CHAPTER XVII
The Empty House
Mr. Gay was seated at the telephone table in the dining room the following morning when Mary Louise came downstairs to breakfast. She waited breathlessly for the news, for she felt sure that he was talking to some of the police about the whereabouts of Elsie Grant.
“That’s strange,” she heard him say. “I can hardly believe it… You checked up with the bus companies as well as the railroads?.. O.K., then. Keep on searching,” he concluded.
Replacing the receiver, he turned to his daughter.
“Not a trace of Elsie anywhere,” he announced.
Mary Louise smiled: she was almost glad that the girl had not been found. It gave her more time to believe in Elsie’s innocence.
“Do you think she could have been kidnaped, Daddy?” she inquired. “People are, pretty often, nowadays.”
“But they’re always rich or important,” returned Mr. Gay. “No: that’s one of the blessings of being poor – nobody would kidnap Elsie Grant unless he knew that she had the ruby necklace. Then the criminal would be much more likely to steal it and let her go.”
“That’s what I think,” agreed Mary Louise… “What are you going to do now?”
“There’s nothing more I can do. I suppose you are planning to go over to the hospital to see Miss Grant?”
“Yes, for a few minutes after breakfast. Then – Daddy – ” Mary Louise hesitated: she didn’t want her father to laugh at her next request, but she just had to ask him – “would you be willing to go on a search with me through Cooper’s woods? It’s just possible that all our detective work may be wrong and my unsuspecting mother right. Elsie might be lost in Cooper’s woods!”
“I’m not going to smile,” replied her father. “Because I think your suggestion is a very good one. Elsie may even be guilty of the thefts – and have the necklace and the gold pieces with her – and still be lost or hiding in those woods. I’ll be glad to go with you.”
Mary Louise’s brown eyes sparkled. What a good sport her father was!
“Don’t let’s take the car, Daddy,” she urged. “At least, not any farther than Dark Cedars. I’d like to set out from the back of Miss Grant’s yard and try to trace Elsie’s steps – with Silky to help us. If I get her old calico dress and shoes and let him sniff them, I think he’d understand.”
Mr. Gay gazed at his daughter admiringly.
“Mary Lou, that is an idea!” he cried. “You’re a better detective than I am.”
She blushed at the praise.
“Wait till we see how my plan turns out,” she answered. “It may lead to nothing at all… Still, we’ll be having fun. It’ll be a regular hiking trip.”
“Of course it will be fun,” agreed her father, for he loved the out-of-doors. “And we’ll carry blankets in case we stay overnight.”
“What’s this I hear?” demanded Mrs. Gay, appearing from the kitchen with the coffee pot in her hands. “What mischief are you two up to now?”
“Only an all-day hike, my dear,” explained Mr. Gay calmly. “You don’t mind, do you? And will you drive us as far as Dark Cedars and bring the car back?”
“Certainly,” replied Mrs. Gay graciously.
“May I go?” asked Freckles as he came into the dining room with Silky at his heels.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to stay home and take care of your mother, Son, for we may be gone overnight,” replied his father. “But just wait till I get my real vacation, later on. We’ll have a whale of a trip. All four of us together.”
“Don’t you expect to be home in time for supper?” asked Mrs. Gay.
“That all depends upon our luck.” And Mr. Gay went on to explain to his wife the nature of their excursion and the reason for making it.
While he assembled the necessary equipment for the hike, Mary Louise hurried off to the hospital to see Miss Grant. It was early, but she was told that she might go up to the patient’s room immediately. The old lady was expecting her.
Mary Louise found her looking pale and wasted, but her black eyes beamed as brightly as ever, and she smiled faintly at her visitor.
“I brought you some flowers, Miss Grant,” began the girl cheerfully as she handed them to the nurse. “And I’m so glad to hear that you are better.”
Miss Grant nodded her thanks and indicated that she wanted Mary Louise to sit down in the chair beside her high white bed.
“Any news?” she asked in a weak but eager voice.
Mary Louise shook her head.
“Nothing more,” she replied. “Mr. John Grant told you about my awful experience on Saturday night, didn’t he?”
“Yes. I was afraid something like that might happen. I’m sorry, Mary Louise, and thankful that you weren’t injured.”
“You mean you’re sorrier for me than for yourself – about losing the necklace?” asked the girl incredulously. This didn’t sound at all like the miser she believed Miss Grant to be.
“Yes, I am. Because, somehow, I never thought that necklace would do me any good. I should have been afraid to sell it for fear it would bring up some old scandal or some disgrace about my father. I don’t know how he got hold of it – I was always afraid it had something to do with gambling or a bet of some kind – but I do know that my mother never approved of his keeping it. And so I’m almost thankful it’s gone.”
“Who do you think could have taken it?”
“Either the original owner – whoever he is – or my mother’s ghost. You read of queer things like that sometimes, things that never can be explained by the living. Perhaps when we are dead we shall understand… I don’t know… I dreamed about Mother night before last, and in the dream I promised her to throw away the necklace… So I’m almost thankful it’s gone.”
Mary Louise let out a sigh of relief.
“I’m so glad it doesn’t worry you, Miss Grant. I was afraid you’d suspect Elsie.”
The sick woman’s eyes flashed angrily.
“I do still suspect Elsie of taking my gold!” The old expression of greed crossed her face. “You haven’t found it for me yet, have you, Mary Louise?”
“No, I haven’t, Miss Grant.”
“Where is Elsie?” was the next question.
Mary Louise hesitated: she hated to answer this.
“She is – lost. She went away yesterday – Sunday morning – and hasn’t come back yet.”
Miss Grant nodded significantly.
“I was expecting it. Well, you don’t believe any longer that she’s innocent, do you, Mary Louise?”
“I’m still hoping,” replied the girl.
Miss Grant was silent for some minutes, and Mary Louise felt that it was time for her to go. But before she made a move, she told the sick woman of Hannah’s decision to leave Dark Cedars, and she held out the key.
“But I should like to keep it today, if you don’t mind, Miss Grant,” she added, “so I can get some clothing of Elsie’s for Silky to sniff at. I want to take him down to the woods to see whether he can get on her trail.”
“Keep it as long as you want it,” agreed the old lady. “If Hannah is gone, I shan’t return to Dark Cedars very soon. John wants me to go to his home, anyhow, when I get out of the hospital, so I suppose I had better agree.”
“Do you want to see William about your cow and your garden?” inquired Mary Louise.
“Yes, tell him to stop in to see me here at the hospital… And now you had better go, child… I’m very tired.”
Enormously relieved that the interview had been so easy, Mary Louise left the hospital and hurried back to her home. She met Jane Patterson as she entered her own gate.
“What next?” inquired her chum, who had been told the previous evening of Elsie’s disappearance. “Still acting the detective?”
“I should say,” answered Mary Louise. “Dad and I are going off now in search of Elsie.”
“Where are you going? Harrisburg?”
“No. Cooper’s woods. Want to come along, Jane?”
The other girl shook her head.
“I don’t believe so. I have a tennis date with Norman, and Hope Dorsey is rounding up the crowd to drive over to a country fair tonight. She’ll be furious if you don’t go – and so will Max. Kenneth was expecting we’d bring Elsie Grant along.”
“I only wish we could!” sighed Mary Louise. “But maybe we shall be able to. Maybe we’ll find her and bring her back home in time for supper.”
“And maybe not,” remarked Jane.
“I’ve got to be off now,” concluded the other, giving her chum a hasty kiss. “Wish me good luck!”
“You know I do!” was the reply.
Mary Louise ran into the house and found her father all ready to start. He had made up a pack for each of them to carry; his own, the heavier, included a small tent for use if they were obliged to sleep in the woods. The food and equipment were sufficient but not overabundant, for Mr. Gay was a good camper and knew just what was necessary and what could be left at home.
“Get into your knickers, Mary Lou,” he advised. “And bring a sweater along.”
“You don’t think we’ll be cold?”
“The woods are chilly at night.”
“Bring me back a bearskin,” suggested Freckles jokingly. “I could use one.”
“I don’t expect to shoot anything,” replied his father. “But, of course, you never can tell.”
Half an hour later Mrs. Gay drove the two adventurers over to Dark Cedars and let them out at the hedge. Mary Louise, with Silky at her heels, led the way up to the house.
“It is a gloomy-looking place,” observed her father as he followed her through the trees. “Yet it could be made very attractive.”
Mary Louise shuddered.
“Nobody would ever want to live here after all the ghost stories get around. You know how people exaggerate, and the stories are bad enough as they are.”
“The porch certainly needs paint and repairs. It’s a wonder Miss Grant hasn’t fallen down and broken her neck.”
Mary Louise inserted her key in the lock and opened the heavy wooden door. Inside, the shutters were carefully closed, and the dark, somber house seemed almost like a tomb. The stairs creaked ominously as the two ascended them, and Mary Louise was thankful that she was not alone. After that one experience in Miss Grant’s bedroom, she never knew what strange creature might rush at her from the big, dark closet.
“I can hardly see where I’m going,” remarked Mr. Gay. “You better take my hand, Mary Lou.”
His daughter seized it gladly; she was only too pleased to feel its human, reassuring pressure. She led the way to the rear of the second floor, up the attic steps to Elsie’s room.
Here they found one of the windows open, so that a subdued light brightened the attic room. But there was no sunshine, for the boughs of the cedar trees pressed against the window sill.
Silky had been following them at a respectful distance, and Mary Louise lifted him up in her arms as she opened the closet door. A musty smell greeted her, but she had no difficulty in finding the clothing she wanted, and she held it close to Silky’s nose.
“This is Elsie’s,” she said, just as if the dog were human. “Elsie is lost, and you must find her.”
Still keeping the dog in her arms and the dress close to his nose, she carefully descended the stairs.
“I’d like to see Miss Grant’s bedroom,” said Mr. Gay as they reached the second floor. “I want a look at the mattress.”
“O.K., Daddy. But you go first. And have your gun ready if you open that closet door. I think that’s where the ghosts live.”
“Mary Lou!” cried her father in amazement. “You don’t believe that stuff, do you?”
“I wish I did,” sighed the girl. “Because that would make Elsie innocent.”
“You are very fond of Elsie, aren’t you, Daughter?”
“She seemed so sweet. And all our crowd liked her.”
Mr. Gay went to the window of Miss Grant’s room and threw open the shutter to let in the light. Just as Mary Louise had said, the mattress was literally torn to pieces. Piles of straw were heaped on the floor, and the ragged covering was strewn all over the room.
Mr. Gay examined it, and Mary Louise walked over to the side window – the one under which William’s ladder had been found.
“Even a piece from the mattress is on this window ledge,” she remarked as she pulled out a long strip of material. She examined it more closely. Suddenly her eyes blinked in excitement.
“This isn’t mattress cover, Daddy!” she exclaimed. “It’s clothing material! Blue sateen! From – somebody’s dress!”
Mr. Gay reached the window in two quick steps.
“What do you make of that, Mary Lou?” he demanded.
“I think it must be a piece from the thief’s clothing!” she cried in delight. “And I don’t believe it’s Elsie’s. Unless she was wearing some old dress of her aunt’s.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Mr. Gay. “Put the strip into your pocket. Crimes have been solved on slimmer evidence than that.” He turned aside. “There are no ghosts in the closet, Mary Lou,” he announced solemnly. “I just looked.”
“Then let’s leave, Daddy. I’m ‘rarin’ to go’ – because – well – because I have another reason now besides wanting to find Elsie!”
“You suspect somebody definitely?” he inquired.
“Yes. But don’t ask me whom – yet. Just let’s go.”
Still holding on to Elsie’s calico dress, Mary Louise led the way out of the house and around to the back yard of Dark Cedars. Here they found William complacently working in the garden, as if nothing had ever happened to disturb the peace at Miss Grant’s home. He looked up and smiled at Mary Louise.
“Elsie didn’t come back, did she, William?” asked the girl.
The old man shook his head. “Nope,” he replied.
“Any more chickens stolen?”
“Nope.”
“Well, we’re off to hunt Elsie – my father and I,” explained Mary Louise. “And, by the way, William, Miss Grant wants you to stop in to see her at the hospital.”
“I’ll do that,” agreed the man. “And good luck to ye!”
“Thanks, William,” returned Mary Louise. “Good-bye.”
She and her father walked on down the hill towards the little shack where the colored family lived, and stopped there to inquire again about Elsie. But Mrs. Jones had not seen her since the previous morning; however, she pointed out just what path the girl had taken. So Mary Louise put Silky on the trail, and the three began their search.
CHAPTER XVIII
Found!
With Silky in the lead, Mr. Gay and Mary Louise followed the path behind Dark Cedars which led directly into Cooper’s woods. It was new to them both, for although they had gone to these woods many times, they had always entered from the road that ran past the creek and the swimming hole.
“It’s much cooler this way,” observed the girl. “So nice and shady.”
“Silky seems to know what he’s doing,” remarked her father. “He’s going straight ahead.”
“I’m afraid he’s making for the swimming hole,” returned Mary Louise. “He loves a swim as much as we do.”
“Do you want to stop for one?”
“I’d like to, but I don’t think we better. It would take too much time, dressing and undressing.”
“Maybe we can have one on our way back.”
“Yes, maybe,” agreed Mary Louise. “I ought to have brought Elsie’s suit, so that if we find her she could go with us. She loved it on Saturday.”
“I’m afraid you’re being a little too optimistic, Daughter,” replied Mr. Gay. “Don’t get your hopes up too high.”
The path grew wide again as they approached the swimming hole, and when they arrived at the stream Mary Louise took off her pack and sat down under a tree. About a dozen children were playing about in the water, and Mary Louise threw a stick into the stream as a signal for Silky to jump in. In another minute the children were romping with him. Then they came out and crowded around Mary Louise, admiring the spaniel and asking his name.
“You didn’t see a girl about fifteen years old in a green silk dress, did you, children?” she inquired.
They shook their heads.
“Were any of you here yesterday morning?” asked Mr. Gay.
Two of the older boys replied that they had been there.
“Did you see the girl then?” persisted the man.
One boy thought that he did remember seeing a young lady – “all dressed up in a silk dress.” But she hadn’t stopped at the pool; she had crossed the bridge fifty yards below and had taken the path right back into the deepest part of the woods.
Mary Louise jumped to her feet. “Come on, Daddy! Let’s get going!”
“How about eating some of those sandwiches your mother packed for us?” suggested her father.
“Oh, no – not yet!” protested Mary Louise. “It’s only eleven o’clock.” She turned to the boys. “Have you seen any gypsies around?”
“A couple of days ago,” was the answer. “I heard they moved on towards Coopersburg. A fellow I know was over there last night and saw them telling fortunes.”
“What’s the best way to Coopersburg?” inquired Mary Louise.
“Through the woods is shortest, I guess. But I don’t know if there’s any path. We always go around by the road.”
“We were going through the woods anyhow,” said Mary Louise. To her father she added, “I do want to see those gypsies again, almost as much as I want to find Elsie.”
She whistled for Silky, and he came running out of the water, shaking himself joyously and rolling over and over on the grass.
“He’s forgotten all about the trail he’s supposed to be following,” remarked Mary Louise, producing the purple calico dress. “Come here, Silky, and sniff this again.”
The couple turned their steps to the bridge and soon were out of the open space, back in the cool shade of the woods. Here the path was narrow and deeply shaded, so that they had to walk single file for a long distance, sometimes picking their way carefully among the thick undergrowth. About noon they stopped to eat the sandwiches which Mrs. Gay had packed and to drink the iced-tea from the thermos bottle.
“It’s still a long walk to Coopersburg,” sighed Mary Louise. “I’d forgotten how these woods wound around. I don’t believe I ever walked this way before.”
“Are you tired?” inquired her father.
“A little. But mostly hot. I’ll soon cool off.”
“We won’t try to walk back,” replied Mr. Gay. “If we don’t find Elsie, we can take a bus back from Coopersburg.”
“I don’t think we should do that, Daddy,” argued Mary Louise. “If we don’t find her or the gypsies either, I think we should come back here and camp for the night. That would give us a chance to make a more thorough search of the woods tomorrow. Because we might easily miss Elsie just by keeping on this path, as we are doing now.”
“Why do you want to find the gypsies, Mary Lou?”
“They may have seen Elsie. For fifty cents that fortune teller will give you any information you want.”
Mr. Gay smiled.
“I’m afraid she’d make up anything she didn’t know,” he remarked.
“Well, she was right about Jane’s lost ring – and about the ruby necklace,” Mary Louise reminded him. “John Grant said so.”
“Yes, but she used her common sense in the first case, and in the second, she may have heard a rumor about the necklace – especially if this particular band of gypsies has been coming to this neighborhood for years… I wouldn’t attach too much faith to these people, Daughter.”
They gathered up the remains of their picnic lunch and started forward again, with Silky in the lead. On and on they walked for several hours, talking very little, and stopping only now and then for a drink of water from a spring or two which they passed. About three o’clock they came to a widening of the path, and through the trees they could see the fields that surrounded the town of Coopersburg.
With a new burst of energy Mary Louise started to run forward.
“I see some tents, Daddy!” she cried. “And that caravan! Oh, I’m sure it’s the gypsies.”
“Don’t run, Mary Lou!” called her father. “With that heavy pack on your back! I’m afraid you’ll hurt yourself.”
“I can’t wait, Daddy.” But she stopped and turned around, removing the pack from her shoulders.
“You keep the packs, Daddy,” she said when he had caught up to her, “and I’ll go ahead. I’d rather see the fortune teller by myself, anyhow. But stay where I can see you – within calling distance. And if I don’t come back in half an hour, come and look for me.”
“Mary Lou, are you expecting any trouble from these gypsies?”
“You never can tell!” she laughingly replied. Blowing him a kiss with her hand, she started to run towards the encampment. When she was about fifty yards away she saw the same children whom she had noticed the day of the picnic, and she looked eagerly for the fortune teller. A few yards farther on she recognized the woman, coming from one of the tents.
It seemed to Mary Louise that an expression of terror crossed the gypsy’s face as the woman caught sight of her. But only for a second; in a moment she was grinning and showing all the gaps in her front teeth.
“Fortune?” she asked immediately, as Mary Louise approached her.
“Yes – that is – not exactly,” replied the girl. However, she held up a silver half dollar in her hand, and the gypsy turned and lifted the flap of the tent.
“Bring the cards out here,” suggested Mary Louise, glancing back towards the woods to make sure that her father was within sight. “It’s too hot to go inside.”
The woman nodded and took the dirty pack of cards out of the pocket of her dress. “Sit down,” she commanded, and Mary Louise did as she was told.
The oddly assorted pair stared at each other for a moment in silence. Mary Louise’s eyes traveled slowly about the gypsy woman, from the top of her black head to the tips of her big old shoes. She examined her dress – of the same deep-blue color which she was wearing the day of the picnic – and she looked at her thin, bony, yet strong hands… Then, very deliberately, Mary Louise reached into the pocket of her knickers and brought out the strip of blue sateen which she had taken from the window ledge in Miss Mattie Grant’s bedroom at Dark Cedars.
With a triumphant gleam in her eyes, she held the piece of torn material close to the gypsy’s dress. Dirty and spotted as it was, there could be no doubt of its identity. It was a perfect match!
A wild gasp of terror escaped from the gypsy’s lips, and she made a grab at the condemning piece of evidence. But Mary Louise was too quick for her. Springing to her feet, she leaned over and hit the woman right in the mouth with her clenched fist. The gypsy groaned and rolled over in the grass.
Amazed at her own action, Mary Louise stood gazing at the woman in calm triumph. It had been years since she had hit anyone; she was surprised that she had it in her to deal such a blow. But the gypsy was not knocked out – merely stunned.
“Where is Miss Grant’s necklace?” she demanded.
The woman opened her eyes and whimpered.
“It don’t belong to that old witch! It’s mine, I tell you! Was my mother’s, and her mother’s before that. Old woman Grant had no right to it.”
She raised herself to a sitting position, and her black eyes flashed with hatred. “You wait till my man comes back – and see what he’ll do to you!”
Mary Louise smiled confidently.
“I don’t intend to wait,” she replied. “I have a member of the police force right here with me.” She raised her voice and cupped her hands. “Daddy, come!”
A look of awful fright crossed the gypsy’s wrinkled face.
“No! No! Don’t put me in jail! I’ll give you the necklace. But it’s mine – it’s mine by right, I tell you!”
Mary Louise was scarcely listening, so eagerly was she watching her father’s quick approach.
“You can tell that to Detective Gay,” she said finally. “And, by the way, where is the box of gold pieces you stole from Miss Grant?”
“Gold pieces? What? Uh – I never took – ” But her tone was not convincing, and seeing that Mary Louise did not believe her, she suddenly changed her story. “I’ll give you the gold pieces if you let me keep my mother’s necklace,” she pleaded.
Mr. Gay reached his daughter’s side in time to overhear this last statement. His eyes were shining at his daughter in speechless admiration.
“Your badge, please, Daddy,” said Mary Louise calmly. “Please show it to this woman.”
Mr. Gay did as he was requested.
“Now go and get the necklace and the gold,” Mary Louise commanded the gypsy.
The woman struggled to her feet.
“First let me tell you about that necklace!” she begged. Her bony hands clutched Mary Louise’s sleeve, and she looked imploringly into the girl’s face. “It was a precious heirloom – has been in our family for years and years. We held it sacred; it brought us good luck. Oh, I can’t bear to give it up now that I’ve got it again!”
Mary Louise glanced questioningly at her father.
“Sit down again,” he said to the gypsy, “and tell us the story.”
“Thank you, sir!” exclaimed the woman, dropping down on the grass at his feet. “I’ll tell you…
“It goes back fifty years,” she began, talking rapidly, “in my mother’s time, when we used to come here to Cooper’s woods to camp every summer… I was a child – and so was my little brother. A little fellow of six – my mother’s darling…
“One day he got suddenly sick. A terrible pain in his side. My mother almost went crazy, for she felt sure he was going to die. We couldn’t do a thing for him; the pain got worse and worse and worse. Then, like a burst of sunshine after a storm, Mr. Grant came riding up to us – and stopped and asked what was the matter. I can remember just how he looked – not a bit like his awful daughter Mattie! He promised to help us, to take my little brother to the hospital and get him well.
“My mother agreed, and she went off with Mr. Grant and the boy. They told her there at the hospital that the child had appendicitis, and Mr. Grant ordered the best doctor in the country… And my brother got well!
“My mother was so happy that we thought she’d dance forever. She wanted to pay Mr. Grant for the expense, but he was such a generous man he wouldn’t hear of it. So my mother gave him the ruby necklace to keep for her and said she’d be back every summer to see it. If ever Mr. Grant needed money, he was to borrow on it.
“He promised to keep it safe for her, but he never thought of it as his. Each summer we came back and camped on his place – we were always welcome while he lived – and each year we saw the necklace, and he would ask us whether we wanted to take it back. But we said no, because it was safer there, and he was our friend, and we trusted him.
“And then one summer we came back, and old Mr. Grant was gone. Dead. So we tried to tell Miss Mattie Grant about the necklace, but she shut the door in our faces and called the police. For years we couldn’t even come out of Cooper’s woods without meeting a policeman.
“Then my mother died, and my brother died, and I decided I was going to get that necklace back. So this year we came and camped in those woods, and every night I went over to Dark Cedars. Sometimes I’d sneak in while they were eating supper; sometimes I’d climb in a window with a ladder late at night. I began in the attic and went through each room, searching for the necklace.
“The first time I got into Mattie Grant’s room – it was one evening last week, while they were eating supper – I opened that safe of hers. I was sure the necklace would be there. But it wasn’t. I was so mad that I took that box of gold, although I hadn’t stolen anything out of her house before that.”
While the woman paused for breath, Mary Louise recalled the evening of the theft of Miss Grant’s money. This, then, was the explanation of the open safe, from which Corinne Pearson had taken the bills. And it proved, too, that Harry Grant had been innocent of any part in the actual theft.
The gypsy woman continued her story:
“It was you, miss, who gave me the information I wanted, the day you girls and boys had your fortunes told. You told me old Mattie asked you to sleep in her bed while she was away. So I knew that the necklace must be hidden in the mattress…
“You know the rest. I went to Dark Cedars while you were still at your picnic, and I thought I’d get the necklace before you came home. But you surprised me, and I had to hide in the closet while you got ready for bed… I – I – didn’t want to hurt you! I only wanted what belonged to me!”
Tears were running out of the woman’s eyes, and she rubbed her hands together in anguish, as if she were imploring Mary Louise for mercy.
“What do you say, Mary Lou?” asked her father.
Mary Louise hesitated.
“I – I – honestly believe she has more right to that necklace than Miss Grant has,” she answered finally. “So, if she will turn over the box of gold, I’m for letting her keep the necklace… But what do you think, Daddy?”
“It’s your case, dear. You are to decide.”
“Suppose you go with her, Daddy, while she gets both things. And be sure to keep your revolver handy, too,” she added shrewdly.
Mr. Gay smiled: he was delighted with his daughter’s keenness.
The gypsy nodded and, stepping inside her tent, produced the box of gold. The identical tin box which Elsie had mentioned. The necklace she took from a pocket in her petticoat. Meekly she handed both treasures to Mr. Gay.
“How beautiful that necklace is!” cried Mary Louise, in admiration of the sparkling jewels. It was the first time in her life that she had ever seen real rubies, and their radiance, their brilliance, was breath-taking.
“I love them dearly,” said the gypsy, in a hoarse tone, filled with emotion.
Mary Louise took the necklace from her father and handed it back to its real owner.
“You may have it,” she said slowly. “I’ll take the gold back to Miss Grant. But first I must count it.”
“It’s all there,” mumbled the woman, her hands fondling the beloved rubies.
Mary Louise found her statement to be correct, and, handing the box back to her father, she turned to go.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” she exclaimed, glancing at the gypsy. “Have you seen a young girl anywhere around here – or in the woods?”
Before the woman could answer, Silky, who had run straight to the motor truck, began to bark loudly and incessantly. Putting his front feet on the step, he peered eagerly into the caravan, and increased his noise until it reached a volume of which a police dog might have been proud.