The Secret of the Old Mill/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
Another Victim
When he took his place in class that morning, Frank Hardy glanced over at the desk, two aisles away, where Callie Shaw was sitting.
Callie, a brown-haired, brown-eyed miss with a quick, vivacious manner, was one of the prettiest girls attending Bayport high school. She was Frank's favorite of all the girls in the city, and each morning he glanced over at her desk and never failed to receive a bright and fleeting smile that somehow made the dusty classroom seem a trifle less drab and monotonous, and when she was not there it always seemed that the day had gotten away to a bad start.
She was there this morning, but she was gazing soberly at her books and she failed to return Frank's glance with her usual smile. This was something so utterly extraordinary that Frank gazed at her, open-mouthed, for a second or so until, recollecting himself, he turned to his own books and proceeded to spend much of the time until recess in a state of helpless wonderment. Like the average boy under such circumstances, he racked his brains trying to recollect what he could have done that might have offended Callie. But there seemed to be no solution to the mystery.
Perhaps she had heard of how he had been fooled by the stranger yesterday. Perhaps she felt contempt for him because he had been so easily outwitted. This was one of his wild surmises, but he rejected it because it was not like Callie to be angry about anything unless there was good reason for her displeasure. At last he gave it up and tried to dismiss the matter from his mind, but several times during the morning he cast covert glances in her direction.
But Callie was plainly worried and downcast. She seldom raised her eyes from her books, she answered the teacher's questions in a most abstracted manner, and altogether it appeared that there was something on her mind beyond schoolwork.
When recess came she walked slowly out of the room, not mingling with the other girls. Frank saw her go outside toward the campus, where she sat down on the grass by herself, watching an impromptu basketball game and declining all requests to join in the fun.
He went over to her and flung himself down on the grass beside the girl.
"What's the matter, Callie?"
She looked up at him and smiled faintly.
"Hello, Frank, where did you drop from?"
"I've been sitting right across from you in school all morning and this is the first time you've noticed that I'm alive."
"I'm sorry, Frank. I didn't mean to be rude. I've got something on my mind this morning, that's all."
"Trouble?"
She nodded.
"What about?"
"Money."
He was puzzled by this remark. Callie lived with her cousin, Miss Pollie Shaw, the proprietor of a beauty parlor in the city, and although Miss Shaw was not rich, she made a comfortable living. Therefore, when Frank heard Callie say that she was worried about money he was naturally puzzled. Callie's parents lived in the country, but they sent their daughter frequent remittances to pay the expenses of her education in Bayport.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Didn't your allowance come?"
"No, it isn't that. I'm all right. It's Pollie. She lost some money. More than she could afford."
"Lost some? How was that?"
"She lost fifty dollars last night."
Frank whistled.
"Whew! That's a lot of money."
"It certainly is. The worst of it is that Pollie had just made the final payment on some new electrical fixtures in the shop and it had left her pretty short of cash. I feel bad about it for her sake."
“How did it happen?"
"A woman came into the store last night and bought some beauty preparations, quite a large order. It amounted to about twelve dollars and she had nothing less than a fifty dollar bill in her purse. Pollie had that much money in the till, for it was near the end of the day, and she didn't like to lose the order, so she changed the bill."
Frank nodded soberly. He knew now what had happened.
"And the money was counterfeit," he said.
"Why, how did you know?" exclaimed Callie.
"I was fooled yesterday myself." Frank then went on to tell Callie how he and Joe had been victimized by the stranger on the station platform. "Dad says there is a lot of this counterfeit money being circulated," he said. "They certainly aren't losing much time in getting rid of it around Bayport. Gee, first a five and now a fifty! I'm sure sorry that Pollie is out that much money."
"Yes, it's a big amount," declared Callie. "Of course, she'll get along, but no one likes to lose that much."
"Did she know the woman?"
"Oh, no. She was a total stranger. She was rather handsome and was well dressed. Pollie didn't suspect anything wrong. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until she picked up the paper after work last night and read that the banks had issued a warning about counterfeit money that she began to think about it. So she called up Mr. Wilkins, who works in one of the banks, and he came over and took a look at the bill. He said right away that it was no good, although he admitted it was so cleverly done that any one might be fooled by it."
"Just what they said about my five. Did Pollie tell the police?"
"I suppose she has told them by now. But she gave me the bill and asked me to turn it over to your father."
"Good! Dad happens to be working along those lines just now. Have you got the bill with you now?"
"It's in my purse in the cloakroom. I'll let you have it at lunch hour."
So when school was dismissed at noon Callie gave Frank the counterfeit fifty dollar bill. Frank examined it closely. Like the five dollar bill he and Joe had changed for the plausible stranger the previous day, it was crisp and new. Frank had seen very few fifty dollar bills in his life, either genuine or otherwise, but he realized that this specimen was a very good imitation. The mere fact that such bills are not often seen by the average person no doubt rendered it easier to pass without being readily detected.
"I'll show this to my father," he promised Callie. "I'm afraid it won't do much good. Pollie will have to stand her loss, unless she can trace the woman who passed the bad bill on her, but perhaps this will help dad find the source of all this counterfeit money."
"Goodness knows how many poor people are being victimized just as Pollie was," said the girl. "I hope they catch the people who are at the bottom of it."
When Joe joined Frank on the school steps Frank told him about the incident at the beauty parlor and of how Pollie Shaw had lost fifty dollars in goods and money to the strange woman.
"Of course," said Frank, "she may have been perfectly innocent in passing that fifty dollar bill, and perhaps she didn't realize it was counterfeit, but I'm beginning to think this gang has a number of people traveling around getting rid of the imitation bills."
"Once they get them into circulation they'll go from hand to hand until the banks check them up. Somebody is bound to lose in the end, and usually it's the honest person who finds out that the money is bad and won't pass it any further. The crooked ones will just try to get rid of it as quickly as they can."
When they reached home Frank told his father about Pollie Shaw and handed over the counterfeit bill.
"So they're dealing in fifties now!" exclaimed Fenton Hardy, as he looked at the money.
"Do you think it's made by the people who turned out that bad five that we got stung on?" Joe asked.
Mr. Hardy drew a magnifying glass from his vest pocket and make a close scrutiny of the bill. "It seems to have been printed on the same press but I'm not sure," he announced at last. "These things are so cleverly done that it would take an expert to notice any differences." He proceeded then to examine the five dollar bill, comparing it closely with the fifty, and at last he put the glass back into his pocket.
"I'm practically certain that these bills were issued from the same press. The paper seems to be of the same kind, just a shade lighter than the paper used in genuine money, and there are certain little differences in the engraving that are almost identical on each bill. Miss Shaw won't mind if I keep this, will she?" he asked Frank.
"She asked me to give it to you."
"I'll send both these bills to an expert in the city and we'll get his opinion on it."
Mrs. Hardy, a pretty, fair-haired woman, sighed.
"I'm sure I don't know what the world's coming to," she said, "when men will make bad money and know that poor people are going to lose by it. It's a shame."
"There's nothing some of them won't stop at when it comes to filling their own pockets," declared her husband. "But perhaps when the expert sends me his report on these bills I'll have something more to work on. If it turns out that there is one central gang circulating this money we'll all have to be on the lookout."