_A Midnight Visitor_
Mary Louise put on her kimono and stretched herself out comfortably on
her pretty bed, with her notebook in her hands. What a lovely room it
was! What a charming little bedside table, with its silk-shaded lamp, its
dainty ice-water jug--and its telephone. For that convenience especially
she was thankful: she'd far rather have a telephone than a radio. Little
did she realize how soon she was to find that instrument so useful!
She opened her notebook at the page upon which she had written the
guests' names, and counted them. Fourteen people besides herself, and of
that number she had met only five. Rather a slow beginning!
"If I only had Jane here, she'd know everybody in the place by now," she
thought wistfully. "Jane is clever, but she does jump at conclusions.
Maybe I'm better off alone."
She glanced at the notebook again and resolved not to bother yet with the
names of people she hadn't met. She'd concentrate instead upon the five
that she did know. She began at the beginning with the girl with whom she
had danced and eaten supper.
"Pauline Brooks couldn't be guilty," she decided. "Because she came to
Stoddard House only a few days ago for the first time. After the first
two robberies had taken place. So she's out....
"Now I'm not so sure about Miss Henrietta Stoddard. She might even
believe she had a right to steal things, because she was cheated out of
her inheritance. Yes--I'll watch Miss Stoddard carefully.
"Next those two Weinberger women. Hardly possible, when the mother lost
her own watch. Of course, thieves sometimes pretend to have things
stolen, just to establish their innocence, the same way murderers often
wound themselves--for alibis. But, just the same, I believe those women
are honest. They're pretty well off, too, to judge from their clothes and
their jewelry."
She came to the last person she had met--the old lady who had come to the
book-club meeting with a cane--Mrs. Moyer. Mary Louise's face broke into
a smile. Nobody in her right senses could suspect a person like that!
That was all. Except the secretary, Miss Horton, whom she had met at the
desk.
Mary Louise closed the notebook and put it on the table beside her. That
was enough for tonight; now she'd try to get some sleep. She put out the
light and opened the window. Snow still covered everything except the
streets and the sidewalks, and the moon shone over the roofs of the
buildings beyond. Right below her side window was a fire escape, which
made her feel somehow safe and secure.
It was not nearly so quiet here as in Riverside; automobile horns honked
now and again, and the sound of trolleys from the street in front was
plainly heard. But Mary Louise was not worried about the noise, and a few
minutes after she was in bed she was sound asleep.
How many hours later she was awakened by a dream about Margaret
Detweiler, Mary Louise had no way of knowing, for she had left her watch
on the bureau. She thought she had found Margaret alone in an empty
house, cold and starving to death, and she was trying to remember just
what principles of first aid to apply, when she awoke and found it was
only a dream.
But something, she realized instantly, had awakened her.
Something--somebody--was in her room!
Her first sensation was one of terror. A ghost--no, a gypsy, perhaps--who
would clap a gag over her mouth and bind her hand and foot! But before
she uttered a sound she remembered where she was and why she was there. A
delirious feeling of triumph stole over her, making her believe that
success was at hand for her in her sleuthing. If this person were really
the Stoddard House sneak thief, Mary Louise could lie still and watch
her, for the room was light enough from the moon and the street lamps to
show up the intruder quite plainly.
Ever so cautiously, without turning her head or making any kind of sound,
she rolled her eyes toward her bureau, where she could sense the intruder
to be. Her reward was immediate: she saw a short person in dark clothing
standing there, carefully picking up some object.
"My purse--and my watch!" Mary Louise thought grimly. The little engraved
watch her father had given her last Christmas.
The figure turned around and silently crept towards the door. But sudden,
swift dismay took possession of Mary Louise, making her tremble with fear
and disappointment. The thief was not a woman, whom she could hope to
identify as a guest at Stoddard House. He was a man!
He turned the key in the lock so quietly that only the tiniest click
could be heard. Then, just as softly, he closed the door again and
vanished into the hall.
Mary Louise gasped audibly with both relief and disappointment. Relief
that he was gone, disappointment that he was a common, ordinary burglar
whom she could not hope to catch.
Nevertheless, she meant to do what she could, so she turned on her light
and reached for the telephone beside her bed. In another moment she had
told her story to the police, and, so perfect were their radio signals,
in less than five minutes one of their cars stood at the door of the
hotel.
Meanwhile, Mary Louise had hastily thrown on a few clothes and run down
the stairs to warn the night watchman.
The halls were lighted all night, as well as the lobby of the hotel; she
did not see how the burglar could escape without attracting the
watchman's notice.
She found him quietly smoking a pipe on the doorstep. He said he had seen
nobody.
"I think the burglar came in through the window from the fire escape,"
Mary Louise said.
"Don't see how he could," returned the man. "I've been around there at
the side for the last half hour. Nobody came along that alley."
Baffled, Mary Louise summoned Mrs. Hilliard on the house phone, and by
the time she stepped out of the elevator the two policemen had arrived.
"The thief must be hiding somewhere in the building," concluded Mary
Louise. "Waiting for a chance to slip away."
"We'll have to make a search," announced Mrs. Hilliard. "You guard the
doorway and the stairway, Mike," she said to the watchman, "and one of
you officers go around the first floor and see whether the windows are
all securely locked--in case the burglar escaped through one of them.
Then the other officer can come with Miss Gay and me while we search the
floors above."
Immediately the plan was put into effect, and the searchers began on the
second floor, looking first in the corridors and closets and empty rooms,
then knocking at the doors of the guests' rooms.
Pauline Brooks' door was the first they went to, and here a light shone
under the cracks.
"Sorry to disturb you, Miss Brooks," called Mrs. Hilliard, "but a sneak
thief has gotten into the hotel, and we want to find him. May we come
in?"
"Just a minute," replied the girl. "Till I put on my bath robe. I was out
late--at a dance, and I'm just undressing now."
"What time is it, anyway?" asked Mary Louise. "You see, my watch was
stolen."
"It's only a few minutes after one," replied the policeman.
A moment later Pauline unlocked the door, and the three people entered.
The room was very untidy: clothing had been flung about everywhere, and
two open suitcases occupied the chairs.
"Look in the closet," advised Mrs. Hilliard.
"There's nobody there," answered Pauline. "I've just been in it. But you
might look under the bed. That's where men always hide in the bedroom
farces."
"You wouldn't think this was a 'bedroom farce' if you'd just lost your
watch and your purse," remarked Mary Louise sharply.
"I'm sorry, Mary Lou," apologized Pauline. "You see, I didn't know that
_you_ were the victim."
"We've got to get along," interrupted the officer. "There's nobody
here--I'm sure of that."
They passed on to the other rooms, waking up the guests when it was
necessary, apologizing, explaining--and finding nobody. In only two of
the rooms besides Pauline's had they found lights burning. Miss Granger,
the artist, was still working on some drawings she was making for a
magazine, and Miss Henrietta Stoddard, who explained that she was "such a
poor sleeper," was reading a book. But both these women said that they
had heard no disturbance.
When the search was completed and the group returned to the first floor
of the hotel, the watchman and the officer had nothing to report. The
windows on the ground floor were all securely locked, the latter
announced, and the former said that no one had escaped by the front door
or the fire escape.
"It's either an inside job or your young friend dreamed it," one of the
policemen said to Mrs. Hilliard.
"It couldn't be an inside job," returned the manager. "For there isn't
any man who lives in the hotel."
"And I didn't dream it," protested Mary Louise. "Because my watch and my
purse are gone, and my door was unlocked. I locked it myself when I went
to bed last night."
"Well, we'll keep an eye on the building all night," promised the
policeman as he opened the door. "Let us know if you have any more
trouble."
When the men had gone, Mrs. Hilliard persuaded Mary Louise to come to her
apartment for the rest of the night. She had a couch-bed in her sitting
room which she often used for her own guests.
Mary Louise agreed, but it was a long while before she fell asleep again.
She kept listening for sounds, imagining she heard footsteps in the hall,
or windows opening somewhere in the building. But at last she dozed off,
and slept until Mrs. Hilliard's alarm awakened her the next morning.
"You had better go down to the dining room for your breakfast, Mary
Louise," said the manager. "I just have orange juice and coffee, up
here--if I go into the dining room I am tempted to overeat, and I put on
weight."
"All right," agreed Mary Louise. "I want to go to my room for fresh
clothing anyway--I just grabbed these things last night in a hurry....
Mrs. Hilliard, what do you think of last night's occurrence?"
"I don't know what to think. I was convinced that all our robberies
before this were inside jobs, because our watchman was so careful. But
now I don't know. Of course, this may be something entirely different.
We'll see if anything happens tonight. You're sure it was a man, Mary
Louise?"
"Positive. He wore a cap pulled down over his head, and a mask over his
eyes. He had on a dark suit--sneakers, too, for I couldn't hear him
walk."
"Did he have a gun?"
"I don't know, because I pretended to be asleep, so he didn't need to
defend himself. He got out so quickly. Where could he have vanished to?"
Mrs. Hilliard shook her head with a sigh.
"I haven't the slightest idea," she said.
"Of course, he might have had an accomplice," mused Mary Louise. "Some
woman may have let him out her window to the fire escape. Still, the
watchman was keeping his eye on that...." Mary Louise's tone became
dreary. "I guess I'm not much use to you, Mrs. Hilliard. I don't think I
ought to take the salary."
"You mean you want to go home, Mary Louise?"
"Oh no! I wouldn't leave now for anything. But I mean I probably shan't
be any help in finding a thief like that. So I oughtn't to accept any
pay."
"Don't worry about that," returned Mrs. Hilliard, patting Mary Louise's
arm affectionately. "You just do the best you can. Nobody can do more.
I'd really like it proved that none of our guests is the thief. I'd much
rather find out that it was a common burglar."
Reassured, Mary Louise went to her own room and dressed. By the time she
reached the dining room the guests who held positions had already eaten
their breakfasts and gone, and the others, who had nothing to do all day,
had not yet put in an appearance. It was only a little after eight, but
the dining room was deserted.
"I wish I had somebody to talk to," she thought sadly as she seated
herself at a little table by a window. The sunlight streamed in through
the dainty ruffled curtains, there were rosebuds in the center of her
table, and a menu from which she could order anything she wanted, but
Mary Louise was not happy. She felt baffled and lonely.
She ordered grapefruit first, and just as she finished it, Mrs.
Weinberger came into the room. She made her way straight to Mary Louise's
table.
"May I sit with you, Miss Gay?" she asked. "My daughter won't eat
breakfast for fear of gaining a pound, and it's so lonesome eating all by
yourself."
Mary Louise smiled cordially.
"I think so too, Mrs. Weinberger," she replied. "I'll be delighted to
have you."
"Do you feel nervous after last night? It must have been terrible to be
right in the room when the burglar got in. I was away when my watch was
stolen."
"Tell me about it, Mrs. Weinberger," urged Mary Louise.
"I was over in Mrs. Moyer's room," the woman explained, after she had
given her order to the waitress, "and my daughter went out of my room and
couldn't remember whether she locked the door or not. Anyway, I
discovered that my watch was gone when I was dressing for dinner." She
sighed. "It was very valuable--a present from my late husband."
Mary Louise had an inspiration.
"I believe I'll visit some pawnshops today, to ask about mine," she said,
"and I can inquire about yours at the same time, if you want me to, Mrs.
Weinberger."
"Yes, indeed! But I am afraid it is too late now. Mine was an
old-fashioned watch--we used to wear them pinned on our dresses, with a
brooch. Mine had seven diamonds on it in front, and my initials 'E. W.'
in tiny pearls on the back."
"Did you advertise?"
"Yes, of course. But nothing came of it. My daughter thinks that
transient guest--a chorus girl named Mary Green--stole it. We tried to
trace her, but we couldn't find her name with any of the theatrical
companies in town at the time."
"She never came back here to Stoddard House?"
"Oh no."
"And were the other watches stolen the same day?"
"Yes. Mrs. Hilliard's was taken during the supper hour, but she had laid
it down on the desk, so that was her own carelessness. But the Walder
girls had theirs taken while they were asleep--just as yours was."
"What were theirs like?"
"Plain gold wrist-watches, with their initials--R. W. and E. W. Their
names are Ruth and Evelyn."
"Well, I'll do what I can," concluded Mary Louise. "And now let's talk
about something pleasant."
So for the rest of the meal she and Mrs. Weinberger discussed books and
the current moving pictures.