HESTER'S RUBY.
The door of the shed had been opened wide, but Fanning closed it swiftly
as if in great anxiety to conceal what was within. Then it was that Peggy
first became aware of something she had not noticed before. Above the
portal was a signboard upon which was painted in staring red letters:
"Office and Works of the Fanning Harding Aeroplane Co."
Hardly had Peggy digested this astonishing sign before Fanning, his look
of startled surprise replaced by a smile, advanced, cap in hand, to meet
her.
"Why, what ever brings you here?" he asked, with the air of easy
familiarity which Peggy disliked so much. "I guess that that sign gave
you a kind of a start, eh?"
"It certainly did," agreed Peggy, "and it gives me even more of a start
to see you working, Fanning."
"Huh," grunted the youth, beneath whose blue overalls were visible a pair
of gaudy socks of the kind he affected, "I guess you think that I can't
make good as well as any one else when I try. Roy wouldn't go into a deal
with me on that aeroplane of his, so I just got busy and started a
concern of my own."
"Do you mean you are actually building an aeroplane?"
"Yes. Got orders for several of them," rejoined the swaggering youth. "So
far I've only had Gid to help me, but I guess I'll have to enlarge the
plant pretty soon. You see that Roy would have been wiser to sell me that
'plane of his at the start-off. As things are now, the Harding Aeroplane
Company is going to discount anything in its line."
"Well, I am glad of that," said Peggy, briskly, and with some trace of
asperity. Fanning's conceited, confident air jarred upon her sadly. "But
I came over here to find Mr. Gibbons. I want him to repair this rod for
me."
"Why, that's off an aeroplane!" exclaimed Fanning, eagerly; "you must
have come to earth in the Golden Butterfly quite close to here."
"Why, yes. In that field yonder," rejoined Peggy, some instinct telling
her not to disclose the true object of her visit there; "my motor went
wrong and I had to descend."
"What field did you come down in? That one by the clump of woods round
the bend in the road?" asked Fanning, with just a trace of anxiety in his
tone.
"Yes. It was lucky I was so close. Morgan and Giles----"
"What, Morgan and Giles were there?"
Fanning seemed tremendously excited all of a sudden.
"Why, yes. What of it?"
But Fanning had pulled himself together.
"Oh, nothing," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I only thought they
were a long way from home, that's all. But here comes Gid now. Hey, Gid!
Miss Prescott wants a rod welded. Can you do it for her right away?"
"Sure," responded the ill-favored blacksmith, shuffling up. His chin was
more bristly than ever, and his shifty blue eyes blinked like a rat's
beady orbs as he took the bits of metal.
"A flaw," he declared, examining them; "wonder it didn't break sooner.
Come on to the forge, miss, and I'll fix it for you in a brace-of-shakes."
Off he shuffled toward the ramshackle forge, Peggy following. Behind her
came Fanning. As they passed the cottage Hester Gibbons came flying down
the path, but stopped at a sign from Fanning. The youth dropped further
behind, and as Peggy followed Gid into the forge and the bellows began
roaring, they began to talk in low tones.
"Do you think she can suspect anything?" asked Hester at one point.
"Not a thing," was the confident response. "That pale-faced old gopher,
Morgan, was in the wood this afternoon, though. She told me that. The
existence of the Harding Aeroplane Company has become known rather before
I wanted it to, also. However, they may as well know now as any other
time that they aren't the only fliers in the air. I guess the Harding
aeroplane will beat anything in its line ever seen."
"I guess it will," laughed Hester, and then, for some unknown reason,
they both burst into fits of immoderate laughter. Evidently something
connected with Fanning's new enterprise was deemed highly amusing by both
of them.
Peggy left without seeing Hester, although from behind a blind in the
cottage, the girl watched her closely enough. Gid, whatever his other
shortcomings might have been, was a good blacksmith, and the rod was well
repaired. Peggy soon had it adjusted, and was about to clamber into the
chassis and start home when a shout from the road made her look up. An
automobile stood there, and in it were Jess and Jimsy. They hailed her
excitedly, and Peggy hastily threw out the switch which she had just
adjusted and hastened across the field to them.
She soon saw that Jess was waving a leather pocket case above her head
and that her face was flushed and excited.
"My dear Jess, whatever has happened?" she cried, as she came up to the
side of the auto.
"Happened!" echoed Jess. "Why, my dear, the most extraordinary,
inexplicable thing you ever heard of."
"In other words, 'we are up in the air,'" quoth the slangy Jimsy, "even
if we don't own an aeroplane."
"You see this case," cried Jess, extending the leather wallet for Peggy's
inspection. "Well, that's the case that held mamma's jewels. It was
returned most strangely to us this afternoon. We found it on the porch
after lunch.
"Oh, Jess! the jewels were in it. I'm so glad."
"No, girlie, it was empty."
"Empty!" echoed Peggy, "and nobody knows how it came there?"
"No, we must have been at lunch at the time. None of the servants know
anything about the matter, either. It's a real, dark and deep mystery."
"It's all of that, my dear Watson," proclaimed Jimsy, folding his arms
and scowling in imitation of a famous detective of fiction. "Why on earth
should the thief want to return the wallet? You'd think he'd dodge such a
risk of being arrested."
But Peggy had been looking at the wallet which had so amazingly
reappeared.
"Why, Jess," she cried, "it's all mud-stained. It looks as if it had been
buried somewhere."
"It certainly does," agreed Jimsy, "but even that doesn't give us any
more to go on than the theory that the jewels have been buried some
place."
"And been dug up again," put in Peggy, quickly.
After some more conversation the group was about to break up, when Jess
exclaimed suddenly:
"Oh, by the way, did you hear about Jeff Stokes? No, I see you haven't.
Well, he's been appointed wireless operator at Rocky Point."
"Oh, I'm so glad," cried Peggy, impulsively; "that's been his ambition
for a long time."
Rocky Point was a projecting neck of land about two miles east of Sandy
Bay. It was quite an important signalling station for ships passing up
and down the Sound. The position which Jeff Stokes had secured was a
lucrative one in a way, and, at any rate, was in direct line of promotion.
The two Bancrofts waited to watch Peggy take the air in her now staunch
aeroplane. It was not until she had vanished with a whirr and a whiz that
Jimsy thought of starting his own car.
"Gracious," cried Jess, as they sped along, "how I wish that the mystery
of those jewels could be cleared up."
As she spoke they were passing by the cottage occupied by Gid Gibbons.
"Oh, look, there's that horrid Fanning Harding and Gid Gibbons's daughter
at the gate," cried Jess.
At the same instant as she uttered the exclamation, Hester Gibbons looked
up in time to see Jess's gaze concentrated upon her. She whisked about,
her skirts swinging as she did so. But she did not turn quickly enough
for Jess's sharp eyes not to see that she snatched at something she had
been wearing at her throat.
The millionaire's daughter was almost certain that the object Hester
snatched at in such a hurry was a ruby brooch, or at least an imitation
of one. She had distinctly caught a ruddy flash as Hester's hand moved to
her throat.
Jimsy, too, had noticed it, it seemed, for he suddenly observed:
"Seems queer for Hester to be wearing jewelry. Her father must be making
money fast nowadays."
"Yes," said Jess, but her voice was distant and preoccupied. She was
certain that her eyes had not deceived her. It had been a ruby that
Hester Gibbons had pulled off and hastened to conceal. Obeying an
impulse, she turned and gazed back over the top of the tonneau.
Through the dust cloud behind the car she could see that Hester and
Fanning Harding were once more in deep conversation at the gate. She
wondered what they could find so engrossing to talk about, and also
speculated on several other things. She, however, avoided mentioning her
suddenly aroused suspicions to Jimsy. He was so hasty. Inwardly she made
a resolve to seek out Peggy the first thing the next day and compare
notes with her. She could not help feeling that matters were assuming a
very complicated aspect.