THE ACCUSATION
“The money’s gone!” repeated Edina Tooker.
Billie Bradley would not believe it.
“You must be crazy, Edina--or you haven’t half looked!”
She seized the hand bag from the girl’s nerveless grasp and began to
ransack it with eager fingers.
“It’s no use,” said Edina in a dazed voice. “I wrapped the money up in
a paper and put it there last night. To-day it’s gone!”
Aware that they were attracting the attention of others in the bank,
Billie pulled Edina over to a seat against the wall.
“Here,” she said. “We’ll pull this thing inside out. We have to find
the money, Edina.”
The girl nodded dumbly. Tears overflowed from her eyes and ran down her
face. Absent-mindedly she wiped them away with the corner of a new silk
pocket handkerchief.
Billie dumped the contents of Edina’s hand bag into her lap, scrambling
them with eager fingers.
There was a vanity case--a newly acquired luxury, to the buying of
which Edina had been egged on by Billie herself. There was a tiny
blue-enameled pocket comb, a small purse containing a few pieces of
silver, a shopping list, and a roll of bills amounting to ten dollars.
“That’s all mine,” said Edina dully. “The gift money is gone.”
“If you say that once more, I’ll scream,” cried Billie. “Stop crying,
Edina, do. You have got to pull yourself together if we are going to
work this thing out. Let me think! You say you wrapped the money in a
paper late yesterday afternoon?”
Edina nodded, twisting the silk handkerchief nervously between her
fingers.
“You say that was the last time you saw it?”
Again Edina nodded.
“What did you do with it last night?”
“I put it in my trunk and locked it. It has a queer lock with a key
that looks like a humped-backed old man. No ordinary key could open
that lock!” She looked pleadingly at Billie.
“What did you do with the key?”
“Slept with it on a string around my neck. I sleep light, too. Nobody
could possibly ’a’ got that key off my neck without me knowin’ it.”
Billie nodded and was thoughtful for some time.
“How about to-day?”
“All day long my pocketbook has been in the locked trunk and the key
was around my neck,” said Edina doggedly. “No one could ’a’ touched it
without first knockin’ me dead, Billie.”
“Well, then--I don’t see----” The amateur sleuth paused, temporarily
at a loss. “It couldn’t have been somebody in the street car, coming
out, Edina? A pickpocket, you know. I’ve heard they are very quick with
their hands.”
“There ain’t none of ’em quick enough to have got this pocketbook away
from me,” Edina retorted grimly. “Anyway, I was holdin’ my hand over
the top of it all the way--just for fear someone would get a hold of
it.”
Billie jumped to her feet. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were
almost feverishly flushed.
“Then if you are quite sure of this, the money must be up at Three
Towers. You have dropped the money out of your pocketbook--perhaps when
you picked it up.”
Edina started to say that she could not possibly have done any such
thing; but Billie was beyond listening to her.
“Come along,” she cried, with feverish impatience. “We’ve got to get
back right away--before any one finds that packet and makes off with
it!”
Billie’s impatience infected Edina. The two girls rushed for the street
car, caught it by the barest margin, and sat twiddling their fingers in
desperate suspense during the seemingly interminable ride back to Three
Towers Hall.
Released by the trolley, they rushed to Edina’s dormitory. As luck
would have it, the long room was empty and they at once began a
feverish search of everything in it, beginning with Edina’s trunk and
winding up by peering under mattresses and into pillow slips.
“Nothing!” panted Billie. She sat down on the edge of Edina’s bed to
rest “Edina! Edina! Where has that money gone?”
“I’d just about give ten years of my life to know,” returned Edina.
She sat down on the bed beside Billie. Her hands felt cold but her head
was throbbing feverishly.
“Billie,” she said dully, “it’s the end of everything for me here.”
“Nonsense!” said Billie, and took one of the cold hands and held it
tight.
“It is,” said Edina. “They’ll say I took that money, Billie. What’s
worse, they’ll _think_ I took it.”
“I won’t,” said Billie.
“I know you won’t. I think you’re the only one here who really knows
me. It’s been a long hard fight with the rest. Now they will think I
took the money and it will be the end of everything for me. I--I was
beginning to be so happy here.”
Before Billie could say a word of comfort or reassurance the door
opened and several of the younger girls flocked in. Their talk and
laughter died at sight of Billie and Edina.
“Well!” said a dark-haired, dark-eyed, pert little thing. “You two look
as if you’d been talking secrets. What’s up?”
Before Billie could stop her or could even be sure what she was going
to do, Edina got to her feet and faced the curious girls.
Her eyes were red with crying, her fingers clasped and unclasped
nervously, but her voice was steady as she said:
“I suppose you might as well know now as any time. That money the girls
trusted me with, the money to buy the present for Miss Gay, I--I’ve
lost it. Or it has been stolen!”
The news spread like wildfire.
Billie dragged Edina to her dormitory, hoping to protect the girl, only
to find her own friends lying in wait for her.
There was a crowd already gathered there, a crowd that increased in
numbers rapidly. At sight of it, Edina shrank within herself and would
have fled cravenly had it not been for Billie’s grip upon her hand.
“No use running away,” Billie whispered fiercely. “It’s far better to
stay and face the music.”
Ray Carew pushed her way to Billie’s side. She eyed Edina coldly.
“I’ve heard so many rumors that I don’t know what to believe and what
not to,” she said. “What is all this about the Gift Club money being
lost, Billie?”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Billie gravely. “Only in my opinion it has
been stolen--not lost.”
Briefly but graphically, she gave an account of her and Edina’s trip
to the bank in Molata, of their surprise and consternation when Edina
discovered the loss of the money.
Laura, who had taken a firm stand at Billie’s side, turned to Edina.
“Didn’t you look inside your pocketbook before you started downtown?”
she asked.
Edina crimsoned.
“No,” she admitted. “I was so sure the money was there I--I--didn’t
bother to look.”
“A fine treasurer!” came shrilly from the fringe of the crowd.
“I should ’a’ looked,” confessed Edina miserably. “I’ll never forgive
myself for--for not lookin’.”
Billie’s grip tightened reassuringly upon her fingers.
“Hold fast,” she whispered.
“Let’s get this straight,” said Ray Carew. “Your story is that you took
your purse from your locked trunk about two o’clock this afternoon. You
don’t know that the money was there then, because you didn’t bother to
look,” there was the faintest sarcasm in Ray’s drawling tones.
“I’m sure the money was there then,” Edina persisted doggedly. “Nobody
could get into my trunk without breaking the lock--and the lock wasn’t
broken.”
“Well, let’s say that the money was in your purse when you took it from
the trunk,” Ray conceded. “You took the purse in your hand then. Was
there anyone in the room with you?”
“No one except Billie,” said Edina.
“Well, now, think hard. This may be quite important. Did you hold the
pocketbook in your hand every moment from the time you took it from the
trunk to the moment you opened it in the Molata bank?”
Edina pondered the question, brows knitted.
“I--I think so.”
“Thinking won’t do,” said Ray inexorably. “Don’t you know?”
Edina thought again and finally shook her head in miserable
bewilderment.
“I can’t be absolutely sure--I don’t seem to remember very well. I’m
practically sure I didn’t lay down that there pocketbook for a minute,
but----”
“Yes you did, Edina!” Billie cried triumphantly.
“Where--when----” stuttered Edina.
“You put it down on the table for a minute while you went to the
bathroom at the last moment to wash your hands. Don’t you remember?”
“I can’t seem to think,” replied Edina hesitatingly. “If I only could
be sure----”
Ray Carew turned a serious face to Billie.
“Are you sure of that, Billie?”
Someone in the group snickered and a voice not hard to identify as
Amanda Peabody’s said meaningly:
“If Billie Bradley was in the room alone with that money, what was to
prevent her making off with it herself?”