VI
A Piece of Paper
AUNT CAL listened to our story without interruption at supper thatnight. Only at my first mention of the old Craven House, I fancied Isaw an odd expression flit across her face. But her only comment, whenwe had finished, was the dry remark that the next time we felt moved togo poking about empty houses, we'd better make sure that the key was onthe inside.
Following Eve upstairs that night, I found her standing in the middleof the room, scowling over a scrap of paper. "Is this anything ofyours, Sandy?" she asked.
I peered at it over her shoulder. It was a soiled and dog-eared pieceof notepaper which had been folded twice. Scrawled across the middle, Iread: "Circe south 13-6, 90 degrees W. 7 dig here."
"I never saw it before. Where did you find it, Eve?" I said, looking atit curiously.
"Saw it lurking under the bed as I came into the room," she explained."It doesn't seem like Aunt Cal to leave pieces of old letters about."
"What do you think it is?" I asked, still staring at the strangeinscription. "A ship's log maybe? Circe sounds like the name of a ship."
"Perhaps. But 'dig here'--what about that? That's not exactly nautical,is it?" Eve returned musingly. Suddenly she lifted the paper to herface and sniffed at it. "Harry's Hair Restorer!" she exclaimed.
"What!" I sniffed too. She was right. The scent of Mr. Bangs' lotionswhen we had opened his suitcase had permeated everything. It wasunmistakable. "Then--then," I stammered, "this letter, or whatever itis, must be his. Must have fallen out when we opened the suitcase!"
"Looks like it. And the wind probably blew it under the bed when youopened the window. That's why we didn't notice it before."
"I wonder if it's anything important," I mused. "What do you make ofit, Eve?"
Eve sat on the sea chest, her eyes round and big. "Sandy," she saidslowly, "if I read it in a story book, I would think of just one thing!"
"You mean--treasure?" I asked in a half whisper.
She nodded. "But of course in real life," she went on hurriedly, "well,you know yourself, Sandy, real life is different, however much you tryto make yourself believe otherwise."
"Yes," I admitted, "I know it is. But--look here!" I shot bolt uprighton the bed with the suddenness of the thought that had come to me."What do you suppose that man was doing in that garden today?"
"Why," said Eve, "he was measuring, surveying or something, I suppose."
"Surveyors don't crawl on their knees," I said. "And besides, he hadn'tany instruments, only a tape measure."
Eve looked at me solemnly. "What are you driving at?" she asked.
"Well, this paper is his, isn't it? And it's got measurements on it.And he was measuring. It sounds crazy, of course, still----"
"But he didn't have the paper; it was here under the bed!"
"Yes, I know. But he might have had it in his head, mightn't he--thenumbers, I mean?"
"You don't mean you actually think, Sandy, that that man was lookingfor buried treasure?" Eve's voice had fallen to a whisper, too, now.
"I don't know what to think," I returned.
"He certainly was annoyed when he saw us watching him!" Eve saidthoughtfully.
"Annoyed is putting it mildly," I said. "I thought he was going tostrangle!"
Eve nodded. "Do you know," she said, "I felt there was something veryodd about him from the first. Take his hair, for one thing----"
"Somebody has taken it, or most of it!" I giggled. "He certainly isn'tmuch of an advertisement for his old lotions!"
"Not today. But he was yesterday when we saw him on the bus, don't youremember?"
"Why, that's so! I do remember he had thick brown hair that stuck outall around under his hat. I noticed it particularly, it didn't seem togo with his face somehow. You don't think it could have been----"
"A wig, of course!" Eve cried. "That settles it! That man is up to somefunny business, you can depend upon it. Of course he wasn't expectingto see anybody out there in the garden today. I dare say he'd found thewig hot and had taken it off and laid it in the grass or hung it on abranch or something!"
"Still, whatever he's up to," I said thoughtfully, "I suppose we'llhave to return his property to him. We can mail it to him in care ofTrap's Inn, I suppose."
"All right. You'll find an envelope in that top drawer."
When I turned with the envelope, Eve was jotting down something in herdiary. "No harm keeping a copy of those figures," she remarked. "Justas a matter of curiosity, you know."
We mailed the letter to Mr. Bangs next morning. We hoped that we wouldreceive some acknowledgment of its receipt, something which might shedsome further light on the mystery. But the days went by and nothingcame.
Of course, a man who wears a wig may or may not be a villain. As Evepointed out, he may have worn it for professional purposes solely. Ifhe was a vendor of hair lotions, then the wig was a kind ofadvertisement. But even so, I argued, it was deceitful and misleadingand I felt that our first impression of the man was abundantlyjustified.
We spoke frequently of making another trip to the old house to try tofind out for ourselves what he was up to. But fear of incurring AuntCal's disapproval held us back. It would be extremely difficult toexplain to my severe-minded relative what had taken us there. Todiscuss anything so fantastic as buried treasure with Aunt Cal seemedout of the question.
Meanwhile our life at Fishers Haven flowed along serenely. We foundthat Aunt Cal was not hard to get along with, once you adapted yourselfto her ways. She had lived so long alone that she couldn't help beingrather set in her habits, Eve said. Indeed it was due mostly to Eve'stact and diplomacy that things went so smoothly. Eve had had someexperience in visiting relatives and, though she admitted that none ofthem was in the least like my aunt, still, as she said, when you go tostay in somebody else's house, you just have to make up your mind todoing things differently than when you are in your own home.
We began to feel quite at home too in the village, at the stores whereAunt Cal "traded" and at the post office where we went for the maileach morning and at any other odd moment when time hung too heavily onour hands. We explored the shore for miles and, covering our bathingsuits modestly with coats in deference to Aunt Cal's proprieties,walked to the beach for a swim nearly every day.
It was one afternoon when we returned rather late from one of theseexpeditions that we found the kitchen door locked. The key was underthe mat where Aunt Cal--with what Eve called a painful lack ofimagination--always placed it if she went out while we were away. Welet ourselves in and found a note on the kitchen table addressed to me.
"Have gone to Old Beecham to see a sick friend who has just sent for me. Rose Blossom is driving me out. May have to spend the night. If I am not back by nine, put Adam in the kitchen, lock up and go to bed.
Hastily, Aunt Cal."
"Hurrah!" I cried, seizing the startled Adam from his cushion andbeginning to waltz with him about the kitchen.
"You don't," remarked Eve, "seem so awfully depressed at the news ofAunt Cal's suffering friend!"
"I wasn't thinking of her at all," I confessed. "I was wondering if wecouldn't make a Welsh rarebit for supper. I'm fed up with beans andfried potatoes." For some reason Aunt Cal's note had filled me with astrange exhilaration. The thought of being on our own, if only for afew hours, was exciting. "Why, we won't even have to wash the dishes ifwe don't want to! And we can sit up as late as we please."
The odor of toasting cheese is delectable at all times. Never have Iknown it so delicious as it was that night. Adam, too, seemed to findthe atmosphere of the kitchen particularly attractive for, even afterhe had finished his supper of fried fish, he lingered, purring andtwining himself about my feet.
"He wants some of the rarebit, I guess," Eve said, dropping a morselonto his plate.
Somewhat
to my disappointment, Eve elected to wash the dishes as usual."Better cover up all guilty tracks," she laughed.
But we soon had them out of the way and after everything was in orderagain, we went out into the soft, sweet smelling dusk, the cat at ourheels. There is a little bench under the locust tree where we hadformed the habit of sitting in the evening and watching Adam at hiscapers. For, while in the daytime, he is staid and dignified in theextreme, in the evening he loosens up considerably and, given a toad ora grasshopper, will cavort with mild abandon up and down the gardenpath and beds. But we were always cautioned by Aunt Cal to keep oureyes on him and be sure that he did not stray beyond the hedge into herneighbor's domain.
Tonight the rarebit or something seemed to have made him unusuallylively. He darted about quite wildly and even in one moment of abandonso far forgot his years as to chase his tail. "It's because Aunt Cal'saway," I said. "I know just how he feels."
Eve was lying on her back, trying to find Jupiter. "I wish we couldthink of something exciting to do," I said.
"You might try chasing your tail," she murmured. "I think stars areexciting."
"Of course, if you start thinking about them," I agreed. "Still, youcan look at them most any time."
"You hardly ever see so many as there are tonight. See, there's theLittle Dipper!"
It was while I was trying to see the Little Dipper that Adam saw hischance. I think very likely the sly thing had been waiting for justthat moment when both our heads should be lifted to the sky.
"Where's Adam?" Eve asked presently, coming back to earth.
"He was here just a moment ago." I got up. "Adam, Adam!" I called.
Then suddenly, almost like an echo--but not quite--from the other sideof the hedge I heard a voice. "Caliph, Caliph!" it said.
I stopped short. In the darkness of the adjoining yard, I saw thefigure of Aunt Cal's neighbor, a short plump gentleman of seafaringaspect who went in the village by the title of Captain Trout but whomAunt Cal herself referred to with some asperity as "that man nextdoor." "Caliph, Caliph!" he called again.
"I didn't know he had a cat," whispered Eve at my side. Then just infront of us we saw Adam scurrying toward the hedge. In a second he wasthrough it and bounding across the yard toward the summoning voice. "Hethinks he's calling him," I said. "I guess I'd better go after him."
I negotiated the hedge with only a scratch or two on my legs and flewafter the runaway. "Adam," I called. "Come back here, you bad cat!"
But even as I spoke the words, I saw the round figure beyond me stoopand gather the cat in his arms. "Caliph, you rascal," he scolded,"where have you been keeping yourself?" He did not appear to see Eve orme at all but just went on stroking and scolding the cat by turns.
Finally Eve cleared her throat. "I think," she said politely, "you'vegot the wrong cat, haven't you? That's our Adam, you know."
At the words, the man's head jerked up. "What," he snapped, "are youtalking about?"
"About Adam, our cat," said Eve coolly. "It's long past his bedtime."
There was quite a pause after this during which the Captain went onstroking the cat. "You see," I put in at last out of sheerembarrassment, "he had Welsh rarebit for supper and it sort of went tohis head----"
But I never finished the sentence. With a sudden soldierly swing, thefigure in front of us turned round and, still bearing the cat in hisarms, marched toward the back door of his house.
------------------------------------------------------------------------