Читать книгу The Secret of the Red Scarf - Elizabeth Mildred Duffield Ward - Страница 6

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“What a dreadful thing to say!” was Wilma’s shocked response to Betty’s announcement. “The idea! Everyone knows you’re the kindest girl in Carmont High School. If you had a brother who was sort of—well, retarded, you’d be the last one to keep it a secret and try to pretend he didn’t exist.”

Kay herself, too shocked to speak, stood staring ahead.

“I agree with Wilma,” said Betty, stamping her foot in the corridor. “And do you know what I think? I’m sure Ethel Eaton’s in back of this!”

Kay, having recovered her wits, advised Betty to be very certain of this before accusing Ethel Eaton. After a pause, she added suddenly, “Girls, I have an idea!”

“Tell us what it is. The sooner we punish Ethel the better,” Betty remarked.

“Oh this has nothing to do with Ethel. At least, not directly,” Kay replied. “I was just thinking of poor Bro. Maybe this would be a good way to protect him.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Betty insisted impatiently.

Kay reminded the twins of the mysterious person who had knocked Bro out in his jalopy. Then there had been the threatening note left at the Tracey door.

“Don’t you see how we could work this scheme?” Kay asked, her eyes sparkling. “If Bro’s enemy could be made to think he has left our house, then the man wouldn’t bother us again.”

“A fine idea if you can work it,” said Betty. “But if Bro is there, how can you make anybody think he has left?”

Kay chuckled. “By letting Ethel’s story stand that a long-missing brother of mine has come home and there’s no other boy at my house. Girls, I think I’m going to keep my new brother, at least temporarily.”

Wilma’s eyes took on a dreamy look. Then she said softly:

“Brother o’ mine,

Gone for years untold

Joyfully we welcome you

Into the family fold.”

“Oh, that’s horrible!” Betty remonstrated. “I only hope you’re the poet—but of course it couldn’t be anyone else’s.”

Wilma did not deign to answer. By this time the three girls had entered the chemistry lab where each of them would spend the next period experimenting. While they were putting their books on the window sill, Betty whispered to Kay:

“Just because you’re going to keep your new brother isn’t going to prevent me from getting square with Ethel Eaton. I just remembered how I heard the story about Bro, and it proves Ethel is guilty. Helen Winter got it from Harry Blackstone. He’s Ethel’s latest flame. I hear he’s taking her to the masquerade and that gives me a scrumptious idea.”

Just then the class bell rang and Kay hurried to her work, saying, “Tell me later, Betty, but for goodness sake, don’t do anything rash!”

Betty turned to her sister and between giggles began to explain how she planned to get even with Ethel Eaton for her malicious gossiping.

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Wilma murmured as her twin paused and looked around to be sure no one else was listening.

“Well,” Betty confided, “I overheard Ethel Eaton tell one of the other girls what she was going to wear to the masquerade. It’s a duchess costume her mother wore years ago to some dress-up party.”

“Ethel would love acting the part of a duchess,” Wilma remarked. “Go on.”

“Ethel mentioned that she would be sending the costume to the dry cleaner’s a few days before the party. That’s what gave me my brilliant idea!”

“Yes, yes. What is it?” Wilma asked eagerly.

“I’ll go to the——”

At this moment Miss Sherman, the instructor, walked into the room and indicated that the girls were to go to their worktables at once. Betty walked to the far side of the room. Wilma went over and stood beside Kay.

“A note for you, Kay,” Wilma said, seeing a paper lying behind a retort at Kay’s place.

Wondering what it might be, Kay picked up the note and opened it. A second later she blushed.

“Why, how mean!” Wilma cried, seeing what lay before Kay.

It was a crude drawing of a girl with the initials K.T. under her. Seated beside her on the floor playing with a set of blocks was a baby. Under it was scrawled, “My brother.”

“This ghastly joke has gone far enough!” Wilma said with determination. “The minute school is over today I’m going to tend to Ethel Eaton myself!”

“No talking please, girls,” Miss Sherman called out.

Kay, who had been about to answer her friend’s outburst, picked up a pad and pencil and wrote on it:

“The best way to punish Ethel is to ignore her. She’ll be dying to know what we thought of her drawing. Let’s pretend I never received it.”

As Wilma nodded and started her experiment, Kay tucked the paper into her shirt pocket. She found it difficult to keep her mind on her work. The tender hearted girl was incensed by Ethel’s move and felt doubly sorry that the poor stranger at the Tracey home had to be subjected to such gossip. More than ever Kay wanted to help him and could hardly wait for the lunch hour to arrive so she might hurry over to the Art School and learn what she could about his sister.

“Can I help you, Miss Tracey?” a voice over her shoulder asked. “You seem to be having trouble getting started this morning.”

Kay turned and smiled. “Oh thank you, Miss Sherman,” she said. “I’ll begin my experiment at once. I’m sure I can do it alone.”

The girl sleuth determined to settle down and put her mind on her school work. The experiment went along well for about ten minutes, then Kay’s mind began to wander again.

“I must pay attention,” she told herself sternly, and reached for a bottle on the shelf above.

Carefully she measured a small quantity of the liquid into a test tube. Then, without noting particularly where she was replacing the bottle, Kay set it back on the shelf some distance from where it had stood.

Wilma was carrying on a completely different experiment. She was busy boiling a fluid over a Bunsen burner and like Kay her mind had begun to wander. She too felt exceedingly sorry for the young man at the Tracey home and decided that she would work hard with Kay trying to solve the mystery.

“If Bro could only remember a little bit more,” Wilma thought. “I think I’ll go and talk to Dr. Rolfe myself and find out whether there’s something we can do to——”

“Miss Worth,” the instructor called, “the liquid in your experiment is boiling away. You’d better finish your work before it evaporates.”

Wilma shook off her absent-minded mood and added a few drops of green fluid from a bottle just above her. At once the boiling liquid turned a murky shade.

“So far, so good,” Wilma told herself, and consulted her chemistry book. “Now for the last part of the experiment.”

Her eyes still on the book she reached up for a certain bottle. Instead of the one she thought she was taking, her fingers closed around the bottle Kay had put in the space a few minutes before.

Unfortunately Wilma did not read the label on it. After uncorking the bottle, she poured a quantity of the contents into the boiling fluid.

The next moment there was a loud explosion!