Girl Alone Part 22

"Come here to me, Sally Ford!" she shrilled, when Sally entered the car with "Pitty Sing" riding on her shoulder.

"Now, honey, go easy!" Pop Bybee cautioned her futilely. "Better let me do the talking-"

"You shut up!" his wife commanded angrily. "Sally, you knew where I kept the money! You saw the safe! Oh, I was a fool, all right, but I wanted to show that I trusted you! Huh! Thought I'd wronged you by accusing you of taking presents from my husband! Tell him you saw the safe! Tell him!" And she seized Sally's wrist and shook her so that the midget had to cling tightly to the girl's neck to keep from being catapulted to the floor.

"Yes, Mrs. Bybee," Sally answered, her voice almost dying in her throat with fright. "I saw the safe. But I didn't tell anybody-"

"You're a liar!" Mrs. Bybee screamed. "You told that David boy that very night! Sneaked off and went walking with him and cooked up this robbery so you two could make your get-away. Thought it was a grand way to get out of the state so the cops couldn't pinch you, didn't you?" she repeated, beside herself with anger, her fingers clamped like a vise on Sally's wrist.

"Oh, please!" Sally moaned, writhing with a pain of which she was scarcely conscious, so great was her fear and bewilderment at this unexpected charge.

"Sally certainly didn't go with him," Pop Bybee interposed reasonably.

"Sure she didn't!" his wife shrilled with angry triumph. "She couldn't!

She couldn't! She was buried under the tent! If it hadn't been for the storm she wouldn't be here now, working on your sympathies with them dying-calf eyes of hers-"

"Better let me handle this, honey," Pop Bybee interrupted again, this time more firmly. "Turn the child loose. Ain't a bit of use breaking her arm. Now, folks, I might as well tell you all just what happened, and then try to get to the bottom of this matter. When the worst of the storm was over Mrs. Bybee left the show train to look for me, to see if I was hurt or if she could do anything for anyone who was. She hadn't been out of the stateroom all evening till then-not since she'd put some money into the safe right after supper. She found the boy Dave starting out to look for Sally, and she ordered him to stay on the train to keep an eye on it, in case tramps or crooks tried to board it. There wasn't anybody else on the train. That right, Mother?"

He turned to Mrs. Bybee, who nodded angrily.

"She told him she'd look after Sally, but he'd have to stand guard on the train. She didn't say anything to him about the safe-just told him to patrol the train while she was gone. The safe is under a seat in our stateroom, and far as we knew, n.o.body knew where it was, except Sally here, who happened to come into the stateroom when my wife was counting a day's receipts."

"Please, Mr. Bybee," Sally interrupted, memory struggling with the panic in her brain. "Someone else did know! Nita knew! When I left the stateroom that last day in Stanton I saw Nita disappearing into the women's dressing room, and I thought she'd been listening. She-"

"Hold on a minute!" Bybee cut in sternly. "How do you know she'd been listening? Any proof?"

"Yes, sir!" Sally cried eagerly. "Mrs. Bybee had been telling me that she'd found out that Ford isn't my real name, that the woman I always thought was my mother wasn't really my mother at all. She said she guessed I-that my mother was ashamed I'd ever been born. And that same day Nita called me a-a bad name that means-" She could not go on. Sobs began to shake her small body again and her face was scarlet with shame.

"That's right!" Gus, the barker, edged toward Bybee through the crowd.

"I found Sally lighting into Nita for calling her that name. And Nita didn't deny she'd done it. Reckon that proves she was eavesdropping, all right. And if she was listening in, too, she was probably peeping in, too, or heard Mrs. Bybee talking about the safe. Was the door open, ma'am?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Bybee snapped. "Yes, it may have been. It was awful hot. And I didn't know anybody was on the train."

"It was open a little way," Sally cried. "I remember distinctly. Because I worried about whether Nita had overheard what Mrs. Bybee had been telling me. And there's something else-something that happened that night, when David and I were walking." Memory of that blessed hour in the moonlight brought tears to her eyes, but she dashed them away with the wrist which bore the marks of Mrs. Bybee's rage.

"What was it, Sally?" Pop Bybee asked gently. "All we want is to get at the truth of this thing. Don't be afraid to speak up."

"I hate being a tattle-tale," Sally whimpered. "I never told on anyone in all my life! But David and I were sitting under a tree, not talking, when we suddenly heard Nita's voice. She couldn't see us for the tree, but we peeped around the trunk of it and we saw Nita and a man walking awfully close together, and Nita was talking. We just heard a few words.

She said: 'No monkey business now, Steve. If you double-cross me I'll cut your heart out! Fifty-fifty or nothing-'"

Unconsciously her voice had mimicked Nita's, so that to the startled carnival family it seemed that Nita, the Hula dancer, had appeared suddenly in the car.

"Sounds like Nita, all right." Gus, the barker, nodded with satisfaction. "'Steve,' huh? Who the devil is this Steve?"

"What did he look like, Sally?" Bybee asked.

"I don't know," she answered, her big blue eyes imploring him to believe her. "We couldn't see their faces. We just recognized Nita's voice and her yellow hair that looked almost white in the moonlight. He wasn't tall, not any taller than Nita, and I guess he wasn't very big either, because they were so close together that they looked almost like one person. We didn't hear the man say a word. Nita was doing all the talking-"

"Nita would!" a voice from the crowd growled. "Reckon I can tell you something about this, Pop. I was just ready to ballyhoo the last performance of the 'girlie' show when Nita come slouching up to me, pulling a long face and a song-and-dance about being knocked out with the heat. Bessie had fainted at the last show and I thought Nita might really be all in, so I told her she could cut the last performance and go to the dress tent. I never seen hair nor hide of her again, and-" he paused significantly, "I don't reckon I ever will."

"No, I reckon you won't, not unless the cops nab her," Mrs. Bybee cut in bitterly. "I always said she was a snake in the gra.s.s! And that David, too! Them goody-goody kind ain't ever worth the powder and lead it'd take to blow out their brains! I told you, Winfield Bybee, that there was something phony about that hussy and Dave! 'Tain't like a star performer like Nita thought she was to trail around after a cook's helper, like she done with Dave. They didn't pull the wool over my eyes, even if they did double-cross the kid here-if they _did_ double-cross her! Mind you, Bybee, I ain't saying I believe a word she's been saying!

She knew where the safe was, and she tipped off the boy.

"I ain't forgot they was both wanted by the police when they joined up with us! As I said before, if it hadn't been that she was buried under the freak tent, she'd have skipped with Nita and Dave. You roped Nita in on your little scheme, didn't you, because she'd had more experience cracking safes than you or the boy? That's right, ain't it?" the old lady demanded fiercely of Sally.

Sally shrank from her in horror, but the midget, still perched on her shoulder, patted her cheeks rea.s.suringly. "No, no! I didn't even tell David where the safe was! I didn't! David didn't do it! He couldn't!

David's good! He's the best man in the world!"

"Then where is he?" Mrs. Bybee screamed. "Why did he blow? I left him to guard the train, didn't I? And he ain't here, is he? He wasn't here when we got back from the carnival lot after the tents was raised. If he's so d.a.m.ned good, why did he blow with Nita and this Steve you've made up out of your head?"

"Now, now, Mother," Pop Bybee soothed her, but his eyes were troubled and suspicious. "Reckon we'd better notify the police, folks. I hate to call in the law. I've always said I was the law of this outfit, but I suppose if I've been harboring thieves I'll have to get the help of the law to track 'em down. Ben, you and Chuck beat it down the tracks to the police station and give 'em a description of Nita and Dave and this Steve person, as much as Sally's been able to tell us anyway-"

"Please, Mr. Bybee!" Sally ran to the showman and seized both his hands in hers. "Please don't set the police on David! I know he's innocent!

There's some reason why he isn't here-a good reason! But he didn't have anything to do with the robbery. I know that! But if you tell the police he's been with the carnival they'll find him somehow and put him in jail on those other charges-and me, too! It doesn't matter about me, but I couldn't live if David was put in jail on my account! Oh, please! You've been so good to us!" And she went suddenly on her knees to him, her face upraised in an agony of appeal.

Pop Bybee looked down upon Sally's agonized face with troubled indecision in his bright blue eyes. He tried to lift her to her feet, but her arms were locked about his knees. The midget had scrambled from Sally's shoulder to the floor of the car and as Bybee hesitated, her tiny fists beat upon his right leg for attention.

"You're not going to break your promise to Sally, are you, Mr. Bybee?"

the tiny voice piped shrilly. "You told her and the boy you'd protect them. She's told you the truth. Don't you know truth when you hear it? I always knew Nita was a crook. She never saw a policeman or a constable or a sheriff without turning white as a ghost. She joined up with the carnival just to learn the lay of the land and tip off her accomplice-this Steve person-where to find the money. That's why she was spying on Mrs. Bybee that day in Stanton. Listen to me!"

"I'm listening, Miss Tanner," Pop Bybee acknowledged wearily. "And I swear I don't know what to say or do. If they get clear away with that money the show'll be stranded. Every cent I had in the world was in that safe. Reckon I was a fool to carry it with me, but I never trusted a bank, and it was more convenient, having it right with me. Tomorrow's payday, too, and all of you are in the same boat with me."

"Listen, boss, let's take a vote on it." Gus, the barker, spoke up suddenly and loudly. "Now me-I believe the kid here is telling the truth. No college boy could crack a safe like that. It was a professional job, or I'm a liar! Of course Nita may have tolled the boy off with her and this Steve, since she was so crazy about him, but we ain't got no proof she did, and as Sally says, if you sick the cops on the boy, the jig will be up with her as well as the boy. Another thing, Dave may be laying in the bushes somewhere with a bullet-"

"Oh!" Sally screamed, as the full significance of Gus' words burst upon her. She fainted then, her little body slumping into a heap at Bybee's feet, her head striking one of his big shoes and resting there.

When she regained consciousness she was lying in the lower berth which had belonged to Nita, and the midget was kneeling on the pillow beside her head, dabbing her face with a handkerchief soaked in aromatic spirits of ammonia. Mazie and Sue, two of the dancers in the "girlie"

show, sat on the edge of the berth, their cold-creamed faces almost beautiful with anxiety and sympathy.

"What's the matter? Is it time to get up?" Sally asked dazedly. "What are you doing, Betty?"

The midget answered in her tiny, brisk voice: "I'm bathing your face with ammonia which Mrs. Bybee sent. It should be cologne, and this ammonia will probably dry your skin something dreadful, but it was the only thing we could get. You fainted, you know."

"Oh, I remember!" Sally moaned, her head beginning to thresh from side to side on the pillow. "Have they found David? I know he's been hurt!"

"They're looking for him," the midget a.s.sured her briskly. "Mr. Bybee took a vote on whether he was to notify the police about David's being gone, as well as Nita, and the vote was 'No!' That ought to make you feel happier!"

"Oh, it does!" Sally began to cry softly. "You have all been so kind, so kind! You said Mrs. Bybee sent the ammonia?" she asked wistfully.

"She certainly did, and she's in the kitchen of the privilege car right now, making you some hot tea. She won't say she's sorry, probably, but she'll try to make it up to you. She's like that-always flying off the handle and suspicious of everybody, but she's got a heart as big as Babe, the fat girl."

"And so have you!" Sally told her brokenly, taking both of the tiny hands into one of hers and laying them softly against her lips.

"Ain't love grand?" Mazie sighed deeply. "If it had been my sweetie, I'd a-fell for that line of Ma Bybee's about him running off with Nita, but you sure stuck by him! I was in love like that once, when I was a kid. I married him, too, and he run off with the albino girl and took my grouch bag with him. Every d.a.m.n cent I had! But it sure was sweet before we was married and he was nuts about me."

"Aw, let the kid alone!" Sue slipped from the edge of the berth and yawned widely. "Gawd, I'm sleepy! If the cops don't catch that Hula hussy I'm going out looking for her myself, and when I get through with her she'll never shake another gra.s.s skirt! C'mon, Mazie. It's three o'clock in the morning, and we've got eighteen shows ahead of us."

"Maybe!" Mazie yawned. "If Pop wasn't stringing us, we'll be stranded in this burg. G'night, Sally. G'night, Midge. And say, Sally, even if this Dave boy has blowed and left you flat, you won't have no trouble copping off another sweetie. Gus was telling us about that New York rube that's trailing you. Hook up with him and you'll wear diamonds. Believe me, kid, they ain't none of 'em worth losing sleep over when you've got eighteen shows a day ahead of you. G'night."