Part 21 (1/2)

”How-do?” gulped Clare, giving the French girl her hand. ”I _am_ glad Ruth brought you. But it was only yesterday--”

”What was only yesterday?” asked Ruth, as the hostess began to set out the tea things.

”Oh, Ruth! Haven't you heard something about the awful thing that happened here? That Professor Perry--”

”Ah! What about him?” asked Ruth. ”You know what I wrote you-that I had heard there was trouble in the Supply Department? You haven't answered my letter.”

”No. I was too worried. And finally-only yesterday, as I said-I was ordered to appear before the prefect of police.”

”A nice old gentleman with a white mustache.”

”A horrid old man who said the _meanest_ things to dear Madame Mantel!”

cried Clare hotly.

Ruth saw that the Western girl was still enamored of the woman in black, so she was careful what she said in comment upon Clare's story.

All Ruth had to do was to keep still and Clare told it all. Perhaps Henriette did not understand very clearly what the trouble was, but she looked sympathetic, too, and that encouraged Clare.

It seemed that Mrs. Mantel had made a companion of Clare outside of the hospital, and Ruth could very well understand why. Clare's father was a member of Congress and a wealthy man. It was to be presumed that Clare seemed to the woman in black well worth cultivating.

The Kansas girl had gone with the woman to the cafe of the Chou-rouge more than once. Each time the so-called Professor Perry and the Italian commissioner, whose name Clare had forgotten-”But that's of no consequence,” thought Ruth, ”for he has so many names!”-had been very friendly with the Red Cross workers.

Then suddenly the professor and the Italian had disappeared. The head of the Lyse hospital had begun to make inquiries into the working of the Supply Department. There had been billed to Lyse great stores of goods that were not accounted for.

”Poor Madame Mantel was heartbroken,” Clare said. ”She wished to resign at once. Oh, it's been terrible!”

”Resign under fire?” suggested Ruth.

”Oh-you understand-she felt so bad that her department should be under suspicion. Of course, it was not her fault.”

”Did the head say _that_?”

”Why, he didn't have to!” cried Clare. ”I hope _you_ are not suspicious of Madame Mantel, Ruth Fielding?”

”You haven't told me enough to cause me to suspect anybody yet-save yourself,” laughed Ruth. ”I suspect that you are telling the story very badly, my dear.”

”Well, I suppose that is so,” admitted Clare, and thereafter she tried to speak more connectedly about the trouble which had finally engrossed all her thought.

The French police had unearthed, it was said, a wide conspiracy for the diversion of Red Cross supplies from America to certain private hands.

These goods had been signed for in Mrs. Mantel's office; she did not know by whom, but the writing on the receipts was not in her hand. That was proved. And, of course, the goods had never been delivered to the hospital at Lyse.

The receipts must have been forged. The only point made against Mrs.

Mantel, it seemed, was that she had not reported that these goods, long expected at Lyse, were not received. Her delay in making inquiry for the supplies gave the thieves opportunity for disposing of the goods and getting away with the money paid for them by dishonest French dealers.

The men who had disposed of the supplies and had pocketed the money (or so it was believed) were the man who called himself Professor Perry and the Italian commissioner.

”And what do you think?” Clare went on to say. ”That professor is no college man at all. He is a well-known French crook, they say, and usually travels under the name of Legrand.

”They say he had been in America until it got too hot for him there, and he crossed on the same boat with us-you remember, Ruth?”