“No, no, don’t arrest Margaret!” protested Mary Louise. “I just can’t believe that she is a member of Mrs. Ferguson’s gang. Why, it’s too impossible!”
“No, it isn’t impossible,” said Margaret, more calmly now. “Mrs. Ferguson is a special kind of criminal who makes young girls do her stealing for her. She picks up country girls who don’t know anybody in the city and trains them.... Oh, it’s a long story—and a sad one!”
“Do you mean to say that you did steal, Margaret?” demanded Mary Louise incredulously, for she had never believed that story of Margaret’s theft at the department store. “You must tell me the truth! For the sake of your grandparents.”
“I can honestly say that I have never stolen anything in my life,” replied the other girl steadfastly. “Mrs. Ferguson soon found out that I was no good for that, so she made me guardian of the treasure. I felt almost as wicked. But I never stole.”
“Thank heaven for that!” exclaimed Mary Louise.
“But now I’ve lost her valuables, and she’ll send me to prison,” whimpered Margaret. “Oh, Mary Lou, did you take them?”
“Yes, I took them. They’re at the constable’s home now, and most of them belong to the guests at Stoddard House in Philadelphia. But you shan’t suffer, Margaret, unless you’re really guilty.”
“The young lady is very cold,” remarked the constable. “Hadn’t we better go back to my house, where it’s warm, till your car is fixed, Miss Gay?”
“Oh yes, if you will let us!” agreed Mary Louise enthusiastically. She could see that Margaret’s teeth were chattering, and she remembered how cold she herself had been after an hour or so in that empty house.
“Wait until I get my other things,” she said, running back into the kitchen for the basket which she had packed early that morning. “I’ll put them into the car and see how soon the mechanic thinks he will have it ready.”