e questioned about Zelaya and the
missing pearl necklace."

"My goodness me! Father will be _so_ angry," cried Helen.

"Roberto will have to tell. I like him, and he was very brave to-night.
But I do not believe the boy is a thief himself, and he would be better
if he entirely left his thieving relatives."

"Maybe he'll run away," suggested Helen.

But Roberto would have been obliged to start very early that next
morning to have run away. Ruth Fielding was the first person up in the
school, and she was standing outside Tony's door, when the little
Irishman first appeared.

"Helen Cameron wants you to take this telegram down to the office at
once, Tony," she said. "Mrs. Tellingham knows about it. We are in a
dreadful hurry. Is Roberto inside?"

"Sure he is, Miss----"

"You take the message; don't let Roberto see it, and you keep your eye
on that boy to-day, until Mr. Cameron arrives. He'll want to see him."

"Now, don't be tellin' me th' bye has been inter mischief?" cried the
warm-hearted Irishman.

"Not much. Only he's suddenly recovered the use of his tongue, Tony, and
Mr. Cameron wants to talk with him."

"Gracious powers!" murmured Tony. "Recovered his spache, has he? The
saints be praised!"

He obeyed Ruth, however, in each particular. If Roberto had it in his
mind to run away, he had no chance to do so that day. Tony watched him
sharply, and in the evening Mr. Cameron arrived at Briarwood Hall.

The gentleman greeted his daughter and Ruth in Mrs. Tellingham's parlor,
but when he interviewed Roberto, it was downstairs in Tony Foyle's
rooms.

The girls saw Mr. Cameron only for a moment after that. He was just
starting for the train, and Roberto was going with him.

"The young rascal has admitted just what Ruth suspected," said Mr.
Cameron, chuckling a little. "He fooled us all--including the doctor.
Though the Doc., I reckon, suspected strongly that the boy could talk,
if he desired to.

"Roberto did not want to be questioned. Now he has told me that his
grandmother did not go south at all. He says she often spends the winter
in New York City as do other Gypsies. She is really a great character
among her people, and with the information I have gathered, I believe
the New York police will be able to locate her.

"I shall hang on to Master Roberto until the matter is closed up. He
will say nothing about the necklace. He'll not even own up that he ever
saw it. But he tells me that his grandmother i