And almost before the last words had left her lips Hilary whisked herself dexterously out of the room, and slammed the door after her. Margaret heard her locking the door of the bedroom as she pa.s.sed it on her way downstairs. Margaret's mixture of feelings at this treatment was so curious that at first she could neither laugh nor be angry. She was too angry to laugh, and too amused to be angry. When, however, she walked into her bedroom and saw how thoroughly Hilary had turned over every one of her possessions, leaving them either in a rumpled state in the drawers, or scattered on the floor, indignation triumphed over amus.e.m.e.nt.

Hilary's charges, too, absurd though, of course, they were, had been brought against her in all seriousness, and Margaret's rising anger made her feel that she must be made to retract them immediately. She found, on going first to one door and then to the other, that though the door of her bedroom was locked, that of the dressing-room was not; for Hilary, finding after she had slammed the door that the key was on the inside, had been obliged to leave it unlocked rather than risk a struggle, for she had been doubtful whether Miss Carson would have permitted herself to be locked in had the swiftness of the action not taken her by surprise.

As Margaret went downstairs she heard Hilary's voice talking fast and eagerly in the drawing-room. She had had five or six minutes start to tell her tale in, and a good deal can be said in five or six minutes, provided that the listener does not hinder the narrator by interruptions.

And Mrs. Danvers had not once interrupted, and Hilary had therefore been able to make such good use of her time that she had given her mother a full and complete account of the way in which her first suspicions that there was something mysterious about Miss Carson had gradually grown into a certainty, as clue after clue came into her hands, until this afternoon, by finding all Colonel Baker's stolen property locked away in a box under her bed, she had actually proved her to be a member of the notorious gang of burglars.

Mrs. Danvers' knitting had long ago dropped on to her lap, her ball of wool had rolled unheeded under a chair, and her eyes, round with incredulity and dismay, had been fixed unblinkingly upon her daughter.

"In a box under her bed! All Colonel Baker's things!" she gasped. "Oh, Hilary! and you mean to say that you actually found them there?"

"Yes, every one of them, not half an hour ago," returned Hilary complacently. "And what is more, hidden away in her drawer, I found this." And she opened the case and displayed the necklace and miniature to her mother. "She doesn't attempt to claim Colonel Baker's things as her own, but she persists in saying that this is hers. And considering the inscription, 'To my daughter Margaret,' that is written on it, it is rather silly of her. Without doubt," Hilary added, "it belongs to Miss Cora Anatolia, the Bulgarian dancer."

"But her name doesn't begin with an 'M,' either," said Mrs. Danvers.

"Oh, actresses have lots of names," Hilary said impatiently. "That's not a point we need consider. The point is that whoever it belongs to, it is not Miss Carson's."

And it was at that moment that Margaret, still wearing the hat and the rainproof coat that she had donned to go into the town, entered the drawing-room. She carried her head high, and walked straight down the long drawing-room to Mrs. Danvers' side.

"Your daughter Hilary has been telling you that I am a thief and a burglar, hasn't she?" she said, "and I have come to ask you if you believe her."

Mrs. Danvers shifted uneasily in her chair. There was nothing she disliked more than anything approaching a dispute, and really, when she looked up at the slim, pale girl standing before her it seemed quite too ridiculous to believe, as she had been inclined a moment before to do, that she was a member of a desperate gang of burglars. Hilary was quick to notice her mother's wavering manner, and intervened quickly.

"Then how do you account for all Colonel Baker's things being found locked up in your box?" she exclaimed quickly. "Tell me that."

"I have already told you that I know nothing at all about them. I unpacked my box when I came, and Collins put it away under my bed, and I have never opened it or looked at it since."

There was such an air of sincerity in her voice, that Mrs. Danvers veered round to her side once more.

"There, my dear," she said to Hilary, "you hear what Miss Carson said.

She knows nothing whatever about Colonel Baker's things."

"Oh, of course, she would say anything to clear herself," said Hilary angrily. "Don't be so weak as to listen to her, mother. Let her explain how they were found in her box, then. And let her, while she is about it, too, explain how she claims this necklace as her own. Is it the sort of necklace that a holiday governess would own? It must be worth several hundreds of pounds at least. I found it locked up in her dressing bag, and hadn't she happened to leave the key which, as a rule, she is always careful to carry about with her, lying on her dressing table, I could not have got at it."

"Oh, Hilary!" said Mrs. Danvers feebly, "I don't think it was nice of you to poke and pry about in her room, I really don't."

"That is what I told her," said Margaret coldly and contemptuously. "She first of all invented an errand that took me out of the house, and then used the opportunity to search my room."

"Detectives have to do things of that sort," said Hilary, reddening in spite of herself; "but that's not the point. The point is that she says this necklace belongs to her, that the miniature inside the locket is one of her mother who gave it to her. Now, seeing that her name is Eleanor Carson, and not Margaret or a surname beginning with an 'A.,' it is plain enough to any one that she is telling a lie."

"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Danvers feebly, feeling quite unequal to cope with the gravity of the situation, "I wish you both would not quarrel like this, Hilary; you talk so fast that you bewilder me. Now, Miss Carson, it is your turn to speak. I am quite sure that you can explain everything if you will. You are too young, and--and far too nice a girl to be a burglar, and if you will only tell us how Colonel Baker's things got under your bed, I am sure Hilary will gladly apologise for anything she may have said to hurt your feelings. And--and I am sure, as you are so young, and this must be your first offence, that Colonel Baker will not be too hard on you."

"Then you do believe I am a thief!" Margaret exclaimed, staring almost incredulously at Mrs. Danvers. Then without another word she turned abruptly on her heel, and walked towards the door. As she went her foot caught in Mrs. Danver's ball of pink wool; she picked it up, replaced it on Mrs. Danvers' lap, and in another minute was gone from the room. The little action, which was one that she had performed a dozen times a day for Mrs. Danvers since she had been in the house, was sufficient to cause that hapless lady to change her mind again about the character of her holiday governess.

"Oh, no, my dear!" she called out, "I don't, indeed, I don't!"

There was no answer, for Margaret had already shut the door behind her.

Mrs. Danvers turned to Hilary:--

"It is all a pack of rubbish that you have been telling me," she said angrily, scarcely knowing what she was saying. "I don't believe a word of it!"

"Just because she picked up your ball of wool!" Hilary exclaimed, with a disdain which, though neither dutiful nor polite, was perhaps not altogether unmerited. "Really, mother!"

Meanwhile Margaret, with anger burning hot within her, had walked straight out of the house. Nothing, she told herself pa.s.sionately, should induce her to stay a moment longer within it, or ever to enter it again.

Where she was going, or what she was going to do she did not stop to think. The sole idea that possessed her was to get as far away from The Cedars as quickly as she could. Never again, she told herself pa.s.sionately, would she see or speak to one of the Danvers again. And just as she had come to that resolution she ran full tilt into all of them.

By that time dusk had fallen, and the fog which was coming on thicker than ever, made it almost impossible for any one to see where they were going, so that as she turned a corner of the road which they were approaching from the other direction, she was in the middle of them before she was aware of it. The three girls had met the boys on the parade, and had walked up with them.

"Whither away in such a hurry, Miss Carson?" said Geoffrey, who was the first to recognise her by the light of the street lamp, close to which the encounter took place.

"Ask your mother--ask Hilary," Margaret cried bitterly, and breaking away from him, as he would have detained her, darted across the road, and was immediately swallowed up by the fog.

"Something has happened; she mustn't go like that!" cried Geoffrey, starting after her. But Margaret's movement away from them all had been so sudden and so quick that he could find no trace of her in the dense fog, and realising the hopelessness of pursuit he returned in rather a perturbed frame of mind to the others who were waiting for him by the lamp.

"She was in a right, royal rage," said Maud. "I have never seen Miss Carson angry before. I really didn't know she had it in her."

"Perhaps Hilary has sent her on another message," suggested Nancy.

"Hardly at this hour of the evening," said Edward. "It must be nearly half-past six."

So wondering and speculating as to what could have happened during their absence, but never coming near the truth, they all hurried home as fast as they could, and made their way at once to the drawing-room, where their mother was sitting, looking very helpless and unhappy, while Hilary, with a complacent expression on her face, was telling her all over again of the many and varied clues which had caused her to discover in the person of Miss Carson one of the gang of the Seabourne burglars.

"Why, mother, what is up with Miss Carson?" said Geoffrey at once. "We met her a minute ago running down the road as hard as she could go."

"Running down the road!" echoed Mrs. Danvers. "There, Hilary!" she added, turning to her. "I told you I heard her going out of the hall door, and you said you heard her going upstairs."

"What!" exclaimed Hilary, disregarding her mother altogether. "Miss Carson has escaped! She ought to be brought back. Oh, Geoffrey, why didn't you catch her!"

"I tried to stop her, but she had gone like a flash. But why do you talk about her escaping and of catching her. She isn't a criminal fleeing from justice, is she?"

"But that is just what she is?" cried Hilary triumphantly. "Oh, you have all been finely taken in by her; but I suspected her from the first, and to-night, I have proved her to be a thief and a burglar. I, alone and unaided, have brought her to justice."

"Miss Carson a thief and a burglar!" cried Geoffrey when his astonishment would allow him to speak. "What mad idea have you got into your head now, Hilary?"

Hilary would dearly have liked to have told the long history of the growth of her suspicions about Miss Carson from the very beginning, but knowing that she could not expect the same patient attention from her brothers and sister as her mother had given her, she came straight to the point at once. After all, she was not sure that it was not the most dramatic way of telling her tale.

"I have got no mad idea as you call it, Geoffrey, in my head at all," she said with dignity. "I have merely found out who the Seabourne burglars are, that's all. At least, I have put my hand on one of them, and that one is Miss Carson. This afternoon, locked up in her trunk in the dressing-room upstairs, I found all Colonel Baker's plate and other valuable things."

"Rot!" exclaimed Geoffrey incredulously.

"It isn't rot at all," said Hilary nonchalantly; "it's the truth. But when I taxed her with the crime she denied it."

"Well, of course she did," said Geoffrey. "Of all the nonsense I ever heard this is about the greatest."

Hilary shrugged her shoulders. "Call it nonsense if you like," she said, "but there are the things themselves, every one of them, even to the Indian tablecloth she carried them off in, upstairs in her box at this moment. Go and see them for yourselves if you don't believe me. And if she didn't put them there, who did? Pray tell me that."

Noel looked at Jack, and Jack looked back at Noel. Then they sighed. The moment for confession had undoubtedly arrived, and they both took a step forward.

"We put them there," they said together.