XIX
The Treasure
HAMISH took off his spectacles and wiped them carefully as if he hopedby so doing to see something different from the object which was lyingin Michael's open palm. The object at which the rest of us were alsoincredulously staring. It was just a key--a long old-fashioned rustykey!
"Is--is that all?" Hattie May's voice at last broke the silence; itseemed to come from the region of her shoes. For answer Michael took upthe tobacco tin and turned it upside down. "B-but there must besomething else," she faltered. "Something else buried--thetreasure--the blue emerald!"
With a shrug Michael again picked up the shovel and set to work anew onthe hole. But though he dug steadily for as much as five minutes, heturned up nothing more.
"It's just a washout like I said!" Hamish stated gloomily. He glared atEve and me, he seemed to hold us responsible.
I had picked up the key and was examining it. "I suppose," I said,"it's the key to something."
"That's right," chimed in Hattie May with a fresh accession of hope."Nobody would take the trouble to bury a key unless it was to somethingpretty important. Maybe to the box that holds the treasure or--or to alocked room--or something. I'll bet that's it--the treasure's hidden inthe house!"
"I don't think there are any locked rooms in the house," remarked Eve."Sandy and I went over it pretty thoroughly that first day and wedidn't find any."
"But there must be something!" Hattie May turned and strode toward theback door.
"Well I've got to be getting on," Michael said. "I wish you luck withyour blue emerald!"
"Michael Gilpatrick," Hattie May turned about and faced him, "I don'tbelieve you'd take the trouble to pick up that treasure if it was rightbefore your eyes! All you care about is cows and--and crops and plowingand grubby things like that!"
Michael's ringing laugh answered her as he strode away. "You can'treally blame him," said Eve, "for not being so awfully keen about thiswhen he's got that other thing hanging over him! I'd be worried too."
Hattie May and Hamish had disappeared inside the house but they wereback in five minutes. "Every door in the place is wide open," HattieMay declared in disgust, "and the key doesn't fit a single lock."
"Well I think the best thing for us to do now is to go home," I said.Somewhat to my surprise Hamish agreed with my suggestion at once. I hadnot expected him to give up the search so easily.
Our own orderly garden was cool and refreshing that night after thesticky heat of the day. We joined Aunt Cal and Adam there after we hadfinished the dishes. Under cover of the darkness I took my courage inmy hands. "Aunt Cal," I asked, "did you ever hear that Captain JuddCraven had--well anything valuable hidden away? Any--well any treasureor anything?"
At the word "treasure" I could fairly feel Aunt Cal beside me stiffen."Treasure!" she ejaculated scornfully. "What has put such an idea intoyour head?"
"Well that paper we found, in the first place," I returned, "the onewith the measurements on it, you know. And then this afternoon we dugup an old key out there in the garden at Craven House. It was in atobacco tin just as if someone had hidden it on purpose."
Aunt Cal made a noise that sounded like "pish!" "So that's what you'vebeen up to," she said caustically. "I must confess that I'mconsiderably surprised that girls of your age and upbringing shouldfind nothing better to do with your time! Buried treasure indeed!"
"But you see, Aunt Cal," Eve came to my defense, "it did seem as ifthose directions must mean something, especially after that fellow,that Mr. Bangs, wanted them so badly that he came to the house here tolook for them. So then this morning when Hamish found the missingstatue of Circe down that old well and this afternoon when Sandydiscovered where she used to stand, why we just had to find out whatthere was to it, don't you see? And then when we dug up the key, why wejust naturally couldn't help wondering what it was the key of."
Aunt Cal shook her head sadly. "I knew a man who wasted the best yearsof his life in the search for treasure!" she said.
"You mean Captain Craven's son?" I asked timidly, my heart beginning tobeat a little faster for I felt that I was on delicate ground.
She nodded solemnly. "Carter Craven went to the South Seas on a huntfor buried gold when he was eighteen. It wrecked his life and broke hisfather's heart!"
"Oh!" I had never heard Aunt Cal speak like that before!
"He--he didn't find anything?" Eve asked slowly.
I could feel the flash in Aunt Cal's eyes though I could not see it."Of course he didn't. He was the victim of a pack of adventurers! Hewas gone six years. And when he came back," her voice broke, "he waslike an old man! So--so changed!"
"Oh, Aunt Cal, how terrible!" I cried. "What did it?"
"His health was ruined for one thing--the life he'd led, the climate,the companionships. And what was worse, his moral fibre was gone! Hehad no desire to work, to settle down to earn an honest living. Hishead was full of schemes, get-rich-quick schemes. He drifted from oneto another. Nothing that he undertook ever amounted to anything." Shebroke off suddenly and her voice softened ever so little. "I am tellingyou all this," she added, "so that you may understand what the lure ofgold can do to a human being."
We were silent for a long time after she had finished speaking. If thetruth be told I was feeling rather small. Also I was experiencing a newunderstanding of Aunt Cal. For the first time I had had a glimpse ofthe real person behind the mask of severity she habitually wore. It wasEve who finally ventured to put one more question. "And Carter Craven,"she asked, "when he went away the last time, was it for something likethat?"
"I believe so," Aunt Cal returned shortly. "I was told it was a goldmine, though I was not here at the time."
"And no one has heard of him since?"
She nodded. "I went into Millport yesterday to see the lawyer who hascharge of the estate, to tell him about this man Bangs. I feel that ifwe could get hold of him, he might be able to tell us something. Butnow that he is wanted by the police, no doubt he will have left theneighborhood for good." She sighed.
I sighed too. "I do wish they could find him before Wednesday," I said."Then perhaps the police would believe Michael's story. If theydon't----" I broke off, conscious that Aunt Cal was not listening. Sheseemed utterly absorbed in her own thoughts.
Didn't she care, I thought, that the good name of a perfectly innocentboy was about to be dragged in the dust! As the minutes went by andstill she said nothing, all my newly aroused sympathy vanished. If shewas so indifferent to the troubles of others, she didn't deserveanybody's sympathy. I grew so indignant, sitting there in the darkness,that I finally could stand it no longer and said I guessed I'd go tobed.
"All she cares about," I sputtered five minutes, later as I pulled offmy shoes and flung them into the corner, "is that stuffy old house withits messy old garden and its defunct fountain and--and all of itsmoldly old memories!"
"You're wrong, Sandy," Eve said. "I think the thing she cares mostabout is Carter--his memory, I mean. I don't think she'll ever be happytill that is cleared."
I stopped with one stocking half off and looked at Eve. "What in theworld makes you think that?" I inquired.
"Don't you remember what Captain Trout hinted to us, that some peoplethought Carter had destroyed his father's will?"
"Oh," I said, light beginning to dawn, "you think that is what's eatingAunt Cal?"
"I'm sure of it. It isn't the house, it's the thought that he would dosuch a thing--don't you see?"
"But didn't she say he was just a rotter anyway?"
"Yes, but that was after he'd been away. Before perhaps he wasdifferent. Perhaps she cared about him, Sandy. I don't mean in asentimental way necessarily. But maybe she was fond of him--they werecousins, you know. Perhaps they played together when they werechildren, went to school together----And it's worse to have peopleyou're fond of, people you've trusted, let you down than anything,isn't it?"
"Yes, I see," I
said. I regarded Eve thoughtfully. It was not the firsttime that she had astonished me by reading the motives and desires thatwere shut up inside of people. Indeed as I thought about it, I foundthis new view of Aunt Cal so interesting that Michael and his troubleswere, I'm ashamed to say, entirely forgotten for the time being.
As I lay and watched the sea breeze flutter the muslin curtain, myimagination was busy with the girl who had been Aunt Cal and the boywho had been Carter Craven. I played with the idea that there had beena romance between them. As for my uncle, Tom Poole, well I just lefthim out of the picture.
The morning, however, brought me back to reality. It was Tuesday.Tomorrow Michael would have to go to court. And nothing at all wasbeing done about it!
"If I could just be there," Eve said soberly, "I'm sure I could makethat old judge listen to reason!"
"Aunt Cal," I said, "would pass on at the suggestion--a niece of hersin a police court!"
"I suppose so!" Eve sighed.
The morning's mail brought an envelope addressed to me. It was fromMillport, from the photographer where Hamish had taken my film to bedeveloped. I called to Aunt Cal to come and look as I spread out theprints on the kitchen table.
"Look here we are in our bathing suits!" I said teasingly. For dearAunt Cal went bathing in the days when girls wore ample costumes withfull skirts trimmed with white braid and little puff sleeves andcollars buttoned around their precious throats. We had come upon thepicture of her in one in an old album, so I knew.
Aunt Cal took up the picture and scanned it stoically. But instead ofthe comment of disapproval I had expected, she only said, "I see yougot the sail boats in too."
"Yes, aren't they pretty?"
She nodded. Then she said a funny thing. "Your young farmer friendshows up pretty good."
"Michael, yes that's him on the end."
"Um. Didn't you say it was Saturday that this car he's in trouble aboutwas stolen?" she continued still more unexpectedly.
"Yes," I said, "Saturday afternoon about half past five. Why do youask, Aunt Cal?"
She turned back to the sink where she was cleaning beets for dinner."Well," she said, "you've got this picture, haven't you, with this boyin it? And you took it Saturday afternoon. If he wants--what is it theycall it?--an alibi----"
"Yes of course," I agreed. "But we can't prove that it was takenSaturday afternoon, don't you see?"
"Oh, I say, but we can!" Eve fairly bounced out of her chair. "Oh,Sandy, don't you see?"
I shook my head.
"Why the yachts! They came in Saturday afternoon, anybody in FishersHaven would swear to that! And Michael said, don't you remember, thatthey only came into this harbor once a year!"
I gazed at Eve and then at Aunt Cal. And the mounting excitement I feltwas not only at the discovery that perhaps we had found a way to saveMichael but also at the fact that it was Aunt Cal who had pointed itout to us!
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