UNDER SUSPICION

Bet Baxter insisted that Phil Gordon was not mistaken when he said he had put the ivory fan on her father’s desk. But the detective shook his head and later in a talk to Chief Baldwin said:

“It looks bad for that young man, Chief. He was the last to have it. He acknowledges he’s hard up, and he knew its value.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Longworth. Everybody knows Phil Gordon and would trust him anywhere.”

“All the more reason why he can act so brazen and innocent in the matter. It looks bad,” Detective Longworth announced. “I’ve seen so many cases just like it. I’ll keep my eye on that young fellow and I bet I’ll get the goods on him.”

The detective’s suspicions travelled at a lively rate around the village and before twenty-four hours it came to the ears of the Merriweather Girls. It was Edith Whalen and her shadow, Vivian Long, who passed on the gossip to Joy Evans.

“Now what do you think of your friend Phil Gordon?” asked Edith. “I guess Bet didn’t know she was associating with a thief. I saw him with that fan at the party and he was acting in a suspicious way. Lots of folks are sure he stole it.”

“Who says Phil took the fan?” demanded Joy.

“Everybody’s saying it! And the detective seems to think he has the clue pretty well run down and expects to arrest Phil any time now.” Edith asserted with venom in her voice.

“I don’t believe a word of it!” snapped Joy.

Indignation was at its highest pitch when Joy told Bet and her chums what Edith had said.

“Now we’ve just got to do something!” exclaimed Shirley. “We must clear Phil and that’s all there is about it!”

“All right, what will we do first?” Kit jumped to her feet, ready for action.

“Who would have any interest in the fan, besides your father?” Shirley questioned Bet.

“Another antique dealer might, but no one would know he had it,” Bet’s eyes were bright and intense with anxiety.

“What about Peter Gruff?” cried Kit. “I never trusted that old man! And he was interested in that picture of the fan.”

“But he’s interested in all old things, and you heard him say that it was a common type and had no particular value,” said Shirley. “No, I don’t believe old Peter would want it that badly.”

“I’m not so sure. I wasn’t impressed with Peter Gruff, as you know. I’m going to prowl around his shop and see what I can see,” laughed Kit as she grabbed her hat and coat.

“Wait a minute and we’ll go down to Shirley’s Shop,” cried Bet. “I can’t believe such a thing of old Peter but we won’t leave anything undone.”

And as soon as the girls reached the shop, Kit went over to Peter Gruff’s store. She asked to see samplers. “We’d like to have a few for our shop,” she remarked to the old man.

“No samplers!” muttered Peter. “I don’t keep any. No money in samplers.”

“Let me see some pewter pitchers, then.” Kit was enjoying the musty old store with its strange collection of odds and ends, piled everyway about the dust-laden store.

Peter Gruff didn’t have any pewter pitchers.

“Then, do you happen to have any fans?” exclaimed Kit suddenly, hoping to surprise the old man into looking guilty.

“No money in fans. I don’t sell fans.”

And Kit had to acknowledge that there was not the slightest change of expression in his hard blue eyes.

But as she poked her way about the place she saw a glass case and inside among bottles, books, old china and other objects, she saw several fans. She edged closer to the case and glanced through the assortment, but the fan she wanted was not there.

Of course she hardly expected to find it. If Peter had taken the fan, he would hide it away for a while at least.

“But there is something suspicious about him. Saying he didn’t have any fans, when they were right there all the time,” Kit confided to the chums when she returned to the shop.

“It does look suspicious!” Joy cried. “Girls, I do believe we are hot on the trail.”

“I wish I could believe it!” Bet was not optimistic. “I don’t believe he did it. He’s heard of the theft of the fan and acts a little embarrassed. I do wish Dad were here!”

“I don’t. I want to find that fan before he returns,” announced Shirley with quiet decision.

“I hope we do!” said Bet.

“We’re Merriweather Girls and we must find a way out of this difficulty. Lady Betty saved the Manor in her day, now we will do the same!” Kit said decidedly.

“Yes, but how?” groaned Bet. “I’ve thought and thought about it until my head whirls.”

The more the girls puzzled over the mystery, the less light appeared. Kit made daily visits to the antique shop, hoping to find something suspicious. She made friends with Jacques, the freckled-faced little French boy who worked for Peter. He was shy at first, but Kit soon put him at ease with her kindly smile. He gazed up at her with big, dark eyes that expressed his devotion. Kit had won his heart, and the girls saw him often staring up from the basement window, hoping to get a glimpse of her.

One day when Kit was looking over the assortment in the glass case of Peter’s shop, she was surprised to find that the fans had been removed. She was about to ask Jacques where they were when Old Peter Gruff returned.

“You know, Mr. Gruff, I just love your shop! I hope you don’t mind me prowling around and looking at things.”

She got only a curt grunt in reply, but Kit didn’t mind. She went on: “That’s awfully kind of you! I’m going to come often.”

Kit always returned from her visits with new suspicions. Although she had found no clue, she insisted that the old man was guilty.

“Kit, I’m surprised at you!” declared the gentle Shirley. “He’s a harmless old man, and I don’t believe he would steal from Colonel Baxter.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t,” Kit returned with a frown, “but I still have my doubts. I wish I had his shop to myself for half a day, then I’d make sure the fan was not hidden there. Or I’d find it.”

“Why couldn’t you send him up to the Manor to fix a chair or something?” exclaimed Joy.

“He’d probably see through it. Peter Gruff is foxy,” replied Bet. “Anyway I had orders long ago never to let the old man in the house when Dad was away.”

“So your father didn’t trust him?” cried Kit exultantly.

“Well Dad just thought it would be better not to put temptation in his way. He’s crazy about old bric-a-brac, you know. And Dad didn’t know what he might be up to.”

Kit got her chance to have the shop to herself the next day. Old Peter Gruff left early in the morning, and Jacques was alone.

“It’s luck, Kit,” shouted Bet. “Come right away!”

Jacques smiled and bowed as the girls filed in. And when Kit asked him to see pewter, brass, crystal, one right after the other, the boy raced around furiously to please her.

“I want to go down stairs,” said Kit with a smile.

“Mr. Gruff doesn’t want people down stairs,” began the boy, but before he had finished his sentence, Kit was already on the lowest step.

But the store room was so packed with things that it was impossible to move about. Two dim lights gave only enough glow to cast heavy shadows about the vault-like cellar. There was something sinister about the gloom.

“Let’s get out of here while the getting’s good!” whispered Joy. “I feel as if someone might jump up any minute from behind these old bureaus. I believe the place is haunted.”

“No, don’t go yet,” pleaded Kit. “I haven’t seen half enough. Who cares for ghosts, anyway? Say Jacques, what does Mr. Gruff keep in that old cabinet there?”

“Just some old china and fans and things.”

“Let’s see the fans,” Kit demanded.

“Funny how everybody wants to see fans lately,” said Jacques. “A big tall man, then a young man, then you girls.”

Kit started violently. “Who was the tall man?” she asked abruptly.

“I dunno!” replied Jacques. “Phil Gordon came and asked Peter questions, and the old man got mad and said, ‘Git out!’”

While he was talking Jacques had brought out the fans at Kit’s request, but they were cheap and not any particular value.

“I wonder what Phil found out,” mused Bet.

But whatever Phil’s object was in going to the antique shop, it strengthened the suspicion against him. The detective, who had been watching him for days, was now assured that the boy was trying to dispose of the fan and on questioning Peter Gruff, he believed that his suspicions were correct.

Phil had asked the old man if he ever bought fans. Mr. Longworth reported this to Bet Baxter and the next day when she met Phil on the street, he hurried by as if anxious to avoid a talk with her.

Bet was wild with anxiety. Phil had looked at her in such a guilty way. She hurried home and, once inside the house, she burst into tears. “What’s the matter with Phil Gordon, anyway? He couldn’t have taken that fan. Then why does he act like a thief?”

That afternoon Bet was moping about the house when her three chums arrived. Vacation would soon be over and they were making the most of those two short weeks. But Bet was not in a mood for merry-making. Another letter had come from her father regarding the fan. It read:

“I know you have been prompt in looking after the fan as I told you to do. It is the greatest satisfaction that in matters of this sort I can trust you implicitly. I am rejoicing that the money I will receive from the fan will meet the demands of my creditors and that I’ll not have to sell the Manor. The lucky little fan has saved us!”

“Girls, what am I going to do?” Bet sobbed as she finished reading the letter to them.

“I know one thing, Bet Baxter. A Merriweather Girl doesn’t waste time and energy in tears! Lady Betty scorned tears!” declared Shirley.

“She looks as if she had never had a trouble in the world,” sighed Bet, looking up at the picture.

“Laugh and the world laughs with you!” hummed Joy. “Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!”

“Keep quiet, Joy Evans. Those are about the silliest speeches a human being can make. I wish you’d go home oh no, Joy, I don’t mean that, I’m just worried.”

“Of course you are, old dear. We all know it and want to help you, if we can. Come on out and have a snowball match.”

It was a glorious day, sharp and sparkling and the snow crunched under their feet as they walked.

“This is the sort of weather when I long to go on a hike,” said Shirley. “If it wasn’t for this trouble we’re having I’d suggest it.”

“Let’s go tomorrow anyway!” exclaimed Bet impulsively. “That is, unless something very important comes up. We’re not accomplishing anything by hanging around the house and brooding.”

“Right you are, Bet!” shouted Joy, as she threw a snowball at Kit. “If we take a brisk hike through the woods maybe the wind will blow the cobwebs out of our brains and we’ll be able to think of some way to find that fan.”

“The detective is on the job. I’m sure he’ll find a clue,” remarked Shirley quietly.

They returned to the house and found Uncle Nat disturbed over a visit from Amos Longworth. “Why that man was quizzing me up just as if he thought I stole the fan!”

“That detective is loco,” laughed Kit, using a term from her beloved mountains.

“What does loco mean, Kit?” asked Joy.

“It means he’s crazy! The horses get crazy in the mountains from eating a weed by that name. That’s the way with Mr. Longworth; he’s been eating loco weed.”

“I’ll say he has,” Joy agreed merrily.

When the girls separated for the night they had made their plans to start the next day at eleven o’clock for a hike. That would give them plenty of time to hear anything that the detective might find out.

That evening Bet received a message from Mrs. Gordon. During the talk she told Bet that Phil was worrying himself sick over the theft of the fan.

“I know Phil wouldn’t do it, Bet,” his mother exclaimed.

“Of course he wouldn’t. We girls have never blamed him, not even for a second. It’s that silly detective! Don’t worry about it. We’ll find it, somehow!”

Bob Evans had gone away the day after the party and when he came back and heard the accusation against Phil, he was ready to fight.

“The very first person I met when I got off the train told me that Phil had stolen the fan belong to Colonel Baxter,” he told Joy.

“Who said it?” cried Joy.

“A great friend of yours.”

“No friend of mine would accuse Phil. The whole thing is ridiculous!”

“Why Edith Whalen said he was going to arrested within twenty-four hours!”

“Lots she knows about it! But if that detective had his way, he might be. I can’t imagine anyone paying a man to be so stupid. We girls have told him again and again that Phil had nothing to do with it.”

“Has Phil been asked up to the Manor since that happened?” asked Bob.

“No, I don’t think so. He’s been up several times but it has been with the detective or Chief Baldwin.”

“Then you girls ought to ask him to go with you, just to show him and everybody else chat you don’t believe a word of all this gossip! Phil wouldn’t steal! I’d trust him with anything!”

But while Bob stormed and determined to clear his friend in some way, his efforts were not successful. He made it a point to have Phil with him wherever he went, but that did not clear the boy of suspicion.

The girls, as well as Bob, were anxious to do something for their friend, but as the fan had disappeared and there was no evidence left, they seemed to be getting nowhere. Bet and her chums were desperate.

The girls looked forward to the hike in the snow as a diversion that would rest their tired nerves and help them to see more clearly on their return.