“I’m glad,” Marjorie said again; “glad you are a great detective, Jeremiah.” She smiled indulgently at Jerry. “But gladder still that Miss Walker never wrote that spiteful letter. I’m gladdest of all that it is more despicable even than if it were anonymous. It’s a forgery. A person so unprincipled as to commit such a forgery is too unprincipled to be dangerous.”
“Pearls of truth and wisdom, Bean. I get you, and agree with you,” Jerry returned the smile. “I hate to say it, but I know only one person who could qualify under that head—Leslie Hob-goblin Cairns.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
HELPING THE GOOD WORK ALONG
The warning, brazen voice of the dinner gong, which Miss Remson rang but once before each meal, broke in upon Jerry’s pertinent surmise. It was a signal which called for postponing further conjecture in the matter.
“I’ve thought of Leslie Cairns more than once, Jerry, in connection with both those letters,” Marjorie confessed as Jerry took the letters Marjorie had carefully examined, folded them and tucked them into a small leather portfolio. “Perhaps it’s been unfair in me to judge her by past performances.”
“How could one help it? Come along, self-accusing Bean. I’m hungry enough to eat all the dinner on our table, and give the rest of you not a scrap. We’ll continue our amazing careers as private investigators tonight after the ten-thirty bell is heard in the land and a grateful hush has settled down on Room 15.”
During the busy, merry evening spent with Robin, Phil and the cast of Silverton Hall payers, Marjorie had neither inclination nor opportunity to consider the guilt or non-guilt of Leslie Cairns. As stage manager Leila Harper combined more than usual efficiency with a drollness of speech and manner which kept the amateur thespians in a constant gale of giggles.
“Remember your cues and lines, or you’ll be walking into the middle scenes where you’re neither expected nor wanted,” she warned her flock.
The play, a two-act comedy entitled “The House Party,” was a bright, snappy little production written by Eileen Potter, a promising Silverton Hall sophomore. Phil had advocated the first production of it as a house play. The sophomore class would be the guests of the Silverton Hall sophs on the eventful evening. The living room was to be turned into a theatre. Phil had enlisted Robin’s, Marjorie’s and Leila’s services in rehearsing it.