Molly Brown's College Friends Part 25

"Oh, peerless woman!" he said sarcastically.

Madame Misel said nothing but busied herself over the luncheon. Suddenly she gave a little cry, half distress, half indignation. Misel hastened to her.

"What is it?"

"Look! This back window is not quite closed! Did you open it?"

"No! I have not been here in the kitchen."

"Then someone has been in the house," she announced in a dead tone.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course! I left the windows locked, stupid! Look about and see if all is in order."

The detectives had worked as neatly as detectives can work, but the Misels found several traces of them. In one room a chair had been moved; in another a drawer had not been shut as close as Madame was confident she had left it; papers had been turned over in the desk, Misel was sure, although none were missing.

"Someone has been in the laboratory, too! Look at this crucible! I always place them so,--and this has been turned."

The pair faced each other with despair on their countenances.

"What now?" they gasped.

"We must make a flitting this very night!" exclaimed the woman. "Thank goodness, n.o.body dreams that you are not crippled nor that I am anything but the homely hausfrau I appear. The dressings will be off this very afternoon, too, so my work is completed in that line, at least. If you could boast as much, no doubt you would not mind leaving. I told you to begin the teaching at Exmoor sooner."

"The youths were not ripe for it. I have begun in a way, but not much has been accomplished. Perhaps the person who has been here is just some prying neighbor and we are not really being watched. Go out and see if you can discover anything!"

When Madame Misel peeped through the windows of the old church she saw enough to make her turn pale. Andy McLean was there with two strange men and Professor and Mrs. Green. Molly was weeping bitter tears as she untied the carefully packed surgical dressings. Madame saw at a glance that it was her work that was being examined by the men. She did not stop to make sure what they found on her beautifully made dressings, but turned and fled towards the cottage that she called home.

"Why is she weeping?" she asked herself, and there was woman enough in her to know that Molly wept because one of her own s.e.x had proved faithless.

Blinds were pulled down in the cottage with the lovely old garden, and the activities that ensued could only be equaled by a circus breaking up to leave town. Madame Misel moved with a quiet precision that showed she was an adept at making a quick get-away. Misel worked with a fury of impatience. He went through his desk, scattering papers. .h.i.ther and yon and burning everything of no value. Other doc.u.ments he stowed carefully away in his breast pocket. The laboratory was dismantled and small, mysterious-looking vials packed in boxes and placed in the huge suit-case that seemed to hold most of their belongings.

A letter was written to the landlord informing him that his tenants had been called out of Wellington by the illness of a fict.i.tious sister. A month's rent was enclosed. Another letter was written to the postmaster asking that mail be forwarded to an entirely imaginary address. The work proceeded rapidly. The cottage was always in apple-pie order, as Madame Misel was certainly an excellent housekeeper.

"You must write to the president of the college," commanded Madame.

"Naturally! Must I use the same sister?"

"Of course! Why two lies when one will suffice?"

A letter to Miss Walker was dispatched forthwith.

"And now for our disguises,--or rather the time has come to discard our disguises!" cried Madame almost joyfully. "I hate to appear as such a frump!"

Misel's disguise was composed princ.i.p.ally of cane and crutch, but at his wife's instigation he shaved his mustache. With the help of a checked suit and red necktie and a brown derby hat a trifle too small for him, the pathetic and interesting teacher of the French language was transformed into the type of man one sees hanging around a race track.

With a clever brush Madame put a quirk in his eyebrows that completed the portrait. Then a bit of court plaster was stuck on one of the perfect teeth which gave the handsome Misel a sinister look and suggested to the beholder former battles and fisticuffs in which he had been struck in the mouth.

"Even your dying sister will not recognize you!" exclaimed his wife.

Madame's transformation was even more startling than her husband's.

First she shook out her smoothly brushed hair and with the help of curling tongs soon had a wave that the finest hair dresser in New York could not have exceeded. She piled her abundant hair up in curls and twists and coils, pulling out puffs over her ears. Then with pencil and rouge pot and powder puff she went to work on her countenance. A raging beauty was the outcome, but rather fast and loud looking. A lavender suit lined and slashed with corn-colored silk was then donned, with many rings and bracelets. The flat-heeled shoes were packed away in the suit-case with the sober costume, and high-heeled French boots were fitted on in their stead. A plentiful sprinkling of musk was added so that the nostrils were a.s.sailed as soon as the eyes.

"Tough sports!" would have been the verdict of anyone meeting the Misels. They had decided on the night train to New York. The cottage was carefully locked, the key enclosed in the letter to the landlord, which they posted on their way to the station. Everything was going smoothly.

The station was empty when the pair stepped upon the platform and in a moment the New York train came steaming around the curve.

"Thank G.o.d, we are getting away unnoticed!" gasped Misel.

"Thank G.o.d if you choose, but it would be more to the point if you thanked me. I can't see that anyone has helped you but me."

"Oh, well! Have it your own way!" said the spurious bookmaker as they boarded the train.

"Someone got left," he laughed as they took their seats in the chair car. "I saw a man and woman running down the road just as we got aboard.

I am glad they got left. Whoever it is might have recognized us."

"Nonsense! Didn't I tell you your own dying sister would not know you?"

and Madame Misel smoothed her lavender draperies and jangled her many bracelets and rings, peeping in the mirror meantime to adjust her large beplumed hat. There was a commotion in the end of the Pullman and she heard a familiar voice. In the mirror she espied a familiar face, and under the heavily laid on rouge, the woman paled and the hand that adjusted her hat shook. Misel buried his face in the evening paper some traveler had left in his seat, while the innocent cause of their perturbation found a seat with the help of the porter.

CHAPTER XXI

HER FATHER'S OWN DAUGHTER

"I don't see why you take it so hard, Molly darling," said Judy as Molly told her of the detectives' findings and of the perfidy they had unearthed.

"Why, I fancy I am grieving that such wickedness can be in this world,"

sighed Molly. "I liked Madame Misel so much."

"Well, I never did like her," declared Judy.

Molly smiled, well remembering Judy's enthusiasm on arriving at Wellington and telling of the interesting couple she had met on the train.

"I know what you are thinking about--of course I said they were interesting, but I never did like the woman much--she was too catty for me."

This conversation was interrupted by the loud ringing of the telephone bell, which proved to be a long distance call for Judy from Mr. Kean in New York. His marching orders had come and he was to sail for France in a few days, and for the first time on record he could not take his little wife with him. Building roads and bridges in war time was very different from times of peace, and France at that time was no place for delicate little ladies.

"You had better come right up to New York on the next train," was his ringing command. "Your mother needs you and I must see you, too."

"All right, Bobby! Meet me at the Pennsylvania Station. I'll take the 12.45--I am not going to let Kent come. He must be with his mother one more day,--his mother and Molly. So long! Be sure and meet me!"

Then such a scrambling ensued! Kent must be persuaded he was neither wanted nor needed, a few things hurled into a bag, her sketch book tucked in her jacket pocket, and Judy was off like a whirlwind. She and Kent ran all the way to the station only to see the train pulling out as they stepped upon the platform.

"I can get it! Keep the old bag!" cried that young woman as she sprinted down the track, her young husband running lightly by her side, laughing in spite of himself. If you have never run after a train and caught it you cannot realize the triumphant feeling Judy had as she grasped the rail and swung herself up on the rear coach. Fortunately it was not a vestibule train or she would have been shut out. Kent slung the bag up after her and then stood in the middle of the track until his Judy was lost in the darkness.

"What a girl she is!" he laughed to himself. "What a dear girl!"