Mary Louise Solves a Mystery Part 18

"Really," said Mary Louise despondently, "it is the strangest thing I ever knew."

Josie O'Gorman arrived at the hotel at six o'clock in the afternoon, having caught the fast train from Was.h.i.+ngton the evening before. She came in as unconcernedly as if she had lived at the hotel and merely been out to attend a matinee and greeted the Colonel with a bright smile and Mary Louise with a kiss.

"My, but I'm hungry!" were her first words. "I hope you haven't dined yet?"

"Oh, Josie," began Mary Louise, on the verge of tears, "this dreadful----"

"I know, dear; but we must eat. And let's not talk or think of the trouble till our stomachs are in a comfortable condition. Which way is the dining room?"

Neither the Colonel nor Mary had eaten much since Alora's disappearance, but they took Josie in to dinner, realizing it would be impossible to get her to talk seriously or to listen to them until she was quite ready to do so. And during the meal Josie chattered away like a magpie on all sorts of subjects except that which weighed most heavily on their minds, and the little thing was so bright and entertaining that they were encouraged to dine more heartily than they otherwise would have done.

But afterward, when they had adjourned to a suite that had now been given them, and which included a cosy little sitting room, and after the Colonel had been ordered to light his cigar, which always composed his nerves, the O'Gorman girl suddenly turned serious and from the depths of an easy chair, with her hands clasped behind her red head, she said:

"Now to business. Begin at the beginning and tell me all there is to tell."

"Haven't I written you something about Alora, Josie?" asked Mary Louise.

"Never mind whether you have or haven't. Imagine I've forgotten it. I want every detail of the girl's history."

So Mary Louise told it, with a few comments from her grandfather. She began with their first meeting with Alora and her eccentric father in Italy, and related not only all the details of their acquaintance but such facts as Alora had confided to her of her mother's death and her subsequent unhappy relations with her father and guardian. Alora had often talked freely to Mary Louise, venting in her presence much bitterness and resentment over her cruel fate--as she deemed it. So, knowing Josie's desire to obtain the most seemingly trifling detail of a case, Mary Louise told the story as connectedly and comprehensively as possible, avoiding all personal comment so as to leave Josie's mind free from prejudice.

During the recital Josie sat very still, with closed eyes, reclining lazily in her chair and refraining from any interruption.

"Now, Colonel," she said, "tell me all that Mary Louise has forgotten to mention."

"She has told you more than I knew myself," he declared. "Of course we informed the police of our friend's disappearance and they sent a detective here who went into the affair very carefully. Yet, so far----"

"I know," said Josie, nodding. "I called at the police station before I came here, on leaving the train. The detective is Al Howard, and he's a nice fellow but rather stupid. You mustn't expect any results from that source. To be sure, the department might stumble on a clew, but the chances are they wouldn't recognize it, even then."

"I'm certainly surprised to hear that!" said the Colonel.

"Because you are ignorant of police methods. They mean well, but have so much to handle, in a big city like this, that they exist in a state of perpetual bewilderment."

"But what are we to do?" pleaded Mary Louise. "Tell us, Josie!"

"How do _I_ know?" asked the girl, with a smile. "I'm just Josie O'Gorman, a student detective, who makes as many blunders--alas!--as a full-fledged 'tec.' But I thought I'd be able to help, or I wouldn't have come. I've a personal interest in this case, Mary Louise, because it's your case and I love you. So let's get to work. Have you a photograph of Alora Jones?"

"No," was the reply.

"Then give me a word picture of her."

Both Mary Louise and the Colonel tried to do, this, and Josie seemed satisfied.

"Now, then," she said, rising, "let's go to her room. I hope it hasn't been disturbed since she left it."

"The police have taken the key and forbidden anyone to enter the room."

"Quite proper. But we'll go there, just the same."

The room was but a few steps away, in the same corridor, and when they arrived there Josie drew a bunch of slender keys from her purse and unlocked the door with no difficulty. Having entered, she turned on the electric lights and cast a curious glance around.

"Let's read Alora's room," said she, while her companions stood listening. "To begin with, we see her night-dress nicely folded and her toilet articles arranged in neat order on the dresser. Chambermaid did that, for Alora is not neat. Proving that her stuff was just strewn around and the orderly maid put things straight. Which leads to the supposition that Alora was led away rather suddenly."

"Oh, do you think so?"

"She left the door ajar, but took the key. Intended, of course, to lock her room, but was so agitated by what she saw or heard that she forgot and just walked away."

"But no one saw her leave the hotel," observed Mary Louise.

"Then she didn't pa.s.s through the office, but through the less used Ladies' Entrance at the side."

"That was not unlocked, they told me, until after seven o'clock."

"Then she left by the servants' entrance."

"The servants'!"

"Quite likely. You'll say she didn't know anything about it, or where it was; but the fact remains that Alora left the hotel. I'd like to see that chambermaid. I believe you told me she comes on duty at six o'clock in the morning. All right. I'll catch her at six a. m.

to-morrow."

"The detective interviewed her," stated Colonel.

"I know, and she answered all his questions. My questions will be different. If Alora used the servants' entrance, she went out with a servant or with someone who knew the ways of the hotel intimately."

"I don't see that," objected Mary Louise.

"Nor do I, but there lies our trail. Alora didn't pa.s.s out through the office, nor did she make her exit through the less public Ladies'

Entrance. There are only two other ways to get out of here: through the baggage door and by the servants' entrance at the rear, which lets into an alley. The head porter will know whether Alora went out the baggage door, but as it's usually very high--on a level with the platform of a baggage-wagon--I don't believe she jumped it. That leaves the servants'

entrance as the probable exit for our missing one, and as she was a perfect stranger to the arrangements of this hotel, she couldn't have gone that way unless someone guided her. So our course is clear, Mary Louise. Find out who enticed Alora from the hotel and it won't be difficult to trace her and discover what has become of her."

"Enticed, Josie?"

"Had force been used, she would have screamed and attracted attention.

Let us say she was decoyed."

"You think, then, that Alora was kidnapped?"

"Let us reason. The girl couldn't have had an enemy in Chicago, according to her history, for she was only eleven when she left here and no one hates an eleven year old child. Having no enemy, she has doubtless escaped personal harm. But Alora is an heiress, and a lot of people in Chicago know that. You suggest kidnapping. Well, perhaps that's the solution: held for ransom."

"That would be the first idea of Jason Jones!" exclaimed Mary Louise.

"He has always seemed afraid of such a thing."

"In that case, however, I do not believe her father would pay a ransom," declared Colonel Hathaway.

"Oh, indeed he would!" a.s.serted Mary Louise, emphatically; "we mustn't forget that if Alora isn't found and restored to him within a given time he will lose all her income for the next three years."

Josie looked at her friend admiringly. Then she laughed.

"You're a better detective than any of us," she remarked. "What I've been groping for is the _object_ of the abduction, and you've hit the nail squarely on the head. Now we're getting down to bra.s.s tacks, so to speak. The whole thing is explained by the one word--'blackmail.' Girl disappears; papa is threatened with the lose of thousands. Very well, Papa! pay up. Relinquish a part of the income and you may keep the rest. Refuse, and you lose it all. Ergo, papa pays."