HESTER MAKES AMENDS--CONCLUSION.
A few days later Peggy borrowed Jess's car and went out for a long,
lonely spin along the country roads. She wanted to think. Roy and Jimsy
were at home repairing the damage wrought to the Golden Butterfly, which,
it turned out, was very slight.
She was driving along a pretty stretch of road when she came across a
veritable fairyland of delicate pink wild roses intertwined with
honeysuckle and woodbine.
"Oh," cried Peggy, who simply worshipped flowers, "how beautiful; I must
take some of these home. They'll make all our garden things look mean and
shabby."
Stopping the car she alighted and was soon deep in her occupation of
gathering the fragrant posies. Suddenly she was startled by the sound of
a sobbing voice close at hand, and the next minute an angry male voice
could be heard also.
"I tell you I'll do nothing of the sort," the man was saying; "why should
I go and own up that I'm a thief or the next thing to it? At any rate
they'd have me put in jail for all the attempts I've made to interfere
with their aeroplane."
"It's Fanning Harding!" gasped Peggy, amazedly, "and Hester Gibbons," she
added the next instant as the girl's voice sobbed out:
"Well, if you won't, I will. I've been weak and foolish but I'm not
wicked. I'm going to tell Peggy Prescott all about it to-day and ask her
to forgive me."
"You'd better not," Fanning Harding's tone was threatening now.
"Well, what if I do?"
"You won't, I tell you. I'll have you locked up and charged with the
theft yourself."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Oh, yes, I would. You've got that ruby and that is pretty good proof
that you stole it."
"It isn't so and you know it. I have been a weak, silly girl, that's all,
but I see it all now. And just to think if I hadn't overheard you and my
father talking that I might have gone on admiring you."
"Tell me you won't go to the Prescotts with the story or I'll----"
"Help! Help!"
The shrill cry came in Hester's tones.
Without quite realizing what she was doing, Peggy stooped and picked up a
heavy bit of stick that lay in the road beside her. Then she stepped
forward around a bend which had hitherto hidden the other two from her
sight. As she appeared Fanning had his hand on Hester's wrist and was
wrenching it cruelly.
"Oh! oh! Fanning, please let go!" Hester was crying.
"I will if you'll promise not to tell."
"There's no need for her to promise that, Fanning," said Peggy, "for I
have already heard enough for me to know that she has some connection
with the disappearance of the Bancroft diamonds."
"Oh, Peggy!" cried Hester, running to her side.
"See here," began Fanning, swaggering forward threateningly toward the
two girls.
"My brother is just 'round that corner," said Peggy, boldly; "he'll be
here in a minute. If you don't wish to be arrested for what you did the
other night you had better get away from here, Fanning Harding."
A scared look crossed Fanning's face and he turned and fairly took to his
heels.
"Now, Hester," said Peggy, kindly, "come with me to my car. It's just
'round the corner."
"Oh, Peggy, I've been a bad, wicked girl, but I'm not a thief. Truly I'm
not."
"I believe that," said Peggy, "but what do you know about the
disappearance of the diamonds?"
"That I have them all here. Not one is gone," was the amazing reply, and
Hester, drawing a handkerchief from her bosom, unfolded it and displayed
to Peggy's amazed eyes a glittering collection of gems. In the midst of
the flashing gems gleamed the big ruby which Peggy had once seen Hester
so carefully conceal.
"Hester, you have a duty before you," said Peggy slowly; "get in my car
and come with me to my home and then tell me all about this mystery which
has puzzled us so long."
But the girl shrank back.
"I can't. Oh, Peggy, with you it's different, but before, the others.
Your brother----"
"Poor fellow, he has been under unjust suspicion on account of these very
jewels," Peggy reminded the agitated girl.
"Oh, give me time. Not now. I----"
"No, it must be now," said Peggy, with gentle insistence. "Come!"
Something in her manner seemed to strike the girl.
"You'll promise no harm will come to me or my father through this?" she
said.
"Is your father very deeply implicated in the matter?" asked Peggy
seriously, looking straight into the other's eyes.
"No. On my word of honor, no," was the response.
"Then I'll promise," said Peggy.
"Very well, then, I'll tell you all I know about the matter," said
Hester, as the girls got into the car.
An hour later, in the library of the Prescott's home, Peggy, Roy, Jimsy
and Jess were gathered listening to Hester's story. Her eyes were red
from crying and she hesitated frequently, but her manner showed that she
was telling the truth.
On a table lay the glistening jewels. Jess had counted them and found
that they were all there.
"I didn't find out about the jewels till one night Fanning, who has
always said he admired me," said Hester, with downcast eyes, "gave me
that big ruby there. At least he didn't give it to me but he said I could
wear it. Of course I had heard about the disappearance of the jewels from
the auto, but somehow I didn't associate this token of Fanning's with it.
"It was not till a week ago that I learned the true state of affairs. I
overheard a conversation of Fanning's with my father in which he
threatened him with arrest if he, father, didn't give him some money
Fanning said he had hoarded up. I knew dad didn't have any and I asked
him after Fanning had gone to tell me all about it.
"He isn't such a bad man at bottom and when I pleaded with him he told me
the whole story. On the day of the jewel robbery, for it was a robbery,
Morgan and Giles----"
"Our butler and groom!" cried Jess.
"Yes. Well, they were taking a stroll in the fields and happened along
just as the car was wrecked. They knew from servants' gossip that you had
been to town to get the gems and when they saw you lying unconscious and
the wallet near at hand, the temptation was too much for them and they
stole it.
"They determined to hide it in some woods near my father's place; but as
they entered them Fanning Harding came along on his bicycle. He saw them
enter the woods and became suspicious. Leaning his bicycle against a tree
he followed them and saw them bury the gems under a tree which they
marked.
"He noted the tree, too, and then, without their seeing him he remounted
his motor-cycle and came on to see my father about that business of the
hoax aeroplane. He said he wanted to bluff you into selling the Butterfly
to him.
"Well, father agreed, for a fair sum of money, to help him, and we
started right into town. At that time I thought it was a good joke, and
we were both laughing as we came in sight of the scene of the accident."
"So that's what they were laughing at," thought Roy, recollecting how
mystified he had been when he saw them together.
"I don't know whether it was Fanning's manner or what," said Hester
resuming, "but my father began to suspect that he might know something
about the jewels, and one day he followed him into the woods when he went
to see if the jewels were still under the tree. Father made him own up
when he caught him red-handed like that, but in the meantime Morgan and
Giles also had arrived. Well, the four of them were all equally guilty,
so they agreed to stick together and say nothing till the excitement
about the loss had blown over. But Fanning in the meantime said that he
must have the ruby to let me wear.
"I guess he wanted to show me that he was as rich as he was always
pretending to be.
"A few days later they had a terrible fright. Morgan, who carried the
leather wallet in his pocket for lack of a better place to put it,
dropped it on the porch of the Bancrofts' house where, as you know, it
was found before he realized his loss and could recover it.
"When Fanning came back from the aviation meet and began boasting of the
mean tricks he had played you and how he had kidnapped Roy, I began to
see what a despicable fellow he was. Then, too, he was always threatening
dad, and so I decided to make a clean breast of it all and save poor dad
any more trouble, for Fanning has dictated to him ever since they shared
the secret.
"I went to the wood and found the marked tree I had heard them talk about
so often and with the jewels in my hand I started for your home, Peggy,
for I didn't dare to go to the Bancrofts'. But Fanning, it seems, had got
suspicious, and followed me. He overtook me at the spot where you
encountered us."
"Does he know you have the jewels?" asked Roy.
"Not yet," rejoined Hester; "I believe if he had he would have been
violent."
"Well, Hester," said Peggy, as the girl concluded her strange narrative,
"you have cleared up a puzzling mystery."
"Did you ever hear such a yarn in all your born days?" asked Jimsy.
"And every one of the jewels is there," cried Jess. "I tell you what I'll
do, I'll just call up the house and tell mother about it. Won't she be
pleased?"
But Mrs. Bancroft was not at home, and----
"Oh, miss," gasped the servant, who answered the 'phone, "we're all
upset. Morgan has run off, miss, and so has Giles. They took some of the
silver with them. Mary and me tried to stop 'em but they pointed a pistol
at us and scared us inter high strikes."
"I'll 'phone the police at once," cried Jess, indignantly. "They might
have got off if it hadn't been for that."
But although a good description was furnished, Morgan and Giles were not
captured and Mr. Bancroft was not ill pleased.
"They will not venture into this part of the country again," he said,
"and we are well rid of such rascals."
Hester, in whom Mrs. Bancroft took an interest after the girl had told
her with her own lips her strange story, is now at a girls' boarding
school, having been sent there at Mrs. Bancroft's expense.
As for Fanning Harding, his father sent him West soon after the lad's
innate rascality had been revealed, and from reports Fanning is working
hard to redeem the past and make himself a good and useful man.
"And so the mystery of the phantom airship and the missing jewels is all
cleared up," said Peggy to Jess one day a short time after the events
just described had transpired.
"Yes," rejoined her chum, "and the air seems clearer and fresher somehow.
It is terrible to have a dark cloud of suspicion hanging over one."
"It is, indeed," rejoined Peggy; "and now, as Roy leaves in a few days
for the West, let's all take a good long spin. You and I will go in the
Golden Butterfly while the boys can run along below us in the auto."
But Jess looked a bit doubtful.
"Wouldn't Roy like to go in the aeroplane?" she said.
Peggy broke into merry laughter.
"Oh, you sly puss," she exclaimed. "Very well, then you and Roy in the
Golden Eagle and Jimsy and I in the auto."
"Suits me," cried Jimsy, throwing his arm around his sister's waist, "but
I thought you were the girl aviator of the family, Peggy."
"So I am," laughed Peggy, "but I am willing to yield my place for once."
"Well, if you'll excuse my horrid slang," laughed Jimsy, "I think I may
say we've all been 'up in the air' for the last few weeks. But it's all
over now and we'll settle down to humdrum life once more."
"It's been jolly, though," protested Peggy.
"With some parts left out," put in Jess.
But although no adventures just like those we have related happened again
to the Girl Aviators, they were due to encounter some more strange
experiences. In fact, both Peggy and Roy and their friends were on the
brink of some odd happenings, the narration of which must be postponed to
another volume of this series.
What these complications and adventures, both merry and perilous, proved
to be will be set down in full detail in "The Girl Aviators on Golden
Wings," a breezy tale of our aerial maids.
THE END.