Now it happened that one afternoon Gwen Williams left her French dictionary behind her in the classroom and went home without it. It was found in due course by Muriel Burnitt, who flung it into the school "pound", a lost-property basket from which objects could be redeemed by the payment of a penny into the missionary box. Both Mavis and Merle witnessed the placing of the book in this receptacle, though they gave no particular thought to the matter at the time. On the next French day Gwen came fussing into the classroom asking for her missing dictionary, and was much put out to find it was not forthcoming.
"I know I left it on the desk," she maintained.
"So you did, and I popped it into the pound," said Muriel. "Pay your penny and you'll get it out. It's perfectly simple."
But when Gwen walked over to the lost-property basket, and inspected its contents, she found an assortment of pencils, india-rubbers, and pen-holders, but certainly no dictionary. She was loud in her wrath, and the girls immediately round her began to offer comments and advice.
"It was there yesterday."
"I saw it myself."
"Opal redeemed a penknife this morning."
"You'd better ask her if she knows where it has gone."
"Here she comes!"
Yet at that exact moment Mademoiselle entered also, and the girls took their places. In the course of the lesson she gave her pupils a piece of unseen translation. It was a difficult passage, and to many of them an almost impossible one to render into English. Each had her closed dictionary placed on the desk in front of her, and cast longing looks at its covers, but to open it was, of course, not permitted. Now Merle was sitting just behind Opal, and she noticed the latter glancing constantly down on to her knee. Merle could not see the object of this close attention, but her suspicions were aroused. She dared not speak, but she scribbled a little note on a piece of waste paper: