“Has Giovanni de’ Medici returned it?” I asked.
“It would seem so,” Winnie replied, in great excitement. “See, girls, here is every bit of the stolen money! The ghost has kept his word, and has returned it after his confession was read publicly.”
“Where did you find it?” I asked, utterly mystified.
“Right here, in the drawer to which we had lost the key, just under the upper part of the cabinet. You remember it has been locked since the very first day of school.”
“But is the money all there?”
“Yes; your forty-seven dollars, and the sixty from the Catacomb Party for the Home.”
“How did it ever come there?”
“That is what I am trying to find out. You know it is my mystery; and, girls, I have it! This sliding writing shelf which we pulled out to write upon is really the floor of the cabinet, on which Tib deposited her treasures. When you pull it out you rake everything upon it into the drawer below.”
“It must be,” said Adelaide, “that some one pulled out that writing shelf before each of those mysterious disappearances.” And when we came to review the circumstances, we remembered that it had been so in every instance. The lost money and essay had simply been dropped into the drawer below. All that had seemed so inexplicable was now made plain, and in our very last hour together—for, as we carried the fragments around to the turret door, we saw that the express man had come for our trunks, and noticed the Roseveldt carriage waiting behind a hansom, which had just driven up to the main entrance. On the steps Madame was parting tenderly from Miss Noakes, who was in travelling costume, and Mr. Mudge sprang from the interior of the hansom to assist her to a place beside him. Catching sight of his well-known features, Winnie impulsively waved the drawer of the cabinet and darted across the lawn.
“No wonder I could not discover the thief,” he exclaimed testily, as Winnie showed the mechanism of the sliding shelf. “The cleverest detective could not have done that when there was no thief to discover. But, my dear young lady, pray do not detain us; Miss Noakes and I have a particular engagement for this very minute at the Church of the Blessed Unity.” As he spoke he dodged an old shoe which the astute Polo projected from the studio window, and springing into the hansom drove rapidly away.