WHO CUT THE WIRE?
The house was packed on this the first night of the Thessalonian play.
It was already long past time for the performance to begin. The
orchestra finished the overture and waited a few minutes; then began
another selection. They played this through, and there was still no
indication of the curtain going up. They played a third piece. The house
became restless and began to clap for the appearance of the performers.
No sign from the stage. Behind the curtain there was pandemonium. When
everything was about ready to begin it was discovered that none of the
stage lights would work. Neither the foot lights nor the big cluster up
over the center of the stage nor any of the side lights could be turned
on. A hasty examination of the wiring led to the discovery that the
wires which supplied the current had been cut in the room where the
switchboard was. The plaster had been broken into in order to reach
them. This was the reason that the play was not beginning. The President
of the Thessalonians came out in front and explained to the audience
that something had gone wrong with the lights, which would cause a delay
in the rising of the curtain, but the trouble was being fixed and he
begged the indulgence of the house for a few minutes. The orchestra
filled in the time by playing lively marches, while the boys behind the
scenes worked feverishly to mend the severed wires, and the curtain went
up a whole hour after scheduled time.
The first act went off famously. Gladys was a born actress and sustained
the difficult role of _Marie Latour_ well. The part where she defies her
tyrannical father brought down the house. Sahwah came in for her share
of applause too. Seeing her composed manner and hearing her calm voice,
no one in the audience could ever have guessed the strenuous experience
she had just been through. In the second scene Marie, driven from her
home, wanders around in the streets with her child, until, faint from
hunger, she sinks to the ground. The scene is laid before the wall of
her father's large estate and she falls at his very gates. Gladys made
the scene very realistic, and the audience sat tense and sympathetic.
"_Food, food_," moaned Marie Latour, "_only a crust to keep the life in
me and my child!"_ She lay weakly in the road, unable to rise. "_Food,
food_," she moaned again. At this moment there suddenly descended, as
from the very heavens, a ham sandwich on the end of a string. It dangled
within an inch of her nose. Gladys was petrified. The audience sat up in
surprise, and a ripple of laughter ran through the house. It was such an
unexpected anticlimax. That some one was playing a practical joke Gladys
did not for a moment doubt, and she was furious at this ridiculous
interruption of her big scene. In the play Marie loses consciousness and
is found by a peasant, and it is on this occurrence that the rest of the
play hinges. The sudden appearance of the ham sandwich in response to
her cry for food was fatal to the pathos of the scene. The rest of the
cast, standing in the wings, saw what had happened and were at their
wits' end. But Gladys was equal to the occasion.
Moving her head wearily and passing her hand over her eyes she murmured
faintly but audibly, "Cruel, cruel mirage to taunt me thus! Vanish, thou
image of a fevered brain, thou absurd memory! Come not to mock me!" The
actors in the wings, taking their cue from her speech, found the string
to which the sandwich was tied and jerked it. The sandwich vanished from
the sight of the audience. The scene was saved. The spectators simply
passed it over as a more or less clumsy attempt to portray a vision of a
disordered brain. The string on the sandwich had been passed over
certain rigging above the stage that moved the scenery, and on through a
little ventilator that came out on the fourth floor, from which point
the manipulator had been able to listen to the speeches on the stage and
time the drop of the sandwich. By the time the Thessalonian boys had
traced the string to its end the perpetrator of the joke was nowhere to
be found. He had fled as soon as the thing had been lowered. The scene
ended without further calamity.
In the third scene--the one in the peasant's hut--there is a cat on the
stage. The presence of this cat was the signal for further trouble. In
one of the tense passages, where Marie Latour is pleading with the son
of the peasant to flee for his life before the agents of her father come
and capture them both, and the cat lies asleep on the hearth, there was
a sudden uproar, and a dog bounded through the entrance of the stage.
The cat rushed around in terror and finally ran up the curtain. The
lovers parted hastily and tried to capture the dog, but eluding their
pursuit he jumped over the footlights into the orchestra, landing with a
crash on the keys of the piano, and then out into the audience. Nyoda
and three or four of the Winnebagos, sitting together near the front on
the first floor of the auditorium, recognized the dog with a good deal
of surprise. It was Mr. Bob, Hinpoha's black cocker spaniel. How he had
gotten in was a mystery, for Hinpoha herself was not there. Nyoda called
to him sharply and he came to her wagging his tail, and allowed himself
to be put out with the best nature in the world. But the scene had been
spoiled.
During the rest of the evening Nyoda, as well as a number of the other
teachers, sat with brows knitted, going over the various things that had
happened to interrupt that play. As yet they did not know about the
attempt to steal the statue, which Sahwah had accidentally nipped in the
bud. But the following week, when the play was all over, and the various
occurrences had been made known, there was a day of reckoning at
Washington High School. Joe Lanning and Abraham Goldstein were called up
before the principal and confronted with Sahwah, who told, to their
infinite amazement, every move they had made in carrying off the statue.
At first they denied everything as a made-up story gotten up to spite
them, but when Sahwah led the way to the barn where she had been
confined and triumphantly produced the base of the statue, they saw that
further denial was useless and admitted their guilt. They also confessed
to being the authors of the sandwich joke and the ones who had brought
in the dog. Both were expelled from school.
But the thing which the principal and teachers considered the bigger
crime--the cutting of the wires at the back of the stage--was still a
mystery. Joe's and Abraham's complicity in the statue affair furnished
them with a complete alibi in regard to the other. It was proven, beyond
a doubt, that they had not been in the building in the early part of the
afternoon nor after they had carried off the statue, until after the
wires had been cut. Then who had cut the wires? That was the question
that agitated the school. It was too big a piece of vandalism to let
slip. The principal, Mr. Jackson, was determined to run down the
offender. Joe and Abraham denied all knowledge of the affair and there
was no clue. The whole school was up in arms about the matter.
Then things took a rather unexpected turn. In one of the teachers'
meetings where the matter was being discussed, one of the teachers, Mr.
Wardwell, suddenly got to his feet. He had just recollected something.
"I remember," he said, "seeing Dorothy Bradford coming out of the
electric room late on the afternoon of the play. She came out twice,
once about three o'clock and once about four. Each time she seemed
embarrassed about meeting me and turned scarlet." There was a murmur of
surprise among the teachers. Nyoda sat up very straight.
The next day Hinpoha was summoned to the office. Unsuspectingly she
went. She had been summoned before, always on matters of more or less
congenial business. She found Mr. Jackson, Mr. Wardwell and Nyoda
together in the private office.
"Miss Bradford," began Mr. Jackson, without preliminary, "Mr. Wardwell
tells me he saw you coming out of the electric room on the afternoon of
the play. In view of what happened that night, the presence of anybody
in that room looks suspicious. Will you kindly state what you did in
there?"
Nyoda listened with an untroubled heart, sure of an innocent and
convincing reason why Hinpoha had been in that room. Hinpoha, taken
completely by surprise, was speechless. To Nyoda's astonishment and
dismay, she turned fiery red. Hinpoha always blushed at the slightest
provocation. In the stress of the moment she could not think of a single
worth-while excuse for having gone into the electric room. Telling the
real reason was of course out of the question because she had promised
to shield Emily Meeks.
"I left something in there," she stammered, "and went back after it."
"You carried nothing in your hands either time when you came out," said
Mr. Wardwell.
Hinpoha was struck dumb. She was a poor hand at deception and was
totally unable to "bluff" anything through. "I didn't say I carried
anything out," she said in an agitated voice. "I went in after something
and it--wasn't there."
"What was it?" asked Mr. Jackson.
"I can't tell you," said Hinpoha.
"How did you happen to leave anything in the electric room?" persisted
Mr. Jackson. "What were you doing in there in the first place?"
"I went in to see if I had left something there," said poor Hinpoha,
floundering desperately in the attempt to tell a plausible tale and yet
not lie deliberately. Then, realizing that she was contradicting herself
and getting more involved all the time, she gave it up in despair and
sat silent and miserable. Nyoda's expression of amazement and concern
was an added torture.
"You admit, then, that you were in the electric room twice on Thursday
afternoon, doing something which you cannot explain?" said Mr. Jackson,
slowly. Hinpoha nodded, mutely. She never for an instant wavered in her
loyalty to Emily.
"There is another thing," continued Mr. Jackson, "that seems to point to
the fact that you were in league with those who wished to spoil the
play. It was your dog that was let out on the stage in pursuit of the
cat."
"I know it was," said Hinpoha, feeling that she was being drawn
helplessly into a net from which there was no escape. "But that wasn't
my fault. I haven't the slightest idea how he got there. It was pure
chance that he was coaxed into the building."
"That may all be," said Mr. Jackson, with frowning wrinkles around the
corners of his eyes, "but it looks suspicious."
"You certainly don't think I cut those wires, do you?" said Hinpoha
incredulously.
Mr. Jackson looked wise. "You were not at the play yourself, were you?"
he asked.
"No," answered Hinpoha.
"Why weren't you?" pursued Mr. Jackson. "Have you anything against the
Thessalonian Society?"
"No, not at all," said Hinpoha with a catch in her voice. "I am not
going to anything this winter." She looked down at her black dress
expressively, not trusting her voice to speak.
"Further," continued Mr. Jackson, "you were seen in the company of Joe
Lanning the day before these things happened." Now, Hinpoha had walked
home from school with Joe that Wednesday. She had done it merely because
she was too courteous to snub him flatly when he had caught up with her
on the street. She despised him just as the rest of the class did and
avoided him whenever she could, but when brought face to face with him
she had not the hardihood to refuse his company. That this innocent act
should be misconstrued into meaning that she was mixed up in his doings
seemed monstrous. Yet Mr. Jackson apparently believed this to be the
truth. Things seemed to be closing around her. To Mr. Jackson her guilt
was perfectly clear. She was a friend of Joe Lanning's; she had lent him
her dog to work mischief on the stage; she admitted being in the
electric room and refused to tell what she had been doing there.
"Well," he said crisply, "somebody cut those wires Thursday Afternoon,
and only one person was seen going in and out of the electric room
during that time, and that person is yourself. You admit that you were
in there doing something which will not bear explanation. It looks
pretty suspicious, doesn't it?"
"I didn't do it," Hinpoha declared stoutly.
In her distress she did not dare meet Nyoda's eyes. What was Nyoda
thinking of her, anyhow?
"And so," continued Mr. Jackson, not heeding her denial, "until you can
give a satisfactory explanation of your presence in the electric room
last Thursday I must consider that you had something to do with the
cutting of those wires. I have been asked by the Board of Education to
look into the matter thoroughly and to punish the culprit with expulsion
from school. As all evidence points to you as the guilty person, I shall
be obliged, under the circumstances, to expel you."
Hinpoha sat as if turned to stone. The wild beating of her heart almost
suffocated her. Expelled from school! But even with that terrible
sentence ringing in her ears it never entered her head to betray Emily.
If this was to be the price of loyalty, then she would pay the price.
There was no other way. She had not been clever enough to explain her
presence in the electric room to the satisfaction of Mr. Jackson and yet
breathe no word of the real situation, and this was the result. Her head
whirled from the sudden calamity which had overwhelmed her; her thoughts
were chaos. She hardly heard when Mr. Jackson said curtly, "You may go."
As one in a dream she walked out of the office. Nyoda came out with her.
"Of all things," said Mr. Wardwell to Mr. Jackson, when they were left
alone, "to think that a girl should have done that thing."
"It seems strange, too," mused Mr. Jackson, "that she should have been
able to do it. You would hardly look for a girl to be cutting electric
wires, would you? It takes some skill to do that. Where did she learn
how to do it?"
"Those Camp Fire Girls," said Mr. Wardwell emphatically, "know
everything. I don't know where they learn it, but they do."
Nyoda led Hinpoha into one of the empty club rooms and sat down beside
her. "Now, my dear," she said quietly, "will you please tell me the
whole story? It is absurd of course to accuse you of cutting those
wires, but what were you doing in that room? All you have to do is give
a satisfactory explanation and the accusation will be withdrawn."
Nyoda's voice was friendly and sympathetic and it was a sore temptation
to Hinpoha to tell her the whole thing just as it happened. But she had
promised Emily not to tell a living soul, and a promise was a promise
with Hinpoha.
"Nyoda," she said steadily, "I _was_ in that electric room twice on
Thursday afternoon. I carried something in and I carried it out again.
But I can't tell you what it was."
"Not even to save yourself from being expelled?" asked Nyoda curiously.
"Not even to save myself from being expelled," said Hinpoha steadfastly.
And Nyoda, baffled, gave it up. But of one thing she was sure. Whatever
silly thing Hinpoha had done that she was ashamed to confess, she had
never in the world cut those wires. It was simply impossible for her to
have done such a thing. Entirely convinced on this point, Nyoda went
back to Mr. Jackson, and told him her belief, begging him not to put his
threat of expulsion into execution. But Mr. Jackson was obdurate. There
was something under the surface of which Nyoda knew nothing. All the
year there had been a certain lawless element in the school which was
continually breaking out in open defiance of law and order. Mr. Jackson
had been totally unable to cope with the situation. He had been severely
criticised for not having succeeded in stamping out this disorder, and
was accused of not being able to control his scholars. The events
connected with the giving of the play had been widely published--it was
impossible to keep them a secret--and Mr. Jackson had been taken to task
by those above him in the educational department for not being able to
find out who had cut the wires. Smarting under this censure, he had
determined to fix the blame at an early date at all costs, and when the
opportunity came of fastening a suspicion onto Hinpoha he had seized it
eagerly, and intended to publish far and wide that he had found the
guilty one. Therefore he met Nyoda's appeal with stony indifference.
"I shall consider her guilty until she has proven her innocence," he
maintained obstinately, "and you will find that I am right. That is
nothing but a made-up story about going in there for something she had
left. You noticed how she contradicted herself half a dozen times in as
many minutes. She is the guilty one, all right," and in sore distress
Nyoda left him.
The axe fell and Hinpoha was expelled from school. If lightning had
fallen on a clear day and cleft the roof open, the pupils could not have
been more dumbfounded. Hinpoha was the very last one any one would have
suspected of cutting wires. In fact, many were openly incredulous. But
Mr. Jackson took care to make all the damaging facts public, and
Hinpoha's fair name was dragged in the mud. Emily Meeks was one who
stood loyal to Hinpoha. She was ignorant that it was to shield her
Hinpoha had refused to tell what she was doing in the electric room, as
she had gone home before Hinpoha had retouched the picture, but she
refused to believe that her angel, as she always thought of Hinpoha,
could be guilty of any wrong doing.
As for Hinpoha herself, life was not worth living. The scene with Aunt
Phoebe, when she heard of her disgrace, was too painful to record here.
Suffice to say that Hinpoha was regarded as a criminal of the worst type
and was never allowed to forget for one instant that she had disgraced
the name of Bradford forever. It was awful not to be going to school and
getting lessons. Those days at home were nightmares that she remembered
to the end of her life with a shudder. The only ray of comfort she had
was the fact that Nyoda and the Winnebagos stood by her stanchly. "I can
bear it," she said to Nyoda forlornly, "knowing that you believe in me,
but if you ever went back on me I couldn't live." Nyoda urged her no
more to tell her secret, for she suspected that it concerned some one
else whom Hinpoha would not expose, and trusted to time to solve the
mystery and remove the stain from Hinpoha's name.
The excitement over, school settled down into its old rut. Joe Lanning's
father sent him away to military school and Abraham's father began to
use his influence to have him reinstated. Mr. Goldstein put forth such a
touching plea about Abraham's having been led astray by Joe Lanning and
being no more than a tool in his hands, and Abraham promised so
faithfully that he would never deviate from the path of virtue again,
now that his evil genius was removed, if they would only let him come
back and graduate, that he was given the chance. Nothing new came up
about the cutting of the wires except that the end of a knife blade was
found on the floor under the place where the hole had been made in the
wall. There were no marks of identification on it and nothing was done
about it.
One day, Dick Albright, in the Physics room on the third floor of the
building, stood by the window and looked across at a friend of his who
was standing at the window of the Chemistry room. The two rooms faced
each other across an open space in the back of the building, which was
designed to let more light into certain rooms. This space was only open
at the third and fourth floors. The second floor was roofed over with a
skylight at this point. It was after school hours and Dick was alone in
the room. So, apparently, was his friend. Dick raised the window and
called across the space to the other boy, who raised his window and
answered him. From talking back and forth they passed to throwing a ball
of twine to each other. Once Dick failed to catch it, and falling short
of the window, it rolled down upon the roof of the second story.
Dick promptly climbed out of the window, and sliding down the
waterspout, reached the roof and went in pursuit of the ball. One of the
windows opening from the third story onto this open space was that in
the electric room, and it was under this window that the ball came to a
standstill. As Dick stooped to pick it up he found a knife lying beside
it. He brought it along with him and climbed back into his room. Then he
pulled it out and looked at it. It was an ordinary pocket knife with a
horn handle. On one side of the handle there was a plate bearing the
name F. Boyd. "Frank Boyd's knife," said Dick to himself. "He must have
dropped it out of the window." Idly he opened the blade. It was broken
off about half an inch from the point. Dick began to turn things over in
his mind. A piece of a knife blade had been found in the electric room.
A knife with a broken blade had been found on the roof under the window
of the electric room. That knife belonged to Frank Boyd. The inference
was very simple. Frank had climbed in the window of the electric room
from the roof of the second story and cut the wires, and then climbed
out again, and so was not seen coming out of the room into the hall. In
climbing out he had dropped the knife without noticing it. He had
already left a piece of the blade inside. Frank Boyd was one of the
lawless spirits who had caused much of the trouble all through the year.
He had also been blackballed at the last election of the Thessalonian
Society. It was very easy to believe that he would try to do something
to spite the Thessalonians.
Dick hastened down to Mr. Jackson's office with the knife and asked him
to fit the broken piece to the shortened blade. It fitted perfectly.
Beyond a doubt it was Frank Boyd and not Hinpoha who had cut the wires
in the electric room. The next morning Frank was confronted with the
evidence of the knife and confessed his guilt. He had been in league
with Joe Lanning, and cutting the wires had been his part of the job. He
had done it in the early part of the evening while the actors were
making up for their parts, getting in and out of the window, just as
Dick had figured out. No one had detected him in the act and the lucky
incident of Hinpoha's having been seen coming out of the electric room
turned all suspicion away from him. Justice in his case was tardy but
certain, and Frank Boyd was expelled, and Hinpoha was reinstated. Mr.
Jackson, in his elation over having caught the real culprit and
effectually breaking up the "Rowdy Ring," was gracious enough to make a
public apology to Hinpoha. So the blot was wiped off her scutcheon, and
Emily's secret was still intact, for no one ever asked again what
Hinpoha had been doing in the electric room on the afternoon of the
Thessalonian play.