“Resign under fire?” suggested Ruth.
“Oh—you understand—she felt so bad that her department should be under suspicion. Of course, it was not her fault.”
“Did the head say that?”
“Why, he didn’t have to!” cried Clare. “I hope you are not suspicious of Madame Mantel, Ruth Fielding?”
“You haven’t told me enough to cause me to suspect anybody yet—save yourself,” laughed Ruth. “I suspect that you are telling the story very badly, my dear.”
“Well, I suppose that is so,” admitted Clare, and thereafter she tried to speak more connectedly about the trouble which had finally engrossed all her thought.
The French police had unearthed, it was said, a wide conspiracy for the diversion of Red Cross supplies from America to certain private hands. These goods had been signed for in Mrs. Mantel’s office; she did not know by whom, but the writing on the receipts was not in her hand. That was proved. And, of course, the goods had never been delivered to the hospital at Lyse.
The receipts must have been forged. The only point made against Mrs. Mantel, it seemed, was that she had not reported that these goods, long expected at Lyse, were not received. Her delay in making inquiry for the supplies gave the thieves opportunity for disposing of the goods and getting away with the money paid for them by dishonest French dealers.
The men who had disposed of the supplies and had pocketed the money (or so it was believed) were the man who called himself Professor Perry and the Italian commissioner.
“And what do you think?” Clare went on to say. “That professor is no college man at all. He is a well-known French crook, they say, and usually travels under the name of Legrand.