Hattie May giggled. “Look, the fat lady is waving!”
“Come on,” Eve started for the wall. “I’ll explain everything
satisfactorily to Aunt Cal.”
We climbed back over the wall. Miss Blossom beamed upon us. “We’re out
joy riding,” she explained. “I told Cal she needed a little relaxation
from her responsibilities. We’ve been doing forty miles an hour before
we struck the hill!”
“We thought,” Aunt Cal remarked pointedly, “that we might meet you
coming home!”
“Oh,” I said confusedly, “we are—I mean we’re going on directly—we’re
just waiting for Michael.”
But Aunt Cal did not seem to be listening to my halting excuses.
Instead, I saw that her eyes—and her thoughts with them, I
guessed—had strayed beyond me toward the house dreaming there in the
soft sunset light.
“My, how sweet it smells!” exclaimed Miss Blossom. “I wonder if those
tea roses are still blooming? Do you remember them, Cal? They were the
sweetest ones I ever knew! What d’you say we take a peek around?”
Aunt Cal seemed to come back with a start. “Get out if you wish, Rose,”
she said. “I hardly think I care to do so.”
“Oh, come on,” Miss Blossom urged. “Stretch your legs a little.” She
began, as she spoke, lowering her massive bulk onto the running board.
We gave her a hand over the wall, though she was surprisingly agile for
one of her size. The tall grass fell away before her as at the advance
of a steam roller. “My,” she exclaimed, “what a jungle!” She turned
again, “Come on, Cal,” she urged.
Aunt Cal seemed to hesitate. And then I saw that she, too, was getting
out of the car. We came, all five of us, back to the garden. Michael
was still absent. Miss Blossom sank panting on the edge of the
fountain. “My land! It’s just a crime to let a place run down like
this!” she commented. “’Member the time we went wading in this
fountain, Cal?”
But Aunt Cal, if she remembered, did not say so. She was standing
erect, gazing about her. And it was not so much sorrow at the sight of
the neglect and decay that I read in her face as regret for something
that is past and gone forever.
Suddenly Michael came advancing toward us. “Hullo, there,” Miss Blossom
called. “Is the house unlocked? Could we go inside?”
To my amazement Michael nodded. “Yes,” he said, “it’s unlocked.”
“But I thought you said,” Eve began and then stopped.
“Good!” said Miss Blossom. “Then we can take a look around.”
“Oh, no, Rose!” Aunt Cal spoke up sharply. “Not inside!”
“But why not?” returned the other matter-of-factly. “If the agent’s so
careless as to leave the place unlocked, he couldn’t object to our
going in. I’d just love to see how the old place looks—I hear it’s
just about as Carter left it.”
“It isn’t much to see,” Michael remarked. “Just a musty old place.”
“Michael Gilpatrick,” Miss Blossom demanded accusingly, “is there some
reason why you don’t want us to go in. Out with it—what mischief have
you been up to?”
Michael’s brown face reddened at the memory of last Saturday night. “I
only went after my flashlight,” he said a trifle lamely. “I left it
somewhere around——”
Miss Blossom jumped up spryly. “Well, anyway, I’m going in,” she
declared. “Come on, Cal, don’t be sentimental!”
I got up too. I found myself suddenly sharing Miss Blossom’s curiosity.
Eve and Hattie May followed us and, as we reached the door, I saw Aunt
Cal and Michael reluctantly bringing up the rear. Aunt Cal wore a
strange expression as if some inner force were compelling her against
her will.
Miss Blossom pushed open the door and advanced into the kitchen. “My,”
she snorted, “what a stuffy place! What this house needs is a good
airing and”—she glanced sharply around—“a good scrubbing with strong
soap and plenty of elbow grease. Look at that range, Cal!”
But Aunt Cal did not look at the range. She was staring ahead at the
open door and at the wide hall beyond it. It was as if she expected to
see someone advancing out of the shadows.
Then Hattie May’s high-pitched voice broke in. “Listen,” she said,
“what’s that noise!”
“I don’t hear anything,” I said. “And I guess you don’t either, it’s
just your imagination.”
“But I did, I tell you. There! There it is again!”
For an instant we all stood listening. And sure enough, there was
something, a gentle tapping noise coming from far down the hall. “My
land, the place is haunted!” Miss Blossom giggled nervously. “Oh,
girls, I’m scared!”
Eve looked at Michael. “Do you know what it is?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “No, but I think it’s time I found out!” He walked
toward the open hall door as he spoke.
To my amazement, Aunt Cal hurried after him. She was just behind him as
he put out his hand for the handle of the parlor door. “Be careful,
Cal!” Miss Blossom called in a whisper. “I wouldn’t——”
Aunt Cal paid no heed. And as Michael opened the door she advanced with
him across the threshold. From where we stood in the middle of the hall
we heard a startled exclamation. Then suddenly, like a breath of fresh
air, came Michael’s clear ringing voice breaking from surprise into
laughter. “Hamish! What on earth——?”
We all crowded forward. In the middle of the shuttered parlor stood
Hamish, looking very much like a small boy caught stealing jam. His
face was flushed, his shirt rumpled and I noticed a filigree of cobweb
clinging to his hair. “Just a little private investigating I been
doin’,” he offered the explanation sullenly as we all clustered
wonderingly about him. “But of course,” he added petulantly, “I can’t
get anywhere with a lot of folks bustin’ in on me!”
“Hamish Lewis, what are you doing in this house?” Hattie May demanded
shrilly. “Look at your shirt and that tear in your trousers!”
Hamish regarded his sister coldly. “All a girl thinks about is
clothes,” he muttered.
I was scarcely listening to this interchange. Ever since I had entered
the room I had been conscious of something which had not been there
before. This was a curious odor, a heavy, sweet aromatic smell. A smell
which reminded me of the East and vaguely, too, of something else, that
awakened a hazy memory.
“Mercy, what smells so funny!” Miss Blossom was sniffing the air.
“Guess you mean that jar that got spilled.” Hamish, still with a highly
injured air, pointed to where a small bronze jar lay overturned in
front of the fireplace. “I moved that cabinet a little,” he added, “and
that jar fell out and spilled. It had that funny smelling stuff inside.”
Aunt Cal went over to where the jar lay and, stooping, began gathering
up the scattering of dried brown particles and stuffing them back.
“It’s the jar of myrrh,” she murmured, “that Uncle Judd brought back
from Arabia.”
It was then that I suddenly found myself saying a thing for which I was
totally unable to account. The words seemed to come out of themselves,
almost as if another person had spoken them. “The cabinet,” I said,
“doesn’t belong there anyway.” And I added inconsequentially, “It’s
right in the way of the cupboard.”
“Cupboard?” Eve looked at me strangely. And Hattie May said, “I don’t
see any cupboard. What on earth are you talking about?”
“The cupboard there by the fireplace,” I insisted.
“Sandy,” said Eve anxiously, “what’s the matter with you? There isn’t
any cupboard. You can see that.”
“Yes there is,” I returned positively. “It’s where they kept the china
duck.”
Of course they were all staring at me now as if they thought I had
become light-headed. “It’s very close in here,” I heard Miss Blossom
murmur. “Don’t any of these windows open?” And Eve asked, “Do you feel
all right, Sandy?”
Then Aunt Cal said a surprising thing. “I do seem to recall a cupboard
there at the right of the fireplace,” she said slowly. “I had forgotten
it entirely,” she looked at me oddly. “I can’t think how you knew,” she
added.
Hamish, saying nothing, now walked over to the fireplace and began
feeling along the pink rosebud wallpaper which edged it. Suddenly he
began to tear at it. “Sufferin’ sunfish! I b’lieve you’re right, Sandy!
I believe there is a cupboard there—see, there’s the edge of the door!
And me lookin’ in the chimney!”
“Looking for what?” Eve demanded. But Hamish did not answer her. He was
too busy tearing away strip after strip of the rosebuds. We all
gathered around to watch. Nobody seemed to care at all that the
wallpaper was being ruined.
As for me, my heart was beating strangely as the outline of the
cupboard came into view. Inch by inch it was revealed. But how had I
known?
At last the paper was all off and we were gazing at a good sized door
set in the wall about four feet above the floor. There was no handle or
knob, that had evidently been removed when the paper was put on. Hamish
took out his knife and thrust it into the keyhole. “Locked,” he
announced.
“Well don’t that just beat all!” Miss Blossom cried. “How long do you
calculate it’s been covered up, Cal?”
Aunt Cal shook her head. “It must have been done after Uncle Judd
died,” she said. “I remember hearing that Carter had some of the rooms
papered before he went away.”
Miss Blossom nodded. “Like as not the paper hanger did it himself
without consulting anybody. If it was that Jed Button from Millport I
wouldn’t put it past him! I remember the time he did ma’s room——”
But no one seemed to be listening to Miss Blossom. We were all intent
on watching Michael as he tinkered with the lock. “Guess it’s no use
botherin’ with it,” Hamish remarked. “I guess it’s getting pretty
late.” He took out his watch.
Michael looked at him suspiciously and went on tinkering. Then suddenly
Eve gave a gasp. “Why,” she cried, “the key! Where’s the key? The one
we found in the tobacco tin?”
“Why of course,” almost screamed Hattie May. “Why didn’t we think of it
before? Hamish, you’re the one who took it! Where is it?” Then
accusingly, “You’ve been keeping it back on purpose, you wanted to wait
till we were gone!”
To this accusation Hamish’s only answer was a shrug and a sigh as he
plunged his hand into his trousers’ pocket and drew out the key. With a
grin Michael took it and thrust it into the keyhole. There was a click
and Hattie May gave another scream. “It fits!” she cried. “It fits!”
But the lock was rusty and the key refused to turn. “Needs oiling,”
Michael remarked.
“There’s an oil can in my car,” Miss Blossom suggested. “We’ve just got
to get this cupboard open before we go! Like as not we’ll find the
family skeleton in it or something!” she added with a laughing glance
toward Aunt Cal. Aunt Cal did not say a word.
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