CHAPTER XIX

An Interview with a Client

As the boys had calculated, they reached Cloverfield well after dark. In discussing it at noontime, they agreed not to pause for an evening meal, but to push on and get home as soon as possible. Accordingly, they kept up a fast pace, and had it not been for frequent detours around snow-covered places and logs, they would have made it by early darkness. But as it was, they did well and saw the lights of their home city before them at 7:30 o’clock. By eight they had reached their homes, and Barry went in after a few final words with Kent. The light and warmth struck him pleasantly as he stepped in the door.

His mother and sister were in the kitchen washing and drying dishes, and his father was just coming up from the cellar, where he had been putting more coal on the furnace. They heard his footsteps along the hall and greeted him eagerly.

“We didn’t know whether you would get in tonight or tomorrow,” his mother said, as she kissed him.

“Did you have your supper?” Pearl asked. “I’ll get you some if you didn’t.”

“I haven’t had any, Pearl, and I’ll tell Mac what a nice girl you are if you’ll get me some,” Barry answered, with a grin.

“Oh, get out!” Pearl retorted, her cheeks flushing. “If you keep on talking that way, I won’t do anything for you!”

“I got your letter, son,” Mr. Garrison told him. “So you moved into the lodge when you found that someone had been upstairs in the place. Have any luck? Did you see anything?”

“The only luck we had was bad luck,” Barry replied, as he took off his coat and hat and hung his skates in the cellar-way. “We saw the spook and thought we had him bottled up, but he got away.”

“What!” cried his father, in genuine astonishment. His mother looked on in surprise, and Pearl turned from the ice box to glance at him.

“Oh, Barry! What did he look like?”

“He looked just like a man, but we didn’t see his face,” her brother informed her, as he washed his hands. “I’ll tell you all about it while I eat.”

They were all so eager to hear his story that all three of them fell to waiting on him, and while he ate he told them the complete story of the black shadow who had made the thumps and knocks. His father listened with puckered brow and leaned forward on the kitchen table in his eagerness.

“I’m glad you and Kent weren’t lost in that storm,” his mother said, looking fondly at her clean-cut, vigorous son.

“My goodness, I would have been scared to death if I had seen that figure run along the side of the lodge!” Pearl declared.

“Barry, I think Mrs. Morganson ought to hear that story,” Mr. Garrison remarked. “Feel like going over to her house tonight?”

“Of course, Dad, if you give me time to clean up a bit. I’m still dressed as a camper, you know.”

“That won’t bother Mrs. Morganson, but I agree that you ought at least to change your shirt. You do that as soon as you have finished, and I’ll telephone her and ask if we may come over.”

Barry nodded his agreement, and his father was soon talking to his client over the wire. In a few moments he came back, putting on his overcoat as he came.

“She says she’ll be glad to see us,” he said. “I’ll get the car out, and we’ll go over as soon as you are ready.”

Barry rose from the table. “I’ll be with you in a couple of shakes, Dad.” He raced up the front stairs and before long was running down them again, with a clean shirt and his hair neatly combed. “Did Dad come in?” he asked his mother.

“No, he’s out front, sitting in the car and waiting for you,” she said. “He had faith in you when you said you’d only be a couple of shakes. He seemed to know what a shake is.”

“Just two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Mother. Is that all the time I took?”

“Yes, if the lambs shook them pretty slowly,” Mrs. Garrison smiled.

Barry trotted down the walk and got into the car. “All right, Dad, here I am.”

Mrs. Morganson lived on the other side of Cloverfield, and after driving several blocks Mr. Garrison brought the car to a stop in front of a fine old white house that stood back among some magnificent trees. As they opened the door to get out of the car, the front door of the big house opened, and a man came down the steps and approached them. As the lamplight revealed him, Mr. Garrison murmured his name.

“Brand Curry! I wonder.... Good-evening, Mr. Curry.”

The rather chunky individual merely grunted and gave a short nod. He seemed out of humor and would have passed on, but Barry’s father hailed him.

“Just a moment, Mr. Curry. Have you been in to see Mrs. Morganson about the Bluff Lodge proposition again?”

Curry swung around and faced him abruptly. “It is none of your business what I went to see Mrs. Morganson about, Mr. Garrison.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” the lawyer returned evenly. “If it was about that hunting lodge, it is my business. But if you weren’t talking about that, it wasn’t.”

“I did go see Mrs. Morganson,” the man admitted defiantly.

“Well, that’s just what I thought, Mr. Curry. Why don’t you come to me? I am her representative, and she is not to be bothered with the details. Why is it that you don’t come to me?”

“Mr. Garrison, this is a free country, and I go where I like. I prefer to deal directly with Mrs. Morganson, that is all.”

“Is it because you have no confidence in me, Mr. Curry?” Barry’s father asked.

“I have my reasons, Mr. Garrison, and I will keep them to myself. Good night!”

Mr. Curry walked away with dignity, and Mr. Garrison shook his head in perplexity. “He’s a hard man to deal with, and he never has been willing to talk over this particular deal with me. He didn’t act very happy, did he?”

“No,” Barry chuckled. “Maybe Mrs. Morganson told him to go and see you.”

“We’ll soon know,” said Mr. Garrison, leading the way into the house. At his knock a servant let them in and showed them to a small private library where Mrs. Morganson was reading. She welcomed them with kindness, and they sat close to a grate fire as they talked.

“As I told you over the phone, Mrs. Morganson, my son has something of importance to tell you concerning Bluff Lodge,” Mr. Garrison began. “He and three of his friends have been camping up on Arrowtip, and he learned some interesting things. The last two days that they were at the lake, they camped in the lodge itself.”

Mrs. Morganson looked with interest at Barry, and her words were a distinct surprise. “I know that he and his friends have been camping in the lodge,” she said. “Mr. Brand Curry has just been here to protest about it!”