Unwelcome Visitors
“Oh dear! I wasn’t quite quick enough,” Lois complained as she gave the
steering wheel another turn.
Judy and Lorraine had gotten out of the car to direct her as she turned
the car around. Now it refused to budge, spattering mud as the wheels
spun. The two men came nearer, shouting and waving their arms.
All at once Judy recognized one of them as Roger Banning. His light
hair emphasized the angry flush that covered his face.
“What are you girls doing here?” he demanded. “Can’t you read?”
[Illustration: “Oh dear! I wasn’t quick enough.”]
Lois had an answer for that. She spoke fearlessly in spite of her
predicament.
“You should know, Roger. You went to school with us. I should think
you’d help instead of yelling at us. One little push on the back of the
car ought to do it. Please!”
“Go ahead, help her,” the huskier man said.
With that Roger and the other man almost lifted the car back on the
road where it was soon turned in the other direction. Lois smiled
sweetly as she thanked them.
“Are you friends of the Brandts?” she asked.
“That’s not the point,” Roger Banning retorted. “You and your girl
friends are trespassing on private property.”
“I can explain why we came here if you’ll listen,” Judy put in quietly.
“When we started on this trip we thought the Brandts still lived here.
Lois knows Helen Brandt from school. We thought she’d be glad to show
us around the estate.”
“You did, eh? Well, nobody gets shown around this estate. Now get
going!”
“Wait a minute. Don’t hurry us.” Judy’s voice was still quiet. “What,
exactly, is your objection to showing people around?”
“It ain’t a showplace,” the other man objected.
“It was when the Brandts lived here. We didn’t know they’d sold the
estate.”
“They haven’t,” was the reply. “They went to Florida for the winter and
leased it to us. Why don’t you drop in for a call after they get back?”
“Watch it, Cubby,” Roger Banning warned him. “I wouldn’t be handing out
any invitations if I were you. I recognize this girl now. She’s Judy
Bolton, or was, before she married that smart young lawyer, Peter
Dobbs. Her brother’s that pasty-faced newspaper reporter they call the
hero of the Roulsville flood. Dr. Bolton’s on the staff at Farringdon
Hospital and that’s where these kids will wind up if you let—”
“Watch it yourself,” the heavy-set young man called Cubby interrupted.
They both glared at her, waiting for her to explain herself further.
But what could she say? Her wide gray eyes must have told them she was
baffled.
Lorraine was not saying a word. As she shielded her face with her hands
she looked like a poor, frightened bird trying to hide under its own
wing.
“She’s really in trouble,” thought Judy, “and these men know something
about it.”
Determined to find out something herself, she faced them unflinchingly.
It was Lois who finally apologized for the intrusion, explaining that
she had been a guest of the Brandts several times and felt sure they
wouldn’t mind if she and her friends had just one more look at the
fountain.
“Fountain! What fountain?” Roger Banning laughed derisively. “There’s
no fountain on the estate and never has been. You girls have taken the
wrong road if you’re looking for a fountain.”
“I don’t think we have,” Lois told him calmly.
“What about the tower?” asked Judy. “We noticed what looks like a water
tower over there in the woods. Isn’t it used to store water for the
fountain?”
“It is no longer in use. Now will you leave?”
“I think we’d better,” Lorraine whispered, pulling Judy toward the car.
It seemed the only thing to do. The two young men who had made up what
Judy called the “unwelcoming committee” watched them as they drove off
down the road. When they were nearly to the main highway Lois laughed
and said, “If they think they’ve scared us away they’re greatly
mistaken. I’ll hide the car the way Lorraine suggested. It wasn’t such
a bad idea after all.”
Judy helped her find a secluded place just beyond the entrance to the
estate. Apparently people had picnicked there in the summertime. A big
evergreen tree with branches dipping to the ground hid the car from
view while the girls planned their next strategy.
“We’ll find that fountain if it’s the last thing we do,” declared Judy.
“The idea of telling us it doesn’t exist! You girls both saw it, didn’t
you?”
“That—that was years ago,” Lorraine said. “They—they could have torn
it down or something.”
“I don’t believe they did. We just drove past the path without seeing
it,” Lois declared.
“It will be easier to find if we walk back. Let’s do it,” Judy
suggested. “We should have walked up to the estate in the first place.
Then they wouldn’t have heard us coming.”
“But suppose they see us?” Lorraine objected, holding back.
“They won’t bite—if you mean those two overgrown schoolboys,” Judy
said. “Anyway, I don’t believe they have any more right on the estate
than we have. They weren’t necessarily telling the truth about it. Do
you know the other one, Lois?”
“Cubby? No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“What about the third character, the one who passed us in the car?”
“I never saw him before,” declared Lois. “Did you, Lorraine?”
Her silence was answer enough. She had seen him before, but she was
afraid to say so. If he lived on the estate, Judy decided it might be a
good idea for them to do their exploring before he returned.
“I wouldn’t care to have him catch us, would you?” she questioned.
Lorraine finally agreed to Judy’s plan, and they started back up the
narrow road. They had not walked far when they came to the sign that
Lois had chosen to ignore the first time.
NO TRESPASSING, it warned them in big black letters. ALL PERSONS ARE
FORBIDDEN TO ENTER THESE PREMISES UNDER PENALTY OF THE LAW.
“We can’t walk right past it,” Lorraine objected as they stopped to
read the sign.
“I don’t see why not. We drove right past it,” Lois returned with a
defiant toss of her head. “Who cares about their old sign, anyway? I’m
sure the Brandts wouldn’t forbid us to come here. They may even thank
us for it.”
These puzzling words only partially convinced Lorraine. But Judy was
beginning to enjoy the adventure. She studied the NO TRESPASSING sign a
moment more and then began to laugh.
“It says ALL PERSONS,” she told her friends as they walked deliberately
past it, searching for the path to the fountain. “Who _is_ permitted to
enter, I wonder—ghosts?”
“Spirits, maybe, like the one that spoke to you,” Lois said with a
shiver.
“Then the fountain wouldn’t be enchanted at all. It would be
_haunted_,” declared Lorraine.
And suddenly she held back, afraid.
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