Two Little Women on a Holiday by Carolyn Wells (popular romance novels .txt) 📖

“Jiminy crickets!” said Geordie, “that looks bad! But I can’t believe Alicia would take it, nor any of you others. Let me talk to Alicia; I won’t accuse her, you know, but maybe I can gather something from the way she talks.”

So by changing of seats Geordie found opportunity to talk to Alicia about the matter. To his surprise, she willingly discussed it, and, moreover, she made no secret of the fact that she suspected Dolly of taking it. She said she felt sure that Dolly did it, meaning no great harm, but probably being over-tempted. “Why,” said Alicia, “she said only at luncheon that when she was at the Railroad Station she was so tempted to go home to her mother that she very nearly went. So, you see, she is given to sudden temptations and I suppose she can’t always resist them.”

Geordie considered. “I don’t believe she took it, Alicia,” he said; “either it’s slipped behind something, or else somebody else got in and took it. It never was one of you four girls! I’m SURE it wasn’t If I could be over there for an hour or so, I’ll bet I could find it. I’m pretty good at such things. S’pose I go home with you after the show; may I?”

“Oh, I wish you would! If you could find that thing, you would be a joy and a blessing!”

And so, after the performance was over, Geordie Knapp and Ted Hosmer both went to Mr. Forbes’ house with the four girls.

Alicia asked her uncle’s permission for them all to go up to the museum rooms, and he gave it. He was not entirely willing, for he rarely allowed visitors to his collections, but Alicia coaxed until he gave in.

“It can’t be that Alicia took it,” Dotty whispered to Dolly, “for she is so willing to have Geordie investigate.”

Ted Hosmer was as anxious as Geordie to hunt for the earring, but when he reached the rooms of the collections he was so interested in looking at the specimens that he nearly forgot what they came for.

“Look at the birds!” he cried, as they passed through the Natural History room on the way to the antiques.

“You like birds?” asked Dolly, as she saw his eyes brighten at the sights all round him. “Yes, indeed! I’ve a small collection myself, but nothing like this! I study about birds every chance I get. Oh, see the humming birds! Aren’t they beautiful?”

But Dolly persuaded him to leave the birds and butterflies and go on to the antique room.

Here the girls told their two visitors all about the earring and its disappearance. Mr. Fenn was not present, for which Dolly was deeply grateful.

Mr. Forbes watched the two boys quizzically. Then he said,

“Go to it, Geordie. Do a little detective work. If any of my four visitors took it, make them own up. I won’t scold them; I’m anxious only to know which one it was.”

“You don’t really think it was any of them, I know, Mr. Forbes, or you wouldn’t speak like that,” said Ted. “I know you think as I do, that some queer mischance or accident is responsible for the disappearance. But WHAT was that accident, and WHERE is the jewel?”

The two boys searched methodically. They did not look into cupboards or drawers; they asked questions and tried to think out some theory.

“Could any one have come in at the window?” asked Ted.

“No chance of that,” said Mr. Forbes, “considering the window is in the fourth story, and no balcony, or any way of reaching it from the ground.”

Geordie stuck his head out of the window in question.

“Who lives next door?” he said, looking across the narrow yard to the next house.

“People named Mortimer,” replied Mr. Forbes. “But they’re all away from home. They’re somewhere down South.”

“There’s somebody over there. I see a light in one of the rooms.”

“A caretaker, maybe. But don’t be absurd. It’s all of ten or twelve feet across to that house from our back extension to theirs. Are you thinking somebody could spring across, take the jewel and spring back again?”

“That ISN’T very likely, is it?” Ted laughed, “but there’s some explanation, somewhere,” and the boy shook his head. “You see, Mr. Forbes, somebody might have made entrance to this room after the girls left it Sunday afternoon, and before you discovered your loss.”

“Somebody might,” agreed Mr. Forbes, “but I can’t quite see how. Surely no intruder came up by way of the stairs; I can’t believe any one came in by the window, and what other way is there?”

“Suppose,” said Geordie, earnestly, “suppose the caretaker, or whoever is next door, saw you people examining the earring by the light from the window,—you were by the window, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Dolly, to whom he had put the question. “Yes, it was growing dusk, and I stepped to the window to look at the gold work.”

“Well, suppose this caretaker person saw you, and realised the jewel was valuable. Then suppose after you all went out and left the earring on this little table, which is only ten or twelve inches from the window, suppose the caretaker leaned out of his window, and, with a long pole, with a hook on the end, fished the thing over to himself.”

“Ridiculous!” cried Mr. Forbes. “Nobody could do such a thing as that! Absurd, my boy! Why, even a long fishpole would scarcely be long enough, and he couldn’t get purchase enough on the end—”

“I admit it sounds difficult, sir, but they do pretty clever things that way.”

“And, too, I can’t suspect my neighbour’s servants! Why, I’ve not the slightest cause for such suspicion!”

“Oh, no, I can’t think it’s that way, either,” said Dolly. “Why, that caretaker is a nice old man. I’ve heard Mrs. Berry tell about him. His room is just opposite hers, two floors beneath this very room we’re in now. He has a parrot that chatters and annoys Mrs. Berry, but the old man is honest, I’m sure. And he’s too old to be agile enough to do such an acrobatic thing as you suggest.”