Cenicienta and the Midnight Bandit

*Chapter 23

The word news brought me back to reality. It was Monday morning and I had to deliver the morning paper. Only, it was in Mary Street, at Mitchell's residence. A lot had changed. I had a father and was no longer an orphan. The last thing on my mind was delivering the morning paper, today, or anytime after that.

My father must have read my mind. "You don't need to deliver the paper anymore unless you want to. And please, I'd like you to stay here, where you belong. Besides, you need your rest to overcome that pneumonia," he said.

I agreed with him. Considering our predicament, my father wasn't a free man, and the only person who could help clear his name was the prisoner, Mr. Damien Edwards who was now hospitalized.

I thought about Robert, and what had happened, and tried to imagine what he might be thinking. He'd appeared devastated, and after I left the ball I had no idea what happened. I imagined he'd be confused and need time to think.

My father filled me in on the details of his false imprisonment. He awoke one night in his great room with a bloodied dagger in his hand and Mr. Warren's dead body slumped onto the floor nearby. His wife, Janet Jones De Leon, not long after grew irate and summoned the police and the rest is history.

After my mother died, my father rarely visited, and though I heard of his remarriage, I'd never met or seen his new bride, nor did I know that it was to someone so evil.

Mrs. Mitchell said I was lucky she took me in. But how did she learn about me, and why did she want another child when she had her own daughter? Did her sister tell her about me? And did she know about her sister's sinister plans that wreaked havoc on my father's life? Had she known all these years and remained quiet about it? There were so many questions I wished I had the answers to.

Later that day I visited my foster home to collect my belongings. As expected, only Jane was there. She looked devastated and didn't say a word to me, except when I walked out the front door with my brown leather grip in hand.

"You're leaving? Where will you go?" she called after me.

I walked on ignoring her calls, grabbing a newspaper from the bulk on the porch table that I was supposed to deliver.

"Ceni, you just can't leave me alone like this. You need to cook lunch and we need to figure out how to help Mama," Jane called.

"You've got your whole life ahead of you, Jane. Go live it!" I called. "All your mother ever cared about was herself!"

The cabbie pulled up beside the road suddenly, and I settled into the back seat. I remembered his words last night and his strange behavior. He must have sensed that something would happen. Of course he did, he was the needful cabbie.

"How are you keeping?" he asked.

"I've had better days."

"Hang in there. It will pass. That's the thing with bad times. It passes, you just got to hang in there and wait it out. Call it the great waiting game!"

The great waiting game! He actually made it sound easier than it sounded.

The rest of the drive we were both quiet as I sat skimming the paper.

There was an article on the Midnight Bandit. "The Midnight Bandit, Captured at last!"

I stared wide-eyed as I read that the robber was identified as a past circus act, Albert Martin, of Coffee Street in San Fernando. So that explains his climbing fiasco at the balls. According to the article, Albert Martin recently moved to Number Ten, Saint's Alley in Maraval under the alias Bertie Martin. So Bertie and Albert were one and the same person! Who would have guessed? The homeless man referred to Bertie as Albert's cousin, so he was unaware of this. I placed Saint's Alley as the location the cabbie first dropped me off, and house number ten was where the homeless man claimed Albert—aka Bertie—lived.

The article continued. "Albert Martin migrated to the country many years ago and has since lived in San Fernando. But on discovering a peculiar note on a train some time ago, he learned about clues hidden in the jewelry and heirlooms indicating the whereabouts of a far greater treasure, and he too tried to get his hands on them. His first step was to find out the location of these heirlooms, and it didn't take him long to figure it out when he visited the antique dealer downtown."

So, he learned about it from Mr. Achong.

I continued reading, and that's when I saw it. Listed beneath the reward were the names Cenicienta Mitchell and Robert Warren. We had till 8:00 p.m. on Saturday to collect the money. I'd longed to have that money so that I could have a life. Now that I had it, having my own life didn't matter as much as I thought it would. Circumstances can surely change miraculously. Something you once thought you'd like so much can become something trifle given the correct circumstances. Such was life and I had learned that. Now what I needed more than ever was to clear my father's name, and so I was going to use the money for that. I hoped it would be enough to secure a confession from the killer!

Another headline in the paper caught my eye. "The Second Bandit plaguing the elites of Maraval!" I read the sentences after the headlines. "Mrs. Madeline Mitchell is the driving force behind the second bandit plaguing the elites of St Clair. The pickpocket and smooth jewelry picker, Tommy Lane, identified the woman behind his spade of robberies which began just one week ago. After strenuous interrogation, a confession from the female accomplice hinted at her belief in a secret treasure. Clues to it, she claimed, lay hidden in jewelry items she knew not the location of, until a visit to an unnamed prisoner.

An unnamed prisoner! That must be Mr. Damien Edwards!

I focused on the article again. "Madeline Mitchell claimed once owning a note, hinting at the existence of such items, which she lost on a train some time ago. She claimed her sister, Janet Jones, gave the note to her before she died." I tried to piece together what I was reading. The bandit found his note on a train. And Mrs. Mitchell lost hers on a train, too. Had the burglar found Mrs. Mitchell's lost note?

The article continued. "However, the servant boy, an employee at Prada House, Tommy Lane, was unable to get his hands on the prized items which were locked away and so he stole what was in the rooms of the houses he sneaked into and passed it off as the prized items to Madeline Mitchell. Still, those items were costly and fetched a handsome price at the underground pawn shop downtown where Mr. Lane visited on three different occasions and pawned them for a handsome sum."

That explains Mrs. Mitchell's source of money in recent days. So, Prada's servant boy had sold them at an underground pawn shop. I suddenly remembered Mr. Achong, the antique dealer from downtown who claimed to be the only licensed pawn shop in town.

So far everything was tied up, all that remained was to free my father from his false accusations.

As the cabbie dropped me off at my father's house, he turned to me. "How you friend doing?" he asked.

"Friend?"

"De one who don't believe de legend of de needful driver. Robert, I believe, was his name."

"I don't know."

He had one bit of advice for me before driving off. "Just remember nothin' can stay hidden for long. De truth will eventually come out. Just remember that!" 

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