Kitabı oku: «The Automobile Girls at Newport: or, Watching the Summer Parade», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XX – RUTH WAKES UP!
A curious sight met Ruth’s gaze when she was invited to return to the veranda.
“Goodness!” she laughed. “It is just as well I am not afraid of ghosts. I’ve come upon a whole army of them all at once!”
Mrs. Cartwright had the porch darkened, except for a single row of bright lights. Her visitors stood with their backs against the wall, a sheet drawn up on a level with their eyes. Another white cloth covered their heads, drawn down so low over their foreheads that even the eyebrows were concealed. By standing on books and stools the eyes were all on a level.
“No giggling,” said Mrs. Cartwright severely to the ghostly set in front of her, “or Ruth can guess who you are by the tones of your voices.”
Ruth looked confused. No signs of her friends remained, save a long row of shining eyes, black, blue, brown and gray, even the color being hard to distinguish in the artificial light.
“Now, mademoiselle,” said Mrs. Cartwright, still speaking in the voice of a professor, “behold before you an opportunity to prove your skill in the remarkable science of ‘eyeology.’ I have a piece of paper and a pencil in my hand. As you gaze into each pair of eyes, you are to reveal that person’s identity. I will write the names down as you tell them to me. When you have gone through the whole list, the curtain shall be lifted. Then we shall discover how many of your friends you know by the character of their eyes. After Ruth has finished, anyone else who wishes may try his or her skill.”
“My dear Mrs. Cartwright,” said Ruth, laughing and peering in front of her, “I tell you, right now, that I shall not guess a single name correctly. To tell the truth, I never saw any of these eyes before. It’s horrid to have them all staring and blinking at me. I am frightened at them all! Besides, I can’t see. May I have a candle and hold it up in front of each person as I pass along?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Cartwright; “only kindly keep at a safe distance. We don’t want to burn up any of our ghosts.”
Ruth started down the line. She had the privilege of staring as long and as hard as she liked into each pair of eyes.
The company was strangely silent. They were really interested in the idea, and knew that any talking would spoil the whole experiment.
“I’ve mixed the babies up, Ruth,” said Mrs. Cartwright, “so you needn’t think you can guess anyone by his choice of a next-door neighbor. No social preferences have been allowed in this game.”
Ruth tried the first pair of eyes. She looked at them intently. Then she turned round to Mrs. Cartwright. “I am sure I never saw those eyes before. You have introduced some stranger since I left the porch.”
“There is not a person here whom you do not know well,” Mrs. Cartwright assured her. “Don’t try to slip out of your task.”
Ruth kept staring. The eyes in front of her drooped, and soft, curling lashes for an instant swept over them. A little wistful look lay in the depths of them, when the lids lifted. “Why, it’s Molliekins! How absurd of me not to know her! I was about to guess Ralph!”
Mistress Ruth must have guessed wrongly next time, for there was a burst of laughter, afterwards, that made the white sheets shake.
“Be quiet,” warned Mrs. Cartwright sternly.
So Ruth passed on down the line. There were about twenty people in the game, but Ruth knew all of them very well. Sometimes her guesses were right, sometimes they were wrong. Once or twice she had to confess herself beaten, and “gave up” with a shake of her head at Mrs. Cartwright.
Ruth had nearly finished her task. Only a few more pairs of eyes remained to be investigated.
“Well, I am nearly through,” she said gayly. “If anyone thinks I have had an easy time of it, he has only to take my place and try the next turn. No more mistakes now, for Ruth Stuart! Who is my next victim?” Ruth held her candle above her head and looked up.
Gleaming at her through the darkness lit by the flare from her candle-light was a pair of eyes that were strangely familiar.
Ruth stared at them. They belonged to none of the friends she knew – yet, somewhere, she had seen them before.
Ruth looked and looked. The eyes shifted and narrowed. Ruth still held her candle aloft; but she had forgotten where she was. Where had she seen those eyes before?
“Look straight ahead of you,” said Mrs. Cartwright to the gleaming eyes, “how can Ruth guess when your eyes are closed?” But again the eyes shifted.
“I am going to find out to whom those eyes belong, if I stay here all night,” said Ruth, speaking to herself.
The eyes glinted, narrowed and shone like two fine points of steel.
“Oh!” said Ruth. She staggered a little and the candle shook in her hand. “I thought I knew those eyes, but I don’t. I must be mistaken. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cartwright,” said Ruth, “but I am tired. I don’t think I can go on. Will some one take my place?”
Ruth’s expression was so peculiar that Mrs. Cartwright came up to her. “You foolish child!” she said, putting her hand on Ruth’s shoulder, “I believe this game is making you nervous. Who is it sitting there with the eyes that Ruth remembers, yet will not reveal to us?” she called.
“Harry Townsend, Harry Townsend!” the people sitting closest to him answered.
“Harry,” said Mrs. Cartwright, “you come and take Ruth’s place. Let’s see if you are a better ‘eyeologist’ than she is.”
Before Harry Townsend had slipped out from under his strange covering, Ruth turned to Mrs. Cartwright. “Excuse me for a minute,” she begged. “My labors as an optician have used me up. I will be back in a little while.”
Barbara crept from under the sheet, and, without speaking to anyone, ran after Ruth, who was on her way upstairs to Mrs. Cartwright’s boudoir.
“Ruth, dear, what on earth has happened to you? Are you sick?” asked Barbara.
“Oh, I am worse than sick, Bab!” muttered Ruth, with a shudder. “Don’t ask me to talk until we get upstairs.”
The girls closed the dressing-room door.
“I must be wrong, Bab, yet I don’t believe I am. I saw to-night the same eyes that glared at us from behind a black mask the time of that horrible burglary at New Haven, when, for a little while, I thought you were killed. I have never said much about it. I wanted to forget and I wanted everyone else to forget it, but those eyes have followed me everywhere since. To-night – ”
Bab took Ruth’s hand.
“Oh, Bab,” groaned Ruth, “what does it mean? I saw those eyes again to-night and they were Harry Townsend’s. I wanted to scream right out: ‘Burglar! robber!’ But I could not make a scene. I came upstairs, hardly knowing how I reached here.”
One of the maids knocked at the door. “Do the young ladies wish anything? Mrs. Cartwright sent me up to inquire,” she said.
“Nothing at all. Tell her we are all right, and will be down in a few minutes.”
“Ruth,” said Barbara, “I want to tell you something. If I do, can you pretend that nothing has happened, and be perfectly composed for the rest of the evening? Now don’t say ‘yes’ unless you feel sure.”
Ruth looked straight at Barbara, “Yes; tell me what it is,” she urged. “I am beginning to guess.”
“The eyes you saw to-night were Harry Townsend’s, and he is a burglar and a thief. I did not know he was the robber at New Haven; I have only suspected it. Now I feel sure, and you recognized him to-night. He is a more dangerous character than I had thought, and he must not know that you suspect him.”
“He shall know nothing from me,” said Ruth, coolly. Her color had come back, now that she knew the truth. “It was only the shock that unnerved me. Why haven’t you told me before, Bab?”
“I was afraid you’d ask me that, Ruth, dear, and I want to explain. You see, I have believed Harry Townsend a thief ever since I saw him, with my own eyes, take the necklace from Mrs. Post’s neck at Mrs. Erwin’s ball; but you were positive I was wrong, and asked me not to talk about it. So I didn’t know what to do. I have only watched and waited. To-night I told Ralph what I knew.”
Barbara then explained to Ruth the whole story, and the part the detectives had asked her to play in Townsend’s apprehension. “What shall I do, Ruth?” she ended.
“Come on downstairs, Bab,” said Ruth. “Some one may suspect us if we don’t. Do, Bab. We are going on to play the game, just as you have been playing it by yourself. We will say nothing, but we will do some hard thinking; and, when the time comes, we shall act! To tell you the truth, if you will never betray me to Aunt Sallie, I think playing detective beats nearly any fun I know.”
“Eyeology” was no longer amusing the guests when the two girls came downstairs; indeed, the company had scattered and was talking in separate groups. Ruth and Bab joined Mollie and Grace, who were standing near Mrs. Post and their new acquaintance, the Countess Bertouche.
“Girls,” asked Mrs. Post, “would you like to join the Countess Bertouche and myself Saturday afternoon? We are going to explore old Newport; the old town is well worth seeing. The countess tells me this is her first visit to Newport, so, before she goes back to Paris, I want her to see that we have a little of the dignity that age gives.
“Why,” and Mrs. Post turned smilingly to the little group, “Newport boasts even a haunted house! It is not occupied, and I have the privilege of showing you over it. A story has been written about the old mansion. Here a young woman lived who loved an officer in Rochambeau’s fleet, when the gallant French sailor came over to these shores. But the sailor loved and sailed away, never to return. So the lady pined and died; but her presence still haunts the old house. You can feel her approaching you by a sudden perfume of mignonette. After we see all the sights of the town, we shall go to the old house at about dusk, so that we may have a better chance to discover the ‘spirit lady.’”
Mollie and Grace accepted Mrs. Post’s invitation with enthusiasm. Barbara and Ruth had to decline regretfully.
“You see, Mrs. Post,” Barbara explained, “Ruth and Hugh have to practice their tennis, every hour they can manage, until the tournament on Monday. Ruth has become a little out of practice since her accident, and must work hard at her game for the next few days. Ralph and I have promised to help by furnishing the opposition.”
“You’ll excuse Mollie and me from playing audience, won’t you, Ruth?” asked Grace. “We are going home so soon after the tournament is over that we can’t resist Mrs. Post’s invitation.”
“Barbara,” said Ruth, coming into Bab’s room, just as that young woman was about to step into bed, “can you imagine anyone whom Harry Townsend can be using as a confederate?”
“Sh-sh!” warned Bab. “Here comes Mollie. Don’t say anything. I haven’t the faintest idea.”
CHAPTER XXI – THE CAPTURE OF THE BUTTERFLY
Harry Townsend was not aware of the chain of suspicion that was tightening around him; but he was too clever not to use every precaution. Once or twice he had come across the small, dark detective who was making investigations in Mrs. Erwin’s house – the large, blond man, named Burton, had kept in the background – but knowing that the servants had been under suspicion, he supposed that the search was being made on their account. He knew of no act of his own that could possibly implicate him in the robberies. He came and went among Mrs. Erwin’s guests, and was on a friendly footing with their most fashionable friends at Newport. He had seen no one else during his visit, as the whole world was privileged to know.
The only act that the detective, Rowley, was able to report to his superior was that Mr. Townsend mailed his own letters. In Mrs. Erwin’s household it was the custom of her guests to place all their mail in a bag, which the butler sent to the postoffice at regular hours; but Mr. Townsend preferred to mail his own letters. This act occasioned no comment. Other guests, writing important business letters, had done the same thing.
“And Townsend has mailed only letters,” continued Rowley in making his report. “Not a single package, even of the smallest size, has gone out through the postoffice. The jewels are still in Newport.”
Mr. Townsend had already begun to discuss with his hostess the possibility of his soon having to leave her charming home. “I have presumed on your hospitality too long,” he said to Mrs. Erwin, several times. “When the famous Casino ball is over I must be getting back to New York.”
To Gladys he explained: “My dear Gladys, my holiday time must end some day. I shall be able to see you often when you go back to Kingsbridge. I am going into a broker’s office as soon as I get back to New York. I have been loafing around in Europe for the last two years, but I have decided that, even if a fellow has money enough to make him fairly comfortable, work is the thing for the true American!”
To-day Harry Townsend walked to the post-office alone. He carried three letters. One of them was to a steamship company engaging passage to Naples for “John Brown.” The steamer was due to sail the following Wednesday. The other two letters had New York addresses. When they arrived at their first destination, they were to be remailed to other addresses. A tall, blond man, who happened to be lounging in the postoffice at the time Mr. Townsend entered it, observed that the young gentleman was anxious to know when the letters would be delivered in the city.
The letters posted, Townsend walked over to the Casino courts, where Bab and Ruth were playing tennis. He had promised Gladys to join her there. He still had some investigations he desired to make. But he walked slowly. Clever fingers must be directed by a clever brain, whether their work be good or evil. No matter how well he knew he could depend on his wonderful fingers to do their share of the work, the “boy Raffles” always thought out carefully the plan of his theft before he tried to execute it.
On Monday night, at the Casino tournament ball, he planned to make his final theft. This accomplished, he could leave Newport feeling he had reaped a rich harvest, even in the summer season, when harvests are not supposed to be gathered.
Harry Townsend, alias half a dozen other names, had seen the jewel he most coveted for his final effort. It was a diamond tiara belonging to one of the richest and most prominent women in Newport. His schemes were carefully laid. He was waiting for Monday night.
At about three o’clock, on this same Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Post and the Countess Bertouche stopped in a small automobile for Grace and Mollie. They had no one with them except the chauffeur.
It took them some time to drive through the old town of Newport. The ladies descended at the old Trinity church, to investigate it, and the girls were much interested in the ancient jail. There, they were told, was once kept a woman prisoner who complained because she had no lock on her door.
Mollie and Grace were not ardent sightseers. It was really the thought of the haunted house that had brought them on their pilgrimage. But Mrs. Post and the countess insisted on poking their way down the Long Wharf, with its rows of sailors’ houses and junk shops. Both girls were dreadfully bored, and secretly longed to be on the tennis courts with Bab and Ruth. Yet the thought of the haunted house buoyed them up.
Mrs. Post was a collector. If you have ever traveled with one, you will understand that it means hours and hours of looking through dirt and trash in order to run across one treasure that a collector regards as “an antique.”
Even when Mrs. Post was through with her search she decided that it was not yet sufficiently late for them to visit the haunted house. “I told the caretaker not to meet us there until a quarter of seven. We shall want only a few minutes to go through the old place; but, of course, we must see it under conditions as romantic as possible.” Mrs. Post then ordered the chauffeur to take them for a drive before driving them to the haunted house.
Mollie and Grace were unusually quiet, so they noticed that the Countess Bertouche had little to say during the afternoon. She seemed tired and nervous. When Mrs. Post asked her questions about her life abroad, after she married, the countess replied in as few words as possible.
At exactly the appointed time the automobile delivered its passengers before the door of the house they sought. It was an old, gray, Revolutionary mansion, three stories high, with a sloping roof and small windows with diamond-latticed panes. It was quite dark when the girls entered the ghostly mansion, following Mrs. Post and the countess, who were led by a one-eyed old caretaker carrying a smoky lamp. There was just enough daylight shining through the windows to see one’s way about, but the corners of the vast old house were full of terrifying shadows.
“Let us not stay too long, Mrs. Post,” urged the countess. “I am not fond of ghosts, and I am tired.” But Mrs. Post was the kind of sight-seer who goes on to the end, no matter who lags behind. She led the party up the winding steps, peering into each room as they went along. The house was kept furnished with a few rickety pieces of old furniture.
When they reached the second floor, the caretaker announced that the middle bedroom was the sleeping apartment of the haunted lady. The little party searched it curiously. There was no sign of the ghostly inhabitant; no perfume of mignonette.
“I don’t see anything unusual about this room,” said the countess, suppressing a sigh, “except that it has the most comfortable chair in the house. I shall sit here and rest while you take the two girls over the other part of the building.”
The three left her. The woman dropped into a chair, and a worn, nervous look crossed her face.
As Mollie ascended the attic stairs behind Grace she called out, “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Post, I shall go down and join the countess.”
An imp of mischief had entered Mollie. Wrapped up in her handkerchief, carefully concealed in her purse bag, was a handful of mignonette, which she had gathered from Mrs. Ewing’s garden only that morning. Mollie meant to impersonate the “spirit lady.” Suddenly she had decided that the countess was the best one upon whom she could try her joke.
Creeping down the stairs as quietly as a mouse, Mollie stole into the back room, adjoining the one where the countess sat. Had she looked in, she would hardly have played her naughty trick. The woman who sat there was a very different person from the gay society lady they had been meeting everywhere in the last few weeks. This woman looked weary and frightened. But Mollie was thinking only of mischief.
Silently she took the mignonette out of her bag and crushed it in her hand. There was a sudden fragrance all about her. Then she slipped her hand slyly through the open doorway and dropped her bunch of mignonette into the room where the countess was sitting. There was no response. The countess had not detected the odor of the flowers and Mollie was deeply disappointed.
Faintly, however, the countess began to be aware of the fragrance of a subtle perfume; but she was thinking too deeply of other things to be conscious of what it was. Besides, the growing darkness was making her nervous.
Mollie gave up in despair. Her effort with the mignonette had plainly proved a failure. The countess refused to be frightened by the suggestion of the ghost.
“Countess!” said Mollie, appearing suddenly in the open doorway. She certainly expected no result from this simple action; but the countess, who thought she was entirely alone, was dreadfully startled. She rose, with a short scream of surprise, and started forward. Her foot catching in a worn old rug, she stumbled. Mollie was by her side in a second, trying to help her to rise.
“I am so sorry to have frightened you!” the child said penitently. “Wait a minute, you have dropped something.” Mollie picked up a square chamois skin bag. In her excitement and embarrassment she caught hold of the wrong end of it. Out of it tumbled a purse, and – Mollie saw it as plainly as could be, though it was nearly dark in the room – Mrs. Cartwright’s diamond butterfly!
“Child!” said the countess, angrily. “See what your nonsense has done! This is the bag that I wear under my dress to carry my money and jewels. It is always securely fastened. I suppose, falling as I did, I must have broken the catch.” She picked up the things quickly and thrust them into her bag. It was so dark in the room she supposed Mollie had not seen them. Then, holding the bag tightly in her hand, she went on downstairs, Mollie after her, and joined Grace and Mrs. Post, who had preceded them to the automobile.
“Well, did anyone see the ghost?” asked Mrs. Post. “You, Mollie, my child, look as if you had seen something.”
“Oh, no,” denied Mollie; “but I am afraid I frightened the countess. I threw some mignonette in the room, trying to make her think I was the ghost, but she didn’t notice it. Then, when I spoke to her to tell her it was time to come downstairs, she was dreadfully startled.”
Mrs. Post ordered the chauffeur to drive home first, as she and the countess had a dinner engagement; the two girls being later taken to Mrs. Ewing’s.
The two women had barely left the car before Mollie put her lips near Grace’s ear and whispered: “Grace Carter, the Countess Bertouche has stolen Mrs. Cartwright’s butterfly! I saw it with my own eyes. She dropped it out of a bag on the floor, when she fell down.”
“Goose!” smiled Grace. “What are you talking about? Don’t you suppose a countess may have a jeweled butterfly of her own?”
“Not like that one,” retorted Mollie, firmly. “I would know it among a thousand. You needn’t believe me, but it’s as true as that my name is Mollie Thurston. I am going to tell Ruth and Bab, as soon as I get home. I know they will believe me.”
“I do believe you, only I am so dumfounded I can’t take it in,” said Grace.
“What on earth is the matter with you, Mollie?” asked Bab of her sister, as soon as they had finished dinner. “You look awfully excited.”
“Bab,” whispered Mollie, “call Ruth and Grace right away. Don’t let anyone else come. Let’s go down to the end of the garden. I have something I must tell you, this minute!”
Grace had already found Ruth, and the two came hurrying along. “No, Ralph,” ordered Grace, “you can’t come. This is strictly a girl’s party.”
“Bab,” began Mollie, “you will believe me, won’t you? I do know what I am talking about. This afternoon I saw the Countess Bertouche with Mrs. Cartwright’s diamond butterfly. She dropped it, right before my eyes, out of the same kind of bag that Miss Sallie uses to keep her jewelry in. What can it mean?”
“Ruth!” gasped Bab. “Bab!” uttered Ruth.
The two girls looked at each other in silence. Then Bab exclaimed: “It took my Mollie to make the discovery, after all!”
“What are you talking about, Barbara Thurston? What discovery have I made?” demanded Mollie.
“Ruth, do you think I had better tell the girls?” asked Bab.
Ruth nodded, and Barbara related the principal facts of the jewel robbery. She also told the girls that she and Ruth suspected that Harry Townsend had been the robber who frightened them at New Haven. “You remember,” Bab continued, “he was a guest at the hotel the same night we were, and left early the next morning. If he had one of the rooms under us, he could have climbed down the fire escape and into his own room before anyone could discover him.”
But Bab kept to herself that she and Ruth were expecting another burglary, and that she, Bab, was to play a part in bringing the thief to bay. Mollie and Grace would both be terribly frightened at the thought, but it was just as well that they knew enough not to be surprised at what was to follow.
Barbara went upstairs and wrote a note to the address in Newport that the detectives had given to her. It told the story just recited by Mollie.
“Ralph,” requested Barbara, sauntering slowly through the hall, “will you mail this at once with your own hands? Little Mollie has done the deed, after all. She has found the woman who receives Harry Townsend’s stolen goods!”
Ralph took the letter with an exclamation of surprise and hurried off to the post.
