Part 9

“But you see, Aunt Cal,” Eve came to my defense, “it did seem as if those directions must mean something, especially after that fellow, that Mr. Bangs, wanted them so badly that he came to the house here to look for them. So then this morning when Hamish found the missing statue of Circe down that old well and this afternoon when Sandy discovered where she used to stand, why we just had to find out what there was to it, don’t you see? And then when we dug up the key, why we just naturally couldn’t help wondering what it was the key of.”

Aunt Cal shook her head sadly. “I knew a man who wasted the best years of his life in the search for treasure!” she said.

“You mean Captain Craven’s son?” I asked timidly, my heart beginning to beat a little faster for I felt that I was on delicate ground.

She nodded solemnly. “Carter Craven went to the South Seas on a hunt for buried gold when he was eighteen. It wrecked his life and broke his father’s heart!”

“Oh!” I had never heard Aunt Cal speak like that before!

“He—he didn’t find anything?” Eve asked slowly.

I could feel the flash in Aunt Cal’s eyes though I could not see it. “Of course he didn’t. He was the victim of a pack of adventurers! He was gone six years. And when he came back,” her voice broke, “he was like an old man! So—so changed!”

“Oh, Aunt Cal, how terrible!” I cried. “What did it?”

“His health was ruined for one thing—the life he’d led, the climate, the companionships. And what was worse, his moral fibre was gone! He had no desire to work, to settle down to earn an honest living. His head was full of schemes, get-rich-quick schemes. He drifted from one to another. Nothing that he undertook ever amounted to anything.” She broke off suddenly and her voice softened ever so little. “I am telling you all this,” she added, “so that you may understand what the lure of gold can do to a human being.”

We were silent for a long time after she had finished speaking. If the truth be told I was feeling rather small. Also I was experiencing a new understanding of Aunt Cal. For the first time I had had a glimpse of the real person behind the mask of severity she habitually wore. It was Eve who finally ventured to put one more question. “And Carter Craven,” she asked, “when he went away the last time, was it for something like that?”

“I believe so,” Aunt Cal returned shortly. “I was told it was a gold mine, though I was not here at the time.”

“And no one has heard of him since?”

She nodded. “I went into Millport yesterday to see the lawyer who has charge of the estate, to tell him about this man Bangs. I feel that if we could get hold of him, he might be able to tell us something. But now that he is wanted by the police, no doubt he will have left the neighborhood for good.” She sighed.

I sighed too. “I do wish they could find him before Wednesday,” I said. “Then perhaps the police would believe Michael’s story. If they don’t——” I broke off, conscious that Aunt Cal was not listening. She seemed utterly absorbed in her own thoughts.

Didn’t she care, I thought, that the good name of a perfectly innocent boy was about to be dragged in the dust! As the minutes went by and still she said nothing, all my newly aroused sympathy vanished. If she was so indifferent to the troubles of others, she didn’t deserve anybody’s sympathy. I grew so indignant, sitting there in the darkness, that I finally could stand it no longer and said I guessed I’d go to bed.

“All she cares about,” I sputtered five minutes, later as I pulled off my shoes and flung them into the corner, “is that stuffy old house with its messy old garden and its defunct fountain and—and all of its moldly old memories!”

“You’re wrong, Sandy,” Eve said. “I think the thing she cares most about is Carter—his memory, I mean. I don’t think she’ll ever be happy till that is cleared.”

I stopped with one stocking half off and looked at Eve. “What in the world makes you think that?” I inquired.

“Don’t you remember what Captain Trout hinted to us, that some people thought Carter had destroyed his father’s will?”

“Oh,” I said, light beginning to dawn, “you think that is what’s eating Aunt Cal?”

“I’m sure of it. It isn’t the house, it’s the thought that he would do such a thing—don’t you see?”

“But didn’t she say he was just a rotter anyway?”

“Yes, but that was after he’d been away. Before perhaps he was different. Perhaps she cared about him, Sandy. I don’t mean in a sentimental way necessarily. But maybe she was fond of him—they were cousins, you know. Perhaps they played together when they were children, went to school together——And it’s worse to have people you’re fond of, people you’ve trusted, let you down than anything, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I see,” I said. I regarded Eve thoughtfully. It was not the first time that she had astonished me by reading the motives and desires that were shut up inside of people. Indeed as I thought about it, I found this new view of Aunt Cal so interesting that Michael and his troubles were, I’m ashamed to say, entirely forgotten for the time being.

As I lay and watched the sea breeze flutter the muslin curtain, my imagination was busy with the girl who had been Aunt Cal and the boy who had been Carter Craven. I played with the idea that there had been a romance between them. As for my uncle, Tom Poole, well I just left him out of the picture.

The morning, however, brought me back to reality. It was Tuesday. Tomorrow Michael would have to go to court. And nothing at all was being done about it!

“If I could just be there,” Eve said soberly, “I’m sure I could make that old judge listen to reason!”

“Aunt Cal,” I said, “would pass on at the suggestion—a niece of hers in a police court!”

“I suppose so!” Eve sighed.

The morning’s mail brought an envelope addressed to me. It was from Millport, from the photographer where Hamish had taken my film to be developed. I called to Aunt Cal to come and look as I spread out the prints on the kitchen table.

“Look here we are in our bathing suits!” I said teasingly. For dear Aunt Cal went bathing in the days when girls wore ample costumes with full skirts trimmed with white braid and little puff sleeves and collars buttoned around their precious throats. We had come upon the picture of her in one in an old album, so I knew.

Aunt Cal took up the picture and scanned it stoically. But instead of the comment of disapproval I had expected, she only said, “I see you got the sail boats in too.”

“Yes, aren’t they pretty?”

She nodded. Then she said a funny thing. “Your young farmer friend shows up pretty good.”

“Michael, yes that’s him on the end.”

“Um. Didn’t you say it was Saturday that this car he’s in trouble about was stolen?” she continued still more unexpectedly.

“Yes,” I said, “Saturday afternoon about half past five. Why do you ask, Aunt Cal?”

She turned back to the sink where she was cleaning beets for dinner. “Well,” she said, “you’ve got this picture, haven’t you, with this boy in it? And you took it Saturday afternoon. If he wants—what is it they call it?—an alibi——”

“Yes of course,” I agreed. “But we can’t prove that it was taken Saturday afternoon, don’t you see?”

“Oh, I say, but we can!” Eve fairly bounced out of her chair. “Oh, Sandy, don’t you see?”

I shook my head.

“Why the yachts! They came in Saturday afternoon, anybody in Fishers Haven would swear to that! And Michael said, don’t you remember, that they only came into this harbor once a year!”

I gazed at Eve and then at Aunt Cal. And the mounting excitement I felt was not only at the discovery that perhaps we had found a way to save Michael but also at the fact that it was Aunt Cal who had pointed it out to us!

XX

We Seek Legal Advice

“OH, Sandy, what luck that you took that picture!” Eve cried. “Shall we take it to Michael right away or shall we wait till tomorrow and present it as evidence when the case comes up in court?” She looked doubtfully at Aunt Cal.

As I had expected Aunt Cal said she couldn’t have us poking around a police court and it was finally decided that we should all take the noon bus to Millport and see the lawyer whom Aunt Cal had visited on Saturday.

“Gracious, I haven’t been so excited in my whole life before!” Eve said. “Oh, Sandy, if we can only save Michael, won’t it be wonderful! I can’t decide what dress I’d better put on—what do you think?” She stood contemplating the row in her closet.

“Well, I don’t think it’ll matter a whole lot,” I returned, “as long as it’s clean and whole.” I had seldom seen Eve so excited as she was that morning.

“Oh, but we want to make a good impression, you never can tell when a little thing like clothes will turn the balance!”

At last we were ready; Aunt Cal in her second best silk, Eve and I in something far less impressive, but feeling frightfully important just the same. We gulped down a glassful of milk each before we started, too excited to eat anything. Aunt Cal locked Adam in the kitchen, more from long habit, I think, than because she any longer feared he would be enticed away.

The ride to Millport seemed interminable. It was a quarter to two when we rolled into the dusty, car-lined main street of the town.

But luck was with us. Mr. Templeton, the lawyer, was in, a portly man in shiny black who greeted Aunt Cal cordially and motioned us to chairs. Aunt Cal inquired whether there was any news of the man Bangs.

“Nothing yet I’m afraid,” the lawyer said. “But we may get hold of the fellow yet.”

“The girls have another matter they wish to discuss with you if you can spare them a moment,” Aunt Cal then said in her precise manner.

“Spare the time!” I thought. “He’d jolly well better!”

“Certainly,” Mr. Templeton beamed kindly upon us. “Anything I can do——”

It was Eve who told the story, of course. I would surely have made a botch of it. When she had finished she took out the photograph and laid it on the desk.

He examined it, nodding once or twice, while I fumed and twisted inwardly. “Well,” he said at last, “I think perhaps the best thing we can do is to go over and have a talk with the officer who has charge of the case. Perhaps the young ladies will accompany me?” He looked inquiringly at Aunt Cal.

She nodded her assent. “I will wait here,” she said. “The girls can go.”

“What about young Gilpatrick?” the lawyer inquired as we set forth. “Any way of getting hold of him if we should want him?”

“Oh, Michael would be at the farm where he works until five o’clock,” Eve told him. “It’s at Old Beecham, Seaman is the name, I think.”

The rest of the events of that perfectly thrilling afternoon will always be slightly confused in my memory. What actually did happen is so mixed with my doubts and fears of what might. Would the august authority which was the Law stoop to consider our plea at all and, if it did, would it admit anything so trifling as a snapshot taken by myself as evidence?

I shall never forget the moment when the red-faced policeman bent scowling over the picture; then handed it to one of his colleagues to examine. Nor the moment when Mr. Templeton, tiptoeing in in order not to interrupt the conference that was going on, whispered that he’d got hold of Michael by telephone and that he’d be here in a short while.

Most of all I shall never forget the moment when Michael himself entered the room. He was breathing fast after his hurried bicycle ride. He did not know what he was wanted for of course but his mouth had that same set look it had had when he had told us he’d never go to his family for help. When he caught sight of Eve and me, his astonishment for a moment wiped out every other expression. But in answer to Eve’s encouraging smile, he gave only a curt nod and turned toward the desk. “You sent for me, sir?” he said.

“Yeah,” drawled the officer. “Wanted to have another talk with you ’bout what you did last Saturday afternoon.”

Michael’s lips closed harder; he didn’t answer.

“Let’s see, you told us yesterday, that you didn’t come to Millport that day.”

“Yes.”

“Where were you, then, Saturday afternoon?”

Michael scowled. “Just where I told you—on Fishers Haven Beach.”

“How long did you stay there?”

“From a little bit after four till just about seven.”

“Are you in this picture?”

Michael started as the policeman tossed the print across the desk. He picked it up and looked at it. “Yes,” he said, “there on the end.”

“When was this picture taken?”

Michael stared for a second; then in a flash he got it! “Why you can see for yourself,” he said, a new note in his voice. “It was taken the day these yachts came in—last Saturday afternoon. They come into the harbor the second Saturday in July every year. Here, you can see where the last of them is just coming inside the breakwater!”

The other nodded. But the man beside the desk spoke suddenly: “How do we know this here picture wasn’t taken Sunday morning when the boats went out?” he inquired.

Michael laughed at him; it was his old light-hearted, ringing laugh. “Well, you ought to know, sir,” he said, “that you can’t face inland and have the sun in your face on Fishers Haven Beach in the morning! The yachts leave early; the sun would have been behind us instead of in our faces. Besides the position of the sails in the picture shows which way the boats were moving. If they’d been going out——”

“All right,” the officer interrupted. “That’s all. Charge dismissed.”

“Oh,” Eve cried, “and he won’t have to go to court tomorrow!”

“That’s right,” the officer said with something that approached a smile. He turned to Mr. Templeton and the two conferred together. I caught the name of Bangs.

Michael came toward us; he was actually embarrassed. But the familiar quirky smile played about his lately solemn countenance. He had come from the farm just as he was and didn’t even wear a coat over his turned-in blue shirt. “I thought I told you,” he said with the pretense of a scowl, “that I didn’t want you mixed up in this!”

“Are you angry with us?” Eve asked demurely.

“Furious! And besides, I never am any good at saying thank you!”

“Then don’t,” retorted Eve. “Anyway it was all Aunt Cal’s doing. She was the one who first saw what the picture might do for you.”

XXI

A Closed Door

“I THINK it was just poisonous of you not to let us know!” Hattie May pouted. “I’d just have adored going to a police station!”

“But there wasn’t time, Hattie May,” I protested. “We just had to rush off to catch the bus as soon as we thought of it.”

“That’s just an excuse,” she declared. “You could have phoned me and I’d have come right away. I’ll bet I could have managed those policemen!”

“But they didn’t need any managing! All we had to do was to show ’em the picture.”

Hamish, who had been lounging on the porch rail, gazing gloomily into space, sighed heavily. “Well,” he said, “I guess me and Hattie May might as well go back home. We don’t seem to be much use round here.”

“Nonsense, Hamish,” I said. “You ought to be rejoicing that Michael doesn’t have to go to court, instead of grousing around.”

“Of course I’m glad he got off,” Hamish returned with dignity. “But, considerin’ everything, I don’t think you ought to have taken an important step like that without consulting me.”

I began to feel annoyed. “Well,” I sputtered, “you weren’t so awfully anxious to help Michael the night he was arrested. Why didn’t you talk then?”

Hamish looked more grieved than he had before. “Girls don’t understand ’bout such things,” he said. “If I’d popped out of those bushes when they were taking Michael away, they’d simply have taken me along too and asked questions later!”

“Well, don’t let’s argue,” Eve said soothingly. “Michael’s free—that’s the main thing!”

Hamish did not answer. He drew a small square package from his pocket and eyed it sardonically. “Just money thrown away!” he muttered.

“What’s that?” Eve asked dimpling. “A present for me!”

“No it isn’t. It’s a little contraption I picked up for Michael—thought it would help him while away the long hours of his—er—incarceration!”

“Hamish Lewis,” I cried, “how can you talk in that cold-blooded, outrageous, unfeeling, mean manner?”

“Well you don’t need to get excited, he isn’t going, is he? But the way things were day before yesterday, it certainly looked as if he was.”

“What is it?” Eve broke in. “Do show me.”

Hamish opened the package and shook out onto his palm several small brass rings looped together. “It’s a puzzle,” he explained. “The thing is to get all the rings onto this big one.”

“Very appropriate for a man in jail!” Hattie May giggled.

Hamish glared at her and returned the puzzle to its box. “No one,” he said, “ever appreciates anything I try to do!”

“Oh, come, Hamish, do cheer up,” Eve urged. “I’m sure there are loads of people who would just eat that puzzle up, so to speak. Folks with spare time on their hands like—” her glance strayed to the house beyond the hedge—“like Captain Trout for instance.”

Hamish brightened visibly. “Do you really think he’d like it?” he said. “But I scarcely know the old bird! Wouldn’t he think it kind of funny if I went over and just said, ‘By the way here’s a present for you’?”

We all laughed. “What about the hair tonic?” I asked. “You were going to give him that.”

Hamish scowled. “That was different,” he said shortly, “entirely a different matter!”

“I tell you,” Eve said jumping up. “Let’s all go over and make him a call. We ought to tell him about Michael’s case being dismissed; perhaps he hasn’t heard. Then Hamish can show him the puzzle and if he warms to it——”

Hattie May was still pouting as we made our way around by the front gate to the Captain’s back door. To my surprise the door was closed, though the cloud of smoke which was issuing from the chimney seemed to indicate that the Captain was at home and doing some cooking.

Hamish was just about to knock when Eve caught his arm. “Listen!” she whispered.

From behind the door came the sound of voices. One of them, slightly nasal, I recognized as the Captain’s. The other was low-pitched and gruff. “He’s got company,” I whispered. “Maybe we’d better not bother him just now.”

Hamish looked disappointed. And we were still hesitating when the door was flung violently open and the Captain himself burst out. “Hot as blazes in there, Biscuits!” he sputtered. “Need some air——” He stopped short as he became aware of our presence. “Well, well, well, bless my boots!” With that he turned and closed the door behind him with a slam and advanced to the middle of the porch, where he stood gazing at the street.

But the door had not closed before I had had a fleeting glimpse of a figure bent over the stove—a short thickset figure in a sailor’s trousers and a sleeveless shirt.

“Something smells awfully good,” Eve said by way of relieving the embarrassment which seemed to have seized us all. “We came over to tell you about Michael,” she added. “His case has been dismissed.”

“You don’t say—well, that’s fine!” The Captain motioned us to seats and began fumbling for his pipe. “Glad you dropped in; tell me all about it.”

While we told the story for the second time that morning, I was conscious that the Captain’s eyes strayed every now and then toward the closed door as if he were fearful that it might open. All the time we talked the clatter of pans and the sound of sizzling fat reached us and once I distinctly heard a raucous cough.

It was after a particularly loud crash as if some large tin receptacle had fallen to the floor that the Captain remarked with a nervous chuckle, “Got me a new cook. He thinks he’s in a ship’s galley, I guess! Ha, ha!”

“It must be awfully hot cooking on a day like this,” Hattie May remarked guilelessly. “I should think he’d want the door open.”

The Captain shook his head positively. “Not a bit of it. He likes it hot—used to it. Tropics, you know; the hotter, the better! Why, would you believe it, I actually had to go up attic last night and bring him down a winter blanket? Said he had a chill!”

“Really!” exclaimed Hattie May. “The poor fellow!”

It was at this moment that the Captain’s fear was realized. The door did open but it was only a crack, just enough to let out a strong odor of frying grease borne on a cloud of smoke and, with it, the form of Daisy June, her tail erect and her fur on end.

“Jumpin’ Jericho!” exploded the Captain jumping to his feet. But before he could reach the door, it had slammed again, while the kitten streaked across the grass and disappeared under a bush.

“I’m afraid we’re keeping you from your dinner,” Eve said, rising.

“Not a bit of it,” the Captain assured her. But as if to give denial to his assertion, at that moment a ship’s gong was heard booming loudly from within. Mechanically we all got to our feet. “Aunt Cal’s awfully annoyed with us when we don’t come to dinner on time,” Eve went on conversationally. “I really think you ought to go in, Captain.”

“Well, well, that’s too bad!” The Captain’s polite protestations followed us as we descended the steps and marched, in single file, to the front gate. No one spoke till we had reached Aunt Cal’s side porch. We seated ourselves in a row on the top step. It was Hattie May who broke the silence. “Another mystery!” she exclaimed. “I guess Hamish and I’ll stay the week out anyway.”

“Fat chance,” said Hamish, “of finding out anything with that door kept shut! And the Captain guarding it like a bally old sea dog or sumpin.”

“I dare say,” I said lightly, “that there’s really no mystery at all. Perhaps the Captain simply considered that the seafaring gentleman from the tropics wasn’t fit company for what he calls ‘young ladies’.”

Hattie May shook her head emphatically. “Nonsense! He was jumpy as a rabbit! There’s more to it than that.”

“It did all seem a little—queer,” Eve mused. “What do you think, Hamish?”

Hamish looked appeased at this deference to his opinion. “Well if you want to know what I think,” he stated significantly, “I think he’s hiding someone!”

“Do you mean—Bangs?” I breathed. And we all stared at Hamish’s round solemn face.

“That’s what he calls himself!” he answered.

“Hamish, for Pete’s sake, what are you driving at?” his sister burst out. “If you’ve got anything to tell why on earth don’t you tell it? You’re not in the secret service yet, you know! Stop acting like a ‘G’ man.”

“Oh, all right, all right—make fun of me! Treat me ’sif I was Buddie, the Boy Detective, if you want to!” He got up stiffly and started down the path toward his car.

“Hamish,” called Eve softly, “please don’t go yet. What are we going to do about this—this criminal next door? I’m scared stiff!”

He turned about and regarded her suspiciously. But the sincerity in her brown eyes apparently reassured him. “Well,” he said, coming back and reseating himself, “if you want my advice—I think the place oughta be watched.”

“If the man the Captain’s hiding really is Bangs,” Eve said thoughtfully, “then I think we ought to tell Aunt Cal. She’s very anxious to have a talk with him.”

“Oh, no, you mustn’t do that—not yet!” Hamish returned quickly.

“But why not?” I protested.

“Oh, gosh, don’t you see!” Hamish’s impatience with the female intellect was apparent. “Don’t you see that Bangs—or whatever his name is—is the only person who can lead us to that treasure—or whatever he’s after at Craven House? If he’s arrested, the game’s up.”

“Hamish is perfectly right,” agreed Hattie May in mounting excitement. “What we’ve got to do is to watch!”

“But why should the Captain be hiding the man if it is Bangs?” I demanded. “It makes him guilty too in a way—what is it they call it—an accessory!”

“You can depend upon it,” returned Hamish profoundly, “he has his reasons.”

Aunt Cal opened the door. “Dinner’s ready,” she said.