The Mystery of the Secret Band

But she was disappointed upon sight of the watches. Neither of them was hers, nor did either remotely resemble Mrs. Weinberger’s or any of the other three stolen from Stoddard House.

“Thank you ever so much,” she said finally. “I think I’ll look around a little more and ask about my own, and if I can’t find it, I may come back and buy one of yours. Several of those you have are very pretty.”

Thoroughly satisfied with her interview, she walked down the street until she came to another shop. It was on the corner of an alley, and just as she approached the intersection she noticed a woman in an old-fashioned brown suit coming out of the side door of the pawnshop. The woman glanced about furtively, as if she did not care to be seen, and caught Mary Louise’s eyes. With a gasp of surprise, the girl recognized her immediately. It was Miss Henrietta Stoddard!

Before Mary Louise could even nod to her, the woman had slipped across the street and around the corner, lost amid the Saturday morning crowd that was thronging the busy street. Mary Louise repressed a smile and entered the pawnshop by the front door.

She repeated her former experience, with this difference, however: she did not find the shopkeeper nearly so cordial or so willing to co-operate. Finally she asked point-blank what the woman in the brown suit had just pawned.

“I can’t see that that’s any of your business, miss,” he replied disagreeably. “But I will tell you that it wasn’t a watch.”

Mary Louise wasn’t sure that she believed him. But there was nothing that she could do without enlisting the help of her father.

She visited four other shops without any success, and finally decided to abandon the plan. It was too hopeless, too hit-or-miss, to expect to find those watches by that kind of searching. Far better, she concluded, to concentrate on observing the actions of the people at Stoddard House. Especially Miss Henrietta Stoddard herself!

So she turned her steps to the big department store where she believed Margaret Detweiler had worked till last Christmas and inquired her way to the employment office. The store was brilliantly decorated for Christmas, and crowds of late shoppers filled the aisles and the elevators, so that it was not easy to reach her destination.

Nor was the employment manager’s office empty. Even at this late date, applicants were evidently hoping for jobs, and Mary Louise had to sit down and wait her turn. It was half an hour later that she found herself opposite the manager’s desk.

Mechanically a clerk handed her an application to fill out.

“I don’t want a position,” Mary Louise said immediately. “I want to see whether I can get any information about a girl named Margaret Detweiler who, I think, worked in your store up to last Christmas. Would it be too much trouble to look her up in your files? I know you’re busy – ”

“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the manager pleasantly, and she repeated the name to the clerk.

“You see,” explained Mary Louise, “Margaret Detweiler’s grandparents haven’t heard from her for a year, and they’re dreadfully worried. Margaret is all they have in the world.”

The clerk found the card immediately.

“Miss Detweiler did work here for six months last year,” she stated. “In the jewelry department. And then she was dismissed for stealing.”

“Stealing!” repeated Mary Louise, aghast at such news. “Why, I can’t believe it! Margaret was the most upright, honest girl at home; she came from the best people. How did it happen?”

“I remember her now,” announced the employment manager. “A pretty, dark-eyed girl who always dressed rather plainly. Yes, I was surprised too. But she had been ill, I believe, and perhaps she wasn’t quite herself. Maybe she had doctor’s bills and so on. It was too bad, for if she had come to me I could have helped her out with a loan.”

“Was she sent to prison?” asked Mary Louise in a hoarse whisper. Oh, the disgrace of the thing! It would kill old Mrs. Detweiler if she ever found it out.

“No, she wasn’t. We found the stolen article in Miss Detweiler’s shoe. At least, one of the things she took – a link bracelet. We didn’t recover the ring, but a wealthy woman, a customer who happened to be in the jewelry department at the time, evidently felt sorry for Miss Detweiler and offered to pay for the ring. We didn’t let her, but of course we had to dismiss the girl.”

“You haven’t any idea where Margaret went – or what she did?”

“Only that this woman – her name was Mrs. Ferguson, I remember, and she lived at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel – promised Miss Detweiler a job. So perhaps everything is all right now.”

“I hope so!” exclaimed Mary Louise fervently. And thanking the woman profusely she left the office and the store.

But she had her misgivings. If everything had turned out all right, why hadn’t Margaret written to her grandparents? Who was this Mrs. Ferguson, and why had she done this kindness for an unknown girl? Mary Louise meant to find out, if she could.

She inquired her way to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel and asked at the desk for Mrs. Ferguson. But she was informed that no such person lived there.

“Would you have last year’s register?” she asked timidly. She hated to put everybody to so much trouble.

The clerk smiled: nobody could resist Mary Louise.

“I’ll get it for you,” he said.

After a good deal of searching she found a Mrs. H. R. Ferguson registered at the hotel on the twenty-third of the previous December, with only the indefinite address of Chicago, Illinois, after her name. Margaret Detweiler did not appear in the book at all: evidently she had never stayed at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel.

With a sigh of disappointment, Mary Louise thanked the clerk and left. Nothing had been gained by that visit.

“It must be lunch time,” she decided, after glancing in vain at her wrist, where she was accustomed to wear her watch. “I guess I’ll go back to the house.”

The minute she entered the door of Stoddard House, the most terrible commotion greeted her. A woman’s shriek rang through the air; someone cried out, “Catch her – she’s fainted!” the elevator doors slammed, and people appeared from everywhere, in wild confusion.

Mary Louise dashed through the door to the desk just in time to see Mrs. Macgregor, the wealthy widow who lived in room 201, drop down on the bench beside the elevator. Women pressed all around her prostrate figure: guests, maids, Mrs. Hilliard, and the secretary, Miss Horton, who offered a glass of water to the unconscious woman. But nobody seemed to know what it was all about.

Presently Mrs. Macgregor opened her eyes and accepted a sip of the water. Then she glared accusingly at Mrs. Hilliard.

“I’ve been robbed!” she cried. “Five hundred dollars and a pair of diamond earrings!”

CHAPTER VI

Saturday Afternoon

“Do you feel any better now, Mrs. Macgregor?” inquired Mrs. Hilliard, as the stricken woman sat upright on the bench.

“Better!” she repeated angrily. “I’ll never feel better till I get my money back again.”

Mary Louise repressed a smile. Macgregor was a Scotch name.

“Now, tell us how it happened,” urged Mrs. Hilliard. “When did you first miss the money?”

“Just a few minutes ago, when I came out of my bath.” She became hysterical again. “Lock the doors!” she cried. “Search everybody! Call the police!”

Mary Louise caught Mrs. Hilliard’s eye.

“Shall I?” she asked.

Mrs. Hilliard nodded. “And tell the janitor to lock the doors and station himself at the front to let the guests in who come home, for the girls will be coming into lunch from work. Today’s a half holiday.”

By the time Mary Louise had returned, she found the crowd somewhat dispersed. The servants had gone back to their work, but several new arrivals had joined Mrs. Hilliard and Mrs. Macgregor. The two Walder girls, about whom Mary Louise had heard so much, were there, and Mrs. Hilliard introduced them. They were both very attractive, very much the same type as Mary Louise’s own friends in Riverside. Much more real, she thought, than Pauline Brooks, with her vivid make-up and her boastful talk.

“That is a great deal of money to keep in your room, Mrs. Macgregor,” Evelyn Walder said. “Especially after all the robberies we’ve been having at Stoddard House.”

“That’s just it! It was on account of these terrible goings-on that I took the money and the diamonds from a little safe I have and got them ready to put into the bank. Somebody was too quick for me. But I’m pretty sure I know who it was: Ida, the chambermaid!”

“Oh, no!” protested Mrs. Hilliard. “Ida has been with me two years, and I know she’s honest.”

“Send for her,” commanded Mrs. Macgregor.