In the meantime, Mrs. St. Clair, left to the quiet seclusion of her own
home, became forthwith a very determined and resolute character.
First she summoned to her aid the old colored butler, who had been with
her many years, and together they searched every part of the house where
she had been the night before. They went over the attic thoroughly and
satisfied themselves that the lost pearl necklace could not have been
dropped there. They hunted through the downstairs rooms, shook out the
sofa cushions, looked under the rugs and behind curtains. There was not
a crack nor cranny of the rooms she had lately frequented that Mrs. St.
Clair and old Randolph did not scour.
Like many another easy-going, amiable soul, Mrs. St. Clair, when roused
to action, was capable of the most surprising, almost fierce
determination, and when Fannie Alta returned, pleading the excuse of a
headache, she hardly recognized in the white intense face, the rosy,
dimpled countenance of the widow.
Fannie retired to her room, but when Mrs. St. Clair went to the
telephone in the upper hall, she crept to the door, opened it a crack,
and overheard snatches of this conversation:
"Do you happen to have a good detective? That's fortunate. The famous
Mr. Bangs home on his vacation? Has a motor cycle? Very well, he ought
to get here in an hour. Tell him to hurry. Thank you. Good-by."
A tray of luncheon was brought to Fannie, but she ate very little. She
sat in her room thinking hard. Then, with a sudden resolution, she
jumped up and began to move about. First she packed her valise. Then,
tying her handkerchief about her head, she put on a very woe-begone
expression and left the room. Mrs. St. Clair was in the living room, a
maid told her, and Fannie found her pacing nervously up and down the
bright, chintz-hung place.
"I am afraid you are not feeling so well, Miss Alta," the widow said
politely, but with just a shade of coldness in her tone.
"I am much worse," answered Fannie. "I feel quite ill. I wish to return
to my mamma. May I be driven home?"
Mrs. St. Clair hesitated and a very strange expression came into her
face.
"You may go in a few hours, Miss Alta. There is no one to take you just
now. Randolph is needed here and the other men are off working on the
place. Perhaps you had better lie down in your room until I can arrange
to send you back. Did you try the aromatic spirits of ammonia?"
"If no one can take me," said the Spanish girl irritably, not taking any
notice of the question, "I shall walk."
"But I thought you were ill?"
"I am, but the walk will help my head."
"No, I cannot permit it," said Mrs. St. Clair firmly. "Go to your room
and in another hour you will be sent home."
Fannie started to reply, but she checked herself and left the room. Mrs.
St. Clair, stripped of her smiles and good-natured pleasantries, was not
a person to be disobeyed, and Fannie was quick to recognize that fact.
She had hardly reached the second floor, when she heard the whirring
sound of a motor cycle, followed almost immediately by a quick ring of
the bell. Fannie leaned far over the banisters, and when she turned to
go to her room, after a small, dapper-looking man had been admitted, she
was somewhat embarrassed to find Mrs. St. Clair's maid looking at her
with an expression of extreme amazement.
Fannie hurried to her room and for the next fifteen minutes stood
irresolutely first on one foot, then on the other. Finally, with an air
of determination, she opened her satchel.
In the sitting room downstairs Mrs. St. Clair and Mr. Bangs were in
close conference.
"I do not really know the girl, Mr. Bangs. She is a Cuban or a South
American, or something. Her name is Alta and she was brought here by my
son's guest. It is impossible for me to accuse a visitor in my own house
of stealing the most valued and handsomest possession I have in the
world. She is a queer little creature and looks sly and unreliable to
me. But, of course, that is not really evidence. What I have been
racking my brain all night and morning to recall is whether it was not
she who, when she helped me off with my ghost dress last night, fumbled
at my neck a moment.
"It amounts to this, Mr. Bangs," the widow continued after a pause, "I
can't get over the impression that she has stolen my necklace. The other
children here I have known all their lives. My servants have been with
me for years, and she is the one suspicious person in the house. Now,
what I want you to do is to help me to find out the whole thing without
arousing her suspicions. If she is the thief, she may return the
necklace, and be sent back to town before the others arrive, and it will
be easy enough to make excuses. You are a very able man, Mr. Bangs, and
I know that you are only home for a rest, but I do so need your help.
Now, what do you advise?"
"Have you looked among her things yet?" asked the detective.
"No, because the conviction only came to me after she returned. I did
have suspicions, I will admit, but I put them aside. When she came back
I saw that she was uneasy and anxious, and only a few moments ago she
asked to be sent home."
"H-m," mused the detective. "Suppose," he continued, "that you call her
down and let me talk to her as if I needed her assistance, she being the
only member of the party available."
The advice was acted upon, and presently Fannie, still with the
handkerchief swathing her forehead, looking very nervous and pale,
entered the room.
"Miss Alta," began the widow kindly, "I am sorry to have disturbed you
when you were ill, but we are in great trouble and we thought perhaps
you might help us. Did you know that last night I lost my beautiful
pearl necklace, the most precious thing I have in the world?"
Fannie showed great surprise.
"Did it not come unclasped and slip?" she suggested.
"I have reason to believe that it did not slip from my neck, because we
have searched the place thoroughly. It must have been taken. I talked it
all over with the other girls last night and they helped me look for it,
but now I need some one else, and in their absence I have sent for you.
Mr. Bangs, who is a detective, has come down to lend me his aid, and we
thought we might take you into the conspiracy with us."
The widow paused for breath.
Fannie sat down and folded her hands nervously.
"I do not see how I can help," she said, after a pause.
"Possibly you cannot," put in Mr. Bangs, "but Mrs. St. Clair thought you
might have noticed something unusual, and being a guest were too polite
to speak of it. For instance, were you standing near Mrs. St. Clair when
she removed the sheet and pillow case?"
"Yes," said Fannie, "there were several of us in the party."
"Did you notice who unpinned the sheet for Mrs. St. Clair?"
Fannie paused a long time without replying.
"It was not you who did it?"
The young girl compressed her lips and looked the detective squarely in
the eye.
"The girl who unpinned the sheet was Mary Price," she replied, "and
since you are determined to question me, I will tell you."
She drew a deep breath, looked first at the detective, then at Mrs. St.
Clair, and proceeded:
"I did notice that she removed the sheet from your shoulders and her
actions were very strange. But, knowing what I did, I was not surprised,
and I am not surprised to hear now that you have lost something
valuable, Mrs. St. Clair," she went on, more and more glibly, as she saw
she was gaining the interest of the other two.
"What were Miss Price's actions?" asked the detective, taking Fannie's
statements in the order she had made them.
Fannie frowned.
"Oh, I do not know. She was strange. She behaved strangely and she went
away at once."
"You mean she left the room?"
"I cannot say. I saw her no more until supper."
"Where were you?"
"Oh, I was about, dancing, playing, laughing with the others," replied
Fannie carelessly.
"You said a moment ago you knew something about Miss Price. Will you
tell us what it is?"
"Ah, but I hesitate. It is unkind to spread so terrible a story."
"We will treat it confidentially," said the detective drily.
"A great many people know it already," went on Fannie. "The whole school
knows it, in fact. Miss Gray, the principal, and some of the teachers,
who have lost money and articles. I, myself, have good reason to know
it."
"What is it that you know?" asked the detective.
"That Mary Price is a thief. She has been stealing all the autumn from
the other girls and the teachers at the High School."
"Oh, impossible! I will not believe it," cried Mrs. St. Clair. "Dear,
sweet, quiet Mary. There must be some mistake, Miss Alta. You should be
more careful how you spread such dangerous gossip. Mary Price and her
mother have many devoted friends in West Haven."
"You may ask Miss Gray, then. She will tell you," said Fannie stiffly.
"Just to verify your statement, Miss Alta, I will telephone Miss Gray
this instant," exclaimed the widow angrily, leaving the room and
hastening upstairs to the telephone.
While she was gone, and she was away some time, the detective began to
question Fannie. He was a very experienced man in his profession and he
pressed her so skillfully that several times she tripped in her answers
and finally grew excited.
"I tell you it is true," she cried. "She not only is a thief, but she
has a confederate. Billie Campbell is her assistant. Perhaps you think I
took the necklace," she burst out at last. "You have the right to search
among my things. I had no way to know that suspicion rested on me. If I
took the necklace, it will still be among my things."
"Don't get excited, Miss Alta, nobody has accused you of anything. We
simply needed your valuable evidence. Why do you say Miss Campbell is a
confederate to the thieving?"
Fannie had gone farther than she intended, however, and she refused to
give any more information. But the detective saw that when she was angry
and frightened, she would talk, and after a pause, he said:
"You perhaps know that you are the only person in the household on whom
suspicion might rest."
"I don't see why I should be suspected," she exclaimed hotly, "when Mary
Price is already known to be a thief----"
"Perhaps you have a grudge against Miss Price?"
"I have not," she cried, stamping her foot.
"Did no one ever suspect you of taking the things at the High School?
You know that often happens--one girl is blamed for another's----"
Fannie flew into a passion.
"I tell you Billie Campbell and Mary Price are thieves. They have a
whole box of valuable things they have stolen, stored away in Mrs.
Price's safe."
"What sort of things?"
"Jewelry," burst out Fannie, then stopped and bit her lip. "But I may be
mistaken about that," she added, trying to speak calmly.
Mrs. St. Clair hurried into the room with the necklace in her hand.
"Where did you find it?" asked Mr. Bangs.
"I found it," she began, then paused. "It was found," she added. "You
may go, Miss Alta. Thank you very much. And if you care to go back to
town, Randolph will drive you in at once."
When Fannie had left the room, the widow beat her hands together, and
the tears rolled down her cheeks.
"I found it in Mary Price's bag," she said. "And Miss Gray tells me that
it is true. Mary has been suspected of stealing all autumn."