The Corner House Girls' Odd Find Part 36

Ruth had been to the bank again at noon. She showed the old banknote to the cas.h.i.+er, Mr. Crouch being out. The cas.h.i.+er said the bill was perfectly good.

"And that settles it," she said, wearily, to Agnes, on their way home from school. "If one bill is good the others must be."

"Oh! I can't believe it!" murmured Agnes. "Fifty thousand dollars in cas.h.!.+"

"And as much more in unregistered railroad bonds. They were perfectly good, too-and there must be a lot of dividends due upon them. Oh, a fortune indeed!" groaned Ruth, in conclusion.

"I can't believe it," repeated her astonished sister.

"_I_ can believe it-very easily," Ruth retorted. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Agnes that all that fortune they had lost belonged to Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. But Agnes said:

"But Neale could not possibly have known it was good."

"Oh! Neale!" exclaimed Ruth, exasperated.

"You don't really believe he would do anything wrong, do you, Ruthie?"

queried Agnes, pleadingly.

"He did enough wrong when he carried that book away with him to Tiverton."

"But _I_ let him have the book," Agnes confessed.

"He had no right to go off with it," the other said stubbornly. "And when he brought it back, why did he throw it down there on the porch in that careless manner?"

"Of course he didn't know the money was good," Agnes repeated, trying to bolster up her own shaking faith in Neale O'Neil.

For a very unhappy thought had come into Agnes' mind. Ruth had been so certain that the money and the bonds were good that she might have convinced Neale that evening, when he had come home from Tiverton. Agnes was quite sure he had not considered the printed banking paper worth anything before that time. Had he found a chance to take the book out of the bag and hide it after he had flung himself in anger out of the sitting room?

"I don't know how he could have done it," groaned Agnes, to herself.

"But why did he come back again that night, if it wasn't for the alb.u.m?"

She had to admit that Neale must have been the midnight visitor to the dining room. There was no other explanation of _that_ incident.

Neale had not been to church on Sunday, but she had seen him at school on this day, for he was in her grade; but he had not spoken to her or even looked at her.

Agnes was hurt to the quick by this. She felt that Ruth had been unkind to Neale; but on her part she was sure she was guilty of no unfriendliness.

"He needn't spit it out on _me_," was the way Agnes inelegantly expressed it. "And why did he want to come over here and play burglar Sat.u.r.day night? And goodness! what did he want in that closet in the dining room chimney?

"He surely wouldn't want Aunt Sarah's peppermints," she giggled. "And what else is there in that cupboard?"

The thought sent Agnes marching into the dining room to look at the locked door. And there stood Barnabetta Scruggs!

Barnabetta was at the door of the closet in the chimney. She did not appear to hear Agnes come into the room. She was closely examining the lock on the closet door.

"What under the sun is _she_ after?" thought Agnes. "What's that in her hand? A pair of shears?"

Barnabetta raised the shears just as though she contemplated trying to pick the lock with them. She laid hold upon the k.n.o.b and shook the door.

"For pity's sake, Barnabetta!" exclaimed Agnes. "What do you want there?"

The circus girl jumped and actually screamed. Her thin face flushed and then paled. Her eyes flashed.

"I might ha' known 'twas _you_-always snoopin' around!" snarled Barnabetta.

"Why-why-"

"Can't I look at that old lock if I want to? I'm not hurtin' it."

"And I'm pretty sure you can't unlock it with those shears," returned the wondering Agnes.

"Who's trying to unlock it?" snapped Barnabetta.

"You were."

"Weren't, neither!" declared the circus girl, throwing down the shears.

"Leastways, not for myself," she added.

"I'd like to know what it is you want out of that closet-what anybody wants there," Agnes said, wonderingly.

"Your auntie wants some more peppermints," said Barnabetta, boldly. "She couldn't unlock it with the key. I didn't know but the lock could be picked."

"Where's the key?" asked Agnes, swiftly.

"Your auntie took it away with her again."

Agnes stared at her in amazement. She believed Barnabetta must be telling an untruth. "I'm going to find out what's in that closet-that's what I am going to do," she declared.

She marched out of the room. She heard Barnabetta laugh unpleasantly as she closed the door. Agnes went up to Aunt Sarah's room.

"Aunt Sarah," Agnes said earnestly, "won't you let me have the key of the dining room closet? I want to get something out of it."

"Good Land of Liberty!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah, with asperity. "You're welcome to that old key, I'm sure. I dunno why I brought it up here again. Ye can't unlock it, gal. I declare! I was an old silly to lock the door the other night. Now the lock's fouled and ye can't turn the key neither-which-way!"

She took the big bra.s.s key out of her bag and handed it to the amazed Agnes. Agnes was amazed because she had discovered that Barnabetta had told the truth about it!

CHAPTER XXII

BARNABETTA CONFESSES

When Agnes reached the dining room again, the circus girl was gone. She tried the key in the lock of the cupboard door. Just as Aunt Sarah Maltby said, it would not turn. Something had fouled the lock.

"I do declare!" thought the troubled and perplexed Agnes. "This is the strangest thing. I never did want to get into this old cupboard before; but I feel now as though I'd just _got_ to.

"There surely is something in it besides Aunt Sarah's peppermints.