IV—VISITORS
Two days later the campers were as much at sea as ever regarding the secret to which Crusty Christopher had referred in the note left in the picture frame. They had explored the island and they had explored the house, and neither outdoors nor indoors had provided them with a clue.
John Tuckerman—although David persisted in calling him Professor—was the most exuberant and lively of the four. He delighted in everything,—in the early swim before breakfast, in the cooking and eating, especially in the eating, in sleeping out of doors, and even, it seemed, in washing the dishes. He would sing as he washed, wild, rollicking songs, the words of which he made up as he went along, all about pirates and sailors and sea-serpents, with a great many “Yo-heave-hos” and “Blow the man down, my lads,” by way of chorus; all which he accompanied with a pretended hitching up of his trousers as sailors were supposed to do to cheer them at their work.
“There are times when he almost looks like a pirate,” David whispered to Tom, as they watched Tuckerman sharpening a knife on the sole of his shoe preparatory to sticking it into a cover of a can of baked beans. “Like a pirate, that is, with one exception,—those horn-rimmed spectacles.”
It was true; Tuckerman couldn’t look like a daredevil with those enormous glasses. But to offset the studious look they gave him his face was now a beautiful lobster-like red and beginning to peel.
Any one could see, moreover, that Cotterell Hall was the apple of his eye. It amused Tom and David to see the affection and pride with which he regarded every stick and stone of the old house. Ben was more sympathetic, for Ben was by nature interested in old things, and had in turn collected everything from abandoned bird’s nests to rusty jackknives.
It was Ben who, searching through a cupboard at one side of the fireplace in the front room at the Hall, pulled out a package of old letters and gave a shout of joy. “Hi there, see what I’ve found!” he cried as he untied the bundle and threw the envelopes loosely on the table.
“What is it? Old letters,” said Tom, glancing at the yellowing paper.
“Postage stamps!” triumphed Ben. “Some of the earliest issues! I’ll bet you never saw that St. Louis stamp with the two bears on it before.”
“Humph,” said David. “Postage stamps! No one collects them now.”
But John Tuckerman looked over Ben’s shoulder, and then snatched up one of the letters. “You’re right, Benjamin. These are rare ones. I shouldn’t wonder if they were worth a great deal of money.”
It was not, however, the money value of the things in the house that interested Tuckerman. It was partly his love of old things, especially of things that were beautifully made, and partly his feeling that they had belonged to the Cotterells for so long, the Cotterells being his own people. “Uncle Christopher owned all these things,” he said. “Poor Uncle Christopher. He was stiff-necked, no doubt; but he had to suffer for it. I’ve found a book he wrote in, and I can see that he was too proud to sell his heirlooms, and that he had very little money, and didn’t want anyone to know how hard up he was. So he turned hermit. He didn’t really hate other people; he was simply so made up that he couldn’t mix with them on an equal footing.”
David pretended to regard the Cotterell family secret as a great joke, although he admitted that he was very much puzzled over what he called “the mystery of the lady with enormous feet.” On the same afternoon when Ben found the rare postage stamps, David, being alone with Tom in the front room, cocked an eye at the painted gentleman on the wall, and thus addressed him:
“Sir Peter, I don’t want to be disrespectful; but it does seem to me you were mighty tight with your silver when your good neighbors were doing their best to get the thirteen United States started. Or didn’t you really have the things they suspected you of having? You’ve got a long nose and a twinkle in your eye, and I’d say it mightn’t be beyond you to have your little game at the expense of Barmouth.”
Tom laughed. “You can’t judge Sir Peter by yourself, Dave.”
“Certainly not,” was the instant reply. “I’ll admit we are very different. Nothing could induce me to have my picture taken with a dog like that greyhound cuddling up against my shins. The good people of Barmouth didn’t have any greyhounds or any pie crust tables or gate-legged tables, or whatever kind of tables it is that the Professor finds so delightful, and they were envious, and rowed their boats out here, and tramped up to the door, probably looking for all the world like a gang of hayseeds.”
“Remember, Dave, your ancestors and mine were probably among them.”
“I’ll admit that also,” said David, “and for the sake of your feelings, Tom, I’ll take back that about their looking like hayseeds. Let me put it this way. A crowd of very nice looking, but temporarily cross and angry people—men and women, and possibly a few dogs—come up to the house here and demand to see the elegant Sir Peter. Sir Peter doesn’t want to see them; he doesn’t approve of them; he thinks that good old King George is just about the proper cheese to rule over him and his. But Sir Peter’s a gentleman—you can see that from his portrait—and he doesn’t want to disappoint the neighbors, who’ve come all the way out here in boats. So he takes a pinch of snuff and he whistles to his greyhound and he goes out on the front steps. He looks down along his nose at the people of Barmouth and his right eye twinkles—you notice, Tom, that it’s his right eye that’s the humorous one—and he says: ‘Friends and fellow citizens, come in and enjoy yourselves. The green and gold pineapple is over the door and Cotterell Hall is yours for the afternoon. But the silver plate you’re so anxious to lay your hands on isn’t here any more. It’s vanished, vamoosed, flown away; and the family are using the plain blue and white china kitchen set.’ Did they believe him?”
“No,” sang out Tom.
“Exactly,” agreed David, with a bow. “They rushed past him into the house, and they threw things about, and they buzzed around like a nest of hornets you happen to hit with a stick. But they didn’t find anything after all; and the reason is simple—there wasn’t anything of the sort they had in mind to find. It was just Sir Peter’s little joke. And it worked to perfection. Ever since people have been wondering what he did with the silverware he mentioned that day. Sir Peter, my opinion of you is that you were a first-class joker.”
“You may be right,” Tom assented, “but for goodness’ sake don’t rub that idea in on Mr. Tuckerman and Ben. They’re thrilled to the fingertips about there being a treasure hidden away somewhere.”
“Babes in the wood!” sniffed David. “I believe you could put almost anything over on the Professor if you dressed it up in old clothes.”
To the skeptical David and the inclined-to-be-skeptical Tom the other two now appeared. They had been in the apartment on the second floor that had been Christopher Cotterell’s bedroom and had been rummaging through a little secretary that stood between the windows. Tuckerman had a notebook in his hand. “These are jottings my uncle made from time to time,” he declared. “Here’s one. ‘As regards the saying that the hiding-place is just beyond the three pines that stand between two rocks where the sun goes down, I have scoured and scoured the island, and come to the opinion that the extreme southwestern point must be the place intended, although to-day there are only two pines there. I have dug at this place, but found only sand.’”
“Maybe we can find another place that answers that description,” said Ben hopefully. “And it stands to reason that the four of us can dig better than your Uncle Christopher, even if he had his servant to help him.”
David, under cover of his hand, winked at Tom, who pretended not to see him.
“Here’s another note,” Tuckerman continued. “‘Find the mahogany-hued man with the long, skinny legs and look in his breast pocket.’ That’s a saying my father handed down. What can it mean?”
“Mahogany-hued man with long, skinny legs,” echoed Ben.
“And a hooked nose and a scar across the left cheek,” chortled David. “Pirate stuff, of course. There’s always someone like that. I suppose he’s the fellow who hid the treasure on a dark, stormy night.”
Tuckerman gazed at the speaker with his big, owl-like eyes. “You may be right, although I rather thought of him as a faithful, old-fashioned serving-man, from whom Sir Peter had no secrets.”
David grinned; but how could anyone joke on a matter that Tuckerman took so seriously? “Have it your own way,” he said. “Probably you’re right. But hooked-nose pirate or faithful servant I don’t see how the mahogany one can be of much help to us here to-day.”
Tuckerman closed the notebook. “Suppose we go down to the southwestern point. At least we’ll get a good view of the sunset and freshen up for supper.”
When they came to that end of the island they found the ledges and neighboring sand covered with a vast array of sandpipers, all with their heads turned in the same direction, watching, as it were, a score or so of leaders, who stood out in front, closest to the water. Quietly though the four crept up, they were still a couple of dozen yards from the rear ranks when, with one accord and with as smooth a motion as though a sail were being drawn across the beach, the hundreds of little winged bodies rose in air and flew out across the waves.
“By Jove, that’s pretty!” said Tom. “They’re like ever so many bits of silver paper blowing about in the wind.”
So they were. Fascinated, the four watched the sandpipers. When the birds were tilted one way, on one tack, they could hardly be seen against the light, they actually disappeared. Then a tiny deflection, a dip and twist of the wings, and they were a network of silver, drawn this way, then that. They wheeled, they rose, they dropped; no human beings ever moved in such perfect precision; it was not as if they followed a leader, it was as if every single sandpiper of the hundreds knew instinctively what the bird just ahead of him would do. And at last they descended, like falling leaves, on a flat rock out in the water.
“I don’t see how they can do it,” sighed Ben. “We could drill and drill forever, and never get anything like that. Don’t tell me that sandpipers haven’t brains.”
“You bet your boots they have,” said David. “Fine little fellows! I don’t see how anybody can possibly want to shoot them.”
The little fellows rose again and went soaring off against the sunset sky.
Tuckerman drew a long breath. “You boys who live by the seashore have much to be thankful for. The pioneers who pushed inland must have been awfully homesick for just such sights as that. Gee whillikins! What a gorgeous sky! I could look at it for hours.”
His companions, however, had other things to do. They wanted to locate the two pines that stood between the two rocks. A short search discovered them. The trees, old and gnarled, twisted of branches on the eastern side, where the winter winds had lashed them, still stood like sentinels between the lichen-covered boulders, where Christopher Cotterell and doubtless others before him back to the days of Peter had surveyed them.
“They’re here all right,” said Ben. “What was it the notebook said? ‘I have dug at this place, but found only sand.’ Well, there’s plenty of sand—oodles of it. But if you ask my opinion, this isn’t the place to dig.”
“You’re lazy,” scoffed David. “Tell me, Mr. Man, why in your learned opinion isn’t this the right place to dig?”
“I’ve a hunch it isn’t,” answered Ben.
Tuckerman looked at the serious-faced small fellow, and suddenly gave a laugh. “I’ve got the same sort of a hunch myself. My uncle Christopher dug here and didn’t find anything. I don’t want to do his work all over again.”
They let it go at that, and slowly, with an eye to the sunset, which every moment grew more like a vast palette on which many colors were mixed, went back by the path through the woods that skirted the western shore. They reached the old house, and were passing it on their way to the camp when Tom abruptly halted. “I say, I saw something moving at that corner window on the second floor! Something white—yes, sir, it moved. I’ll take my word to that!”
All stopped and gazed at the house. The windows were closed, no curtain could have been blowing.
“Nonsense,” said David. “What you saw was the sunset reflected on the glass.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t,” Tom retorted. And straightway he went up the graveled walk that led to the front door.
Now usually John Tuckerman had been careful to lock the door when he left the house, but this time he had forgotten. Tom turned the knob and pushed the door open.
They all went into the hall and stood there listening. Undoubtedly there was the sound of footsteps on the floor above.
“That sounds to me like a giggle,” whispered Ben.
“Sh-ssh,” warned David.
Footsteps tapped on the floor, were coming apparently toward the head of the staircase.
Then unmistakably there was a laugh, a light and merry laugh, in a feminine key.
In the silence that followed David’s voice rose. “The lady with the enormous feet!” he muttered.
A patter of feet and there came into view two ladies, two ladies in hoopskirts, with white stockings and little black slippers laced with black ribbons, and flowered silk waists and flat, mushroom-shaped hats with streamers falling behind. They stood at the head of the staircase and stared down at the four below.
“It’s Milly and Sally Hooper!” exclaimed Tom.
“Did I hear someone whisper ‘The lady with the enormous feet?’” Milly Hallett wrinkled her nose and stuck out the tip of her tongue. “Sarah, my dear, the gentlemen aren’t so gallant as they used to be. Whoever saw neater, sweeter slippers than these we have on!”
Slowly, with a hand to each side of their skirts, which swayed like great balloons, the two girls came down the stairs.
At the foot John Tuckerman stood, bowing. “Ladies, you greatly honor my poor house,” he declared.
“Who is the gentleman, Milly?” asked Sarah Hooper, a black-haired, black-eyed girl with scarlet ribbons to her hat.
“Faith, I think it must be one of the comely Cotterells,” said Milly. “What a fine sunburn he has!”
“John Tuckerman, at your service,” said that gentleman. “Nephew of Mr. Christopher.”
Milly Hallett’s blue eyes danced with delightful mischief. “And Mr. Tuckerman, who are the three extraordinary young persons standing in a row behind you? They do look so funny! Such remarkable clothes.”
David looked at Ben, and Ben looked at Tom, and Tom looked down at his khaki trousers, which still bore patches of white and green paint acquired a month ago when he was freshening up his canoe.
“Ladies, these are three experts,” Tuckerman explained. “The gentleman with the yellow hair and the zebra stripes on his trousers is an expert skipper, the one with the midnight hair and the rich mahogany skin is an expert fisherman, and the third—with the splendid red complexion and the curling locks—can cook a meal that will make you forget every other breakfast or dinner or supper you ever sat down to.”
“Really!” exclaimed Sarah. “Milly dear, something reminds me that it’s a long time since we tasted food.”
“I was just about to touch on that point,” said Tuckerman. “Will you do us the honor of breaking bread with us? That is, if you won’t injure your exquisite gowns by eating out of doors.”
“They can’t sit on the grass in those things,” Tom declared. “They’d ruin them for fair.”
“Oh, can’t we!” cried Milly and Sarah in chorus. “Just you watch us do it!”
And in spite of hoopskirts and tiny slippers and gingerly-perched hats the two girls ran to the front door and down the steps to the path. The other four, catching up with them, piloted them to camp.
On the way Milly explained. She had felt that she just had to find out what was going on at Cotterell’s Island—she had feared that bears or ghosts, mosquitoes or robbers might have made an end of her brother and his friends; so she had gotten Sally Hooper, and they had taken Sally’s father’s sailboat and sailed out to the island. They hadn’t seen the boys; but when they went up to the white house they found the front door unlocked. They went in and looked the place all over. In a room on the second floor they found oceans of clothes in chests and closets, and they simply had to try some of them on. Then they thought they’d surprise the campers. And they certainly had done that, she concluded, because she had never seen four people look so astonished as those four had when they saw Sally and her come to the top of the stairs.
In fifteen minutes supper was under way, a truly marvellous supper, for David was determined to show these skeptical girls what a howling cook he was. The guests were not allowed to soil their fingers; as a matter of fact they found they had their hands full with trying to manage their ridiculous hoopskirts and sit down in them without smashing the hoops. But they did contrive to seat themselves on a grassy bank, and Milly took off her slippers—which were horribly tight—and the two watched their four serving-men get supper, and occasionally put in a word or so of advice.
When each of the six had declared that they could not possibly eat a single additional pancake—no matter how much golden syrup was offered as an extra inducement—supper came to a conclusion, and Milly cast a reflective eye out on the water.
“Sally and I must be starting back,” she said with a sigh; “and I don’t suppose they’d let us land in Barmouth, dressed in these funny old clothes.”
Sarah Hooper looked at David, who sat cross-legged on the ground, resting after his labors. “You’re a very superior chef,” she admitted; “but I want to know what you meant when you heard us upstairs and murmured, ‘The lady with the enormous feet.’ Oh yes, I heard you; and those were the very words you used.”
David laughed. “I plead guilty. But I didn’t refer to either you or Milly. I was thinking of a little detective work we have on hand.”
Then he had to explain about the discovery of the very large footprints on the bank of the creek and the finding of a lady’s lavender-scented handkerchief, with the initials A. S. L., in the kitchen.
“Oh, I love mysteries!” said Sarah. “I’m always reading detective stories and working them out before the author tells you exactly what did happen.”
“There’s the man for you then,” said David, pointing at Ben. “Eats ’em alive, he does.”
“Huge footprints and a lady’s handkerchief,” murmured Milly. “That is a funny combination. But we really must go, or Sally’s mother and father will be sending out searching parties.”
They all walked back to the house, and the two girls went upstairs to change into their own clothes. When they came down again, much more comfortably dressed, they found the others in the big front room, where Tuckerman had lighted the candles.
“How lovely!” exclaimed the romantic Sarah. “I adore old furniture. What a duck of a divan! And that beautiful secretary.” She looked at a desk that stood in a corner, at the other end from the fireplace. “It’s mahogany, of course—and what perfect, long, fluted, shiny legs it has!”
“What’s that?” said Ben. “Say it again, and slower.”
“I tell you we must be going back,” declared Milly positively. “Never mind these ducky old things, Sally. Think of your waiting parents.”
So Sally had to go, and they all trooped down to the pier, where Mr. Hooper’s sailboat was bobbing about on the tide.
Tom insisted that he would take the Argo, to convoy the girls home; but Milly also insisted that he should do nothing of the kind; she knew how to handle a boat quite as well as her brother, the wind was right, the water smooth, and she had often sailed later in the evening than that. Nevertheless when Milly’s boat was out from the island, the campers embarked in the Argo and sailed along after them, until the lights of Barmouth were visible right ahead. Then, with a good-night shout, the crew of the Argo brought their craft about and headed back for the pier.
They walked through the moonlit woods to their camp, cleaned the dishes, and made things snug for the night. As Ben, seated on a log, pulled off his shoes, he said to Tom, who sat near him: “Did you hear what Sally said about that desk in the corner?”
“Duck of a thing—some such nonsense.”
“No. She said, ‘Mahogany, of course. And what long, fluted, shiny legs.’”
“Perhaps she did. I don’t remember.”
“Doesn’t that convey anything to your mind, Tom?”
“Can’t say it does. Mahogany—legs. Oh, I’m too sleepy to think of anything.”
“Well, it conveys something to me,” said Ben. “I think maybe I’ve got a clue, thanks to innocent Sally. I suppose it’s too late to go back to the house to-night?”
“It’s too late to go anywhere except to sleep,” answered Tom shortly. “I guess your clue will keep. If it’s got anything to do with Sir Peter’s treasure, it’s kept for a hundred years.”
Tom gave a gigantic yawn, and rolled over on to his bed.
But Ben lay awake for some time, until he got the sound of the lapping of waves on the beach mixed with John Tuckerman’s voice singing “Yo—heave—ho, my lads,” and then he fell asleep.