sure the new lawyer would find a place for him.”
Judith worked a while reflectively.
“That might be the best way to help Toby,” she said. “But who is to go to Mr. Holbrook? It’s a rather delicate thing to propose, you see, and yet the argument you have advanced is a just one. A young lawyer, beginning business and unknown to our people, would find a clever, capable young fellow – who is well liked in the community – of real value to him. It seems to me that Janet Ferguson would be the best person to undertake the mission, for she has an excuse in pleading for her father’s former assistant.”
“I’ll see Janet about it,” declared Phoebe, promptly, and she was so enthusiastic over the idea and so positive of success that she went at once to the Ferguson house to interview Janet.
This girl was about Phoebe’s own age and the two had been good friends from the time they were mere tots. Janet was rather more sedate and serious-minded than Phoebe Daring, and had graduated with much higher honors at the high school, but their natures were congenial and they had always been much together.
“It’s an excellent idea,” said Janet, when the matter was explained to her. “I will be glad to call on Mr. Holbrook in regard to the matter, if you will go with me, Phoebe.”
“Any time you say, Janet.”
“I think we ought to wait a few days. Mr. Spaythe is trustee of father’s estate, you know, and he has arranged to sell the office furniture to Mr. Holbrook. To-morrow all the papers and securities which father held in trust for his clients will be returned to their proper owners, and on the day after Mr. Holbrook will move into the offices for the first time. He is staying at the hotel, right now, and it seems to me best to wait until he is in his offices and established in business, for this is strictly a business matter.”
“Of course; strictly business,” said Phoebe. “Perhaps you are right, Janet, but we mustn’t wait too long, for then Mr. Holbrook might employ some other clerk and Toby would be out of it. Let’s go to him day after to-morrow, as soon as he has possession of the office.”
“Very well.”
“At ten o’clock, say,” continued Phoebe. “There’s nothing like being prompt in such things. You stop at the house for me at nine-thirty, Janet, and we’ll go down town together.”
The arrangement being successfully concluded, Phoebe went home with a light heart. At suppertime Donald came tearing into the house, tossed his cap in a corner and with scarcely enough breath to speak announced:
“There’s a big row down at Spaythe’s Bank!”
“What’s up, Don?” asked Becky, for the family was assembled around the table.
“There’s a blue box missing from Judge Ferguson’s cupboard, and it belonged to that old cat, Mrs. Ritchie. She’s been nagging Mr. Spaythe for days to give it up to her, but for some reason he wouldn’t. This afternoon, when Spaythe cleaned out the old cupboard and took all the boxes over to his bank, Mrs. Ritchie was hot on his trail and discovered her blue box was not among the others. It’s really missing, and they can’t find hide nor hair of it. I heard Mr. Spaythe tell the old cat he did not know where it is or what’s become of it, and she was just furious and swore she’d have the banker arrested for burglary. It was the jolliest scrap you could imagine and there’ll be a royal rumpus that’ll do your hearts good before this thing is settled, I can promise you!”
The news astonished them all, for sensations of any sort were rare in Riverdale.
“What do you suppose has become of the box?” asked Phoebe.
“Give it up,” said Don, delighted to find himself so important.
“Perhaps Mr. Ferguson kept it somewhere else; in the bank vault, or at his house,” suggested Judith.
“Nope. Spaythe has looked everywhere,” declared Don. “Old Ritchie says she had a lot of money in that box, and bonds an’ s’curities to no end. She’s rich as mud, you know, but hates to lose a penny.”
“Dear me,” exclaimed Phoebe; “can’t she hold the Fergusons responsible?” appealing to Cousin Judith.
“I’m not sure of that,” replied the Little Mother, seriously, for here was a matter that might cause their lately bereaved friends an added misfortune. “If the box contained so much of value it would ruin the Fergusons to replace it. The question to be determined is when the box disappeared. If it was there when Mr. Spaythe took possession of the office, I think he will be personally responsible.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Don. “I was on my way home when I heard Mrs. Ritchie screeching like a lunatic that her box was stolen. I joined the crowd and we all followed to the bank, Mr. Spaythe in his automobile with the load of boxes and Ritchie running along beside the car jawing him like a crazy woman. She called him a thief and a robber at ev’ry step, but he paid no attention. Eric Spaythe had just closed the bank when we got there, but he helped his father carry in the truck, and Mrs. Ritchie watched every box that went in and yelled: ‘That ain’t it! That ain’t it!’ while the crowd laughed an’ hooted. Then Mr. Spaythe tried to explain and quiet her, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. So Eric and his father both went into the bank and locked the woman out when she wanted to follow them. It was lots of fun, about that time. I thought she’d smash in the glass with her umbrella; but while she was screaming an’ threatening the Spaythes, Lawyer Kellogg happened to come along and he drew her aside. He whispered to her a minute an’ then they both got into her buggy an’ drove away. That broke up the circus, but ev’ryone says there’ll be something doing before this thing is settled, unless that lost box turns up.”
The information conveyed was not entirely lucid, but sufficiently so to disturb the whole Daring family. They were not at all interested in Mrs. Ritchie, but the Fergusons were such old and close friends that there was a general impression that the lost box might cost them all the judge had left and practically ruin them.
“We know,” said Phoebe, in talking it over later, “that the judge was honest. Mrs. Ritchie knew that, too, or she wouldn’t have put her valuables in his keeping.”
“But it seems very unbusinesslike, on his part, to keep her valuables in an old wooden cupboard,” declared Judith. “Judge Ferguson was quite old-fashioned about such matters and evidently had no fear of either fires or burglars.”
“They never bothered him, neither,” Don reminded her. “That old cupboard’s been stuffed full of valuable papers and tin boxes for years, an’ not a soul ever touched ’em.”
“Oak doors, strong boxes and good locks,” said Phoebe; “that accounts for their past safety. Those cupboard doors are as strong as a good many safes, and as far as burglars are concerned, they manage to break in anywhere if they get the chance. I don’t believe anyone but a professional burglar could steal Mrs. Ritchie’s box, and no burglar would take hers and leave all the others. Still, if it wasn’t stolen, where is it? That’s the question.”
“It’s more than a question, Phoebe,” replied Don; “it’s a mystery.”
CHAPTER IV
HOW PHOEBE BECAME WORRIED
Reflecting on the astonishing information Don had conveyed, Phoebe went to her room and sat down at a small table near the window to which was fastened a telegraph instrument, the wire leading outside through a hole bored in the lower part of the sash.
A telegraph instrument is indeed a queer thing to be found in a young girl’s room, yet its existence is simple enough when explained. Riverdale was an out-of-the-way town, quite as unenterprising as many Southern towns of its class. Its inhabitants followed slowly and reluctantly in the wake of progress. They had used electric lights since only the year before, getting the current from Canton, ten miles away, where there was more enterprise and consequently more business. Canton also supplied telephone service to Bayport and Riverdale, but the cost of construction and installation was considered so high that as yet Riverdale had but three connections: one at the post office, a public toll station; one at Spaythe’s bank and one