Nyoda called
to him sharply and he came to her wagging his tail, and allowed himself
to be put out with the best nature in the world. But the scene had been
spoiled.

During the rest of the evening Nyoda, as well as a number of the other
teachers, sat with brows knitted, going over the various things that had
happened to interrupt that play. As yet they did not know about the
attempt to steal the statue, which Sahwah had accidentally nipped in the
bud. But the following week, when the play was all over, and the various
occurrences had been made known, there was a day of reckoning at
Washington High School. Joe Lanning and Abraham Goldstein were called up
before the principal and confronted with Sahwah, who told, to their
infinite amazement, every move they had made in carrying off the statue.
At first they denied everything as a made-up story gotten up to spite
them, but when Sahwah led the way to the barn where she had been
confined and triumphantly produced the base of the statue, they saw that
further denial was useless and admitted their guilt. They also confessed
to being the authors of the sandwich joke and the ones who had brought
in the dog. Both were expelled from school.

But the thing which the principal and teachers considered the bigger
crime--the cutting of the wires at the back of the stage--was still a
mystery. Joe's and Abraham's complicity in the statue affair furnished
them with a complete alibi in regard to the other. It was proven, beyond
a doubt, that they had not been in the building in the early part of the
afternoon nor after they had carried off the statue, until after the
wires had been cut. Then who had cut the wires? That was the question
that agitated the school. It was too big a piece of vandalism to let
slip. The principal, Mr. Jackson, was determined to run down the
offender. Joe and Abraham denied all knowledge of the affair and there
was no clue. The whole school was up in arms about the matter.

Then things took a rather unexpected turn. In one of the teachers'
meetings where the matter was being discussed, one of the teachers, Mr.
Wardwell, suddenly got to his feet. He had just recollected something.
"I remember," he said, "seeing Dorothy Bradford coming out of the
electric room late on the afternoon of the play. She came out twice,
once about three o'clock and once about four. Each time she seemed
embarrassed about meeting me and turned scarlet." There was a murmur of
surprise a