CHAPTER XX
THE ACCUSATION
“The money’s gone!” repeated Edina Tooker.
Billie Bradley would not believe it.
“You must be crazy, Edina--or you haven’t half looked!”
She seized the hand bag from the girl’s nerveless grasp and began toransack it with eager fingers.
“It’s no use,” said Edina in a dazed voice. “I wrapped the money up ina paper and put it there last night. To-day it’s gone!”
Aware that they were attracting the attention of others in the bank,Billie pulled Edina over to a seat against the wall.
“Here,” she said. “We’ll pull this thing inside out. We have to findthe money, Edina.”
The girl nodded dumbly. Tears overflowed from her eyes and ran down herface. Absent-mindedly she wiped them away with the corner of a new silkpocket handkerchief.
Billie dumped the contents of Edina’s hand bag into her lap, scramblingthem with eager fingers.
There was a vanity case--a newly acquired luxury, to the buying ofwhich Edina had been egged on by Billie herself. There was a tinyblue-enameled pocket comb, a small purse containing a few pieces ofsilver, a shopping list, and a roll of bills amounting to ten dollars.
“That’s all mine,” said Edina dully. “The gift money is gone.”
“If you say that once more, I’ll scream,” cried Billie. “Stop crying,Edina, do. You have got to pull yourself together if we are going towork this thing out. Let me think! You say you wrapped the money in apaper late yesterday afternoon?”
Edina nodded, twisting the silk handkerchief nervously between herfingers.
“You say that was the last time you saw it?”
Again Edina nodded.
“What did you do with it last night?”
“I put it in my trunk and locked it. It has a queer lock with a keythat looks like a humped-backed old man. No ordinary key could openthat lock!” She looked pleadingly at Billie.
“What did you do with the key?”
“Slept with it on a string around my neck. I sleep light, too. Nobodycould possibly ’a’ got that key off my neck without me knowin’ it.”
Billie nodded and was thoughtful for some time.
“How about to-day?”
“All day long my pocketbook has been in the locked trunk and the keywas around my neck,” said Edina doggedly. “No one could ’a’ touched itwithout first knockin’ me dead, Billie.”
“Well, then--I don’t see----” The amateur sleuth paused, temporarilyat a loss. “It couldn’t have been somebody in the street car, comingout, Edina? A pickpocket, you know. I’ve heard they are very quick withtheir hands.”
“There ain’t none of ’em quick enough to have got this pocketbook awayfrom me,” Edina retorted grimly. “Anyway, I was holdin’ my hand overthe top of it all the way--just for fear someone would get a hold ofit.”
Billie jumped to her feet. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks werealmost feverishly flushed.
“Then if you are quite sure of this, the money must be up at ThreeTowers. You have dropped the money out of your pocketbook--perhaps whenyou picked it up.”
Edina started to say that she could not possibly have done any suchthing; but Billie was beyond listening to her.
“Come along,” she cried, with feverish impatience. “We’ve got to getback right away--before any one finds that packet and makes off withit!”
Billie’s impatience infected Edina. The two girls rushed for the streetcar, caught it by the barest margin, and sat twiddling their fingers indesperate suspense during the seemingly interminable ride back to ThreeTowers Hall.
Released by the trolley, they rushed to Edina’s dormitory. As luckwould have it, the long room was empty and they at once began afeverish search of everything in it, beginning with Edina’s trunk andwinding up by peering under mattresses and into pillow slips.
“Nothing!” panted Billie. She sat down on the edge of Edina’s bed torest “Edina! Edina! Where has that money gone?”
“I’d just about give ten years of my life to know,” returned Edina.
She sat down on the bed beside Billie. Her hands felt cold but her headwas throbbing feverishly.
“Billie,” she said dully, “it’s the end of everything for me here.”
“Nonsense!” said Billie, and took one of the cold hands and held ittight.
“It is,” said Edina. “They’ll say I took that money, Billie. What’sworse, they’ll _think_ I took it.”
“I won’t,” said Billie.
“I know you won’t. I think you’re the only one here who really knowsme. It’s been a long hard fight with the rest. Now they will think Itook the money and it will be the end of everything for me. I--I wasbeginning to be so happy here.”
Before Billie could say a word of comfort or reassurance the dooropened and several of the younger girls flocked in. Their talk andlaughter died at sight of Billie and Edina.
“Well!” said a dark-haired, dark-eyed, pert little thing. “You two lookas if you’d been talking secrets. What’s up?”
Before Billie could stop her or could even be sure what she was goingto do, Edina got to her feet and faced the curious girls.
Her eyes were red with crying, her fingers clasped and unclaspednervously, but her voice was steady as she said:
“I suppose you might as well know now as any time. That money the girlstrusted me with, the money to buy the present for Miss Gay, I--I’velost it. Or it has been stolen!”
The news spread like wildfire.
Billie dragged Edina to her dormitory, hoping to protect the girl, onlyto find her own friends lying in wait for her.
There was a crowd already gathered there, a crowd that increased innumbers rapidly. At sight of it, Edina shrank within herself and wouldhave fled cravenly had it not been for Billie’s grip upon her hand.
“No use running away,” Billie whispered fiercely. “It’s far better tostay and face the music.”
Ray Carew pushed her way to Billie’s side. She eyed Edina coldly.
“I’ve heard so many rumors that I don’t know what to believe and whatnot to,” she said. “What is all this about the Gift Club money beinglost, Billie?”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Billie gravely. “Only in my opinion it hasbeen stolen--not lost.”
Briefly but graphically, she gave an account of her and Edina’s tripto the bank in Molata, of their surprise and consternation when Edinadiscovered the loss of the money.
Laura, who had taken a firm stand at Billie’s side, turned to Edina.
“Didn’t you look inside your pocketbook before you started downtown?”she asked.
Edina crimsoned.
“No,” she admitted. “I was so sure the money was there I--I--didn’tbother to look.”
“A fine treasurer!” came shrilly from the fringe of the crowd.
“I should ’a’ looked,” confessed Edina miserably. “I’ll never forgivemyself for--for not lookin’.”
Billie’s grip tightened reassuringly upon her fingers.
“Hold fast,” she whispered.
“Let’s get this straight,” said Ray Carew. “Your story is that you tookyour purse from your locked trunk about two o’clock this afternoon. Youdon’t know that the money was there then, because you didn’t bother tolook,” there was the faintest sarcasm in Ray’s drawling tones.
“I’m sure the money was there then,” Edina persisted doggedly. “Nobodycould get into my trunk without breaking the lock--and the lock wasn’tbroken.”
“Well, let’s say that the money was in your purse when you took it fromthe trunk,” Ray conceded. “You took the purse in your hand then. Wasthere anyone in the room with you?”
“No one except Billie,” said Edina.
“Well, now, think hard. This may be quite important. Did you hold thepocketbook in your hand every moment from the time you took it from thetrunk to the moment you opened it in the Molata bank?”
Edina pondered the question, brows knitted.
“I--I think so.”
“Thinking won’t do,” said Ray inexorably. “Don’t you know?”
Edina thought again and finally shook her head in miserablebewilderment.
“I can’t be absolutely sure--I don’t seem to remember very well. I’mpractically sure I didn’t lay down that there pocketbook for a minute,but----”
“Yes you did, Edina!” Billie cried triumphantly.
“Where--when----” stuttered Edina.
“You put it down on the table for a minute while you went to thebathroom at the last moment to wash your hands. Don’t you remember?”
“I can’t seem to think,” replied Edina hesitatingly. “If I only couldbe sure----”
Ray Carew turned a serious face to Billie.
“Are you sure of that, Billie?”
Someone in the group snickered and a voice not hard to identify asAmanda Peabody’s said meaningly:
“If Billie Bradley was in the room alone with that money, what was toprevent her making off with it herself?”