Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College Part 10

No account of the recapture of "Larry, the Locksmith" appeared in the morning paper. But in the evening paper a full account was published.

Grace had waited apprehensively for the evening edition, which was usually out by four o 'clock in the afternoon. She purchased a paper of the boy who stationed himself daily at the southeast corner of the campus, but purposely delayed opening it until she reached her room.

Then almost fearfully she unfolded it, with her three friends looking over her shoulder.

The article began with the flaring headline, "A Desperate Criminal Recaptured." Grace glanced rapidly down the column, then gave an audible murmur of relief. "We aren't mentioned. I shall always have a superlatively good opinion of Chief Ellis. He kept his word to me absolutely. Now I shan't mind writing Father."

"If I had done what you did, I'd insist upon having my name in extra large type, and a portrait and biographical sketch of myself as well,"

was Elfreda's modest declaration.

"No, you wouldn't, and you know it," contradicted Grace.

"Well, I might not go as far as the portrait, but I should certainly have the biographical sketch."

"I am going to entertain to-night in honor of Grace," announced Miriam.

"Shall I invite some of the other girls, or shall we four celebrate in solitary state?"

"Don't invite any outsiders this time," said Elfreda. "Then we'll be free to talk over our visit to Mabel and anything else we choose."

"There is one person who really ought to be invited," broke in Grace, with conviction. "I mean Kathleen West. Then we can deliver Mabel's invitation to her. I have an idea that she won't refuse to go to New York with us. I hope she will be different from now on. It would be simply splendid to glide peacefully through the rest of one's senior year without a single hitch, wouldn't it?"

"Have you seen her since last night?" asked Anne.

Grace shook her head. "I knocked on her door at noon, but neither she nor Patience was in. I saw Patience afterward, and she said Kathleen had hurried through her luncheon and gone. I don't think Patience knew anything about last night. If she had known, she would have mentioned it. I will try to see Kathleen before dinner."

"You will have to hurry if you do. It is almost time for the dinner bell now," said Elfreda. "You might ask Patience, too."

"All right, I'll go at once. Wait for me. I'll be back in a minute. Then we can go down to dinner together."

Grace knocked lightly upon the door of the end room. It was opened by Kathleen herself.

"Good evening. Won't you come in?" Kathleen's voice was as cold and unfriendly as it had formerly been.

"Good evening." Somewhat puzzled at Kathleen's return to her old, cavalier manner, Grace hardly knew how to proceed. "Did you see today's paper?" she asked, by way of beginning.

"Which paper?" was the brusque inquiry.

"Why, the 'Evening Journal,' of course."

"Oh!" Kathleen's tense expression relaxed a trifle. "Yes, I saw it."

"I am so glad Chief Ellis kept his word. I hope you were on time with your New York story."

"Thank you. It went through nicely!" Kathleen answered in a low tone.

"I just stopped for a moment to ask you to come to a little jollification in Miriam's room to-night. We want Patience, too."

"Miss Eliot went to Westbrook this afternoon. She will not return until to-morrow morning. As for me, I thank you, but it will be impossible for me to come. I have another engagement."

"I am sorry," returned Grace. "Perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, I had better deliver another invitation I have for you at once. I recently received a letter from Miss Ashe inviting us to spend Thanksgiving at her home in New York. She wished me to extend her invitation to you, also. Mabel does not know----" began Grace. Then her face reddened and she ceased abruptly.

Kathleen, understanding the flush, said dryly: "Miss Ashe is very kind to think of me. However, it is out of the question for me to accept her invitation. I will write her to-night. It is strange she did not write me, too."

"She has been extremely busy," retorted Grace, her face flus.h.i.+ng a still deeper red at Kathleen's rudeness. "She invited Miriam, Elfreda and Anne the same way."

"That has nothing to do with me," declared Kathleen. "If you will be so kind, you might say in your letter to her that I will write her within a few days." She kept her face half averted, her eyes refusing to meet Grace's.

"Very well." Grace felt her anger rising. She turned from the door, which closed almost in her face, and went back to her room hurt and indignant.

"Refused and trampled upon as well," declared Elfreda after one glance at Grace's stormy eyes. "Never mind, Grace. I wouldn't let a little thing like that worry me. I wouldn't even think about it."

Grace gave a short laugh. "Of course 'you could see,'" she mimicked.

"I'd be blind if I couldn't," grinned Elfreda. "The look in your eyes tells the story."

"You are right, as usual. She has frozen again. She is icier than ever."

"Where's Patience?" asked Anne.

"Gone to Westbrook. Won't be back until to-morrow. If she were here she might prevail upon Kathleen to behave reasonably."

"We four have been known to enjoy ourselves together without adding to our number," observed Elfreda in a dry tone. "I think I could live without her."

Grace brightened. "Oh, wise and superwise Elfreda, in your words lurk the essence of truth. We four will have one of our own special brand of good times to-night. See, I throw all my cares to the winds." Grace waved her arms as though to cast Care from her. "I have tried to solve the mystery of the mysterious Kathleen and it is beyond me. I hoped after last night that she would be different from then on, but to-day she is more provoking than ever. I shall say nothing of her in my letter to Mabel, except that I delivered the invitation, but when we go to Mabel's for Thanksgiving if she asks for an explanation of certain things I shall not hesitate to give it."

"That is the way I like to hear you talk," approved Elfreda. "I don't mean the 'wise and superwise Elfreda' part. I'm not so conceited, I hope. But it is high time you let that Kathleen West meander along to suit her own tricky little self. She hasn't an iota of Overton spirit nor a shred of conscience, and instead of appreciating your kind offices she is far more likely to repay you by dragging you into something unpleasant. I could see by Miriam's expression when you told us about the capture of that man that she thought you had trusted Kathleen too far, too."

"I confess I was thinking that very thing," laughed Miriam, "but how Elfreda guessed it is more than I can see."

"But the man has been captured, the story has appeared in the Overton paper and Kathleen has kept her word about not mentioning me in connection with the affair," protested Grace. "Nothing unpleasant can possibly happen now."

But Grace was destined to realize before many hours pa.s.sed that she had been over-confident.

CHAPTER XII

TREACHERY

The morning after the party in Miriam's room Grace lingered in the living room at Wayne Hall long enough to dash off her letter of acceptance of Mabel Ashe's invitation for Thanksgiving. She was on the point of slipping it into the envelope when the loud ringing of the door bell caused her to start. A moment later she heard the maid say: "Miss Harlowe? I'll see if she's in her room."

"Here I am," called Grace, stepping into the hall. "Oh, I see. A special delivery letter for me from Mabel." Grace signed the postman's book, then, closing the hall door, hurried into the living room to read her letter. Opening it, she drew out not only the letter but a folded newspaper clipping as well. The clipping fluttered to the floor. Grace stooped mechanically to pick it up, her eyes on the open letter. A mystified expression crept into her face as she read that gradually changed to one of consternation. With a sharp cry of dismay, she let the letter fall from her hands, while she fumbled with the clipping in a nervous effort to unfold it.

One glance at the headline that confronted her and Grace's gray eyes grew black with anger. "How dared she do it! How could she be so contemptible!" s.n.a.t.c.hing the letter from the table Grace dashed up the stairs to her room. Tears of rage glistened in her eyes. She stood in the middle of the floor with set teeth, closing and unclosing her fingers in an effort to regain her self-control. "I won't cry over it. I won't. I won't," she kept repeating to herself. "She isn't worth my tears. But Father and Mother will be so hurt and displeased. I ought never to have tried to help her. I might have known she wouldn't play fairly."

Grace flung herself into a chair and again began a perusal of the disturbing clipping. "Pretty Senior Plays Sleuth," she read. "Larry, the Locksmith, Captured." A tide of crimson swept over her face as she read further. "Overton College Girl Tracks Dangerous Criminal to His Lair. If Miss Grace Harlowe, a senior at Overton College, had not been possessed of a remarkably good memory for faces, Lawrence Baines, known to the underworld as 'Larry, the Locksmith,' would undoubtedly be at large to-day. Miss Harlowe, whose home is in Oakdale----"

With a despairing groan, Grace dashed the clipping to the floor, and springing to her feet began walking nervously up and down the room. She had not dreamed that Kathleen could find it in her heart to behave so despicably. She had shamefully abused the confidence that Grace had reposed in her for what seemed in Grace's eyes to be an infinitesimally small gain. Her cheeks burned as she thought of the thousands of people who had seen her name blazoned at the head of a column of police court news. Her father always bought the very paper in which it stood on his way to the office in the morning. He had, of course, seen it. He now knew that she had broken her word.