The dressmaker literally “pricked up her ears,” for as Agnes told Neale
later, they actually seemed to rise on her head as she heard the girls
mention the mysterious men.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Miss Titus. “Have those men done something?”
“Not that we know of,” answered Ruth, making a signal to her sister not
to say anything.
“But you seemed so startled on beholding them,” went on the dressmaker,
“that I should impend it might mean something.”
“Oh, nothing at all,” Ruth made haste to say, wanting to laugh, but not
daring to when Miss Titus used “impend” so incorrectly. “I just thought
I had seen them before, but perhaps I was mistaken.”
This was true enough. She was not absolutely sure that these were the
same men she had seen entering the cellar. But she had a pretty clear
conviction that they were, else why should they have made such haste to
get away when they heard her voice? Agnes, of course, had not viewed the
men—that is, Ruth thought she had not—so she could not be expected to
remember them.
“Well, of all things—” began Ann Titus, and the girls thought they were
going to be made the victims of her gossiping tongue when she
unexpectedly swung the suspicions into another channel that suited Ruth
and Agnes. For Miss Titus said: “Maybe they’re some of those men from
Palm Island who were after turtles. They may have come here to sell
turtles or their eggs.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised!” exclaimed Ruth, adapting her mind
to Ann Titus’ and again signaling to Agnes to fall in with this new turn
of the talk. As a matter of fact, nothing the turtle men could do would
have been a surprise to a mind like Ann Titus’. The story of the Corner
House girls’ stay on Palm Island was well known in Milton by this time,
and the actions of the turtle-fishers had been well spread so that Miss
Titus, among others, knew of the doings of those men.
“Well, if they pester you to buy their condiments—rather unpleasant I
should think, turtles’ eggs, myself—” said the dressmaker, “why don’t
you tell the police?”
“I think we shall,” decided Ruth. “It isn’t really anything at all,” and
she tried to make her voice sound casual, for if Miss Titus had the
least suspicion of a secret, or something mysterious, she would never
rest until she fathomed it—or thought she had. And, in either case, she
would have gossiped about it.
But, fortunately for Ruth and Agnes, she accepted the version of turtle
gatherers—a conclusion she herself had leaped at—and because the new
dresses were to be something out of the ordinary, there was something
else to occupy what little mind Miss Titus had and, in consequence, the
incident passed off rather well.
“But I was in mortal terror lest she begin asking a lot of questions we
couldn’t very well answer,” said Agnes, when they were on their way
home.
“So was I,” admitted Ruth. “And it’s just as well to let her suppose
those were turtle gatherers. Everybody in town has been talking about
them, and Ann Titus won’t gain many listeners when she begins speaking
of them.”
“But they weren’t the turtle men,” said Agnes, laughing. “What do you
suppose put that in Ann’s head? But I wish we knew who these two men
were.”
“Yes,” agreed Ruth. “I, too, wish I knew who they were.”
“Does it worry you, Ruth?” her sister asked anxiously.
“A little—yes,” the older sister was forced to admit. “Oh, of course I
know there’s no danger with Uncle Rufus, Linda and Mrs. MacCall with us;
and yet——”
“Why don’t you add Neale and Luke?” inquired Agnes, with a laugh.
“They’ll be with us—more or less—principally more I hope—until after
this house party.”
“Well, since you have named them, I am glad they are going to be
around,” conceded Ruth. “Not that I fear anything will happen, but I
don’t like the way those men acted. Why, they might be lunatics!”
“They didn’t act at all, according to what Uncle Rufus said,” retorted
Agnes.
“No, and that’s just the trouble,” went on Ruth. “If they had done
something while down cellar—if they had dug up a place to find a leak,
if they had tightened the pipes, anything to show that they were what
they claimed to be, it wouldn’t be so mysterious. But now it looks as if
they just went in there, as Sammy said, to look for an easy means of
entering the house after dark.”
“Ruth Kenway, don’t dare say such things!” cried her sister.
“I know it seems a scary thing to say, and perhaps I am foolish for
mentioning it,” sighed Ruth. “I know I’d shake Sammy if he spoke of it
again, but I can’t help thinking it, Agnes.”
“Do you suppose we had better tell Mr. Howbridge?” asked her sister,
pausing at the corner of a street that led to the office of their
guardian.
“Gracious, no!” exclaimed Ruth. “He would only laugh at us.”
“What are you going to do then?” demanded Agnes. “I hope you aren’t
following those two men you saw from Miss Titus’ window! If you are——”
She paused and drew back.
“Of course not!” answered Ruth. “But I’m going to mention it to Neale
and Luke.”
Upon inquiry they learned that Cecile had been called home by her aunt,
but Luke was still staying with Neale.
Those two youths, however, did not attach much importance to what Ruth
told them.
“They might have been the same men,” Neale admitted. “But as long as
they haven’t been back in your cellar it doesn’t mean anything. Very
likely they are tramps, pretending to look for work. I’ll speak to the
policeman whose beat takes in your house.”
“I wish you would,” said Ruth.
There were now busy days at the Corner House. But a few weeks remained
of the summer vacation, and the girls wanted to make the most of it,
Tess and Dot especially. Nor were Luke and Neale unaware of the flight
of the glorious summer time. For though Luke was anxious to complete his
college course, and Neale his high-school studies, that he might get in
the honored class with Luke, neither youth was so abnormal as to wish
for the end of vacation.
“Especially,” remarked Neale to Luke, “when we’re going to have such
good times next week.”
“Yes, we do have good times at the Corner House,” admitted Luke, looking
off in the distance but seeing nothing. “She certainly is a wonderful
girl!”
And he sighed.
“She sure is!” agreed Neale.
And he sighed.
But they were not both sighing for the same girl.
The room which Nalbro Hastings was to occupy had been repapered and
looked “darling,” according to Agnes, who almost wished she had taken it
for herself. “And maybe I will after she goes,” she added. Mrs. Judy
Roach had been at the Corner House nearly every day for a week, helping
Mrs. MacCall and Linda get things spick and span in preparation for the
house party, and there had been almost endless baking, Mrs. MacCall
insisting on making some Scotch scones in honor of the visitors.
Two days before Miss Hastings was expected, Ruth, with a letter in her
hand, sought out Agnes.
“Agnes,” began Ruth, “I want to consult you about something.”
“Don’t tell me Nally isn’t coming!”
“Oh, no, it isn’t that. But we need another boy to make this a
successful affair.”
“Another boy?” inquired Agnes. “Well, there’s Sammy Pinkney.”
“Don’t be silly! You know what I mean—some one for Nally.”
“I thought Luke was supposed to look after her,” and Agnes pretended to
be busily examining a certain pink nail.
“Not any more than Neale is,” retorted Ruth pointedly, to which Agnes
added:
“Just let me catch him at it!”
“What I was going to say,” went on Ruth, “is that if we had another
young man it would even matters up, and when we went out with Neale in
the car——”
“Oh, I see!” interrupted Agnes, with a ringing laugh, “six is a half
dozen and five isn’t. If Cecile was coming we’d need two young men.
Well, ask some young man for Nally. You have my permission.”
“I have asked somebody,” said Ruth calmly.
“You have? Who?” And Agnes sat up with a jerk, her eyes wide open.
“He’s a friend of Nally’s,” went on Ruth. “He lives near her in the Back
Bay section and his name is Hal Dent.”
“Hurray for Hal Dent!” cried Agnes, until Ruth, placing her hand over
her sister’s lips, bade her be silent. “But it’s pretty late to be
asking visitors,” went on Agnes. “He’ll never get here in time to trot
Nally around if you’re only just now writing to him.”
“Oh, this is his answer saying he’ll come,” said Ruth, passing the
missive to her sister.
“Well of all things!” drawled Agnes. “Doing all that—inviting a strange
young man and never saying a word to me!”
“I wasn’t sure he would come,” Ruth said. “After I thought it over and
remembered to have heard Nally mention this Hal Dent, I thought it best
to ask him. I told him Nally was going to spend about two weeks with us,
and suggested that he might like to run over. I said we could put him
up.”
“Did you say put him up, or put up _with_ him?” mocked Agnes.
“You know what I mean,” said Ruth. “Anyhow, he’s coming and we’ll have
to get another room ready.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s coming,” said Agnes. “It will be another defender
for the house when those strange men attempt to break in,” and though
she laughed gayly there was another reason why she was glad Hal was
coming.
Nalbro Hastings was altogether too fascinating to be turned loose into a
company where there were three young ladies and but two young men. In
other words the “balance of trade,” to use a business term, was now more
even.
And perhaps Ruth had a thought for herself as well as for Agnes and
Neale, since she had seen Luke, more than once, looking admiringly at
the Boston girl.
“There, she’s as shiny as a new dishpan from the five and ten-cent
store!” announced Neale, as he put the finishing touches to the Kenway
automobile, two days later.
“And we’d better start,” suggested Ruth. “We don’t want Nally to have to
come up in a taxicab.”
“Especially the kind of taxicabs at the Milton station,” laughed Agnes.
“Will Hal be on the same train?”
“He said he would,” Ruth answered.
“I wonder what he’s like.”
A little later Miss Hastings, followed by the devoted Hal, alighted, the
youth burdened with Nally’s bag as well as his own.
“Oh, Nally! So glad to see you!”
“It seems an age since we said good-by! How are you?”
“Oh, perfectly fine!” All traces of Nalbro’s lisping had vanished.
“You look splendid.”
“Like a nectarine!” chimed in Neale.
“Oh, hello, Neale! I didn’t see you!” called Nally.
“No, I didn’t think you’d recognize me without my mustache!” retorted
the high-school lad, with a chuckle.
“I knew I’d be glad to see you,” remarked Agnes, “but didn’t know until
you got here how really and awfully glad I’d be. And this is——?”
“Oh, Hal, pardon me,” said Nally quickly. “Allow me——”
The presentations were made amid laughter, and then the visitors were
carried off to the Corner House where, though the girls knew it not, a
mystery remained to be solved.