AT THE TEA ROOM
The girls went to their rooms to tidy up for luncheon, though there was
some time before the meal would be announced.
By common consent the door was closed between the rooms, and on one
side of it the two D's faced each other.
"Did you ever see such a perfectly horrid, hateful, contemptible old
thing as that Fenn person?" exclaimed Dotty, her voice fairly shaken
with wrath. "I can't see how Mr. Forbes can bear to have him around! He
ought to be excommunicated, or whatever they do to terrible people!"
"He IS awful, Dotty, I don't wonder you gave it to him! But you mustn't
do it. He's Mr. Forbes' right hand man, and whatever Uncle Jeff tells
him to do, he'll do it. The idea of searching our trunks! I won't allow
them to touch mine, I can tell you that!"
"Oh, Dolly, now don't be stubborn. Why, for you to refuse to let them
look over your things would be the same as saying you had the thing
hidden."
"Dorothy Rose! What a thing to say to me!"
"I'm not saying it to you! I mean, I am saying it to you, just to show
you what other people would say! You know it, Dolly. You know Fenn
would say you had the earring."
"But, Dotty, it must be somewhere."
"Of course, it must be somewhere,--look here, Dollyrinda, you don't
know anything about it, do you? Honest Injun?"
"How you talk, Dot. How should I know anything about it?"
"But do you?"
"Don't be silly."
"But, DO you?"
"Dotty, I'll get mad at you, if you just sit there saying, 'But do
you?' like a talking machine! Are you going to change your dress for
luncheon?"
"No, I'm not. These frocks are good enough. But, Dolly, DO you? do you
know anything, ANYTHING at all, about the earring?"
Dolly was sitting on the edge of her little white bed. At Dotty's
reiteration of her query, Dolly threw her head down on the pillow and
hid her face.
"Do you?" repeated Dotty, her voice now tinged with fear.
Dolly sat upright and looked at her. "Don't ask me, Dotty," she said,
"I can't tell you."
"Can't tell me," cried Dotty, in bewilderment, "then who on earth COULD
you tell, I'd like to know!"
"I could tell mother! Oh, Dotty, I want to go home!"
"Well, you can't go home, not till day after to-morrow, anyway. What's
the matter with you, Dolly, why can't you tell me what you know? How
can I find the thing, and clear you from suspicion if you have secrets
from me?"
"You can't, Dotty. Don't try."
Dolly spoke in a tense, strained way, as if trying to preserve her
calm. She sat down at their little dressing-table and began to brush
her hair.
A tap came at the door, and in a moment, Bernice came in.
"Let me come in and talk to you girls," she begged. "Alicia is in a
temper, and won't say anything except to snap out something
quarrelsome. What are we going to do?"
"I don't know, Bernie," and Dotty looked as if at her wits' end. "It's
bad enough to put up with that old Fenn's hateful talk, but now Dolly's
gone queer, and you say Alicia has,--what ARE we to do?"
"Let's talk it all over with Mrs. Berry at lunch, she's real sensible
and she's very kind-hearted."
"Yes, she is. And there's the gong now. Come on, let's go down. Come
on, Dollikins, brace up, and look pretty! Heigho! come on, Alicia!"
Alicia appeared, looking sullen rather than sad, and the quartette went
downstairs.
Mrs. Berry listened with interest to their story. Interest that quickly
turned to deep concern as the story went on.
"I don't like it," she said, as the girls paused to hear her comments.
"No carelessness or thoughtlessness could make that valuable earring
disappear off the face of the earth! I mean, it couldn't get LOST, it
must have been taken."
"By us?" flared out Alicia.
"Maybe not meaningly, maybe for a joke, maybe unconsciously; but it was
carried out of that room by some one, of that I'm certain."
"The idea of thinking we'd do it as a joke!" cried Bernice.
"But you told me about the joke Mr. Forbes played on you about the B.
C. image, why mightn't one of you have taken this to tease him? Oh,
girls, if any of you did,--give it back, I beg of you! Mr. Forbes is a
kind man, but a very just one. If you give it back at once, and
explain, he will forgive you, fully and freely. But if you delay too
long he will lose patience. And, too, you must know he wants to--"
"Wants to what, Mrs. Berry?" asked Dotty, for the lady had stopped
speaking very suddenly.
"Never mind. I forgot myself. But Mr. Forbes has a very strong reason
for wishing to sift this matter to the bottom. Don't, girls,--oh, DON'T
deceive him!"
"What makes you think we're deceiving him?" cried Dotty. "That's the
way old Fenn talks! Isn't he a disagreeable man, Mrs. Berry?"
"Mr. Fenn is peculiar," she admitted, "but it isn't nice for you to
criticise Mr. Forbes' secretary. He is a trusted employee, and of great
use in his various capacities."
"But he was very rude to us," complained Alicia. "He was positively
insulting to Dolly and me."
"Don't remember it," counselled Mrs. Berry. "The least you have to do
with him the better. Forget anything he may have said, and keep out of
his way all you can."
Mr. Forbes' housekeeper was a tactful and peaceable woman, and she well
knew the temperament and disposition of the secretary. She herself
disliked him exceedingly, but it was part of her diplomacy to avoid
open encounter with him. And she deemed it best for the girls to follow
her course.
"I think," she said finally, "the best thing for you to do, is to go
for a nice motor ride in the park. It is a lovely day, and the ride
will do you good and make you feel a heap better. Then on your return,
stop at a pretty tearoom, and have some cakes and chocolate, or ices;
and while you're gone, I'll have a little talk with Mr. Forbes, and,
who knows, maybe we might find the earring!"
"You're going to search our boxes!" cried Alicia. "Well, I won't submit
to such an insult! I shall lock mine before I go out."
"So shall I," declared Dolly. "I think we all ought to. Really, Mrs.
Berry, it's awful for you to do a thing like that!"
"Mercy me! girls, how you do jump at conclusions! I never said a word
about searching your rooms. I had no thought of such a thing! You
mustn't condemn me unheard! You wouldn't like that, yourselves!"
"Indeed, we wouldn't, Mrs. Berry," cried Dolly, smiling at her. "I
apologise for my burst of temper, I'm sure. But I hate to be suspected."
"Be careful, Dolly, not to be selfish. Others hate to be suspected
too--"
"Yes, but _I_'m innocent!" cried Dolly, and as soon as she had spoken
she blushed fiery red, and her sweet face was covered with confusion.
"Meaning somebody else ISN'T innocent!" spoke up Alicia; "who, please?"
"Me, probably," said Dotty, striving to turn the matter off with a
laugh. "Dolly and I always suspect each other on principle--"
"Oh, pooh! This is no time to be funny!" and Alicia looked daggers at
the smiling Dotty.
"You're right, Alicia, it isn't!" she flashed back, and then Mrs.
Berry's calm voice interrupted again.
"Now, girlies, don't quarrel among yourselves. There's trouble enough
afoot, without your adding to it. Take my advice. Go and put on some
pretty dresses and then go for a ride, as I told you, and get your tea
at the 'Queen Titania' tearoom. It's just lately been opened, and it's
a most attractive place. But promise not to squabble. Indeed, I wish
you'd promise not to discuss this matter of the earring. But I suppose
that's too much to ask!"
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Berry," and Bernice smiled at her. "I'm sure we
couldn't keep that promise if we made it!"
"Well, don't quarrel. It can't do any good. Run along now, and dress."
The cheery good-nature of the housekeeper helped to raise the girls'
depressed spirits, and after they had changed into pretty afternoon
costumes and donned their coats and furs, they had at least, partially
forgotten their troubles of the morning.
But not for long. As they sped along in the great, comfortable car,
each found her thoughts reverting to the sad episode, and oh, with what
varied feelings!
Suddenly, Bernice broke out with a new theory.
"I'll tell you what!" she exclaimed; "Uncle Jeff hid that thing
himself, to see how we would act! Then he pretended to suspect us! That
man is studying us! Oh, you needn't tell ME! I've noticed it ever since
we came. He watches everything we do, and when he says anything
especial, he looks closely, to see how we're going to take it."
"I've noticed that, too," agreed Dolly. "But it's silly, Bernie, to
think he took his own jewel."
"Just to test us, you know. I can't make out WHY he wants to study us
so, but maybe he's writing a book or something like that. Else why did
he want not only Alicia and me but two of our friends to come for this
visit? He studies us, not only as to our own characters, but the effect
we have on each other."
Dotty looked at Bernice with interest.
"You clever thing!" she cried; "I do believe you're right! I've caught
Uncle Forbes frequently looking at one or another of us with the most
quizzical expression and listening intently for our answers to some
question of right or wrong or our opinions about something."
"I've noticed it," said Dolly, though in an indifferent tone, "but I
don't think he's studying us. I think he's so unused to young people
that everything we do seems strange to him. Why any of our fathers
would know what we're going to say before we say it. Mine would anyhow
and so would Dot's. But Mr. Forbes is surprised at anything we say or
do because he never saw girls at close range before. I think we
interest him just like his specimens do."
"That's it," cried Dotty, "you've struck it, Doll. We're just specimens
to him. He's studying a new kind of creature! And, maybe he did want to
see what we'd do in given circumstances,--like an unjust accusation,
and so he arranged this tragic situation."
"No," said Dolly, still in that unnerved, listless way, "no, that won't
do, Dotty. If it were true, he'd never let Mr. Fenn be so rude to us.
Why, this morning, I'm sure,--I KNOW,--Mr. Forbes was just as uncertain
of what had become of that earring as--as any of us were."
"Well, have it your own way," and Dotty smiled good-naturedly at her
chum, "but here's my decision. That thing is lost. Somehow or other,
for some ridiculous reason, blame seems to be attached to my
Dollyrinda. I won't stand it! I hereby announce that I'm going to find
that missing gimcrack before I go back to my native heath,--if I have
to take all summer!"
"Aren't you going home on Wednesday?" cried Dolly, looking aghast at
the idea.
"Not unless that old thing is found! I'll telephone my dear parents not
to look for me until they see me. I'll hunt every nook and cranny of
Mr. Forbes' house, and when I get through, I'll hunt over again. But
find the thing, I will! So there, now!"
"Why do you say Dolly is suspected?" asked Alicia.
"Oh, you all know she is, just because she hooked the foolish thing
into her lace. She put it on the table after that, and every one of us
probably handled it, but no, it is laid to Dolly! Just because she's
the only one of us incapable of such a thing,--I guess!"
"Why, Dot Rose, what a speech!" and Dolly almost laughed at the
belligerent Dotty. "None of us would take it wrongly, I'm sure--but--"
"Well, but what?" demanded Alicia, as Dolly paused.
"Oh, nothing, Alicia, but the same old arguments.
Mistake,--unintentional,--caught in our dresses,--and all that." Dolly
spoke wearily, as if worn out with the subject.
"Well, I've a new theory," said Dotty, "I believe that Fenn man stole
it!"
The other three laughed, but Dotty went on. "Yes, I do. You see, he's
never had a chance to take any of the treasures before, 'cause Uncle
Forbes would know he was the thief. But now he has all us four to lay
it on, so he made the most of his chance."
"Oh, Dotty, I can't believe it!" said Bernice. "He didn't act like a
thief this morning. He was more like an avenging justice."
"That's just his smartness! Make it seem as if we did it, you know."
"Nothing in it," and Dolly smiled at Dotty's theory. "He wasn't here
yesterday, at all. He didn't know that I hooked the old thing on my
waist,--oh, I WISH I hadn't done that!"
"Never you mind, Dollums," Dotty said, endearingly. "If he did do it,
we'll track him down. Because, girls, I tell you I'm going to find that
earring. And what Dorothy Rose says, goes! See?"
Dotty's brightness cheered up the others, and as they drove through the
park, there were many sights of interest, and after a time the talk
drifted from the subject that had so engrossed them.
And when at last they stopped at the new tea room and went in, the
beauty and gaiety of the place made them almost forget their trouble.
"I'll have cafe parfait," said Dotty, "with heaps of little fancy
cakes. We can't get real FANCY cakes in Berwick, and I do love 'em!"
The others were of a like mind, and soon they were feasting on the rich
and delicate confections that the modern tea room delights to provide.
While they sat there, Muriel Brown came in, accompanied by two of her
girl friends.
"Oh, mayn't we chum with you?" Muriel cried, and our four girls said
yes, delightedly.
"How strange we should meet," said Dolly, but Muriel laughed and
responded, "Not so very, as I'm here about four or five days out of the
seven. I just simply love the waffles here, don't you?"
And then the girls all laughed and chattered and the New Yorkers
invited the other four to several parties and small affairs.
"New York is the most hospitable place I ever saw!" declared Dotty. "We
seem to be asked somewhere every day for a week."
"Everybody's that," laughed Muriel. "But you must come to these things
we're asking you for, won't you?"
"I don't believe we can promise," said Bernice, suddenly growing
serious. "You see, we may go home on Wednesday."
"Day after to-morrow? Oh, impossible! Don't say the word!" And with a
laugh, Muriel dashed away the unwelcome thought. "I shall depend upon
you," she went on, "especially for the Friday party. That's one of the
best of all! You just MUST be at it!"
"If we're here, we will," declared Alicia, carried away by the gay
insistence. "And I'm 'most sure Bernice and I will be here, even if the
others aren't."
"I want you all," laughed Muriel, "but I'll take as many as I can get."
Then into the limousine again, and off for home.
"Oh," cried Dolly, "that horrid business! I had almost forgotten it!"
"We can't forget it till it's settled," said Dotty, and her lips came
tightly together with a grim expression that she showed only when
desperately in earnest.