A successful venture

by Ellen Douglas Deland

It was astonishing that the man—who no doubt was the one in the shrubbery whom Katherine had heard—should have chosen the exact time during which Victoria was absent from the room to climb up over the dining-room window, and that he had not seen Victoria, when she was sitting in her room, as she said she had been doing for more than an hour. It could only be explained by the fact that she had sat in a low chair a little back from the window, and completely in the shadow. He had probably been watching from the shrubbery, and, not seeing any one and finding the window conveniently open, had determined to enter in that way, whatever his previous plans may have been; and he had chosen exactly the right moment for doing it.

Naturally enough, the Starrs were greatly excited by this occurrence, and none more so than Mrs. Wentworth Ward. She quite resented the fact that she had slept peacefully and unconsciously through the whole episode, and seemed to take it as a personal grievance that she had not awakened and descended in person to confront the burglar. The opportunity for that having passed by, she consoled herself by making active investigations into the amount of loss that had been sustained by her nieces, and by trying to fit the cap of guilt upon some member of the household.

“It is absurd to think the man got in through Victoria’s room,” said she. “It could not be! Her room is directly next to mine, and I should have heard him. I am a very light sleeper, I assure you. Besides, how could he have had the luck to choose the very time of all others when Victoria was out of the room? What if the vines are torn? That proves nothing. No, no! Depend upon it, some one in this house opened the front door and let them in. You know very little about that extremely ignorant maid of yours. I have no doubt she was an accomplice.”

They had finished breakfast when Mrs. Ward made this statement and were again in the parlor, and while they were talking, Mr. Madison was seen approaching the house. He had come to ask Honor and Katherine to go out on the river with his sister and himself that afternoon.

When he came in, Victoria glanced quickly from one sister to the other. She was surprised to see that Honor was the one who looked embarrassed. Her color certainly changed, and her manner was somewhat stiff. Katherine, on the contrary, greeted the newcomer with her customary frankness.

“You are just the very one we need,” said she. “Here we lone, lorn women—the only man in the family laid up with a broken leg—have been robbed! The only wonder is that we were not murdered as well.”

They told him the history of the night, and Madison’s advice was that the matter should be placed in the hands of detectives at once. He offered to do it for them, and thought it probable that their property would be recovered, as such articles as the clock, and various other things that had been taken from the parlor, would be of no use to the burglars unless they were pawned. The silver candlesticks, on the contrary, could be melted down.

“I think it couldn’t have been a very experienced thief,” said Roger. “An old hand would have known better than to take plated things, as you say some of them were. However, we will tell the whole story to the detective. Suppose you leave things here just as they are. I will bring a man out from Boston in the first train I can get. I could telegraph, I suppose, for one to come, but it is just as well to move quietly in these matters, and perhaps it will not take any longer to go to town. I am inclined myself to the theory that the man came in the second-story window. The open door which Miss Victoria found, and the torn vines seem to point to that.”

“I do not agree with you,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “My nieces, Mr. Madison, quite against my better judgment, have insisted upon employing two very inferior servants. One is the kitchen maid, who knows absolutely nothing—in fact, to use a slang expression to which I seriously object—is as green as the island she came from. The other is a farm boy, whom they picked up no one knows where. I have no doubt that he could give some information in regard to this robbery. Ellen Higgins, my own maid, who is here, tells me that this boy is behaving most unaccountably this morning. When he heard of the robbery, he first became very pale indeed, and then turned very red, and since then he has shown every evidence of guilt. In addition to this, with my own eyes I saw him going into a Boston pawnbroker’s shop a day or two ago, as I told my niece Victoria only yesterday.”

“Well, we will tell all that to the detectives,” said Madison. “They will soon find out who the guilty one is.”