_ CHAPTER II. THE HUNT FOR THE TREASURE-BOX
This was a very tragic happening in Janice Day's life. She had never been regardless of important matters; that was why daddy had not even warned her to be careful of the treasure-box.
He assumed that she would consider its precious contents and guard it accordingly. Why! He had not even mentioned it this morning, he had been so confident of her good sense.
And because of Arlo Junior and a bunch of cats she had forgotten all about her mother's miniature and all the other heirlooms in the treasure-box! Her tears were those of anger at herself as well as sorrow because of the disappearance of the heirlooms. Yet at the moment she did not fully appreciate the full weight of the happening.
Janice could not stand and cry about it. She had assured herself that the treasure-box was not where she had left it--was not in the storeroom at all, as far as she could see. Olga certainly had not picked it up and placed it in any of the rooms on this second floor, or anywhere else where it could be easily seen.
Janice could only believe that the Swedish girl, either by intention or in some involuntary way, had carried the treasure-box off with her. Yet it did not seem as though Olga Cedarstrom, bad temper and all, could be a thief! That was an awful thought.
"Maybe she has done it to plague me," Janice thought. "She is awfully mad at me. She thought it was my fault that the cats got into the back kitchen. And now she means to pay me back. She means to return it."
"But where has she gone? And what shall I do?" were the final queries formed in Janice Day's mind.
She must not stand idle. It was nearing school time. Nor could she neglect the matter until she came home from school at three o'clock. If Olga Cedarstrom were really dishonest, she might be getting farther and farther away from Greensboro while Janice remained inactive!
She must do something.
Janice went slowly downstairs. First Of all it was her duty to communicate with her father at the bank. She hated to tell him of this happening, for she realized keenly her fault in the matter. But not for a moment did the girl consider hiding the unfortunate affair from Broxton Day.
She went to the telephone and called the bank When she asked for Mr. Day. She could almost see him taking the receiver from the hook when the bell on his telephone rang.
"Yes?" Daddy's voice sounded clearly and courteously over the wire. "This is Day."
"Often when he said this over the telephone Janice would respond, giggling: "And this is Knight--Street! Number eight-forty-five."
But she did not feel at all like joking on this occasion. All in a rush she told him of the tragic happening.
"And I don't know what to do, Daddy," was the way in which she ended her story.
Even over the telephone the girl realized that her father was more startled than she expected him to be, His voice did not sound at all natural as he asked:
"Do you mean to tell me that everything that was in that box is lost, Janice? Everything?"
"Oh, Daddy!" choked the girl, "I put everything back before I closed the box--mamma's picture, and her diary, and all."
"There were other things--"
"Oh, yes! The jewelry and the photographs," said Janice.
"More than those," her father's hoarse voice said quickly. "I cannot explain to you now, my child. Didn't you know there was a false bottom in that box?"
"A false bottom to the treasure-box, Daddy?" she cried wonderingly. "A secret compartment."
"Oh! I didn't know--"
"No, of course not. I blame myself, my dear," he added, and she knew that he was striving to control his voice. "Do not cry any more. I will explain when come home."
"Oh, Daddy!"
"Are you sure you have looked carefully for the box?" and he now spoke more moderately.
"Oh, yes, Daddy."
"Looked everywhere?"
"Indeed I have."
"Then, daughter, by the face of the clock in front of me, I advise you to hurry away to school. I will see what can be done. You say Olga went away in a taxicab?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Of course, you did not notice the number of the car?"
"Oh, no, sir. But the man was a Swede like Olga. And he came in and carried down her trunk." '
"I will see what can be done. Go to school like a good girl and do not let anxiety spoil your recitations. Good-bye."
He hung up the receiver and Janice followed his example. There seemed nothing else she could do.
She would have been late for school had not Stella Latham driven by the Day cottage in her father's car just as Janice came out. Stella lived some distance out of town, her father being a well-to-do farmer, and she was driven in daily by either her brother or one of the farm hands.
Janice saw the automobile coming in the distance and soon recognized the Latham car.
"Dear me!" she sighed, "I hope Stella will not turn down Hester Street. If she comes this far she'll be sure to ask me to ride, and then I can get to school on time"
With rather anxious eyes Janice watched the oncoming car. Yes, it passed Hester Street and came on down Knight Street to make a later turn off toward the schoolhouse. The car almost shot past Janice before the girl inside saw her on the sidewalk. Then the girl suddenly leaned out of the swiftly moving car.
"Oh, Janice Day!" screamed Stella, warning her driver to stop with one hand while she beckoned to Janice with the other. "Hurry! You'll be late. Get in here."
Janice ran after the car, glad of the lift. Stella was a buxom girl, a year or two older than Janice, but in the latter's grade at school. "Ever so nice" Janice thought her. But, Janice thought most of her school friends were "nice." She was friendly toward them, so they had no reason to be otherwise than kind to her.
Not that Janice Day was either namby-pamby or stupid. She had opinions, and expressed them frankly; and she possessed a strong will of her own. But she not to hurt other people's feelings; and if she stood up for her opinions, she usually did so without antagonizing anybody.
"You're just the girl I wanted to see, anyway, Janice, before school," Stella said, as the younger girl hopped into the tonneau and the chauffeur let in the clutch again.
"Now you see--all of me!" said Janice brightly, trying to put the trouble of the lost treasure-box behind her.
Her eyelids were just a little red, and she took one more long, sobbing breath. But Stella was so very much interested in her own affairs that she noticed nothing at all strange about her friend.
"Oh, Janice!" Stella said, "I'm to have a birthday party. You know, I told you all about it before." "Yes, Stella, you told me," agreed Janice.
"Of course I did. And I want you to come. I couldn't really have a party without you, Janice. But I am not so sure about some of the girls."
"Oh, dear me!" murmured Janice. "If I was going to have a regular party I'd invite all the girls in our class--or else none at all."
"Now, that's just like you! You always are so quick. How did you know I didn't want to invite her?" complained Stella, pouting.
"I didn't know. Whom do you mean to leave out?" Janice asked, smiling.
"There! That's what my mother says! You are always so shrewd and sly."
"Oh!" cried Janice not at all pleased, "does your mother think I am sly?"
"We-ell, she said you were shrewd," admitted Stella, changing color. "Now, don't get mad, Janice Day. I want you to help me."
"You go about it in a funny way," said Janice, rather piqued. "I am not sly enough to be of any use to you, I guess."
"Now, don't be angry!" wailed the other girl. "What I mean is, that you always see through things and can get out of difficulties."
"I didn't know I got into difficulties--not many anyway," Janice added, with a little sigh.
"Dear me, Janice! don't split hairs--please," said the very selfish and self-centered Stella. "I want your help. Do tell me how to get out of asking that girl to my party without offending her friends--for she has got friends, curiously enough."
"For goodness' sake!" gasped Janice. "What girl do you wish to snub, Stella?"
"There you go with your nasty insinuations!" exclaimed Stella, whiningly. "I don't want to snub anybody. But some people are impossible!"
"Meaning me?" Janice asked with twinkling eyes.
"Of course not. Why will you so misunderstand me? I wouldn't snub you, Janice Day. I am speaking of Amy Carringford."
"Oh! It is Amy you wish to snub, is it?" Janice said, with a change of tone.
Even Stella noted the change. She seized Janice's arm.
"Now, don't! You made me say that. I don't really want to snub her. I don't want to hurt her feelings. But, of course, I can't have those pauper children at my party--Amy and Gummy. 'Gummy!' What a frightful name! And his pants are patched at the knees. They wouldn't--either of them--have a decent thing to wear, of course."
Janice said nothing for a long minute. Stella's blue eyes, which were actually more staring than pretty, began to cloud ominously. Instinctively she sensed that Janice was not with her in this.
"Amy Carringford is a nice girl, I think," Janice Day said mildly. "And perhaps she has a party dress, Stella."
"There you go! Always standing up for anything mean or common," stormed Stella. "I might have known you wouldn't help me."
"Why did you ask me then?" Janice inquired with some rising spirit.
"Because you're always so sharp about things; and you can help me if you want to."
Stella Latham was certainly much more frankly spoken than politic. Janice Day excused her schoolmate to a degree. She usually found excuses for every one but herself.
"I was only trying to help you," Janice said slowly. you haven't really anything against Amy, have you?"
"She's a pauper--a regular pauper."
"Why, that's not so," interrupted Janice. "A pauper must be one who is supported at the public expense. We had that word only the other day in our lesson, you know, Stella. And Amy Carringford--or her folks-- aren't like that."
"Nobody knows what or who they are. They've only just come here and from goodness knows where. And they live in that little tumble-down house in Mullen Lane, and--"
"Oh, dear me, Stella!" interrupted Janice, with a sudden laugh. "That list of crimes will never send anybody to jail. You are awfully critical. Amy has awfully pretty manners, and just wonderful hair. She sings and dances well, too. And Gummy--'Gumswith' is his full name--"
"'Gumswith!' Fancy!" ejaculated the farmers critical
daughter.
"Yes, isn't it awful?" returned Janice. "Anybody would be sorry for a boy with such a name. And he hasn't even a middle one they can call him by. You know it isn't his fault, Stella, that he has such a horrid name."
"No, I don't suppose it is. But--"
"And Amy is so nice. She is just about my size, Stella, and if you promise never to tell--"
"What is it? A secret?" eagerly demanded Stella, as Janice hesitated.
"Yes. Or it will be a secret if you promise."
"Cross my heart, Janice," declared Stella, who loved secrets.
"Well--now," said Janice Day, most seriously, "if you invite Amy, and she can't come because she hasn't any party dress, I'll lend her one of mine that was made for me just before my mother died. I am wearing only black and white. I've outgrown those new dresses that were made for me then, I guess. And Amy is just a weeny bit smaller than I am."
"But Janice Day! you--you're helping Amy Carringford. You're not helping me at all!"
"Why, yes I am helping you," said Janice warmly. "At least, I am trying to. If you will invite Amy with the rest of us girls, I'll see that she has a party dress. I should think that was helping you a whole lot, Stella Latham. You said you didn't want to hurt her feelings."
The car reached the schoolhouse. Janice was out of it like a flash with her schoolbooks and lunch. The bell was tolling.
"Now, isn't that just like Janice Day?" grumbled Stella, following her from the automobile. "She is a sly little thing!"
Mr. Broxton Day felt much more troubled than Janice possibly could feel about the disappearance of the treasure-box and the keepsakes it contained. Intrinsically, the value of the articles that she named was not very great, although nothing could replace the diary or the miniature of his dead wife. But as he had intimated to Janice over the telephone there was something else. There was that lost with the so-called treasure-box that meant more to him than the mementoes his daughter had known about.
During this lonely year that had passed since his wife's death, Mr. Day's experiences with domestic help had been disheartening as well as varied.
Olga Cedarstrom had been with them two months. She had come rather better recommended than some of her predecessors. Instead of obtaining her services through an agency, Mr. Day had found her in "Pickletown," as the hamlet at the pickle works was called.
There Olga, recently arrived in Greensboro, had been living with friends. Mr. Day went over there first of all to search for the girl.
But her whilom friends knew nothing about Olga since the previous evening. They did not know that she contemplated leaving Mr. Day. And she had not appeared at Pickletown after she had departed from eight hundred and forty-five Knight Street that morning.
Mr. Day did not wish to put the police on the trail of the absent Olga. In the first place there was no real evidence that the Swedish girl had stolen the box of mementoes.
If she had taken them at all, she must have done so just to pique Janice, not understanding how really valuable the contents of the box were. If possible, Mr. Day wished to recover the lost box without the publicity of going to the police, both for Olga's sake and for his own.
And then as Janice had told him, the taxicab driver had been in the house. He had gone upstairs to the storeroom for Olga's trunk--to the very room in which Janice had last seen the treasure-box.
It might be that the driver was the person guilty of taking the box. Olga might know nothing about it. Yet her disappearance without informing her friends of her intention to leave Greensboro looked suspicious.
Mr. Day had to search further. He had two other persons to discover. One was Olga's "fella"; the other was the Swedish taxicab driver.
From people who knew Olga around the pickle factories it was easy to learn that Olga's friend was a hard working and estimable young man named Willie Sangreen. Just at this time Willie was away from home. They could tell Mr. Day nothing about Willie's absence either at his boarding-house, or where he was employed. But in both instances they were sure Willie would be back.
In hunting for the Swedish taxicab driver Mr. Day had even less good fortune. There were two taxicab companies in Greensboro and less than a dozen independent owners of cabs. Before noon he had learned, beyond peradventure, that there was not a cab driver in town of Swedish nationality.
He presumed that the cab must have come from out of town. Where it had come from, and where it had gone with Olga, and Olga's trunk, and, possibly, with the treasure-box, seemed a mystery insolvable.
If Olga or the cab driver had stolen the box of heirlooms it seemed that all trace of their whereabouts had been skillfully covered. _