CHAPTER IX
THE SECRET SPRING
That settled it. Before Mary realized her position she was sitting securely in the broad seat at the stern of the gliding boat, with Madaline's arm around her, while her delighted fingers trailed through the water, and her almost frightened gaze was fastened on Jennie's face.
"You are a real woman," she surprised her friends by declaring. "Do you know I have not seen anyone like you to talk to since Loved One went away. She was my mother," the child said solemnly.
"When did she die?" Jennie ventured.
"When I was eleven. I am thirteen now."
"And where did you live then?" pressed Cleo, feeling the time was opportune for obtaining something of Mary's history.
"Oh, very, very far away, on an island off Central America," came the surprising answer.
"Do your relatives live there?" inquired Grace, gently.
"No, they all died with the fever, that is, Loved One did, and daddy was lost at sea. Reda thinks I had it, and she says I must not do things like other girls or it will come back and kill me, but I don't believe her now. Since I have known you girls I feel so much stronger and wiser," she finished quaintly, with a significant toss of her head.
"The idea of telling you you were sick, and scaring you into it,"
indignantly spoke Jennie, in whom an instant dislike for the sinister
Reda had taken root. "A good way to make a child sick, I should say.
But what right has she over you? Is she a relative?"
"A relative?" and Mary almost laughed. "No, indeed. Nothing but an old nurse, and not my real nurse either. You see, when granddaddy—as I call him—had to leave the tropics, we had to take the first steamer to get away, and I had no one to care for me after Loved One went, so we just had to accept Reda. Then Janos is her brother, I guess, or some sort of relative, and I could get along with her if he would stay away. I can't tell you the whole story, for it is granddaddy's secret, and I have promised him I would never, never tell anyone why we are up here in the mountains, and why I can't use my own name!"
Again that veil dropped over the soft dark eyes. No one felt like speaking then, for they noticed the girl swallowing hard to choke back the sorrow that threatened to overcome her.
"Well, here we are almost in." It was Jennie who broke the silence, as the boat, now out in the broad open lake, became one of the many turning in at nightfall. "And there are the boys waiting to land us. You don't suppose, Mary, that old woman will make trouble for you?" This with a show of anxiety at the rather difficult position the party now found themselves in.
"No, I am not a bit alarmed. They may think I have got lost, or I might have fallen in the water. Perhaps she and Janos would be glad if I never came back. Then they would have granddaddy all to themselves, and I suppose they would torture him to find out his secret. Oh! dear!" she sighed, "if it were not for him I believe I would just run away."
"You must never think of that," Jennie counseled, "unless of course those foreigners torment you. Cleo, you tell Andy to charge the car to your uncle, Mr. Dunbar, and be sure to say we are in a hurry."
Arrangements were made so promptly Mary was almost bewildered. Another wonder had suddenly come into the life of the timid little girl. She was actually riding in an automobile. How magical is the power of true friends!
"It's just like my dream," she said naïvely. "I dreamed last night I had a ride in an airship, and I haven't been in an automobile since we came to Bellaire."
"When was that?" asked Madaline, who kept very close to Mary as if considering the stranger her own especial charge.
"About four months ago—in winter," Mary replied. "First we stopped in a city, then Janos brought us out here."
Cleo wanted to ask why Mary always gathered flowers and roots, but conscious that many personal questions were more necessary than these, she felt those less important must wait for another time.
"Oh, see!" suddenly exclaimed Mary. "There go Janos and Reda looking for me! Now we can all go in and be talking to granddaddy when they come back. Isn't that fortunate!"
Everyone thought so, for, in spite of all their scout courage, the girls were not especially anxious to run headlong into the arms of two foreigners, who would undoubtedly be angry. The prospect of meeting a benevolent old grandfather was much more comfortable to speculate upon.
"Turn in here," Mary told the driver, and her friends noticed a certain dignity in her command, usually found only among those accustomed to give orders. "There's grandie," she called. "See, he is coming to meet us. Drive slowly, he is not strong on his limbs."
The man they approached was not old, but very tall, stooped and distinguished looking. As the car drew up he threw back his shoulders and stood like some figure posed in defiance. "Granddaddy, here I am!" called Mary, attempting to climb out; "were you frightened about me?"
"Mary! Mary!" he exclaimed. "What does it mean?" and each word sounded like a low moan.
Plainly he was trying to figure out what had happened that the child should return with strangers. Likely he had feared an accident.
"It only means, Grandie, that we have friends, and you are not to refuse them. Let us hurry in before Reda returns. Can your man wait?" she asked Jennie.
"Not very long, I'm afraid," Jennie replied. "We too have folks who may be anxious about us. But we will be glad to meet your grandfather." How the girls blessed her for this!
"Call him professor. Everyone does," Mary managed to say as they alighted.
"Come in, welcome!" announced the man, turning to the foot path that outlined the drive leading to the house.
It was a queer party that left the auto and silently followed Mary and the professor up to the artistic cottage, that stood almost hidden in tall, heavy chestnut trees. In spite of the general loss of this sort of tree, those sheltering the terra cottage bungalow were especially healthy and majestic, as could be seen even in the fast descending nightfall.
Mary rushed on ahead and touched the electric light button inside the door, then she threw open the portal, quite like an experienced little hostess.
"This is the Imlay studio," remarked Jennie, who was the only one in the party familiar with Bellaire. "I thought it was closed when he died so suddenly."
"Did he die here?" asked the man Mary called Grandie, a note of alarm in his voice.
"Oh no, he was abroad and did not return," replied Jennie. It was evident this information brought relief to the questioner, for under the light that shone from the spray of brass lanterns his face perceptibly softened.
Somehow all the mysterious influence which had seemed to surround Mary at their first meeting with her was now oppressively noticeable within that house. It was scantily furnished with what remained of artist Imlay's belongings, but the air of suspicion usually associated with old, abandoned places seemed to fairly seethe through the air. Even Jennie felt it, and to the scout girls, more vividly conscious always of any antagonism, the surroundings were actually uncanny.
"Won't you sit down?" said Mary, observing the almost rigid attitude of her callers. But each politely declined to share the seat offered on the handsome low divan. Grace noticed its carvings looked rather ferocious, while Madaline clung to Jennie, without any pretense of apology. Cleo was now peering at something behind the stained glass door that separated the long living room from that adjoining. It was not exactly a light, yet it passed back and forth and threw weird shadows through the glass. She was wondering if the people kept any other servant than Reda, who was surely not in the house at the time.
Scuffling about aimlessly, the professor suddenly dropped wearily into a big oaken chair, and as Mary turned toward him she too caught sight of the shadows now flickering through the leaded glass, with sinister effect and creepy significance. It might be the shaded glow of a small flash light.
"Grandie!" Mary gasped. "Who are they? Did Janos bring—anyone? Oh, don't move! It may be a trap!"
"Mary, Mary!" he moaned, "must I leave you!" and choking sobs shook the man so convulsively that Jennie dashed across the room and put her hand on the trembling form.
"Sir!" she spoke almost in a whisper. "You must not fear any harm from those wild people. We know they are trying to injure you, but the little girls have found a way to help. We have a man and a car at the door," she said close to his ear. "Can't you and the child leave this horrible place at once?" She spoke quickly, in muffled tones.
"Oh, if we only could!" Mary sobbed. "Grandie dear, you are falling ill! What have they done to you? I heard Janos threaten Reda!"
The figure in the chair was now sagging into a helpless heap. Cleo and Grace, quick to sense the necessity for prompt action, had both hurried to the door to call the driver from the car. Even Madaline forgot her own timidity, and seeing a switch button for what she thought to be lights, she crossed to the corner and quickly pressed a tiny button. As she did so she felt something like a wire with a spool attached, and almost unconsciously she gave the spool a yank. Instantly a flood of light of marvelous brilliancy engulfed the room.
"Oh!" Madaline screamed, shocked by the glare and a queer sizzling noise that hissed through the room. Jennie covered her eyes and clung to a chair, but Mary jumped to her feet and stood staring silently at the leaded glass door.
"Don't move!" she ordered.
There was a sudden crash, the sound of splintering glass, and then the room fell again into the sullen light reflected only from the group of hanging brass lanterns, the artistic shades for the regulation electric lights.
"They are gone!" breathed Mary. "Oh, what a miracle that was! You touched the wire—that sent a current all about them! Grandie!" She threw her arms about the shaking form, "you and I would never have thought of that. Are you safe? Our friends have saved us!"
And Madaline in her fear had actually touched off that alarm!
"Why!" she stammered, recovering herself and springing over to the side of Cleo and Grace, who had reëntered the room. "How did I do that?"
"You touched the secret spring," said Mary. "Even I would have been afraid to do it, for it is so highly charged. But you see our—enemies got the shock, and we only saw the light. How—merciful to think they have gone!"