THE MEMENTO
“The _treasure_!” rose in an incredulous chorus.
“Do you mean that there’s a treasure hidden somewhere about Las
Golondrinas?” almost shouted Patsy.
“It is truth,” the girl affirmed. “All his life old Manuel sought but
never found. He had the despair, so he was most cruel to Eulalie,
_pobrecita_. How she hated that treasure!”
“Now we know what Rosita meant that day,” put in Bee. “When she said
old Camillo had hidden it well. Was Camillo a Fereda?”
“_Si; el caballero Camillo de Fereda_,” nodded Dolores, then laughed.
“Always I think of Camillo in Spanish,” she apologized. “I would say in
English: ‘Yes, the gentleman, Camillo de Fereda.’ He lived long long
ago. He was _el caballero_ of the painting this night destroyed. I am
glad he is gone. He had the wicked face. He _was_ wicked; the pirate
and the murderer. Eulalie has told me of him.”
“Then he must have been one of those Spanish buccaneers who sailed
the seas and attacked English ships about the time when Ponce de Leon
landed here in Florida,” declared Beatrice.
“But that was away back in fifteen something or other,” objected
Eleanor. “Las Golondrinas hasn’t been the home of the Feredas nearly
so long as that. In those days there was nothing here but swamps and
wilderness. Do you happen to know just how old this house is, Dolores?”
“Eulalie has said that many, many Feredas have lived here,” Dolores
replied. “All knew of the treasure but could not find. It was the
secret which passed from the father to the son. Manuel knew it, but
he would never tell Eulalie because she was not the son. She knew
only from him that there was the treasure for which old Manuel always
searched. She had not the belief in it.”
“Then how did Rosita come to learn of it?” interrupted Bee quickly.
“I heard her tell Carlos that long ago she spied upon Manuel. Once,
while he wandered in the woods looking for the treasure, she followed
him all the day. He lay down under the trees to sleep. While he slept
she crept to him and took from his pocket the letter and the small
paper. What was written on the small paper she could not understand,
for it was not the Spanish. The letter was the Spanish. For the many
long words she could not read it well. So she put them again in
Manuel’s pocket. But she swore to Carlos that old Camillo wrote the
letter and that he wrote of the treasure which he had hidden.”
“Did you tell Eulalie what Rosita said?” pursued Bee with lawyer-like
persistence.
“I dared not. I had the fear she might question Manuel. Then he would
have had the great anger against Rosita. Then Rosita would have killed
me. When Eulalie was the small child, Rosita was the nurse and lived
in Las Golondrinas. It was then that she followed Manuel and read the
letter. When Eulalie had the age of fourteen years, Manuel sent Rosita
away to the cottage to live. Soon after I came here.”
“Rosita couldn’t have liked Eulalie very well. When we asked her about
Eulalie that day she raved and shrieked ‘_ingrata_’ and goodness knows
what else,” related Mabel. “I can understand enough Spanish to know
that she was down on Eulalie.”
“She had the anger because Eulalie wished Las Golondrinas to be sold.
While Manuel lived Rosita dared not look here for the treasure. When
he died she was glad. She wished Eulalie to let her come here again to
live. Eulalie was weary of this place of sorrow. She cared not that
she was the Fereda. So she sold Las Golondrinas to the _señor_, your
father.”
Dolores inclined her head toward Patsy.
“Now I begin to see why Rosita had no use for us,” smiled Patsy. “She
must have had a fine time hunting the treasure before we came down here
and spoiled sport.”
“It is truth,” concurred Dolores. “All the day and often in the night
she searched everywhere. She had the keys to this house. She came here
much while it was empty. It was then, I believe, that the greatest
madness fell upon her. She knew nothing that Eulalie had sold Las
Golondrinas to the _señor_ until he came here to live. I remember how
angry she was. Still she watched and went to the house when the _señor_
was not there.”
“I have no doubt she was tucked away somewhere in the grounds watching
when we arrived,” frowned Miss Martha. “We have had a narrow escape.”
“She saw you,” instantly affirmed Dolores. “It was the surprise. She
thought the _señor_ would live here alone. Then fell the rain and for
two days she went not out of the cottage. I, also, went not out until
the sunshine returned. Then I ran away into the woods. So you came to
the cottage and I never knew.”
“It’s strange she never said a word to you about it,” mused Beatrice.
“Ah, no! She spoke to me but little; only the harsh words. It was to
Carlos she would talk, but not before me. Now I understand why she was
in the great rage when I returned to the cottage on that morning when
you had been there. You had spoken of these Feredas and Eulalie. She
was afraid you had come here to hunt for the treasure. She wished to
frighten you away.”
“Our theory was not as wild as it might have been, Patsy,” smiled Bee.
“I suppose Carlos was hunting for the treasure, too, and so helped
along this lunatic’s plans to play ghost. She could never have thought
out the idea herself. I shall have Carlos arrested and locked up as a
dangerous character,” announced Miss Carroll with stern determination.
“Carlos has no belief in the treasure.” Dolores paused uncertainly.
“I will tell you the truth. Carlos will not return. He will slip away
from the _señor_ at Miami. So he called out to me in Spanish when he
went away with Rosita. He had no plans with Rosita to play the ghost.
She only had that thought.”
“Then why did he allow her to do so?” asked Miss Carroll severely. “He
knew it. He warned our cook to beware of a ghost that walked here.”
“Carlos hates the _Americanos_. Once he was to marry the Mexican
_señorita_. She left him and married the _Americano_. Now he hates them
all. Thus he was glad to have Rosita make the trouble. He believed it
was for the sake of him more than the treasure. She told him this. She
was mad, but cunning. She deceived him. He is most stupid and easy to
deceive. He did not believe she would harm anyone. He thought she had
the malice; not the madness. Now he knows, because she sprang at him.”
“Well, I must say it’s the most preposterous affair all around that
I’ve ever heard of,” sharply opined Miss Carroll. “To come to Florida
for a vacation and be picked out as victims by a vengeful Mexican and a
lunatic! It’s simply appalling.”
“Oh, look!”
Patsy had risen and was pointing toward a window.
“What is it?” burst simultaneously from Bee, Mabel and Eleanor. Miss
Martha was sitting bolt upright in her chair as though preparing to
face the worst.
Dolores, alone, did not stir. She lay back in her chair, eyes closed.
Her strenuous watch on the house, her brave run for help through the
darkness and the fact that she had never before in her life talked
so much at one time, had combined to reduce her to a state of utter
exhaustion. All in a minute she had dropped fast asleep. She had not
even heard Patsy cry out.
“Why--did you ever! See! It’s _daylight_!”
Patsy’s voice had risen to a little wondering squeal on the last word.
Daylight it surely was. Through the windows the soft rays of dawn were
stealing, heralding the fact that day was breaking upon a company of
persons who had been too much occupied to notice the flight of time.
“Look at that child!” Miss Martha dramatically indicated the slumbering
wood nymph. “I should have put her to bed the instant she stepped
into this room, instead of allowing her to tell that long story. I am
ashamed of my lack of judgment.”
“She wanted to tell it, and we wanted to hear it,” Patsy said. “It’s
been a weird night, hasn’t it?”
“Weird, yes; altogether too weird. Go to bed every one of you, and
_lock your doors_!”
“Where will Dolores sleep, Auntie? She can’t go home. She hasn’t any
home now. She’ll have to stay with us. Won’t that be fine?” exulted
Patsy.
“Dolores will remain here with me. We’ll discuss her future later. This
is certainly not the time to discuss it. Good night, or, rather, good
morning. Off to bed, all of you.”
Miss Martha fairly shooed her flock out of the room. They departed
with laughter, their cheerful voices echoing through a corridor lately
filled with sounds of an entirely different nature.
“Enter without fear, my dear Miss Forbes,” salaamed Patsy, bowing Bee
into the room in which had been staged the first act of the night’s
drama. “The ghost is forever laid.”
Laughing, Bee stepped over the threshold. The laugh suddenly trailed
into a gasp. At the precise spot where Patsy had lassoed Rosita lay a
sinister memento of the mad “ghost.” It was a long, sharp, two-edged
knife.