Part 4

"Really now, could it have been? Odd idea that. And you might be right, you know. You might be terrifically right, Miss Chalmers. They say your echoes travel tremendous distances in this country."

Miss Chalmers was vaguely uneasy. She felt that she was suspected as to the six-o'clock bell. She could not be sure, but he stared rather hard. Nor was she reassured when Mr. Morton coupled it in his memory with the ringing of the midnight chime in Witherbee House.

Perhaps it was natural enough to make the association; they were both bells, and both were abrupt and startling. But--well, she wondered if the man in the wet flannels was really a clever person.

"Are there many burglaries here?" she asked.

"I can't speak for the other islands, of course," he replied. "But this was the first for Mr. Witherbee. Fine chap, Mr. Witherbee. I'm just a guest, you know."

"Was anything stolen?"

Miss Chalmers asked the question perfunctorily.

"Upon my word, not a thing! Rather a joke, you know, too, because he left a clue."

"A clue?"

She sat up straight on her trunk.

"Seems like a clue, at any rate. You see--"

There was a heavy crunching on the gravel path, and the voice of Mr. Witherbee called:

"Well, Rosalind Chalmers! And at this hour of the morning. You and your trunks seem to make a specialty of mysterious arrivals."

Mr. Witherbee greeted her effusively and surveyed her from head to foot.

"Same girl, same girl," he commented admiringly. "Style--class--eh, eh, Morton? Oh, I beg your pardon! Have you met Mr. Morton?"

Miss Chalmers indicated that an introduction was unnecessary.

"I was so early, I thought I'd better wait down here for a while," she explained.

"Nonsense! Why didn't you come up at once? Ring the bell--bang on the door--do anything. We don't mind. Do we, Morton? Why, man alive, what's happened to you?"

Mr. Witherbee was regarding the white flannels with wide eyes.

"Mr. Morton dropped his glasses overboard and went to recover them," said Miss Chalmers.

The man on the string-piece shot a swift glance at her, then nodded confirmation.

"Huh!" said Mr. Witherbee, as he marveled at the wetness of his guest. "Just for a pair of glasses, eh? You're a queer cuss, Morton. By the way, Rosalind, did he tell you about the burglar?"

"He's just finished telling me."

"Fine note! Tell you all about it by and by. This is your grip, is it? You must come straight up to the house. Mrs. Witherbee'll be delighted."

He lifted the grip, grasped Miss Chalmers cordially by the arm, and started up the wharf. Then he stopped suddenly. A perplexed expression came into his face. Suddenly he cocked his head on one side and listened.

"Hear anything?" he asked Miss Chalmers.

She shook her head.

"I do," he affirmed. "Something clicking."

He listened again, then raised the grip and applied his ear to it. Miss Chalmers flushed.

"Please let's hurry," she said, urging him on.

Mr. Witherbee laughed.

"Clock, eh? I couldn't make it out at all."

She did not venture a glance at the guest, who remained behind, even when Mr. Witherbee called back:

"Better change those clothes, old man. Early breakfast to-day."

Mr. Morton remained sitting on the string-piece, looking after them with expressionless eyes.

Mrs. Witherbee was a sunup riser, like her husband, and she greeted her new guest with open arms.

"Everybody will be down presently," she said. "My, how wonderfully fine you look! How do you manage it--at such an hour? I suppose I'm a fright. Well, no wonder--this morning. Did Stephen tell you--the burglar? Oh, it was a terrible scare! I'm so glad, my dear, you were not here. It would have upset you frightfully."

Miss Chalmers, standing on the porch, glanced across the lawn and saw an overturned chair.

"Things like that do upset one," she murmured.

"I should say they did!" exclaimed Mrs. Witherbee. "I'm afraid I'll never feel safe on this island again. I'll always be lying awake, waiting for that alarm to go off. Really, I'd feel safer with it taken out, Stephen."

"Nonsense," said Mr. Witherbee. "Why, it scared him away, didn't it?"

"And scared the rest of us almost to death. I can't see any economy in that, I must say. I suppose, though, we should be thankful we're alive. Shall I show you your room now, Rosalind, or will you wait until after breakfast?"

"I'll wait," said Miss Chalmers.

Mrs. Witherbee stepped into the hall and called:

"Gertrude!"

"Yes, mother," answered a voice from above.

"Rosalind is here."

"I'll be down in a jiffy."

"And, Gertrude!"

"Well, mother?"

"Bring down what we found after the burglar left, dear."

"All right."

Mrs. Witherbee returned to the porch to find Miss Chalmers staring at her apprehensively.

"We've got a clue," she bubbled. "It's the strangest thing in the world. I suppose if you simply have to have a burglar, the next best thing is to have a clue. Stephen thinks it may lead to a capture. Do you still think you'll send for detectives, Stephen?"

"We'll see; we'll see, my dear."

Miss Chalmers walked to the porch-rail and steadied herself.

A clue!

It seemed she had never heard a word that sounded so sinister. A clue to the burglar! She shivered a little.

"Rosalind, you're positively chilly!" exclaimed Mrs. Witherbee, slipping an arm around her. "Run, Stephen, and tell Mary to hurry the coffee. It's this morning air, my dear. You'll get used to it in no time."

There was a quick step in the hallway, and Gertrude Witherbee rushed out upon the porch. Miss Chalmers returned the embrace, rather perfunctorily. She was thinking of clues.

"Here it is, mother," and Gertrude tossed an object to Mrs. Witherbee.

"Our clue!" said the lady of the island, holding it up for inspection.

Miss Chalmers was looking at her own bracelet.

*CHAPTER V*

*THE PLOT CURDLES*

"Why--why--"

She checked herself and reflected swiftly. She must not--she could not--claim it.

"Why," faltered Miss Chalmers weakly, "what a curious bracelet!"

"Isn't it, though?" exclaimed Mrs. Witherbee, holding it up so that the light played upon the dull gold. "That's what all of us said. We're having a time trying to decide who will keep it--that is, of course, if nobody claims it. Gertrude is crazy about it; Polly Dawson wants it; I fancy it tremendously myself."

"May I see it?" asked Miss Chalmers.

She gazed more sadly than curiously at the bauble Mrs. Witherbee dropped into her palm.

"Notice the carving," urged Mrs. Witherbee. "Did you ever see anything so odd?"

"It's very odd," assented the owner dully.

"And not a jewel in it!"

"Not a jewel," echoed Miss Chalmers, shaking her head.

"Gertrude and I have been wondering where in the world it was purchased. We both want one. But there isn't the sign of a maker's mark; it doesn't even say how many carats."

The artistic soul of Miss Chalmers was in revolt. Maker! Carats! There was something shockingly coarse in the suggestion. How little they understood! Nobody in the whole world knew the name of the artisan who fashioned it, nor ever would know. He went to his peace five thousand years ago. There were no carats in those days; not for this workman. For he made the thing for a princess, and he made it of pure gold.

Nowhere, unless in some undiscovered tomb in Egypt, was there anywhere its mate. Weighed in the scales of trade, it might have brought fifty dollars as metal. To Miss Chalmers it was a thing beyond price.

She knew little of its history save this: Only two women in the world had worn it. One was a princess, daughter of some forgotten Pharaoh. It was upon her wrist when they opened the tomb. The other woman was Rosalind Chalmers.

Just how Reginald Williams came into possession of it Miss Chalmers never knew, but he had brought it to America for her. And she had worn it with a pleasant sense of satisfaction in the fact that the bracelet had merely been transferred from the arm of a dead princess to a living one. Miss Chalmers, rightly enough, had an excellent opinion of herself.

Reggy Williams thought she wore it for him. It was neither kind nor worth while to tell him his mistake. The reason she wore it had partly to do with the Egyptian princess and partly with the fact that it was unique and beautiful.

Now, as it lay in her hand, she experienced a sense of dismay. She could snap it about her arm, of course, and then explain--explain that-- Of course she could _not_! No; that was out of the question. Not after all she had told them that morning.

Into Miss Chalmers's mind flashed the memory of a sound that had reached her ears, even in the tremendous din of the Witherbee burglar-alarm. She recalled it as a rattling noise, but had given it no second thought in her panic. The discovery of her bracelet in the possession of her hosts supplied an exasperating explanation. She asked absently:

"You say the burglar dropped it?"

"Right on the porch where he had opened the window," said Mrs. Witherbee.

"Tom says it was quite a little distance from the window, mother," interrupted Gertrude.

"It was on the porch, at any rate," continued the hostess. "We think he had just stolen it from some other island. It's not likely a man would be carrying a thing like that around for any length of time.

"Tom found it while they were hunting with the lantern last night. We're going to make inquiries, of course; but, to tell you the truth, dear, we're just hoping a little that the owner won't be found. In that case we'll keep it."

"You mean I'll keep it, mother," said Gertrude.

"Well, Polly wants it, too, my dear. Probably the best way will be to send it to the city and have copies made. Then we can each have one."

Miss Chalmers shuddered.

"We've all tried it on, but I think it fits me best," asserted Gertrude.

The owner felt dizzy. It had been tried on--defiled!

"You can wear it for a while, if you like, Rosalind," said Gertrude generously.

"No, thank you," answered Miss Chalmers as she returned the bracelet to Mrs. Witherbee.

Her voice was flat and faint.

After that Tom Witherbee joined the group and the tale of the midnight alarm was spun again. Then came Polly Dawson, short, plump, and light-headed--both ways, for she was blonde--and Polly told it all over, but in such different fashion, and with such a completely new set of facts that it became quite a new story.

Afterward a few others came straggling down--the two Winter girls, Fortescue Jones, and a dull-looking youth named Perkins, of whom Miss Chalmers had never heard. And presently Mr. Morton, rearrayed, made his second appearance that morning. He bowed again very formally to the new guest.

It was a dull breakfast for Miss Chalmers. Everybody except herself babbled incessantly about the burglar, the bracelet, and the hunt by lantern-light.

The trinket of a princess was now upon Polly Dawson's arm, she having beseeched Gertrude to let her wear it during the forenoon at least. The owner eyed it gloomily and made plans. Even though it had been desecrated, she did not propose to abandon it to utter vandalism. She did not even intend that any vulgar modern craftsman should make copies of it.

When the moment was opportune, Miss Chalmers proposed to steal it. Of course she could never wear it again in the presence of the Witherbees or any of their guests; but she would possess it at any rate.

Breakfast was served on a broad porch at the rear of the house, which was the Witherbees' dining-room for all meals when the weather was fine. It was not yet finished when Miss Chalmers saw something as she glanced beyond the railing that fascinated her.

She stared fixedly, then brought her glance suddenly back to the table and furtively examined the faces of her hosts and fellow guests. After that she looked over the railing again. If she grew a shade paler, nobody appeared to observe the fact; nor did any one notice she had become restless.

After a minute or two she rose and walked toward the steps. They descended to a lawn that was broken with shrubs and flower-beds and paths.

"Where away, Rosalind?" called Gertrude.

"I want to see the garden," she called back.

But instead of making directly for the garden she followed a course closely parallel to the porch, which brought her to a pathway that led from a rear door of the house to a small outbuilding that served as a summer kitchen.

"Wait! Stop, Rosalind!"

She did not seem to hear, but stepped upon the path.

"You'll ruin your shoes!" cried Mrs. Witherbee.

"That concrete was just laid yesterday. It's soft." Miss Chalmers looked down at the path, then took a step forward as if to verify. Still unsatisfied, she tested the path once, twice, thrice, with her immaculate shoes. Then she turned and looked up at Mrs. Witherbee.

"Why, how stupid of me!" she exclaimed. "It is soft, isn't it?"

She moved toward the porch, treading again upon the slightly yielding surface. Then she stepped back upon the grass.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I'm afraid I've marked your path."

She paused to study the footprints. There were nine distinct impressions in the concrete. One was slightly deeper than its mates.

"They won't notice that little difference," she reflected. "But I hope to Heaven nobody took the trouble to observe that I stepped on the path only eight times."

Then she wandered off into the garden, with a remark upon the unexplained magnetism that wet paint, particularly when so labeled, exercises upon meddlesome fingers.

(_Moral_: In order to cover your trail be the first to discover it--and then multiply.)

"It's rather exacting work," thought Miss Chal--

Wait a minute! This eternal "Miss Chalmers" is tiresome. We've known her for at least twelve hours; we're going to know her much better. Nearly everybody else is calling her "Rosalind." Why stand aloof?

"It's rather exacting work," thought Rosalind, "this business of arriving at unconventional hours and then making believe that everything was thoroughly conventional. If they don't stop talking about clues I shall go mad."

If there was one thing that particularly bored Rosalind it was discussion of a topic plunged into with undisguised relish by Mrs. Witherbee, when that good lady joined her in the garden and deftly maneuvered her beyond the hearing of the others.

"Is it seventeen now, my dear, or eighteen?" asked Mrs. Witherbee with a knowing little chuckle.

"Seventeen--or eighteen?" puzzled Rosalind. "I don't understand."

She did, however, because Mrs. Witherbee always approached the subject from the numerical angle.

"You know very well, my dear. Do not pretend. I thought the last one was the seventeenth, but Gertrude is sure he was the eighteenth. It was Mr. Williams, wasn't it?"

"Oh, please!" protested Rosalind.

"Oh, please?" echoed Mrs. Witherbee, hugging Rosalind's arm. "Oh, shucks, you mean! Why shouldn't we talk about it? Everybody else who knows you talks about it. Why shouldn't I?"

"But--but it's so intimately my own affair," said Rosalind, annoyed.

"It's more than your affair, dear. It's the affair of seventeen or eighteen perfectly nice young men--I wish to goodness I could remember the exact count! Seventeen or eighteen eligible men--all ready to marry you if you say the word."

"All!" exclaimed Rosalind in a shocked tone. "Why, Mrs. Witherbee!"

"Well, you know what I mean," declared Mrs. Witherbee. "Of course you wouldn't marry them all. But it could be any one of the seventeen or eighteen. Now, couldn't it, Rosalind?"

Rosalind sighed, not because she was either romantic or pensive, but out of sheer despair.

"I presume it could be," she admitted.

"Oh, you heart-breaker!" chided Mrs. Witherbee confidentially.

"I'm not!" declared Rosalind stoutly. "There isn't a broken heart among them. Their hearts are all perfectly sound and serviceable. They're not only air-cooled, but water-jacketed, and not one of them ever had a misfire on my account."

"Rosalind! What in the world are you talking about?"

"Oh, well, please let's not talk about it any more. I can't stop them from asking me, can I?"

"No, but-- Why, some of us wonder if you ever will be married!"

Rosalind shook her head wearily.

"Oh, I suppose I'll be married some day; most women are. Meantime, what's the use of considering and plotting and planning, or even bothering about it? When a girl wants to get married she can do it--any time. There's nothing mysterious or unprecedented about it. It's been done several times, I believe."

"You're so cynical, Rosalind."

"I'm not--not in the least. I'm merely sane. Listen, now! Whose voice is that? You seem to have callers."

"It sounds like Mr. Davidson," said Mrs. Witherbee, listening. "He's one of our neighbors. Shall we go and see?"

They walked to the front of the house, where a group of persons stood in a circle around an elderly man who talked volubly.

"Come and listen to this," advised Mr. Witherbee, beckoning. "Davidson had a thief last night, too. Same one, probably. Miss Chalmers, let me present Mr. Davidson--one of our island neighbors."

Mr. Davidson bowed briefly, then resumed his recital in a voice that Rosalind remembered quite well.

"We thought he was all alone at first. He started up his launch, and then he had a breakdown. Thought I had him sure then. But, by jingo! Do you know there was another fellow lying out there in a rowboat? He was keeping watch, I suppose. The second chap climbed into the launch, and they managed to get things started again.

"Even then we'd have had 'em in a fair race. He cut loose his rowboat after a while, and we smashed into that; we didn't stop to pick up the splinters. That delayed us a little, of course.

"But he put one over on us by slipping through that channel that splits Houghton's Island. I wouldn't take a chance on it. By the time we went around the island he wasn't in sight."

"A pair of them, you said?" asked Mr. Witherbee.

"A whole gang, likely enough; but we saw only two. Don't know whether I hit any of 'em or not."

"Anything stolen?"

"Now, there's the queer part," affirmed Mr. Davidson. "Not a blessed thing, so far as we can discover, unless it was something out of the library that we haven't been able to locate as yet.

"He seemed to have spent all his time in the library, as nearly as I can find out. He had a lot of books out on the floor. Perhaps he thought we hid things behind them. We can't find that he did anything except mess with the books."

If Rosalind was afire with curiosity she did not betray the fact. Outwardly she maintained the frigid poise that had been the despair of the seventeen or eighteen.

"Well, from your story," commented Mr. Witherbee, "he got to your place after he visited us. He had hard luck here; he lost something. Who's got the bracelet? Here, Polly! Show it to Mr. Davidson."

Polly held out her arm.

"If he hadn't visited us first I would have thought probably he stole it from your place," said Witherbee.

Mr. Davidson glanced at the bracelet and shook his head.

"Haven't got any junk like that in our house," he declared. "Never saw it before."

Rosalind flamed with resentment, but remained silent. Junk!

"We've got to organize; that's all," declared Witherbee.

"It's a cinch something's got to be done," growled Davidson. "I tell you, there's funny goings-on around this place. Earlier last night, for instance. We were coming down the river in the yacht when somebody hailed us from a small boat. One of 'em--sounded like a woman, too--wanted help. The other one--a man--didn't want any help. Seemed to be having a row among themselves, so I didn't butt in."

Rosalind was too bewildered to analyze the relation of this episode to what happened later. She merely made a mental note of the facts for future consideration.

A man in overalls approached Mr. Witherbee and touched his cap.

"One of the skiffs is gone, sir--the new one," he said.

"Then he did steal something, after all!" exclaimed Witherbee. "Isn't that the devil now? I suppose that was the skiff you ran down, Davidson."

"I suppose so," said Davidson gloomily. "Sorry."

"Oh, that's all right. Don't bother. But, say, Davidson, you ought to do something for your own protection. Put in a burglar-alarm like ours, for instance."

"Burglar-alarm!" snorted Davidson. "What do I keep dogs for? And what good are the dogs, either? I threatened to shoot 'em last night. I'm not sure but I will, even yet. That rascally nephew of mine spoiled those dogs. They've been mooning around the place ever since I shipped him off to New York. By Judas! I'd bring him back if it wasn't for the fact that I'm getting good reports about him. Witherbee, he's actually making good! Had a letter from Hastings & Hatch only this morning. He'll be a regular banker some day, they tell me. Would you have ever thought that?"

"I never would," admitted Witherbee.

Rosalind wanted to slip away and think. She wanted to be undisturbed, so she might put together the pieces of the puzzle, which seemed to have been jigsawed into hopeless confusion.

What she wanted most to know was just where she fitted into it. If there was to be serious burglar-hunting, if clues were being scattered about indiscriminately, she was considerably concerned as to where they might all lead.

When Mr. Davidson had apparently arrived at the end of his facts and was turning to comment and speculation she detached herself from the group and wandered off to the summer pavilion, which she had first found during the course of her exploration in the dark hours.

But she was not to be left alone. Mr. Morton, stroking his blond mustache, strolled in pursuit.

"Funny, by Jove! Isn't it, now?" he said. "Everybody chasing somebody, you know, and nobody catching anybody. I say it's confounded strange. What's your theory, Miss Chalmers?"

"I never theorize," said Rosalind shortly.

"Oh--ah--I see. Hum! Not a bad plan, that, either; not at all bad. Saves one a whole lot of bother, I should think."

"Decidedly."

"Oh, yes, a lot of bother," he went on aimlessly. "But we can't all do it successfully, you know. Deuced difficult not to think about anything."

Rosalind's caution was uppermost. This drawling Morton person was somewhat enigmatic. She could not tell exactly why, but she was ill at ease.

Presently he seemed to remember something, for he turned toward the river, of which the summer pavilion commanded a sweeping view, took his field-glasses from his pocket, and devoted himself to another of those surveys at which she had surprised him in the early hours. Rosalind watched in silence.

"Not a sign," he observed after a long scrutiny.

"Of what?"

"I-- Oh, I beg your pardon. Did not know I had spoken--really. Nothing at all, Miss Chalmers; nothing at all."

"Do you commonly look for nothing?"

"Had me there!" he exclaimed. "I suppose one doesn't really look for nothing, even if one expects nothing. Why--I--I was just looking for a boat; that's all. Nothing of importance, I assure you."

Rosalind's thoughts reverted to Sam, her burglarious boatman. What did this man know about him? Why had he questioned her so down on the wharf?

She was framing a guarded inquiry when Polly Dawson gurgled into the pavilion.

"Oh, Mr. Morton! I thought we were to play tennis this morning," she cried.

"Right you are!" he assented--with surprising alacrity, Rosalind thought. "Upon my word, I'd forgotten, Miss Polly. Awfully kind of you to look me up. You'll excuse me, Miss Chalmers? Or will you join us at the courts?"

"I think I'll excuse you," said Rosalind, deliberately.

He stared for a brief instant.

"Why, yes; yes--of course. Awfully kind of you, too."

Polly Dawson had him by the arm and was insistently urging him in the direction of the courts. As they passed out of the pavilion Rosalind caught another glimpse of her bracelet. She gritted her teeth.