“You see?” she said. “You have put me in a very false position, Edina Tooker. While I have forgiven you, Amanda will take good care I don’t forget!”
A rural trolley line ran from the suburban districts into the town of Molata. It being an ideal fall day Billie and Edina found the trip both pleasant and soothing. By the time they had reached the one bank the township boasted, Billie had completely recovered her good humor.
“Hand over your money and your troubles are at an end,” she directed Edina. “No more dreams of highwaymen and thugs. Edina! Why do you look like that?”
The girl had opened her pocketbook and was staring stupidly at the contents.
“The money!” she gasped. “The money’s gone!”
“The money’s gone!” repeated Edina Tooker.
“You must be crazy, Edina--or you haven’t half looked!”
She seized the hand bag from the girl’s nerveless grasp and began to ransack it with eager fingers.
“It’s no use,” said Edina in a dazed voice. “I wrapped the money up in a paper and put it there last night. To-day it’s gone!”
Aware that they were attracting the attention of others in the bank, Billie pulled Edina over to a seat against the wall.
“Here,” she said. “We’ll pull this thing inside out. We have to find the money, Edina.”
The girl nodded dumbly. Tears overflowed from her eyes and ran down her face. Absent-mindedly she wiped them away with the corner of a new silk pocket handkerchief.
Billie dumped the contents of Edina’s hand bag into her lap, scrambling them with eager fingers.
There was a vanity case--a newly acquired luxury, to the buying of which Edina had been egged on by Billie herself. There was a tiny blue-enameled pocket comb, a small purse containing a few pieces of silver, a shopping list, and a roll of bills amounting to ten dollars.
“That’s all mine,” said Edina dully. “The gift money is gone.”
“If you say that once more, I’ll scream,” cried Billie. “Stop crying, Edina, do. You have got to pull yourself together if we are going to work this thing out. Let me think! You say you wrapped the money in a paper late yesterday afternoon?”
Edina nodded, twisting the silk handkerchief nervously between her fingers.
“You say that was the last time you saw it?”
“I put it in my trunk and locked it. It has a queer lock with a key that looks like a humped-backed old man. No ordinary key could open that lock!” She looked pleadingly at Billie.