A RIOT
The girls, chattering like a group of magpies and flinging curious,
unfriendly glances toward Edina, had gone. Billie was alone with her in
the big, silent, echoing gymnasium.
Edina sat on a bench, her hands clasped before her, a wooden, miserable
figure.
Billie paced restlessly up and down, up and down----suddenly she paused
in front of Edina.
“Why didn’t you tell me, if you knew? You should have told me, Edina.
It wasn’t fair to leave me in the dark.”
Edina nodded.
“I know that. I meant to tell you as soon as I heard from home that
Paw’s wells had gone dry. But, somehow, after tellin’ such wonderful
tales about him, seems like I couldn’t bear to take them back. The
truth,” with a bitter grimace, “wasn’t half so pretty!”
“When did you get the bad news from home?” Billie queried. She paused
before Edina and regarded her intently, while proceeding to answer her
own question. “It was the day we had the picnic over on the island,
wasn’t it? The day you read the letter I handed you and you turned so
white I thought you were going to faint?”
Edina nodded miserably.
“Yes, I knew then that Paw’s luck had gone back on him like it always
had before. But I didn’t say anything. I guess--I was holdin’ on to the
hope that it wasn’t so; that mebbe if I waited and said nothin’ for a
few days I’d wake up and find that that news was only a bad dream.”
Billie paused in her restless pacing. She appeared to have come to a
decision.
“Everything appears to be just as bad for us as it possibly can be,
Edina. But since you know and I know that you didn’t steal that money
there’s just one thing to be done.”
Edina asked without interest:
“What?”
Billie stiffened her back and a purposeful glint came into her eye.
“Find the real thief!”
Billie wasted no time putting her decision to work. She had never
fancied herself particularly as a detective, yet now she set herself to
the task with a will.
In regard to the stolen money, her thoughts returned again and again
to that few minutes when Edina had abandoned her hand bag and its
precious contents to wash her hands before going downtown to place the
money in the bank.
Billie herself, busy with her own thoughts and still smarting over the
fact that she had been tricked into leaving the tennis court without
finishing that set with Amanda, had stood with her back to the room,
looking from the window.
Billie was willing to admit that someone might have entered the room
during that interval, opened Edina’s bag, seized the precious roll of
money, and disappeared without being seen by either her or Edina.
If this reasoning were taken from the realm of sheer surmise, if it had
in it some elements of fact, then who could it be who had entered that
room during the few moments when Billie’s back was turned?
“That certainly is my problem,” thought Billie. “A hard one to solve,
I’ll admit; harder than any I’ve ever helped Vi with! But I’ll find the
answer. I must!”
Of course, there was always the possibility that one of the students in
the school might be the thief, but as Billie reviewed the list of her
acquaintances, this possibility became increasingly far-fetched.
Amanda Peabody might have done it for spite, in the hope of
discrediting both Edina and Billie. However, Billie knew the unpleasant
girl too well to entertain any serious belief of her guilt. Amanda was
a coward and while she delighted in small meannesses, would hesitate,
Billie felt sure, before an act involving such serious consequences.
“Why, we could put her in jail for stealing two hundred and sixty
dollars,” thought Billie. She shuddered with dread at the realization
that this same punishment might be meted out to Edina, provided the
real thief were not caught!
“The real thief must be caught,” she told herself, for perhaps the
hundredth time, and went on with her cogitations.
The elimination of the students and the teachers narrowed the list of
suspects to the servants at the Hall.
Clarice, the cook? Perhaps--though Billie was loath to suspect
anyone who made such excellent chocolate cake. There were three
maids and a scrubwoman who attended to the general cleaning of the
dormitories and the study halls. Anyone of them might----
Billie swung her feet to the floor and stood up. For some time there
had been the sound of voices beneath the window. The voices had
steadily increased in volume until now they broke with rude force into
her meditations.
“Sounds like a riot,” thought Billie.
A voice, raised above the rest, cried shrilly:
“Arrest her! That’s the thing to do! Maybe then she’ll tell what she
did with our money!”
Other voices joined in the cry.
“Arrest her! Arrest her! She’s nothing but a thief!”
Billie lingered to hear no more, but, turning, fled from the dormitory.
When she emerged into the grounds she found a large group of students
gathered there. In the midst of them, badgered, desperate, stood Edina
Tooker!
Billie set her lips grimly and thrust her way through the crowd.
The girls gave way reluctantly and pressed more closely about her as
Billie took up her position beside the tormented girl.
“Get away, Billie!” one of them cried. “This isn’t your business any
more!”
Billie faced them furiously.
“I’ll show you that it’s my business!”
Her voice was drowned in a chorus of angry cries.
“We want Edina!”
“Billie can’t stop us any more. Get out of the way, Billie!”
“We’ll have her arrested! Then maybe she’ll give us our money back!”
Billie was helpless. Although she flung an arm about Edina and tried by
main force to push the girls away, they only surged the closer.
Hands reached out. They touched Edina, caught her! She was being
dragged away!
Billie felt that she was in a nightmare where every sense was impotent.
She spoke, but could not make her voice heard. She used her strength,
and was powerless. They were dragging Edina away!
Suddenly a voice spoke sharply, authoritatively, from the school steps.
Instantly the crowd about Billie and Edina gave back. The girls lapsed
into sullen silence.
“I am amazed! I am shocked!” said Miss Sara Walters in cool, clipped
tones. “Never before has it been my doubtful privilege to witness such
a demonstration from these school steps. I trust that it will never be
necessary for me to witness such a disgraceful exhibition again. Go to
your dormitories and remain there until the supper bell rings!”
The crowd dispersed rapidly and faded away. Miss Walters disappeared
within doors. Billie and Edina were left alone.
“You see!” said Edina drearily. “They are all against me, Billie. I
don’t believe there is a girl at Three Towers--except you--who doesn’t
think I’m a thief.”
“It was dreadful--disgraceful!” Billie was trembling with reaction from
her fury. “It seems impossible to believe girls could be so wicked, so
cruel!”
Edina shook her head.
“They think I’ve lied to them. They think I’ve cheated them. They want
their money, and you can’t rightly blame them. I guess I’d best be
gettin’ back to Paw and Maw.”
“No!” cried Billie. “You will stay here and fight it out!”
Many times in the days that followed Billie Bradley was to doubt the
wisdom of this decision. Edina was acutely miserable; she was subject
to constant snubs, slights, insults, at the hands of her fellow
students. She became pitifully pale and thin and kept to her room
whenever possible.
Billie herself was scarcely less miserable. Her fellow students made it
quite clear that she was alone in her championship of Edina. The fact
that she persisted in her stubborn course irritated them and made her
something of a pariah, too.
Meanwhile Billie kept close watch upon the comings and goings of the
servants at the Hall, hoping for some clue that would lead her to the
real thief and thus exonerate Edina.
Billie found it necessary to replenish her wardrobe by a day’s shopping
in town. Having asked for and received the necessary permission from
Miss Walters, she set off early on Saturday morning, determined to
dispose of her shopping as soon as possible and return in time to help
Vi with her always-difficult mathematics.
Having arrived in town, she went at once to a small drygoods store
where she bought a dozen handkerchiefs and one or two inexpensive
articles of underwear.
When she tendered the storekeeper a ten dollar bill he returned her a
five dollar bill and some odd pieces of silver.
Billie was about to stuff the change into her pocketbook when something
about the five dollar bill arrested her attention.
She looked at it more closely and a stifled exclamation escaped her.
“Anything wrong, Miss?” asked the storekeeper anxiously.
“No, no,” Billie answered hastily. “There’s nothing wrong. Only--would
you mind very much telling me where you got this five dollar bill?”
The storekeeper took the bill, turned it over, screwed up his features
in a grimace evidently meant to intimate deep thought and scratched his
head doubtfully.
Billie held her breath and watched him. Everything--simply
everything--depended upon this man’s memory!
“Well, you know, Miss, it’s not so easy to remember who gave you a
certain bill when you’re busy waiting on customers and making change
all day long,” he drawled. “Now, there’s been quite a lot of customers
in here to-day, and how could I know who gave me that particular five
dollar bill?”
“Oh, certainly,” Billie breathed, “you _must_ remember who gave you
that bill!”
The dull face of the storekeeper brightened.
“That’s right! Come to think of it, I do remember. That cracked
peddler, Dan Larkin, give it to me. I recollect because I noticed that
big black blot on it at the time.”
Billie’s heart pounded so loudly she was afraid the storekeeper must
hear it. She controlled her excitement sufficiently to ask in a quiet
voice:
“Who, if you please, is Dan Larkin?”
“I just told you,” said the man peering at her over his spectacles.
“Dan Larkin’s a queer old chap who keeps a store on wheels. He goes
about, stopping at various places and selling things on the way.”
“A traveling store,” echoed Billie, fighting against disappointment.
“Then he isn’t here any more?”
“Reckon he is,” said the storekeeper carelessly. He had evidently lost
interest in the subject. “Dan give me that bill only this morning.
He’ll probably stick around town all the rest of to-day, anyway.”
Billie’s hopes soared again.
“I’d consider it a great favor,” she said, with her very best smile,
“if you could tell me where I am likely to find this--this Dan Larkin.”
“He generally parks his van right outside the town limits near the
Derry farm. Folks generally know when he’s there and go to buy of him.”
Billie thanked the storekeeper for this precious information and fairly
ran out to the street.
The bent old fellow peered after her and thoughtfully scratched his
head.
“Girls are queer creatures,” he philosophized. “Now, what in the world
does she want to go seeing Dan Larkin for? The way she rushed out into
the street, you’d think her life depended on it. It does beat all.”
Billie had heard of the Derry farm. It was situated on the outskirts of
town. It had long been deserted and the rambling old homestead was said
by some to be haunted.
Billie might have walked, but, such was her impatience, she hailed the
nearest street car. No time was to be lost! She opened her purse to
make sure the five dollar bill with the dark irregular blot across its
face was still there.
“The clue!” she murmured, a strange gleam in her eye. “If it only turns
out to be the right one!”
Billie left the street car on the edge of town and walked down a
country lane. At the end of it was a queer contraption on wheels, a
covered motor truck with windows cut in it and a door at the back. This
was, undoubtedly, Dan Larkin’s traveling store.
Billie hurried forward. Before the rude, ladder-like steps of the
“store” she hesitated, but voices from within reassured her.
Dan Larkin was dealing with a customer. He was wrapping up a large
parcel when Billie Bradley entered.
The customer lingered, exchanging reminiscences with the grizzled
old fellow behind the counter. She went at last, however, and Billie
fumbled in her purse for the stained five dollar bill.
She thrust this across the counter toward Dan Larkin.
“Please!” she cried eagerly, “can you tell me where you got that bill?”