“Well, I followed his directions. Everything went well, but I kept thinking over his curious directions. As we crossed into the United States the little girl was sleeping with my doll hugged to her heart. She cried a little when she had to give it up as Boston was reached.
“That night in my room at the Adams House I learned the secret of the doll—the secret Jones was to reveal to me when we met. I also learned that I had committed a crime. This doll looks pretty and expensive, does it not? Well, Mr. Merriwell, I’ll wager you can’t guess how much it is worth.”
“Ten thousand, if a cent!” declared Hilda Dugan.
He wondered if she could be in her right mind.
“I knew you would stare!” she laughed excitedly, her face flushed and her hands trembling. “But you will stare still more when I show you the secret of the doll. Look!”
She opened the doll’s dress, exposing the body, and then, as she touched a hidden spring, a coverlike lid flew upward.
The doll lay on its back across Hilda’s knees, and a cry broke from Frank as he stared at it, for he saw that its body was literally stuffed with glittering diamonds!
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“Can they be real?” gasped Merry, amazed.
“Of course they are!” cried the girl. “And I helped smuggle them into the United States. Don’t you see through the trick now? I didn’t know till after it was all over. Before I was a smuggler’s daughter, now I am a smuggler! Do you wonder that I have been afraid? Do you wonder that I have hidden myself away?”
“When I realized what I had done, what he had led me to do, I lost no time in packing and hastening from Boston. I took the doll with me, you may be sure, for I knew, as I know now, that its precious contents were purchased with my father’s money and really belong to me.”
“Then you are rich!” exclaimed Merriwell, still fascinated by the glitter of the diamonds.
“No, no!” she cried. “For though these diamonds belong to me, how can I prove it?”
Frank realized all the difficulties of her position and he was somewhat bewildered himself, not finding a ready answer.
“I have brought you here to advise me,” she went on. “You must tell me what to do. I will not give these diamonds up to Jones. Yet I cannot keep them. If I turn them over to the authorities, it is not likely I’ll ever see them again, for am I not the daughter of a smuggler? Who will believe my story?”