“Don’t think I am a lazy good-for-nothing, Ruth,” Barbara begged, “but I have a little headache, and I must write to mother. Mollie and I have been neglecting her shamefully of late. I haven’t even written her about the wonderful ball.”
“Are you going to tell her what happened, Bab?” Ruth inquired.
“I suppose so,” sighed Bab. She was half inclined to discuss the unfortunate affair with Ruth, but changed her mind.
“Well, Bab,” Ruth declared, “I shall go for the walk ‘all by my lonesomes.’ I’ll be back in time for dinner. The others are to dine on the yacht, so we need not look for them until bedtime. I think I’ll take the cliff walk, for the sea is so splendid to-day.”
Left alone, Barbara got out her writing materials and sat down by the window, but she did not begin to write.
“I wonder,” she asked herself, “why we have been mixed up in burglaries ever since Ruth began talking about our trip to Newport? First, our poor little twenty-dollar gold-pieces disappear; then we have that dreadful robber at New Haven. Now Mrs. Post’s emerald necklace is stolen! It could not all have been Mr. Townsend!” Barbara sat with her hands clenched.
“If it is true,” she went on, “and I saw the necklace disappear with my own eyes, then we have another Raffles to deal with. Mr. Raffles, the second! I believe I am the only person that suspects him. Well, Mr. Harry Townsend!” Barbara’s red lips tightened, “you are successful now, but we shall see whose wits are better, yours or mine!”
Barbara’s face turned a deep crimson. “I understood. He wanted to suggest I was the thief. Only he didn’t dare to accuse me openly the other night. I won’t tell mother,” Barbara at last decided. “I’ll just watch—and wait!”
Barbara wrote her mother a long, happy letter, without a hint of the troubles she began to feel closing in on her. Then she straightened her own and Mollie’s bureau drawers and arranged their clothes in the two closets. Still Ruth did not come.
Twice Barbara went into her room. It was half past five—six—Mrs. Ewing’s early dinner was served at half after six.