THE morning mail brought a letter from Hattie May. Eve was busy
spreading carpet rags on the tin roof of the porch outside our bedroom
window. We had forgotten and left them in the side yard and, as it had
rained practically the entire night, the results can be imagined. Our
only hope now was that the warm sun would dry them before Aunt Cal
discovered what had happened.
“Eve,” I called, “here’s a letter from Hattie May. What do you think it
says!”
Eve poked her head in at the window. “I think the colors are really
going to be improved,” she said. “The fading has made them softer, sort
of artistic looking.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, “though I doubt if Aunt Cal will appreciate the
effect! But don’t you want to know what Hattie May says? Aren’t you at
all curious?”
“Nothing sensible, I’ll be bound. What’s she up to now?”
“She’s coming here!”
“What! Not to Fishers Haven?”
“Yup. She wants to help us solve the mystery, she says.”
Eve climbed into the room. “Sandy,” she demanded sternly, “what have
you been writing her?”
“Why, nothing. I thought she ought to know that our vacation wasn’t
promising to be as dull as she had prophesied, so I just mentioned a
thing or two—guardedly, of course.”
“Too guardedly, I guess,” Eve retorted. “She probably thinks there’s a
lot more to it than there is!”
“But isn’t there?” I asked. “I mean to say, we don’t know yet what
there is to it!”
“Sandy, you know perfectly well that Hattie May can’t keep even the
tiniest secret five minutes.”
“Well, she’s coming anyway and it’s too late to head her off. And that
isn’t all,” I giggled. “She’s bringing Hamish with her—or rather he’s
bringing her. Seems he’s got a car.”
“Not—not that boy with the sticky-out ears! Not actually!” Eve dropped
onto the sea chest, consternation in every line of her face.
“Yup, they’re driving up from Mason’s Cove, wherever that is. It
appears their family is spending the summer there. They’re going to
stay at a hotel or inn or whatever there is, Hattie May says. She says
her parents consented because she told them my father was a missionary,
so they’re sure we’re respectable.” I gave another giggle.
Eve groaned. “No doubt their parents are only too pleased to lose sight
of Hamish for a while,” she remarked.
“Oh,” I returned lightly, “I can imagine worse boys than Hamish.”
“Well, I haven’t your imagination,” Eve returned feelingly. “When did
you say they were coming?”
“Well, the letter says tomorrow. But as it isn’t dated and the postmark
is blurred, it might be they’ll be here today.”
“Today! Well you’d better go down and break the news to your aunt!”
“But I don’t see why that’s necessary—they won’t bother her.”
“Don’t be too sure,” returned Eve darkly.
Aunt Cal departed soon after dinner that day to attend the weekly
meeting of the Ladies’ Civic Betterment Society. The carpet rags were
all dry and Eve and I determined to get a lot of sewing done on them to
make up for our carelessness in leaving them out in the rain. Eve
thought that, once they were sewed and wound into balls, Aunt Cal might
not notice the change in color which many of the pieces had undergone.
We established ourselves in the shade of the side yard. Adam came and
stretched himself in the sun nearby. He had shown no desire to leave
the premises since Daisy June had taken up her residence next door and
had manifested considerable irritation that morning when the kitten had
pounced at his tail from underneath the hedge.
We were discussing what we now termed The Craven House Mystery as we
did much of the time when we were alone. We could not decide what we
ought to do with the old letter which Michael had returned to us.
“Well, whatever you do, don’t show it to Hamish or Hattie May,” Eve was
saying. And it was just at that moment that I looked up and saw a green
roadster drawing up at the gate. I knew at once by the frantic waving
of the girl beside the driver that it was Hattie May. “There they are!”
I cried, jumping to my feet. “Come on, Eve!”
“Oh, Sandy, darling, it seems perfect months since I saw you!” Hattie
May threw herself upon me in her usual effusive manner. Her brother,
climbing out of the other side of the car, was peering around with
small bright eyes behind thick glasses, as if he fairly expected some
mysterious phenomenon to develop right there before his eyes!
“I say,” he demanded without the formality of greeting, “have you seen
the fellow who wears a wig again?”
“Oh, yes, do tell us all the latest developments!” Hattie May cried. “I
can hardly wait to hear.”
“Mr. Bangs has left town,” replied Eve coldly. “And nothing more has
happened. I’m really afraid you’re going to be disappointed, Hattie
May, if you think anything is going to. I’m afraid Sandy has given you
a wrong impression—this isn’t like a mystery thriller, you know!”
“But my dear,” my roommate exclaimed, “surely there is some treasure
buried in that old garden. What else _could_ that cryptic message mean?
Tell me, haven’t you found a thing?”
Well, I guess we both saw that there was nothing for it but to tell
them everything. If we didn’t, Hattie May would begin to imagine all
sorts of startling things that weren’t so, and might even end in
blurting out something and getting us in bad with Aunt Cal.
So we all repaired to the side yard and sat down on the grass. And
while Eve went inside for cold tea and cookies, I told Hattie May and
her brother briefly just how far we had got—or hadn’t got, rather—in
unravelling the mystery and how we had gone about it.
Hattie May, as was to be expected, kept interrupting and asking all
sorts of foolish questions. Hamish said nothing at all but his eyes
were very bright and eager as he listened. When I had finished, he got
up. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better go right out there and have a
look round.”
I suppressed a giggle. The pride of Scotland Yard, called in as a last
resort, to solve a baffling crime, couldn’t have spoken with more
importance! “But gracious, Hamish,” I exclaimed, “there’s nothing to
see!”
“Just let me have a look at that letter,” he continued, “so’s I’ll get
the measurements straight.”
Eve came out with the refreshments. “Hamish,” I said, with I fear, a
trace of sarcasm, “is going right out to dig up the treasure!”
“He’ll have to wait for me,” declared his sister. “I’m going to have
some tea first.”
Hamish’s eyes lighted on the cookies. “Oh, well,” he said and sat down.
It ended finally in our producing the letter and then all piling into
the car and driving out to Craven House. Neither Eve nor I was willing
to let Hattie May and, her brother go without us. But I did wish that
Michael were along, somehow it seemed his affair as much as ours.
Hattie May went into ecstasies over the house and, most of all, over
the garden. “My _dear_,” she cried, “I think it is absolutely the most
romantic place. Can’t you just see that old miser bringing his gold and
jewels out here on a dark night——”
“But he wasn’t a miser,” I protested. “And he didn’t have any gold.”
“Nonsense, you needn’t tell me,” she retorted. “He buried something,
didn’t he?”
“Well, we don’t actually know——” I began, but Hattie May had
disappeared after Hamish into a thick growth of underbrush.
For my own part, the old garden had never appeared so thoroughly
unattractive as it did today. It was very hot in the mid-afternoon sun
and heavy with the scent of overgrown vegetation. I sat down on the
edge of the fountain and tried to imagine what it had been like in the
old days, the days when Captain Judd had taken such pride in it and
folks had driven from all around in their buggies to see the funny
statues he had brought from over the sea. I tried to see it with the
paths and flower beds that were now almost entirely lost to view. I
wondered what the Captain’s wife had been like, the woman called Emily,
who hated the sea. Had she loved the flowers and tended them as Aunt
Cal would have done?
Then I fell to thinking of Aunt Cal and wondering what she would have
done to the place had it fallen to her. I could fancy how she would
have enjoyed scrubbing and painting the house and putting it in order
again. And the garden—I smiled to myself when I thought of my
indomitable relative coming to grips with that garden.
Meanwhile the others were wandering about, poking into every niche and
corner for some trace of the missing statue. I believe Hattie May had
expected to discover it almost at once and I could see that she was
considerably crestfallen when she at last returned to join me at the
fountain. “It’s very baffling!” she sighed, wiping her burning face.
“If we could only find the pedestal where the thing stood, that would
be enough.”
Hamish did not give up easily. But at last we persuaded him to abandon
his efforts for the time being, for as Eve pointed out there was really
no fear that Mr. Bangs would get ahead of us so long as the Circe was
missing.
“Unless,” said Hamish astutely, “he has taken it away on purpose!”
“You don’t mean you think he has stolen the statue?” cried his sister.
“Why should he do that?”
“To keep anyone else from finding the treasure of course, stupid. It
looks to me as if we were up against a very clever crook!”
I giggled. “Oh, don’t be absurd,” I said. “Mr. Bangs doesn’t know we’re
interested in his search—why should he? And if he knew where Circe
was, he’d go ahead and dig and find out what there was to find.”
Hamish however clung to his theory. It was the only explanation, he
said, for the absence of the statue. As we were packing ourselves into
the car for the return trip the rattle of a wagon sounded up the road
and Michael drove into view. Eve called to him and at the mention of
his name, Hattie May was out of the car with a bounce.
“Oh,” she cried, “I’ve been wanting so much to meet you! Ever since I
heard how you chased that desperate villain the other night! I think
you were absolutely the bravest thing!”
Michael’s face assumed its stoniest aspect. I feared that he and Hattie
May were not going to get along. “We’ve been looking about the garden
again,” Eve said hurriedly to fill up the awkward pause. “But we didn’t
find anything.”
Michael nodded. “Guess there’s nothing to find,” he remarked
noncommittally. With that he gathered up the reins and drove on.
“Well, I must say he’s a queer acting boy!” Hattie May exploded.
“You shouldn’t have gushed over him,” Eve said. “He doesn’t like that
sort of thing.”
The car was bumping down the road now. We passed Michael on the way,
but he didn’t look around. Hattie May and her brother engaged rooms at
Wildwood Lodge, a quiet little inn on the shore road. That and the big
Seaside Hotel farther down the beach were the only accommodations
Fishers Haven offered to summer guests.
Eve and I were late for supper. Aunt Cal was pouring her second cup of
tea when we came in. We told her about the arrivals and added casually
that we’d been for a drive in Hamish’s car.
“A boy of that age has no business with a car,” Aunt Cal stated
severely. “First thing you know you’ll be in one of those accidents the
papers are full of. In my day young folks didn’t go careering around
the country!”
As if he realized that his reputation was at stake, Hamish himself
reappeared directly after supper. We heard the already familiar honk of
his horn as we were finishing the dishes and a moment later, his
bespectacled face appeared at the screen door. “Is your aunt in?” he
demanded. “I’ve brought her a little present.”
“She’s in the garden,” I answered. “Just a minute and I’ll take you
out.”
But he did not wait for me to take off my apron. “I’ll find her,” he
called and was striding down the path. Eve giggled. “I warned you,” she
said, “how things would be if that boy came to town.”
I wasn’t present at the meeting of my relative and Hamish. By the time
we reached the spot where Aunt Cal and Adam were sitting, the moment
for introductions had passed. Hamish had just pulled a queer looking
package out of his side pocket and was proffering it to my aunt.
“Here’s a little gadget I picked up on my way down today,” he remarked.
“I said to myself as soon as I saw it that it was a thing any good
house-keeper’d like to own.”
Aunt Cal, apparently stunned by the quick movement of events, took the
parcel without a word and began unwrapping it. “It’s a combination
mousetrap and insect sprayer,” Hamish explained. “A new invention, just
on the market.”
“Dear me,” said Aunt Cal, turning it over. “You don’t say. Much
obliged, I’m sure.”
“Glad you like it,” returned Hamish complacently. “Thought you would.
What a handsome cat!” He stooped to give Adam’s back a rub.
But Adam—perhaps resenting the mousetrap—got up and with a backward
swish of his tail, started up the path.
“Here, kitty, kitty!” Hamish pulled a length of twine from his pocket
and began dangling it before the cat’s nose. As he did so a piece of
paper fluttered to the ground, unseen by him as he walked away.
I recognized it instantly and stooped to grab it. But Aunt Cal was
nearest and reached it first. Papers scattered about her garden were
not to be endured even for a second. She was about to crumple it in her
hand when her eyes fell on the handwriting. In an instant I saw her
face change. She was staring hard at the paper and the hand which held
it was shaking. “Wh-what is this?” she demanded in a hard strained
voice.
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