Tuckerman pulled himself up on to the rock where Tom and David and Ben
were sitting in the sun. The quiet of early morning was on the water; a
few terns were fishing for their breakfast; there was the distant
chug-chug of a lobsterman’s motor-boat somewhere to the south; but
otherwise the campers had the shore and the bay to themselves. Tuckerman
sat down, sticking his long legs out in front of him. “I may not be a
duck,” he said, “but I’m certainly getting web-feet. I feel almost as
much at home in the water as on dry land.”
“You’re a good swimmer,” said Tom. “In fact, you’re an all-around sport.
I don’t believe any of the Cotterells knew a quarter as much about the
water as you do.”
“I can’t picture Sir Peter sunning himself on this rock after a morning
swim,” said David.
“Customs change with the times.” Tuckerman slapped his wet knees. “But I
can tell you I’m glad I came on East this summer and learned to be a
real man.”
“So am I,” said Ben. “No, I didn’t mean it that way. Of course you were
a real man before. What I mean is that the camp on your island has been
a great success. It’s taught me a lot.”
“Benjie, are you really going to be a professional detective?” David
inquired. “Seems to me I heard someone say that you were thinking of
it.”
“One mistake I made at first,” Ben remarked solemnly, “was in thinking
that the men who put that chest in the rocks and those that Tom saw
leaving the island in the sailboat were the same people. I thought there
was only one set of men prowling around here, when there were really
two.”
Tuckerman smiled. “I don’t wonder you got them mixed. Well, I’m glad
Joseph Hastings’ guests got their jewels back from those thieves.”
“You see,” Ben continued, following his own line of thought, “the
thieves came out here on the night when Tom saw them in a sailboat, and
not in the fishing-smack. And I think it must have been that same
sailboat we saw close to the island the night when we returned from Camp
Amoussock in the _Argo_.” He pried loose a sliver of rock and threw it
into the water. “Naturally, I didn’t connect that sailboat with the
fishing-smack.”
“You’re forgiven,” said Tom. “Don’t let that weigh on your conscience.”
“I’m not sure,” suggested David, “but that we ought to call Benjie the
Professor and call Mr. Tuckerman, John. Benjie’s getting to be a real
professor. Just listen to the way he talks.”
“Ever since he found the treasure——” began Tom.
“Oh, let up on a fellow, can’t you?” Ben interrupted. “I haven’t
mentioned the treasure to-day.”
David gave a chuckle. “You haven’t been out of bed an hour yet. And that
puts me in mind of something important. Breakfast is waiting on the
beach.”
Four splashes of water as the campers dove from the rock. Tuckerman
could manage a very passable dive now. A swim across to the beach, a
rub-down, a quick donning of clothes, and then preparations for
breakfast. “I’ve never known coffee to taste so good as it does on
Cotterell’s Island,” said Tuckerman, draining his cup.
Tom looked up at the man with the horn-rimmed spectacles. “Have you ever
known anything to taste so good as it does on Cotterell’s Island?” he
asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“No, now I come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever have. It’s a
wonderful place.”
“Wonderful cooking, you mean,” put in David.
“Wonderful fish,” said Ben.
“Just listen to them,” expostulated Tom. “Each taking the credit to
himself. When the fact of the matter is that it’s all due to me. You’d
never have come out here, Professor, would you, if I hadn’t agreed to
come along?”
“Picture me alone here!” said Tuckerman. “No, I didn’t believe I should.
Alone on a deserted island. It sounds all right in stories; but for
practical purposes give me three companions. Boys, when I go back to my
middle-western city I’ll think a great deal about this summer on the
coast.”
“It is pretty good here,” David admitted, looking across the water to
where a white sail was peeping around a point of land. “And in winter
there’s fine skating.”
“And wonderful coasting,” said Ben. “There’s a hill back of Barmouth
where you can coast for a mile.”
“And skiing,” Tom added. “You ought to be good at that, Professor,
you’ve got such long legs.”
Tuckerman put his hands to his ears. “Hold on, hold on!” he exclaimed.
“You overwhelm me. Do you want to make me desert my home and business,
and do nothing but play?”
The three boys laughed. “We don’t play all the time by any means,” said
Ben.
“Not a bit of it,” said David. “Sometimes we wash the dishes.” And
taking Ben by the collar of his flannel shirt he lifted him to his feet.
“Benjie’ll show you how we do it.”
When they had cleaned the dishes they walked over to Cotterell Hall.
Tuckerman opened the front door, which was unlocked. “While I was so
very particular about the key,” he chuckled, “both Joseph Hastings and
the crew of the fishing-smack were coming in whenever they wanted. They
made their own keys to fit the locks. Well, I ought to have been more
hospitable.”
A week had passed since the famous party, and in that week the police of
Barmouth had found the jewels that were stolen from the Gables, and also
duplicate keys to the front and back doors of Cotterell Hall, hidden in
the cabin of the fishing-smack. On the strength of that, and of the
testimony of Tom and David and Lanky Larry as to what they had seen on
the afternoon when they were at the cove, Sam and the other men had been
held in jail for the next term of court.
“There’s one thing,” said Ben, as the four went into the big room on the
left of the hall, “that still puzzles me a bit. Why did Christopher
Cotterell write those lines in his notebook? ‘Find the mahogany-hued man
with the long, skinny legs and look in his breast pocket. That’s a
saying my father handed down. What can it mean?’” Ben looked at the
others. “What do you suppose the mahogany man did have in his pocket?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Tuckerman. “He certainly didn’t have Sir
Peter’s silver plate. That may be one of those legends, Ben, that get
changed from their original meaning as they are handed down from one to
another.”
“I suppose that may be it,” agreed Ben, though he did not look
altogether satisfied.
“Every colonial house,” Tuckerman continued, “ought to have some legend
to make it interesting. The mahogany man can be the legend of Cotterell
Hall.”
Tuckerman looked at the portrait of his ancestor. “We’ve found what you
meant by the place of the three pines and the two rocks where the sun
goes down,” he said; “but we haven’t found what it was that the mahogany
man had in his breast pocket. So you’ve still provided a conundrum for
Ben to puzzle over. Sir Peter, I don’t believe you’d have any objection
to our having found the plate. I think that to-day you’d be as good an
American as any of the rest of us.”
“Of course he would,” said Tom, “I can understand how he’d have objected
to his neighbors telling him to hand over his silver to them. I’d have
objected myself.”
Tuckerman turned to the three boys. “You approve of Sir Peter, don’t
you?” he asked. “Even if he was a Tory?”
“I do,” said Ben promptly.
“I do,” said Tom.
“I think he was a corker, Professor,” said David. “I wish he’d been in
my family.”
“And that’s the opinion of three boys of good old Barmouth families,”
said Tuckerman with a pleased smile. “Well, boys, you’re to feel free to
camp on Sir Peter’s island and use his house any time you want.”
“Now,” said Tom, “the next thing is to get the Professor to sail us
around to the north shore, so we can get Mr. Hastings’ chest and bring
it back to the house. We don’t want to leave any tempting bait for other
prowlers to find.”
They went aboard the _Argo_, and Tuckerman took the helm. He was now a
proficient skipper, and he gloried in it, as he gloried in all the new
accomplishments he had acquired in the past month.
The chest was brought to Cotterell Hall, and again the _Argo_ set sail.
This time the three boys fished, while Tuckerman handled the boat.
Flounders were biting in plenty, and soon they had enough for dinner.
Ben pulled in his line. “We’d better leave some for another day,” he
suggested.
“The wind’s just right for a southerly run,” said Tom.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Tuckerman, and brought the bow about.
South they sailed, past the flag at Camp Amoussock, past the cove with
the shacks on each side, past Joseph Hastings’ private dock, almost down
to Gosport before Tuckerman came about.
North to the island and dinner. And as they sat on the bank afterwards
and Tuckerman smoked his pipe, he said, “Well, to-morrow I must start
back to the city. But I tell you, I’ve learned more since I’ve camped
out in Barmouth Harbor than I ever learned in college.”
“If you stayed here much longer,” said David, “you’d be almost as
learned as Benjie.”
“I don’t know about that,” Tuckerman answered. “I’m not as keen-witted
as he is. I’m more lazy, like you, Dave.”
David grinned. “Well, it takes something really important to make me
move around. I wouldn’t go trailing a snuff-box all over the country.”
“It takes Lanky Larry’s pitching,” said Tom. “Dave has to get mad before
he does his best work.”
“I wasn’t mad. I was cool as a cucumber,” David responded. “I have a
nice friendly nature.”
“If it hadn’t been for my following the snuffbox,” Ben spoke up, “Joseph
Hastings wouldn’t have come out here and given his party; and if he
hadn’t given his party and told us to get our costumes up in the attic,
I wouldn’t have noticed that wallpaper; and if I hadn’t noticed the
wallpaper we’d never have found the treasure. Q. E. D.”
“There!” exclaimed David, “Ben’s off again! No, Professor, I was wrong;
you couldn’t possibly be as learned as he is; nobody could.”
“I’ve half a mind to duck you for that,” said Ben.
“Come on!” retorted David, pretending to roll up his sleeves.
“Only it’s too soon after dinner,” answered the dark-haired boy. “I’ll
overlook it this once; but don’t you do it again.”