"Mysteries!" Donald pricked up his ears. "Oh, I say, I'd like to
hear them," and before Robin could exactly make up his mind on the
matter, the subject was well under way. "There's--well there's a
whole heap of mysteries," said Peter eagerly, "little ones and a big
one. Brownie's in some of them, at least she certainly knows
something about _one_, and I've an idea that she knows more than
she'll own about your _noise_, Jan, if you ask me. And then there's
my _noise_, and I----"
"What on earth!" gasped their bewildered cousin, who felt almost
suffocated with mysterious affairs already.
"It does seem a bit muddly, I own," Peter grinned, "but we're
properly muddled with them all, I can't tell you. First night we
slept out Jan saw a light shining from the Chase windows; thought it
was mother, and next morning thanked her politely for her beacon,
only to hear that Mother had never thought of such a thing. Of
course there might easily be an explanation of a _light_, but----"
"But," interrupted Jan, eager to have something to say in the matter,
"I've never seen it again, for I've looked. I wondered why; and
besides, I believe it shone from one of the windows of the empty
wing."
"Some servant looking round last thing?" suggested Donald.
"We've only two, and that's why the house is all shut up. They sleep
at the back on the other side. Nobody goes round at night, but there
might easily be an explanation of the light, I quite think--only, it
certainly was there. Go on about your noise, Peter."
"My noise happened at midnight or thereabout," said Peter, "I heard
it hammering and tinging away. Thump! thump! Bang! bang! as I'm
always telling everybody. Then it was gone. And Robin doesn't
believe a word of it."
"I don't say that," remarked his elder brother suddenly.
"_What?_" Peter turned like a dart, "you're coming round, are you?
How's that? You were so positive at first. Perhaps it's because Jan
heard a noise last night?"
"If you want to know the reason"--Robin stared into the fire,--"well,
I happened to have heard it myself. Not the night that you did,
Peter, but the next. You were asleep, and I lay and listened: it was
a thumping and a banging and a tinging, as you say, and----"
"Why in all the world didn't you tell us then?" demanded his younger
brother.
"I wanted to think," said Robin, "and--well I didn't hear it again.
But, of course, Jan did, last night."
"Was _she_ sleeping out, then?" inquired their cousin, wrinkling his
brows in thought. "I imagined that you said it was wet."
"No, she never does. It's against orders. And that makes the whole
thing queerer. _Our_ noise was heard when we were camping, and
didn't sound far off. It seemed to me to come through the ground,
but, perhaps, that would be vibration, for a noise carries a long way
if one puts one ear to the ground to listen," added Peter wisely.
"_Jan's_ noise, you know, was by her bed in the Cottage."
"I _never_ said so," remarked Jan eagerly; "from the wall or the
floor, or both, I couldn't tell which--_that's_ what I said!"
"Noises are queer things sometimes," was all the remark that Donald
had to contribute apparently, a rather disappointing fact from the
point of view of the three cousins, who had hoped for help from this
distinguished Scout. "But, what other mysteries are there? They're
most frightfully interesting, you know."
"Yes, aren't they? Well, there's Brownie's queer way of going on.
First asking Mother if we'd be 'fr----'; the word was stuck in her
throat by Mother's look, as I twigged, but she meant
'frightened'--frightened to sleep in the attic! Robin and me, you
know, and we're _Scouts_. Why, for a minute I thought the place was
haunted, and I felt inclined to give up the camp even, just to have a
go at hunting the spooks, but Scouts don't believe in ghosts; and it
wasn't that, it was something else!"
"What?" inquired his cousin with interest.
"Well, that's what we want to find out. The attic-place hadn't been
swept out for years, and it's crammed with lumber, old bits of
machinery and what not. There's some mystery about the former tenant
of the Cottage, I'm almost sure; gamekeeper to Grandfather he was,
you know. Dismissed, too, and gone somewhere that Brownie knows well
enough, only she won't tell. Also, who's _this_?" Peter suddenly
produced something out of his pocket and handed it across.
"I say, Peter, I didn't think you'd hung on to that," interrupted
Robin, "it's not yours. Besides, I don't know if----"
"It's not _anybody's_ except _Hooker's_! And I'll give it to him
smart enough when I find him," answered his younger brother.
"Brownie didn't ask for it, and it's not hers anyway, any more than
it's mine. And, after all, Donald's a relation; he's not a stranger,
is he? although we've never seen him before to-day; and----" he broke
off as Donald turned.
"There's no mystery exactly about this, as far as _I_ can see," he
said; "I've seen the picture before."
"What! who is it then?" inquired the three.
"Uncle Derrick--he's yours as well as ours, he's uncle to all of us,
of course. Your father's brother, and my mother's brother"--there
was rather a strange sound in Donald's voice.
"But we've never heard about him, never in all our lives," moaned
Peter, "and he looks so jolly sporting. Is he dead?"
"No," Donald was beginning awkwardly, when Robin interrupted with
authority. "Look here, Peter, you're to stow it. We'll ask Mother
to-morrow, and if she's willing we'll go on. I'm Captain of this
camp, and you're to obey orders, d'you understand?"