The Mystery of the Secret Band

“Call the police,” ordered the hotel detective, turning to his assistant. “Gay and I will make a thorough search of this room. And on your way downstairs get hold of Mr. Jones, in room 710. He can come up here and identify his stamp album.”

Mrs. Ferguson by this time had slipped into her bedroom, and one by one the girls were following her. Detective Gay, suddenly aware of the fact that the criminals meant to escape by another door, dashed out into the hall just in time to stop them.

“Must we use handcuffs?” he demanded, pushing Mrs. Ferguson back into her room and locking the door.

The woman did not reply, but she looked at him with an expression of hatred in her eyes.

Mr. Gay called into the next room to the hotel detective, who was still making a systematic search. “Can you get me a photographer?” he asked.

“O.K.,” was the reply, and the detective put the message through, using the room telephone.

“Now, what do you want a photographer for?” demanded Pauline impudently. “Because we’re such pretty girls?”

“I want to send your picture to my daughter,” replied Mr. Gay. “I understand that you and she used to be friends.”

“Who is your daughter?”

“Mary Louise Gay.”

“The little rat! If I’d ever realized – ”

“How smart she is,” supplied Mr. Gay proudly, “you’d have been more careful! Well, Miss Brooks, you’ve been pretty clever, but not quite clever enough. This is the end of your dangerous career.”

“I guess we can get out on bail!” she boasted.

“I guess you can’t! Not this time, young lady!”

The photographer and the police arrived at the same time; Mrs. Ferguson and her band of six had to submit to having their pictures taken and were allowed, under supervision, to pack a few necessary articles of clothing into their suitcases. Then, under the escort of four policemen and the assistant hotel detective, they rode downstairs to the waiting patrol car.

Mr. Gay and the hotel detective went on with their methodical search.

“Suppose we stop and eat,” suggested the latter. “We can lock up these rooms.”

“O.K.,” agreed Mr. Gay.

A knock sounded at the door.

“I’m Jones – the man who lost the album,” announced the visitor. “Did you fellows really get it?” His question held all the eagerness of the collector.

“This it?” queried the hotel detective, holding the worn blue book up to view.

“Oh, boy! Is it? I’ll say so! Let’s see it!” He grasped the book affectionately.

“We are still hoping to find your money, too,” added Mr. Gay. But the man was hardly listening; his stamps meant far more to him than his roll of bills.

“Whom do I thank for this?” he inquired finally, as he opened the door.

“My daughter,” returned Mr. Gay. “But she isn’t here, and I’ll have to tell you the story some other time.”

During their supper together, Mr. Gay told the hotel detective about Mary Louise and the discoveries she had made which led her to suspect Mrs. Ferguson and Pauline Brooks. He brought the list out of his pocket and crossed off the articles that had been recovered: the gold-mesh bag and the two pearl rings.

“Except for the money which was stolen here last night, we probably shan’t find anything else in the rooms,” he concluded. “Mrs. Ferguson has no doubt hidden or disposed of everything which her gang stole from Stoddard House.”

Nevertheless, the two men resumed their search after dinner. Deeply hidden in the artificial grass which filled the Christmas-tree box, they found four hundred dollars – the exact amount which had been taken from the Hotel Ritz in Philadelphia and the Hotel Phillips there in Baltimore. But two hours’ more searching revealed nothing else. At ten o’clock the two men decided to quit.

Mr. Gay went directly to his room and called Stoddard House on the telephone, asking to speak to Mary Louise.

To his surprise it was Mrs. Hilliard who answered him.

“Mary Louise did not come home for supper,” she said. “I concluded that she had gone to Baltimore with you, Mr. Gay.”

“No, she didn’t. Could she have gone to the movies with any of the girls, do you think?”

“Possibly. But she usually tells me where she is going. Of course she may have gone home with the Walder girls, and I know their folks haven’t a phone.”

Mr. Gay seemed reassured; after all, he decided, nothing could happen to his daughter now that the criminals were under lock and key.

“Well, tell her I’ll take the first train home tomorrow,” he concluded, “and that I have good news for her.”

“I will, Mr. Gay,” promised the hotel manager.

Disappointed but not worried, he replaced the receiver and went down to the desk to inquire for the picture of Mrs. Ferguson’s band of thieves. Several copies had been struck off, and they were surprisingly good. Mr. Gay chuckled when he thought how pleased Mary Louise would be to see all the criminals lined up together.

Taking the pictures with him, he went straight to the offices of Baltimore’s leading newspapers. In a short time he had given the editors the important facts of the capture of the dangerous band, giving the credit to Mary Louise. To one of these newspapers he gave his daughter’s picture – a snapshot which he always carried in his pocket.

“Wait till Riverside sees that!” he exulted. “Won’t our family be proud of our Mary Lou!”

Mr. Gay slept soundly that night, believing that everything was all right with Mary Louise. Had he but known the agony of spirit his daughter was experiencing he would have returned posthaste to Philadelphia.

Mrs. Hilliard, however, was more concerned and spent a restless night. She felt sure that something had happened to Mary Louise, for she was not the sort of girl to go off without mentioning her plans. Even if she had gone to the country with the Walder girls, she would have found a way to telephone. Mary Louise was never thoughtless or selfish.

In her worried condition, Mrs. Hilliard awakened twice during the night and went down and looked into the girl’s empty room. At six o’clock she could stand the anxiety no longer, and she called Mr. Gay on the long distance telephone.

He was in bed, asleep, but the first ring at his bedside awakened him. He listened to Mrs. Hilliard’s news with a sinking heart, remembering the dreadful thing which had happened to his daughter the previous summer, while she was investigating a mystery of crime.

“I’ll take the seven o’clock train to Philadelphia!” he cried, already snatching his clothing from the chair beside his bed.

In his haste and his deep concern for his daughter he forgot entirely that this was Christmas morning. When the waiter in the dining car greeted him with a respectful “Merry Christmas, sir,” Mr. Gay stared at him blankly. Then he remembered and made the correct reply.

One look at Mrs. Hilliard’s face as he entered Stoddard House told him that there was no news of his girl. Mary Louise had not returned.

“The only place I can think of,” said Mrs. Hilliard, “for I’ve already gotten in touch with the Walder girls, is that empty house out in Center Square, where she was hit on the head the night she went there with Max Miller.”

“I’ll drive right out there,” announced Mr. Gay immediately. “I guess I can make inquiries at the hotel… And in the meantime I’ll notify the Philadelphia police, but I’ll warn them not to give out the news on the radio till I get back… I don’t want to alarm Mary Lou’s mother until it is necessary.”

Ten minutes later he was in a taxicab, directing the driver to speed as fast as the law allowed to Center Square.

CHAPTER XV