CHAPTER XIII.--WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS.
Never since she had been Principal of West Haven High School had MissGray been so upset as she was now. For the first time a scandal wasconnected with her beloved institution. Every day there was a newcomplaint.
"Miss Gray, I only left my ring on the washstand a minute, while I waswashing my hands, and when I looked for it, it was gone," said one girl.
"But who was in the washroom, Julia?" asked the Principal wearily. Shewas disgusted and angry with this troublesome situation.
"Oh, all the girls, Miss Gray, but nobody saw any one take it."
Small purses containing lunch money were emptied of their contents andput back into jacket pockets. Some of the teachers lost money and MissGray herself was robbed of ten dollars, the wages of the old janitor,which she had placed under a paper weight on the desk, in her ownprivate office.
The whole school had gone distracted, but the pilferer was too clever tobe caught.
Twice Miss Gray had summoned Mary Price to her office, but, afterlooking gravely into the young girl's serious eyes, she kissed her andsent her off on some improvised errand.
"I shall wait a few days," the Principal said. "After all, there may besome mistake."
And it was then that she determined to try an experiment.
One bleak autumn afternoon a thick, wet mist rolled in from the oceanand enveloped the town of West Haven so densely that it seemed like acity floating on a bank of cloud. Only the dim outline of objects twentyyards away could be seen and the muffled call of the fog horn at thelighthouse on the Black Reefs sounded its dismal warning through themist.
Billie and Mary were hurrying arm in arm down the street in earnestconversation. Notwithstanding it was after school hours, they were goingtoward the High School.
"Do you think we can get it, Mary?" Billie was saying.
"Oh, yes, the janitor always leaves the door to the basement corridoropen until evening for Miss Gray and the teachers who sometimes staylate."
"It was stupid of me to have left that horrid old algebra, but you knowI always forget the things I don't like. If Miss Finch hadn't called medown so thoroughly this morning about my average in mathematics, I wouldjust let the lesson for to-morrow go, or if Miss Finch were only MissAllbright, or Miss anybody else but just a stern, animated mathematicalcube."
"She's all right if you know your lessons," said Mary, smiling. "It'sonly the ones who don't study hard enough to suit her who call her ahuman arithmetic."
The door to the corridor was open, as Mary had predicted, and the girlsentered, their footsteps resounding with a hollow echo through the emptyplace.
"'I feel like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted,'" quotedBillie. "Could anything be more ghostly than a deserted school?"
"It's not deserted," said Nancy. "I heard voices somewhere, I am certainof it, just as you opened the door."
They paused and listened for a moment, but the place was as still as atomb. A dim gas-light burned in the long corridor, on each side of whichwere the arched entrances to the locker rooms of the various classes,wash rooms and Miss Gray's own private office.
"It reminds me of the catacombs in this light," whispered Billie. "I'malmost afraid of the sound of my own voice."
The girls slipped silently down the passage to the stairway leading tothe class rooms. At her desk in the sophomore study room on the thirdfloor Billie found her algebra. As she gathered together some of herscattered papers in the not over tidy interior of the little one-seateddesk form, and searched for a certain favorite stubby pencil which sheclaimed brought her good luck with her problems, Mary at her own deskgave a cry of dismay and sat down limply.
"What was it, a mouse?" asked Billie, her voice sounding quite loud inthe empty room.
"Oh, Billie, Billie, no, it was not a mouse. It was fifty dollars,"cried Mary. "I found it just now in my desk."
"Fifty dollars?" echoed Billie, slipping her algebra into her pocket andhurrying over to her friend's desk. "Are you playing a trick on me,Mary?"
"Listen, Billie," said Mary. "I'm going to tell you something. I believeI am the victim of some kind of conspiracy. You know of course about allof the things that have been stolen from school lately?"
"Yes, but I haven't had any losses myself; so I haven't talked about itmuch to the others."
"Of course you had no idea that I was supposed to be the thief," Marywent on, with a sort of dry sob in her voice that was moreheart-breaking to Billie than real weeping would have been.
Mary told her the story of Fannie Alta and the twenty dollars.
"I didn't tell it before," she continued, "because I was so ashamedsomehow, I couldn't bear for any one to know it."
Billie's heart swelled with indignation.
"The little wretch," she exclaimed, "you should have gone straight toMiss Gray about it, Mary."
"I know it, and I am sorry now I didn't, but I thought she wouldn't daredo it again, and she hasn't, but things are disappearing all the time,and I believe she has told it around school that I took the twentydollars and all the other things. Nobody has said anything, of course,but I can't help feeling that they are all whispering about me whenevermy back is turned."
"You poor, blessed child," exclaimed her friend. "And all this time youhave been keeping it secret and suffering in silence."
Mary nodded her head.
"And the worst of it is, Miss Gray suspects me too. But she is not goingto say anything until she is sure. I thought of talking to her about it,but it would look as if I had a guilty conscience to complain before Iam accused."
"How dare any one suspect you of stealing," cried Billie, putting herarms around her friend and kissing her warmly. "Would Miss Gray or anyone else be so stupid as to take the word of Fannie Alta before yours?"
"But nobody has said anything that I know of," groaned poor Mary. "It'sall in the air. That is why I don't know what to do. Suppose after all Iwas mistaken and they didn't suspect me. Suppose I took this money toMiss Gray and suppose she would think that I had taken all the otherthings and was just returning this because I had lost my nerve andsuppose--suppose----"
"But, Mary," remonstrated Billie, "why suppose anything at all so awful?Why not suppose that Miss Gray will listen to you and believe every wordyou say. You are perfectly innocent and nothing on earth can make youguilty. Of course Fannie Alta must have left the money in your desk,though where she got so much is a mystery to me."
"But I tell you I am frightened, Billie. Such wretched things do happenand innocent people often suffer for guilty ones."
"Nonsense, Mary, you must not lose your nerve in this way. Take themoney and go straight to Miss Gray with it now. I will go with you."
The two girls gathered their things together silently. Mary put the rollof money in her jacket pocket and they made for the door. It was almostdark now and the rows of empty desks down the big room were likekneeling phantoms in the half light.
"Did you hear anything?" whispered Mary as they reached the door.
"I heard a step," answered Billie in a low voice. "It was probably thejanitor."
With a mutual impulse they clasped hands and a wave of fear swept overthem when they found that the door would not open.
"It must have stuck," whispered Mary. "Try it again."
But the door was locked fast.
"There is only one way for you to get back the key to the door, youngladies," said a voice so near to them that they both jumped back as ifthey had been struck in the face.
The person who had spoken had been standing flat against the wall at theside of the door. He emerged from the shadows, as quietly as a shadowitself, and in the twilight his long, lank figure seemed almost to befloating in space. The small black mask which covered his face and hiswhole appearance reminded Billie of a gruesome picture she had once seencalled "The Black Masque."
"You have a small sum of money there," he went on, "which you evidentlydo not wish to keep and which I would be ple
ased to have and can use atonce. By a strange coincidence, I happened to overhear yourconversation, you see, and as the money appears to belong to nobody andis exactly the sum I require I must have it."
Mary tried to speak, but her lips refused to form the words, and she hadno voice left. There was a sound in Billie's ears like the pounding ofsurf on the beach and she felt quite dizzy.
"This is fright," she found herself saying, as a wave of homesicknessfor her father swept over her.
"Oh, papa, papa," she whispered.
The man had seized Mary's two hands in one of his with a grip of steel,while with the other he felt in her jacket pocket, took the roll ofmoney, pushed Billie roughly from the door, and with a laugh pulled backthe bolt; there had been no key after all. The next instant he hadslipped downstairs as softly as a cat and was gone.
The girls followed after him like two sleep walkers.
"We've been robbed, Billie," moaned Mary, giving her dry sob. "The fiftydollars is gone. What shall we do now?"
Billie did not reply. She wanted to get out of that dark stuffy schoolbuilding, and breathe in some fresh air before she dared trust hervoice. It was good to feel the wet fog again in their faces as theyhurried up the street.
"Why not still tell Miss Gray, Mary?" asked Billie at last, but alreadythere was a feeling of doubt in her heart. It was certainly a veryunlikely sounding story, a robber in the school room.
Suddenly a figure loomed up in the mist. It was Miss Gray herself.
"You are out late, girls," she said as she hurried past, and for somereason they both had an uncomfortable feeling of having done somethingwrong.
Miss Gray hastened into the school building just as the janitor appearedto lock up.
"Jennings," she said, "switch on the light in the sophomore study room.I shall only be there a moment."
The janitor shuffled after her and turned on the light while Miss Grayopened Mary's desk. She sighed deeply and shook her head.
"She must have got here before me," she thought. "It was cruel to temptthe child at such a time as this when her mother is in great need ofmoney. I felt so sure she would bring it straight to me and that was theonly test I required. Oh, dear, what a crooked world this is. I am outfifty dollars. But how will the poor child ever explain all this moneyto her mother? She must have saved a good deal out of her pilfering----"
Miss Gray's disconnected train of thought did not bring her any comfort,as she slowly descended the three flights of steps into the basement andplunged into the mist again.
"At least I shall wait a day or two," she continued. "The child maythink better of it. She might have stopped me this evening, though. Atall events I deserve to lose the money. It was a silly, stupid impulse,but I was so sure--so very sure----"
The mist had grown so thick now that the Principal walked very slowly,keeping close to the fence in order to guide herself to the corner whereshe must turn to go to her own home. A voice reached her through thefog. Someone was coming up from behind.
"I have procured fifty, Senor, a curious lucky stroke, and from aschoolroom, too--would you have believed----" the voice broke off in alaugh.
"Be careful----" said another voice, and two figures passed Miss Gray inthe fog and were swallowed up again immediately.
"Is it possible," she exclaimed, "robbers in West Haven High School?What does it mean? And I have been blaming that innocent child. What animbecile I have been!"
Her last resolution before sleep came to her that night was to notifythe town police in the morning and hire a detective to stay about theHigh School day and night.
Imagine the surprise of the bewildered Principal, when, next morningbright and early, Mary Price, after a timid knock on the office door,came hesitatingly into the room.
"Miss Gray," she said, "I found this money yesterday afternoon in mydesk. I don't know how it came there nor whose it is. But it would bebetter for you to take charge of it until the owner asks for it."
Mary spoke quickly, as if she had learned the little speech carefully byheart. There was a strange expression on Miss Gray's face as she tookten crisp new five-dollar bills from the young girl's outstretched hand.
"This is not even the same money," she thought, forgetting to answerMary in her amazement. "Am I losing my senses or is the child a deepdyed villain?"
Mary flushed scarlet under the Principal's steady gaze, but she did notlower her eyes, and there was not a sign of guilt in the expression ofthe sad little face.
"Very well, dear," Miss Gray said at last.
Mary, as she closed the door behind her, was more mystified than MissGray.
"I should think she would have shown a little surprise," she said.