"Perhaps they have been destroyed," mused Constance.

"I doubt it," returned Loring. "It would seem the sensible thing to do; but, through some curious psychology which I can not fathom, crooks seldom make away with doc.u.mentary evidence."

"Who is helping Mr. Collaton?" asked Constance abruptly after a little silence.

"I do not know," answered Loring promptly, looking her squarely in the eye.

"Some one of our mutual acquaintance," she persisted shrewdly. "Twice, now, attachments have been served on Mr. Gamble when the news of his having attachable property could only have come from our set."

They had turned the corner of the lilac screen and found a little summer-house occupied by Sammy and Winnie, and the low mellow voice of Winnie was flowing on and on without a break.

"It's the darlingest vanity purse I ever saw," she babbled. "Sister Polly bought it for me this morning. She's the dearest dear in the world! I don't wonder you're so crazy about her. How red your hand is next to mine! Madge Cunningham says that I have the whitest and prettiest hands of any girl in school--and she's made a special study of hands. Isn't that the cunningest sapphire ring? Sister Polly sent it to me on my last birthday; so now you know what month I was born in.

Jeannette Crawley says it's just the color of my eyes. She writes poetry. She wrote some awfully sweet verses about my hair. 'The regal color of the flaming sun', she called it. She's dreadfully romantic; but the poor child's afraid she will never have a chance on account of her snub nose. We thought her nose was cute though. Miss Grazie, our professor of ancient history, said my nose was of the most perfect Greek profile she had ever seen--just like that on the features of Clytie, and with just as delicately formed nostrils. We set the funniest trap for her once. Somebody always told the princ.i.p.al when we were going to sneak our fudge nights, and we suspected it was one of the ugly girls--they're always either the sweetest or the meanest girls in school, you know. We had a signal for it, of course--one finger to the right eye and closing the left; and one day, when we were planning for a big fudge spree that night, I saw Miss Grazie watching us pa.s.s the sign. There isn't much escapes my eyes. Sure enough, that night Miss Porley made a raid. Well, on Thursday, Madge Cunningham and myself, without saying a word to anybody, stayed in Miss Grazie's room after cla.s.s and gave each--other the fudge signal; and sure enough, that night--"

Constance and Loring tiptoed away, leaving the bewildered Sammy smiling feebly into the eyes of Winnie and floundering hopelessly in the maze of her information.

"I have it," declared Constance. "That lovely little chatterbox has given me an idea."

"Is it possible?" chuckled Loring. "Poor Sammy!"

"He was smiling," laughed Constance. "Here comes the chairman of the floor-walkers' committee."

Gresham, always uneasy in the absence of Constance, who was too valuable a part of his scheme of life to be left in charge of his friends, had come into the garden after them on the pretext of consulting the general committee.

"Do you know anything about the Garfield Bank?" Constance asked Gresham in the first convenient pause.

"It is very good as far as I have heard," he replied after careful consideration. "Are there any rumors out against it?"

"Quite the contrary," she hastily a.s.sured him. "It is so convenient, however, that I had thought of opening a small account there. Mr.

Gamble transferred his funds to that bank to-day--and if he can trust them with over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars I should think I might give them my little checking account."

When they were alone again Loring turned to her in surprise.

"I have Johnny's money in my name. I didn't know he had opened an account with the Garfield Bank," he wondered.

"Neither did I," she laughed. "I told a fib! I laid a trap!"

CHAPTER X

IN WHICH JOHNNY IS SINGULARLY THRILLED BY A LITTLE CONVERSATION OVER THE TELEPHONE

Mr. Gamble, on his arrival the following afternoon, found Miss Purry very coldly regretful that she had already disposed of her property for a working-girls' home, at a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, having made a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reduction by way of a donation to the cause. Johnny drove back into the city rapidly--for he was now only sixteen hours ahead of his schedule. He was particularly out of sorts because Miss Purry had mentioned that the De Luxe Apartments Company had been after the plot. It is small satisfaction to a loser to have his judgment corroborated.

There was a Bronx project, involving the promotion of a huge exclusive subdivision, which he had hoped to launch; but during his call on Miss Purry that scheme went adrift through the sudden disagreement of the uncertain Wobbles brothers who owned the land. It was a day of failures; and at four o'clock he returned to the office and inscribed, upon the credit side of his unique little day-book, the laconic entry:

"April 28. Two flivvers. $0."

Loring, pausing behind him and looking over his shoulder, smiled--and added a climax. "Jacobs attached your account at the Garfield Bank to-day on that fifty-thousand-dollar note."

"That's my first good laugh to-day," returned Johnny. "I have no funds there."

"Gresham thought you had," said Loring quietly. "A trap was laid to make him think so, and he walked right into it."

"As soon as I have any place to keep a goat I'll get Gresham's,"

declared Johnny. "So he's really in on it."

"He's scared," stated Loring.

"I hope he's right," returned Johnny. "I do wish they'd let me alone, though, till Thursday, June first."

On Sat.u.r.day, the twenty-ninth, and on Monday, the first of May, Johnny Gamble was compelled reluctantly to enter "flivvers" against his days'

labors; and on Tuesday at two o'clock Constance called him up.

"Guilty!" he acknowledged as soon as he heard her voice. "I'm caught up with my schedule. At four o'clock I'll be ten thousand dollars behind.

Everything I touch crawls right back in its sh.e.l.l."

"They'll come out again," she encouraged him. "I didn't call you up, as your score keeper, to tell you that from this hour you will be running in debt to yourself, but that one of your projects has come to life again."

"Which one is that?" he eagerly inquired.

"The property owned by that lady on Riverside Drive. I see by this morning's paper that the working-girls' home is not to be built. I suppose you already know it, however."

"I overlooked that scandal," he confessed. "Wasn't the building to be ugly enough?"

"This was a little obscure paragraph," she told him. "It was rather a joking item, based upon the fact that there is a great deal of ill feeling among the neighbors, who clubbed together and bought the option to prevent a building of this character from being erected. I'm so glad you didn't know about it!"

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Johnny himself was glad. It seemed like a terrific waste of time to have to wait a month before he could tell her what he thought of her; but he had to have that million!

"You're a careful score keeper," he complimented her. "I'll go right after that property. Does the item say who controls it now?"

"I have the paper before me. I'll read you the names," she returned with businesslike preparedness: "Mr. James Jameson-Guff, Mr. G. W.

Mason, Mr. Martin Sheats, Mr. Edward Kettle."

"All the neighbors," he commented. "They don't like honest working-girls, I guess. That's a fine crowd of information you've handed me. I ought to give you a partnership in that million."

"You just run along or you'll be too late!" she urged him. "I'll take my commission in the five-thousand-dollar hours you donate to the Babies' Fund Fair. By the way, from whom do you suppose that option was purchased?"

"Gresham?" inquired Johnny promptly and with such a thrill of startled intensity in his tone that Constance could not repress a giggle.

"No, James Collaton," she informed him. "That's all the news. Hurry, now! Report to me, won't you, as soon as you find out whether you can secure the property? I haven't made an entry on my score board since last Wednesday night. Good-by."

"Good-by," said Johnny reluctantly; but he held the telephone open, trying to think of something else to say until he heard the click which told him that she had hung up.

Last Wednesday night! Why, that was the night he had given the dinner in celebration of his pa.s.sing the quarter-of-a-million mark; and after he had taken her home from the dinner she had sat up to rule and mark that elaborate score board! Somehow his lungs felt very light and buoyant.