Part 13

The man at the head of the table smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that, John Tuckerman,” he responded. “For, in a way, I felt that to-night I’d been usurping a place that was rightfully yours. For, of course, this is your house, and this is your silver plate.”

“Then who are you?” piped up Sarah Hooper from the foot of the table.

“I think he’s Roderick Fitzhugh,” said Tom, who sat beside Sarah.

“I think he’s Mr. Joseph Hastings,” volunteered Ben.

The buff-coated gentleman nodded, “You are both right. Joseph Hastings, Roderick Fitzhugh, and Peter Cotterell. I’m quite a versatile fellow. I’ve a passion for acting, to tell the truth.”

“I thought you were Joseph Hastings,” said Ben, “when I met you at the Gables.”

“Yes, that’s my right name. But Roderick Fitzhugh sounded so much more romantic. And I’d invited a houseful of guests to help me act a play I’d written for the moving-pictures. We all took the names we were to have in the play.” He pointed to Penelope Boothby. “She was the fair Maid Rosalind. And my steward Sampson yonder was Sir Marmaduke Midchester. And we liked our costumes so much that we wore them most of the time. That’s how I happened to be in Lincoln green when Master Ben drove up.”

“And it was the snuff-box you bought in Barmouth that I found in the chest in the cliff,” asserted Ben. “How did it happen to come there?”

Joseph Hastings pushed his chair back from the table and crossed his legs. “That’s quite a long story. But I suppose you’d like to hear it. I have a friend who knows John Tuckerman very well, and he wrote me that Tuckerman had come here to take possession of this island and its house. That sounded very interesting. So I came over here in my motor-boat with Martin Locke—that’s Sir Marmaduke, alias Sampson, and Miss Adelaide Lawson—that’s Penelope Boothby—it was a day or two before you campers arrived—and we found we could open one of the drawing-room windows and get into the house that way. Then we discovered the note stuck in the picture frame, and so we learned there was a secret about a family treasure.”

“And you left the window open a little when you went out,” put in Tom. “That’s how it happened that Ben’s candle blew out.”

“Did we?” said Hastings. “I didn’t know we did that. But we found some wax and took an impression of the key-hole in the front door, and I had a key made to fit it in Barmouth. I thought we’d have some fun with John Tuckerman and his friends.”

“You did, all right,” said Tuckerman. “I’ll forgive you for making that key. I suppose that’s what those men from the fishing-smack did when they broke in here.”

“I’m sorry if I set a bad example,” Hastings answered. “But they didn’t learn the trick from us. Well, a day or two later we three came back again.”

“You landed from the creek?” Ben asked.

“Yes; we didn’t want you to see us, and the creek was on the other side of the island from your camp.”

“And one of you took off his shoes before he landed?” Ben questioned again.

“Yes, Martin did. He carried Miss Lawson ashore.” Hastings laughed. “You saw his footprints, didn’t you? We thought you might find them, so we came back later and rubbed them out.”

“Gigantic footprints,” murmured David.

They all laughed, while Martin Locke blushed red.

“Yes, they are pretty big,” Hastings continued. “Well, when we came that time we found the notebooks in the drawing-room. Miss Lawson glanced through them, and read that part about a mahogany man with long, skinny legs and the clipper ship. We got an old piece of parchment and some purplish ink and we wrote out that message and signed it James Sampson. Then we cut it in two and put one-half in the secret drawer of the secretary and the other half in the model of a ship in the attic. We wanted to find out just how clever you were. We thought you might take the desk to be the mahogany man.”

“We got the idea of that from something Sally Hooper said,” Ben put in. “And the secretary certainly has long, skinny legs and is made of mahogany. Still, we mightn’t have connected it with Sir Peter’s mahogany man, if it hadn’t been for Sally.”

“Well, if you hadn’t,” Hastings continued, “we’d have thought up some other way to have you find that message on the parchment. We were very proud of that little scheme. Martin wrote the letters with his left hand, so they’d look as if Sir Peter’s servant might have done them, and he put water into the ink, so as to give it a nice, antique, faded appearance. We wanted you to have the fun of finding some sort of a treasure, you see.”

“And didn’t you take a look around for the real treasure mentioned in the note in the picture frame?” Tuckerman asked.

“Well, we did take a squint,” Hastings acknowledged. “But we didn’t think it likely we’d find that, if none of the Cotterells had been able to do it. We thought more about having some fun with you campers.” He looked at the three boys. “And we did give you a good time, didn’t we?—particularly Ben?”

“Yes, you did,” nodded Ben. “I was pretty well excited when I found that second piece of parchment in the hold of the ship.”

“When we’d fixed up the message,” Hastings resumed, “the next thing was to provide the treasure. Of course we’d already made a note of that crevice in the cliffs with the mark like a cross. I had an old chest at the Gables, and we filled it with some old costumes I had on hand, and then one day when I was in Barmouth I picked up some odds and ends from a dealer in antiques there, a fellow by the name of Haskins.”

“And that’s where the silver snuff-box comes in,” said Ben.

“Yes, that’s where it comes in,” Hastings admitted. “Though I must say that I was surprised when you drove up to the Gables that day and wanted to know if Joseph Hastings had anything to do with that snuff-box you’d found on the island. I didn’t tell the dealer my name.”

“No, he didn’t know your name,” said Ben. “I asked him that. You see, as soon as I saw what was in the chest I had a suspicion that someone was playing a game on us. Those things weren’t the Cotterell treasure; and why should anyone take so much trouble to hide such things on the island? Then I knew there had been people here, the footprints by the creek, the handkerchief in the kitchen——”

“What’s that about a handkerchief?” interrupted Martin Locke.

“The Professor found a handkerchief on the table in the kitchen,” Ben explained. “A lady’s handkerchief, with the initials A. S. L.”

“So that’s where I left it!” exclaimed Miss Lawson. “Those are my initials—Adelaide Sanderson Lawson.”

“Yes, there was the handkerchief and there were the footprints,” Ben continued. “That showed we weren’t the only people who had been to the island. And so, when we went to Barmouth, I took the snuffbox along, and dropped in on Mr. Haskins. He knew the snuff-box at once, and told me that the man who had bought it from him, and some other things too, had come in a big red car with a silver eagle on the radiator cap, and that the car had a Massachusetts license and the man was wearing green-checked knickerbockers. He didn’t know the man’s name.”

“I guess those green checks are rather conspicuous,” murmured Hastings. “But how did you connect the purchaser with me?”

“Through the clerk at the hotel where you stopped for dinner, and the man you bought a new tire from,” Ben answered, and he told how he had found his way to the Gables.

“Pretty clever,” laughed Hastings. “But instead of finding out why I’d put those things in the chest you went hooked-rug hunting with me.”

“Well,” said Ben, “when we came back to your house I thought you must be Joseph Hastings, but I didn’t get any good opening to follow up the clue. And then there was all that excitement over the robbers. But when I saw you doing those moving-pictures I sized you up as a person who’d like to play a game of some sort on us.”

“I don’t know whether that’s a knock at me or not,” said Hastings. “But I do like to play games. And that’s why, when I learned that you’d found the chest, I thought it would be good fun to come over here as Sir Peter Cotterell, dress my guests in Revolutionary costumes, and take some moving-pictures on the island. Martin and I came over to see about it; that was the afternoon when you invited us to stay to supper and Martin sang his song.”

“It was a splendid idea,” said Tuckerman, “and you did it up brown.”

“Thank you.” Hastings bowed. “Such words from a descendant of Sir Peter are a compliment indeed. We learned that you were going over to the water sports at Camp Amoussock this morning, so we thought we’d have a clear field. We brought a flotilla of boats—they’re moored in the creek now—and a good supply of costumes, and cooks and food and the moving-picture camera. I had one of my men make up like a servant from the Barbadoes, stain his face and hands with mahogany juice; he’s the one who brought us the negus; though it isn’t really negus—it’s loganberry juice and soda-water—and I got Martin Locke to play the part of Sampson.” Hastings looked at Locke and laughed. “Though I don’t think Martin could possibly have carried that treasure chest all the way from here to the north shore.”

“You certainly do things up thoroughly,” said Mr. Hallett.

“But what made the party a real success,” said Hastings, “was what our friend Ben Sully did. First, the capture of the thieves, and second, the finding of the real Cotterell treasure. That’s a pretty fine showing for one day, Ben.”

“It was just luck I found that chest in the attic,” Ben answered. “I thought all along that the pines and the rocks mentioned in that notebook were actual outdoor pines and rocks, just as I suppose everybody’s thought who’s hunted for the treasure. I’ve been up in the attic a lot of times, and never particularly noticed the wallpaper—it’s pretty much faded and blurred, as you saw; but when I was taking this coat off one of the pegs this afternoon, I did happen to notice that there was a yellowish sun and some pines and rocks in the design on the wall. Then the idea struck me all at once. Mightn’t that be the place the words in the notebook meant? And the more I looked at that wallpaper the more I felt certain of it. I suppose Sir Peter told someone jokingly one day that the treasure was hidden beyond the three pines that stand between two rocks where the sun goes down, and that fooled the people who’ve looked for it ever since. He surely did like his joke.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about it as soon as you hit on that great idea, Benjie?” It was Tom who asked the question.

“Why, then I saw the fishing-smack, and wanted to go after the thieves.”

“But afterwards?” said Tom. “Don’t tell me you’d forgotten about it when we stopped at the camp.”

Ben looked a trifle embarrassed. “Why, the fact is,” he replied, “I thought I’d like to spring it at a dramatic moment. I had an idea that Miss Boothby would ask Sir Peter again to show us the Cotterell silver plate—she wanted to tease him about it—and when she had him up a tree would be the right time for me to speak out and tell what I’d discovered.”

“That’s one on you, Adelaide,” laughed Joseph Hastings. “Ben saw how you love to ask awkward questions. And he likes dramatic things as much as I do. He sprung it at just the right moment.”

Tuckerman stood up and walked to the door that opened into the hall. From there he looked down the length of the room, at the table gleaming with silver, at the many candles, at the gaily-clad company. “Yes,” he said, “I think this is worthy of Sir Peter. I’m glad that Cotterell Hall has held high festival once more.”

“Sir Peter was a dear,” said Miss Lawson. “I’ve liked him ever since I saw that picture of him in the drawing-room. And it’s a wonderful house, Mr. Tuckerman. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to live here?”

“I can’t very well,” Tuckerman answered, with a shake of his head. “My home’s in the middle West. I’m not like my Uncle Christopher and his ancestors; I can’t live on an island in solitary grandeur. I’m too fond of people.”

“Why don’t you turn it into a show-place?” suggested Milly Hallett. “That’s getting to be quite the fashionable thing to do with colonial houses.”

“We’ve talked about that,” said Tuckerman. His eyes roved over the fine room; and after a minute he shook his head. “Cotterell Hall a museum? No, I couldn’t do that. But I’ll tell you what I would like to do. I’d like to come here every summer, and have Tom and Ben and David camp out with me, and have Joseph Hastings bring his house-parties over here and spend a week as my guests.”

There were cheers from all the company, the rafters rang with the noise as each and every one shouted his or her acceptance. Hastings jumped to his feet.

“In the name of us all I accept your invitation. We will come, and dance in your drawing-room and dine from your table, as they did in Sir Peter’s day. And now, friends and fellow-citizens, I propose three cheers—three long and rousing cheers—for John Tuckerman!”

The cheers were given—long and rousing enough to suit even Joseph Hastings.

Then the buff-coated man waved his hand. “As your host for the evening, I invite you to go to the drawing-room and dance something a little more modern than the minuet. Miss Sarah Hooper, will you do me the honor?”

Sarah and Mr. Hastings led the way across the hall to the front room, where the rugs had been removed from the polished floor. The music was a piano and violin. And everybody danced, even David, who contrived to jig about not too awkwardly with Milly Hallett.

Then there were songs. Martin Locke sang the ballad he had written, and Tuckerman sang, and Miss Lawson sang several times. Presently Hastings glanced at the clock. “I don’t like to mention it,” said he, “but it’s almost midnight. To the boats, to the boats, and away!”

They all trooped out to the creek, where the flotilla was moored. Ladies in silks and satins and beruffled gentlemen embarked. With cheers from the shore, Joseph Hastings’ fleet steered down the inlet and turned south.

Then the sailboat from Barmouth, with the Halletts and Hoopers, flitted away from the landing-stage on the other side of the island. The boys and Tuckerman went along the shore to their camp.

“Great doings!” said Tom. “But how are we ever going to keep Benjie busy now that the treasure is found?”

“Don’t you worry about me,” Ben retorted. “I’ve got plenty to do. The sea is still full of fish.”

“He’s after a mahogany fish with long, skinny legs,” said David.

“What I want to know,” said Ben, “is whether there ever was a real mahogany man.”

“I think there was,” said Tuckerman. “But he sailed away in the clipper ship. He probably went to the Barbadoes.”

Tom gave a great yawn. “Well,” he said, “Ben can sit up and talk about him as long as he likes; but for me—I’m going to bed. It’s been what I’d call a full day.”

XXI—THE BOYS AND JOHN TUCKERMAN

Tuckerman pulled himself up on to the rock where Tom and David and Ben were sitting in the sun. The quiet of early morning was on the water; a few terns were fishing for their breakfast; there was the distant chug-chug of a lobsterman’s motor-boat somewhere to the south; but otherwise the campers had the shore and the bay to themselves. Tuckerman sat down, sticking his long legs out in front of him. “I may not be a duck,” he said, “but I’m certainly getting web-feet. I feel almost as much at home in the water as on dry land.”

“You’re a good swimmer,” said Tom. “In fact, you’re an all-around sport. I don’t believe any of the Cotterells knew a quarter as much about the water as you do.”

“I can’t picture Sir Peter sunning himself on this rock after a morning swim,” said David.

“Customs change with the times.” Tuckerman slapped his wet knees. “But I can tell you I’m glad I came on East this summer and learned to be a real man.”

“So am I,” said Ben. “No, I didn’t mean it that way. Of course you were a real man before. What I mean is that the camp on your island has been a great success. It’s taught me a lot.”

“Benjie, are you really going to be a professional detective?” David inquired. “Seems to me I heard someone say that you were thinking of it.”

“One mistake I made at first,” Ben remarked solemnly, “was in thinking that the men who put that chest in the rocks and those that Tom saw leaving the island in the sailboat were the same people. I thought there was only one set of men prowling around here, when there were really two.”

Tuckerman smiled. “I don’t wonder you got them mixed. Well, I’m glad Joseph Hastings’ guests got their jewels back from those thieves.”

“You see,” Ben continued, following his own line of thought, “the thieves came out here on the night when Tom saw them in a sailboat, and not in the fishing-smack. And I think it must have been that same sailboat we saw close to the island the night when we returned from Camp Amoussock in the _Argo_.” He pried loose a sliver of rock and threw it into the water. “Naturally, I didn’t connect that sailboat with the fishing-smack.”

“You’re forgiven,” said Tom. “Don’t let that weigh on your conscience.”

“I’m not sure,” suggested David, “but that we ought to call Benjie the Professor and call Mr. Tuckerman, John. Benjie’s getting to be a real professor. Just listen to the way he talks.”

“Ever since he found the treasure——” began Tom.

“Oh, let up on a fellow, can’t you?” Ben interrupted. “I haven’t mentioned the treasure to-day.”

David gave a chuckle. “You haven’t been out of bed an hour yet. And that puts me in mind of something important. Breakfast is waiting on the beach.”

Four splashes of water as the campers dove from the rock. Tuckerman could manage a very passable dive now. A swim across to the beach, a rub-down, a quick donning of clothes, and then preparations for breakfast. “I’ve never known coffee to taste so good as it does on Cotterell’s Island,” said Tuckerman, draining his cup.

Tom looked up at the man with the horn-rimmed spectacles. “Have you ever known anything to taste so good as it does on Cotterell’s Island?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“No, now I come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever have. It’s a wonderful place.”

“Wonderful cooking, you mean,” put in David.

“Wonderful fish,” said Ben.

“Just listen to them,” expostulated Tom. “Each taking the credit to himself. When the fact of the matter is that it’s all due to me. You’d never have come out here, Professor, would you, if I hadn’t agreed to come along?”

“Picture me alone here!” said Tuckerman. “No, I didn’t believe I should. Alone on a deserted island. It sounds all right in stories; but for practical purposes give me three companions. Boys, when I go back to my middle-western city I’ll think a great deal about this summer on the coast.”

“It is pretty good here,” David admitted, looking across the water to where a white sail was peeping around a point of land. “And in winter there’s fine skating.”

“And wonderful coasting,” said Ben. “There’s a hill back of Barmouth where you can coast for a mile.”

“And skiing,” Tom added. “You ought to be good at that, Professor, you’ve got such long legs.”

Tuckerman put his hands to his ears. “Hold on, hold on!” he exclaimed. “You overwhelm me. Do you want to make me desert my home and business, and do nothing but play?”

The three boys laughed. “We don’t play all the time by any means,” said Ben.

“Not a bit of it,” said David. “Sometimes we wash the dishes.” And taking Ben by the collar of his flannel shirt he lifted him to his feet. “Benjie’ll show you how we do it.”

When they had cleaned the dishes they walked over to Cotterell Hall. Tuckerman opened the front door, which was unlocked. “While I was so very particular about the key,” he chuckled, “both Joseph Hastings and the crew of the fishing-smack were coming in whenever they wanted. They made their own keys to fit the locks. Well, I ought to have been more hospitable.”

A week had passed since the famous party, and in that week the police of Barmouth had found the jewels that were stolen from the Gables, and also duplicate keys to the front and back doors of Cotterell Hall, hidden in the cabin of the fishing-smack. On the strength of that, and of the testimony of Tom and David and Lanky Larry as to what they had seen on the afternoon when they were at the cove, Sam and the other men had been held in jail for the next term of court.

“There’s one thing,” said Ben, as the four went into the big room on the left of the hall, “that still puzzles me a bit. Why did Christopher Cotterell write those lines in his notebook? ‘Find the mahogany-hued man with the long, skinny legs and look in his breast pocket. That’s a saying my father handed down. What can it mean?’” Ben looked at the others. “What do you suppose the mahogany man did have in his pocket?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Tuckerman. “He certainly didn’t have Sir Peter’s silver plate. That may be one of those legends, Ben, that get changed from their original meaning as they are handed down from one to another.”

“I suppose that may be it,” agreed Ben, though he did not look altogether satisfied.

“Every colonial house,” Tuckerman continued, “ought to have some legend to make it interesting. The mahogany man can be the legend of Cotterell Hall.”

Tuckerman looked at the portrait of his ancestor. “We’ve found what you meant by the place of the three pines and the two rocks where the sun goes down,” he said; “but we haven’t found what it was that the mahogany man had in his breast pocket. So you’ve still provided a conundrum for Ben to puzzle over. Sir Peter, I don’t believe you’d have any objection to our having found the plate. I think that to-day you’d be as good an American as any of the rest of us.”

“Of course he would,” said Tom, “I can understand how he’d have objected to his neighbors telling him to hand over his silver to them. I’d have objected myself.”

Tuckerman turned to the three boys. “You approve of Sir Peter, don’t you?” he asked. “Even if he was a Tory?”

“I do,” said Ben promptly.

“I do,” said Tom.

“I think he was a corker, Professor,” said David. “I wish he’d been in my family.”

“And that’s the opinion of three boys of good old Barmouth families,” said Tuckerman with a pleased smile. “Well, boys, you’re to feel free to camp on Sir Peter’s island and use his house any time you want.”

“Now,” said Tom, “the next thing is to get the Professor to sail us around to the north shore, so we can get Mr. Hastings’ chest and bring it back to the house. We don’t want to leave any tempting bait for other prowlers to find.”

They went aboard the _Argo_, and Tuckerman took the helm. He was now a proficient skipper, and he gloried in it, as he gloried in all the new accomplishments he had acquired in the past month.

The chest was brought to Cotterell Hall, and again the _Argo_ set sail. This time the three boys fished, while Tuckerman handled the boat. Flounders were biting in plenty, and soon they had enough for dinner. Ben pulled in his line. “We’d better leave some for another day,” he suggested.

“The wind’s just right for a southerly run,” said Tom.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Tuckerman, and brought the bow about.

South they sailed, past the flag at Camp Amoussock, past the cove with the shacks on each side, past Joseph Hastings’ private dock, almost down to Gosport before Tuckerman came about.

North to the island and dinner. And as they sat on the bank afterwards and Tuckerman smoked his pipe, he said, “Well, to-morrow I must start back to the city. But I tell you, I’ve learned more since I’ve camped out in Barmouth Harbor than I ever learned in college.”

“If you stayed here much longer,” said David, “you’d be almost as learned as Benjie.”

“I don’t know about that,” Tuckerman answered. “I’m not as keen-witted as he is. I’m more lazy, like you, Dave.”

David grinned. “Well, it takes something really important to make me move around. I wouldn’t go trailing a snuff-box all over the country.”