The Mystery at Dark Cedars

“Somebody was here,” answered Mary Louise. “Haven’t you been up in Miss Grant’s room?”

The woman shook her head.

“No, I ain’t. I’ve been too busy out in the garden helpin’ William and gettin’ dinner ready. I figured you girls’d make your own bed. Elsie always did most of the upstairs work.”

“Well, I couldn’t very easily make the first bed I slept in,” remarked Mary Louise. “Because the mattress was torn to pieces.”

“Miss Mattie’s?” gasped Hannah, in genuine terror. She looked so frightened that Mary Louise could not believe she was acting.

“Yes. Somebody bound and gagged me and locked me in the closet and then proceeded to strip the bed. They must have found Miss Grant’s precious necklace – for that’s what it was, John Grant said.”

The servant woman bowed her head.

“May the Lord have mercy on us!” she said reverently. “It’s His way of punishin’ Miss Mattie fer keepin’ the thing her dead mother warned her agin’.” She looked up at Mary Louise. “Eat your dinner quick,” she said. “Then let’s get out of here, before the spirits come agin!”

“But where’s Elsie?” insisted Mary Louise, knowing that it was no use to argue with Hannah about the “spirits.”

“She went off soon after you girls left. I thought she changed her mind and went to Sunday school. She had on her green silk.”

“And hasn’t she come back all morning?” demanded Mary Louise in dismay.

“Nary a sign of her.”

Mary Louise groaned. This was bad news – just what she had been fearing ever since her conversations with Jane and with her father. If Elsie had run away, there could be only one reason for her going: she must be guilty!

“I had better go right home and see my father,” she said nervously.

“You set right down and eat your dinner, Miss Mary Louise!” commanded Hannah. “You need food – and it’s right here. You ain’t a-goin’ to take no hot walk on an empty stomach! Besides, Elsie may come in any minute. She probably run down to show them colored people her pretty green dress.”

Mary Louise’s eyes brightened.

“Abraham Lincoln Jones’s family?” she inquired.

“Yeah. Elsie’s awful fond of them. They kind of pet her up, you know.”

Mary Louise smiled and sat down to her dinner. The food tasted good, for it was fresh from the garden, and Hannah was an excellent cook. But all the time she was eating she kept her eyes on the door, watching, almost praying that Elsie would come in.

“Maybe you had better not touch that room of Miss Grant’s,” she cautioned Hannah. “I think it might be better to leave it just as it is – for the sake of evidence. My clothes are in your old room now, and I’ll get them from there.”

“Don’t you worry!” returned the woman, with a frightened look in her eyes. “I ain’t givin’ no spirits no chance at me! I’m leavin’ the minute these dishes is done, and I ain’t comin’ back day or night. If Elsie ain’t home by the time I go, you can take the key, Miss Mary Louise, and turn it over to Miss Mattie.”

Mary Louise nodded: perhaps this was for the best.

“I’ll leave my suitcase on the porch while I run down to see the Jones family,” she said, as she finished her apple pie. “And you had better clear out the refrigerator and take all the food that is left, because, if I find Elsie, I’ll take her home with me.”

“Maybe she’s havin’ a chicken dinner with them colored people,” returned Hannah and for the first time since Mary Louise’s arrival she smiled.

CHAPTER XV

An Alibi

The wooden shack where the Jones family lived was picturesque in its setting among the cedar trees behind Miss Grant’s home. In summer time Mary Louise could understand living very comfortably in such a place. But, isolated as it was, and probably poorly heated, it must be terribly cold in winter.

She ran down the hill gayly, humming a tune to herself and smiling, for she did not want the colored family to think that her visit was anything but a friendly one. As she came to a clearing among the cedar trees she saw two nicely dressed children playing outside the shack and singing at the top of their lungs. They beamed at Mary Louise genially and went on with their song.

“Do you children know Miss Elsie Grant?” she shouted.

They both nodded immediately.

“Sure we know her! You a friend o’ hers?”

“Yes,” answered Mary Louise. “I’ve been visiting her, up at her aunt’s place. But she didn’t come home for dinner, so I thought maybe she was here.”

“No, ma’am, she ain’t,” replied the older child. “You-all want to see Ma?”

“Yes, I should like to. If she isn’t busy.”

“Ma!” yelled both children at once, and a pleasant-faced colored woman appeared at the door of the shack. “Here’s a frien’ of Miz Elsie’s!”

The woman smiled. “Come in, Honey,” she invited.

“I just wanted to ask you whether you had seen Miss Elsie this morning,” said Mary Louise.

Mrs. Jones opened the bright-blue screen door and motioned her caller into her house. There were only two rooms in the shack, but Mary Louise could see immediately how beautifully neat they were, although the color combinations made her want to laugh out loud. A purple door curtain separated the one room from the other, and some of the chairs were red plush, some brown leather, and one a bright green. But there was mosquito netting tacked up at the windows, and the linoleum-covered floor was spotless.

“Set down, Honey,” urged the woman, and Mary Louise selected a red-plush chair. She repeated her question about Elsie.

“Yes and no,” replied Mrs. Jones indefinitely.

“What do you mean by ‘yes and no,’ Mrs. Jones?” inquired Mary Louise.

“I saw her but didn’t have no talk wid her,” explained the other. “She was all dressed up in a fine dress and had a bundle unde’ her arm. I reckoned she was comin’ down to visit us, but she done go off through de woods. Why you ask, Honey? She ain’t lost, am she?”

“She didn’t come back for dinner,” answered Mary Louise. “So Hannah and I were worried.”

Mrs. Jones rolled her eyes.

“Runned away, I reckon. Miz Grant didn’t treat her good.”

“But Miss Grant isn’t there – she’s in the hospital.”

“You don’t say!”

“Yes, and I wanted to take Elsie home with me while she was away. So you wouldn’t think she’d want to run away now.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Not when she’s got a nice friend like you, Honey. Mebbe she was kidnaped.”

“Nobody would want to kidnap Elsie Grant. She’s too poor – and her aunt would never pay ransom money.”