The Alley by Eleanor Estes Page B

She looked as though she thought they were all accusing her of not having stopped the robbery. And she really could have stopped it, if only she had thought something was amiss when she heard Wags. She could have run upstairs, wondering what all the pounding—the breaking in of the door must have made quite a racket—was about. And the unusual barking of the Ives's usually quiet dog could have sent her to the front window, and she might have peeked out. Then, she would have seen those men across the street, the lookout men, and she might have thought something was strange about that, and she might have called—if not the police, at least Mrs. Stuart, next door to her on the other side. But she didn't.
    "I just didn't think one thing about it," she said coldly to Billy Maloon, for he was looking at her with a certain amount of disgust. Here was June and also her brother Ray—they had had a chance to be heroes, and they had let the chance slip through their fingers. If
he
had been the one to hear Wags, he would have known right away something was wrong. "Some people have all the luck," Billy thought, "and they let it slide through their fingers."
    "Well, anyway," said June's brother Ray. "It was lucky it wasn't
our
house the burglars burglared because
my
mother had six hundred dollars...
six hundred dollars in cash.
Cash is what they like, my mother says—they much prefer cash to anything else, suits, a crummy old typewriter; and here my mother had all this money, plain bills—greenbacks—lying loose on the top of her valise in her bedroom. The valise was wide open, too—they could have scooped the money up in a second and gone off with it. She had it for her trip to Spain next week.... Yeh, supposing it was
my
house they broke into! Supposing it was the six hundred dollars they got!"
    Hugsy, always impressed with money, fell over in a pretend faint again. But Billy said somberly, "That can't equalize with the family jewels in Connie's house, including a diamond ring. You've heard of the Hope diamond, haven't you? Diamonds are worth more than any old greenback money. And you know that, Ray Arp. Think you're so smart, Ray," said Billy Maloon.
    Connie was grateful to Billy for putting this slant on things, for reminding the others that money is not always the most valuable thing in the world. Old watches, rings, keys for brilliance are even more important. But she said, "Anyway, they did get my seven real silver dollars, not paper dollars.... And you can't blame ... no one can blame Ray and June Arp for not paying attention to the barking. Mrs. Harrington, on the other side of us, paid no attention either, and she wasn't even playing ping-pong."
    "Well, she's deaf," said Katy Starr. "You can't expect an old deaf lady ... how old is she, anyway? A hundred?"
    "Ninety-four," said Connie. "Exactly the same age as our school."
    "Mean to say that Morrison School is nearly a hundred?" said Hugsy. "What an antiquity!"
    "It's old, but it's a very good school," Connie said to Hugsy. "And maybe it's lucky Mrs. Harrington didn't hear; she might have died of old-age fright."
    "No clues from her," said Billy. He had taken out a grimy little blue notebook and had made some entries. "No clues from Mrs. Harrington, and no clues from the Arps, except they did hear Wags barking. So far we have these clues—the clue of the man who got Wags used to his smell, his appearance, bullet head; the screwdriver named 'Stanley' that was used to jimmy the door; the cigarette butt ... it's a Mura, that helps; the bone—I must remember to get that out of the garbage. Any more? Oh, yes, the piece of bloodstained curtain. Any more?"
    "Not clues that we can hold in our hand," said Connie. "But maybe ... let's see..." She was reluctant to have her story over, near its end.
    At this moment, Judy's father, Mr. Fabadessa, came into the yard. Evidently he had been listening to the last words himself. "I may have further clues," he said. "Is your mother in,