“I’m so glad, dear,” replied the manager. “You’ve been an awfully good sport about being away from your family—and now you’re getting your reward.”
“I think I’ll put in my time till he arrives by going over to visit my friend Pauline Brooks,” said Mary Louise. “I’d like to find out whether she obtained her bail yet.”
“You better be careful,” warned Mrs. Hilliard. “That girl probably hates you now, and if she’s free there’s no telling what she might do to you!”
“I know she hates me. But she can’t do a thing. Especially with guards all around.... And I’ll be back before Dad comes. I want to be on the spot to greet him.”
She put on her hat and coat and went to the address which Mr. Hayden had written down for her on the paper. She encountered no difficulty in finding her way to the matron who had charge of the women prisoners.
“I am Mary Louise Gay,” she said. “A private detective in the employ of the manager of Stoddard House. I believe that two of your prisoners—Pauline Brooks and Mary Green—are guilty of some robberies there, as well as at the Bellevue, where they were caught. But I haven’t evidence enough to prove my case. I thought if I might talk to these girls——”
The matron interrupted her. “You can’t do that, Miss Gay,” she said, “because they have already been released on bail, until their case comes up next month.”
“How did they get the money—it was five hundred dollars, wasn’t it?—so soon?”
“They wired yesterday to a Mrs. Ferguson in Baltimore. Miss Brooks received a registered letter this morning, and the girls left half an hour ago.”
Mary Louise sighed; it seemed as if she were always too late. Why hadn’t she come here before breakfast, since she knew from Mr. Hayden last night that the girls had telegraphed a request for the money?