Part 2 (1/2)
”To my surprise and dismay I found that there were only eleven, when there should have been twelve. I keep them there on a table so as to show them to some of my kind lady friends, for I am particularly proud of my collection, and Sarah had only that morning brightened them all superbly until they glistened.
”So I called her up and asked her if she could remember counting the spoons at the time she cleaned them. She a.s.sured me solemnly that the entire twelve were in the open case when she placed them on the table at my orders.
”It remained a puzzle to me for a whole week. I believed, of course, that Sarah must have unconsciously mislaid a spoon, which would be found sooner or later. At the same time I remembered the visit of that lad, who had never been in my house before, and how he might have glanced into the drawing-room through accident, and seeing my souvenir spoons, been tempted to purloin one. But every time that terrible thought flashed into my mind I indignantly refused to harbor it, I love all boys so much.
”Then again today he came with more work turned in by Mrs. Ackerman, who had for some reason of her own selected him as her messenger. I actually forgot all my ugly suspicions in the charm of his manly conversation, until some time after he had gone, again, at my suggestion, letting himself out. I hurried into the drawing-room, and with trembling fingers proceeded to count my spoons. There were but ten of them left in the open box. Another had strangely vanished!”
Hugh almost gasped, he was so tremendously interested in this thrilling recital.
”You are certain you did not make any mistake, Mrs. Pangborn?” he asked, for want of something better to say.
”Please step into the other room and count them for yourself, Hugh,”
she quickly told him. ”You can use the connecting door if you wish, instead of pa.s.sing around by way of the hall.”
Hugh came back a minute later. His face was very grave.
”It is just as you told me, ma'am,” he remarked, softly, at the same time shaking his head, as though he could not bring himself to believe it was as bad as the old lady suspected; that there must be some other and reasonable explanation for the vanis.h.i.+ng of the spoons; surely Owen Dugdale could not be guilty of such a base theft!
”What can I believe, Hugh?” she almost wailed. ”I do not walk in my sleep, and that colored girl is as honest as your own mother, I feel positive. Please tell me you will try and find out the answer to this distressing puzzle.”
”I can easily promise you that I will at least do my level best to learn where your property went, Mrs. Pangborn; and if possible recover it for you,” he hastened to a.s.sure her.
”Thank you very much, my son. As soon as I saw you I seemed to feel an inspiration that Providence had sent you to me in my distress. For it would break my heart if I were compelled to have that poor, weak boy arrested, and charged with so grievous a breach of the law. You being a boy may be able to have a certain amount of influence over him. You may even induce him to own up to his act, and send me back my precious spoons. The ones taken by some accident are the very ones I value most.”
”While I give you my promise willingly enough, ma'am,” Hugh went on to say deliberately, ”I want to add that I can't believe it possible Owen Dugdale could be so small and mean as to yield to an impulse, and take anything that belonged to another.”
”That is splendid of you, Hugh!” she cried, her black eyes sparkling with genuine admiration. ”I love a boy who has faith in his fellows, and thinks the best of them, no matter how circ.u.mstantial evidence may seem to blacken their characters. And my son, if only you can find an explanation of this puzzle that will exonerate your young companion, I shall be very happy indeed. A great load will have been removed from my poor old heart. I would rather lose the entire twelve spoons than learn that Owen Dugdale were guilty.”
”Then you will not say a word of this to any one,” he continued, ”particularly Chief Wambold, who everybody knows has a great itching to s.h.i.+ne as a wonderful sleuth, but makes himself only ridiculous whenever he tries to unearth any uncommon happening?”
”I gladly give you my promise to keep silent, Hugh,” she a.s.sured him, holding out her withered hand, resplendant with lovely gems, diamonds, rubies and pearls, for like most French women, the Madame was more than commonly fond of jewelry. ”And from what you say, as well as your mentioning the boy's name before I spoke it, I a.s.sume that you know Owen Dugdale?”
”I have latterly become greatly interested in him, ma'am, and we have been much together,” he told her simply. ”Since I pride myself on being something of a reader of human nature, I feel almost certain that there must be a great mistake somewhere; and that when the truth is discovered, you and I will laugh, and say it was ridiculous for us to even think Owen could have taken the spoons!”
The old lady's eyes glistened as she heard these brave words. Standing up for a friend was one of Hugh Morgan's leading traits; and yet, if the truth were known, he did not feel _quite_ so positive as his words would indicate. Things certainly looked dark for the Dugdale boy.
Hugh, when he came to think over the whole matter, was bound to be smitten with a grave fear lest the worst come to pa.s.s.
”Somehow I seem to have unbounded confidence in your ability to accomplish the impossible, Hugh Morgan,” she told him, which words of praise thrilled him to the heart, for he was, after all, human and a boy. ”Only good words have come to me about you from all those with whom I converse; for though you may think it odd in an old woman who never had a son of her own, I have all my life been interested in other people's children, particularly boys, seven of whom I have had educated at my expense. Ah! they are either fighting bravely for the life of France just now, or else filling patriots' graves in the battle country.”
Hugh asked a few more questions that chanced to occur to him. Then he prepared to take his leave.
”I will think it all over, ma'am,” he remarked, as she gave him her dainty if wrinkled hand to press, ”and like as not I'll conjure up some scheme by which we can prove whether Owen is innocent or guilty. You see I could be hidden in that room and a trap set, you sending him word to call for a package you wished him to deliver. Then if he went out without even looking into the drawing-room, and yet another of your spoons disappeared, we'd know to a certainty that the trouble lay inside this house.”
”Hugh, you give me fresh hope!” she cried, with her eyes glistening as though the tears were trying to flow. ”Oh! I would almost pray that something of the sort turned out to be the case, for somehow I have taken a great interest in Owen Dugdale. I mean later on to find an opportunity to meet that wonderful grandfather of his, for somehow I suspect he may turn out to be an exile of note who has taken this means for hiding his ident.i.ty. I have known eminent Russians to do that from fear of the Czar's secret agents.”
Hugh could not but remember how some of the people chose to believe old Mr. Dugdale was keeping in hiding from some far less honorable cause; but of course he did not say anything about that. He went out of Madame Pangborn's big house with a sense of having undertaken a great responsibility; and realizing that an up-hill task lay upon his young shoulders which might test his utmost abilities to carry through.
CHAPTER IV