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CHAPTER XI
The Picnic
The figure in white remained motionless in the doorway of Miss Grant’s room. Mary Louise continued to sit rigid in the bed, while Jane, who was still lying down, clutched her chum’s arm with a grip that actually hurt.
For a full minute there was no sound in the room. Then a flash of lightning revealed the cause of the girls’ terror.
Mary Louise burst out laughing.
“Elsie!” she cried. “You certainly had us scared!”
Jane sat up angrily.
“What’s the idea, sneaking in like a ghost?” she demanded.
The orphan started to sob.
“I was afraid of waking you,” she explained. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Well, it’s all right now,” said Mary Louise soothingly. “Ordinarily we shouldn’t have been scared. But in this house, where everybody talks about seeing ghosts all the time, it’s natural for us to be keyed up.”
“Why that woman doesn’t put in electricity,” muttered Jane, “is more than I can see. It’s positively barbarous!”
“Come over and sit here on the bed, Elsie, and tell us why you came downstairs,” invited Mary Louise. “Are you afraid of the storm?”
“Yes, a little bit. But I thought I heard something down in the yard.”
“Old Mrs. Grant’s ghost?” inquired Jane lightly.
“Maybe it was Abraham Lincoln Jones, returning for more chickens,” surmised Mary Louise. “But no, it couldn’t be, or Silky would be barking – he could hear that from the cellar – so it must be just the wind, Elsie. It does make an uncanny sound through all those trees.”
“May I stay here till the storm is over?” asked the girl.
“Certainly.”
If it had not been so hot, Mary Louise would have told Elsie to sleep with them. But three in a bed, and a rather uncomfortable bed at that, was too close quarters on a night like this.
The storm lasted for perhaps an hour, while the girls sat chatting together. As the thundering subsided, Jane began to yawn.
“Suppose I go up to the attic and sleep with Elsie?” she said to Mary Louise, “if you’re not afraid to stay in this room by yourself.”
“Of course I’m not!” replied her chum. “I think that’s a fine idea, and your being there will prevent Elsie from being nervous and hearing things. Does it suit you, Elsie?”
“Yes! Oh, I’d love it! If you’re sure you don’t mind, Mary Louise.”
“I don’t expect to mind anything in about five minutes,” yawned Mary Louise. “I’m dead for sleep.”
She was correct in her surmise: she knew nothing at all until the bright sunshine was pouring into her room and Jane wakened her by throwing a pillow at her head.
“Wake up, lazybones!” she cried. “Don’t you realize that today is the picnic?”
Mary Louise threw the pillow back at her chum and jumped out of bed.
“What a glorious day!” she exclaimed. “And so much cooler.”
Elsie, attired in her new pink linen dress, dashed into the room.
“Oh, this is something like!” she cried. “I haven’t heard any gayety like this for three years!”
“Mary Louise is always ‘Gay,’” remarked Jane demurely. “In fact, she’ll be ‘Gay’ till she gets married.”
Her chum hurled the other pillow from Miss Grant’s bed just as Hannah poked her nose into the room.
“Don’t you girls throw them pillows around!” she commanded. “Miss Mattie is that careful about her bed – she even makes it herself. And at house-cleanin’ time I ain’t allowed to touch it!”
“It’s a wonder she let you sleep on it, Mary Louise,” observed Elsie.
“Made me sleep on it, you mean.” Then, of Hannah, she inquired, “How soon do we have breakfast?”
“Right away, soon as you’re dressed. Then you girls can help pack up some doughnuts and rolls I made for your picnic.”
“You’re an angel, Hannah!” exclaimed Mary Louise. To the girls she said, “Scram, if you want me downstairs in two minutes.”
Soon after breakfast the cars arrived. There were three of them – the two sports roadsters belonging to Max Miller and Norman Wilder, and a sedan driven by one of the girls of their crowd, a small, red-haired girl named Hope Dorsey, who looked like Janet Gaynor.
Max had brought an extra boy for Elsie, a junior at high school, by the name of Kenneth Dormer, and Mary Louise introduced him, putting him with Elsie in Max’s rumble seat. She herself got into the front.
“Got your swimming suit, Mary Lou?” asked Max, as he started his car with its usual sudden leap.
“Of course,” she replied. “As a matter of fact, I brought two of them.”
“I hadn’t noticed you were getting that fat!”
“That’s just about enough out of you! I don’t admire the Mae West figure, you know.”
“Then why two suits?” inquired the young man. “Change of costume?”
“One for Elsie and one for me,” explained Mary Louise. “I don’t believe Elsie can swim, but she’ll soon learn. Will you teach her, Max?”
“I don’t think I’ll get a chance to, from the way I saw Ken making eyes at her. He’ll probably have a monopoly on the teaching.”
Mary Louise smiled: this was just the way she wanted things to be.
The picnic grounds near Cooper’s woods were only a couple of miles from Riverside. A wide stream which flowed through the woods had been dammed up for swimming, and here the boys and men of Riverside had built two rough shacks for dressing houses. The cars were no sooner unloaded than the boys and girls dashed for their respective bath houses.
“Last one in the pool is a monkey!” called Max, as he locked his car.
“I guess I’ll be the monkey,” remarked Elsie. “Because I have a suit I’m not familiar with.”
“I’ll help you,” offered Mary Louise.
They were dressed in no time at all; as usual the girls were ahead of the boys. They were all in the water by the time the boys came out of their shack.
The pool was empty except for a few children, so the young people from Riverside had a chance to play water games and to dive to their hearts’ content. Everybody except Elsie Grant knew how to swim, and Mary Louise and several of the others were capable of executing some remarkable stunt diving.
Before noontime arrived Elsie found herself venturing into the deeper parts of the pool, and, with Kenneth or Mary Louise beside her, she actually swam several yards. All the while she was laughing and shouting as she had not done since her parents’ death; the cloud of suspicion that had been hanging over her head for the past few days was forgotten. She was a normal, happy girl again.
The lunch that followed provided even more fun and hilarity than the swim. It seemed as if their mothers had supplied everything in the world to eat. Cakes and pies and sandwiches; hot dogs and steaks to be cooked over the fire which the boys built; ice cream in dry ice, and refreshing drinks of fruit juices, iced tea, and soda water. Keen as their appetites were from the morning’s swim, the young people could not begin to eat everything they had brought.
“We’ll have enough left for supper,” said Mary Louise, leaning back against a tree trunk with a sigh of content.
“If the ants don’t eat it up,” returned Jane. “We better cover things up.”
“We’ll do it right away,” announced Hope Dorsey. “Come on, boys! you burn rubbish, and we girls will pack food.”
“I can’t move,” protested Max. “The ants are welcome to their share as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think I’ll ever eat again.”
“I hate aunts,” said Elsie, with a sly look at Mary Louise and Jane. “I don’t want them to get a thing, so I’ll help put the food away.”
Max and a couple of the other lazier boys were pulled to their feet by Kenneth and Norman, and the picnic spot was soon as clean as when the party had arrived. Hope Dorsey suggested that they drive back to her home later in the afternoon and have supper on the lawn. Then they could turn on the radio and dance on her big screened porch.
“When do we visit these gypsies you were talking about, Max?” demanded Jane. “I’m keen to hear my fortune.”
“They’re back towards Riverside,” replied the youth. “About half a mile from Dark Cedars,” he added, to Mary Louise.
“They used to camp at Dark Cedars – at least, some gypsies did,” Elsie informed the party. “If they’re the same ones, you’d think they wouldn’t come back, after they were driven away by the police.”
“Is that what your aunt did?” inquired Kenneth.
“Yes, so Hannah says – Hannah is the maid, you know. She says Aunt Mattie hates them.”
The young people piled into the cars again, and Max led the way, off the main highway to a dirt road extending behind Dark Cedars. Through the trees they could catch a glimpse of the gypsy encampment.
“Has everybody some money – in silver?” inquired Max, after the cars were parked beside the road. “The gypsies insist on gold and silver.”
Mary Louise nodded; she was prepared for herself as well as for Elsie.
“Do we all go in in a bunch?” asked Hope.
“Certainly not!” replied Max. “You don’t think we could tell our secrets in front of the whole bunch, do you?”
“Must be pretty bad,” observed Jane.
“All right, then, if that’s the way you feel about it, I’ll go in with you!” challenged Norman.
“Suits me,” returned the girl, with a wink at Mary Louise.
As the crowd came closer to the gypsy encampment, they saw the usual tents, the caravan, which was a motor truck, and a fire, over which a kettle was smoldering. Half a dozen children, dressed in ordinary clothing but without shoes and stockings, were playing under a tree, and there were several women about. But there did not appear to be any men at the camp at the time.
One of the women, who had been standing over the fire, came forward to meet the young people. She was past middle age, Mary Louise judged, from her dark, wrinkled skin, but her hair was jet black, and her movements were as agile and as graceful as a girl’s. She wore a long dress of a deep blue color, without any touch of the reds and yellows one usually associates with gypsies.
“Fortunes?” she asked, smiling, and revealing an ugly gap in her front teeth, which made her look almost like a story-book witch.
“How much?” asked Max, holding up a quarter in his hand.
The gypsy shook her head. “One dollar,” she announced.
Max pulled down the corners of his mouth and looked doubtfully at his friends.
“There are fourteen of us,” he said. “Fourteen at fifty cents each is seven dollars. All in silver… Take it or leave it.”
The woman regarded him shrewdly; she saw that he meant what he said.
“All right,” she agreed. “I’ll go into my tent and get ready.”
The young people turned to Max with whispered congratulations.
“She certainly speaks perfect English,” remarked Mary Louise.
They sat down on the grass while they waited for the gypsy woman to summon them, and when the tent flap finally opened, Jane Patterson and Norman Wilder jumped to their feet and walked over to the fortune teller first.
“She’ll think you two are engaged, Jane,” teased Hope, “if you go in together.”
“Then she’ll get fooled,” returned the other girl laughingly.
The couple were absent for perhaps five minutes. When they came out of the tent Jane dashed down the hill to the road.
“The gypsy told her that her class ring is in my car,” explained Norman to the others. “The one she lost, you remember? She said it’s under the seat.”
“I could have suggested that she look there myself,” remarked Max. “Only I thought, of course, that she already had… Shall I try my luck next, or will one of you girls go?”
“I’d love to go,” offered Hope Dorsey. “I simply can’t wait. By the way, did she think you two were engaged?”
“No, she didn’t. She’s pretty wise, after all. She told me some astounding things. One was that a relation had just died – my uncle did, you know – and that we’re going to get some money… I hope that part’s true… You have to hand it to her. I don’t believe it’s all just the bunk.”
Hope ran into the tent, and while she was gone Jane returned triumphantly from the car with her lost ring. Mary Louise’s eyes flashed with excitement: perhaps the gypsy was really possessed of second sight. Oh, if she could only solve that mystery at Dark Cedars!
Mary Louise was last of all the group to enter the fortune teller’s tent. The woman was seated on the ground with a dirty pack of cards in her hands. She indicated that the girl should sit down beside her and gave her the cards to shuffle.
“I’m really not interested in my fortune half so much as I am in a mystery I’m involved in,” explained Mary Louise. She paused, wondering whether the gypsy would understand what she was talking about. Perhaps she ought to use simpler language.
“You mean you want to ask me questions?” inquired the woman.
“Yes, that’s it,” replied Mary Louise. “I’m staying at Dark Cedars now, and there are strange things going on there. Maybe you can explain them.”
“Dark Cedars!” repeated the gypsy. “I know the place… You don’t live there?”
“No, I don’t live there. I’m just staying there while Miss Grant is in the hospital.”
The black eyes gleamed, and the woman held two thin, dirty hands in front of her face.
“Mattie Grant is evil,” she announced. “Keep away from her!”
Mary Louise wrinkled her brows. “I’m not with her,” she said. “I’m only staying at Dark Cedars while Miss Grant is away.”
“But why is that?”
“That’s just what I want to ask you! Miss Grant’s money has already been stolen, and I thought maybe you could tell me what I’m supposed to be protecting – by sleeping in her bed every night.”
“In the old witch’s bed? Oh-ho!”
“Yes.” It struck Mary Louise funny that this gypsy woman should call Miss Grant a witch when she herself looked much more like one.
The gypsy, however, was giving her attention to the cards, shuffling them, and finally drawing one of them out of the deck. She laid it face up in Mary Louise’s lap and nodded significantly. It was the eight of hearts.
“Mattie Grant’s treasure – is – a ruby necklace,” she announced slowly, staring hard at the card. “With eight precious rubies!” She handed the card to Mary Louise. “Count them for yourself!” she said.
Mary Louise gazed at the woman in amazement, not knowing whether to believe her or not. The explanation was plausible, but it seemed rather foolish to her – that the eight of hearts should mean eight rubies… Would the ace of diamonds have indicated a diamond ring?
But there was no use in questioning the gypsy’s power, no point in antagonizing her. So, instead, she changed the subject by telling her that a box of gold pieces had been stolen from the safe in Miss Grant’s bedroom.
“Perhaps you can tell me who took them?” she suggested.
The woman picked up the cards and shuffled them again, muttering something unintelligible to herself as she did it. Once more she drew out a card, seemingly at random. This time it was the queen of diamonds.
“A light-haired girl – or woman,” she announced. “That’s all I can say.”
Mary Louise gasped. Elsie Grant had light hair – but, then, so did Corinne Pearson… And Mrs. Grace Grant’s hair was gray.
The gypsy rose from the ground as lightly and as easily as a girl.
“I think you’ve had more than your time, miss,” she concluded. “Now, please to go!”
CHAPTER XII
Bound and Gagged
“How was your fortune, Mary Louise?” inquired Max, as the former emerged from the gypsy’s tent and joined the merry group in the field. “Did she say you’d marry a tall, good-looking fellow, with lots of personality?”
Mary Louise laughed.
“No, she didn’t. I guess I’m going to be an old maid.”
“Then you’re the only one,” remarked Hope. “All the rest of us get rich husbands and trips around the world.”
Elsie came up close to Mary Louise and whispered in her ear.
“She told me to leave Dark Cedars,” she said. “How do you suppose she knew that I lived there?”
“Must have seen you around, I suppose,” replied Mary Louise. “She warned me to get out too, but then I told her I was staying there… But don’t tell Jane, Elsie. She’d go in a minute if she heard that.”
“Hadn’t we better all go – till Aunt Mattie gets back from the hospital? Wouldn’t your mother let me stay at your house if I worked for my board?”
“Of course she would. You wouldn’t have to work any more than I do – just help Mother a little. But I promised your aunt I’d live at her place and sleep in her bed, and I’m going to stay. There’s some explanation for all this superstition about Dark Cedars, and I mean to find it out!”
“Stop whispering secrets!” commanded Max Miller, separating the two girls forcibly. “Of course, Ken and I know you’re talking about us, and what you’re saying is probably complimentary.”
Elsie laughed and followed Mary Louise into the car. The group drove to Hope Dorsey’s, as she had suggested, and ate the rest of the picnic food for their supper. Another round of fun followed, and it was after ten when the party finally broke up.
Dropping Kenneth Dormer at his own home, Max ran the three girls back to Dark Cedars.
“Don’t you think I better go into the house and light the lamps for you?” he inquired. “It looks so spooky in there.”
“Oh, we have Silky for protection,” returned Mary Louise lightly. “Thank you just the same, Max.”
The young man waited, however, until he saw the girls unlock the front door and light the lamp in the hall.
“Everything’s O.K.!” shouted Mary Louise. “We’ll be asleep inside of ten minutes.”
Max waved back again and started his engine. Elsie lighted two more lamps which Hannah had left in readiness for the girls, and all together, with Silky at their heels, they mounted the creaking staircase.
“You can’t sleep upstairs, Silky!” said Mary Louise to her dog. “Miss Grant would never allow that. Go down to your box in the cellar.”
The spaniel seemed to understand, for he stood still, wagging his tail and looking pleadingly at his mistress.
“I think it’s a shame to send him off by himself,” remarked Jane.
“So do I,” agreed Mary Louise. “But it’s got to be done. He’d get up on the bed, as likely as not – the way he does at home. And just imagine what Miss Grant would think of that! Her precious bed!”
Turning about, she led the little dog to the cellar, and there, in a box next to the kitten’s, he settled down to sleep. When she returned the girls were waiting for her in Miss Grant’s bedroom.
“How do we sleep tonight?” inquired Elsie.
“Oh, you can have Jane again if you want her,” agreed Mary Louise. “It doesn’t make any difference to me.”
The younger girl was delighted.
“Only,” added Mary Louise, “if you expect to do any prowling around tonight, please shout your presence in the room.”
“I expect to go right to sleep,” replied Elsie. “With Jane beside me, I’ll feel safe.”
Mary Louise smiled and kissed her goodnight. In many ways Elsie Grant seemed like a child to her, in spite of her fifteen years.
Alone in the room, she undressed quickly, hanging her clothing on a chair, for she could not bring herself to use that big, old closet, filled with Miss Grant’s things. She was very tired, and, thankful that the night was so much cooler than the preceding one, she blew out the lamp and crawled into bed.
The utter blackness of the room was rather appalling, even to a courageous girl like Mary Louise. Accustomed as she was to the street lights of Riverside, the darkness was thick and strange, for the denseness of the trees about Dark Cedars shut out even the sky, with its stars, from the windows. But Mary Louise closed her eyes immediately, resolved not to let anything so trivial bother her.
The girls in the attic had quieted down; the house was in absolute silence. Mary Louise, too, lay very still. Listening… She almost believed that she heard somebody breathing!
“But that’s absurd!” she reprimanded herself sharply. “It couldn’t be a ghost, as Hannah insists, for ghosts don’t breathe. And it couldn’t be a robber trying to get into the house, or Silky would be barking. That dog has keen ears.”
She turned over and put the thought out of her mind by recalling the high lights of the picnic, and soon dozed off. But she knew that she had not been asleep long when she was suddenly awakened by the low, squeaking creak of a door.
Thinking it was probably Elsie, restless after too much picnic food, Mary Louise opened her eyes and peered about in the darkness. Now she heard that breathing distinctly – and something big and dark seemed to be moving towards her, something blacker than the darkness of the room. No face was visible to her until the figure bent over close to her in the bed. Then she beheld two gleaming eyes!
She opened her lips to scream, but at the same instant a thin hand was clapped over her mouth, making utterance impossible. Both her hands were caught and held in an iron grip, and a bag was pulled over her head and tied so tightly under her chin that she believed she would choke.
Mary Louise could see nothing now, but she felt a rope being twisted around her body, tying her arms to her sides. In another second she was lifted bodily and tossed roughly into Miss Grant’s closet… The key was turned in the lock.
In wild desperation Mary Louise tried to shout, but the thickness and tightness of the bag over her head muffled the sound, and the closet walls closed it in. The girls in the attic would never hear her, for they were at the back of the house, and probably sleeping soundly. So she abandoned the effort, and became quiet, twisting her hands about under the rope, and listening to the sounds from the room.
Whoever, whatever it was that had attacked her was moving about stealthily, making a queer noise that sounded like the tearing of a garment. For a brief moment the thought of Corinne Pearson jumped into her mind. Had the girl come here to get revenge on Mary Louise for disclosing her guilt, and was she tearing her clothes to pieces?
But such an explanation was too absurd to be possible. It couldn’t be Corinne – she was at that dance with Ned Mason. But it might be Harry Grant, searching for that precious possession of his aunt Mattie’s – that ruby necklace, if the gypsy was correct… But, no, Mary Louise did not believe it was Harry – or any man. Something about the motion of the figure, the touch of its hands, proclaimed it to be feminine… She thought of that ghost Hannah had described, the spirit of dead Mrs. Grant, looking for the hidden treasure, and she shuddered.
The tearing and ripping was becoming more pronounced. Mary Louise listened more intently, still twisting her hands about in an effort to free them.
She heard a chair being moved away from the window, and the screen being taken away… She twisted her hands again… Her right hand – was free!
In spite of her terror, Mary Louise almost sang out with joy.
The next sound she heard was a dear, familiar noise, a sound that sent a thrill through her whole body. It was the infuriated bark of her little dog Silky from the cellar.
Mary Louise lost no time in freeing her other hand and in untying the knot about her chin which fastened the bag over her head. She was free at last – as far as her limbs were concerned. But she was still locked securely in Miss Grant’s closet.
Through the crack of the door she perceived a streak of light; the intruder had not worked in darkness. But in a second it was extinguished, and she heard a noise at the window.
Then – utter blackness and silence again!
Mary Louise raised her voice now and screamed at the top of her lungs. She was rewarded by the sound of hurrying footsteps and the incessant bark of her dog, coming nearer and nearer. In another moment she heard the girls in the room and saw the gleam of a flashlight through the crack.
“I’m locked in the closet!” she shouted. “Let me out, Jane!”
Her chum turned the key in the door. Thank heaven, it was still there! Blinded by the light from the flash, Mary Louise staggered out.
“What happened?” demanded Jane, her face deathly pale with terror.
Mary Louise stumbled towards the bed. “No bones broken, thank goodness!” she exclaimed, sitting down carefully upon the bed. But she jumped up immediately.
“What’s happened to this bed?” she demanded. “It’s full of pins and needles!”
Her chum turned the flashlight upon the ugly piece of furniture, and Mary Louise perceived at once the explanation of the ripping sound she had heard. The bed clothing was literally torn to pieces; the mattress was cut in a dozen places, and straw strewn all over the floor. No wonder it felt sharp to sit down on!
“So the ruby necklace was hidden in the bed!” she muttered.
“What ruby necklace?” demanded Jane.
“That’s what the gypsy said Miss Grant was treasuring so carefully. She probably just made a guess at it – to seem wise. It may be a diamond ring, for all I know… Anyhow, somebody stole it. Who could it have been?”
“Tell us exactly what happened,” begged Jane.
Briefly Mary Louise told the grim story. Elsie had lighted the lamp, and the girls sat about on chairs, listening intently. Silky, who had stopped barking now, climbed into his mistress’s lap.
“Funny Elsie didn’t hear you try to scream the first time,” remarked Jane. “She was awake.”
“You were?” asked Mary Louise. “What time is it?”
“It’s only quarter-past eleven,” answered Elsie. “I couldn’t go to sleep – too much chocolate cake and apple pie, I suppose.”
“It was Silky who waked me up,” said Jane. “I heard him barking. And I looked for Elsie and saw she wasn’t in bed. So I thought he was just barking at her, prowling around the house.”
Mary Louise opened her eyes wide.
“Where were you, Elsie?”
“I – was down in the kitchen, getting some baking soda.” She burst into tears. “You don’t think I did that fiendish thing, do you, Mary Louise?”
“No, of course not.” But Mary Louise knew that Miss Grant would not be so ready to accept her niece’s innocence.
“We better make a tour of the house,” she suggested, standing up and going over to the window, where she noticed that the screen was out, lying on the floor. “I think the intruder must have gotten out this way.”
“But that’s not the window with the porch underneath,” objected Jane.
“No, but he could have used a ladder,” returned Mary Louise.
The girls slipped coats over their pajamas and put on their shoes. With Silky close at their heels, they went downstairs and out the front door, around to the side of the house.
The first thing that they spied was a ladder, lying on the ground perpendicular to the wall.
“That’s William’s ladder,” announced Elsie. “He often leaves it around. It seems to me he had it out yesterday, nailing up a board on the porch roof.”
“If only we could find some footprints,” said Mary Louise, flashing her light on the ground.
But she could see no marks. If the intruder had made off that way, he had been wise enough to walk over the rounds of the ladder. And everywhere cedar needles covered the ground, making footprints almost impossible.
“Wait till Aunt Mattie hears about this!” sobbed Elsie. “It’ll be the end of me.”
“We won’t tell her till she gets better,” decided Mary Louise. “Maybe by that time we’ll discover a clue that will help us solve the mystery.”
“Oh, I hope so!” breathed the young girl fervently.
All this time, however, Jane said nothing. But she was watching Elsie closely, as if she was beginning to believe that she might be guilty.
“Let’s go to bed,” concluded Mary Louise when the tour of inspection was finished. “I’m going to sleep in Hannah’s room – and I’m going to keep Silky with me this time.”
“I wish you had taken that precaution before,” sighed Jane.
“So do I. But it’s too late now. Let’s get some sleep, for tomorrow we have to get to work – and work fast!”