CHAPTER XXVIII

Driven Away

A great deal of tact was necessary to keep Melissa in a helpful frame of mind. One careless word, and Terry knew Melissa would run. So, hoping her chums would understand, she walked back to the house, talking cheerfully to the girl as they went.

“Melissa is going to help us find the snuffbox,” Terry announced to the astonished group that awaited them on the porch. “She knows where it is, and she’s going to take us over to her house for it.”

Frantic looks and powerful concentration seemed to do the trick, for Arden fell in with Terry’s plan.

“That’s fine, Melissa,” Arden complimented her. “Let’s start at once, before it gets too dark. Terry, you and Melissa go together, and the rest of us will follow in our boat.”

“Give her back the pin, at least for a time,” suggested Arden. “It will make her trust us more.”

“Not a bad idea,” agreed Terry. “I will.”

“Yes, do,” said Serge in a low voice.

Terry slipped the pin back to Melissa, and she and the girl started for the boats.

“All right, Mother?” Terry asked. “Do you want to come too?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Landry. “I might be of some use here. Come back as quickly as you can, and good luck to you.”

They needed no urging, and with Melissa leading and the others following, they crossed the peaceful bay and landed close to the pitiful shack that Melissa called “home.”

“It’s in my room,” the girl told them, proud in her simple way to be the center of so much excitement.

“You show us,” Arden urged.

Melissa entered the solitary house, the door of which swung loosely on its hinges. The front room, furnished with an unpainted wooden table and three rickety chairs, was dreary and uninviting. The girl, clumping along in the boots which were much too large for her, entered a small room to one side. It was little bigger than a large closet with a white-painted bed and an old bureau topped by a cracked looking glass.

After much shaking and pulling, Melissa succeeded in opening the top drawer. She rummaged under some old clothes and thrust her hands far back in the bureau.

Suddenly, with an unbelieving look on her face, she turned to the little group crowded in the narrow doorway.

“It’s gone!” she exclaimed. “The box, the pretty yellow one that I put there myself, is gone!”

Was it a trick that Melissa had played on them? Or had Terry argued so successfully that the girl had actually come to believe she really did possess the box?

“Are you sure you had it?” Arden asked gently. “When did you see it last?”

“This morning I took it out to look at it,” Melissa replied slowly.

“What did it look like?” Terry asked, not quite believing that Melissa ever had it now.

“It had a little bird on and the prettiest shiny stones all around the edge,” Melissa answered woefully. “Oh, I did like it so much! It was so pretty!”

The girls fell silent. They had met another stone wall. They had neither Dimitri nor the snuffbox. They were as much in the dark as ever.

“But, Melissa,” Sim began, “what could have happened to it?”

“I don’t know,” Melissa replied slowly.

They looked curiously at the bare little room. Poor child, it was not surprising that she loved bright shiny things so much. In a place such as this was, anyone would crave relief from its drabness.

Arden turned to go, and the others were about to follow when they were halted by the sound of heavy footsteps hastening up the wooden steps that led into the house.

The three girls drew together. Serge stepped forward as though to protect them.

“It’s Pa,” Melissa said, looking fearfully at them.

“What’s going on in here?” an angry voice was heard before they saw the owner of it.

Melissa shrank back to the wall between the bed and bureau.

“What are you people doing here? Who let you in here?” It was George Clayton, wildly angry at this invasion of his property.

“We came by ourselves,” Terry said, boldly anxious to keep her pledge with Melissa.

“You did! Well, I advise you to go by yourselves before I run you off!” Clayton bellowed, reaching for a shotgun on the wall.

“Now, see here, Clayton,” Serge began, standing fearlessly before the angry man. “Be careful how you handle that gun. You don’t want to do anything you might be sorry for later.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Melissa’s father insisted. “You people get out of here! This is my property. You’ve got to get a warrant before you can come snooping around my place!”

“All right, we’ll go,” Serge said in a low voice. “But you watch your step. I’ve heard you’re not very popular in these parts.”

Clayton made an angry motion as though to strike Serge, but with an effort controlled himself and, spluttering and fuming, literally drove them from the shack.

They all piled into the little rowboat and made their way slowly back across the bay, disappointed and defeated, hardly knowing what to say—what to believe.

Serge decided to go at once back to New York.

“Dimitri might have gone to my place. I will get in touch with you tomorrow and let you know,” he said and, not going into the house again, he thanked Mrs. Landry, who was anxiously waiting at the small dock and, climbing in his car, drove quickly out of sight.

For a little while there was silence among them. Even Sim, who often could find humor in matters where others could not, had nothing to say. Mrs. Landry looked at the faces of the girls, and, guessing their thoughts, said:

“Never mind, my dears. It isn’t your fault.”

“But I did so hope something would come of this,” said Terry. “After getting Melissa to admit she had the box, then not to find it!”

“Do you really think she had it?” asked Arden.

“That’s hard to answer,” Terry replied. “I don’t see why she would want to deceive us. She described the cupboard, told how she slipped aboard the houseboat while Dimitri was out in the marsh, painting, and we all know she’s crazy about such objects as that bright and beautiful snuffbox.”

“And to think it may be gone forever,” sighed Sim.

“We’re not going to let it be lost forever!” suddenly declared Arden.

“What are you going to do about it?” challenged Terry.

“I’m going to see to it that a thorough search is made of that shack, in spite of George Clayton!” Arden’s head went up bravely, and there was a determined look in her eyes.

“How?” questioned Terry.

“With the help of the police or that detective woman, Emma Tash!”

“I think it is time you got the authorities more actively interested, my dears,” said Mrs. Landry, who had heard, with some alarm, the actions of the crabber in the matter of the shotgun. “That man must be curbed. He is standing in the way of good to his daughter. If we could get in touch with Emma Tash she might bring some man with her who would proceed in spite of Clayton and his gun. This father of Melissa’s may be just ‘bluffing,’ as the boys say.”

“Didn’t Miss Tash leave you her address?” asked Arden.

“Yes,” Mrs. Landry answered, “she did. But it may take a few days to get in communication with her and get her down here. Instead of her, I would suggest our local chief.”

“Rufus Reilly?” asked Sim. “Oh, my goodness, he and his duck that can’t fly on one leg!”

“Besides,” added Terry, “he claims to have been working on the case, but all he does is to tinker with that old car.”

“Still,” decided Arden, “I think we should go to him again. It is up to him to do something. If we bring another officer here, he would first go to Mr. Reilly. I believe that is police law. So let’s go see our proverb-splitting chief and tell him what happened today. We can say we feel sure the stolen snuffbox is in the shack, and he can get a search warrant if he needs to.”

“I am coming around to your way of thinking, Arden,” admitted Sim. “Perhaps, when the chief hears about Clayton’s gun, it will stir him up to something like fighting rage, and we’ll get some action.”

“Well, then, let’s,” agreed Terry. “It’s too late now, but we’ll get the chief to go to the shack the first thing in the morning.”

However, when morning came, after an anxious night in which no news came of the missing artist, Mrs. Landry decided it might be well to wait for another day.

“Dimitri’s brother may learn something in New York,” she said, “and that may make it needless to go and beard this Clayton boor in his shack.”

“Yes, I suppose waiting another day will do no harm,” Arden agreed. “But I don’t believe Dimitri is in New York or has his box. He would not be where he is, a free agent, without sending some word to his brother Serge, at least, about himself. No, Dimitri is where he can’t get word to his friends.”

“And where do you think that place is?” asked Sim.

Arden shrugged her shoulders in a hopeless negative.

Time hanging heavy on their hands, the girls paid another visit to the houseboat but did not go on board. There was no sign of life about the _Merry Jane_ save for Tania. She was shut up in what amounted to a kennel on the outside narrow deck, where the girls had put her on their last visit. There was plenty of food and water.

Poor Tania whined pitifully when she found that her friends were not coming to see her and departed without taking her with them.

“She misses Dimitri terribly,” said Arden.

“Yes,” agreed Sim.

The day passed and no word came from Serge. Later it developed that he was so frantically going from one to another of the friends of his brother in New York, a fruitless search, that he forgot all about his promise to communicate with the girls.

“Well, this settles it!” declared Arden as they were at breakfast the second day after the visit of Serge. The morning mail had come but brought no news. “I’m going to get the chief and visit Melissa and her father again.”

“Do you mean you’re going with him?” asked Terry.

“Yes. I think we should all go, I mean we three, don’t you, Mrs. Landry?”

“Well, if there’s danger—but then I hardly believe there will be if you have the chief with you. Yes, go, by all means.”

“This is going to be a real expedition!” declared Terry as she drove her chums over to the village, parked their car near the chief’s garage, and walked to where they found the officer still tinkering with his old auto.

“Good-morning, girls,” he greeted them, wiping a smudge of oil off his face. “You see I’m busy as usual, time and tide in a long race, you know,” and the gold tooth grinned at them cheerfully.

“Mr. Reilly, can you come with us at once?” asked Arden in businesslike tones. “There may be an arrest to make.”

“An arrest?” The chief showed new interest.

“Yes. Over at the Clayton shack. It’s quite a story.”

The chief, when he heard it, could not but admit it was. There was a new air about him now. He seemed much more in earnest than at any time since Dimitri Uzlov had been missing at Marshlands.

“I’ll be with you in a few minutes, girls,” the chief said. “Just as soon as I can wash up and pin my badge on. Then we’ll get in my motorboat and ride over to see this Mr. Clayton.”

“How would it be,” suggested Terry, “if you took us back to our dock in your boat and then we picked up our rowboat? You could tow us in that to the Clayton shack.”

“Yes, I could do that,” the chief agreed. “It’s a little ways from here to where my motorboat is docked, and my car isn’t running yet, but a walk won’t hurt none of us.”

“We can all go to your dock in our car,” Terry said.

“Sure enough. Didn’t think of that. Well, we’ll go see this Clayton. So he was going for his gun, was he? I’ll see about that! Don’t give up the ship and keep your powder dry. Be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” He was as good as his word, soon coming out of his garage office with a clean face and a badge on his coat. It did not take long to drive to the dock where the chief kept his motorboat tied. The girls got in and were soon chugging on their way to “Buckingham Palace.” Mrs. Landry was rather surprised to see them back so soon, but agreed, after an explanation had been made, that it would be wise to take two boats.

“You never can tell what may happen,” she said.

“True enough, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow,” chuckled the chief. “My boat isn’t very good to look at, and we might get stalled. In which case a rowboat would be as handy as a pocket on the end of a dog’s tail.”

His craft, if not very presentable, had speed, and they went along rapidly. As they passed close to the _Merry Jane_, Tania either saw, heard, or scented them, for she began to bark in a friendly way.

“Oh, that poor dog!” exclaimed Arden. “Let’s take her with us!”

“We could,” agreed Sim.

“It might be a good thing,” said Terry. “She’s a sort of hound, you know.”

“And you think maybe she can smell out where Melissa has hid the snuffbox!” chuckled the chief. “But a dog is always a good thing to have on a case like this. Two strings to your rubber boot, you know. We’ll get her.”

Tania was frantic with joy to be among her friends again and curled up on the stern seat with Arden as the chief again started his boat across the bay.

They were not long in coming in sight of the Clayton shack. The chief wasted no time in preliminaries but steered at once for the ramshackle old dock where he made his craft fast. Then he assisted the girls to tie theirs, and they got out, Tania following them and sniffing with her pointed nose in the direction of the gloomy house.

“Perhaps we had better be a bit cautious,” suggested Terry somewhat timidly. “This man may rush out at us.”

“What puzzles me,” said the chief, “is why he hasn’t hailed us before this. Accordin’ to what you told me, he ordered you off before, without you havin’ a chance to set foot on his land.”

“Yes, he did,” said Terry. “It is rather strange no one appears.”

The shack showed no sign of life in or about it.

“I’ll give him a hail,” suggested the chief. And he roared out: “Clayton, where are you? Here’s company! Come out, but if you bring a gun it won’t be healthy for you!”

There was no answer to this challenge.

Tania barked. Still all was silent about the place.

“I’m going in,” the chief suddenly decided. “You girls wait for me here.” He looked to make sure that his badge of office was conspicuous and pushed open the door. It was not locked.

The girls were a little nervous as the chief disappeared inside. But still there was no sound. The silence was almost terrifying. The chief came out in a few minutes to say:

“I can’t seem to find anybody.”

“I think you had better look again and go in every room,” said Arden. Her voice was firm. “There must be someone.”

“All right, I’ll take another look,” assented the chief. “No trouble to show goods and some pitchers go to the well too often.”

Again he disappeared inside the place.

Again portentous silence held them all in its grip.