The Mystery of the Secret Band

How many hours later she was awakened by a dream about Margaret Detweiler, Mary Louise had no way of knowing, for she had left her watch on the bureau. She thought she had found Margaret alone in an empty house, cold and starving to death, and she was trying to remember just what principles of first aid to apply, when she awoke and found it was only a dream.

But something, she realized instantly, had awakened her. Something – somebody – was in her room!

Her first sensation was one of terror. A ghost – no, a gypsy, perhaps – who would clap a gag over her mouth and bind her hand and foot! But before she uttered a sound she remembered where she was and why she was there. A delirious feeling of triumph stole over her, making her believe that success was at hand for her in her sleuthing. If this person were really the Stoddard House sneak thief, Mary Louise could lie still and watch her, for the room was light enough from the moon and the street lamps to show up the intruder quite plainly.

Ever so cautiously, without turning her head or making any kind of sound, she rolled her eyes toward her bureau, where she could sense the intruder to be. Her reward was immediate: she saw a short person in dark clothing standing there, carefully picking up some object.

“My purse – and my watch!” Mary Louise thought grimly. The little engraved watch her father had given her last Christmas.

The figure turned around and silently crept towards the door. But sudden, swift dismay took possession of Mary Louise, making her tremble with fear and disappointment. The thief was not a woman, whom she could hope to identify as a guest at Stoddard House. He was a man!

He turned the key in the lock so quietly that only the tiniest click could be heard. Then, just as softly, he closed the door again and vanished into the hall.

Mary Louise gasped audibly with both relief and disappointment. Relief that he was gone, disappointment that he was a common, ordinary burglar whom she could not hope to catch.

Nevertheless, she meant to do what she could, so she turned on her light and reached for the telephone beside her bed. In another moment she had told her story to the police, and, so perfect were their radio signals, in less than five minutes one of their cars stood at the door of the hotel.

Meanwhile, Mary Louise had hastily thrown on a few clothes and run down the stairs to warn the night watchman.

The halls were lighted all night, as well as the lobby of the hotel; she did not see how the burglar could escape without attracting the watchman’s notice.

She found him quietly smoking a pipe on the doorstep. He said he had seen nobody.

“I think the burglar came in through the window from the fire escape,” Mary Louise said.

“Don’t see how he could,” returned the man. “I’ve been around there at the side for the last half hour. Nobody came along that alley.”

Baffled, Mary Louise summoned Mrs. Hilliard on the house phone, and by the time she stepped out of the elevator the two policemen had arrived.

“The thief must be hiding somewhere in the building,” concluded Mary Louise. “Waiting for a chance to slip away.”

“We’ll have to make a search,” announced Mrs. Hilliard. “You guard the doorway and the stairway, Mike,” she said to the watchman, “and one of you officers go around the first floor and see whether the windows are all securely locked – in case the burglar escaped through one of them. Then the other officer can come with Miss Gay and me while we search the floors above.”

Immediately the plan was put into effect, and the searchers began on the second floor, looking first in the corridors and closets and empty rooms, then knocking at the doors of the guests’ rooms.

Pauline Brooks’ door was the first they went to, and here a light shone under the cracks.

“Sorry to disturb you, Miss Brooks,” called Mrs. Hilliard, “but a sneak thief has gotten into the hotel, and we want to find him. May we come in?”

“Just a minute,” replied the girl. “Till I put on my bath robe. I was out late – at a dance, and I’m just undressing now.”

“What time is it, anyway?” asked Mary Louise. “You see, my watch was stolen.”

“It’s only a few minutes after one,” replied the policeman.

A moment later Pauline unlocked the door, and the three people entered. The room was very untidy: clothing had been flung about everywhere, and two open suitcases occupied the chairs.

“Look in the closet,” advised Mrs. Hilliard.

“There’s nobody there,” answered Pauline. “I’ve just been in it. But you might look under the bed. That’s where men always hide in the bedroom farces.”

“You wouldn’t think this was a ‘bedroom farce’ if you’d just lost your watch and your purse,” remarked Mary Louise sharply.

“I’m sorry, Mary Lou,” apologized Pauline. “You see, I didn’t know that you were the victim.”

“We’ve got to get along,” interrupted the officer. “There’s nobody here – I’m sure of that.”

They passed on to the other rooms, waking up the guests when it was necessary, apologizing, explaining – and finding nobody. In only two of the rooms besides Pauline’s had they found lights burning. Miss Granger, the artist, was still working on some drawings she was making for a magazine, and Miss Henrietta Stoddard, who explained that she was “such a poor sleeper,” was reading a book. But both these women said that they had heard no disturbance.

When the search was completed and the group returned to the first floor of the hotel, the watchman and the officer had nothing to report. The windows on the ground floor were all securely locked, the latter announced, and the former said that no one had escaped by the front door or the fire escape.

“It’s either an inside job or your young friend dreamed it,” one of the policemen said to Mrs. Hilliard.

“It couldn’t be an inside job,” returned the manager. “For there isn’t any man who lives in the hotel.”

“And I didn’t dream it,” protested Mary Louise. “Because my watch and my purse are gone, and my door was unlocked. I locked it myself when I went to bed last night.”

“Well, we’ll keep an eye on the building all night,” promised the policeman as he opened the door. “Let us know if you have any more trouble.”

When the men had gone, Mrs. Hilliard persuaded Mary Louise to come to her apartment for the rest of the night. She had a couch-bed in her sitting room which she often used for her own guests.

Mary Louise agreed, but it was a long while before she fell asleep again. She kept listening for sounds, imagining she heard footsteps in the hall, or windows opening somewhere in the building. But at last she dozed off, and slept until Mrs. Hilliard’s alarm awakened her the next morning.

“You had better go down to the dining room for your breakfast, Mary Louise,” said the manager. “I just have orange juice and coffee, up here – if I go into the dining room I am tempted to overeat, and I put on weight.”

“All right,” agreed Mary Louise. “I want to go to my room for fresh clothing anyway – I just grabbed these things last night in a hurry… Mrs. Hilliard, what do you think of last night’s occurrence?”

“I don’t know what to think. I was convinced that all our robberies before this were inside jobs, because our watchman was so careful. But now I don’t know. Of course, this may be something entirely different. We’ll see if anything happens tonight. You’re sure it was a man, Mary Louise?”

“Positive. He wore a cap pulled down over his head, and a mask over his eyes. He had on a dark suit – sneakers, too, for I couldn’t hear him walk.”

“Did he have a gun?”

“I don’t know, because I pretended to be asleep, so he didn’t need to defend himself. He got out so quickly. Where could he have vanished to?”

Mrs. Hilliard shook her head with a sigh.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said.

“Of course, he might have had an accomplice,” mused Mary Louise. “Some woman may have let him out her window to the fire escape. Still, the watchman was keeping his eye on that…” Mary Louise’s tone became dreary. “I guess I’m not much use to you, Mrs. Hilliard. I don’t think I ought to take the salary.”

“You mean you want to go home, Mary Louise?”

“Oh no! I wouldn’t leave now for anything. But I mean I probably shan’t be any help in finding a thief like that. So I oughtn’t to accept any pay.”

“Don’t worry about that,” returned Mrs. Hilliard, patting Mary Louise’s arm affectionately. “You just do the best you can. Nobody can do more. I’d really like it proved that none of our guests is the thief. I’d much rather find out that it was a common burglar.”

Reassured, Mary Louise went to her own room and dressed. By the time she reached the dining room the guests who held positions had already eaten their breakfasts and gone, and the others, who had nothing to do all day, had not yet put in an appearance. It was only a little after eight, but the dining room was deserted.