Part 4

“But look here!” I fairly bounced off my seat with the force of the idea that had come to me. “Why don’t they simply put it to the test. Get together, I mean, and each call the cat in turn. If he answers to Adam—why, then he’s ours, I mean Aunt Cal’s. But if he comes to Captain Trout——”

Michael shook his head. “No good,” he said. “As a matter of fact, the cat answers to any old name you happen to call him!”

VIII

A Scalp Lock

I CONFESS I felt a little flat when Michael Gilpatrick said that. I had been so sure for the moment that I had hit on a brilliant solution of the problem that now I was inclined to wash my hands of so stupid a cat once and for all. But I remembered that Aunt Cal had particularly entrusted him to our care. “What,” I asked, “are we going to say to my aunt when she comes home and finds no Adam? She’s just as much attached to him as Captain Trout is to—to Caliph. Why, she might come back any minute now.”

As I spoke, I glanced over toward the house where it stood dark and silent beyond the hedge. Suddenly I saw something that made me jump up and grab Eve’s arm. “Why,” I cried, “I do believe she’s back already! Look! There’s a light upstairs in that window at the end!”

“What!” Eve and Michael were at my side. For a minute, as we all stood there, everything was in darkness. Then there came again the faint flicker of light that I had seen at the upper window. “Looks like a flashlight,” said Michael. “Or maybe a candle.”

“But why should Aunt Cal be going around the house with a candle? There are plenty of lamps and they’re always filled.”

No one answered. The light was moving from window to window now. “Sandy,” said Eve, faintly, “I don’t believe it’s Aunt Cal at all!”

“It looks to me,” remarked Michael, “as if there was somebody in the house that didn’t want to be seen.”

“You mean a burglar?” I cried. “Oh, Eve, we left the back door wide open. And there’s the silver in the dining room chest——”

“Guess I’d better have a look,” remarked Michael abruptly, starting down the steps.

“Oh, do you think you’d better?” asked Eve anxiously. “S’pose he has a gun or something!”

Michael did not say “Pooh!” but the set of his shoulders suggested the word as he strode toward the hedge. He cleared it with one leap and disappeared from sight in the direction of Aunt Cal’s back door.

“Come on,” I said, trying to sound cool and collected. “I’m not afraid!”

“Of course not,” agreed Eve, giving me her hand.

We reached the path where we had been sitting just a few moments before. The mysterious light had disappeared, there was no sound anywhere.

Cautiously we advanced. “There’s a lamp on the shelf just inside the kitchen door,” I stated half-heartedly. “And the matches are just beside it. It would only take a minute to light it.”

Eve did not answer. Suddenly she stopped and I felt her hand tighten in mine. “Listen! What’s that?”

From somewhere inside the house a vague clatter reached us—a shuffling noise—the thud of something falling. Then, quite close at hand, came the scud and scurry of running feet! Immediately after we heard the beat of quick panting breaths and two flying figures hurtled past us into the night!

With one accord, we turned and followed them. But they had vanished into the blackness of the lower garden almost before we knew it. Back of the garden is a steep bank, ending in a muddy ditch. If they’d gone down that, it looked like a pretty sure spill for both of them. The thought sent us hurrying on. We reached the stone wall which forms the lower border of Aunt Cal’s property. Eve shouted frantically into the darkness, “Michael, where are you?”

There was no answer. I climbed gingerly onto the wall. I thought of the muddy ditch at the bottom of the bank and I had a vision of Michael lying there wounded and bleeding. “Michael,” I called, “are you down there?”

Then to our infinite relief, a faint voice answered, “Coming!”

Presently we heard him thrashing his way upward. Finally he stumbled out from the bushes below where we stood. Even in the darkness, we could see that his clothes were a wreck. And there was a dark patch on his forehead—though this subsequently turned out to be mud. “Oh, you’re hurt!” Eve cried.

“Well, not fatally!” he panted as he reached the wall and sank down upon it. “But the rascal got away, worse luck! If I hadn’t caught my foot in a branch down there, I’d have had him. As it is, all I got is this!” He held up a fuzzy-looking object.

We peered at it. “What in the world——?”

“Big Injun scalp lock!” chuckled Michael.

Eve put out her hand and touched it gingerly. “You mean—he wore a wig!”

“Looks like it. I grabbed at his hair just as I fell. When it came off in my hand, I thought I must be seeing things!”

Abruptly Eve leaned over and sniffed at the wig. “Harry’s Hair Restorer!” she announced.

Michael looked at her in amazement. “Mean to say you know the gentleman? Perhaps he wasn’t a burglar after all?”

“If he wasn’t,” answered Eve slowly, “then I don’t know what he was doing in our house! Unless—unless he came after the letter!”

“But we sent it back to him,” I cried.

“I know, but maybe he didn’t get it. Maybe he didn’t go back to Trap’s—don’t you see? But he wanted the letter and when he didn’t find it in his suitcase, he—he came after it.”

Michael got up from the wall. “Well, I guess I’ll be getting on,” he said stiffly. “Of course, if I’d known you were acquainted with the fellow——”

“But we’re not—not really. Oh, wait a minute, please!” Eve put out her hand to hold him back. “If you’ll just give us a chance we’ll tell you all about it. In fact, I think it’s time we told somebody.”

Back at the house after we had helped Michael remove some of the mud from his person, we told him the story; first of Mr. Bangs’ activities in the garden of Craven House and then of the piece of paper with the odd inscription, which we had found.

Michael listened without comment. But when we had finished he said, “I felt there was something suspicious about that real estate agent when you first mentioned him. I happen to know that Craven House isn’t for sale and isn’t likely to be and I couldn’t imagine why anyone should be up there measuring the ground. And now this wig and this letter business makes it look queerer than ever.”

“What d’you think it’s all about anyway?” Eve asked.

Michael shook his head thoughtfully. “It looks as if he was after something. Something that’s hidden—or he thinks is hidden at Craven House. I wonder——” He paused and gazed meditatively into space. “Suppose we take a look around here,” he suggested at last, “to see if there’s anything missing.”

“That’s so,” I said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Eve took up the lamp and together we made a tour of the house. Upstairs we found that every dresser drawer had been rummaged and, in many cases, the contents scattered on the floor. Eve’s empty traveling bag and my suitcase were lying open in our room. But aside from this and the chairs he had overturned in his flight through the lower part of the house, the intruder seemed to have done no damage. And so far as we could discover, nothing was missing.

Back in the kitchen, we returned to the discussion of what was to be done. Michael, now that we had furnished a mystery for him to solve, had entirely dropped his standoffish attitude. He agreed with us that the only way to find out what the mysterious Mr. Bangs was after was to keep our own counsel for the present. Michael was anxious to take a look at the exact spot where we had found him at work in the garden, and we finally arranged to meet him there the next day after his work at the farm was over and to bring with us a copy of the letter.

It was not until after Michael had gone and Eve and I had restored everything to its accustomed order that I remembered Adam. But the house beyond the hedge was dark; Captain Trout had evidently retired. The cat problem, we decided, would just have to wait.

IX

Daisy June and the Blue Emerald

I WAS awakened early next morning by the clatter of a heavy wagon on the road in front of the house. Stealing to the window in order not to awaken Eve, I was just in time to catch sight of a familiar, blue-shirted figure in the driver’s seat. Michael! What was he doing in this part of town so early in the morning?

When I went downstairs I found the explanation. Eve was still asleep and, pleased to have got the start of her for once, I resolved to have breakfast on the table by the time she came down. I unlocked the kitchen door and went out to bring in the milk which is left in a pail every morning. Beside the pail I found a paste-board box. As I stooped to pick it up I saw there were holes pierced in the top. And when I lifted it—it mewed!

A cat! I pulled off the lid. No, a kitten—a plump gray one with china-blue eyes and a white spot in its forehead. The mew changed to a noisy purr as I lifted it.

“What are you doing?” Eve, looking very nice in a fresh blue linen dress, was standing in the doorway. In my absorption I had forgotten all about breakfast. Then Eve saw the kitten. “Oh, the darling! Where did you find it, Sandy?”

I pointed to the box and told her about Michael. “I suppose the idea is,” I said, “that one cat is as good as another. But I doubt very much if Aunt Cal will even give it house room!”

“Well, it was nice of him to think of it anyway!” Eve returned, cuddling the kitten. “I wonder if it’s hungry?”

Aunt Cal returned at ten o’clock. Eve was just taking a loaf of gingerbread from the oven when I heard the car. Miss Rose Blossom was at the wheel, there was no mistaking her broad figure. She was beaming at Aunt Cal as she handed down her bag.

“She’s coming!” I whispered, tiptoeing back into the kitchen. “What shall we do with Daisy June?” I glanced a little wildly toward Adam’s cushion by the stove where the kitten slept.

Before Eve could even answer, a firm step sounded outside. Aunt Cal stood in the doorway. “Well,” she inquired, “how have you been getting on?”

I stood in front of the stove. “Splendid——” I began and then, fearing I sounded too enthusiastic, I changed hastily to “All right.”

“How is your friend?” Eve asked, inserting a knife around the gingerbread.

“A little better. Her sister came over from Millport this morning, so I felt that I could leave. Mercy, child, I didn’t know you could bake!”

“Well, of course, it isn’t as good as yours,” Eve began modestly.

Aunt Cal picked up her bag and started for the stairs. It was this moment that Daisy June took to wake from her nap. With a sinking heart, I felt her between my ankles. Aunt Cal stopped dead in the middle of the room. “Where,” she inquired in a very stuffy voice, “did that come from? And where is Adam?”

I swallowed. “Adam’s visiting—visiting Captain Trout,” I said.

My relative’s face became stonier than before. “Take that cat out of the house!” she ordered.

I took a deep breath and counted ten. Then picking up Daisy June, I retreated to the side yard. Eve joined me there presently, carrying the box of carpet rags we were sewing for Aunt Cal. “Eve,” I asked solemnly, “what is to become of her?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I can’t believe that anything so adorable wasn’t brought into the world for a purpose.”

We didn’t get much sewing done that morning for practically every time we picked up a strip of cloth Daisy June was dangling on the end of it and as fast as Eve wound the balls, the kitten unwound them. When we went in for dinner, we left her sleeping peacefully in the box. She at any rate had no misgivings about the future.

“I see somebody has been trampling the petunia bed,” remarked Aunt Cal, dishing out lamb stew and dumplings. “But I suppose it’s no more than is to be expected when one leaves things to take care of themselves!”

It was Eve who persuaded my aunt to go upstairs after dinner for a rest. “After being up all night,” she urged, “it’s the only sensible thing to do.” And though Aunt Cal declared stoutly that she did not hold with naps in the daytime, she finally yielded.

After we had finished the dishes Eve carried out a saucer of milk for Daisy June. To our dismay the kitten was gone. There was her bed of carpet rags, still matted where her soft form had lain, but no sign of its late occupant. We searched every corner of the yard, calling softly so that Aunt Cal would not hear. But neither the yard nor garden yielded any trace of her.

Could she have got through the hedge, I wondered? I went to look. And there she was, big as life, sauntering up the path toward the Captain’s back door. I beckoned to Eve. “Look,” I whispered, “for all the world as if she was about to drop in on a friend for tea or something!”

I was about to pop through the hedge after her when the back door of the house opened and the owner himself emerged. He was jauntily dressed in immaculate white trousers and a nautical blue jacket. I wondered how he managed, living alone as he did, always to look so spick and span. He was descending the steps when he met the kitten. “Bless my boots!” The words floated across the quiet air. “Now where in blazes did you come from?”

Daisy June’s answer was to leap up the intervening step and begin her accustomed twining movement about the Captain’s ankle. I hurried forward. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I began, “we do have such trouble with our cats!”

Daisy June continued to twine like a boa constrictor. The Captain retreated and abruptly sat down in the big rocker which occupied the center of the porch. Without hesitation the kitten jumped into his lap. I thought for a second that he was going to push her down, but instead he asked abruptly, “How’s your aunt this morning? Much upset, was she?”

I collected my thoughts. “Oh, you mean about Adam,” I was beginning, when Eve came up behind me. “Aunt Cal wouldn’t allow herself to be upset by so little a thing as that,” she said with one of her dazzling smiles. “She’s much too—a—strong-minded.”

The Captain appeared as surprised as I was to hear this. “Well, well, well,” he said, “I want to know!” Mechanically, it seemed, his hand went out to stroke the kitten’s back and, thus encouraged, she reached up one fat paw for the large gold chain that spanned his waistcoat. “Hi, there, look at that now! Caliph allus used to go after that chain when he was a kitten. Well,” he added, “I’m glad to hear your aunt wasn’t upset. Old Judd Craven allus did say she was the only sensible one in the family!”

“Judd Craven?” I repeated. “Who was he?”

“What? What’s that? Mean to say you ain’t never heard of Cap’n Judd? Why, he was related to you in a sort of way.”

“Related to me? But how? Do you mean that he was related to Aunt Cal?”

“Mercy me, yes. He was her uncle. Cal’s mother was Susan Craven. Cap’n Judd used to set great store by Cal when she was a young one, used to bring her things every time he come back from a voyage.”

Eve dropped down on the step. “Do tell us about Captain Judd,” she begged. “You see, we were up at the place they call Craven House the other day, so we’re interested. Did he build it?”

The Captain shook his head. “No, it was an old house—dates back to the early settlers. Cap’n Judd bought it and made it over. It was one of the show places of the countryside in his day. He fixed it up for his wife, Emily, who wanted to live inland out of sight of the sea. Emily hated the sea. Besides that, Judd had a kind of notion he wanted to go in for farming. It was the dream of his life to found a landed estate like the ones he’d seen in England—handed down from father to son like. But—well, it didn’t work out. Carter didn’t take to farming; he was a restless chap, wanted to see the world.”

“Carter was his son?” I prompted.

“Aye, Carter was his only child.”

“It sounds quite like a story out of a book,” Eve commented.

The Captain chuckled. “Yeah, it would make good reading, I calculate, if all the facts of Judd’s career was set down. A lively old bird he was, full of funny ideas, allus getting himself talked about. Not in a bad way, you understand, just odd—doing things different from the run of folks.”

“Was it he who set up those statues and vases and things in the garden?” I asked.

“Aye, that was one of the things. Those statues made a great stir. Folks round here had never heard tell of statues in a garden. They used to drive from all around just to see ’em.”

“But where in the world did he get them?” asked Eve. “They look awfully old.”

“Uh-huh, they was meant to. Judd said he got ’em from a Greek temple, but I guess more likely he picked them up in a second-hand shop in Athens. Judd allus was one for a joke. There was one he called Mercury and one Diana.”

“Diana—Mercury,” Eve repeated thoughtfully. “There wasn’t—wasn’t one called Circe, was there?”

I held my breath. The Captain began to fill his pipe. “Circe? Well now, there might have been at that; I can’t rightly tell all the names he gave ’em.”

“Tell me,” Eve demanded, leaning forward with sudden eagerness, “did Captain Craven leave any—any money—or valuables or anything?”

Captain Trout shook his head. “I guess Carter got most of the money before the old man died. Judd used to say in his later days that all he had in the world was the place. That and the blue emerald,” he added, with a chuckle.

“The blue emerald?” I cried. “But how could an emerald be blue? I thought they were green.”

“That’s what I never could figger out myself,” the Captain answered. “I never saw it myself. Some said it was give him by a Rajah in India ’count of some service he done him. But the Cap’n allus was pretty mysterious about it—liked to keep folks guessing. Me, I didn’t take much stock in that Rajah chap. But most folks used to eat up the whole story.”

“Did anyone ever see the emerald?”

“Never heard as they did. But then I was away for years. After the Cap’n retired and built his house, I didn’t see him very often. But every now and then when I’d come home, I’d hear talk about the blue emerald and every time it was wo’th a little more. It sure had the villagers mesmerized.”

“And Captain Judd’s son?” I asked hesitantly. “What became of him?”

The Captain puffed on his pipe and absently put down his hand to stroke the kitten’s back. “Carter disappeared about a year after his father’s death,” he said. “I ain’t heard tell of him since.”

“He didn’t,” inquired Eve, “take the blue emerald with him, did he?”

“Some said so,” Captain Trout answered. “But I reckon no one rightly knows. But the house—that rightly belongs to your aunt, I was told.”

“To Aunt Cal!” I cried in astonishment.

“Aye. Judd promised her she should have it. But the will, they say, was never found. Some say Carter didn’t want it should be, that he was jealous of Cal for bein’ in the old man’s good graces. But that’s just gossip, I reckon.”

“I think Captain Judd must have been a very interesting person,” declared Eve. “I wish I’d known him.”

“Aye, he was a fine chap. Great loss to the community, his death was.”

“Thank you very much for telling us about him,” I said. I felt that we ought to go back before Aunt Cal came downstairs. I got up, looking doubtfully at the sleeping kitten. It seemed a pity to disturb her.

The Captain appeared to read my thoughts. “Better let her sleep,” he said. “You can stop by for her later—if you want.”

As he uttered these words, I was conscious that another figure had joined our group. Adam had come out of the open kitchen door. He stood for a moment surveying us, advanced to the Captain, sniffed gingerly at the object in his lap; then, without a word—as it were—turned and walked down the steps.

“Caliph,” called the Captain, “where you going?” But only a wave of the tail answered him.

When we got back to our house, a half emptied saucer of fish was on the back porch and Caliph, alias Adam, was asleep on his cushion by the stove.

“I feel,” I giggled, “a little dizzy with all this cat business!”

“To say nothing,” added Eve, “of blue emeralds!”

X

Where Is Circe?

MICHAEL was waiting for us at The Corners at five that afternoon. He had left the horses tied there in order not to attract attention to our visit to Craven House. “Haven’t seen anything more of Bangs, have you?” was his first question.

Eve shook her head.

“Well, he’s left Trap’s,” Michael said. “I went in there just now and inquired for him. They said he departed the day after he came and they don’t know anything about him. Didn’t leave any address or say where he was going.”

“Then he never got his letter back,” I said. “It must be at the Inn now.”

“No, it isn’t, I’ve got it in my pocket. I just told old man Trap that a friend of mine had mailed a letter to him and that, as long as they didn’t know where he was, I thought this person would like to have it back. So he just handed it out without a word and here it is.”

“Oh, I’m glad you got it,” exclaimed Eve. “For after what Captain Trout told us this afternoon, I can’t help thinking maybe it is important.”

“So you’ve been talking to the Captain?” Michael queried.

“Yes, you see it was Daisy June’s doing,” Eve began.

“The kitten you left on our doorstep this morning,” I put in. “That was a marvelous idea of yours, Michael!”

“Say, did it work?” he demanded eagerly. “Did your aunt really take to it?”

“Aunt Cal? Not on your life! It was Captain Trout. We left Daisy June asleep on his knee with every appearance of being settled for life. And when Adam saw her, he just walked out—came back to us!”

Michael threw back his head and roared. We went on to tell him what Captain Trout had told about Judd Craven and the blue emerald. He nodded, “I guess everybody around here has heard of old Captain Judd,” he said.

“But Aunt Cal has never mentioned him to us,” I said. “Though I did fancy she looked sort of funny the other day when we told her about being locked in the old house. I expect maybe she knows it well.”

“Wills make a lot of trouble, don’t they?” I went on. “Whether one makes one or doesn’t, it seems to be always the same. Bad feeling of some kind.”

Michael grinned at this. “Well, what would you do about it?” he inquired.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess maybe it’s better not to have anything to leave when you die. Then your relatives and friends will go on loving you.”

“Yeah, or forget you entirely,” he retorted cynically.

We had been climbing the hill as we talked and had come once more to the tumbling stone wall which bordered the Craven property. We climbed over it and made our way through the tall grass and bushes to the spot where we had found Mr. Bangs and his measuring tape two weeks before. The grass was considerably trampled around the stone figure but, at first glance, that was the only sign that anybody had been near the spot.

Michael dropped on his knees and at once set to work examining the ground. Presently he took a tape measure from his pocket and began measuring. “You look,” remarked Eve, “quite like Mr. Bangs himself, except that you’ve got more hair on your head.”

Michael paid no attention. He measured thirteen feet and six inches south from the statue. Then, turning west at a right angle, counted off another seven feet. “There,” he exclaimed at last, “that ought to be the spot, if any!”

We were kneeling beside him now, all three of us, bent eagerly over the matted grass. Suddenly Michael’s finger dug into the earth and he lifted bodily forth a big square of ragged turf. “Why!” I stammered, “how queer!”

“Golly!” cried Eve. “He’s dug here already! We—we’re too late!”

“You mean he fitted the turf back like that to cover his tracks?” I cried with rising indignation.