The Mystery of the Secret Band

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.

CHAPTER V

Another Robbery

Mary Louise had three separate plans in view for the morning. First, she would visit as many pawnshops as possible in the vicinity and ask to see their displays of watches. Second, she meant to go to Strawbridge and Clothier’s department store and find out whether Margaret Detweiler had worked there, and why and when she had left. And third, she wanted to find some pretext to call on Miss Henrietta Stoddard in her own room and observe her closely.

As she walked out of the dining room she met Mrs. Hilliard going towards her little office on the first floor.

“Could I see you for a moment, Mrs. Hilliard?” she inquired.

“Certainly, my dear. Come into the office with me.”

Mary Louise followed her into the room, but she did not sit down. She knew how busy the hotel manager would be on Saturday morning.

“I have decided to visit some pawnshops, Mrs. Hilliard,” she said. “I have my own watch to identify, and I got a pretty good description of Mrs. Weinberger’s today. But I want you to tell me a little more about the other things that were stolen.”

“The silverware had an ivy-leaf pattern, and the initials ‘S. H.’ – for Stoddard House – engraved on it,” replied the woman. “The vase was an old Chinese one, of an odd size, with decorations in that peculiar red they so often use. I believe I can draw it better than I can describe it. But I feel sure you’d never find it in a pawnshop. Whoever stole that sold it to an antique dealer.”

However, she picked up her pencil and roughly sketched the vase for Mary Louise, giving her a good idea of its appearance. At the same time she described the painting which had been stolen from Miss Granger’s room – an original by the American artist Whistler.

Mary Louise wrote all these facts in her notebook and kept the drawing.

“That’s fine, Mrs. Hilliard,” she said as she opened the door. “I’m going out now, and I’ll be back for lunch.”

“Good-bye and good luck!”

Mary Louise went to her room, and from the telephone book beside her bed she listed the addresses of all the pawnshops in the neighborhood. This was going to be fun, she thought – at least, if she didn’t lose her nerve.

She hesitated for a few minutes outside of the first shop she came to. The iron bars guarding the window, the three balls in the doorway, seemed rather forbidding. For Mary Louise had never been inside a pawnshop.

“I can say I want to buy a watch,” she thought. “I do, too – I certainly need one. But I’m afraid I’d rather have a brand-new Ingersoll than a gold one that has belonged to somebody else. Still, I don’t have to tell the shopkeeper that.”

Boldly she opened the door and went in.

She had expected to find an old man with spectacles and a skullcap, the typical pawnbroker one sees in the moving pictures. But there was nothing different about this man behind the counter from any ordinary storekeeper.

“Good-morning, miss,” he said. “What can I do for you today?”

“I want to look at ladies’ watches,” replied Mary Louise steadily.

The man nodded and indicated a glass case on the opposite side of the shop. Mary Louise examined its contents intently.

“The fact is,” she said, “my own watch was stolen. I thought maybe it might have been pawned, and I’d look around in the shops first, before I buy one, in the hope of finding it.”

“Recently?”

“Yes. Last night.”

The man smiled.

“If it had been pawned last night or this morning, you wouldn’t find it offered for sale yet. We have to hold all valuables until the time on their tickets expires.”

“Oh, of course! How stupid of me… Well, could you tell me whether any ladies’ watches have been pawned here since midnight last night?”

“Yes, we’ve taken in two,” replied the man graciously. “And I don’t mind showing them to you. I’m not in league with any thieves. I’m an honest man.”

“I’m sure of it,” agreed Mary Louise instantly.

But she was disappointed upon sight of the watches. Neither of them was hers, nor did either remotely resemble Mrs. Weinberger’s or any of the other three stolen from Stoddard House.

“Thank you ever so much,” she said finally. “I think I’ll look around a little more and ask about my own, and if I can’t find it, I may come back and buy one of yours. Several of those you have are very pretty.”

Thoroughly satisfied with her interview, she walked down the street until she came to another shop. It was on the corner of an alley, and just as she approached the intersection she noticed a woman in an old-fashioned brown suit coming out of the side door of the pawnshop. The woman glanced about furtively, as if she did not care to be seen, and caught Mary Louise’s eyes. With a gasp of surprise, the girl recognized her immediately. It was Miss Henrietta Stoddard!

Before Mary Louise could even nod to her, the woman had slipped across the street and around the corner, lost amid the Saturday morning crowd that was thronging the busy street. Mary Louise repressed a smile and entered the pawnshop by the front door.

She repeated her former experience, with this difference, however: she did not find the shopkeeper nearly so cordial or so willing to co-operate. Finally she asked point-blank what the woman in the brown suit had just pawned.

“I can’t see that that’s any of your business, miss,” he replied disagreeably. “But I will tell you that it wasn’t a watch.”

Mary Louise wasn’t sure that she believed him. But there was nothing that she could do without enlisting the help of her father.

She visited four other shops without any success, and finally decided to abandon the plan. It was too hopeless, too hit-or-miss, to expect to find those watches by that kind of searching. Far better, she concluded, to concentrate on observing the actions of the people at Stoddard House. Especially Miss Henrietta Stoddard herself!

So she turned her steps to the big department store where she believed Margaret Detweiler had worked till last Christmas and inquired her way to the employment office. The store was brilliantly decorated for Christmas, and crowds of late shoppers filled the aisles and the elevators, so that it was not easy to reach her destination.

Nor was the employment manager’s office empty. Even at this late date, applicants were evidently hoping for jobs, and Mary Louise had to sit down and wait her turn. It was half an hour later that she found herself opposite the manager’s desk.

Mechanically a clerk handed her an application to fill out.

“I don’t want a position,” Mary Louise said immediately. “I want to see whether I can get any information about a girl named Margaret Detweiler who, I think, worked in your store up to last Christmas. Would it be too much trouble to look her up in your files? I know you’re busy – ”

“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the manager pleasantly, and she repeated the name to the clerk.

“You see,” explained Mary Louise, “Margaret Detweiler’s grandparents haven’t heard from her for a year, and they’re dreadfully worried. Margaret is all they have in the world.”

The clerk found the card immediately.

“Miss Detweiler did work here for six months last year,” she stated. “In the jewelry department. And then she was dismissed for stealing.”

“Stealing!” repeated Mary Louise, aghast at such news. “Why, I can’t believe it! Margaret was the most upright, honest girl at home; she came from the best people. How did it happen?”

“I remember her now,” announced the employment manager. “A pretty, dark-eyed girl who always dressed rather plainly. Yes, I was surprised too. But she had been ill, I believe, and perhaps she wasn’t quite herself. Maybe she had doctor’s bills and so on. It was too bad, for if she had come to me I could have helped her out with a loan.”

“Was she sent to prison?” asked Mary Louise in a hoarse whisper. Oh, the disgrace of the thing! It would kill old Mrs. Detweiler if she ever found it out.

“No, she wasn’t. We found the stolen article in Miss Detweiler’s shoe. At least, one of the things she took – a link bracelet. We didn’t recover the ring, but a wealthy woman, a customer who happened to be in the jewelry department at the time, evidently felt sorry for Miss Detweiler and offered to pay for the ring. We didn’t let her, but of course we had to dismiss the girl.”

“You haven’t any idea where Margaret went – or what she did?”

“Only that this woman – her name was Mrs. Ferguson, I remember, and she lived at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel – promised Miss Detweiler a job. So perhaps everything is all right now.”

“I hope so!” exclaimed Mary Louise fervently. And thanking the woman profusely she left the office and the store.

But she had her misgivings. If everything had turned out all right, why hadn’t Margaret written to her grandparents? Who was this Mrs. Ferguson, and why had she done this kindness for an unknown girl? Mary Louise meant to find out, if she could.

She inquired her way to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel and asked at the desk for Mrs. Ferguson. But she was informed that no such person lived there.

“Would you have last year’s register?” she asked timidly. She hated to put everybody to so much trouble.

The clerk smiled: nobody could resist Mary Louise.

“I’ll get it for you,” he said.

After a good deal of searching she found a Mrs. H. R. Ferguson registered at the hotel on the twenty-third of the previous December, with only the indefinite address of Chicago, Illinois, after her name. Margaret Detweiler did not appear in the book at all: evidently she had never stayed at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel.

With a sigh of disappointment, Mary Louise thanked the clerk and left. Nothing had been gained by that visit.

“It must be lunch time,” she decided, after glancing in vain at her wrist, where she was accustomed to wear her watch. “I guess I’ll go back to the house.”

The minute she entered the door of Stoddard House, the most terrible commotion greeted her. A woman’s shriek rang through the air; someone cried out, “Catch her – she’s fainted!” the elevator doors slammed, and people appeared from everywhere, in wild confusion.

Mary Louise dashed through the door to the desk just in time to see Mrs. Macgregor, the wealthy widow who lived in room 201, drop down on the bench beside the elevator. Women pressed all around her prostrate figure: guests, maids, Mrs. Hilliard, and the secretary, Miss Horton, who offered a glass of water to the unconscious woman. But nobody seemed to know what it was all about.

Presently Mrs. Macgregor opened her eyes and accepted a sip of the water. Then she glared accusingly at Mrs. Hilliard.

“I’ve been robbed!” she cried. “Five hundred dollars and a pair of diamond earrings!”

CHAPTER VI

Saturday Afternoon

“Do you feel any better now, Mrs. Macgregor?” inquired Mrs. Hilliard, as the stricken woman sat upright on the bench.

“Better!” she repeated angrily. “I’ll never feel better till I get my money back again.”

Mary Louise repressed a smile. Macgregor was a Scotch name.

“Now, tell us how it happened,” urged Mrs. Hilliard. “When did you first miss the money?”

“Just a few minutes ago, when I came out of my bath.” She became hysterical again. “Lock the doors!” she cried. “Search everybody! Call the police!”

Mary Louise caught Mrs. Hilliard’s eye.

“Shall I?” she asked.

Mrs. Hilliard nodded. “And tell the janitor to lock the doors and station himself at the front to let the guests in who come home, for the girls will be coming into lunch from work. Today’s a half holiday.”

By the time Mary Louise had returned, she found the crowd somewhat dispersed. The servants had gone back to their work, but several new arrivals had joined Mrs. Hilliard and Mrs. Macgregor. The two Walder girls, about whom Mary Louise had heard so much, were there, and Mrs. Hilliard introduced them. They were both very attractive, very much the same type as Mary Louise’s own friends in Riverside. Much more real, she thought, than Pauline Brooks, with her vivid make-up and her boastful talk.

“That is a great deal of money to keep in your room, Mrs. Macgregor,” Evelyn Walder said. “Especially after all the robberies we’ve been having at Stoddard House.”

“That’s just it! It was on account of these terrible goings-on that I took the money and the diamonds from a little safe I have and got them ready to put into the bank. Somebody was too quick for me. But I’m pretty sure I know who it was: Ida, the chambermaid!”

“Oh, no!” protested Mrs. Hilliard. “Ida has been with me two years, and I know she’s honest.”

“Send for her,” commanded Mrs. Macgregor.

While they were waiting for the girl to appear, Mrs. Macgregor explained more calmly just what had happened.

“I had the money and the diamonds in a bag on my bureau,” she said. “I was running the water in my bathroom when I heard a knock at the door. I unlocked it, and Ida came in with clean towels and a fresh bureau cover. While she was fixing the bureau cover, I hurried back to the bathroom, put the towels away, and turned off the water. My bath salts fell out of the closet when I opened the door to put the towels away, so I was delayed two or three minutes gathering them up. I heard Ida go out and close the door behind her, and I got into my bath. When I came back into the bedroom, my bag was gone.”

“But you didn’t scream immediately,” observed Mrs. Hilliard. “You must have waited to dress.”

“I had dressed in the bathroom, before I knew the bag was stolen.”

“Wasn’t anybody else in your room all morning, Mrs. Macgregor?” Mary Louise couldn’t help asking.

“Only Miss Stoddard. She had gone out to buy me some thread – she does my mending for me – and she stopped in on her return from the store and took some of my lingerie to her room.”

At this moment the chambermaid, a girl of about twenty-two, approached the group. Either she knew nothing about the robbery, or else she was a splendid actress, for she appeared entirely unconcerned.

“You wanted me, Mrs. Hilliard?” she inquired.

“Listen to the innocent baby!” mocked Mrs. Macgregor scornfully.

Ida looked puzzled, and Mrs. Hilliard briefly explained the situation. The girl denied the whole thing immediately.