Mr. Tuckerman was doing the crawl-stroke—slowly and laboriously, with
almost as much splashing as a small paddle-wheel steamboat makes—but
still very much better than he had been able to do it two days before.
He was heading toward a rock, on which Tom, straight as an arrow and
almost as brown as a chocolate drop, stood with his arms pointed
outward, ready to dive.
Ben stood back of Tom, slapping his dripping thighs and hopping about on
his toes. In the water David was floating, as comfortable and serene as
a harbor seal taking an afternoon nap. “Look out, Professor,” he
cautioned; “Tom might land on your head. He’s a terrible practical
joker. Don’t you let him use you as a cushion.”
Tuckerman plowed along, gasping a little, his eyes fixed on the rock.
Tom dove, and came up alongside David. “If I was picking out a cushion,
I’d take you. You’d make a bully springboard. Push right along, Mr.
Tuckerman. You’re doing nobly.”
Ben gave a whoop. “Look out there!” Lithe as an eel, and seemingly made
of rubber, he sprang from the rock, turned a somersault, and shot
smoothly into the water. He reappeared, looking like a porpoise, his
black hair all shiny, and with a few lusty flaps reached the rock again
just as Tuckerman, breathless, put out his hands to clutch at the
slippery side.
“You’re a regular flying-fish,” Ben complimented Tuckerman, as the
latter, careful not to scrape too close against the rough edge of rock,
drew himself slowly up to the level top. “I don’t believe any of your
friends out in the plain country of Illinois would know you if they
happened to see you now.”
“I don’t believe they would,” agreed Tuckerman, sitting down gingerly
and embracing his knees with his hands. “I know I look like a red
Indian, and I feel as if I’d got a thousand more muscles than I ever had
before.”
“If you don’t mind——” said Ben; and putting his hands on Tuckerman’s
shoulders he made a leap-frog jump over the latter’s head and splashed
loudly into the water.
“Well,” said David, changing his position from floating to treading
water, “I think the coffee must be boiling now. It’s time I dropped
those eggs.” And with leisurely strokes he made for the beach, where he
had thoughtfully left a Turkish towel beside his pile of clothes.
The others followed suit, and had soon arrayed themselves in the few
garments they thought needful to wear in their island home. David poured
the coffee and attended to the toast and eggs, which had been procured
the day before from a farmer on the mainland. And as they ate, Ben
propounded the question:
“Fellows, what was it Christopher Cotterell said about a mahogany man?”
“He said,” Tuckerman answered, “‘Find the mahogany-hued man with the
long, skinny legs and look in his breast pocket.’”
“Exactly,” said Ben slowly. “Well, I’ve got an idea I know where to find
that man.”
The other three looked at him in utter amazement. “The dickens you have,
Benjie!” retorted Tom. “Why, he couldn’t be alive now.”
“Perhaps Ben thinks he’s a mummy,” suggested David, “or a piece of wood
that’s turned to stone.”
“Maybe I do,” Ben chuckled. “You’re getting warm, old horse. Long,
skinny legs—doesn’t that remind you of something? Haven’t you seen any
that answer that description in this neighborhood?”
“You’re not referring to mine?” asked Tuckerman.
The breakfast-party laughed, the Professor wore such a look of injured
dignity.
“No, sir, not to yours,” Ben said. “Yours are fat as a drum compared to
those I have in mind.”
“I remember Ben mumbled something about this last night,” mused Tom.
“But I was too sleepy to listen. He said something about Sally Hooper,
too; something about her giving him an idea.”
Ben nodded. “So she did.”
“Didn’t I always claim that our Benjie was a real detective?” said
David. “Clean up first; and then for the yarn.”
Breakfast things were put away in their box, and then the three turned
to Ben. “Where’s your mahogany man?” they demanded in one voice.
“There’s no hurry,” was the tantalizing answer. “Perhaps I’d better go
fishing first.”
Tom laid his hand on the other boy’s shoulder and twisted him around.
“Lead us to him,” he commanded.
Ben shrugged. “Oh, very well. You’re more interested than you were last
night. Come along, but don’t make any noise.”
He led them to Cotterell Hall. Tuckerman had locked the front door after
the girls had left on the night before, and now he opened it with the
key he kept in his trouser pocket.
Ben led them into the hall, and then into the big front room, which was
now flooded with sunlight.
“Look around,” he announced; “and tell me what you see.”
They looked about the room with puzzled faces. “Rats!” exclaimed David.
“I don’t see any man here.”
Ben glanced at Tuckerman. “Long, skinny, mahogany-colored legs,” he
murmured.
“Not Sir Peter’s portrait?” said Tuckerman.
Ben walked across the room in the direction of the secretary. “When
Sally came in here last night,” he explained, “she said something about
this desk. ‘Mahogany, I suppose—and what long, fluted, shiny legs.’
Well, it has, hasn’t it?” He laid his hand on the secretary. “Mightn’t
this be the man?”
“You’re joking,” Tom protested; while David looked from the desk to his
friend’s serious face as if he thought Ben must be plain crazy.
Tuckerman, however, laid his hand also on the piece of furniture. “They
liked their little joke in the old days,” he observed. “It might be,
Ben. If that’s so——” He turned the small brass key in the lock of the
lid, and pulling out the two supports on either side of the lower
drawers let the lid down on them. “If that’s so; and this is the
mahogany man—where’s his breast pocket?”
There were small drawers inside, and a row of pigeonholes to either side
of a central compartment that was also locked by a key.
“Somewhere up in his chest,” said Ben.
Tuckerman pulled out the drawers and emptied their contents, small
objects, keys, pencils, bits of sealing-wax, a few sheets of blank
paper. He put his hand in the pigeonholes and drew out several bundles
of letters. “I’ve been through all these things before,” he said with a
shake of his head.
“That place in the middle,” Tom suggested.
“Only an ink-stand,” said Tuckerman; and unlocking the little door he
drew forth a big glass inkstand with a brass top. That was all there was
in the little cupboard; all the contents of the upper part of the
secretary were arrayed on the lid.
“No go,” said David. “The man hasn’t anything in his pocket to give us
any clue.”
“I must say,” said Tom, “it does seem ridiculous to me that anyone could
have meant that desk——”
“I’ve heard,” mumbled Ben, who was paying no attention to what the
others were saying, “that old desks have secret compartments. My
grandfather has an old one that looks something like this. Let me
see——” He slipped his hand into the pigeonhole on the right of the
little door Tuckerman had unlocked, and began to feel around. “I say!
Here’s something. It feels like a wooden spring.”
Tuckerman put his hand into the central compartment. “Push on the
spring,” he directed.
Ben pushed and Tuckerman at the same moment pulled out the cupboard that
had harbored the inkstand. It was a box that fitted snugly into the
centre of the secretary.
“Well, that’s a great stunt,” said Tom. “It comes to pieces like a nest
of drawers.”
The four, their heads close together, looked into the space from which
the cupboard had come.
All they saw was an unvarnished piece of pine board, apparently the back
of the desk.
“Looks like my grandfather’s,” said Ben. “Yes, there’s a couple of
holes.” And putting his forefinger and thumb into two indentations in
the wood at the back, he wriggled his hand around and drew out a small
drawer.
“Empty!” he muttered, disappointed, holding the drawer so that the
others could see.
Again he put his hand into the opening and drew out a second drawer that
had been under the first one. This also was empty.
“One more chance.” He pulled out the bottom drawer. In this there was
something. Holding it upside down, a small roll of paper fell out on the
lid of the desk.
“A piece of parchment,” said Tuckerman, picking up the roll. He opened
it out, holding it taut in his two hands.
All eyes focussed on the sheet, on which were scrawled, in a faint
purplish ink, these lines:
I took the box
cliff where was
meaning to es
but they were
and so I hid
pocket in the
are two big
make a mark
Tuckerman read these words aloud, three times over. Then he gave a
grunt. “Well, that’s that. And it’s not so very illuminating, is it?”
Ben took the parchment. “Somebody’s cut it across. See, the right hand
words are close to the edge. How disgusting!”
David and Tom each handled the parchment, which was finally laid on the
desk-lid, with the inkstand to keep it from curling up into its original
tight roll.
David stroked his chin, pretending to be lost in thought. “Somebody took
the box—to the cliff—but they were—and so somebody hid the box—in
his pocket—there are two big—that make a mark. I gather from that line
about the pocket that the box was pretty small.”
“It doesn’t say he hid it in his pocket,” Ben objected. “It might have
been a pocket in the cliff just as well.”
“Who do you suppose he was?” asked Tom.
“Why, Peter Cotterell, of course,” David answered promptly.
“I don’t know about that,” said Tuckerman. “This handwriting doesn’t
look like that of a man who was used to holding the pen. See how he’s
gone over some of the letters several times, as if he wasn’t precisely
sure how he ought to form them. Sir Peter was a well-educated gentleman.
He must have known how to use a quill.”
“Perhaps he wanted to disguise his handwriting,” David suggested.
“Why would he want to do that?” Ben retorted. “Whoever wrote that meant
to leave a record of what he’d done with the box. There wouldn’t be any
sense in faking his handwriting—certainly not if he intended to hide
the parchment away in a secret drawer of the desk.”
“What sense would there be in his cutting it in two then?” Tom inquired.
Tuckerman, who was sitting on the arm of a chair, threw back his head
and laughed. “Here we are arguing about something that happened ever so
long ago, and we haven’t the least idea why it happened this way.” He
turned to the portrait on the wall and shook his finger at it. “You—or
some of your household—knew how to make first-class puzzles, Sir
Peter.” Then, as he swung around to the three boys, he added:
“My guess is that there’s a pocket in a cliff somewhere on this island,
and that there is—or was—a box hidden in it.”
“Find the cliff,” said Tom.
Ben shook his head. “There are dozens of cliffs.”
“Well, you won’t find anything more in your mahogany man’s breast
pocket,” Tom answered. “You can see for yourself it’s empty.”
“My idea is,” said David, “that we get the _Argo_ and sail round the
island till we sight a likely-looking cliff.”
“That appeals to me,” agreed Tuckerman, “and Tom can give me another
lesson in how to handle a boat.”
The parchment was put in its drawer, the three drawers replaced, the
cupboard pushed back and caught by its spring, and the desk-lid lifted
and locked.
“I’d a heap rather hunt for clues out of doors on a day like this,” said
David.
But Ben sat down on a divan. “I want to do a little thinking, fellows.
You go along without me. Maybe I’ll go fishing for dinners off the rocks
after a while.”
They laughed at Ben; but he would not be dissuaded. He wanted to do some
thinking, and he meant to. “Stubborn as a mule,” said Tom. “He gets his
mind set on a thing, and dynamite won’t budge him.”
So the others went down to the sailboat; and presently Ben, getting up
from the divan, went out and cut himself a stick of willow. He brought
it back and began to whittle shavings all over the hardwood floor of
Cotterell Hall. He had seen men down on the Barmouth docks whittle
shavings for hours, and he had copied the habit. He found it a great
help when he wanted to think things out.