“Because if you are,” cried Laura fiercely, “I’ll settle with you now, you miserable sneak, once and for all!”
“Girls! Girls!” pleaded Ray Carew. “Don’t let’s fight among ourselves. What Amanda just said is too silly to notice. I think you had better apologize, Amanda. You won’t be very popular until you do.”
A murmur of assent rose from the girls, a murmur so fierce and insistent, that Amanda was temporarily cowed.
“Oh, all right,” she muttered surlily. “Maybe I didn’t mean that Billie Bradley did it. But the thing looks very queer to me, just the same.”
The thing looked very queer to everybody. As the dreary days dragged by things looked queerer and queerer. The mystery grew blacker and blacker and the general interest and indignation aroused over the mysterious disappearance of that two hundred and sixty dollars amounted to a school revolution.
Many at first stood for Edina, partly for Billie’s sake, partly because they could not bring themselves to believe that the girl from the West would deliberately misappropriate funds entrusted to her by her comrades.
However, little by little bits of evidence piled up against the treasurer of the Gift Club.
Nellie Bane came back to the Hall one day from a trip into town with information that blanched Billie’s face and for a moment shook even her staunch belief in Edina.
“I barged into this shop to buy a pair of shoes,” so went Nellie’s breathless story, “and when the salesman reached into his till for change, he pulled out a five dollar gold piece.” She paused and regarded the intent ring of faces for a long, impressive moment. “It was the very same gold piece that I handed over to Edina Tooker as my contribution to the Gift Club fund!”
A deep sigh burst from the group. Billie sat back and passed her hand over her forehead.