Betty Wales & Co.: A Story for Girls by Margaret Warde - HTML preview

CHAPTER XX
 A FINAL EXCITEMENT

AT first Betty had not seen how she could possibly be spared from “business” on the most strenuous night in the Tally-ho’s history, with three class suppers being eaten at once in its precincts, a chef from Boston lording it over Bridget in the kitchen,—or trying to, and a little army of strange waitresses to be shown the way about. But 19— was firm; its president must and should sit through the whole supper on the right hand of Eleanor Watson, who was toast-mistress again this year; must present the mammoth ploshkin to T. Reed’s adorable young son, and the silver loving-cup to the real class-baby, the daughter of a certain Mary Jones, who had never in all her college course done anything less commonplace than her name. On the day after commencement she had married a Harding lawyer, and her living in town made the display of her very small baby possible.

“It’s not every first year reunion that has one right here on hand to be inspected,” declared Katherine Kittridge. “So here’s to Mary Jones, if she wasn’t a highly exciting member of our highly exciting class.”

So Betty finally yielded to 19—’s demands for her own and Emily’s release from duty, put the management of the suppers into Nora’s capable hands, and resolved to wear the rose-colored satin dress that she had bought in Paris and to forget for the one night that she was anything but a “lady of leisure” come to her class reunion, just like Bob and Babe and Roberta, without a care in the world or a thought beyond the joy of being “back” with 19—. And partly, no doubt, because the supper was so good and so well served, she succeeded. Eleanor was lovelier than ever, and her little speeches cleverer; Bob, on her other side, was jollier, Helen Adams more amusingly sedate, K. more delightfully absurd. The toasts were as “superfine” as all 19—’s stunts, the songs went with a fine dash, the ploshkins made a decided hit, and T. Reed’s little T.—it stood for Thomas instead of Theresa—was so dear and comical, trying to pull his big ploshkin off the table, and finally insisting on a chair for it between himself and “Mother T.,” as everybody called her now. Betty realized suddenly that she hadn’t had many “good times” this year, and that she had missed them. Then she forgot everything but the perfectly splendid time she was having right now, in the old care-free Betty Wales fashion. She counted the minutes jealously, and sighed all to herself when the last toast was over—K’s comical eulogy of “Our Working Women.”

But with the end of the supper the night’s fun was only well started. Up the stairs to the loft, bearing the ploshkins solemnly above their heads, climbed 19—, to sing to the little tenth year table; then out to the Peter Pan Annex to salute the fifteeners and pelt them with green carnations. The third year reunion was up in the gym; the seniors were in the Student’s Building. Off trailed 19—, to the tune of the ploshkin song, to return en masse the serenades that had enlivened its own supper. Up-stairs the tenth year people were not half-way through their toasts. Down-stairs Nora turned the lamps low, so that they would burn until 19— came back for its forgotten wraps and its last good-byes. It was a breathlessly hot night, so Nora left all the windows open, and she and Bridget, their duties ended, went home to well-earned rest.

It was long after midnight when 19—, having serenaded all the suppers, all their favorite faculty, all their “loved spots” on the campus, came back in scattered ranks and without music, for they had sung themselves hoarse, to the Tally-ho. The other classes had left, and the tea-shop was dusky and silent. Betty happened to be marching in the front rank with Babe and Roberta.

“I ought to have come back ahead and lighted up for you,” she said. “I thought Nora would stay until we got here, but it’s terribly late, and I suppose she got sleepy.”

“We can hurry ahead and do it now just as well,” declared Babe, and the three walked swiftly up the winding path and flung open the heavy door.

Though the lamps were turned low, they gave light enough to see by easily, and there, sitting at the desk, bending over the pigeonholes, was a tall woman wearing a dark dress and a dark, drooping hat, that, in her present attitude, completely hid her face. The three girls discovered the intruder at exactly the same minute.

“More Blunderbuss,” murmured Babe, remembering the mysterious robberies of senior year. “Do you know her, Betty?”

“No,” Betty answered quickly.

“Then I’ll just hang on to her till we see what she’s taken,” cried Babe impulsively, and launched herself fearlessly at the stranger, while Roberta screamed; a relay of girls appearing in the door just then rushed to Babe’s assistance, and Betty, not knowing what else to do, turned up all the lamps.

The tall, black-gowned woman was unusually strong, but she was no match for eight stalwart and determined members of 19—.

“I give up. Don’t smother me so,” she cried after a minute in a queer, deep voice. Her hat had been knocked off in the struggle, and the short hair and unmistakably masculine features that were revealed matched the deep voice and the manly strength.

“Why, she’s a—a man,” cried Roberta, and redoubled her shrieks of terror.

The man, still held firmly by his captors, struggled to his feet. “Shut up, can’t you?” he demanded angrily of Roberta. “Call the police if you want to, but don’t wake all the dogs and babies in the neighborhood, and for pity’s sake”—to the others—“don’t squeeze my arms so. It’s not ladylike.”

Almost unconsciously the girls loosened their hold a little, and the prisoner, making one supreme effort, dashed straight at the terrified Roberta, who stood near the door, and in another moment was out in the dark, running like a deer for the factory fence. When he climbed over the top, they could just see that he had left his skirt behind.

“Well, this is a crazy ending for a sedate little class supper,” declared Babe, sorrowfully inspecting a great tear in her lace-trimmed skirt.

“Wasn’t it queer how, when you knew it was a man, you couldn’t hold so tight?” questioned Christy Mason.

“We ought to have chased him,” cried Roberta, to the vast amusement of the rest.

“It wouldn’t pay,” Betty put in, “for there’s nothing of value here that he could take away, and nothing in the desk that any one would want.” She stopped to examine it. “Why!” she cried in dismay. “It’s been sawed off, all the top part, and put back again. Look, Madeline!”

Sure enough, the top of the desk had been sawed off just below the drawers, and then cut into three sections, which had finally been laid in place again, so that at first sight the damage would not be noticed.

“The vandal!” cried Madeline. “He’s ruined our prize feature. And what was his idea? Oh, I see! He couldn’t find the springs, and this was his hateful way of getting into the secret drawers. Do let’s count them. Two—four—that’s all. Then there wasn’t another drawer filled with a king’s ransom in pearls for him to make off with. That’s certainly a relief.”

“Oh, Madeline, do tell us what you mean,” came with one voice from the crowd of wide-eyed girls; and with many promptings from Betty and Babbie Madeline told the story of the secret drawers through all its exciting stages, ending with her theory of the hidden jewels as a possible motive for all the queer robberies.

“But that was evidently a little too wonderful,” she added, “though for that matter the real explanation may be even more remarkable. I await suggestions.”

These came thick and fast, but the best one was from Christy Mason. “Those papers that Betty found are very likely to be what they want to decide the ownership of some big estate or valuable lands. Old wills and deeds are often very important. But why don’t they ask for them, instead of trying to steal them?”

Madeline stared. “That rubbish! Why I think I—— Well, it doesn’t matter, because the waste-basket is as safe as any other place while I’m away. When I packed to come up here I think I tossed them into it, but I’m perfectly sure I didn’t empty the basket. I never do till it overflows. I’ll rush off on the six ten to-morrow—no, this morning, and I’ll telegraph you, Betty; Dick will know, or father’s lawyer, if the papers are the prize package. Good-bye, all you dear old 19—’s.”

So 19—’s collective farewells were said amid wild excitement, and half the class waited over to be at the Tally-ho next morning when Madeline’s telegram was delivered: “Papers safe in waste-basket. Two thousand dollars reward.”

This was thrilling, but tantalizingly incomplete; 19— departed gaily with its half-loaf, having made Betty promise to indite a round robin to the class explaining the whole affair.

“For it’s very much our affair,” Christy declared. “And don’t you write until you can explain every single thing, Betty.”

It was only a day later, as it happened, when Betty had the whole story. It seemed that the deed signed by “Peter” and witnessed by Robert Wales was wanted, exactly as Christy had guessed, to determine the ownership of a property worth many millions; and the lawyers of the rightful heirs had offered a large reward for its recovery. Meanwhile a daring adventurer, who was trying to assert his claims to the estate, had hired a disreputable detective agency to find and destroy the deed. Their clever work had traced it to its strange hiding-place, and they had made three desperate attempts to get hold of the paper. The fact that Mr. Wales was a relative of the rightful heirs—Robert and “Peter” were cousins—had made them suspect that his daughter would know of the search for the paper and refuse to give it up; but they had never guessed that the girls would have discovered and emptied the two inner drawers, of the existence of which nobody else knew but their client. “Mr. Smith” did not represent any Boston antique shop, and his knowledge of old furniture was confined to an exhaustive special course in the arrangement of sliding panels and secret springs. But though this had failed him he was a resourceful sleuth, as is proven by the fact that just an hour after Madeline had taken the papers to Dick Blake he appeared at her studio apartment in the guise of the building’s window cleaner; and it was due only to Madeline’s prompt recognition of his resemblance to the lady in black of the night before, that in less than an hour more he had been arrested, charged with despoiling the Tally-ho desk and also with entering Betty’s room in the little white house with intent to take the papers if he could find them there. For Betty had gone home to discover her possessions in great confusion, and Dorothy had told of waking up to find somebody in their room who said she was the washerwoman waiting for Betty to come and give her the clothes.

“And when I said ‘you’re not our wash-woman ’cause she’s Mrs. Gibbs,’ she said she was Mrs. Gibbs’ sister, and Mrs. Gibbs was sick. And then I guess I was asleep again,” Dorothy ended comprehensively.

From Betty’s rooms Mr. Smith had returned empty-handed to the Tally-ho, where he had previously succeeded in opening two drawers; and this time he completed his search in the most conclusive fashion that occurred to him by laying open the whole interior of the desk.

It was a detective story ready-made, Madeline declared, and promptly wrote it up, only to have one editor tell her that it lacked reality and the next assure her it was commonplace.

“You certainly never can tell how things will take,” complained Madeline sadly. “That’s what Mr. Morton says. He’s as nearly cross with you as he can be with his dear Miss B. A., because ‘those fool splashers’ that he got some shop to order a few of are catching on so splendidly. It’s certainly fortunate that Bob Enderby thought of the patent, for it seems there’s a small fortune in ploshkins.”

“Betty Wales and Co.” had certainly enjoyed a successful year. Will’s salary had been raised three times, and Nan had made a fine record and been asked to take a party of girls abroad for the summer. But between tea-shop, ploshkins, and “hidden treasure,” Betty was what Will called “most disgustingly wealthy.” It was great fun to be able to rush down town in Cleveland and buy the Japanese screens and the hammock that mother wanted for the piazza of the little cottage they had taken for the summer in a lake-side suburb. It was better still to be accepted joyously as the family cook. Now that she had plenty of money in the bank for summer clothes and other expenses, and a steady income from ploshkins, it was not necessary to waste time counting up how much her cooking saved the family. The only disappointment came when father absolutely refused to take her “ready money,” after what he had said in the fall about how every little would help.

“I can’t do that,” he told her, “and I don’t need to now. We’ve pulled through the worst of our business trouble, though we shan’t be back on Easy Street for a good while yet, I’m afraid.” And he sighed a little.

But Betty only laughed. “Who wants so particularly to be back on Easy Street?” she demanded. “It’s fun to see what you can do when you try. I like being part of Betty Wales and Co. I like being the cook. I shall like helping in any other ways that turn up.” Betty smiled a little far-away smile. “Lots of queer things have turned up this year. I certainly do wonder what I shall get into next.”

END