CHAPTER XV
THE TABLES TURNED
When they arrived at the farm, after the swift run in the Mercer car, Miss Mercer took Holmes out on the big back piazza, and Bessie and Dolly, under the watchful eyes of Jamieson, made up for their long fast. It was nearly five o'clock in the afternoon when they reached the dining-room, and Jamieson laughed as he saw them eat.
"You'll spoil your appetites for dinner," he said, as he saw Dolly making away with the cold meat and bread and milk that had been provided for them.
"I don't care!" she answered. "It couldn't taste half as good as this, no matter what it was. But now you're not going to keep on being mean? You'll tell us why you and Miss Eleanor are being so nice to Mr. Holmes?"
"Not yet," he said. "But you'll know soon enough. It isn't just because we like the pleasure of his company, I can tell you that. Mr. Holmes is in for one of the worst surprises of his life before I get through with him, unless I fall down pretty hard. And I don't expect to. I'll tell you one thing, though. All you girls are going for a straw ride tonight, and Mr. Holmes is going to be along, too. He doesn't know it yet, and he won't know, even after we start, just where we're going."
"It's a lucky thing Miss Eleanor has taken part in amateur theatricals sometimes," he continued. "She was half wild with anxiety about you two, and she was ready to give you the worst scolding you ever listened to. But I told her what I wanted her to do just in that one minute there at the station, and she played up splendidly, so that I don't believe Holmes suspects that we're on to him at all. She's mad with curiosity, too, and I bet she's dying to get hold of me and make me tell her all about it.
"Well, I've got to get ready for what's coming after dinner. Run along upstairs, you two, and try to sleep for an hour or so."
"You won't leave us behind?" said Dolly, anxiously.
"I'd leave you in a minute, you minx, but I couldn't get Bessie without waking you up too, I suppose, and I need her, so you'll have to come along. If you see the other girls don't tell them what's happened. Make them wait until tomorrow."
"All right," said Bessie. "Come along, Dolly! I am tired. It will feel good to get a little nap."
The reaction from the strain of their experiences made it easy for them to get to sleep as soon as they were lying down, and both were still sleepy when a knock at the door awakened them, It was quite dark, and the moon was shining. Outside they found two wagons, one much larger than the other, filled with straw.
"This is fine fun," said Holmes, who was standing with Miss Mercer and Jamieson: "A regular old-fashioned straw ride, eh?"
"Well, pile in!" said Jamieson, who was acting as master of ceremonies. "Holmes, get in there beside Miss Mercer. Bessie, you and Dolly get in there, too. We want to keep an eye on you, so that you don't get into any more mischief. Come on, now, all you girls get aboard the other wagon—and off you go!"
Then he climbed aboard himself, and began to take up the song that had already been started in the other wagon, one of the favorites of the Camp Fire Girls. So it was a jolly party that soon passed out of the tree-lined avenue of the Mercer farm and began driving along the road, away from Deer Crossing.
The smaller and lighter wagon took the lead and they passed along quietly for some time—quietly as far as incident is concerned, that is, for there was nothing quiet about the merry, happy girls in the big wagon. They made the night resound with their songs and laughter, and Bessie wondered a little why she and Dolly were kept where they were, instead of being sent with the other girls. But she said nothing, and she knew that she would find out presently. For her and Dolly there was a peculiar thrill in the ride, and a delightful one, too, for they knew from what the lawyer had told them that there was a surprise preparing for Holmes, and it was exciting to try to guess what it might turn out to be.
Nor was the explanation very long delayed. They had driven for a mile, perhaps, when the driver, obeying a quiet order from the lawyer, who had taken a seat beside him, turned off the main road, and they found themselves in a narrow lane, where there would not be room to pass should they meet any sort of a vehicle.
"Pretty narrow quarters, Jamieson," said Holmes. "Are you sure you know where you're going?"
"Yes, I know," said Jamieson, with a laugh. "Don't you? I thought you knew this part of the country so well, Holmes."
"I? No, I scarcely know it at all, as a matter of fact. That's how I got lost this morning when I took these young ladies for a drive and got myself into their bad graces."
"My mistake! I thought you did know it."
Jamieson bent over then and spoke again to the driver, and in a moment they made another turn, but this time into a private road. Bessie thought she heard a startled exclamation from Holmes, but she was not sure. Then she looked around.
"What a horrid place!" exclaimed Miss Mercer. "Look how it's been allowed to run down. Oh, I know where we are! This is the old Tisdall place. No one has lived here for years. That's why it looks so neglected."
"Right!" said Jamieson. "Doesn't that house look creepy, through the trees, with the moonlight on it? I thought this would be a fine place to come and tell ghost stories."
This time there was no mistake about Holmes's angry exclamation.
"Look here, what do you think you're doing? What right have you to bring this crowd in here, Jamieson?"
Charlie looked at him in surprise—a surprise that Bessie knew instinctively was assumed.
"Oh, strictly speaking, I suppose we're trespassing," he said. "But this has always been common property—for years, at least. The owners don't pay any attention to the place. They won't mind our coming here, even if they find out."
"Well, I object—"
But Holmes stifled the remark before anyone save Bessie and Jamieson heard it. And Bessie began to understand, and to thrill with a new, scarcely formed idea. She began to have a glimmering of Jamieson's plan, and she saw how cleverly Holmes had been induced to walk into the trap that had been set for him. No matter how much he knew about this mysterious place, and how unwilling he might be to let them explore it, whatever his reason, he could not protest now without revealing plainly that he had been lying before. And, moreover, he could not be at all sure that it was not pure accident that had led Jamieson to select it as their destination.
Holmes was between two fires. If he let the ride go on, he faced discovery of something he was trying to keep secret; if he tried to stop it short, or to divert it to some other spot, he was sure to arouse suspicions that, by the merest luck, as he supposed, his treatment of Bessie and Dolly had not aroused. So he did what most people would do in the same circumstances; he kept still, and trusted to his luck to carry him through.
"Oh, I see," he said, finally. "You're going to stop in the grounds and have a picnic, or something like that, eh? That's fine—that will be great sport."
"That's what I thought," said Charlie Jamieson, innocently, but Bessie was sure that he had winked at her.
The wagons drove up, however, to the very front of the crumbling old house.
"Everybody out!" called Jamieson. "Here Holmes, where are you going? Stay with us, man! The fun is just going to begin." For he had seen Holmes trying to slip off to the back of the house, and, smiling, he had seized the retired merchant's arm.
"Here's something I want you to hear," he said. "Eleanor, start the girls to singing that song I like so much—that 'Wohelo for Aye' song, you know."
In a moment the clear voices were raised in the most famous of all the Camp Fire Songs, and Holmes, with a savage wrench, got himself free. But it was too late. For, as the first notes rose, a window above was flung open, and a voice that Bessie knew as well as she did her own joined in the chorus. In a moment the singing stopped, and every pair of eyes was turned up, to see Zara leaning from a window!
"Oh, Bessie—Miss Mercer—please take me away from here! I'm so frightened!"
"The game's up, Holmes," said Jamieson, in a changed voice. "Did you really think we'd take your word against those two girls you treated so shamefully today? Come on, now, I'm not going to stand for any nonsense! Will you take me upstairs to where you've got Zara hidden? You played a cool game, and you thought you could get away with it because you were so respectable. But we've got a complete case against you. It was in your automobile that Zara was taken from Miss Mercer's house, and as soon as you played that trick today I was sure that you had had a hand in the game."
Holmes looked at him darkly. His face was working with anger, but he evidently saw that the game was up, as Jamieson said.
"I guess you win—this time," he said at last, coolly enough. "But remember, I haven't been beaten very often. And you don't know what's back of this. If you knew when you were well off, you'd keep out of this, Jamieson. There'd be something in it for you—"
"Don't try to bribe me," said Jamieson, with a gesture of disgust. "It's no use. I win, as you say. There may be a next time—but I'm not afraid of you, Holmes. Take me up there right now."
"Oh, all right," said Holmes.
And three minutes later Zara was in Bessie's arms, while Holmes looked on, sneering.
"I'll not deny that you did a pretty clever job here," he said. "How did you find out about this house?"
"I happened to be searching some records yesterday, and I saw, quite by accident, the deed recording your purchase of this property," Jamieson answered. "That didn't mean much—until I heard of the way you acted to-day. Then, of course, I put two and two together, and decided you got hold of this place to keep Zara hidden.
"You knew there was a good chance that we could upset that order making old Weeks her guardian, and I knew, of course, that she hadn't been produced in court in the other state. Pretty risky work, Holmes. Now get out. You can stay here, of course, or you can walk to the station. There won't be room for you with us, I'm sorry to say."
"Oh, I'm so glad to get away," Zara sobbed. "I thought it was best to go. They told me that I wouldn't be taken back to Farmer Weeks, and that my father wanted me to go with them. They had a note from him, and he said he didn't quite understand but that he was sure Mr. Holmes was his friend, and would look after me properly. And they said Bessie would be in danger as long as I stayed with her. That is really why I went."
"But it's all right now, Zara," Eleanor Mercer said, soothingly. "We'll look after you now, Didn't they treat you well here?"
"Oh, it was horrid, Miss Eleanor! They kept me locked up in that room, and I never saw anyone at all, except one old woman, who was deaf, and couldn't understand me. She brought my meals, but of course I couldn't talk to her."
"He was afraid to trust anyone she could talk to, of course, or who could answer questions if anyone happened to come here. That explains why the people inside didn't pay any attention to all the noise we made as we drove up. That was the one thing I was afraid of, and I couldn't figure out any way to avoid that risk."
"But why did you bring Mr. Holmes along?"
"So that he wouldn't get here before we did and get her away, Eleanor. That was why I had to make him think we swallowed that ridiculous story of his, too. Well, Dolly, will you forgive me now for not telling you before? Wasn't the surprise worth waiting for?"
"That—and getting Zara back. Of course it was," said Dolly happily. "Oh, Zara, we're going to have such good times on the farm now!"
"On the farm, yes," said Jamieson, dryly. "But no straying into the road! And you'd better see that half a dozen of them are always together, Eleanor. Mr. Holmes isn't the sort to be content with one licking. He'll come back for more, or else I'm mightily mistaken in my man."
Then they all climbed into the wagons again, and how they did laugh at the disconsolate figure of Mr. Holmes, whom they passed, trudging slowly and unhappily toward Deer Crossing.
Jamieson looked at his watch. Then he laughed merrily.
"He'll have to wait until half past five in the morning for the milk train to take him back to the city," he said. "I don't envy him. There isn't much to do at Deer Crossing."