TWO SECRETS DISCOVERED
Squire Brackett sat in his office, deep in thought. To say that he was
out of temper, would be putting it mildly. Something that he was trying
to do baffled him; and, being thwarted, he was irritable and unhappy. Now
when Squire Brackett was unhappy, he usually succeeded in making
everybody else with whom he came in contact likewise unhappy. Therefore,
when he betook himself to his office, of an afternoon, and sat himself
down at his desk, to attempt to solve a certain puzzle, as he had done
now for several weeks, at intervals, the members of his household kept
discreetly aloof.
Before the squire, on the shelf of his desk, lay the paper on which he
had pasted the scraps of Mr. Carleton’s letter. The first effort at a
solution of the puzzle had been one more of curiosity than aught else on
his part. He had thought it would be rather a smart achievement, to
discover something which another man had attempted to destroy, though it
probably would be of no particular importance to the discoverer. But,
from that condition of mind, he had progressed to a state wherein he
thought he saw, hidden in the fragments of the letter, something of more
than ordinary import.
As Squire Brackett had arranged them, the words and parts of words now
lay before him thus:
lock
ey
must be
sound
mbers
aboard yacht
starboa
still
under
ays
third
The squire’s increase of curiosity had resulted largely from his
interpretation of the first two fragments. At a casual glance, he had
decided that the first four letters were a part of the word,
“locker,”—which would be natural if the writer were referring to a yacht.
But he arrived at a different and more exciting conclusion, when it
suddenly dawned upon him that the first word was really complete as it
stood; that it was the word, “lock.” This, because the next two letters
clearly were part of the word, “key.”
“Of course,” he exclaimed. “If I hadn’t been stupid I’d have thought of
that before. Aha! I have a whole sentence now, by simply supplying a few
of the missing words.” He wrote as follows, picking out these words that
the letter, as he had it before him, contained: “key — lock — must be
still aboard yacht.”
“That’s plain enough for a boy to read,” said Squire Brackett. “The
sentence was, ‘The key to the lock must be still aboard yacht.’”
“Hm!” he exclaimed, rubbing his forehead, reflectively. “That’s
interesting; and it’s queer. Somebody knows a thing or two about that
boat—and that somebody, whoever he is, has been writing it to Carleton.
Still, I don’t see how that helps me. I can’t make much out of it.”
The letter, having yielded up this much of its secret to the squire,
became immediately of greater interest to him; but, at the same time, an
object of greater annoyance and perplexity. He couldn’t get the thing off
his mind. It became a sort of continual nightmare to him. Why, he asked,
should any one write to Mr. Carleton about a key to a lock aboard the
_Viking_?
Being somewhat heavy-witted, in spite of a certain natural shrewdness,
the squire did not answer his own question readily.
On this particular afternoon, however, he advanced a step farther.
“Perhaps,” he said to himself, “that word, ‘sound,’ does not refer to
timbers at all. It might be Long Island Sound, where this yacht has been
at some time, probably. Oh, I wish I had the rest of the letter.”
“I tell you what!” exclaimed the squire, “this thing is queer. That’s
what it is. Who should know anything about this yacht, and who would be
writing to Mr. Carleton about it? It couldn’t be the men that had it
before the boys got it. They were a band of thieves. What’s that? Hello!
Why not? This man Carleton has cleared out. He didn’t buy that land of
me. He never intended to; that’s what.”
“I’ve got it!” he cried, jumping up excitedly and thumping his desk with
his fist. “Chambers! Chambers! That’s the man. He’s the man that set fire
to the hotel. He’s the man that Jack Harvey captured down in the
Thoroughfare. He’s the man that knows about the _Viking_—and there’s his
name in the letter—or a part of his name.
“Those letters, ‘mbers,’ don’t mean ‘timbers’ at all. They were a part of
the name ‘Chambers.’ Yes, and those letters at the end of the list,
‘ays,’ don’t mean ‘stays,’ either, as I thought they did. That word is
‘says.’
“‘Chambers says’ something—now what does he say? I have it:
“‘Chambers says key to the lock must be still aboard yacht.’
“Wait a minute,” said the squire to himself. “That word, ‘starboard’
comes in here somewhere. Starboard—starboard—oh, I see; ‘starboard
locker.’ That first word is ‘locker,’ just as I thought in the
beginning.”
The squire wrote his translation of the letter, as he had thus far
evolved it, as follows:
“Chambers says the key to the starboard locker must be still aboard
yacht.”
“Now let me see,” reflected Squire Brackett, “that leaves only three more
words—‘sound,’ ‘third,’ and ‘under.’ Well, I don’t know what they have to
do with it. They probably referred to something else in the letter. But
what on earth can that be in the starboard locker,—that’s what I’d like
to know.”
Deeply agitated, he arose from his chair and strode up and down the room.
He rubbed his hands together in a self-satisfied way.
“Looks like I’d get even with some of ’em yet,” he exclaimed, softly.
“There’s something aboard that yacht that’s valuable—and what’s more,
that man Carleton came all the way down here on purpose to get it. I see
it—I see it. They had a locker where they hid valuables, and there’s
something there yet worth getting. Oh, I wish I had the rest of that
letter!”
The squire, forming a sudden resolve, put the precious paper in a drawer,
locked it therein, and hurried down to the tent on the point. By good
luck, he met Henry Burns coming away from it.
“How d’ye do, my boy?” he said, trying to smile agreeably and to conceal
his excitement, at the same time.
“How do you do, Squire Brackett?” replied Henry Burns, reading easily
something of more than ordinary significance in the squire’s shrewd face.
“Nice day, sir.”
“Yes—yes, so it is,” returned the squire. “See here, I’d like to hire
that yacht of yours for a few days—possibly a week. I won’t sail her, of
course. I’m no skipper. I’ll get John Hart to run her for me.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, squire,” said Henry Burns, “but we can’t let
the _Viking_. The season is most over, you see, and we want to have some
fun with her the rest of the time. We’ve begun cleaning her out and
washing her insides, ready for painting. Perhaps the crew will let you
have the _Surprise_, though. I guess Harvey will be willing.”
“Well, now,” said the squire, “supposing I pay you ten dollars for her,
just for four days. I’ll take—”
“No, sorry to refuse,” said Henry Burns, “but I don’t see how we can do
it. Besides, we’ve got lots of money, ourselves, you know. We’ve been
mackereling.”
The squire continued his urging, but Henry Burns was obdurate. The
_Viking_ couldn’t be hired—by Squire Brackett, at least. He went home,
fuming inwardly.
“If I only had the rest of that letter,” he kept repeating. “I don’t dare
to offer them very much, on a mere chance. It might turn out like that
land I bought of Billy Cook.”
The squire, having his mind thus tantalized, began to worry over the
mystery and even to dream of it. One night he dreamed that he had hired
the yacht, and that he had found a bag filled with twenty dollar gold
pieces in it; and, when he woke up, he was so angry to find it was only a
dream that he scandalized poor Mrs. Brackett with his exclamations.
Young Harry Brackett was made to feel the effects of his father’s mental
disturbance. The squire assailed him with questions about Mr. Carleton,
which puzzled the son exceedingly. Finally the squire demanded,
point-blank, to know what Mr. Carleton had said to him when he
commissioned him to buy the yacht.
“And you needn’t deny that he did get you to try to buy it, either,” he
exclaimed, warmly, “because I know all about that.”
Harry Brackett, taken aback, but concluding that Mr. Carleton had told
his father about it, admitted the commission, but could not recall
anything in particular that Mr. Carleton had said at that time.
“Didn’t he want to know something about the yacht that he was intending
to buy?” demanded the squire. “Now just wake those sleepy wits of yours
up and try to think.”
Harry Brackett, much confused, endeavoured to obey.
“No, I don’t remember that he did,” said he, finally, “only he wanted to
know, of course, if I’d heard anything wrong about the yacht—anything
queer about her—or something of that sort—seems to me he asked if there
was anything queer about the boat—anything ever discovered about her.”
The squire concealed a thrill of satisfaction by scowling, and exclaimed:
“Well, why didn’t you say so before? I might want to buy that boat,
myself, sometime. I want to find out about her.”
A night or two after this, Squire Brackett awoke. He had had another
dream: that he and Mr. Carleton had stolen aboard the _Viking_, in the
dead of night, and had broken into the cabin. There, after the strange
and impossible fashion of dreams, they had discovered the man, Chambers,
at work, tearing up the cabin floor. Then, the dream progressed to a
stage wherein Mr. Carleton and Chambers were handing out bags of money to
the squire, piling his arms full of them.
By degrees, these bags grew heavier, until the squire sank under their
weight. But, to his horror, Carleton and Chambers did not cease heaping
the bags of money upon him until he was smothering under them. They
covered his face, his nose, the top of his head. He woke up in the midst
of a vain endeavour to call for help, in which he could not utter a
sound.
Possibly the squire’s dream was explained by the fact that he found
himself submerged beneath the bed-clothes, which he had drawn completely
over his head, almost stifling himself. His pillow, which he clutched
tightly in his arms, rested also on his left ear, like one of the
imaginary bags of gold.
“Oh! oh!” he groaned, freeing himself from the weight of clothing, “that
was a terrible nightmare. Confound that yacht! I wish it was sunk in the
middle of Samoset Bay, and I’d never set eyes on it again.”
But, with this awakening, the old subject of the mystery of the _Viking_
returned to torment him. He lay awake for a half-hour or more, vainly
trying to forget it and go to sleep, but finding the paper with the
cryptogram forever flitting before his eyes.
Then, of a sudden, he sprang out of bed, with a yell that awakened poor
Mrs. Brackett in terror. Her first thought, naturally, was of burglars.
“I have it! I have it!” cried Squire Brackett, dancing about like a
certain philosopher of old, “I have it—it’s ‘money!’”
“James Brackett!” exclaimed his wife, sitting up and glaring at him
indignantly, “I believe you’re going crazy over money. That’s all you
think about, is money—and all you talk about is money; and now here you
are dreaming about money. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, jumping out of
bed in the middle of the night and screaming ‘money,’ and frightening me
almost to death? You come back to bed!”
But the squire did seem to have gone actually crazy, for it was evident
he was fully awake. He continued to prance about excitedly, exclaiming,
“It’s money! I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” until poor Mrs. Brackett was at
her wit’s end.
Ignoring alike her entreaties and her scornful remarks, he descended to
his office, drew forth the mystical paper, eyed it triumphantly for a
moment, and then wrote as follows:
“Chambers says MONEY must be still aboard yacht.”
“Hooray!” cried the squire. “There it is. Oh, I reckon I’m pretty deep,
myself. Yes, and I see the rest of it now.” The squire finished the
letter thus:
“Sound under third starboard locker.”
“That’s right,” he said. “That means there’s some sort of a secret
chamber in one of the starboard lockers, and that by sounding, or
hammering, on the right spot, it will echo hollow, or give some sound
different from the other boards. Oh, I’ll get that yacht, no matter what
I have to pay—and I’ll get the money, too. I reckon I haven’t cut my
eye-teeth for nothing.”
The squire could hardly close his eyes for the rest of the night. By
daybreak he was out alongside the _Viking_.
“Look here,” said Squire Brackett, as he opened the doors of the cabin,
and peered in at Henry Burns and Harvey, who were at breakfast, “I want
you boys to do me a little favour.”
Harvey’s face betrayed his astonishment.
“Oh, I’ll make it worth your while, too,” continued the squire. “I’m
willing to pay handsomely for it. You see, I’ve got a party of friends
coming down the bay, and I want to meet them at Mayville and give them a
few days’ cruising. I’ll admit there’s a little business in it for me,
too. Now I want to do the thing up in good shape, and my boat isn’t fit
for putting on style. I want the _Viking_ for just one week, and I’ll pay
you twenty dollars for it.”
There was no immediate response. Henry Burns and Harvey looked at each
other doubtfully. The offer was almost tempting.
“Well,” cried the squire, seizing the opportunity, “I’ll not stand at
five dollars at a time like this. Say twenty-five dollars for a single
week, and the money is yours.”
“In advance?” asked Henry Burns.
“Yes, sir,” replied Squire Brackett, “in advance—though I reckon my name
on a piece of paper is good for that amount anywhere in this county. Yes,
and I’ll do more. I’ll sign an agreement to deliver the yacht back to you
in this harbour, one week from the time of hiring it, in as good
condition as when I get it, or pay for the difference.”
Henry Burns looked at Harvey, inquiringly. Harvey nodded.
“Well,” said Henry Burns, “on those conditions I think we’ll let you have
her—but only for one week. You’ll have to wait two days, though. We’ve
got some fresh enamel on part of the woodwork, and some of the mahogany
finish has been scraped and newly oiled, and it isn’t quite dry enough
for hard usage yet. Let’s see, to-day is Wednesday. You may have her on
Saturday morning, if you’ll bring her back the next Saturday, any time
before night.”
“Here’s the money,” said Squire Brackett, promptly. “We’ll consider the
bargain closed, eh?”
“Yes,” assented the two yachtsmen.
“Now what do you make of that?” exclaimed Harvey, as the squire rowed
awkwardly ashore.
“Why, I think he has some land deal on hand,” replied Henry Burns, “and
he wishes to make a grand impression on the persons he is going to meet.
He calls them his friends, but he’s friendly to any one that he thinks he
can make money out of. They probably are from the city, and he wishes to
have them enjoy the sights of the bay in a fine boat. There’s money in it
in some way for the squire, you can depend on it, or he wouldn’t do it.”
Henry Burns was certainly right, in part.
“Well, we will have the yacht in fairly good shape for him by Saturday,”
said Harvey. “We’ll bring down the fine cushions and fixings from the
Warren cottage, Friday night.”
The boys worked industriously through this and the two succeeding days,
putting the _Viking_ in shape. The outer body of the boat had not
received hard usage, even in their fishing, and the decks had been kept
carefully scrubbed. So, with the cleaning and painting and oiling of the
cabin woodwork, and varnishing, where needed, they had got the yacht in
fairly good condition before the squire had applied for her. Now, with
the finishing touches, and the rubbing up of brass work, the _Viking_ was
beginning to shine and glisten as of old.
“I am almost sorry we agreed to let the squire have her,” said Henry
Burns, as he and Harvey lay rolled in their blankets, the former on the
starboard, the latter on the port berth, in the midship section of the
yacht, on Friday night. They had finished a hard day’s work, had
extinguished the cabin lantern, and were having a quiet chat before going
off to sleep.
“Oh, well, a week will soon pass,” said Harvey, “and twenty-five dollars
will swell our bank-account and put a finishing touch to the season’s
balance. We’ll have to go and figure up with Rob Dakin, pretty soon, and
see how we stand.”
Rob Dakin, the storekeeper, was the boys’ banker. They had deposited
their earnings in his safe, from time to time, keeping an account with
him for groceries and rigging, and drawing out what they needed.
“Yes,” responded Henry Burns, “we’ve got a good balance coming to us—and
we’ve had a good time, too.”
“I’ve had the best time I ever had here,” said Harvey, enthusiastically.
They were talking in this way, growing drowsy, and speaking in low tones,
when Henry Burns suddenly uttered a warning “hush” to Harvey, and half
arose, resting on one elbow.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Harvey.
Henry Burns laughed, softly.
“The boat is bewitched,” he said. “You needn’t get nervous, though. It’s
just a funny little, squeaky kind of witch-noise. I heard it the other
night when I was lying here; but, when I sat up and listened, the sound
stopped.”
“What sort of a noise is it?” asked Harvey, not much interested.
“Why, I’ll tell you,” answered Henry Burns, “I suppose the witchcraft is
really something loose about this berth, or about one of those shelves,
or lockers; and that it works with the swinging of the boat in some way,
and makes a squeaking noise.”
“I don’t see anything very mysterious about that,” muttered Harvey.
“I don’t, either,” replied Henry Burns. “Only the queer thing about it
seems to be, that when I get up and listen for it, it stops.”
“Well, if any witches fly out of that locker, just wake me up to take a
look at them,” laughed Harvey, preparing to roll up in his blanket again
for the night.
Henry Burns, also, lay down again, and the cabin was still. In about five
minutes more, Henry Burns reached down quietly for one of his shoes and
rapped with it on the shelf, above his head.
“What’s that?” demanded Harvey, roused from the early stages of
slumber—“some more of your witches? Say, you can’t make me nervous, so
you better let me go to sleep.”
“Jack,” said Henry Burns, arising and stepping over beside his companion,
“go over and try my berth awhile. Don’t go to sleep, but keep still, and
listen—and tell me what you hear.”
Harvey, grumbling a little at his comrade’s oddity, complied, yawning
ferociously.
“If I see a witch I’ll eat him up,” he exclaimed. “I’m dead tired.”
“Keep quiet,” was Henry Burns’s admonition. Harvey was silent, and again
they lay still for almost ten minutes. Then, of a sudden, Harvey raised
himself on an elbow. Henry Burns was all attention. “Did you hear it?” he
asked, softly.
“Sh-h-h,” whispered Harvey. He lifted his head close to the door of the
locker and listened intently. Then, presently, he burst into laughter.
“You’re right, Henry,” he cried. “They’re witches—four-legged ones—and
we’ll have to clear ’em out of this cabin before they do any mischief.
There’s a nest of young mice in there somewhere, and it’s them we hear
squeaking.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I thought of that, too,” said Henry Burns; “but
I didn’t suppose mice ever got into a boat like this in the summer-time,
when it’s in use.”
“Well, I don’t know as I ever heard of it,” responded Harvey, “though I
don’t see why they shouldn’t. The schooners and fishermen have them in
the hold, often. But sure enough they’ve got in here somehow. Let’s have
a look.”
The boys got up, lighted two of the cabin lanterns, and proceeded to
investigate.
The berth on which Henry Burns had lain, and from which Harvey had just
arisen, was in the middle of the boat. It was about six feet long by two
feet wide, and sufficiently raised from the cabin floor to admit of two
good-sized drawers occupying the space beneath. There was a locker in the
side of the cabin, opening by a door close by the head, and one of the
same size at the foot, of the berth. Between these was an alcove with
some shelves.
The door of the forward locker was so disposed that, if one were lying on
the berth with his head forward, the door could not be opened without its
coming in contact with his head. Therefore, the sound, if it came from
within the locker, would be immediately in the ears of any one occupying
the berth.
Holding a lantern in one hand, Henry Burns opened the door of the locker
and looked within. There was no sign of anything alive there.
“We gave this cabin a pretty good overhauling before, after that
treasure,” said Harvey. “It looks just the same now as it did.”
“Well, it must be underneath, then,” said Henry Burns.
“Yes, and we looked there, too,” said Harvey.
“Well, we’ll do the job more thoroughly, this time,” replied Henry Burns.
“Hand me one of those candles, and I’ll look underneath.”
So saying, he set down his lantern, and pulled out one of the drawers
directly underneath the berth where he had lain. As he did so, he gave an
exclamation of surprise.
“What is it?” asked Harvey, appearing with the candle.
“I think we’re on the right track,” said Henry Burns. “Look, there’s
where the witches get through.”
Close to the cabin floor, where a support of the cabin roof came down, a
few inches below the lower edge of the drawer, was a small hole, large
enough to admit of a mouse.
“That looks like the front door, sure enough,” said Harvey.
They looked within the drawer, but there was no sign of occupancy there.
“We’ll take the drawer completely out,” said Henry Burns. “I don’t
believe we did that, before. Perhaps it doesn’t fill the entire space.”
“All right, I’ll take the other one out, too,” responded Harvey. “We’ll
look behind both.”
He drew the drawer out and set it down on the cabin floor. Henry Burns
pulled out the drawer he had been examining, and set it down on top of
the other. Then, as he glanced at them by the light of the candle which
he held, he said, abruptly:
“Look there, Jack. We’ve found it. As sure as you live, this drawer is
six or seven inches shorter than the other. There’s a chamber behind it.
Say, you don’t suppose—”
Henry Burns did not conclude his sentence. Instead, he got down on hands
and knees, held the candle under the berth, and peered within. As he did
so, he uttered a cry of triumph.
“Here, Jack, look inside,” he said, hastily, withdrawing his head, and
handing the candle to his companion.
Harvey ducked his head, and peered within.
What he saw, in the chamber behind the space taken up by the drawer, was
a little boxlike object, fastened in some manner to the under side of the
bottom of the locker.
Harvey, in turn, handed the candle over to Henry Burns.
“Here,” he said. “You found it. It’s your right to have the first look at
whatever is there.”
Henry Burns, as near the point of actual excitement as he ever got, took
the candle, eagerly, and looked again. The boxlike object was clearly a
drawer of some sort, for, on closer scrutiny, there was revealed a tiny
knob by which it might be drawn out.
“The mice are here, anyway,” said Henry Burns, as he reached in and set
the candle down, preparatory to extending his arm at full length to draw
out the box. “I see a hole in one corner where they can get in and out.”
Then, as he seized the knob and pulled the little drawer open, there
darted out a small object that ran across his hand and disappeared in the
darkness beyond the lantern lights.
Henry Burns laughed, the next moment, for he had dodged back, bumping his
head and letting go of the knob.
“Run for your life, Jack,” he cried. “Here comes the witch.”
Then, before Harvey’s astonished eyes, Henry Burns drew forth into the
light of the cabin lantern a little drawer; and, within it, a nest
fashioned of odds and ends of paper and soft stuff; and, within the nest,
a family of tiny mice, lying as snug as the proverbial bug in a rug.
The drawer was about a foot in length, six inches deep, and perhaps four
inches in height. It contained no apparent treasure—only a litter of
paper that mice had torn and gnawed into pieces. There was no gold nor
jewels therein.
“Hm!” exclaimed Harvey, with an expression of chagrin overshadowing his
face, “Don’t look as though there was anything there to make us rich—or
to have warranted Carleton in breaking into our cabin, eh?”
“There isn’t now,” replied Henry Burns, calmly, but with a shade of
disappointment in his voice. “There isn’t now, but there was. The mice
have got here before us, that’s all.”
He held up to the light a scrap of the torn paper. It was no ordinary
paper that the lantern-light revealed to the eyes of the astonished
Harvey—far from it. It was the paper that no man may make for himself—the
paper of a national bank-note—and there were, on this particular
fragment, yet to be seen, a full cipher and the half of another. Harvey
fairly gasped.
“That was a hundred-dollar bill!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, or a thousand,” said Henry Burns.
Harvey groaned.
“Better drop those mice overboard, hadn’t we?” said he.
Henry Burns scooped the family up in his hand and passed them over.
“I believe you said if you saw a witch you’d eat her,” he remarked,
slyly.
“Ugh!” ejaculated Harvey, as he dropped the mice alongside. “Say, you
take it coolly enough, don’t you?”
“Well, why not?” replied Henry Burns. “It isn’t our money that’s gone.”
“It would have been,” said Harvey.
“I don’t know whether it would or not,” responded Henry Burns. “We’d have
to turn it over to the authorities, I suppose, to see if any one claimed
it—hullo! what’s this?”
Running the litter through his fingers, he turned up from the very bottom
a piece of the paper that had escaped entire mutilation. He held it up
triumphantly to the light.
“We’ve got one prize,” he cried. “It’s the only one that isn’t
destroyed—but it’s fifty dollars, and that’s something.”
“But there’s only a piece of it,” said Harvey.
“More than half,” said Henry Burns, joyfully. “That’s enough. We can
redeem it.”
“Oh, but isn’t that awful?” groaned Harvey, gazing ruefully at the litter
of paper that filled the drawer. “Just think of all that money going to
make a nest for mice.”
“It’s what you might call extravagance,” replied Henry Burns. “I wonder
how much there was. We’ll never know, though. But there was enough to
make it worth while for Mr. Carleton to come down here after it.”
“Say,” exclaimed Harvey, suddenly, “do you suppose that’s what the
squire’s after?”
Henry Burns smiled, and stood for a moment thinking, before he replied.
“Possibly,” he answered. “But I don’t see how he could know of it. Where
could he have learned of it? At any rate,” he added, with a twinkle in
his eyes, “I don’t see as we are under any obligation to tell him about
it. We don’t have to assume that he is hiring our yacht to steal
something out of the cabin. He has told us what he wants the boat for.
We’ll take him at his word.”
“Oh, by the way,” he added, “did we throw those lobster shells overboard
after we finished supper?”
“All but one claw that I didn’t eat,” replied the astonished Harvey.
“Why, what do you want of it?”
In reply, Henry Burns, his eyes twinkling more than ever, and with a
quiet smile playing about the corners of his mouth, went and got the
lobster-claw from the ice-box. Emptying out the scraps of now worthless
paper, he deposited the lobster-claw in their place, took the candle, and
once more replaced the drawer in the secret chamber. Then he shoved in
the larger drawer.
“Whoever finds that may keep it,” he said, as he rolled himself in his
blanket and blew out the lantern nearest him.