The Corner House Girls' Odd Find Part 31

"Oh, dear, Ruthie! that sounds awful," murmured Agnes.

The two girls were in much vexation of spirit, and quite uncertain what to do. The emergency called for wisdom beyond that which they possessed.

Nor did they know anybody at hand with whom they might confer regarding the catastrophe.

Agnes wanted to run after Neale and ask his opinion. He might know, or at least suspect, who it was that had taken the alb.u.m out of the satchel.

But Ruth would not hear of taking Neale into their affairs further. She was quite put out with their boy friend. And Agnes, from past experience, knew that when Ruth was in this present mood it was no use to argue with her.

They spent a very unhappy evening indeed. The two oldest Corner House girls, that is. As for Tess and Dot, they reveled till bedtime in a new and wonderful world-the circus world.

They listened to Barnabetta tell of long journeys through the country, when the big animals, like the camels and the elephants, marched by night, and the great cages and pole-wagons and tent-wagons, rumbled over the roads from one "stand" to another. Of adventures on the way. Of accidents when wagons broke down, or got into sloughs. Sometimes cages burst open when the accidents occurred, and some of the animals got out.

"Oh, dear, me!" cried Tess, so excited that she could scarcely sit still. "To think of lions, and tigers, and panthers running loose!"

"What's a 'panther,' sister?" queried Dot, puzzled. "Are panthers dangerous?"

"Very," responded Tess, wisely. "Of course."

"Why-why, I didn't s'pose _that_ was so," murmured Dot.

"For pity's sake!" Tess exclaimed, exasperated. "What do you s'pose a panther is, anyway, Dot Kenway?"

"Why-why," stammered the smallest Corner House girl, "I-I thought a panther was a man who made pants."

"Oh, goodness to gracious, Miss Barnabetta! Did you ever hear of such a child?" demanded Tess, hopelessly. "She never will learn the English language!"

Ruth came all too quickly to remind the little girls that it was bedtime. Although much troubled, the oldest Corner House girl did not forget their guests' comfort.

Mr. Scruggs was settled for the night and Barnabetta was sure he would not need anything before morning. She accepted a cup of hot cocoa and a biscuit herself and took them up stairs with her. Agnes did not appear again, and Barnabetta did not know that she was being watched by a pair of troubled blue eyes from the darker end of the hall.

Agnes had Barnabetta very much in her mind. She and Ruth agreed to say nothing in their own room about the mysterious disappearance of the alb.u.m. The door was open into the children's room and it was notorious that "little pitchers have big ears."

After they were in bed, Agnes still lay and thought about Barnabetta.

Was it possible that the circus girl had obtained possession of the mysterious old alb.u.m?

It seemed ridiculous to believe such a thing. Surely she had not removed it to her room, for Agnes had been there and had looked for it.

Barnabetta had been quietly telling stories to Tess and Dot downstairs all the evening.

Yet, the very fact that the circus girl was downstairs troubled Agnes.

Suppose she had come down while Neale and Ruth and she, Agnes, were talking so excitedly about the odd find that had been made in the garret? Suppose Barnabetta had heard most of their talk?

"Easy enough for her to have slipped out of the door and grabbed that old book," murmured Agnes. "But then-what did she do with it? Oh, dear me! How awful of me to suspect her of such wickedness."

In the midst of her ruminations she heard a doorlatch click. The house had long since become still. It was very near midnight.

Agnes sat up in bed and strained her ears to catch the next sound. But there seemed to be no further movement. Had somebody left one of the bedrooms, or was it a draught that had shaken the door?

The uncertainty of this got upon the girl's nerves. Somebody might be creeping downstairs. Suppose it were Barnabetta?

"What would she go down again for?" Agnes asked herself.

Yet even as she thought this and how ridiculous it was, she crept out of bed. Ruth was sound asleep. n.o.body heard Agnes as she felt around with her bare feet and got them into her fleece-lined bedroom slippers. Then, wrapping her robe about her, she tied the cord and found her bedroom candle.

She lit this and went out into the hall, the door being open. As she came noiselessly to the top of the main stairway she saw the reflection of another candle on the ceiling above the stairwell-a bobbing reflection that showed somebody was moving slowly down the lower flight.

Agnes, not daring to breathe audibly, s.h.i.+elded her own light with her free hand, and hastened to peer over the bal.u.s.trade.

CHAPTER XIX

THE KEY TO THE CLOSET

Agnes was too late to see who it was at the foot of the front stairs. As she craned her head over the railing guarding the gallery above, the person with the candle went into the dining room.

This mysterious individual must have found the door open. There was no clicking of a latch down there. The figure had glided into the room with the candle, and was immediately out of sight.

"Just as silent as a ghost!" breathed Agnes. "Oh!"

She almost giggled aloud, for she remembered the time when-oh! so very long ago-the Corner House family had been troubled by a ghost in the garret-or, as Dot seemed determined to call it, "a goat."

Ghost or no ghost, Agnes felt that she had to see this thing through.

Even a disembodied spirit had no right to go wandering about the old Corner House at night with a lighted bedroom candle in its hand.

She ran lightly downstairs, still sheltering the flame of her own candle with her hand. The dining room door had been pushed quietly to; but it was not latched.

Hiding her candle so that it should not s.h.i.+ne through the crack of the door, Agnes pushed the portal open again with her free hand. There was a glimmer of light ahead.

The dining room was a large apartment. The candle in the hand of the unknown made only a blur of light at the far end of the room.

What was the bearer of the candle about? At first Agnes could not discover. The candle was near the door which opened into the hall near the side porch door. Through that hall one could easily reach the dark corner where Neale O'Neil had thrown his satchel when he arrived at the old Corner House that evening.

A number of thoughts were buzzing in Agnes Kenway's brain. In spite of herself she was unable to disconnect thought of Barnabetta Scruggs and the missing book of money and bonds. It might be that the circus girl had descended the stairs and, listening at the sitting room door while Neale was there, had heard what he said about the old book; and so slipped out and stolen the alb.u.m either just before Neale flung himself out of the house, or just afterward. There would have been time to do so in either case.

If Barnabetta knew nothing about the missing alb.u.m, why was she creeping about the house at this unearthly hour? The question seemed, to Agnes'

mind, to be unanswerable save as the answer fitted the above probabilities.

"But I don't really know that this is Barnabetta," Agnes' excusing self objected.

She did not wish it to be the circus girl. As much as she desired to know what had become of the alb.u.m, she did not wish to find it in Barnabetta Scruggs' possession.

The candle in the hand of the figure Agnes followed was suddenly raised higher. The Corner House girl jumped and almost uttered a sharp exclamation aloud. Why! Barnabetta was not as tall as that!

This ghostly visitor to the dining room was an adult. She saw its flowing robe now. The candle, held so high, threw the shadow of the head on the wall in sharp relief.

"Her hair's done up in a 'pug' behind," gasped Agnes. "Who can it be?

Mrs. MacCall, or-or Aunt Sarah?"