Was It All a Mistake?
“Peter,” asked Judy when they were in their own car following the
lighter car driven by Danny’s father, “do you think it was all a
mistake? I mean about the meeting place?”
“‘Beaver dam’ and ‘Beverly’ don’t sound much alike,” Peter replied. “But
it does look as if one of them waited in one place and one in another.
It’s this business of his that worries me. Well, here we are.”
Danny’s father was out of his car first. He parked it under a tree and
waited for Judy and Peter a little impatiently.
“You see,” he pointed out, indicating the boarded-up windows and the
unkept yard, “the house is just as I expected to find it. There’s plenty
to do. It’s been closed for six years, but with the kids to help, it
shouldn’t take us long to put it in shape.”
“Six years, did you say? That would be about the time of the Roulsville
flood, wouldn’t it?” questioned Peter.
“About,” George Anderson replied without a change of expression. “It was
right after the flood, as I recollect it. I lost my wife a short time
before.”
He went on talking about his wife as they walked toward the house. She
used to live in Roulsville and when he said her maiden name was Mary
Turner, Judy thought she remembered her.
“She used to help Miss Pringle in the library, didn’t she? I must have
been about eight years old when I got my first library card. A girl
named Mary made it out. I remember how nicely she printed my name.”
“That was Mary all right.”
He spoke tenderly as if he had really loved her. But he claimed he loved
Meta, too. Judy supposed it was possible to love two people at the same
time although she couldn’t imagine herself being really in love with
anyone but Peter. Still, before their marriage, she hadn’t been so sure.
She tried to listen sympathetically but all the time there was that
doubt in her mind.
“Sure I planned to marry Meta, but when she didn’t keep our date and
managed to be out every time I telephoned, what could I think? I turned
to Mary for sympathy, and it soon ripened into love. It often happens,”
Danny’s father declared. “We had some good years together. Now, after
six more years, I’m back home again, and trying to pick up the pieces.”
It was an unfortunate sentence. Just then Judy noticed the pieces, not
of a shattered romance, but pieces of broken furniture. They were
scattered here and there about the yard.
“Beavers,” Peter commented. “You can see their trails through the tall
grass.”
“They didn’t get any of that stuff from my house. It is a mess, though,”
George Anderson admitted. “But the boys can help me clean up the yard.”
His step was almost jaunty as he walked up on the front porch and
inserted his key in the lock of the front door. It opened so easily that
he gave a start backwards.
“That’s odd!” he exclaimed. “I thought the lock would be rusty after all
these years.”
Was this an act, or did he really think the house had been closed that
long? He went in first and just stood there sniffing the strong scent of
varnish and glue that filled all the rooms. Judy was the first to speak.
“It’s dark in here,” she observed. “Those boarded-up windows keep out
the daylight, but we can use my flash—”
“We won’t need it,” Peter said, flicking on the light switch and
flooding the rooms with light. The dazed owner of the house stood
blinking in their bright glare.
“Wh-what’s going on here?” he finally managed to stutter.
“I was about to ask you the same question,” replied Peter. “Danny showed
me your note. Is this the business you mentioned?”
“You mean my boy thinks—” He broke off there, apparently too stunned to
finish the sentence.
Judy was a little stunned herself. The house was not a home at all. It
was a shop, complete with carpenter’s bench and sanding tools. To the
left, as she came in, she noticed a small office. And there on the desk,
in plain sight, sat a typewriter exactly like the one she had given
Holly.
“Is this—your typewriter?” she asked when she could find her voice.
George Anderson glared at her. “You knew this stuff was here, didn’t
you? I’ve read about you, always snooping around in empty houses and
giving that brother of yours ghost stories for the Farringdon paper.
You’re Dr. Bolton’s daughter, aren’t you?”
Judy nodded. She couldn’t speak because she had seen what was in the
corner. Either she was dreaming or one of her ghost stories was about to
come true. For there, on top of a neat pile of chair rungs and old
rockers, was a familiar face. In fact, there were three of them. Only
one leg from the lady table was missing.
“Look!” Judy finally exclaimed, pointing to the pile. “They’re like new,
and yet I know they must be the other three legs from our table.”
“They’ve been refinished. The fourth leg must be around here somewhere,”
declared Peter.
The marble table top was there. It was leaning against the wall waiting
for the whole table to be assembled. Judy went over and touched it to
make sure it was real.
“Now I’m like Meta Hanley. I think I’m dreaming,” she said.
“This stuff is solid enough!” Danny’s father picked up one of the table
legs. “But how in thunder did it get in my house?” he demanded. “And
what are all these tools doing on the shelves where Mary used to keep
her books?”
“We’ll find out,” Peter promised. “We’ll find your wife’s books, too.
Were they rare books?”
“They were old books, if that’s what you mean. She had quite a
collection.”
“Peter?” Judy touched his arm. “There’s a collection of rare books in
the Roulsville library. Mrs. Wheatley bought them just recently. She
could tell you the name of the book dealer.”
“Books aren’t all that’s missing,” Danny’s father observed as he walked
through the rooms. “There’s enough furniture in here to fill a
warehouse, but very little of it is mine. We’ll go upstairs later. Right
now let’s see what’s in the kitchen.”
He opened the door but could not enter. The way was blocked by piles of
furniture, most of it broken and warped.
“What’s all this?” he questioned, pushing tables and chairs out of his
way to make a path and growing more furious by the minute. “Someone has
turned my house into a shop for rebuilding old furniture. Most of this
stuff looks as if it had been through a flood!”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Peter replied evenly.
“And you’re accusing me of stealing it?”
“I didn’t say that. I did have an idea we might find something like this
in your house,” Peter admitted. “One of those carved table legs in the
other room was stolen by beavers—”
“Now I’ve heard everything!” George Anderson exploded. “Next thing
you’ll be telling me beavers walked off with my wife’s books because
they were a little short of reading matter. You said there was a cat in
this house, too, didn’t you? Did the cat turn on the electricity?”
“No, but he was here,” Judy began, smiling in spite of herself. She had
almost forgotten poor Blackberry in the excitement, but he was sure to
be around somewhere. “Your son trapped him,” she started to explain to
Danny’s father, but he wouldn’t let her finish.
“Well, I’m no cat, and you can’t trap me,” he broke in furiously as he
started toward the door.