The Mystery of the Secret Band

“I very much resent it,” she replied haughtily. “In fact I forbid it!”

“You can’t do that,” answered the detective coolly. “For even if you decide to leave the hotel, your things will be searched before you go. But please don’t be unreasonable, Mrs. Ferguson! Suppose that you, for instance, had been robbed of that beautiful diamond ring you are wearing. Wouldn’t you want us to do everything in our power to get it back for you?”

“I wouldn’t want guests – especially women and girls – subjected to such insults as you were offering me and my young friends and relatives! Besides, I thought you were already pretty sure of your thief.”

“We’re not sure of anything. Will you submit peacefully, Mrs. Ferguson, or must we call in the police?”

The woman looked sullen and did not answer; the detective stepped across the room and locked the door. Mrs. Ferguson turned her back and wandered indifferently towards the bare Christmas tree in the corner. It was standing upright in a box of green, but it had not been trimmed. A pile of boxes beside it indicated the ornaments with which it would probably soon be decorated.

Mr. Gay, always the keenest observer, sensed that fact that Mrs. Ferguson had some special interest in those boxes, and his first shrewd surmise was that valuables were somehow concealed within them. Therefore, he kept his eye glued on that corner of the room.

“I guess you’ll have to stop your games, girls,” said Mrs. Ferguson, “since these men mean to be objectionable. Of course, we’ll move to another hotel immediately, so you can all go and get your things packed… Pauline, you take care of these balls for the tree. Men like this wouldn’t care whether they were smashed or not! They have no Christmas spirit.”

“Some hotel!” muttered Pauline, with an oath under her breath. But she got up and went towards the Christmas tree.

“Wait a minute!” ordered Mr. Gay. “I’m looking into those boxes.”

Mrs. Ferguson laughed scornfully.

“They just came from the ‘Five and Ten,’” she said. “They haven’t even been unwrapped. And I warn you men, if you break them, you can replace them! It’s not easy to get through the crowds now, either.”

Detective Gay smiled. “I’ll take the responsibility,” he promised as he untied the string of the top package. As Mrs. Ferguson had stated, it contained nothing but bright new Christmas-tree balls.

But when he lifted the second box in the pile – a huge package as big as a hat box – he knew immediately that it was too heavy to contain Christmas-tree ornaments. Nevertheless, his countenance was expressionless as he untied the string.

A great quantity of tissue paper covered the top of the box; this Mr. Gay removed, and from beneath it he drew forth a shabby blue book.

“Is this the stamp album?” he asked the hotel detective.

The other man gasped and rushed to Mr. Gay’s side.

“Yes! Yes!” he cried. “That’s it! See if the stamps are still in it.”

With a quick movement Pauline Brooks took two steps forward and snatched the book from the detective’s hands.

“That’s my album!” she exclaimed. “If you don’t believe it, look at the name in the front.” Triumphantly she turned to the first page and displayed the inscription:

Pauline Brooks,

Christmas, 1931.

From Aunt Ethel.

Detective Gay laughed scornfully.

“You can’t fool us that easily, Miss Brooks,” he said. “Examine the ink in the handwriting for yourself! It’s fresh… You can’t pass that off for three years old.”

Pauline looked calmly into her accuser’s eyes.

“Maybe it is,” she retorted. “But I don’t have to write my name in my books the minute I get them, do I?”

“Hand it over!” commanded the hotel detective, while Mr. Gay continued his search of the Christmas boxes. At the bottom of the pile he found the gold-mesh handbag with two pearl rings inside it. But he did not discover any of the lost money.

“Call the police,” ordered the hotel detective, turning to his assistant. “Gay and I will make a thorough search of this room. And on your way downstairs get hold of Mr. Jones, in room 710. He can come up here and identify his stamp album.”

Mrs. Ferguson by this time had slipped into her bedroom, and one by one the girls were following her. Detective Gay, suddenly aware of the fact that the criminals meant to escape by another door, dashed out into the hall just in time to stop them.

“Must we use handcuffs?” he demanded, pushing Mrs. Ferguson back into her room and locking the door.

The woman did not reply, but she looked at him with an expression of hatred in her eyes.

Mr. Gay called into the next room to the hotel detective, who was still making a systematic search. “Can you get me a photographer?” he asked.

“O.K.,” was the reply, and the detective put the message through, using the room telephone.

“Now, what do you want a photographer for?” demanded Pauline impudently. “Because we’re such pretty girls?”

“I want to send your picture to my daughter,” replied Mr. Gay. “I understand that you and she used to be friends.”

“Who is your daughter?”

“Mary Louise Gay.”

“The little rat! If I’d ever realized – ”

“How smart she is,” supplied Mr. Gay proudly, “you’d have been more careful! Well, Miss Brooks, you’ve been pretty clever, but not quite clever enough. This is the end of your dangerous career.”

“I guess we can get out on bail!” she boasted.

“I guess you can’t! Not this time, young lady!”

The photographer and the police arrived at the same time; Mrs. Ferguson and her band of six had to submit to having their pictures taken and were allowed, under supervision, to pack a few necessary articles of clothing into their suitcases. Then, under the escort of four policemen and the assistant hotel detective, they rode downstairs to the waiting patrol car.

Mr. Gay and the hotel detective went on with their methodical search.

“Suppose we stop and eat,” suggested the latter. “We can lock up these rooms.”

“O.K.,” agreed Mr. Gay.

A knock sounded at the door.

“I’m Jones – the man who lost the album,” announced the visitor. “Did you fellows really get it?” His question held all the eagerness of the collector.

“This it?” queried the hotel detective, holding the worn blue book up to view.

“Oh, boy! Is it? I’ll say so! Let’s see it!” He grasped the book affectionately.

“We are still hoping to find your money, too,” added Mr. Gay. But the man was hardly listening; his stamps meant far more to him than his roll of bills.

“Whom do I thank for this?” he inquired finally, as he opened the door.

“My daughter,” returned Mr. Gay. “But she isn’t here, and I’ll have to tell you the story some other time.”

During their supper together, Mr. Gay told the hotel detective about Mary Louise and the discoveries she had made which led her to suspect Mrs. Ferguson and Pauline Brooks. He brought the list out of his pocket and crossed off the articles that had been recovered: the gold-mesh bag and the two pearl rings.

“Except for the money which was stolen here last night, we probably shan’t find anything else in the rooms,” he concluded. “Mrs. Ferguson has no doubt hidden or disposed of everything which her gang stole from Stoddard House.”

Nevertheless, the two men resumed their search after dinner. Deeply hidden in the artificial grass which filled the Christmas-tree box, they found four hundred dollars – the exact amount which had been taken from the Hotel Ritz in Philadelphia and the Hotel Phillips there in Baltimore. But two hours’ more searching revealed nothing else. At ten o’clock the two men decided to quit.

Mr. Gay went directly to his room and called Stoddard House on the telephone, asking to speak to Mary Louise.

To his surprise it was Mrs. Hilliard who answered him.

“Mary Louise did not come home for supper,” she said. “I concluded that she had gone to Baltimore with you, Mr. Gay.”

“No, she didn’t. Could she have gone to the movies with any of the girls, do you think?”

“Possibly. But she usually tells me where she is going. Of course she may have gone home with the Walder girls, and I know their folks haven’t a phone.”

Mr. Gay seemed reassured; after all, he decided, nothing could happen to his daughter now that the criminals were under lock and key.

“Well, tell her I’ll take the first train home tomorrow,” he concluded, “and that I have good news for her.”

“I will, Mr. Gay,” promised the hotel manager.

Disappointed but not worried, he replaced the receiver and went down to the desk to inquire for the picture of Mrs. Ferguson’s band of thieves. Several copies had been struck off, and they were surprisingly good. Mr. Gay chuckled when he thought how pleased Mary Louise would be to see all the criminals lined up together.

Taking the pictures with him, he went straight to the offices of Baltimore’s leading newspapers. In a short time he had given the editors the important facts of the capture of the dangerous band, giving the credit to Mary Louise. To one of these newspapers he gave his daughter’s picture – a snapshot which he always carried in his pocket.

“Wait till Riverside sees that!” he exulted. “Won’t our family be proud of our Mary Lou!”

Mr. Gay slept soundly that night, believing that everything was all right with Mary Louise. Had he but known the agony of spirit his daughter was experiencing he would have returned posthaste to Philadelphia.

Mrs. Hilliard, however, was more concerned and spent a restless night. She felt sure that something had happened to Mary Louise, for she was not the sort of girl to go off without mentioning her plans. Even if she had gone to the country with the Walder girls, she would have found a way to telephone. Mary Louise was never thoughtless or selfish.

In her worried condition, Mrs. Hilliard awakened twice during the night and went down and looked into the girl’s empty room. At six o’clock she could stand the anxiety no longer, and she called Mr. Gay on the long distance telephone.

He was in bed, asleep, but the first ring at his bedside awakened him. He listened to Mrs. Hilliard’s news with a sinking heart, remembering the dreadful thing which had happened to his daughter the previous summer, while she was investigating a mystery of crime.

“I’ll take the seven o’clock train to Philadelphia!” he cried, already snatching his clothing from the chair beside his bed.

In his haste and his deep concern for his daughter he forgot entirely that this was Christmas morning. When the waiter in the dining car greeted him with a respectful “Merry Christmas, sir,” Mr. Gay stared at him blankly. Then he remembered and made the correct reply.

One look at Mrs. Hilliard’s face as he entered Stoddard House told him that there was no news of his girl. Mary Louise had not returned.

“The only place I can think of,” said Mrs. Hilliard, “for I’ve already gotten in touch with the Walder girls, is that empty house out in Center Square, where she was hit on the head the night she went there with Max Miller.”

“I’ll drive right out there,” announced Mr. Gay immediately. “I guess I can make inquiries at the hotel… And in the meantime I’ll notify the Philadelphia police, but I’ll warn them not to give out the news on the radio till I get back… I don’t want to alarm Mary Lou’s mother until it is necessary.”

Ten minutes later he was in a taxicab, directing the driver to speed as fast as the law allowed to Center Square.

CHAPTER XV

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning!

Mary Louise laughed out loud when she wakened amid the bleakness of her surroundings in that empty house near Center Square. Oh, how different it was from every other Christmas of her experience! No lovely fragrance of evergreen, no warm fire, no cheery hot breakfast – no presents! But this last fact worried her least of all. At the moment she believed she would give up all the Christmas presents in the world for a plate of sausage and hot cakes.

She felt a little stiff from sleeping in her clothing, but underneath the blankets and her fur coat she had not suffered from the cold. And, oh, how good it was to see the sun! To be able to walk around in a light house – or a dimly lighted one, for even some of the second-story windows were boarded up.

She shuddered at the fear that no one might come that day to rescue her, that she might be subjected to another black night in this dismal place. But with daylight to aid her perhaps she could find a way out for herself, if no one came. She would try not to lose hope.

She got up and washed, thankful at least for the water in the house, and she took a long drink. Then she remembered that there was tea in the kitchen, and even though there was no way of heating the water, she could make cold tea and add sugar. Perhaps the sugar would supply a little energy.

With her fur coat buttoned up to her neck she cautiously descended the stairway in the hall. Downstairs it was so dark that she could not even see the outlines of the furniture until her eyes became accustomed to the dimness.

“There must be candles in the kitchen,” she surmised. “But I’m afraid it will be too dark to find them.”

She groped her way out to the kitchen, and fumbled around until she touched the dresser.

“I’d never be able to tell which is sugar and which is salt,” she thought. “Except that I can taste anything I happen to find.”

However, that proceeding might not prove to be so good, she decided, for she had no desire to taste kitchen cleanser or rat poison, for instance. No, it would be better to do without than to take any risks, just for the sake of a cup of cold tea!

As she cautiously ran her hand along the bottom shelf of the dresser, her fingers encountered something decidedly rough. For a moment she was puzzled, until she could identify the object. But in a moment she recognized it. Sandpaper, of course! Sandpaper on the outside of a box of matches.

Her pulse quickened as she picked up the box, and found that it was full. This was luck indeed! She struck a match at once, and began to hunt feverishly for candles. But she wasted three matches without finding a single one.

“I can have my cold tea, anyway,” she thought, and with the aid of a single match she located tea and sugar and a cup. The sink was right beside the dresser, and she ran cold water over the tea leaves.

“Merry Christmas, Mary Lou!” she finally said aloud, as she drank the cold tea through closed teeth, to avoid swallowing the leaves.

She felt chillier than ever after she had finished it, but not quite so weak and empty. Lighting another match she made her way into the living room.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were an open fireplace all piled up with wood!” she mused, as she entered the room.

There was a fireplace, she found, but it was totally empty. On a shelf over it, however, she came upon a discovery which she had overlooked the previous night. There, right in the middle of the mantelpiece, stood a Chinese vase of the very design which Mrs. Hilliard had described!

“Maybe if I look around I’ll find Miss Granger’s painting,” was her next hope.

She examined the picture over the fireplace – a cheap hunting scene – and was just about to turn away when she made another find which brought a whoop of joy to her lips. In plain view, at each end of the shelf, stood two tall, red candles!

When Mary Louise had lighted one of these she felt suddenly like a different girl. It was amazing what a change one steady little gleam of light could make. But she was frugal enough to burn only one of them; if she had to spend another night in this house she would not need to be in complete darkness.

There was an upright piano at the other side of the room; Mary Louise stepped over and sat down on the stool in front of it.

“I’ll play a Christmas carol, just to celebrate!” she decided, and struck the opening chords of “O come all ye faithful.”

She stopped abruptly. “What a terrible rattle!” she exclaimed. “These people must throw their tin cans into the piano when they finish with them!”

She stood up and examined the top with her candle. Lifting up the hinged half, she peered down into the space beneath. Instantly she perceived a gray flannel bag hanging on the end of one of the keys as if someone had deliberately hidden it there.

She snatched it off excitedly, delighted to find that it was heavy. No doubt it contained something metallic, which had been the cause of the jangling of the piano keys. With trembling fingers she pulled open the string and dumped the contents of the bag upon a chair.

Diamond rings, bracelets, earrings, watches, and gold necklaces dropped out before her astonished eyes. A fabulous treasure, such as one reads about in fairy tales or sometimes dreams of finding! Color came to Mary Louise’s cheeks, and her heart raced wildly as she examined the articles one by one to make sure that they were genuine.

Mrs. Weinberger’s old-fashioned timepiece ornamented with diamonds was there – and Mary Louise’s own dainty little wrist watch, engraved with her name in the back of it. Oh, what a joy it was to have it again! She clasped it affectionately about her wrist.

Leaving the jewelry on the chair, she peered into the piano again to see what else she could find. She was rewarded with another discovery. Down in a corner, in a remote spot, she saw a small package wrapped in brown paper. She encountered some difficulty in prying it loose, but at last she had it free. Stripped of its brown-paper wrapping, she found that she held a fat wad of bills in her hand!

“Mrs. Macgregor’s money!” she thought immediately. “And Miss Granger’s – and my own five dollars!”

How wonderful it all was! To be able to return the possessions to the rightful owners at Stoddard House! To have proof enough now to convict Mrs. Ferguson and her band of thieves! To collect her salary from Mrs. Hilliard and go home – in time for Max’s senior dance!

If – only – she could get out of this house!

A feverish sense of impatience took possession of Mary Louise. It was cruel, she stormed, that in her hour of triumph she should be imprisoned alone in a dark house. Wouldn’t somebody miss her and come to her rescue? Where was her father? Why hadn’t he driven out here to Center Square when he returned to Stoddard House last night – and had found her missing?

But suppose – awful thought – that he had not returned! Suppose he had missed finding Mrs. Ferguson and had been deceived by that letter of hers into pursuing the woman to Florida! Mrs. Hilliard would conclude that he had taken her – Mary Louise – with him, when neither returned!

A trip to Florida, Mary Louise figured, might consume almost a week. While she waited alone in this dark, cold house, each day itself an eternity of hunger and loneliness and suffering!

A hollow laugh escaped her lips as she glanced at the money and the valuables heaped on the chair beside her. They were as little use to her now as Midas’s gold. They would neither feed her nor keep her warm.

“There’s no use hoping for release by somebody else,” she told herself. “I’ll have to work out a way by myself. I’ll have to be a modern Count of Monte Cristo!”

She stood up and gathered her treasure together again into the bag and took the Chinese vase from the mantelpiece. Another tour of the room revealed the Whistler picture in a dark corner. With the aid of her half-burnt candle, she carried everything to the dining room and placed it all in a pile beside the silverware.

“I’ll hide the money inside my dress and the jewelry in my coat pocket. These other things I’ll drop into that wood-basket I saw in the kitchen.”

When she had finally completed her packing she sat down in the dining room to think.

“I believe I’ll try to get out the same way I got in,” she decided. “Because the glass is already broken in that window. All I’ll have to do will be to cut my way through the new boards which that caretaker – or whoever he was – hammered on last night.”

With this purpose in view, Mary Louise carried her candle into the kitchen. The drawer in the dresser revealed a poor selection of knives; it might take days to cut through a board with only these as tools. Nevertheless, she meant to try. Anything was better than idleness.

Selecting what appeared to be the sharpest in the collection, she returned to the window in the dining room. But she realized immediately that her scheme would not work. The boards were too close together; it would be impossible to insert a knife between them at any place.

“I guess I’ll have to smash that bedroom window and jump out,” she thought gloomily. “It would probably mean a broken neck, but that’s better than a slow, lingering death.”

She pulled the dresser drawer farther out, looking idly for some other implement to facilitate her escape. Suddenly her eyes lighted upon a hammer. Not a very large hammer, but adequate enough for the task. Why hadn’t she thought of that plan before? It would be lots easier to hammer those boards loose than to try to cut through them with a knife.

She picked it up out of the drawer and paused abruptly. There was a slight sound in the front of the house, like the click of a key in a lock. Extinguishing her candle, she waited breathlessly till she heard the front door open. Someone stepped cautiously into the hall!

Mary Louise’s heart stood still in her excitement. Who was the intruder? Was it the Margaret whom Mrs. Ferguson had mentioned in her letter, or was it the woman herself? Whoever it was, was he or she armed with a revolver?

Much as Mary Louise longed to find Margaret Detweiler, she dared not take a chance now of coming face to face with an unknown person in this dark house, since all the valuables were in her possession. Her only desire at the moment was for escape. Silently she moved towards the door of the kitchen which led directly into the hall.

She heard the newcomer go into the living room, and as Mary Louise crept past the doorway she saw the gleam of a flashlight. But the person, whoever it was, was hidden from her view, and Mary Louise did not wait to find out who it was. She reached the front door in safety and found the key still reposing in the lock.

A second later she removed the key and slipped out of the door into the clear, cold sunshine. She was free at last!

And with a chuckle of triumph she inserted the key on the outside of the door and turned it, imprisoning the intruder, just as she herself had been imprisoned for the last sixteen hours!

CHAPTER XVI

Two Captures

For one ecstatic moment Mary Louise stood motionless on the front porch, breathing the cold, delicious air of freedom. Then she ran around the side of the house to the rear to look for her car.

At first she thought it was gone, for she could not see it, huddled up close to the barn. But a few steps more revealed it to her view, and, weak as she was, she darted forward eagerly.

She decided that she would drive directly to the hotel and have some breakfast; afterwards she would inquire her way to the constable’s house. He could take charge of the valuables in her possession and go back with her to meet the intruder. For Mary Louise had no intention of returning to Philadelphia without first learning that person’s identity.

Besides, she had forgotten to bring out with her the basket containing the vase and the picture and the silverware. No use going back to Stoddard House without the entire loot!

She climbed into the car and put her foot on the starter – without any success. She pulled out the choke and tried again and again. Five minutes passed. She made one final effort, in vain. The car was frozen!

Despair seized her; she did not know what she could do. In her weakened condition, cold and hungry as she was, she did not believe herself physically capable of walking to the hotel. The distance must be at least a mile, although it had seemed so short by automobile.

She got out of the car and silently walked back to the front porch of the house, listening for sounds from the prisoner locked within its walls. But she heard nothing until she reached the driveway. Then a young man stepped from behind a tree and almost frightened her to death.

He was a tough-looking fellow of about nineteen or twenty, she judged, in slovenly corduroy trousers, a dirty lumber jacket, and cap. He eyed her suspiciously; Mary Louise forced herself to meet his gaze, although she was trembling so that she had to keep her hand on the jewelry in her pocket to prevent its rattling.