Chapter IV: Trouble in the Amen Corner

Doubt,
A soul-mist through whose rifts familiar stars
Beholding, we misname.
--_Jean Ingelow_

Milly had been unhappy for days.

And now a great trouble fell upon all of us. It was as though a dense fog of doubt and suspicion had drifted in upon the Amen Corner, separating dear friends, so that we could not recognize each other's faces through its dense folds, and our voices sounded false and far away as we called and groped for one another.

Our interview with Madame was very brief. I simply stated the fact of the disappearance of the money, which the other girls corroborated.

Cynthia began to enlarge on the statement, but Madame stopped her.

"I have not time now to investigate this unhappy affair," she said. "Indeed, it is something which will probably require the assistance of a detective. Do not look so alarmed," she added to Milly; "I happen to be acquainted with a gentleman--in fact, he is my lawyer--who has all the qualifications of a very clever detective. I will write, asking him to call, and to take charge of the case. He will keep it all very quiet. I am glad that you have come to me first of all, and I particularly request that you mention the fact of the robbery to no one."

With this she dismissed us, and we went to breakfast a little late, feeling very important in the possession of a mystery. Winnie was the only one whom this mystery did not seem to elate. Cynthia, who sat beside me at table, was overflowing with glee.

"It is better than the most exciting story which Winnie ever told us," she whispered to me. "Won't it be fun to follow the unravelling of the crime. Of course the detective will be led off by false clues, and all that sort of thing, and the real thief will suffer all the torture of alternate fear of detection and hope of escape; but the toils will close gradually about the doomed individual. I shall not disclose my suspicions till toward the last. Oh! what fun it will be to watch the development of the drama. I should think, Tib, that you would write it up."

"Your suspicions?" I repeated. "Do you really suspect any one?"

"Why, yes; don't you?"

"No indeed!"

"Then all I've got to say is that you are a lamb. You think every one as innocent as yourself. Because you have the innocence of a lamb, you have a corresponding muttony intelligence."

I was very indignant, but I did not show it. "Whom do you suspect?" I asked.

"That's telling," she replied, "and I said that I would not tell at this stage of the game."

Later in the day, as I left the studio to return to our study-parlor, I met Winnie coming out. She had on her hat and cloak and carried my own. "Come and walk with me," she said, "I feel all mugged up, and I need a good tramp. Milly is in there trying to take a nap. Adelaide and Cynthia are at recitation, and if you will come with me the poor child can get a little rest."

As we marched around the school building together, I told her of my conversation with Cynthia. Winnie started.

"I don't believe she really knows anything more than we do," I said. "Cynthia loves to be important and aggravating. If she really knew anything she couldn't keep it in."

"Find out whom she suspects," Winnie replied. "Cynthia is a real snake in the grass, and can do a lot of mischief by fastening the crime on an innocent person. I do not mean that she would do this wilfully, unless she had a strong motive for revenge, but she is unscrupulous as to the results of her actions, and loves to imagine evil and set forth facts in their most damaging light. Find out, by all means, whether she really knows anything likely to implicate any one."

"Cynthia is a hard orange to squeeze," I replied. "If she thinks I want to know, she will delight in tantalizing me."

Winnie was silent for a moment. "Find out whether Cynthia slept soundly all night, or whether she heard or saw any one in the parlor. She might have heard me, you know, when I went out to look at the door."

"Sure enough," I replied. "If that is all I will get it out of her right away."

We returned to our rooms. There was no one in the parlor. Winnie looked into the bedrooms. Only Milly sleeping peacefully, and Winnie stepped to the match box, took the key, and opened the safe. I do not know what she expected to find, but she looked disappointed.

"Did you think the thief would help himself again in broad daylight?" I asked.

"No," Winnie replied shortly.

At that instant Cynthia entered, flushed, and as it seemed to me triumphant. "Mr. Mudge wants to see you, Winnie, in Madame's private library," she announced importantly.

"Who is Mr. Mudge?" Winnie asked.

"He is Madame's lawyer. The keenest, shrewdest man you ever saw, with little gimletty eyes that bore the truth right out of you; and such a cross-questioner! If you have a secret, he knows it the minute he looks at you, and makes you tell it, in spite of yourself, the first time that you open your mouth. You need not try to keep your suspicions to yourself, they will be out before you can say Jack Robinson."

Winnie gave a little sigh. "And you say he wants to see me?" she asked, rising with a palpable effort.

"Yes, he wants to question us each separately, to see if our testimony agrees, I suppose. He asked Madame, as I went in, if she had kept us apart since the robbery to guard against any--collision--I think that was the word!"

"Collusion," I corrected.

"No matter; he meant that we might have hatched up a story between us, but Madame assured him that we were all honorable girls and incapable of such a thing."

"Of course," he replied, "unless they happen to know or suspect the culprit, and wish to shield her. In such cases, I have known the most religious young persons to lie like a jockey."

Winnie left the room, throwing me a look of piteous appeal as she did so, which I understood to beg me to find out all I could from Cynthia. I rocked silently for a few moments, to disclaim all eagerness, and then said casually: "I don't believe you would ever lie to save a friend." This in a propitiating tone, adding to myself, "you would be much more likely to tell a lie to get one into trouble."

Cynthia could not hear the thought, and she stretched herself luxuriously on the divan.

"No," she replied, "I don't make any pretense of being good; but I wouldn't do that. Whenever the Hornets got into scrapes, I always told. Madame could depend on me for that. It is sneaky not to be willing to take the consequences. Besides, you get off a great deal easier if you own up; and others will be sure to throw the blame on you if you are not smart enough to get ahead of them."

How I despised her. "I wonder if she thinks she is in danger of being called in question for this crime," I thought, "and has made haste to accuse some one else."

"You said you meant to keep your testimony until the end, so I suppose you did not tell Mr. Mudge your suspicions," I remarked.

"Didn't I just say that I did tell him?"

"Well, as they are only suspicions I presume he paid no attention to them. Lawyers generally tell witnesses to confine their testimony to facts."

"But I had facts, suspicious facts; not ideas of my own, but important circumstantial evidence."

"_In_deed!" I purposely threw as much incredulity as I could into the way in which I uttered the word.

Cynthia sprang from the lounge, her eyes flashing with anger. "Yes, _indeed_; very awkward facts for your precious friend Winnie to explain away."

"Winnie!" I exclaimed, and then laughed outright.

Cynthia was furious. "What do you say to this Tib Smith? I saw Winnie, with my own eyes, come into this room in her nightgown, with a lighted candle in her hand, carefully close all the doors, and----"

"Pooh! that's nothing," I replied cheerfully. "I was awake; I saw her, too. She merely crossed the room to see whether the corridor-door was locked."

"Yes, and after that?"

"Came back to bed again."

"There you are telling a fib to save your friend. She did not go back immediately. I was awakened by her softly closing my door, I got up and peeked through the keyhole, and I saw her open the safe and rummage around in it for quite a while, undoubtedly possessing herself of the money. Then she locked it and hurried back to her room looking as frightened as the criminal she was."

"It is not so! It is a wicked, cruel falsehood!" Milly cried, springing into the room. I had forgotten her presence in the bedroom and Cynthia of course did not know of it.

Cynthia was taken aback for a moment. "I will tell you why I know it was so," she said at length. "After Winnie went back to the room, and before any one else could have entered the parlor, I examined the safe and the money was gone."

"That proves nothing," I said; "it was probably taken before Winnie opened the safe."

"Then she knew of the robbery in the morning before the rest of you, and never told."

"You knew and never told either," said Milly.

"I was waiting for the proper time," replied Cynthia. "If Winnie did not take that money then she suspects who did. If she does not tell Mr. Mudge her suspicions, she is trying to shield the guilty person, and the--the shielder is as bad as the thief."

"There is no proverb that says so," I replied; "beside, you have proved nothing. If all that you say is true--and I don't mind telling you, Cynthia Vaughn, that I am not entirely sure of that--if what you say _is_ true, you are as deep in the mud as Winnie is in the mire."

"You think Winnie a saint!" Cynthia sneered. "You don't half know her. Before she came to room in the Amen Corner, and we were both in the Hornets Nest up under the eaves, she was the Queen Hornet of all. There was nothing which she would not dare to do, from letting down bouquets in her scrap-basket to the cadet band when they serenaded us, to bribing the janitor to let her slip out at night and buy goodies at the corner grocery for our spreads. She was a regular case, and her pet name all over the school was:

'The malicious, seditious, insubordinate,
Disreputable, sceptical Queen of the Hornets.'"

"We know all that," I replied, "but there are some things which Winnie _could_ not do. She could not tell a lie, and she could not steal."

"I don't know about that," Cynthia continued coldly. "She comes from an uncertain sort of Bohemian ancestry. You know her mother was an actress and her father a playwright."

Cynthia told this with great triumph, evidently thinking that we had never heard it.

"Madame told us," I replied, "that Mrs. De Witt was a very lovely woman, who only acted in her husband's plays; that she made it her life purpose to realize and explain her husband's ideals: and that he wrote the part of the heroine especially to suit her, so that their creations were among the most charming that have ever been presented on the stage. They were devoted to one another, and when she died his heart was broken. He does not write plays any more, but articles for encyclopaedias, which is an extremely respectable profession."

"And you dared prejudice this Mr. Mudge against our own precious Winnie," Milly continued. "You are just the meanest girl, Cynthia Vaughn, that ever lived! But you never can make any one believe anything against her. If, as Tib says, it lies between you two, we all know who is the more likely to have done it."

Cynthia turned green. "Do you dare to accuse me?" she hissed.

"No, Milly; don't do that," I cried warningly, and the overwrought girl burst into a flood of tears and threw herself into my arms. "We accuse no one," I said to Cynthia. "I trust that you have been equally cautious with Mr. Mudge."

"What I may have said or may not have said is no business of yours," Cynthia replied. "You have both of you insulted me beyond endurance, and from this time forth I shall never speak to any of you. I except Adelaide," she added, after a moment's consideration. "Adelaide is the only member of the Amen Corner who has treated me like a lady."

"I think it would be pleasanter for you and for us if you would ask Madame to let you room somewhere else," Milly suggested.

"I shall not go simply because you wish it," Cynthia replied. "I shall stay to watch developments."

"And, meantime, I believe you said we were to be deprived of the pleasure of any conversation with you," I remarked, rather flippantly.

Cynthia turned her back upon me and from that time kept her word, maintaining a sullen silence with every one but Adelaide.

The bell rang for luncheon. The forenoon had seemed very long, and the afternoon was simply interminable. Milly left the room with me. Cynthia did not stir.

"Do you think she took it?" Milly asked, nodding back at the parlor.

"No," I replied, "she is altogether too gay. She evidently enjoys the investigation. If she were the culprit she would be constrained, nervous, averse to having the affair examined." I stopped suddenly, realizing how exactly this description fitted Winnie.

"Adelaide believes," Milly said slowly, "that it was some sneak thief from outside the house. Have you looked about in the studio for any suspicious circumstances?"

I replied that I would do so after dinner, and then, as we passed into the dining-room together, the subject was dropped.

Winnie came to the table late and passed me a note, which I read beneath my napkin.

"Mr. Mudge wants to question you next. You are to meet him in Madame's parlor immediately after luncheon. Hurry and finish, so that I can have a minute with you before you see him."

I bolted my dinner, and Winnie sat silently staring before her, eating nothing. We left the dining-room five minutes before the conclusion of the meal, bowing as we passed Madame's table, as was our custom when we wished to be excused before the others. Madame's attention was absorbed by the teacher with whom she was conversing, and we passed out unhindered.

"What did you find out from Cynthia?" Winnie asked, as we walked toward the Amen Corner. "Does she suspect any one?"

"Yes," I replied. "She is perfectly absurd. It is just as you said; she insists on fastening the crime on a perfectly innocent person."

Winnie drew in her breath. "One of us, I presume?"

"Yes, Winnie dear. But," I hastened to add, for she grew suddenly deadly pale, "she can do no harm; her suspicions are too manifestly impossible."

"I don't know," Winnie chattered; "the reputation of many an innocent person has been blasted by mere circumstantial evidence. What does Cynthia know? What has she told?"

"That she saw you go to the safe in the night."

"Me? Then I am the one whom she suspects, and not--you are sure she saw no one else?" Winnie laughed a long, joyous laugh. "I can stand it, Tib," she said, "I can stand it. It's too good a joke."

"Of course," I said, "no one can prove anything against you. But did you go to the safe? I didn't see you do so."

Winnie's face clouded. "Yes, I looked in to see if everything was right. Mr. Mudge asked me if I had opened the safe during the night. He said that some one of us had been seen to do it, but he led me to suppose that he suspected some one else. I knew that he had his information from Cynthia, and I was afraid she had seen some one else. I mean--" and here Winnie corrected herself with some confusion--"I was afraid that she might have taken me for some other person, and I was very glad to acknowledge that I was the one who had opened the safe. I don't think that Mr. Mudge believes that I am the culprit, for he smiled at me in a very friendly way."

"How could he believe such a thing?" I asked. "It is perfectly nonsensical."

"But if he does not suspect me, his suspicions will probably fasten on some one else. On you, for instance, or Adelaide,--and I would rather be the scapegoat than have any annoyance come to the rest of you."

We had reached the Amen Corner, and had just opened the study-parlor door. Winnie gave a little cry of surprise. The door into the studio was open and a strange man stood looking at the broken lock.