Chapter III: The Robbery

Adelaide led the school in more respects than in the style of hats, and in the Amen Corner she reigned as absolute queen.

It may seem strange that this was so, for Winnie was the genius of our coterie. She was perhaps too active and restless. She seemed born to be a leader, but the leader of a revolt, while Adelaide had the calm assurance of a princess who had no need to assert her rights, but to whom allegiance came as a matter of course. Even Winnie was her loyal subject and delighted in being her prime minister.

I have spoken of Winnie's fondness for reading and telling detective stories. It really seemed as if in so doing she was preparing us for the events which followed, and the time when every one of us felt that she was a special detective charged with the mission of finding a clue to a great and sorrowful mystery.

It all came about through the robbery.

On the eve of my birthday it so happened that there was an unusual amount of money in the little safe. Adelaide had returned from collecting her rents too late to deposit her funds in the bank. She looked very much relieved as she slipped a roll of bills, amounting to nearly one hundred dollars, into her pigeon-hole, and turning the key, deposited it in the match safe.

Winnie had that morning cashed a check just received from her father, and had brought back from the bank some crisp, new notes, with which she filled her envelopes for the coming month. Cynthia had ostentatiously and yet mysteriously dropped some silver dollars into her cash box, and even Milly had laid aside an unwonted sum, for her father had called at the school and contrary to his usual custom had given her five bright ten-dollar gold pieces. Milly seemed very happy as she slipped them into her snakeskin and tucked it into her own particular corner of the safe.

"Unlimited pocket money this month, eh! Milly?" I asked.

Milly laughed and shook her head.

"Don't know that I am obliged to account to you for everything," she said, saucily, but the sting was taken out of the speech by the kiss with which it was immediately followed, and I more than half suspected that Milly intended one of those gold pieces as a birthday present for me.

Late in the evening I counted over my own hoard. We were all in the study parlor, with the exception of Winnie, and as I counted I looked up and saw that Adelaide and Milly were regarding me with interest, though their glances instantly fell to the books which they had apparently been studying.

"How much have you, Tib?" Adelaide asked; "enough yet to buy the steamer ticket for the ocean passage?"

"No," I replied, "only forty-seven dollars as yet, but I hope to make it before the close of school."

"Of course you will," Milly replied reassuringly.

Cynthia laughed raspingly. "You have almost enough now, if you go in the steerage," she sneered.

Adelaide suddenly threw a bit of drawn linen work belonging to Cynthia over the money, which I had spread out in the chair before me.

"What are you doing with my embroidery?" Cynthia snapped. "Did you mistake it for a dust rag?"

"Natural mistake," Milly giggled.

Adelaide lifted her finger warningly. "Hush!" she said, "I saw a face at the transom; some one was looking in from the studio."

Milly turned pale and clutched my hand, and we all looked at the transom with straining eyes. It was almost dark in the studio and for a few moments we saw nothing but some one was moving about, for we heard cautious steps, and a creaking sound just the other side of the door. Presently a hat cautiously lifted itself into view through the transom. It was a broad-brimmed, soft felt hat of the Rembrandt style, which Professor Waite sometimes wore. It moved about silently from one side of the transom to the other, descended, and appeared again.

"I never thought that Professor Waite would peep or listen," Cynthia whispered.

"He would not," I replied aloud. "He must be at work there hanging pictures or doing something else of the sort."

"Then he would make more noise," Cynthia suggested, as the hat continued its stealthy movements.

"It may be some one else who has put on the Professor's hat as a disguise," Milly gasped.

"That was the reason I covered up the money," Adelaide replied, in a low voice. "You had better put it away, Tib."

I hastily bundled my money into the safe and locked the door, and we sat for some moments quietly watching the transom, but the spectre did not come again. Winnie entered a few moments later and seemed greatly interested by our accounts of the incident.

"Do you suppose that it could have been one of that band of Italian bravos who has climbed up on the fire-escape and who intends to murder us?" she asked with an assumption of terror.

"Hush," I whispered, pulling her dress, and pointing to Milly whose eyes were staring with fright.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Winnie; "can't you tell when I'm joking? It was Professor Waite. Of course it was Professor Waite. He has been in love with Adelaide ever since she complimented him on his appearance at their first meeting. He is dying for a glimpse at her fair face, and as she won't join his painting class he relieves his yearning heart by gazing over the transom."

There was more joking, and Milly's fears were as quickly quieted as they had been raised. Professor Waite had undoubtedly been at work in the studio, I insisted, and I knocked on the door and called his name.

No answer, and I tried to open the door, but the chest held it firmly in place. "Shall I look over the transom?" I asked.

"For pity's sake do not repeat Winnie's experience," Adelaide begged.

"Then I will look in by the corridor door," I said resolutely, and I stepped down the hall and into the studio. The door was open, so was Miss Noakes's door just opposite, and that watchful lady sat rocking and reading beside her little centre table. She was not too much absorbed, however, to give me a keen questioning glance--but she said nothing, for as assistant teacher in art I had a perfect right to frequent the studio.

The moon was shining in clearly through the great window, and every object was distinctly visible, but there was no one in the room. I opened the door leading to the turret staircase and listened; all was silent, and I screwed up my courage and descended, finding the door at the foot safely locked. The great Rembrandt hat lay on the chest in front of our door, and the Professor's mahl-stick, or long support on which he rested his arm when painting, leaned beside it. I could not see any change in the disposition of the pictures on the wall, or other indications of what the Professor had been doing, if indeed it was the Professor, and I did not know of his ever before visiting the studio at that hour. As I came out I noticed that Miss Noakes was still rocking before her open door, her slits of eyes glancing sharply up.

"Have you seen any one go into the studio lately?" I asked.

"No one has passed through the corridor since the beginning of study hour, with the exception of Miss Winifred De Witt."

"Then this door must have been open all the time, and you have seen no one in the studio?"

"I have observed no one. Why do you ask?"

"We thought we saw the shadow of a man on the transom."

"Nonsense--it is silly to be frightened at nothing. It was probably Professor Waite. If you young ladies would interest yourselves less in the movements of that young man it would be much more becoming in you."

I turned away quickly, not relishing her tone, and looked at the corridor window, which opened on the balcony of the fire escape. It was securely fastened. I was puzzled, but did not wish to alarm Milly, and I now reported only what seemed to me the favorable aspects of the case.

No one there, all quiet and in order; lower turret door opening on the street, and the corridor window opening on the balcony, both locked, showing that no one could have come up the stairs or the fire escape. Miss Noakes, on guard, had seen no one enter the studio.

Of course it must have been Professor Waite.

"Of course," Winnie echoed. "Tib knows him too well to be mistaken even when she only sees him through a glass darkly. But think what that devotion must be, which leads a man to keep guard before his lady's door at night," and Winnie shouldered an umbrella and paced back and forward, singing in a deep bass voice, "Thy Sentinel am I."

Winnie was irresistible and we all laughed merrily at her pranks. But for all that I locked the cabinet with unusual care that night and Adelaide tried the door afterward to see that it was securely fastened. While doing so, she noticed something which we had not hitherto discovered--a little steel ornament like a nail head at the foot of one of the columns. Touching this, a small shelf shot forward. It had evidently been intended for a writing table, for it was ink-stained. Adelaide pushed it easily back into its place and its edge formed one of the three moldings which formed the base of the upper division of the cabinet.

"That is a very convenient little arrangement," Adelaide said. "I wonder that I have never noticed it before."

I soon fell asleep, and slept long and dreamlessly. I awoke at last with an uneasy feeling of cold. It was quite dark, and putting out my hand I found that Winnie's place at my side was vacant. I started up alarmed, and called her name. There was a little pause, during which I stumbled out of bed and groped vainly for a candle, which usually stood on a stand at the head of the bed. Not finding it, I noticed a beam of light streaming from beneath the closed door leading into the study-parlor, and I remembered vividly that when I went to bed I had left that door open, as I always did, for more perfect ventilation. I stood hesitating, vaguely alarmed, when the door was opened from the parlor side and Winnie stood before me holding a lighted candle--her face white as that of a spirit.

"How you frightened me!" I exclaimed. "What is the matter?"

"Nothing, I merely went out to see whether the door into the corridor was locked. I was lying awake, and I could not remember seeing any one lock it."

She spoke mechanically, and her voice sounded strange and hollow.

"Why, you did it yourself!" I exclaimed.

"Did I? Strange I should forget."

"You found everything all right, didn't you?"

"The door was not only locked but bolted," Winnie replied; but her manner was constrained, and her hand, which I happened to touch, was cold as ice.

"Come right to bed," I exclaimed, "you have taken cold."

Winnie did not reply, but her teeth were chattering. She curled up in bed and buried her face in her pillow. I was sleepy and soon dozed off, but I was vaguely conscious in my slumbers that I had an uneasy bedfellow; that Winnie tossed and tumbled and even groaned. When I awoke she was sitting, dressed, on the window sill. It may have been the early light but her face looked gray, and there was a drawn, set expression about the mouth which I had never seen there before.

"What is the matter?" I asked again.

She replied, in that cold, unnatural voice, "Nothing."

Just then there was a hard knocking at my door. Milly shouted joyfully, "Many happy returns of the day," and swooping down upon me buried me with kisses. Adelaide followed, and in a more dignified manner congratulated me on my birthday. "No flowers, Tib," Milly explained, "because you set your face against that sort of thing, and I was determined to let you have your own way on your birthday. Winnie, what makes you sit over there like a sphinx, with your nose touched with sunrise? Come here and help us give Tib her seventeen slaps and one to grow on."

"Tib will find my present on the stand at the head of the bed," Winnie replied, and turning, I discovered an envelope labelled, "For the European tour." It contained a crisp new bill of twenty dollars.

Adelaide and Milly looked at each other significantly, and Milly exclaimed:

"You dear, generous thing! Why didn't you tell us that you meant to do anything so lovely? Adelaide and I would have helped."

Winnie did not reply to Milly, but answered my thanks with a close hug.

"Come," said Milly, "and put your money in the safe, and see how much you have now toward the fund."

"Oh! That's easy to calculate," I replied, as I slipped on my clothing, "twenty and forty-seven--sixty-seven dollars exactly."

Adelaide coughed significantly. "Tib seems to be very confident that two and two makes four," she remarked. A suspicion that both Adelaide and Milly intended to help me suggested itself to my mind, and I hastened my dressing and unlocked the safe. As I did so Cynthia opened her door. "Oh! it's you," she exclaimed; "whenever I hear any one at the safe I always look to see who it is."

She did not retreat into her room, but stood in the door watching us with a singular expression on her disagreeable face. Adelaide and Milly were looking over my shoulder. Milly apparently vainly endeavoring to conceal a little flutter of excitement. We were all there but Winnie, who had not left her seat at the window, when I threw open the door of the safe and disclosed--nothing!

The space on the floor where I usually kept my money, where the night before I had placed a long blue envelope containing forty-seven dollars--was empty. The envelope and its contents gone.

Milly uttered a little shriek. Adelaide stepped forward and examined the space, passing her hand far in, and feeling carefully in every corner. Then she took out her own roll of bills from her little pigeon-hole. I counted them with her, just fifty-dollars less than the sum which I saw her place there. She handed me a five dollar bill, saying, "Tib, my dear, my only disappointment is that I cannot give you as large a birthday present as I had planned."

Milly threw her arms around me, "And I can't give you anything, you darling old Tib. I am so sorry."

"How do you know you can't?" Cynthia asked. "You haven't looked to see whether you have lost anything."

Milly flushed. "If Tib has lost her money, of course I have mine."

"Why, of course? The thief has obligingly left Adelaide a part of her money; perhaps yours is all there."

Milly opened her purse. It was quite empty. She closed it with a snap.

"I don't see how you knew it," Cynthia remarked unpleasantly. "Now I am really too curious to see whether I have been as unfortunate as the rest of you." In spite of this profession of eagerness she had seemed to me remarkably indifferent, and she unlocked her strong box with great deliberation, manifesting no surprise or pleasure as she reported "three dollars and fifty-three cents, precisely what I left there. This shows the wisdom of my double-lock; the thief evidently had no key which would fit my strong-box."

"Winnie," I called, "we have had a burglary; come right here and see whether you have lost anything."

Winnie entered the room slowly, almost unwillingly, quite in contrast with her usual impulsive action, and opened her envelopes before us. "No one has touched my money," she said; "here is exactly what I placed in the envelopes last night."

"Did you go to the safe in the night to get that twenty dollar bill which you gave me this morning?" I asked.

Cynthia Vaughn turned and looked at Winnie eagerly.

"I kept it out last night," Winnie replied, "when I put the rest away. You will remember that I sealed the envelopes then, and I find them now unopened."

An expression of malice and triumph, such as I have never seen on the face of any human being, rested on Cynthia's countenance.

"There is something very mysterious about this," she remarked, in an eager way. "The thief has entirely spared Winnie and me, and has been obliging enough to take only half of Adelaide's money. Tib and Milly lose all of theirs, but Tib's was money for which she had no immediate use. So that she will not feel its loss as much as Winnie or I would have done, and Milly has no real need of money at all--I wonder whether the thief was acquainted with our circumstances; if so he or she was very considerate."

"I don't know what you mean about Tib's not feeling the loss," Winnie began indignantly, her glance resting not on Cynthia but on Milly. "It will be a cruel disappointment to her if she cannot go to Europe to study, after all."

"Oh! that's not to be thought of," Milly replied, feeling herself addressed. "Of course Tib will go. Something will turn up. The money will be discovered. Perhaps the thief will return it."

A light flamed up in Winnie's face. It was the first pleasant look that I had seen there this morning. "It must be so," she exclaimed eagerly, but very gravely; "let us hope that the person who took that money was actuated by dire necessity; that it was simply borrowed, and that it will be returned."

"Nonsense," exclaimed Cynthia impatiently. "I have no such excuses to make for a thief, and I am going right now to report the entire affair to Madame, who will of course put it in the hands of the police----"

"The police!" Winnie cried, in a tone of dismay. "Oh! no, no!"

"Wait," said Adelaide commandingly; "that is not the way we do things in the Amen Corner. This is something in which we are all interested, and the majority shall rule. Now Winnie, will you please tell us why the police should not take this matter in charge? My explanation is that some thief entered this room last night through the studio door. Probably it was the very individual who was watching us last night through the transom."

"Oh! Not Professor Waite," Milly exclaimed, and Winnie started as though about to speak, but restrained the impulse.

"No, not Professor Waite, certainly," Adelaide continued, "but some one disguised in his hat. This thief waited until we were all asleep, and then began to help himself to the contents of our safe, but was probably interrupted or frightened by some sound, after securing Milly's and Tib's money, and hurried away without taking as much as he wished. That is the simplest, most likely solution, and it seems to me that the police are the proper authorities to take the affair in hand."

She paused for several moments. We all chattered together as fast and as loudly as we could. Then Adelaide rapped on the table with a nutcracker and said:

"I shall now put the question. Those in favor of reporting this matter at once to Madame, please say 'Ay;' those opposed, the contrary sign--but first, any remarks?"

Winnie hesitated. "I do not agree with you that it is a matter in which we are all equally interested," she said slowly. "Tib is the principal loser. Tib should decide what she wishes to do. Adelaide's theory looks plausible, but it may be wrong. Some member of this school may have entered through that door, and taken the money. Whatever is handed over to the police, goes into the papers. We do not want to bring on the school scandal and disgrace, which would follow the publishing of the fact that one of its pupils is a thief."

"Winnie seems to be very certain that the thief is a pupil," Cynthia remarked sneeringly. "If so, we can trust that Madame will ferret her out without outside assistance."

"My chief reason, however," continued Winnie, "for waiting a day or two before reporting this thing, is the hope that conscience will lead the unhappy person who has committed the crime to make restitution. Tib, you certainly look at the matter as I do. You are not vindictive; give the wrong-doer a chance."

"Certainly," I said.

"The question," called Cynthia. "Adelaide, put the question."

"Those in favor of reporting at once to Madame?" said Adelaide.

"Aye," from Cynthia, loud enough for two.

"Aye," more faintly, from Milly.

"Those opposed?"

"No," from Winnie and from me.

"A tie," announced Adelaide. "Then the chair gives the casting vote. I am in favor of reporting to Madame, and I think we had better make the report in a body. There is just time to see her before breakfast."

"I do not see the necessity of our going _en masse_," Winnie objected. "Tib, of course, as the individual who has suffered most, and who discovered the loss; Cynthia, who seems to enjoy telling unpleasant things; and Adelaide, who is strictly just, and the oldest and most dignified member of the Amen Corner. But I do not see why you should drag Milly along; the child has had enough excitement already. Let her lie down and rest her little head until the breakfast bell rings. As for me, I'm not going until I'm sent for. Not even a burglary shall make me miss my morning constitutional," and Winnie quickly equipped herself for a walk in the grounds.

"Milly shall do as she pleases," Adelaide said; "there is really no necessity, as you say, for her to go with us."

"I think I would rather go," Milly said hesitatingly.

An expression of keen disappointment swept across Winnie's face.

"Come, Winnie," I said, "you had better be with us; it looks better."

"What do you mean?" she asked hotly.

"Only that the Amen Corner always yields to the wish of the majority, and we are in the habit of standing by one another, even when we do not quite agree."

"Winnie need not trouble herself," Cynthia remarked; "we can get on very well without her. Of course she knows no more about the affair than the rest of us."

The words were innocent enough, but there was something very sarcastic in the way in which they were uttered.

"Evidently you would rather I would not go," Winnie said, as though thinking aloud. "I am sorry to be disobliging, but if that is the case I believe I will."