke.
It was perhaps one of the most unpremeditated burglaries that had ever
taken place. He and the two young Danvers had spent the previous evening
at the theatre, and as their road home lay in the same direction the two
latter had accompanied Tommy as far as his gate. There Jack had
remembered that Tommy had promised to lend him a book, and the two boys
walked up the short drive with him intending to wait at the door while
Tommy went in to get the book. As they turned the corner of the drive the
light from the open study window streamed out on to the gravel, and they
caught sight of Colonel Baker reclining sound asleep in an armchair. The
hall door was likewise wide open.
"I say," Jack had exclaimed, "your house would be an easy one to burgle,
wouldn't it? Half a dozen burglars could sneak right in under your
father's very nose and go off with anything they fancied."
"Well, let's burgle it!" Tommy exclaimed light-heartedly. "It would be
a ripping good joke. Fancy father's face in the morning." And thereupon
Jack and Noel entering gleefully into the scheme, the three boys had
crept silently into the house, gone as silently under Tommy's guidance
from room to room, snatching up as they went the most valuable things on
which they could lay hands.
It really was all done literally on the spur of the moment, and scarcely
five minutes after the mad idea had entered Tommy's head the three boys
stood in a dark corner of the drive with their booty, consisting of table
silver, some valuable miniatures, and a collection of gold coins,
securely tied up in a gaudy gold-embroidered Indian tablecloth that Tommy
had taken from the drawing-room. The Colonel still slept peacefully.
"Now to hide it," said Tommy, "we'll bury it in a corner of your garden."
Shaking with laughter, and wildly elated at the success of their mad
prank, they very nearly ran, as they were leaving Chesham Lodge, straight
into the arms of a policeman, who, with slow and solemn tread, was pacing
down the road. That narrow shave calmed them somewhat, and probably there
was not one of them who did not feel at that moment that they were actual
burglars. At any rate, their progress from Chesham Lodge was attended
with the utmost caution and with a show of mystery that must infallibly
have aroused deep suspicion had they met any one.
"Why go to the fag of burying the swag?" said Tommy once they were safe
within the shelter of The Cedars gates. "Let's take it to one of your
bedrooms. Besides," he added; as if this were quite an afterthought, as
indeed it was, "I don't want to spoil the things, and burying them might
damage the miniatures. Let's shove them into a drawer in your room.
Better go on first, Jack, and see if the coast is clear."
It was then about a quarter past ten, and most of the Danvers family were
still in the billiard-room. Mrs. Danvers and Margaret, however, were in
the drawing-room, and Edward had just gone up to bed.
When Jack came back with his report another short consultation was held.
Edward's having gone up to bed made it impossible to hide their booty in
any of the boys' bedrooms.
"What about your spare bedroom?" said Tommy; "you've got a biggish one,
I know."
"Miss Carson is sleeping there," said Jack. "But I tell you what, she's
not using the dressing-room. I know, because the girls keep some of their
swaggerest dresses and things there. And there are heaps of empty
drawers. So let's shove this thing into one of them."
Having reached the dressing-room unobserved, and closed the door and
turned on the light, they looked round for a safe hiding-place. And that
was not easily found. The drawers, far from being empty, were full either
of blouses laid away in tissue paper, or of furs smothered in camphor.
The hanging wardrobe, too, was full of dresses, and the drawer beneath of
hats.
"Oh, bother!" said Tommy crossly, "what an endless amount of room girls
seem to want for their things!" Then suddenly his expression changed and
he dived under the bed and dragged out a small trunk.
"The very thing. What luck! It's quite empty, and evidently hasn't been
used for ages, the lid is all covered with dust. Probably no one even
knows it is here. Shove in the bundle. Shall I lock it? Yes, I think
I will. Then if any prying housemaid comes along and wants to look inside
she won't be able to."
He slipped the key into his pocket, and the three boys left the room.
But mad as this practical joke was, the idea to which it had given rise
in Hilary's mind was even more outrageous. For she had taken it into her
head that Margaret was connected with the burglaries; and that when she
was still far from guessing that the proceeds of one of them were
actually locked up in her trunk. Hilary's suspicions were founded upon
nothing more tangible than the fact that Margaret's cheeks were unusually
pink that morning when the burglaries were being discussed. And she
forgot that Margaret had just come in from playing croquet in the sun
without a hat.
For some days Tommy, and in a lesser degree Noel and Jack, enjoyed
themselves hugely. Colonel Baker was not the man to sit down tamely under
his loss, and he stormed at the police for not restoring his property,
interviewed the editors of the local papers, offered rewards for the
apprehension of the thieves, and generally made a great stir in the
matter. Presently Noel and Jack began to fear the consequences of their
rash act, and they urged Tommy to smuggle his father's property out of
their house and into his own. But Tommy turned a deaf ear to them, would
not give up the key, and said they must keep up the joke a little longer.
Then, just as Noel and Jack were about to declare that they had had
enough of it, Tommy received an unexpected invitation to Scotland, and in
the hurry of his departure went off with the key in his possession. So,
greatly to their annoyance, the Danvers boys found themselves compelled
to leave the things where they were.