Two Little Women on a Holiday

"Who wouldn't? We're really having fairy-tale times, you know."

"I know it. I shall hate to go back to school."

"Well, I don't hate to go home. I have good enough times in Berwick; but I'd like to stay here one week more. I think I'll ask Uncle Jeff to let us, if he doesn't ask us himself."

"Wait till he finds his lost treasure. He'll be pretty blue if he doesn't get that back."

"Yes, indeed he will. Let's hope the Fenn man will spy it out. It must be in that room somewhere, you know."

"Of course it must. The secretary will find it. That's what secretaries are for."

And then silence and sleep descended on that room also.

Next morning, Mr. Forbes appeared at the breakfast table. This was the first time they had ever seen him in the morning and the girls greeted him cheerily.

"Very nice," he said, affably, "to come down and breakfast with a flock of fresh young rosebuds like you," and he seemed so good-natured, that Alicia decided he had taken his loss more easily than she had feared.

But toward the end of the meal, Mr. Forbes made known the reason of his early appearance.

"We can't find that earring," he said, suddenly. "Mr. Fenn and I have been looking since six o'clock this morning. Now I'm going to ask you girls to help me. Will you all come up to the museum and hunt? Your young eyes may discern it, where we older seekers have failed. At any rate, I'd like you to try."

The four expressed ready willingness, and they rose from the table and followed Uncle Jeff up the stairs to the rear room where the loss had occurred.

The sun shone in at the southern windows, and flooded the room with brightness. It seemed impossible to overlook the treasure, and surely it must be found at once.

A youngish man was there before them, and he was introduced as the secretary. Lewis Fenn was a grave looking, solemn-faced chap, who, it was evident took seriously the responsibility of his position as tabulator and in part, custodian of valuable treasures. He bowed to the girls, but said nothing beyond a word of greeting to each.

"You see," said Mr. Forbes, "I locked this room myself, after you girls last evening, and nobody could get in to take the earring. Consequently, it would seem that a close search MUST be efficacious. So, let us all set to, and see what we can do in the way of discovery."

"Let's divide the room in four," suggested Mr. Fenn, "and one of you young ladies take each quarter."

"Good idea!" commented Uncle Jeff, "and we'll do just that. Alicia, you take this west end, next the door; Bernice, the east end, opposite; Dotty, the north side, and Dolly, the south side. There, that fixes it. Now, to work, all of you. I've exhausted my powers of search, and so has Fenn."

The two men sat down in the middle of the room, while the girls eagerly began to search. They were told not to look in the cases, but merely on tables or any place around the room where the jewel might have fallen or been laid.

"Who had it last?" asked Mr. Fenn, as the girls searched here and there.

Nobody seemed to know, exactly, and then Alicia said, suddenly, "Why, don't you know, Dolly hooked it onto the front of her dress, and said it would make a lovely pendant."

"But I took it off," said Dolly, turning white.

"Where did you put it then?" asked Mr. Fenn, not unkindly, but curiously.

"Let me see," faltered Dolly, "I don't quite remember. I guess I laid it on this table."

"If so, it must be there now, my dear," said Mr. Forbes, suavely. "Look thoroughly."

Dolly did look thoroughly, and Dotty came over to help her, but the earring was not on the table.

Nor was it on other tables that were about the room; nor on any chair or shelf or settee or window-sill.

"Where CAN it be?" said Dotty, greatly alarmed, lest Dolly's having fastened it to her dress should have been the means of losing it.

"Are you sure you removed it from your frock, Miss Fayre?" asked Fenn, and at that moment Dolly took a dislike to the man. His voice was low and pleasant, but the inflection was meaning, and he seemed to imply that Dolly might have worn it from the room.

"Of course, I am," Dolly replied, in a scared, low voice, which trembled as she spoke.

"There's an idea," said Mr. Forbes. "Mightn't you have left it hooked into your lace, Dolly, and it's there still? Run and look, my dear."

"I'll go with you," said Dotty, but Fenn said, "No, Miss Rose, you'd better stay here."

Dotty was so astonished at his dictum that she stood still and stared at him. Dolly ran off to her room on the second floor and carefully examined the dress she had worn the day before.

"No," she said, on her return, "it isn't on my dress. I knew it couldn't be,—I should have seen it when I undressed. Besides, I know I took it off here, only a moment after I tried it on. I merely looked at it an instant, and then I unhooked it and laid it on this table."

"But at first, you weren't sure that you did place it on that table, Miss Fayre," came the insinuating voice of Fenn once more.

"Yes, I did, I'm sure of it now," and Dolly's white face was drawn with anxiety.

"Think again." counselled the secretary.

"Maybe you took it off, and absent-mindedly slipped it in your pocket."

CHAPTER XIII

SUSPICIONS

Dotty turned on Fenn like a little fury. "What do you mean?" she cried. "Are you accusing Dolly of stealing that thing?"

"There, there," said Mr. Forbes, placatingly, "Of course, Fenn didn't mean that. Not intentionally, that is. But without thinking, couldn't—"

"No, she couldn't!" stormed Dotty. "Dolly Fayre doesn't go around pocketing people's jewels unconsciously! She isn't a kleptomaniac, or whatever you call it! She did exactly as she says she did. She laid that earring on that table."

"Then why isn't it there now?" asked Fenn.

"Because somebody else moved it. Oh, don't ask me who. I don't KNOW who! And I don't CARE who! But Dolly put it there, and whoever took it away from there can find it! Perhaps YOU, can, Mr. Fenn!"

The secretary looked at the angry girl with an irritating smile.

"I wish I might, Miss Rose. But I've searched the room thoroughly, as you all have, too. It can't be HERE, you know."

"I'll tell you," said Alicia, eagerly, and then she described how in her home a photograph had slipped down behind the mantel and had been lost for years.

"Let us see," and Mr. Forbes went to the mantel in the room. But there was not the least mite of a crack between the shelf and the wall. Alicia's suggestion was useless.

"But," she said, "there might be that sort of a hiding-place somewhere else. Let's look all over."

The girls tried hard to find some crack or crevice in any piece of furniture, into which the trinket might have slipped, but there was none. They felt down between backs and seats of chairs, looked behind cases of treasures, moved every book and paper that lay on the tables, even turned up the edges of rugs, and peeped under.

"It doesn't make any difference how much we look," Dotty declared, "we've just got to look more,—that's all. Why, that earring is in this room, and that's all there is about that! Now, it's up to us to find it. You know, after you search all the possible places, you have to search the impossible ones."

"I admire your perseverance," said Mr. Forbes, "but I can't hope it will be rewarded. It isn't as if we were hunting for a thing that somebody had purposely concealed, that would mean an exhaustive search. But we're looking for something merely mislaid or tossed aside, and if we find it, it will be in some exposed place, not cleverly hidden."

"Oh, I don't know, Uncle Jeff," said Bernice, "you know when Alicia's photograph slipped behind the mantel, that was deeply hidden, although not purposely."

"Yes, that's so," and Uncle Jeff looked questioningly from one girl to another.

It was impossible to ignore the fact that he deemed one of them responsible for the disappearance of the jewel, and until the matter was cleared up, all felt under suspicion. Fenn, too, was studying the four young faces, as if to detect signs of guilt in one of them.

At last he said, "Let us get at this systematically. Who took the earring first, when Mr. Forbes handed it out from the case?"

"I did," said Dotty, promptly. "I stood nearest to Mr. Forbes and he handed it to me. After I looked at it, I passed it to Alicia."

"No, you didn't," contradicted Alicia. "I didn't touch it."

"Why, yes, 'Licia," Dotty persisted, "you took it and said—"

"I tell you I didn't! I never handled the things at all! It was Bernice."

"I did have it in my hands," said Bernice, reflectively, "but I can't remember whether I took it from Dot or Alicia."

"I didn't touch it, I tell you!" and Alicia frowned angrily.

"Oh, yes, you did," said Dolly, "it was you, Alicia, who passed it on to me. And I took it—"

"You didn't take it from me, Dolly," and Alicia grew red with passion. "I vow I never touched it! You took it from Bernice."

"No," said Dolly, trying to think. "I took it from you, and I held it up and asked you how it looked."

"No, Doll, you asked me that," said Bernice, "and I said it was very becoming."

"You girls seem decidedly mixed as to what you did," said Mr. Fenn, with a slight laugh. "I think you're not trying to remember very clearly."

"Hold on, Fenn," said Mr. Forbes, reprovingly. "It's in the girls' favour that they don't remember clearly. If they tossed the thing aside carelessly, they naturally wouldn't remember."

"But, Mr. Forbes," and the secretary spoke earnestly, "would these young ladies toss a valuable gem away carelessly? They are not ignorant children. They all knew that the earring is a choice possession. I'm sure not one of them would toss it aside, unheeding where it might fall!"

This was perfectly true. None of the four girls could have been so heedless as that! They had carefully handled every gem or curio shown them, and then returned it to Mr. Forbes as a matter of course.

Fenn's speech was rather a facer. All had to admit its truth, and the four girls looked from one to another and then at Mr. Forbes. He was studying them intently.

Bernice and Dolly were crying. Alicia and Dotty were dry-eyed and angry-faced. If one of the four had a secret sense of guilt, it was difficult to guess which one it might be, for all were in a state of excitement and were well-nigh hysterical.

"Much as I regret it," Mr. Forbes began, "I am forced to the conclusion that one or more of you girls knows something of the present whereabouts of my lost jewel. I do not say I suspect any of you of wilful wrong-doing, it might be you had accidentally carried it off, and now feel embarrassed about returning it. I can't—I won't believe, that any of you deliberately took it with intent to keep it."

"We thank you for that, Mr. Forbes," and Dotty's tone and the expression of her face denoted deepest sarcasm. "It is a comfort to know that you do not call us thieves! But, for my part, I think it is about as bad to accuse us of concealing knowledge of the matter. I think you'd better search our trunks and suitcases! And then, if you please, I should like to go home—"

"No doubt you would, Miss Rose!" broke in Fenn's cold voice. "A search of your belongings would be useless. If one of you is concealing the jewel, it would not be found in any available place of search. You would have put it some place in the house, not easy of discovery. That would not be difficult."

"Be quiet, Fenn," said Mr. Forbes. "Girls, I'm not prepared to say I think one of you has hidden the jewel, but I do think that some of you must know something about it. How can I think otherwise? Now, tell me if it is so. I will not scold,—I will not even blame you, if you have been tempted, or if having accidentally carried it off, you are ashamed to own up. I'm not a harsh man. I only want the truth. You can't be surprised at my conviction that you DO know something of it. Why, here's the case in a nutshell. I handed that earring to you, and I never received it back. What can I think but that you have it yet? It is valuable, to be sure, but the money worth of it is as nothing to the awfulness of the feeling that we have an untrustworthy person among us. Can it be either of my two nieces who has done this wrong? Can it be either of their two young friends? I don't want to think so, but what alternative have I? And I MUST know! For reasons which I do not care to tell you, it is imperative that I shall discover who is at fault. I could let the whole matter drop, but there is a very strong cause why I should not do so. I beg of you, my dear nieces,—my dear young friends,—I beseech you, tell me the truth, won't you?"

Mr. Forbes spoke persuasively, and kindly.

Alicia burst into a storm of tears and sobbed wildly. Bernice, her face hidden in her handkerchief, was crying too.

Dotty sat stiffly erect in her chair, her little hands clenched, her big, black eyes staring at Mr. Forbes in a very concentration of wrath.

Dolly was limp and exhausted from weeping.

With quivering lips and in a shaking voice, she said:

"Maybe one of us is a kleptomaniac, then, after all."

"Ah, a confession!" said Mr. Fenn, with his cynical little smile. "Go on, Miss Fayre. Which one has the accumulating tendency?"

"You do make me so mad!" exclaimed Dotty, glaring at him. "Uncle Forbes, can't we talk with you alone?"

"Oh, no, little miss," said Fenn, "Mr. Forbes is far too easy-going to look after this affair by himself! He'd swallow all the stories you girls would tell him! I'll remain, if you please. Unless you have something to conceal, you can't object to my presence at this interesting confab."

Dolly came to Dotty's aid. She looked at the secretary with a glance of supreme contempt.

"It is of no consequence, Mr. Fenn," she said, haughtily, "whether you are present or not. Uncle Forbes, I agree with Dotty. You said yourself, you have an acquaintance who can't help taking treasures that are not his own. It may be that one of us has done this. But, even so, the jewel must be in the house. None of us has been out of the house since we were in this room yesterday afternoon. So, if it is in the house, it must be found."

"Ha! You HAVE hidden it securely, to be willing to have a thorough search of the house made!" and Fenn looked unpleasantly at her. "Own up, Miss Fayre; it will save a lot of trouble for the rest of us."

Dolly tried to look at the man with scorn, but her nerves gave way, and again she broke down and cried softly, but with great, convulsive sobs.

Dotty was furious but she said nothing to Fenn for she knew she would only get the worst of it.

"Come now, Dolly," said Mr. Forbes, in a gentle way, "stop crying, my dear, and let's talk this over. Where did you lay the earring when you took it from your dress?"

"On—on—the t-table," stammered Dolly, trying to stop crying. But, as every one knows, it is not an easy thing to stem a flood of tears, and Dolly couldn't speak clearly.

"Yes; what table?"

"This one," and Dotty spoke for her, and indicated the table by the south window.

"Where,—on the table?" persisted Uncle Jeff.

Dolly got up and walked over to the light stand in question.

"About here, I think," and she indicated a spot on the surface of the dull finished wood.

"Why didn't you hand it back to me?" queried Mr. Forbes, in a kind tone.

"I d-don't know, sir," Dolly sobbed again. "I'm sure I don't know why I didn't."

"I know," put in Dotty. "Because just then, Mr. Forbes showed us a bracelet that had belonged to Cleopatra, and we all crowded round to look at that, and Doll laid down the earring to take up the bracelet. We didn't suppose we were going to be accused of stealing!"

"Tut, tut," said Mr. Forbes. "Nobody has used that word! I don't accuse you of anything,—except carelessness."

"But when it comes to valuable antiques," interrupted Fenn, "it is what is called criminal carelessness."

"It WAS careless of Dolly to lay the earring down," said Mr. Forbes, "but that is not the real point. After she laid it down, just where she showed us, on that small table, somebody must have picked it up. Her carelessness in laying it there might have resulted in its being brushed off on the floor, but not in its utter disappearance."

"Maybe it fell out of the window," suggested Bernice, suddenly, "that window was open then, you know."

Mr. Forbes waited over to the table. "No," he said, "this stand is fully a foot from the window sill. It couldn't have been unknowingly brushed as far as that."

"Of course, it couldn't," said Fenn, impatiently. "You're making no progress at all, Mr. Forbes."

"Propose some plan, yourself, then," said Dotty, shortly; "you're so smart, suppose you point your finger to the thief!"

"I hope to do so, Miss Rose," and Fenn smirked in a most aggravating way. "But I hesitate to accuse anyone before I am quite sure."

"A wise hesitation!" retorted Dotty. "Stick to that, Mr. Fenn!"

She turned her back on him, and putting her arm round Dolly, sat in silent sympathy.

Suddenly Bernice spoke. She was not crying now, on the contrary, she was composed and quiet.

"Uncle Jeff," she said, "this is a horrid thing that has happened. I feel awfully sorry about it all, but especially because it is making so much trouble for Dolly and Dotty, the two friends that I brought here. Alicia and I belong here, in a way, but the others are our guests, as well as your guests. It is up to us, to free them from all suspicion in this thing and that can only be done by finding the earring. I don't believe for one minute that any one of us four girls had a hand, knowingly, in its disappearance, but if one of us did, she must be shown up. I believe in fairness all round, and while I'm sure the jewel slipped into some place, or under or behind something, yet if it DIDN'T,—if somebody did,—well,—steal it! we must find out who. I wouldn't be willing, even if you were, Uncle, to let the matter drop. I want to know the solution of the mystery, and I'm going to find it!"

"Bravo! Bernie, girl," cried her uncle, "that's the talk! As I told you I must know the truth of this thing,—never mind why, I MUST find it out. But how?"

"First," said Bernice, speaking very decidedly, but not looking toward the other girls, "I think all our things ought to be searched."

"Oh, pshaw, Bernie," said Alicia, "that would be silly! You know if any of us wanted to hide that earring we wouldn't put it in among our clothes."

"Why not?" demanded Bernice. "I can't imagine any of us having it, but if we have, it's by accident. Why, it might have caught in any of our dresses or sashes, and be tucked away there yet."

"That's so," and Dotty looked hopeful. "It could be, that as one of us passed by the table, it got caught in our clothing. Anyway, we'll all look."

"But don't look in your own boxes," objected Fenn. "Every girl must search another's belongings."

"I wonder you'd trust us to do THAT!" snapped Dotty, and Fenn immediately replied:

"You're right! It wouldn't be safe! I propose that Mrs. Berry search all your rooms."

"Look here, Fenn, you are unduly suspicious," Mr. Forbes remonstrated, mildly.

"But, sir, do you want to get back your gem, or not? You asked for my advice and help in this matter, now I must beg to be allowed to carry out my plans of procedure."

It was plain to be seen that Mr. Forbes was under the thumb of his secretary. And this was true. Lewis Fenn had held his position for a long time, and his services were invaluable to Jefferson Forbes. It was necessary that the collector should have a reliable, responsible and capable man to attend to the duties he required of a secretary, and these attributes Fenn fully possessed. But he was of a small, suspicious nature, and having decided on what course to pursue regarding the lost curio, he was not to be swerved from his path.

"Well, well, we will see," Mr. Forbes said, an anxious look wrinkling his forehead as he looked at the girls. "Run away now, it's nearly luncheon time. Don't worry over the thing. Each one of you knows her own heart. If you are innocent, you've no call to worry. If you are implicated, even in a small degree in the loss of my property, come to me and tell me so. See me alone, if you like. I will hear your confession, and if it seems wise, I will keep it confidential. I can't promise this, for as I hinted, I have a very strong reason for probing this affair to the very core. It is a mystery that MUST be cleared up!"

CHAPTER XIV

AT THE TEA ROOM

The girls went to their rooms to tidy up for luncheon, though there was some time before the meal would be announced.

By common consent the door was closed between the rooms, and on one side of it the two D's faced each other.

"Did you ever see such a perfectly horrid, hateful, contemptible old thing as that Fenn person?" exclaimed Dotty, her voice fairly shaken with wrath. "I can't see how Mr. Forbes can bear to have him around! He ought to be excommunicated, or whatever they do to terrible people!"

"He IS awful, Dotty, I don't wonder you gave it to him! But you mustn't do it. He's Mr. Forbes' right hand man, and whatever Uncle Jeff tells him to do, he'll do it. The idea of searching our trunks! I won't allow them to touch mine, I can tell you that!"

"Oh, Dolly, now don't be stubborn. Why, for you to refuse to let them look over your things would be the same as saying you had the thing hidden."

"Dorothy Rose! What a thing to say to me!"

"I'm not saying it to you! I mean, I am saying it to you, just to show you what other people would say! You know it, Dolly. You know Fenn would say you had the earring."

"But, Dotty, it must be somewhere."

"Of course, it must be somewhere,—look here, Dollyrinda, you don't know anything about it, do you? Honest Injun?"

"How you talk, Dot. How should I know anything about it?"

"But do you?"

"Don't be silly."

"But, DO you?"

"Dotty, I'll get mad at you, if you just sit there saying, 'But do you?' like a talking machine! Are you going to change your dress for luncheon?"

"No, I'm not. These frocks are good enough. But, Dolly, DO you? do you know anything, ANYTHING at all, about the earring?"

Dolly was sitting on the edge of her little white bed. At Dotty's reiteration of her query, Dolly threw her head down on the pillow and hid her face.

"Do you?" repeated Dotty, her voice now tinged with fear.

Dolly sat upright and looked at her. "Don't ask me, Dotty," she said, "I can't tell you."

"Can't tell me," cried Dotty, in bewilderment, "then who on earth COULD you tell, I'd like to know!"

"I could tell mother! Oh, Dotty, I want to go home!"

"Well, you can't go home, not till day after to-morrow, anyway. What's the matter with you, Dolly, why can't you tell me what you know? How can I find the thing, and clear you from suspicion if you have secrets from me?"

"You can't, Dotty. Don't try."

Dolly spoke in a tense, strained way, as if trying to preserve her calm. She sat down at their little dressing-table and began to brush her hair.

A tap came at the door, and in a moment, Bernice came in.

"Let me come in and talk to you girls," she begged. "Alicia is in a temper, and won't say anything except to snap out something quarrelsome. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, Bernie," and Dotty looked as if at her wits' end. "It's bad enough to put up with that old Fenn's hateful talk, but now Dolly's gone queer, and you say Alicia has,—what ARE we to do?"

"Let's talk it all over with Mrs. Berry at lunch, she's real sensible and she's very kind-hearted."

"Yes, she is. And there's the gong now. Come on, let's go down. Come on, Dollikins, brace up, and look pretty! Heigho! come on, Alicia!"

Alicia appeared, looking sullen rather than sad, and the quartette went downstairs.

Mrs. Berry listened with interest to their story. Interest that quickly turned to deep concern as the story went on.

"I don't like it," she said, as the girls paused to hear her comments. "No carelessness or thoughtlessness could make that valuable earring disappear off the face of the earth! I mean, it couldn't get LOST, it must have been taken."

"By us?" flared out Alicia.

"Maybe not meaningly, maybe for a joke, maybe unconsciously; but it was carried out of that room by some one, of that I'm certain."