The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dig Here!, by Gladys Allen This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Dig Here! Author: Gladys Allen Release Date: September 27, 2014 [EBook #46978] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIG HERE! *** Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Carolyn Jablonski, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net DIG HERE! BY GLADYS ALLEN GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO Copyright mcmxxxvii By The Goldsmith Publishing Company MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Contents CHAPTER PAGE I. Aunt Cal 13 II. Fishers Haven 19 III. Craven House 29 IV. Prisoners 43 V. John Doe, Esquire 51 VI. A Piece of Paper 58 VII. Caliph 68 VIII. A Scalp Lock 75 IX. Daisy June and the Blue Emerald 82 X. Where Is Circe? 93 XI. Hamish on the Job 101 XII. Over the Banister 113 XIII. Harry’s Hair Restorer 119 XIV. Sunday 132 XV. Tracks in the Dust 138 XVI. The Rescue 146 XVII. Caught 154 XVIII. Dig Here! 162 XIX. The Treasure 176 XX. We Seek Legal Advice 186 XXI. A Closed Door 192 XXII. The Escape 201 XXIII. A Belated Visit 211 XXIV. It Fits 220 XXV. Gopher 232 XXVI. The Unveiling 242 13 “B DIG HERE! I Aunt Cal ut this aunt of yours, Sandy, what’s she like?” Eve asked. She was parked on the couch in my room. Hattie May Lewis, my roommate, stood before the mirror, trying to arrange her straight, straw-colored hair into a windblown bob. It was the week before the closing of school for the summer vacation and we were all looking ahead, in one way or another, to what the next three months held in store for us. “Well,” I considered, “I don’t honestly know much about Aunt Cal except the little Dad has told me. She’s an aunt by marriage, you know. She married my mother’s brother, my Uncle Tom Poole, he was. They went West to live for a time, but after Uncle Tom died she came back to Fishers Haven. She’s lived alone there ever since.” “Narrow!” ejaculated Hattie May, “and very likely queer besides! You can depend upon it. I know how old women get who live alone in the country.” Saying what she thought about people, whether they were present or not, was part of what Hattie May called her code of speaking the truth. “Well, perhaps,” I admitted. “But she’s not so very old.” I felt slightly annoyed with Hattie May and wished she would go downstairs. I was anxious for a very special reason to make Aunt Cal seem attractive to the girl on the couch. For though Hattie May had been my roommate this first year at school, it was Eve Fordyce’s opinions on most subjects which had come to matter. But Hattie May showed no inclination to depart, so I went on. “Perhaps you’d like to hear what Dad says about her,” I suggested. I reached into a pigeon-hole in my desk and took out a thin paper envelope with a foreign stamp. My father is a missionary in China, you see, and that’s why the long vacation didn’t mean to me quite what it did to the other girls. It meant a summer spent with some one of a rather scattered collection of relatives, none of whom I remembered in the least. This summer it was to mean Aunt Cal. “Oh, yes; let’s hear it.” Eve smiled encouragingly from the cushions. I suppose she saw how in earnest I was. “Your Aunt Calliope,” Dad wrote, “is in many ways a remarkable woman and I feel that you cannot but profit by her acquaintance. It is, however, not entirely on your own account that I have suggested this visit. I am hoping that she in turn may reap some benefit from your stay with her. I must confess that the occasional letters which we have had from her within the last few years have reflected a certain melancholy trend of thought which has given me some concern. So I am hoping, my dear daughter, that you will bring her something of your own happy——” “Well, that’s about all,” I broke off because of that sudden chokiness that comes over me still at times, even though ten whole months have gone by since I said good-bye to Mother and Dad on the dock at Shanghai. “What’d I tell you!” exclaimed Hattie May triumphantly. “Queer! Queer and brooding! Honest, Sandy, I can’t say I envy you your summer.” “Oh, I don’t know,” Eve drawled. “I think she sounds rather interesting. And I don’t think she necessarily has to be narrow because she’s lived in a New England village most of her life. As for being queer—well, everybody is a little, aren’t they?” I threw her a grateful glance. “Maybe you’d like to hear her letter, too,” I said on a sudden impulse. “It just came today. Of course it doesn’t say much,” I added, a little doubtful, on second thought, of the wisdom of revealing Aunt Cal any further with Hattie May in the room. “I’ll bet it says plenty!” Hattie May swung round. Her small bright eyes fairly pounced on the letter as I pulled it from its envelope. “You can tell a lot by handwriting and—well, reading between the lines.” “There’s nothing written between the lines,” I said, though I knew, of course, what she was driving at. The letter was written in a straight, angular hand and was very short. My Dear Niece: I have received your father’s letter and shall be very pleased to welcome you to my home at any time. I live very plain. Your father speaks of your bringing one of your schoolmates with you to keep you company. I don’t suppose two will be much more trouble than one. Your affectionate aunt, Calliope Poole As I finished reading, I saw that Hattie May had sunk into the Morris chair and was fanning herself violently with a copy of “Queens of the Screen.” Staging mock fainting fits is one of her pet stunts. “Of course,” I said apologetically, “she didn’t realize quite how that last sentence would sound.” “Yes, written things often sound quite different than one means them,” agreed Eve comfortably. Hattie May came to life. “What did you say her first name was—I didn’t seem to get it?” “Calliope,” I repeated. “Dad said her mother was sort of romantic when she was young, read poetry a lot and all that. Calliope was a Muse of poetry, I believe.” Hattie May giggled. “It does amuse all right,” she said. 14 15 16 17 I ignored this. I felt that it was now or never with me. That the moment had come to speak of the all important matter with which, ever since the arrival of Aunt Cal’s letter, my heart had been bursting. If by any wild miracle, I could persuade Eve Fordyce to go to Fishers Haven with me, half the battle would be over. I felt that I could bear any number of dour- faced relatives with Eve along. But what would she think of such an invitation? It didn’t promise much for a clever girl like Eve. I was trying desperately to think how to begin when Eve herself took the words out of my mouth. “Well, darling, who are you going to take along with you on your mission of cheer?” I plunged. “Why,” I began, “of course Hattie May can’t go because her family expects her home and—well, she wouldn’t care ’bout it anyway. But I thought, maybe—that is, it just occurred to me because of your mother’s being abroad and all—I wondered, that is—of course it won’t be exciting or anything like a regular seashore resort——.” “Sandra, darling,” Eve’s throaty voice broke into my stumbling attempt, “are you trying to invite me to spend the summer at the home of this estimable woman, your aunt?” “Of course she is,” said Hattie May. “But if you take my advice——” Eve smiled her slow smile. “Hattie May,” she said, “I wouldn’t turn down the chance of an adventure like that for anything.” “Oh, Eve, do you really mean it?” I cried. “Adventure!” snorted Hattie May. “Well, if you call being buried alive an adventure——” Eve got lazily to her feet, wrapping her orange coolie coat about her. “I’m going to write to Aunt Margery right away,” she declared. “I’ll tell her about the wonderful air and the simple, wholesome life at Fishers Haven. She’ll eat that up!” “Oh, Eve,” I gazed rapturously up at her, “that’s perfectly wonderful of you. And I do hope—oh, I do—that you won’t be sorry!” “Well, all I’ve got to say,” declared Hattie May stuffily, “is that I wish you both a pleasant summer, but I’m mighty glad I’m not in your shoes!” 18 19 H II Fishers Haven arbor Street, Fishers Haven, runs north and south. On your left, as you walk up it, you can see a line of blue across green meadows and hear the faint roar of the surf. Everything looked washed and clean; the little houses white with green shutters, set in tiny green yards. Eve said it was a picture village out of a scouring powder advertisement. We were walking up from the bus stop. There was no railroad in Fishers Haven. It seemed good to stretch our legs after the all-day train ride. I was carrying my suitcase, which was pretty heavy, but I didn’t mind. The bus driver had directed us: “Turn the corner at the drug store, it’s the third house.” There it was! White like the others, with a small front yard, bordered on two sides by a neat hedge. A brick walk led up to a narrow front stoop. Our eyes were lifted anxiously to the door as we mounted the steps. It had, I could not suppress the thought, a very closed look. I lifted the knocker with some trepidation; it seemed like an intrusion to make a noise in so silent a place. It was a feeble knock, but no sooner had it died away when we heard a window raised above us and a voice called, “Go round to the back and wipe your feet on the mat.” Eve giggled. How I loved her for it! The grass in the side yard had been freshly mowed and smelled deliciously. “Syringas, too!” Eve inhaled rapturously. “I’m going to sleep out in that lily-of-the-valley bed,” she whispered, “and pretend I’m a dryad!” “Hush! Here she is.” A small woman in a big white apron was standing on the back porch. Her eyes were dark and very bright, and her nose had a kind of pinched-in look as if she were smelling of something. Her expression was—well, speculative. “So here you are!” she said, holding out a bony, work-worn hand. “I guess you’re Sandra. You’ve got the Hutton nose.” “Have I?” I laughed. And, moved by an impulse for which I was quite unable to account, I stooped and kissed her where her hair was parted flatly on her forehead. “This is my best friend, Eve Fordyce,” I said before she had recovered from her surprise at my salutation. Eve smiled devastatingly. “Pleased to meet you,” said my relative. “It was awfully sweet of you to let me come along with Sandy,” Eve said. “I hope we aren’t going to be a lot of bother.” “Well, I guess everybody’s a bother when it comes to that,” returned Aunt Cal not too ungraciously. “It’s a good deal of bother to live anyway, what with three meals a day winter and summer.” “Do you know I’ve often thought of that very thing myself,” agreed Eve. “If it wasn’t for eating, what loads of spare time we’d have to do a lot of extra exciting things.” Aunt Cal looked as if precisely this view of the matter had not occurred to her before. But all she said was, “Come in, supper’s on the stove.” The kitchen was small and painfully neat; the same scrubbed look was everywhere. We washed our hands at the sink at Aunt Cal’s direction, as supper, she said, had already stood about as long as it could, and sat down at a blue and white oilcloth covered table. It was a good supper, though plain, as Aunt Cal had warned me. Baked beans, bread and butter, tea and applesauce. Eve and I chattered about our trip, while Aunt Cal drank strong tea and said little. It was nearly dark by the time we had finished eating everything that was on the table. The noisily ticking alarm clock on the kitchen shelf said ten minutes past eight. “I expect you’ll want to go to bed early after your long trip,” Aunt Cal remarked as she began to clear the table. She took one of the shining glass lamps from the shelf and, though it wasn’t yet dark enough to light it, led the way upstairs. “This is the spare room,” she said with some pride, throwing open a door at the end of the short passage. It was not large, but its prim, cool order presented so pleasant a contrast to the clutter of departure that we had left behind us that morning that we both heaved an involuntary sight of relief. “Oh, it’s lovely,” Eve breathed. “And that bed looks big enough for six giants.” A faint look of dismay flitted across our hostess’ countenance at the suggested picture. “I guess it’ll hold two your size,” she said dryly. And added, “Breakfast’s at seven sharp. Goodnight.” As the door closed, I sank weakly upon the bed. “I feel somehow,” I said, “as if there’d been a death in the family.” Eve laughed. And the familiar ring of it made the strange room seem less strange. “Oh, Evey darling,” I cried, “I’m so glad you’re here. Promise you won’t go and walk out on me now.” “Heavens, no! Why should I? I think Aunt Cal is a treasure—only she doesn’t know it. I’m going to pretend she’s my aunt too. She’s so different from Aunt Margery, and I think a variety in relations is very broadening. The thing we’ve got to do, Sandy, is to make her glad we’re here.” “I suppose so,” I said. It was like Eve to look at things that way. Well, maybe I’d feel more optimistic in the morning, I thought. I found the key to my suitcase and went to unpack. “Bother this lock!” I exclaimed after a few minutes of fumbling. “The key just won’t go in!” Eve, who had already finished emptying her bag while I had been struggling, came over to help me. “Why, Sandy,” she said, “this can’t be the key, it’s too large.” “Well, it’s the key I locked it with this morning,” I retorted impatiently. “My trunk key is flat and I haven’t any other.” Eve shook her head puzzled. “You’d better look through your handbag anyway,” she said. “This simply can’t be the key.” Just to satisfy her, I dumped the contents of my bag on the blue and white counterpane of the bed. There was the key to 20 21 22 23 24 my trunk, half a bar of nut fudge wrapped in tin foil and bearing unmistakable evidences of having been sat on, my address book in which all the girls had written their summer addresses just last night, a vanity case, two rubber bands, a stub of a pencil, and a handkerchief. That was all. “You see,” I said, “it’s just got to be the key. It can’t be anything else.” “Then,” said Eve most surprisingly, “this isn’t your suitcase!” “What!” I wheeled about and looked at the case on the chair. It was black and had once been shiny. It surely looked like mine, scratches and all. But wait—what was that gouge in the fabric near the hinge? I didn’t remember that. Then Eve did a funny thing. She leant over and sniffed it. “Tobacco!” she exclaimed. I went to sniff too; the odor was unmistakable. I took the case up and felt its weight again. “I remember thinking it was awfully heavy on the way from the station,” I mused. I was looking the case over more carefully now and the more I looked, the more unfamiliar it became. Could it be possible that Eve was right and that somehow or other I’d contrived to walk off with somebody else’s baggage? I could not understand it. “But how could it have happened?” I cried. “I had it with me all the way on the train and in the station in Boston and on the bus after we left Berkshire Plains.” Eve had dropped onto an old sea chest which stood under the window. She seemed to be thinking deeply. Finally her face lighted up. “I’ve got it!” she cried. “’Member that little, bow-legged man in the funny clothes who stopped the bus out in the country quite a while after we left Berkshire Plains? It wasn’t even at a crossroads and I said, ‘How convenient!’ or something.” I nodded. I did remember the man. He had taken a seat just in front of us and, having nothing better to do, I had observed him rather particularly. Eve was going on. “He had a suitcase, a black one like this. He must have placed it in the aisle next yours and when you got out—don’t you see—you simply picked up his instead of yours.” “Of all the imbecile performances!” I cried. Eve grinned impishly. “Oh, you can laugh!” I stormed. “But I’d like to have you tell me what I’m going to do now?” “Wonder what’s in it?” Eve’s curiosity, I’ve frequently told her, will get her into trouble some day. She had taken up the case and was shaking it gently. “Not quite heavy enough for a bootlegger’s,” she mused, “still pretty full of something.” “What does it matter!” I snapped. “I’m not in the least interested in what stringy little men are carrying about the country. What I’m interested in is what has become of my second best nightie and my Japanese kimono and my toothbrush.” “Oh, well, there’s no use worrying about ’em now,” Eve said practically. Her finger was toying with the catch of the intruding baggage. Suddenly there was a snap and it sprang open. The case wasn’t even locked! I watched Eve lift the lid gingerly as if she expected something to spring out at her. Maintaining my pose of indifference, I did not move. But of course I could not help seeing when the lid fell back, revealing a pile of men’s clothing with a folded newspaper on top. The paper fluttered to the floor as Eve poked the clothes aside. “There might be an address,” she remarked. Underneath the clothes, we discovered a collection of small jars and bottles. “Harry’s Hair Restorer,” Eve read. “And what’s this—‘Harry’s Scalp Salve,’ ‘Harry’s Magic Lotion for Baldness.’” She giggled. Then meeting my disapproving eyes, she said: “All right, Sandy, you’re right of course, I am a snoop. But I did think we ought to look for a name or something to go on.” “Aren’t there any letters?” I asked. “Don’t see any.” She was putting the bottles back. “I guess we’ll just have to take it back to the bus station in the morning and see what they can do for us. But don’t worry, darling, you’ll surely get your things back. They wouldn’t do ‘Harry’ any good, you know!” “But what about Aunt Cal?” I inquired anxiously. “Shall we tell her, d’you think?” “I don’t see why not. After all, everyone makes mistakes.” “Ye-es,” I agreed doubtfully, “I suppose so.” I was thinking of that speculative look in my relative’s sharp eyes and I was quite certain that not even in the most unguarded moment of her life would she have done anything so stupid as to appropriate baggage which did not belong to her. It was quite dark before we had finished discussing what had happened and were at last ready to settle down for the night. Eve was already in bed when I blew out the light and went to open the window. I poked my head through the dotted Swiss curtain into the cool sweet night. The only light spot anywhere was the strip of sandy road beyond the fence. “Tomorrow,” I thought, “we’ll explore that road and all the others. We’ll go down to the beach and see how cold the water is and——” “What are you looking at?” Eve called impatiently. I turned and came toward the bed. “There’s a man creeping along the grass on the other side of the hedge!” I said. “Creeping?” “Creeping is what I said!” “Oh, dear,” Eve sighed. “I just can’t bother with any more mysteries tonight.” She snuggled deeper into her pillow. “Do come to bed. No doubt he’s—just—catching fireflies—or—or—hunting bird’s nests—or something——” Her voice trailed off into nothingness. And without another word, I climbed into bed and pulled the covers close about me. 25 26 27 28 29 W III Craven House hen I opened my eyes to a roomful of sunlight and sea breezes, Eve was gone. My watch had stopped. What with one thing and another, I had forgotten to wind it. But I knew by the look of things that the morning would never see seven o’clock again! Stealing downstairs a quarter of an hour later, I beheld Eve seated at the kitchen table consuming food. No one else was in sight except a large gray cat folded up comfortably by the stove. “Where is she?” I whispered, poking my head cautiously through the doorway. “Gone to market,” Eve said, resugaring her oatmeal. “I told her you had a basketball wrist and the doctor said you needed lots of sleep.” “Oh, Eve!” I ventured toward the stove and helped myself to oatmeal. The gray cat rose and began twining himself about my feet. “I didn’t see any cat last night,” I remarked. “He comes and goes, Aunt Cal told me. I asked her, by the way, if I might call her that and she said she didn’t mind.” Eve continued to talk as I ate. “I told her about the suitcases getting mixed,” she remarked presently. “You did!” I regarded her admiringly. I had been worrying about this ever since I woke up, wondering how I was going to make my mistake sound plausible. “What did she say?” I demanded anxiously. Eve grinned. “Oh, just that she could not possibly understand such carelessness and not knowing one’s own baggage and so forth and so on.” I nodded gloomily. I was off to a bad start with Aunt Cal, there was no doubt of that. First this suitcase business and then oversleeping. “She left word,” Eve continued, “that in case you rose in time, you were to take the suitcase over to the bus station and make inquiries of the driver when the morning bus gets in.” “What time will that be?” As I spoke, I glanced at the clock and was horrified to see that it was long past eight. “About nine. It only makes two trips a day so we’d better be starting soon or we’ll be late.” Fishers Haven in the morning light was somewhat more prosaic than in the golden glow of the evening before. Just a straggling little village with a sprinkling of comfortable homes and a half dozen stores or so, it made no pretensions to the importance of a seaside resort. But Eve did not seem to find it prosaic. She was interested in everything from the list of sundaes in the drug store window to the funny little cupola-like balconies on top of some of the older houses, built so that the wives of fishermen could look out to sea and watch for the return of their men. “Just think how thrilling when they saw a sail,” I said. “But pretty tragic too if it didn’t turn out to be the right one,” Eve returned. “And the next day maybe the same.” We reached the bus stop ahead of time and sat down on the wooden platform to wait. Shortly after nine, the bus rolled in. To my relief, I saw that the driver was the same one who had brought us over from Berkshire Plains the afternoon before. A detached person in leggings, he listened to my tale without emotion. “So,” he broke into the middle of my story, “you think this guy with spectacles took yours?” I nodded meekly. “Well, he’ll likely turn it in at Company Headquarters over in Millport. Better inquire there.” He was turning away when Eve spoke up. “You didn’t, by any chance,” she inquired, “happen to notice where the spectacled gentleman got off, did you?” The driver paused and looked at her. “Well, say, now you speak of it,” he said, “I do remember. Little chap, wasn’t he, with big specs and a straw hat? Carried a suitcase too. I recollect now—he got off at Beecham Corners, next stop up the line. Maybe stopped at the Inn there.” “Then I think the best thing for us to do would be to ride over there and inquire,” Eve said. The driver nodded and hurried away. But he was back shortly, and five minutes later we were rolling inland. The sandy road gave place to an uneven dirt one and the smell of the sea to the mingled odors of dust and gasoline, with now and then a whiff of clover fields or flowering wayside bush. Not until we had embarked had either of us considered how we were to get back. I fondly hoped that, in case we had to walk, I would not have a case full of bottles to carry at any rate. It proved to be quite a short ride, however, and in less than ten minutes we were climbing down at a country crossroads. When the driver had spoken of The Inn, my imagination had pictured a thriving hostelry—cars drown up at the door under a porte cochère, tables on a terrace, etc. It was with somewhat of a shock, therefore, as the bus rolled away that I perceived that there was neither a car nor a human being in sight. There were four houses, to be sure, but the nearest of these was boarded up and the others looked as if they might have been permanently abandoned. “Quite a metropolis,” remarked Eve cheerfully. “Wonder which is the Inn?” I picked up “Harry’s” luggage and trudged after her up one of the crossroads. In the yard of one of the houses, I perceived a woman digging dandelion greens. The sight cheered me greatly. Over the wall, Eve inquired the way to the Inn. The woman rose from her stooping posture and surveyed us with some curiosity. “I ’spect you mean Trap’s place,” she said. “It’s the big house over on the other corner. But I wouldn’t recommend the rooms and they say the meals——” “Oh, we weren’t thinking of stopping,” Eve assured her hastily. “It’s just—just an errand.” From behind a damaged screen door, voices issued as we approached the side door of “Trap’s place.” Entering, we found ourselves in a narrow store. A woman sat behind the counter adding a column of figures on a brown paper bag. In the rear two men were smoking. A hurried glance told me that neither resembled the gentleman we sought. 30 31 32 33 34 Eve advanced to the counter and stated our errand. “I guess likely it’s that Mr. Bangs you want,” the woman said when she had finished. I was aware as she eyed us of the same lively curiosity which had animated the dandelion digger. “He come in last night,” she went on. “I didn’t hear him say nothin’ ’bout no suitcase. Real estate’s his line, he said. He was makin’ inquiries about the old Craven House up Old Beecham way and I seen him start off in that direction this mornin’, though it’s the first I heard the place was for sale and what anybody’d want an old rattletrap like that for——” This was rather of a facer; after we’d come all this way to find our bird flown. The woman must have seen the disappointment in our faces, for she added, “If you walked up there right away, maybe you could catch him. He ain’t been gone more’n half an hour.” “Is it—far?” I asked weakly with a hostile glance at Mr. Bangs’ baggage on the floor at my feet. “Not more’n ten minutes’ walk. You can leave the case here if you want.” This seemed an inspired suggestion. And so without further delay, we set off in the direction the woman indicated. The road branched off the regular motor highway and climbed casually upward, between uneven stone walls and dusty foliage. “I never expected,” Eve remarked, “to spend the first day of my vacation trailing a barber!” “Mrs. Trap said he was in the real estate line.” “I know. But don’t forget the bottles of hair tonic.” “I’m not likely to, if I have to lug them about the country much more.” We walked for perhaps ten minutes without appearing to be getting anywhere in particular. But as we neared the brow of the hill, we spied above the trees at a distance back from the road the gray roof of a house. “This must be the place, don’t you think?” Eve said. “It doesn’t look as if anybody lived here.” It certainly didn’t! The big front yard was a perfect jungle of coarse grass and overgrown bushes and a generally deserted and gone-to-seed air hung about the whole place. But as we paused there a moment in the dusty road surveying it, there drifted out to us a wave of delicate perfume—the scent of flowering rose bushes in the sun—which was like a gesture of welcome. Plain but substantial and built to last, as the early settlers were wont to build them, Craven House stood staunchly waiting for what fate held in store for it. The blinds were closed and the weatherbeaten shingles showed more than one gap where the wind and weather had made headway. Suddenly there came over me that curious feeling one has at times of having been there before. “What’s the matter,” Eve inquired. “You look as if you expected to see a ghost or something!” “Oh, nothing,” I returned hastily. “Come on, let’s go in. Is the gate locked?” But Eve had not stopped to discover. Already as I spoke she was halfway over the wall. I followed her, dropping down into a thicket on the other side that fairly reached to my waist. I pointed silently to a dingy sign nailed to a tree. “No Trespassing,” it said. “Oh, never mind,” said Eve lightly. “We’ve got to find the elusive Mr. Bangs, haven’t we?” “But where is he? I don’t see him anywhere about. Maybe this isn’t the place after all,” I added, stooping to detach a rose branch from my stocking. “It’s the place all right,” Eve returned. “Look, here’s a letterbox on the gatepost!” CRAVEN, I read the faded lettering. I wondered how many years it was since the mail carrier had left a letter there. But Eve was now forging impatiently ahead. We crossed the yard and made our way through a forest of bushes around the corner of the house. In the rear, the ground sloped gradually down to what had once evidently been a quite elaborate garden. The outlines of paths and flower beds were still discernible. And half hidden among the bushes, I caught sight of a stone urn and of a blackened stone figure on a pedestal. And in the middle of it all, was the leaf-filled bowl of a fountain. The scent of honeysuckle mingled with that of the roses. How sweet it was, but sad too! Suddenly I felt Eve gripping my elbow. “There he is!” she whispered. “Look! There on the other side of that stone thing —creeping on the ground!” She gave a stifled giggle. “Seems to be one of the quaint customs of the country!” Creeping! Yes, she was right, I saw him now. A small, intent, bent-over figure of a man, on his hands and knees in the tall grass. “He seems very busy,” I murmured. “Perhaps we ought not to interrupt him.” “Nonsense, you want your suitcase, don’t you?” Mr. Bangs did not see us approaching. He was, as I have said, very much absorbed. But it was not until we were nearly upon him that we saw that the thing over which he was bending so intently was a tape measure. For a full minute, I should say, we stood and watched him. His lips were moving as if he were making calculations. Then without warning, he jumped to his feet, dusting his hands on his trousers. It was then that he saw us. Well, of course nobody likes to find that he has been watched when he thought he was alone. Still I did not think that this alone was enough to account for the convulsion of anger which darkened his face. His knobby Adam’s apple began to work up and down in a really frightful manner, and for a moment I thought he was going to choke. It was Eve’s velvety voice that broke the rather appalling silence. “I’m afraid we startled you, Mr. Bangs,” she said easily. A sort of cackling gurgle issued from the man’s throat, which presently formed itself into words. “Ain’t you seen the sign on the post?” he snapped, “where’t says ‘No trespassin’’? This here’s private property.” “I know,” returned Eve gently. “And we’d never have thought of coming in if we hadn’t been looking for you. It’s about the suitcase, you know—the one we took by mistake.” At these words, I was relieved to see the convulsive twitching of the man’s face subside somewhat. “So,” he snarled, “you’re the party that run off with my baggage! Well, what you done with it?” “It’s down at the Inn,” I answered. “It’s rather heavy to lug around and besides I’m tired.” 35 36 37 38 “Well, I ain’t ast you to lug it, have I?” he retorted. “’Twas your own doin’. Say, what’s your game anyway?” he added suspiciously. “I could have you arrested, I s’pose you know, for ’propriatin’ goods that don’t belong to you.” “Could you?” inquired Eve, sniffing at a white tea rose. “But of course you wouldn’t since you’ve got it back all safe. By the way, where is ours?” He glared at her for a moment as if he could not at all make her out. Then with a shrug he turned away. “It’s standin’ in the hall down to Trap’s,” he said over his shoulder. “And the next time you go travelin’ round the country without a nurse, I advise you to look sharp and see whose bags ’tis you’re grabbin’.” “We certainly will,” returned Eve cheerfully. “It has taught us a lesson, I’m sure. And thank you so much, Mr. Bangs. We’re awfully sorry to have put you to all this inconvenience—without your hair tonic and all!” Though the last words were uttered in a half whisper, instantly the man’s right hand shot upward to his head. And it was then that I noticed for the first time that the hair that covered it was thin and graying. But his only answer was another shrug and a grunt as he walked away. It seemed the moment for us to depart. Looking back, I saw that Mr. Bangs had again fallen on his knees in front of the stone figure. As we turned back toward the house, I noticed that the back door stood ajar. The real estate agent had evidently been taking a look around before entering into his mysterious calculations in the garden. “Let’s take a peek inside,” I suggested. “He’ll never see us.” “All right,” Eve agreed. “I’ll bet there are plenty of perfectly good family spooks living there!” “Ghosts,” I retorted, “are out of date.” The door led directly into a big old-fashioned kitchen. The air smelled damp and more than a little stuffy. One look around was enough for me. “Oh, it’s just an ordinary old place,” I said. “Let’s not go in after all. We must get back in time for dinner, you know.” “Nonsense, we’ve got loads of time,” Eve said. “Come on, I want to see what the front part is like. I adore old houses, they’re so full of atmosphere!” “Nasty dank atmosphere, I call it!” I followed reluctantly as she led the way into the hall. It was a big wide hall, running the full length of the house, and I could well imagine that with the doors wide open and the sunshine and fresh air pouring in, it might have been attractive. But it was anything but that now, and I shivered in spite of myself as our feet echoed on the bare boards. Why in the world had I ever suggested coming in here! “This must be the parlor,” Eve was saying with her hand on a door at the right of the hall. “Oh, never mind if it is,” I urged. “Don’t let’s bother now.” “It’s now or never, I suspect,” Eve returned coolly. “What’s the matter with you, Sandy, haven’t you got any curiosity?” “I don’t like old houses when nobody lives in ’em,” I confessed. “They give me the creeps.” Eve seemed to think this funny, and the sound of her laughter echoed back from the wide stairway. It was uncanny—as if somebody else had laughed. And now she was opening the door and stepping across the threshold into the room which she had correctly guessed was the parlor. It was a wide, bare room. The windows were shuttered and at only one place, where some of the slats of the blind had been broken, did any light come in. This was just enough for us to see by, though in truth there was little to see. An old horsehair sofa and chairs, a low carved cabinet in front of a broad fireplace, and above the fireplace, a gilt and white mantle. The wallpaper showing a pattern of faded rosebuds was warped and ragged in many places. “I guess probably people have had lots of good times in this room!” Eve murmured dreamily. “A good place for a funeral, if you ask me!” I retorted crossly. “Oh, do let’s get out, I don’t like the place a bit.” “Oh, all right,” she said, turning toward the door. “Though I should love to take a look around upstairs,” she added with a glance toward the stairway. “I think it’s a love——” The sentence was never finished. A sound suddenly broke in upon the stillness. It came from the direction of the kitchen. A sound like the closing of a door. As we stood there in the middle of the hall, hardly realizing what was happening, it was followed immediately by another more ominous one—the unmistakable click of a key as it turned in a lock. Then Eve was speeding down the hall. Across the kitchen, and pounding on the closed door. “Mr. Bangs!” she called. “Oh, I say, wait—wait!” But there was no answer and no sound from without. Our jailer’s retreating footsteps were already deadened in the thick grass outside! 39 40 41 42 43 E IV Prisoners ve looked at me and I looked at Eve. “The front windows,” I whispered. “Maybe——” I raced back down the hall as I spoke, back to the big front parlor. The only place from which the outside world was visible was the broken front blind I have mentioned. I applied my eyes to the hole. But what I saw only made my heart sink several fathoms deeper: it was the round-shouldered back of Mr. Bangs already making good progress down the road. “He’s g-gone!” I faltered, my voice ragged. Eve didn’t answer for a minute. I guessed she was getting hold of herself. “I disliked that man the moment I set eyes on him,” she said at last. “But wh-what,” I demanded weakly, “are we going to do?” “Get out, of course. There’s always some way, a cellar window or something.” “But suppose there isn’t? S’pose they’re all nailed fast like these? Suppose we have to—to spend the night here!” Eve did not seem to have heard me. She was now hurrying back down the hall to the cellar door. I listened with my heart in my throat—if that was locked too! Then with a scraping noise, I heard it open. I didn’t really like the idea of the cellar at all and I liked it even less as I watched Eve’s figure disappear into the cobwebby dimness. But I had no mind to stand waiting alone in that awful empty house. So gathering what shreds of courage I possessed, I plunged down after her. It was worse even than I had imagined. The floor was dirt under our feet and the dampness which hung about the upstairs seemed intensified a hundredfold. I was sure it would choke me in a minute. But Eve was pushing ahead. I could just make out the outline of two smudgy windows above what was probably a coal bin. But they were miles above our heads and looked as if they had not been open for years. We made a tour of the rest of the cellar. I was clutching Eve’s hand now, half paralyzed with fright, I might as well admit. Once a cobweb brushed against my face and I screamed. In a particularly dark corner where Eve climbed onto a barrel to examine a nearby window, I distinctly heard a rat scurry away into the shadows. “Oh, do let’s go back!” I cried at last with a shudder. “I’m positive there’s no way out down here.” Eve was still tugging at the window. “Nailed fast,” she announced. “This place is sure burglar proof!” All the rest of them were the same. Finally we went back upstairs. Eve had a smudge across one cheek. At any other time I would have laughed. “Well,” she said quite cheerfully, “there are still the upstairs’ windows.” “Eve,” I said, “have you thought of this? No one knows we’re in this house. Not even Mr. Bangs. What I mean is that when they start looking for us, they’ll never think of looking here!” Already I was imagining searching parties and headlines in the newspapers. There would be descriptions of our appearance: “Eve Fordyce, brown eyes, short wavy hair, when last seen was wearing a blue cotton skirt and white slipover blouse; Sandra Hutton, green eyes, lightish hair, wearing faded gingham dress——” “Mrs. Trapp or whatever her name is knows we came up here,” Eve was saying. “And Mr. Bangs saw us outside.” “You can’t depend on him for any help,” I declared emphatically. “Oh, Eve, do you think they’ll broadcast us among the missing persons on the radio?” “Of course not! Oh, do cheer up, Sandy. Think what an adventure we’ll have to tell the girls about next fall. Why, it’ll go over big. Especially,” she added calmly, “if we spend the night here.” This view of the situation did not serve to cheer me in the slightest degree. I was not concerned with the dim and distant fall but with what was going to happen to us right now. The thought of the night coming on, of the darkness catching us there in that big echoing house already sent shivers running up and down my spine. “Oh, dear, why did we ever come in at all?” I wailed. “It serves me right for being so snoopy.” “It was more my fault than yours,” Eve declared consolingly. “At least it was my fault that we stayed so long. Now I’m going to take a look round upstairs. Very likely they weren’t so particular about fastening those windows.” But even if we did find one unfastened, how were we going to get down to the ground? As I remembered the spacious lines on which the house was built, I felt that escape that way was hopeless from the outset. Still there was nothing else to do so I again followed Eve, this time up the broad curving stairway. We found ourselves in a square hall from the rear end of which ran a narrow passage. At our right was a large bedroom, containing a big double bed, minus mattress or coverings. Instead of springs, there were wooden slats. “Fancy sleeping on those!” said Eve. “We may come to it!” I returned miserably. The blinds were closed as they had been below, and the two windows in the bedroom were nailed fast. The windows in the other rooms—there were five in all—were the same. Whoever had been assigned the task of closing up the old Craven House had made a thorough job of it. We returned finally to the large front room. I slumped down on a wooden rocker by the window. My legs felt extraordinarily weak and if I had been fasting for a week, I could not have been hungrier. I was amazed to see by my wrist watch that it was only a little after two. I had thought it hours later. Eve had gone back to the window. I watched her dismally as she fussed with the fastening. “I’m going to look for a hammer,” she announced presently. “Hammer?” I repeated dully as if I were unfamiliar with the implement. She nodded. “You’ve noticed of course the difference between these windows and the ones downstairs?” “I noticed that they’re all nailed down—isn’t that enough?” 44 45 46 47