HATTIE MAY came over early next morning. She was in a frightful temper
and declared she was going to take the next train back to Mason’s Cove
and leave Hamish to his fate.
“What’s he done now?” I inquired. “No more run-ins with the police, I
hope?”
“So far as I’m concerned,” she stated, “he could languish in a foul
dungeon before I would lift a finger to extrapate him!”
“Extricate, I expect you mean,” I said. “But what has he done?”
She flung herself into Aunt Cal’s rocker on the back porch and began to
rock violently. “He locked me in my room, that’s what he did!”
“Locked you in your room? But whatever for?”
“You’ll have to ask him that! It was last night. As soon as I was
convinced he actually meant to carry out his crazy plan of watching
that house, I told him he shouldn’t go one step without me.”
“Yes, well? I suppose he didn’t take to the notion?”
“My dear, he just shut up like a clam. And all during supper I couldn’t
get a single solitary civil word out of him. It made me awfully
embarrassed, sitting at the table with the other people all chatting
away and him acting like that! Never once opening his mouth except to
shovel in food.”
“Disgusting!” I agreed.
“Well right after supper I went upstairs to get me a heavy sweater
because I knew if I’d got to sit up all night out in your yard I’d need
it. Well I was rummaging in the closet when I heard the door close very
softly and locked from the outside! Can you imagine! The ingrate had
followed me upstairs, waited till my back was turned and then turned
the key.”
“But how did you get out?” I asked, stifling a desire to giggle. “Did
the ingrate return?”
“I suppose he must have,” she answered indifferently. “The door was
unlocked this morning. He didn’t appear at breakfast so I suppose he’s
asleep.”
“I know how you must feel, Hattie May,” said Eve sympathetically. “But
I suppose Hamish felt that what he had to do was a man’s job——”
“Man’s job!” she interrupted, with a scornful snort.
“Well he felt that girls around would sort of gum things up. He sent us
packing in pretty short order.”
“Then he came?” she asked with curiosity. “Did anything happen?”
I told her about Aunt Cal’s interruption of the vigil and then about
the departure of the mysterious stranger from the house next door.
“My goodness,” she exclaimed when I had finished. “Then there is
something to it. The man’s a crook or he wouldn’t sneak off like that
in the dead of night. I certainly am glad Hamish wasn’t there to see
him, though. Why he might have been trailing the man yet, he might even
have followed him onto a ship and gone to sea!”
“Well, you know persistence is a fine quality,” I remarked.
“Oh, yes, it’s all very well for you to stand up for him but you didn’t
spend the night under lock and key. I kept waking up and thinking what
I would do if there was a fire, and I thought how Hamish would feel
when he gazed at my charred body!”
“Oh, well, there wasn’t any fire and you spent a comfortable night in
bed instead of on the damp ground,” Eve said soothingly.
Hattie May seemed to be thinking. “I do think it’s a crime that a man
like that should be allowed to escape,” she said at last. “I wonder if
Hamish knows about it?”
“Well, since you’re not on speaking terms with him,” I giggled, “I
don’t see how you’re going to find out. Besides if you’re leaving on
the afternoon train——”
“Oh, I suppose I’d better stick around,” Hattie May said. “We can’t be
sure that the fellow has gone back to sea and—there’s the key!”
But for all Hattie May’s sticking around, no more was seen of Captain
Trout’s mysterious visitor. Aunt Cal reported to the local constable
that a tramp attempted to pass the night in her yard and the following
evening we saw a uniformed figure peering over our hedge just after
dusk. But apparently discouraged by his failure to round up anything
more criminal than Daisy June chasing fireflies, he soon abandoned the
pursuit and retired—we guessed—along with other respectable citizens
to the shelter of his own roof.
So much for the tramp! As for Captain Trout—whom Hattie May now dubbed
our perfidious neighbor—nothing much was to be got out of him. A
guarded reference on Eve’s part to his late guest elicited merely the
statement that he, the Captain, couldn’t stomach so much fried food and
had sent the fellow packing.
It was one day after dinner, the following week, that Aunt Cal, who had
spent the morning baking, said she had made a little spice cake for
Mrs. Viner. “I was expecting to take it out to her this afternoon,” she
remarked, “but Rose has called a meeting of the Civic Betterment to see
about those folks burning rubbish in the lot beyond the millpond. Of
course the cake will keep——”
“Oh, do let us take it out, Aunt Cal?” I begged. “We’d just love to.”
“I don’t know about that,” she shook her head doubtfully. “After what
happened to my dandelion wine——”
“Oh, please don’t hold that up against us,” Eve pleaded. “You must
admit the circumstances that time were unusual. Hamish isn’t likely to
fall into another well—at least I hope not!”
No one can resist Eve for long. And so in the end, Aunt Cal packed the
cake in a basket and entrusted it to our keeping. “Tell Mrs. Viner I’ll
be out to see her in a few days,” she said. “That is, if you see her!”
she added dryly.
I took the basket. “Aunt Cal,” I said, “this day will vindicate our
reputation, you can depend upon it!” I blew a kiss toward her as I
opened the door.
“Well, if you take my advice,” she sent a parting shot after us, “you
won’t make any stops on the way.”
We decided to walk down the shore road and call for Hattie May. She had
been so disappointed at our failure to take her to Millport on
Michael’s affair that we were anxious not to seem to slight her again.
“But I’m not at all sure she’ll be good for the invalid,” Eve remarked.
“She’s quite as likely as not to tell her she’s looking poorly or start
talking about some lovely funeral she went to!”
We found her alone. “I’ve just finished a letter to Mother,” she said,
“and I guess Hamish’ll be hearing from Dad before long!”
“You don’t mean he’s still acting strangely?”
“My dear, I scarcely see him at all except at meals and he won’t tell
me a solitary thing!”
We caught the two o’clock bus from the square and at a little before
three were opening the gate of the big stone house which Aunt Cal had
described to us. Somewhat to my relief, we found the invalid much
improved and sitting out in the sun. She welcomed us cordially and I
guessed that she was pleased enough to have some one new to talk to. We
chattered on, telling her about school, about Hamish’s fall into the
well and about our discovery of the statue of Circe at the bottom of it.
“Dear me,” she exclaimed, “what a terrible experience for the poor boy.
I wonder that he retained his reason, I’m sure I shouldn’t have!”
“I’m not a bit sure that he has,” Hattie May said feelingly, “at least
not all of it. The way he acts!”
We laughed and Mrs. Viner said, “I remember so well when the old
Captain—as we used to call him—first set up those statues in his
garden. My, what a lot of talk it made!”
“You knew Aunt Cal when she was a girl, I suppose?” I said.
“Oh, dear, yes, we went to school together. At the old district school
that was torn down when they put the state road through.”
“Did you know my uncle, Tom Poole, too?” I asked.
“Yes. Cal and Tom were married the year before the old Captain died.
When she came back from the West, I hoped I would have her for a
neighbor but—well, things turned out differently,” she added
discreetly.
We talked on till suddenly Eve jumped up. “We were cautioned the other
time we started to call on you not to stay more than ten minutes,” she
said, “and not to talk any nonsense. I’m afraid we’ve broken both
rules.”
“The idea!” Mrs. Viner laughed. “You mustn’t take your Aunt too
seriously.”
“But we really must go now,” I agreed. “You see our reputation is at
stake today. Aunt Cal doesn’t really trust us out of her sight any
more.”
“Cal’s bark is a lot worse than her bite,” Mrs. Viner returned. “And
you’re to tell her from me that I’m feeling much better for your visit.”
A short distance beyond Mrs. Viner’s gate, Eve stopped suddenly. “If
there was any other way to go home,” she said, “I’d be in favor of
taking it.”
“Well there isn’t,” I retorted. “And if you find that old house so
enticing that you can’t even walk by it, it’s just too bad! For my part
I wouldn’t care if I never saw it again.”
“Just the same let’s—well, let’s rest a minute,” she said. “Here on
the wall.”
“Rest? Gracious we’ve just started!”
Eve sat down. “I just happened to think,” she said carelessly, “that
it’s about time for Michael to come along.”
“Huh!” I retorted. “I’ll bet you’ve been planning to wait for him all
the afternoon. I think you’re a shameless hussy!”
Hattie May giggled. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t wait for him,” she
said. “If he has his wagon he’ll give us a lift.”
“Yes, and if he’s on his bicycle, he’ll wave his hand and go sailing
by. And we’ll miss the bus!”
We were still arguing when the faint rattle of a wagon fell on our ears
and a moment later, Michael’s blue shirt and brown head appeared above
the brow of the hill. “Hello,” he called as he drew alongside of us,
“waiting for some one?”
“Just resting,” Eve told him with a twinkle.
“Don’t want a lift then?” he grinned.
“Well perhaps we might—what d’you think, girls?”
But Hattie May was already in the front seat and Eve and I climbed into
the rear as we had done that first day when we had fairly to beg for a
ride.
“Anything new in the mystery line?” Michael inquired with a slap of the
reins.
“Well,” said Eve between jolts, “your friend Captain Trout has been
harboring a visitor—a kind of cooking recluse, if you know what I
mean. But he left in the dead of night arrayed in white trousers and a
visored cap.”
Michael did not seem greatly impressed by these revelations. “The
Captain knows a lot of seafaring birds,” he said. “Very likely the
fellow blew in between sailings.”
“Then you don’t think it was Bangs?” I asked.
“How should I know. But there’s something else you might be interested
in—somebody’s been digging up that old garden again.”
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