BESS HAS HER SAY
"I just can't believe things won't turn out all right!" Bess exclaimed,
as she and her other Lakeview Hall friends sat together in Nan's room in
the great castle. "And I hate having to stay here! I don't see why they
can't let us help too! After all, Nan's our friend and if she is in
trouble, we ought to be allowed to help her get out of it."
"But Bess," Rhoda spoke softly, "they told us to stay here so that we
would be handy in case we were needed. I'm sure that if there was
anything at all in the world that we could do, Dr. Prescott would call
us."
"I'm not so sure of that," Bess answered. "She treats us most of the
time as though we were babies. It happens this time," she continued with
some satisfaction, "that we know more than anyone about what has been
going on."
"What do you mean?" Laura spoke up now.
"Well, for one thing," Bess began, "we know about the hunchback and
nobody else does."
"Do you think he has anything to do with this?" Laura looked at Bess
intently. "After all, you know, no one is certain but what Nan has just
gone out and lost herself. You all know how she likes to wander around
strange places by herself."
"I said that downstairs, myself," Bess answered, "but I don't believe it
at all. Nan wouldn't worry us like this. Moreover, when we got on the
train at Glasgow I thought I saw that old hunchback getting on, too. I
didn't say anything about it then, because I didn't want to spoil the
good time we were having. But I'm sure I saw him." She waited, watching
the effect of her announcement on the others.
"Well, that settles it," Laura got up, "I'm going right downstairs now
and tell them about him. Maybe it will help them to find Nan."
"Don't you do that." It was Bess who stopped her. "We promised Nan we
wouldn't say anything about him and we're not going to. Anyway, Dr.
Prescott would be angry to know that those things happened on the boat
and that we didn't tell her. You know she would, and it would spoil all
the rest of our trip."
"Maybe Bess is right," Grace agreed timidly. "Maybe we had just better
wait for a while and see what happens."
"We'll wait for two hours," Amelia looked at her watch, "and if Nan
hasn't come back by then, I think we should tell everything we know. It
really might help Mr. Blake. He seems terribly worried."
"Yes, there's something more to this than we know about, I'm sure. I
heard Dr. Prescott and him talking about sending for some people in the
village to help join in the search."
"Have they done it?" Bess asked quickly.
"I don't believe so," Laura answered. "She asked him to wait, to give
Nan time to come back if she had wandered off by herself. She doesn't
want any of this to get into the newspapers, if she can help it."
"Oh, if it does, it will frighten all our people back home and we'll
have to go back right away, I know," Bess was worried at this thought.
"Why didn't Nan stay here with us?"
"Maybe we ought to tell all that we know now," Rhoda returned to the
question that had been set aside a few moments before. "It certainly
can't do any harm. Dr. Prescott probably will scold us, but that's
nothing beside the risk of harming Nan by not telling."
"Rhoda's right," Laura got up once more, "and I don't care what the rest
of you think, I'm going downstairs now and tell. I just can't stand
sitting here any longer and not doing anything."
"All right, then," Bess gave in, for she too was becoming tired of just
waiting. "Let's all go down together. Are the rest of you agreed?"
Grace still seemed reluctant to go, for she was one to obey orders and
felt that if the people downstairs wanted them, they would call. She
said something of this to her friends.
"Oh, Grace, don't be so afraid," Laura was impatient with her now, "You
can just bet that, if they thought we had anything at all worth telling,
they would have asked us long ago. Now, come on, don't be a baby."
"Maybe it isn't worth telling." Grace was growing stubborn now.
"Well, all I can say is," Laura replied to this, "that if the fact that
a mysterious person went through Nan's luggage once and then followed
her from the time we got off the boat until we got here isn't worth
telling, then nothing is. Now, come on."
There was no more argument. Together the girls went downstairs to where
James Blake and Dr. Prescott were holding consultation with two
villagers who had been called in when Dr. Prescott had finally given her
consent to ask for outside help.
"You understand," James Blake was saying, as they entered, "the lassie
has gone off by herself and been lost. There is to be no word of
anything else told to anyone, but we want a thorough search made of
every likely hiding place in the neighborhood. No one would hurt her,
but as you both know, there might be good reason to keep her in hiding
until after the good king is crowned. Now, mind you, hold your tongues,
and report back to me as quickly--" He left the sentence unfinished as
he saw the girls.
"What is it lassies?" He smiled reassuringly down at them.
Laura plunged into her story without any preliminaries.
"And he was--a hunchback--red headed--with strange eyes?" The old man
seemed to grow much older even as he repeated the words. "Then it is as
I feared. The man we want is Robert Hugh Blake, my own poor, misguided
brother!"
He rubbed his hand across his face, as he spoke. For a moment, he looked
as though the whole thing was more than he could possibly stand.
Those in the room watched him silently, feeling at once how deeply he
was hurt. To Bess alone, the name, Robert Hugh Blake, had a familiar
ring. As she heard it, her thoughts flashed back to the last day on the
boat when she had surprised the hunchback at Nan's luggage. She
remembered Nan's revelation then, remembered her own puzzling over a
clue that just escaped her memory.
Now, she puckered her brows over it again and tried to go back further
over the things that had happened. There! No, it didn't quite come. She
tried harder, sure now that the fact that was escaping her had an
important bearing upon the present mystery. She went back in time over
the scenes on the boat, their farewells to their parents, the trip to
New York, the last days at school, the worry when for so long they
didn't receive any letters--
There, she had it now! It was a letter, the mysterious letter Nan had
read in their room at Lakeview! It was the letter Nan had refused to
explain, although it had left her nervous and excited! Bess remembered
the scene all quite clearly now. She knew now, as she knew then, that
Nan's explanation that it made her homesick wasn't the truth. She knew
that that letter had been the beginning of all their troubles!
Without thinking further, she blurted out what she knew about it. James
Blake, Dr. Prescott, everyone in the room listened intently to
everything that Bess had to say. For once, she made a clean breast of
everything and told all that she knew of what had been happening.
"And where, lassie, is that letter?" James Blake made a distinct effort
to forget his own sorrow at the turn of events. Action was needed now.
"I don't know, unless it is in her bags," Bess started upstairs at once.
"I'll go look." At last she felt important, as though she was doing her
part to help locate Nan.
But much as she wanted to, she couldn't find the note in question. She
looked over everything most thoroughly, admiring, even in her
excitement, the extreme neatness of Nan's bags. But she found nothing
unusual at all. She went slowly back downstairs and reported.
"Did you ever see the letter at all?" Dr. Prescott questioned her, "the
envelope, the stamps, or the postmark?"
Bess shook her head, wishing now that when she had first noticed Nan
sitting troubled over it, she had insisted on knowing what it was all
about. "If I hadn't been so interested in that old memory book," she
thought regretfully, "I might have known more now."
But regrets were of no use, now. All in the room felt regrets in one
form or another, but that did not bring Nan back.
Old James Blake had sat silently by, during Dr. Prescott's questioning,
knowing that she thought as he did, that the letter Nan had received in
Lakeview was some sort of warning as to what would happen to her, if she
left the United States. He knew, too, that in asking about the postmark,
she was trying to find out whether or not it had been mailed in
Scotland.
"There is only one thing to do," he spoke rather sadly, "and much as I
hate to have it happen, I must tell you to do it. You must ring that
bell over there, call for a servant, and either go yourself or have him
go and report this whole thing to the authorities. It's a case, I think,
for Scotland Yard."
"You are sure that that is the only course?" Dr. Prescott was most
sympathetic.
"Yes, I am sure," the old man said, "My brother, the one whom you all
call the hunchback, was injured during the late war so that he was
deformed for life and his mind was affected. He has, since his discharge
from the hospital, been a recluse, refusing to see anyone except myself
and a very few friends. He has spent most of his time searching old
family records with the aim in view of writing a family history.
"He has always loved this estate and felt, for no very good reason,
that he and I were the logical heirs. When it passed to someone across
the water, the blow almost killed him. However, he recovered, and we
kept him under close guard when Nancy's parents were here some time ago.
"Apparently, after their departure, since they left the care of the
place in our hands, he was resigned to what had happened. However, when
the old king died and he saw that our old Scotch privilege of taking
part in the coronation was given to an American, the old wound was
reopened. For days he was like a mad man around here. Then he quieted
down, and I thought that he was accepting fate again. When he
disappeared some weeks ago, I made a quiet search. Unable to find out
anything, I let the matter rest, hoping against hope that he had gone
into retirement as he often has in recent years.
"What must have happened you know as well as I. That he is somewhere in
this vicinity, I am certain, as certain as I am that he was the driver
of the coach last night on the wild drive up the hill. Why it was that
he stopped, that he didn't carry out what I think was his original
intention, to drive you all over the embankment, I can only guess.
"It wasn't for fear of losing his own life, I know. I believe that it
was concern for me. We have always been very fond of one another."
He said this last simply, and made a motion, as no one else moved, to
go himself and pull the bell chord.