Ben that afternoon had a long, cool glass of lemonade on the porch of
the Gables while his friend Roderick Fitzhugh introduced him to the men
and women who were sitting in wicker easy chairs. It seemed to Ben that
their names were somewhat fantastic, but then so were their clothes, and
the names did appear to suit the costumes.
“This lady,” said Fitzhugh, nodding to a rosy-cheeked girl, who wore her
brown hair in two long plaits down her back and whose dress was of
primrose yellow, “is the fair Maid Rosalind. She can sing like a
nightingale and dance like a wave of the sea, and when she churns butter
it comes out pure gold.”
The girl stood up and made a curtsy. “Thanks, kind Master Roderick,” she
said. “But perhaps your friend Master Ben doesn’t care for gold on his
bread.”
“The more fool he,” answered Fitzhugh.
“However, he can eat plumcake.” And Ben’s host pushed a plate of
delicious-looking cake toward his guest.
“Yonder man in the high boots, with the fierce mustaches,” Fitzhugh
continued, “bears the high-sounding name of Sir Marmaduke Midchester. He
looks like a sword swallower, but he is really as gentle as a lamb. He
has been known to eat crumbs out of Maid Rosalind’s hand.”
“Glad to meet Master Sully,” said Sir Marmaduke. “I wrote a song this
morning—words and music both—perhaps he would like to hear me sing
it.”
Fitzhugh held up his hand. “Not just now, Marmaduke, please. Let my
guest digest his plumcake in quiet.”
So the introductions went on, with all sorts of jokes and banter. It was
a jolly crowd, and Ben was enjoying it hugely. He began to find his
tongue and make retorts of his own. But when he had finished the
lemonade and the cake he turned to his host. “I’d like to stay, but I
think I had better be getting back,” he said. “I’ve got to go out to
Cotterell’s Island.”
“No, no, Master Ben. If you’d like to stay, you shall stay. Cotterell’s
Island can wait. We need you here at present.”
“Well, but——” began Ben.
“There are no ‘buts’ about it,” answered Fitzhugh. “List to me, my lad.
This place is a green oasis in a desert of modern things. Here we do as
we please. And it pleases us now to be ladies and gentlemen of good
Sherwood Forest and Nottingham.” Fitzhugh stood up. “Come with me. I’ll
find you more fitting clothes than those simple togs you have on.”
Ben grinned. He was fond of dressing up and had often acted in school
theatricals in Barmouth. He didn’t know what Fitzhugh and his friends
were planning, but he thought he would like to take part in the game.
After all, his car would take him quickly back to town and he could
paddle out to the island by moonlight, if necessary. So he followed
Fitzhugh indoors and up a wide staircase to the second floor.
When he came down again he wore brown doublet and hose, with a brown
cloak slung from his shoulders and a broad-brimmed brown hat on his
head. There was a chorus of approval from the group on the porch.
“Master Ben, apprentice to an armorer,” Fitzhugh introduced him. “And
now, my lads and lasses, let us hie us out to the greenwood tree.”
There was nothing formal about Roderick Fitzhugh’s friends. The crowd
had hardly more than descended the steps of the porch when the girl
called Maid Rosalind and the man called Sir Marmaduke Midchester each
took one of Ben’s hands and raced across the lawn. Luckily Ben had
pulled his broad-brimmed hat on tight. His cloak flew back from his
shoulders. And he heard shouts and laughs from the rest of the party as
they followed pell mell.
The lawn of the Gables was wide and gently sloping. When Rosalind and
Sir Marmaduke finally slackened speed Ben found they had come to a
corner where poplars and spruces made a background against a road. One
oak tree stood out by itself, and there was a small house with
picturesque criss-crossed windows and a door with big curved hinges.
“There,” said Sir Marmaduke, “behold the Forest of Sherwood! There
aren’t so many trees, but each of them is a giant.”
Rosalind flung herself down near the oak. “Oh, Master Ben,” she panted,
“fan me with your hat.”
And while Ben gallantly flapped his hat close to the red-cheeked lady,
the others came bounding into the glade, like so many children just let
out from school.
In a few minutes Fitzhugh, a paper in his hand, was calling out
directions. Ben, observing everything, saw a couple of men crossing the
lawn with what looked like a big camera. He turned to Rosalind. “I know
what it is,” he whispered. “You’re moving-picture people doing a play.”
“Good for you,” she answered. She nodded toward Fitzhugh. “He wrote the
plot, and we’ve been dressing up and doing it every day this week.”
The play began, and went on for an hour or so, with frequent
interruptions. Some scenes were done over and over again before Fitzhugh
was satisfied with them. He found a part for Ben, and instructed him
carefully how to act before the camera. And whenever the company got
tired the cameramen turned off their machine, and the actors lounged on
the greensward while somebody sang or did a fancy dance.
It was great sport, and Ben was surprised when, glancing toward the
west, he saw that the sun had set behind the trees.
“I must be going,” he said to Fitzhugh. “I’ve had a splendid time.”
Fitzhugh waved his hand at the cameramen. “That’s enough for to-day. We
always end with a woodland dance, Ben, and then, back to the house for
dinner.”
“I can’t stay to dinner,” began Ben; but before he could say more
Rosalind and another girl had each caught a hand of his and the whole
company had spread out in a ring. Rosalind started to sing, and all the
others took up the song. There followed a dance, in which Ben did his
share, and then the crowd formed into a line, each with his hands on the
shoulders of the one in front, and led by Fitzhugh they wound across the
wide lawn and back to the Gables.
“Now,” said Ben to his host, when they arrived on the porch, “I’ll get
into my own clothes and dash back to Barmouth.”
“What? Without dinner? I can’t let you go hungry.” Fitzhugh turned to a
servant. “Show this gentleman up to the yellow guestroom and get him
whatever he wants.”
It was difficult to argue with such a positive man as that; and moreover
Ben was thoroughly enjoying his adventure. To be shown up to the yellow
guestroom, and later to dine with such a company of moving-picture
people would be a new and delightful experience. He would have a story
to tell Tom and David and John Tuckerman when he got back to the island
that would make them open their eyes. So Ben followed the servant into
the house, where the lamps were already lighted.
There was a gallery on the second floor, with ever so many rooms opening
from it. The servant went to a door and turned the knob. “This is the
yellow room, sir. You’ll find clean towels in the bathroom. If you want
anything, there’s an electric push button.”
Ben went in and shut the door. He had never seen a more luxuriously
furnished bedroom. He switched on an electric light and a little
orange-shaded lamp on a table shone forth. He threw his hat on the
bureau and rolled up the sleeves of his doublet.
The door of a bathroom stood open. He went in, turned on the water, and
washed his face and hands. As he was drying them with a towel he walked
over to a window. Looking out, he saw a garage and a circular driveway.
Beyond that was a lane that led back of a big barn. And on the stone
wall on the opposite side of the lane two boys were sitting.
Ben stopped using the towel, and stared. The two boys looked
surprisingly like Tom and Lanky Larry. They were at some distance from
the house and the shadow of the barn fell across the stone wall. But
they did look like Tom and Lanky. However, it was inconceivable that
those two should be sitting there. He must be mistaken. For what could
possibly have brought those two to the neighborhood of the Gables? And
why should they perch on a stone wall as if they had nothing to do?
Ben turned to go back to the yellow room; but in the doorway he stopped.
Someone was there, at the bureau, a man in a brown hat and cloak. He had
pulled a bureau drawer out and was looking in it. Some one of the guests
must have mistaken this room for his own.
“Hello,” said Ben, “I didn’t know there was anyone here.”
The man looked over his shoulder. “My mistake,” he said. “I thought this
was my room. I beg your pardon. My room is next door.”
“I don’t wonder you didn’t know the right one,” Ben said politely. “I
never saw a house with so many rooms. I say, in that cloak and hat you
look very much like me in my costume. I don’t remember seeing you in the
moving-pictures.”
“I changed my things,” muttered the man. “Sometimes I wear one set and
other times another.” He walked to the door, opened it, and went down
the hall.
“That’s funny,” said Ben, half-aloud. “He keeps his hat on in the house.
I suppose he thinks, because it’s part of his costume, it’s a perfectly
proper thing to do.”
Before the mirror at the bureau Ben put on his own broad-brimmed hat,
turned on the light at a wall-bracket, and surveyed himself in the
glass.
“The hat does help to make a fellow look different,” he said to himself.
“I guess I’ll keep mine on when I go downstairs; though I don’t suppose
it would be the right thing to wear a hat to dinner.”
He switched off both the lights and went out into the hall. The gallery
and the lower floor of the big house appeared to be empty; he supposed
the guests had all gone to make ready for dinner. He walked around the
gallery to the staircase. The afterglow of sunset partly lighted the
lower floor, and here and there soft lamps shed circles of radiance, but
for the most part the house was pleasantly shadowy, which made its fine
furnishings all the more interesting.
Ben went down the stairs and stopped in the large hall to look at a
grandfather’s clock that stood opposite the front door. Above the dial
was a painted ship that sailed on a deep-blue sea. He was admiring the
ship when somewhere in the upper part of the house someone gave a
scream.
Ben waited a moment. There was another shout. Doors on the gallery
opened. He heard people calling “What’s the matter?” There was confusion
above-stairs. Someone shouted “Lock the doors! Don’t let him get away!”
The front door was open. Ben dashed across the polished floor to shut
it.
His hand was on the knob when someone caught him from behind. A rug
slipped under his feet and he came down hard on the floor.
Someone had fallen on top of him, someone had tackled him tight about
the knees, a regular football tackle.
There was a babel of voices. Someone shouted, “We’ve got him all right!”
Ben tried to speak, to explain. “Hold on there!” he grunted.
But someone else was explaining. He heard someone say, “We heard the
yells, and we came in at the side door, and we saw this fellow dashing
for the front door.”
Then Ben heard Fitzhugh’s voice. “Well, he won’t get away now,” Fitzhugh
said. “Suppose you let him up.”
The fellow who had made the tackle released Ben’s knees and Ben turned
around and sat up.
“My eye! If it isn’t Ben Sully!”
Ben saw Tom and Lanky Larry staring at him in wide-eyed wonder.
“Of course it is, Tom, you goat!” Ben responded. “Who did you think it
was?”
“We thought you were one of the men we tracked here from the cove,” said
Tom. “They wore cloaks and hats like yours; and you did look as if you
were trying to escape.”
“I was going to lock the front door,” said Ben, getting to his feet.
“What’s the trouble anyhow, Mr. Fitzhugh?”
“Two of the ladies found things missing from their rooms—jewels,”
explained Fitzhugh. “And one of the men saw a fellow sneaking down a
passage.” He turned to Tom and Lanky. “I don’t know who you two are, but
Ben seems to, so that’s all right. Let’s see if we can find the thief.”
Immediately everyone was busy. Some went outdoors, some hunted through
the house. The Gables blazed with light; the garage and the other
outbuildings were thoroughly searched. But no thief was found, and
half-an-hour later the whole company met on the porch to talk over the
matter.
Tom and Lanky by turns told their tale, how they had seen the three men
at the cove put on cloaks and hats and how they had followed the men to
the Gables. The butler, looking rather sheepish, admitted that the boys
had spoken to him about the strangers and that he had not thought their
story merited his attention. Then Tom said that he and Lanky had sat on
the stone wall until they heard shouts in the house, and had then run in
at a side door, and in the hall had seen a fellow dressed just like the
three they had followed apparently making his escape. “We didn’t know
Ben was anywhere near here,” he added; “and anyway we wouldn’t have
recognized him in that blooming hat.”
Ben told about his finding the stranger, dressed like himself, hunting
through the bureau drawer in the yellow room. The guests who had missed
their jewels and the man who had seen someone stealing along a passage
repeated their stories. “Well,” said Fitzhugh, when they had all
finished, “you remember we couldn’t find some of the things we left in
the playhouse the other day. I believe these fellows took them, and
thought they could pass themselves off as some of my guests and ransack
all the rooms in the house.”
“They did it,” said Marmaduke Midchester. “And they must have got away
by one of the back doors while we were all here at the front.”
“Do you suppose they’ve gone back to the cove?” asked Lanky. “They might
have. They didn’t know we were following them.”
“That’s an idea,” agreed Fitzhugh. He spoke to the butler, and in a few
minutes the chauffeur and two other men were receiving instructions to
take the car and drive to the cove, look for the men, and if they were
not to be found there to drive on to Barmouth and report the thefts to
the police.
“And now, my friends,” Fitzhugh added to his guests, “let us have
dinner. Master Ben’s two pals must need sustenance after their long
tramp. Come, the soup will be getting cold.”
They were still at the dinner table when a motor horn sounded outside.
Everyone ran to the door. It was not Fitzhugh’s car, however, but a much
smaller one. From it descended David, John Tuckerman and Mr. Perkins.
“Well, I declare,” exclaimed Tuckerman, “here’s Tom and Larry! And that
fellow in doublet and hose—why, I do believe that’s Benjamin Sully!”