“It can’t be that,” Winnie replied, “for although the last sum stolen was taken from Tib’s compartment, it was not her money. The whole thing is very peculiar, and seems to be the work of some unreasoning agent, for this time, as the last, Adelaide had some bills lying loosely in her pigeon hole in full sight, which were not touched at all. I have heard of things having been stolen by jackdaws and mice—and monkeys—and I believe there has been some monkey business here.”
“I heard a story when I was in Boston,” said Adelaide. “It was told me by a member of a prominent firm of jewellers. It is the custom at the close of the day for one of the clerks to lock up all the jewelry in the safe for the night. He had done so, and was just about to leave the store when a box containing a valuable pair of diamond sleeve buttons was handed him. It was late, and as it would take some time to go over the combination which locked and unlocked the safe, he tucked the little box far under the safe and thrust some old newspapers in front of it. In the morning when he searched for it, what was his consternation to find that the sleeve buttons were gone. The box was there, but some one had opened it and abstracted the sleeve buttons. He reported the loss at once to one of the members of the firm, who reproved him for his carelessness in not unlocking the safe and placing the box where it would have been secure. Then the gentlemen put their heads together to track the thief; and some one suggested that he had seen mice in the store, and this might be their work. The safe was moved, and a small hole was discovered in the base-board of the room. A carpenter was sent for and the wall opened, and there, cozily established in a nest formed of twine and nibbled paper, and other odds and ends, a family of little pink mice was discovered, and in their nest were the missing sleeve buttons. The mother mouse had evidently been attracted by the glitter of the gems, for she had taken great pains to convey them to her home. She had stored here many other curious articles: pieces of shiny tin foil, which she may have used as mirrors; bits of broken glass, and scraps of narrow, bright ribbon, intended for tying the boxes, all showing that she had an eye for decorative art. I am very sorry that it was considered best to kill her, for I believe that mouse could have been educated. Now, the reason that I have told this long story is that I half suspect that this is a case of mouse, and not, as Winnie says, of monkey business.”
Winnie immediately examined the cabinet. The panelling was intact, not even worm-eaten; it fitted apparently as closely as the covering of a drum; not a crevice large enough for even a cricket to penetrate.
“It is very mysterious, all the same,” Winnie remarked; “but I here and now vow, in the presence of these witnesses, to make this mystery mine, and to unravel it before the close of school, so surely as my name is Witch Winnie.”
From that time we spoke of the affair of the cabinet as Witch Winnie’s mystery, and we all had faith that some way or other Winnie would find the clue if Mr. Mudge did not.
One day in May she said: “I feel as if there was something uncanny about the cabinet itself. I wonder who was its first owner. Perhaps Lucrezia Borgia kept her poisons in it, and it is haunted by dreadful secrets of the middle ages. It may be that Lorenzo de Medici confided to its keeping a will, giving back to Florence the city’s liberties, and that this will was stolen by the Magnificent’s heir while the poor man lay dying. We can imagine that the ghost of the guilty man having, as Mr. Mudge says, been once successful, has contracted a habit of stealing from the cabinet, and comes in the wee small hours with stealthy tread to take whatever occupies the spot where once Lorenzo’s testament reposed.”
“What a romantic idea!” Milly murmured. “You could make a lovely composition out of it, Winnie.”
“Good idea!” Winnie exclaimed. “I will. I have got to have something for the closing exercises of school, and Madame advised me to write on Raphael. She said that Professor Waite’s lectures on the Italian artists ought to inspire me. Some way they never have, but this old cabinet does. I shall pretend that I have found a package of letters in a secret compartment; and in this package I shall tell all the early history of Raphael—which is not known to the world—his love story with Maria Bibbiena, and all the criticism and envy which he must have undergone before he arrived at success. It will be great fun and I shall go to work at once. No, I shall not go to see the inter-scholastic games to-morrow. I shall have a solid quiet afternoon to myself while you girls are skylarking, and I shall have to work like a house on fire on every Saturday I can get to make my essay the success which I mean it shall be.”
From this decision we could not move her, though it greatly disappointed Milly, who desired that Mr. Van Silver should meet Winnie. Mrs. Roseveldt had returned from the South, and had consented to chaperone the girls, Mr. Van Silver taking us out on his handsome coach.
It was a perfect day and the drive to the Berkeley Oval, where the games took place, was a delightful one.