A BACHELOR'S POCKET.
Miss Steel was a very busy woman that afternoon. She was shut up with
Judy Kean for half an hour; she visited the livery stable in the
village, she paid a call on Dr. McLean and finally she went to see
Professor Green.
It is in Professor Green's study on the Cloisters that we now find her,
sitting bolt upright in her chair, alert and bright-eyed. At such times
as this, Miss Steel is not unlike a hunting dog on the scent of his
quarry.
Professor Green sits at his desk. He looks tired, and his heavy reddish
eyebrows are drawn together in a frown. When the inspector came into the
room he had pushed a pile of manuscript under some loose papers, but a
sheet had slipped off and now lay in plain view. Across it was written
in a bold hand:
"Exeunt FAIRIES in disorder, leaving WOOD SPRITE at Left Centre.
"THE SONG OF THE WOOD SPRITE."
"I hope you will pardon this intrusion, Professor. I see you are very
busy," the inspector began, glancing at the manuscript with a look of
some slight amusement.
The Professor hastily covered up the sheet.
"Not at all," he said politely; "I'm just idling away a little time.
What can I do for you?"
He had seen Miss Steel about the building and most of the Faculty knew
her by this time as "Inspector of Dormitories."
"Do you remember helping a young lady who fainted on the day of the
football game?"
"Oh, yes, certainly," replied the Professor, absent-mindedly fingering
a paper cutter.
"You lent her your overcoat that afternoon, didn't you?"
"Why, yes; I believe I did."
"Have you worn the coat since?"
"Certainly," he answered, laughing; "every day, and several times a day.
It's the only one I have. Are you a detective?"
"Yes. Do you ever put things in the pockets of your coat?"
The Professor smiled shamefacedly like a schoolboy culprit.
"In one of them. There's been a hole in the other one for a long
time--two years at least."
"Would you mind letting me see that coat?"
He lifted the blue overcoat from a hook on the door and placed it on a
chair beside Miss Steel.
"Am I a suspect?" he asked politely. "Has anything been lost?"
The detective seized the overcoat and began rummaging through the
pockets with a practised hand.
"Yes," she answered; "something has been lost, and extremely
disagreeable things have been said by the owner about it."
"About me?" asked the Professor, still groping in the dark.
"No, no; about the girl who lost it."
"Miss Brown?"
The detective did not reply. She had run her hand through the hole in
the pocket and was now searching the corners between the lining and the
cloth.
"Ha!" she cried at last, exactly like the detective in a play. "Here it
is!"
With a swift movement she extricated her hand from the bottomless pocket
and displayed between her thumb and forefinger a large emerald ring.
"Why, that's the ring of my cousin, Judith Blount!" exclaimed the
Professor in amazement. "And I have had it in my pocket all this time.
Great heavens! what an extraordinary thing, and how did it get there?"
"Miss Blount forced Miss Brown to take charge of it while she was
playing football. After Miss Brown came to from her faint, she must have
been very cold and slipped her hands in the pockets of this coat for
warmth----"
"She did," confirmed the Professor.
"And the ring slipped off. When she found it was lost she got up at dawn
next day and went out in her slippers in the snow to find it, and nearly
caught her death. But she's had no thanks for her trouble from your
relation, I can assure you. Nothing but abuse----"
"What!" shouted the Professor. "You mean to say that Judith has dared to
insinuate----"
"She has," said Miss Steel.
"And she whom Miss Brown has shielded--great heavens! this is too much."
He began walking up and down the room in a rage.
"Shielded from what?"
"I am not at liberty to tell you," he replied. "The girl repented of
what she did. I know that, but she's an ungrateful little wretch."
A scholarly professor of English literature, however, is no match for
a well-trained detective, and with a knowing smile on her lips the
inspector rose to leave.
"You may return the ring," she said. "It will be a great relief to Miss
Molly Brown of Kentucky to know it has been found. She was about to give
up two acres of good apple orchard to pay for it; the land, in fact,
which was to provide the money for her college expenses."
And with that she sailed out of the room and went straight to the home
of President Walker, with whom she spent the better part of an hour.
Professor Green followed close on her heels. He did not pause at Miss
Walker's pretty stucco residence, however, but hastened down the campus
and rang the bell at Queen's Cottage.
Miss Brown was in, he learned from the maid. She had only arrived from
the Infirmary that afternoon.
The Professor waited in the sitting room deserted by the students at
that hour, those who were not studying in their rooms being at Vespers.
Presently Molly appeared, looking very slender and tall, like a pale
flower swaying on its stalk.
The Professor rushed up and seized her hand unceremoniously.
"My dear child!" he cried, "how am I ever going to make my apologies to
you for all this trouble of which I have been the unconscious cause?"
"For what----" began Molly, too much astonished to finish her question.
"The ring! The ring! It's been concealed in the ragged lining of my
shabby old overcoat all this time, and that clever detective of
dormitories, or whatever she is, ferreted it out just now. Perhaps I
should have thought of it myself; but, you see, I hadn't even heard the
ring had been lost. I am afraid you suffered a great deal."
"I did at first; but after I grew better I never let myself slip back
into that state again. I kept believing it would be found. I was so sure
of it that I haven't really been unhappy at all. You see, everybody is
so beautifully kind and no one believed----"
"Great heavens!" interrupted the Professor, storming excitedly
around the room, "that ungrateful, wicked girl to have made such an
accusation--she shall hear from me what she owes to you! I'll take the
ring to her myself later. She is my cousin, and her brother is as near
to me as my own brother, but----"
"You aren't going to tell Prexy?" cried Molly.
"I must. Besides, I nearly gave it away to Miss Steel."
"Oh, well, if that's the case, she knows already. She's a detective, and
if you let two words slip, she can easily guess the rest. There's no
keeping anything from her. You may be sure Prexy knows it by this time."
"I'm rather relieved," said the Professor. "Judith will probably be well
punished; but she should be."
"I've always wondered," said Molly, after a short pause, "why Judith did
it."
The Professor looked at her closely with his humorous brown eyes.
"Have you no idea why?" he asked.
"Except for mischief and to annoy the seniors," she answered.
"Possibly," he said. "A girl who has been spoiled and petted as she has
will give in to almost any whim that seizes her. However, such actions
are not tolerated at Wellington, and she will have to learn a few pretty
stiff lessons if she expects to remain here."
Then Professor Green shook hands with Molly, gave her a little paternal
advice about taking care of her health, and took his departure. His
next destination was the President's house, where he waited in the
drawing-room until Miss Steel had terminated her interview. He was
prepared for a round scolding from his old friend, who had known him
since his early youth, but the President was inclined to be lenient with
the young man.
"It all goes to show," she said at the end of the interview, "that
murder will out. But why did the foolish girl do that mischievous thing?
What did she have to gain by it?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Jealous of some one prettier and more popular than herself, probably,"
he answered.
The President sighed.
"Who can understand the intricacies of a young girl's heart," she said.
"I have been studying them for twenty years, and they are still a
closed book to me."
When Professor Green a little later returned the emerald ring to his
cousin, he cut the visit as short as possible. He told her that she had
deliberately and wrongfully accused one who had shielded her even at the
risk of offending the President of Wellington College, and that it was
he who had given the detective, already suspicious, the clue she wanted.
Judith wept bitterly, but her cousin showed no signs of relenting.
"If you want to be loved," he said, "learn unselfishness and gentleness
and truthfulness. These are the qualities that make men and women
beloved. You will never gain anything by cheating and lying."
The end of the episode was a pretty severe punishment for Judith Blount.
She was suspended from college for three weeks and was compelled to
resign from all societies for the rest of the winter. She left college
next morning early, and no one saw her again until after Christmas, when
she returned a much chastened and quieted young woman.
A few days after she had gone Molly received a note from her from New
York. It read:
"DEAR MISS BROWN:
"Will you forgive me? I am very unhappy.
"JUDITH BLOUNT."
You may be sure that Molly's reply was prompt and forgiving.