Witch Winnie's Mystery, or The Old Oak Cabinet Part 18

"They came in at the end of the procession, without any guides, and sat down near the door, apart from the others. One is little enough to be a girl, but the other is taller, even, than Miss Adelaide."

"It is Snooks," Winnie exclaimed. "Just like her to come spying and speculating here to see what we are up to."

"If that's so, Miss Noakes has bigger feet than I ever gave her credit for," Polo replied; "and she wears boots too."

"Then those cadets have actually dared!" Winnie exclaimed, and Milly gave a little shriek. "Oh, that horrid Stacey Fitz Simmons!"

"Hus.h.!.+" commanded Winnie. "We will make them wish they had never been born. Oh, I will manage these gay young gentlemen. Go back to your post, Polo. Keep the door locked, and be sure that no one leaves except in the regular order and conducted by her guide."

A few moments later and the curtains were drawn at the close of the final act, tremendous applause testifying the approval of the audience.

Winnie now stepped to the front of the curtain and announced that the ghosts must now each submit once more to be blindfolded and "to be led through the grewsome and labyrinthine catacombs to the Feast of the Ghouls."

Little Breeze and Milly first led away two of the girls, and then Winnie stepped boldly up to the taller of the two suspected intruders and offered to blindfold him. The rogue could only follow the example of those who had preceded him, and submit with a good grace, as any other course would have led to detection. I followed with the shorter impostor, tying the handkerchief very tight, and detecting the odor of cigarettes as I did so. Winnie beckoned to me to follow, and conducted her victim to the root cellar, a dark, unwholesome little room, with a small orated window--a veritable dungeon. We led our prisoners into the centre of this gloomy cell, and, making them kneel on the cemented floor, bade them remain there until the coming of the ghouls. Hastening from the place, we chained and padlocked the door securely.

"Now that we have secured our prisoners, what do you propose to do with them?" I asked of Winnie.

"Call the Amen Corner together after supper to deliberate on their fate.

In the mean time they are very well off where they are. I fancy they will hardly care to repeat this experiment."

We returned to the laundry and continued the ceremony of leading our guests to the supper. When all had been led in, the bandages were removed from their eyes, and they found themselves before tables provided with plates, knives, and forks, but no edibles. Little Breeze, beating upon a tin pan with a great beef bone, called the meeting to order, and, indicating the preserve closet, announced that the ghouls would now search the neighboring tombs for their prey. At the same time the door of the preserve closet was thrown open, and Trude Middleton set the example by capturing a can of peaches. The girls fancied that they were robbing the pantry, and this gave zest to the performance to a few of the more reckless ones, but the rest held back, and Winnie found it necessary to circulate the whisper that even this apparently high-handed proceeding was authorized by Madame, before the raid became general. A very heterogeneous repast, consisting of pickles, crackers, dried apples, canned fruit, prunes, dried beef, and lemonade hastily mixed in a great earthen bowl, was now partic.i.p.ated in by the hilarious ghouls.

One bowl of the lemonade was ruined, after the lemons and sugar were mingled, by a ludicrous mistake. Milly, mistaking it for water, filled the bowl from a jar of liquid bluing. The error was discovered when we began filling some empty jelly tumblers with the strange blue mixture, and, fortunately, no one was poisoned by drinking the ghoulish liquor.

Under cover of the confusion I managed to tell Adelaide of the captives in the cellar, and later in the evening, while the ghosts were engaged in a Virginia Reel in the long underground pa.s.sage leading from the furnace room to the other end of the school building, met in solemn conclave to deliberate on their fate. Adelaide was for delivering the keys to Madame with a statement of the case. Cynthia argued strongly in favor of releasing the young men, sending them home, and saying nothing about it. While we were in the midst of the argument, a far away cry was heard. It was from Polo, who had been left to guard the door of the root cellar. We rushed to the spot, only to find that the rusty staple had yielded to the efforts of two athletic boys, one of whom was heavy of weight as well as strong of muscle, and had been forced out of the wall, and our captives had escaped. Polo had followed them in their flight, and returned breathless to report that they had made a dash, not for the outside door, but straight up the great staircase to the studio and had then descended the turret staircase, showing clearly that they had made their entrance in the same way.

We talked the matter over for a long time. How could they have known of this staircase, and have timed their coming so as to follow the procession of sheeted ghosts as they left the studio for their march to the lower regions? The suspicion instantly suggested itself that some one of the ten had furnished the information, and this suspicion deepened to certainty as we considered the excellence of their disguise, the sheets draped exactly as ours had been, the pillow-case Capuchin hood fitted about the mask cut from cotton cloth. How, too, could they have entered, since Polo declared that she had locked the turret door when she came in that afternoon, and had left the key on a nail in the studio?

"Show me the nail," Winnie commanded promptly, and Polo led her to the studio. The nail was there, but the key had gone. We descended the staircase and found the lower door locked.

As we were returning to the studio we heard the door open and Professor Waite mounted the stairs, as was his usual custom at this time.

"Heigho!" he exclaimed, "what are you all doing in the studio at this time of night? Oh! I forgot; this is the evening of the lark. Has it been a jovial bird? Why do you all look so solemn? By the way, Polo, I found your key in the lock on the outside of the door. It was very careless of you to leave it there; you must not let such a thing happen again. Some thief might have entered the house. I met two young men running with all their might as I came across the park. They made something of a detour to avoid me--I thought at the time that they had a suspicious look. If you are so thoughtless a second time I shall take the key from you."

"I didn't leave it there," Polo protested. "I hung it on the nail, Miss Cynthia saw me. Didn't you, Miss Cynthia?"

But Cynthia had gone, and as the quarter-bell struck we were all reminded that we must descend to our dancers to be present at the unmasking and close the frolic. We hurried unceremoniously away without replying to Professor Waite's questions.

After we had dismissed our guests, we adjourned to the Amen Corner and we again discussed the affair. It was agreed that it was sufficiently serious to report to Madame, and to this there was only one dissenting voice--that of Cynthia's. It was too late to disturb Madame that night, but we presented ourselves at her morning office hour and told her all the circ.u.mstances of the case.

She looked very grave, but did not blame us. "I am very sorry," she said, "that some one of my pupils has abused my leniency in this way. It will of course make me hesitate to grant you such frolics in the future.

The matter shall be thoroughly investigated and the offender severely punished. Again I must ask you to keep this affair strictly among yourselves. You have kept the secret of the robbery wonderfully; be equally discrete with this. We do not as yet know certainly that these young men were cadets, and I shall not make any complaint to the head master until we have ascertained the culprits. Mr. Mudge will call to-morrow. He writes me that he has found a clue to the robbery, and we will place this matter also in his hands. You have done right to bring it directly to me, and your action only confirms the confidence I have always reposed in the Amen Corner. Be a.s.sured that the truth will out at last. Meantime don't talk this over too much, even among yourselves, for Tennyson never wrote truer lines than these:

I never whispered a private affair Within the hearing of cat or mouse, No, not to myself in the closet alone, But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the house.

Everything came to be known."

CHAPTER XI.

A FALSE SCENT.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I think the visit of Mr. Mudge was much dreaded by all of us, even though we longed to have the mystery cleared up. I know that Winnie, at least, trembled for the result, and she turned quite pale the next morning when she received a message from Madame to meet Mr. Mudge in her office. It was only a few moments before she returned.

"Mr. Mudge wishes to see us all," she said. "Where are the other girls?

He's coming to this room in five minutes."

"Milly is in the studio, Adelaide in the music-room. Cynthia, I don't know where."

"Please summon Adelaide and Milly, I will wait for you here--I feel almost faint."

"What is the matter, Winnie?" I asked anxiously.

"Mr. Mudge says that he now knows to a certainty who the thief is, and that he will announce the name to us this morning. I am afraid, Tib, that he suspects Milly. He put me on oath this morning and made me confess something which I did not mean he should know."

"Never mind, Winnie," I replied, as rea.s.suringly as I could, "we both know that Milly is perfectly innocent, and, as Madame said, the truth will come out at last."

Winnie shaded her face with her hands but did not reply. I brought Adelaide and Milly to the Corner, and chancing to find Cynthia, summoned her also. Mr. Mudge was in the little study parlor when I returned. He greeted me cheerfully as he stood by the cabinet polis.h.i.+ng his gla.s.ses with a large silk handkerchief. Then he stepped across the room and examined the door leading into the studio.

"So," he said. "You have had a little bolt put on this door. It is an old proverb that people always lock the stable after the horse has been stolen. But it is just as well, just as well. I agree with you that the thief came from that quarter, and having been so successful he may come again."

"He!" Winnie gasped.

"Yes; much as it may pain you to learn the fact, I must inform you that all indications now make it a certainty that the thief can be no other than your Professor of Art, Carrington Waite."

Milly gave a little cry and fainted dead away. The others all sprang to her a.s.sistance, but as I was quite a distance from her I did not move, and I heard Mr. Mudge give a suppressed chuckle, and remark below his breath: "Ah! my little lady, I thought that would make you show your hand."

Milly speedily recovered; and with her first breath exclaimed, "Oh, no, no! You are mistaken; it cannot be so."

"Why not?" Mr. Mudge asked. "Was not Professor Waite in the studio at the time that the robbery was committed? Did I not find the lock of this door in his tool chest? Is it not a well-known fact that he is a poor man, and yet a few days after the robbery did he not deposit in the savings bank just one hundred dollars more than his quarter's salary?

What stronger proof do we require?"

"I can explain all these circ.u.mstances." Milly replied eagerly, and she told the story of the broken lock, which amused Mr. Mudge greatly.

"That disposes of one bit of circ.u.mstantial evidence," he admitted; "but the other items?"

"As to the money," Milly continued, with a slight flush, "papa bought one of Mr. Waite's small pictures, and sent him a check for a hundred dollars just at the time you speak of. I think if you inquire more particularly at the bank you will find that it was papa's check which he deposited; and I can testify that he was not in the studio at the time the robbery was committed. I was lying awake and I heard him come up the stairs. He was earlier than usual. It was some time before twelve. He hardly remained a moment, merely left his canvases and paint-box, and went right away."

"That is all very well under the supposition that the robbery was committed between the time that Miss Winnie looked into the cabinet and Miss Cynthia's discovery. But Miss Winnie has just admitted to me that the money was gone when she opened the cabinet, so the theft must have occurred before that time." Winnie threw a piteous glance at Milly, which Milly did not notice.

"But still, after Professor Waite went away," Milly insisted.

"Why are you so sure of this?" asked Mr. Mudge.

"Because, when I went to the cabinet fully five minutes after he had gone it was all there."

Mr. Mudge's gray eyes gave a snap which reminded me of the springing of a trap. "Indeed!" he said. "How many more of you young ladies investigated the cabinet during that eventful night? Will you kindly inform me, Miss Roseveldt, for what purpose you opened the cabinet, and why we are only informed of the fact in this inadvertent way."