“I beg your pardon,” murmured Barbara.
CHAPTER XIX—“EYEOLOGY”
All night long Bab tossed and tumbled in her bed. Should she keep her appointment with the detective? About daylight she fell asleep and wakened with her mind fully made up. Whatever the danger, she was in for it now. A clever thief was abroad in Newport; circumstances had led to her discovering him; well, she would do what she could to bring him to bay.
At six o’clock Barbara slipped quietly out of bed, without awaking Mollie, and stole noiselessly through the deserted halls of Mrs. Ewing’s great house. Not even the servants were about.
At the appointed place she found waiting for her two detectives instead of one.
“We’re wise to the thief,” said the larger, blond man, to whom Barbara had talked yesterday. “I never had my eyes off of him last night, after you pointed him out to me. I saw him slip a bracelet from a young lady’s arm out in the garden, just as coolly as you’d shake hands with a person. But it was no time to make a row then. I never let him know that I saw him. The fellow would have had a thousand excuses to make. I could see he was on pretty intimate terms with the young lady.”
“The truth is, miss,” interrupted the other detective, whom Bab saw for the first time this morning, “we think you have given us the clue to a pretty clever customer. We’ve been looking for him before. He’s known to the service as ‘The Boy Raffles.’ We tried to catch him two years ago when he played this same game at Saratoga. But he got off to Europe without our ever finding the goods on him. So you see, this time we’ve got to nail him. My partner and I,” the wiry little dark man pointed to the big blond one, “have been talking matters over and we believe this here ‘Raffles’ has got what we detectives call a ‘confed’ with him—some one who receives the stolen goods. So that’s why we want to ask your help. Have you any idea of anyone who could be playing the game along with him? We think he is giving the jewels to some one to keep in hiding for him. The gems have not been sent out of town, and we have made a thorough search of Mrs. Erwin’s house, where Townsend is staying. There is nothing there.”
“Could the young lady I saw him in the garden with last night be a partner of his?” asked the blond detective.
“Oh, my goodness, no!” cried Barbara, in horror. “She is my cousin, Gladys Le Baron.”
“Now, that’s just it, miss. You can see we need some one like you, who’s on the inside, to keep us off the wrong track. Can you suggest anyone else?”