Part 20 (1/2)
Once inside, we blinked around with greater wonder than we had at anything which had happened so far.
Against the wall were standing in a row: Gladys, Chapa, Medmangi, Hinpoha, Sahwah between a strange man and woman, four young women we had never seen before but who wore suits and veils exactly like ours, and a girl in a blue suit.
CHAPTER XIV.
Before we had finished staring at each other in stupefied surprise the door opened again, and a woman ran in, at the sight of whom ”Sal”
darted forward and threw herself into her arms.
”Margery!” cried the newcomer.
”Mother!” cried the girl.
A few steps behind the woman came a man and he looked coldly at the two. ”You have forestalled us, I see, Mrs. Anderson,” he said, coldly.
The girl was Margery Anderson after all! I shall never forget the expression on the light-haired detective's face when he saw Margery rush into that woman's arms. He turned all shades of red and purple and looked ready to burst.
”Confound that Sal!” we heard him mutter under his breath. ”She's given us the slip again.”
Then we happened to look at Sahwah and the two people with whom she was standing. Sahwah was doubled up with laughter and the man and woman were as surprised looking as the detective. The man reminded me of nothing so much as a collapsed balloon.
It was the queerest police station scene anyone could imagine. Instead of making charges against us the various policemen and detectives all looked bewildered and uncertain how to proceed. Everybody looked at everybody else; and everybody waited to see what would happen next. And things kept right on happening. The door opened a second time and an officer came in leading a young woman in a stylish blue suit. Her appearance seemed to create a profound sensation with Gladys and Hinpoha and Chapa and Medmangi; they all uttered an exclamation at once and started forward. The one in blue looked at them and then burst into a mocking laugh. The four unknown girls dressed like us and the other one in blue seemed to be good friends of hers for they hailed each other familiarly.
”The game's up, dearies,” said the newcomer, gaily. ”My, but I did have the good time, though, playing the abused little maiden. Took you in beautifully, didn't I?” she said over her shoulder to Gladys. ”Maybe Sal can't act like an angel when she wants to!”
”Light Fingered Sal!” exclaimed the detective who had brought us in, staring at her fascinated. ”And all the rest of your company! Can't really blame me for getting on the wrong scent,” he remarked, looking from them to us. ”The only description I had was the suits and they are identical. Well, you're safe home, Sal, safe home at last,” he added, with a grin. Sal and her companions were taken out then and we saw them no more.
Then we heard the officer who had brought her in tell his tale to the detective. A man in an automobile had come to him that morning and said he had been robbed of his pocketbook and watch by a young woman he had picked up on the road. He had run into her and knocked her down and was taking her to her home. After he had put her down at the address she gave him he discovered that his property was missing and returned to the house, but could get no answer to his ring. The officer took note of the address and promised to keep an eye on the place. Later on he saw a young woman come out of the house and enter a near-by p.a.w.n shop.
He followed her and saw that she was p.a.w.ning the watch whose description had been given him. He arrested her and discovered she was the famous Light Fingered Sal, whom the police of a dozen cities were looking for. The house was searched, but the other inmates had fled.
But it seems that they were fleeing in an automobile and went several miles beyond the speed limit with the result that they were brought into the station, where their real ident.i.ty was established. They were the four tourists in tan and the one in blue, whom we had blindly followed out of Toledo, thinking they were Gladys and the other girls in the Striped Beetle. Sal still had the man's purse in her pocket when she was brought into the station and the owner was notified of that fact while we stood there.
Again, it was these friends of Sal's who had been ahead of us at the hotel in Ft. Wayne, whom the check man had told us about and who had left for Chicago by way of Ligonier. Together with Sal, they had committed some daring thefts in Toledo stores, and when the police had almost caught them they had escaped in an automobile. There had been no time to wait for Sal; they trusted her to join them somewhere along the road. The police were so hot on her trail that she had to spend the night in the empty storeroom where Hinpoha had found her, waiting until after dark that night to venture out. Then Mr. Bob had blundered in on her hiding-place, followed by Hinpoha. Sal saw her chance of working on Hinpoha's sympathies and so getting out of Toledo, and how she accomplished it we already know. She told her a well fabricated tale of being accused wrongfully of taking a paper from the office safe, and played the role of the helpless country girl in the city, with the result that the girls took her in tow and set out to find Nyoda. She a.s.sumed airs of helplessness until they did not think her capable of lacing her own shoes. All the while she was keeping a sharp lookout for the police along the road. At the same time she found out that the girls were carrying all their money in their handbags.
At first, she had intended staying with them until she got to Chicago, as that was her destination, but the losing of the trunk made them go to Indianapolis, where the automobile races had drawn great crowds from everywhere. She was sorely tempted to break away from the girls there and slip into the crowd, where she could gather a rich harvest; but she had been afraid that the police would be watching for her and decided that the prudent thing would be to go to Chicago. But after they had actually left Indianapolis and she began to think of what she had missed, she wished she had stayed there. She blinded the girls to her real character by pretending to know nothing about any kind of worldly pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt, and acted as though she disapproved of everything gay, and Gladys had remarked somewhat loftily that when she had seen a little more of life she would not be so narrow in her views!
Then the girls had seen the flowers growing beside the river and had gotten out of the car to walk among them, leaving her to sit in the car and hold their purses. It was as if opportunity had fallen directly into her lap. The lure of the crowd at Indianapolis was too strong and she started to drive back, leaving the girls minus their money and their car. But some distance down the road the car had come to a stop and she could not make it go on. She did not know that the gasoline had given out. She abandoned it in the road and walked across country until she came to the electric line, which she had taken into Indianapolis.
She had a narrow escape from the police there and took the train for Chicago. There she had been run into by the man in the automobile and her fertile brain had whispered to her to feign injury and have him take her home. While she was in the car she had managed to get the watch and purse. Later she tried to p.a.w.n the watch and was caught.
The detective, who had started out from Toledo after her had never seen her or her companions and had somehow gotten onto our trail and believed we were the ones. He had made no attempt to arrest us when he first came up with us, because he believed there were still others in her crowd and he wanted to wait until she joined them in Chicago and so get a bigger catch in his net, when he finally drew it in. He had waited around Rochester simply on our account; there had been nothing the matter with his motorcycle at all. We had told him ourselves we were going to Chicago, and then he had heard Nyoda telegraphing to friends at the Carrie Wentworth Inn there. He had told Mrs. Moffat to keep a close watch on us because we were dangerous characters, and she had promptly put us out of the house. The news spread through the town like wild-fire that there was a gang of pickpockets there and wherever we went we were watched. That accounted for the queer actions of the various storekeepers. But then, who had given us the address of 22 Spring Street when Mrs. Moffat had turned us out? That point still remained to be cleared up.
When we abruptly left town in the direction of Indianapolis the detective had followed us, but the storm had thrown him off our track.
He had come across us the next day near Lafayette and had made up his mind to hold on to us that time. Our headlong flight when we became aware of his presence drove all doubt away as to our being the ones, and then when he had seen the scarab the last link was forged in the chain which held us.
The timely arrest of Sal and her companions and the arrival of Margery's mother had naturally wrought sad havoc with the charges upon which we had all been brought into the station, and instead of feeling like criminals we all sat around and talked as if we were perfectly at home in a police station. The facts I am telling you somewhat in order all came out bit by bit and sometimes everybody talked at once, so it would be useless to try to put it down just the way it was said.
When Nyoda finally got the floor, she told about the finding of the scarab and about our being taken into the McClure home and sent down to the ballroom where she later found the diamond necklace in her pocket.
This tale created a profound sensation and now it was the turn of the detective who had brought in Gladys and those girls to look foolish.
The police asked us the minutest details about the appearance of the servants who had admitted us. We told about the maid Carrie with the black eyes which were not the same height and one of the detectives nodded his head eagerly. ”Black-Eyed Susan,” he said. ”She's one of the crowd we're after.” He also recognized the footman with the blue vein in his nose and the chauffeur with the crooked fingers. We were praised highly for having observed those little things.