“I don’t want a position,” Mary Louise said immediately. “I want to see whether I can get any information about a girl named Margaret Detweiler who, I think, worked in your store up to last Christmas. Would it be too much trouble to look her up in your files? I know you’re busy——”
“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the manager pleasantly, and she repeated the name to the clerk.
“You see,” explained Mary Louise, “Margaret Detweiler’s grandparents haven’t heard from her for a year, and they’re dreadfully worried. Margaret is all they have in the world.”
The clerk found the card immediately.
“Miss Detweiler did work here for six months last year,” she stated. “In the jewelry department. And then she was dismissed for stealing.”
“Stealing!” repeated Mary Louise, aghast at such news. “Why, I can’t believe it! Margaret was the most upright, honest girl at home; she came from the best people. How did it happen?”
“I remember her now,” announced the employment manager. “A pretty, dark-eyed girl who always dressed rather plainly. Yes, I was surprised too. But she had been ill, I believe, and perhaps she wasn’t quite herself. Maybe she had doctor’s bills and so on. It was too bad, for if she had come to me I could have helped her out with a loan.”
“Was she sent to prison?” asked Mary Louise in a hoarse whisper. Oh, the disgrace of the thing! It would kill old Mrs. Detweiler if she ever found it out.
“No, she wasn’t. We found the stolen article in Miss Detweiler’s shoe. At least, one of the things she took—a link bracelet. We didn’t recover the ring, but a wealthy woman, a customer who happened to be in the jewelry department at the time, evidently felt sorry for Miss Detweiler and offered to pay for the ring. We didn’t let her, but of course we had to dismiss the girl.”
“You haven’t any idea where Margaret went—or what she did?”