XXI—THE BOYS AND JOHN TUCKERMAN
Tuckerman pulled himself up on to the rock where Tom and David and Ben were sitting in the sun. The quiet of early morning was on the water; a few terns were fishing for their breakfast; there was the distant chug-chug of a lobsterman’s motor-boat somewhere to the south; but otherwise the campers had the shore and the bay to themselves. Tuckerman sat down, sticking his long legs out in front of him. “I may not be a duck,” he said, “but I’m certainly getting web-feet. I feel almost as much at home in the water as on dry land.”
“You’re a good swimmer,” said Tom. “In fact, you’re an all-around sport. I don’t believe any of the Cotterells knew a quarter as much about the water as you do.”
“I can’t picture Sir Peter sunning himself on this rock after a morning swim,” said David.
“Customs change with the times.” Tuckerman slapped his wet knees. “But I can tell you I’m glad I came on East this summer and learned to be a real man.”
“So am I,” said Ben. “No, I didn’t mean it that way. Of course you were a real man before. What I mean is that the camp on your island has been a great success. It’s taught me a lot.”
“Benjie, are you really going to be a professional detective?” David inquired. “Seems to me I heard someone say that you were thinking of it.”
“One mistake I made at first,” Ben remarked solemnly, “was in thinking that the men who put that chest in the rocks and those that Tom saw leaving the island in the sailboat were the same people. I thought there was only one set of men prowling around here, when there were really two.”
Tuckerman smiled. “I don’t wonder you got them mixed. Well, I’m glad Joseph Hastings’ guests got their jewels back from those thieves.”
“You see,” Ben continued, following his own line of thought, “the thieves came out here on the night when Tom saw them in a sailboat, and not in the fishing-smack. And I think it must have been that same sailboat we saw close to the island the night when we returned from Camp Amoussock in the Argo.” He pried loose a sliver of rock and threw it into the water. “Naturally, I didn’t connect that sailboat with the fishing-smack.”
“You’re forgiven,” said Tom. “Don’t let that weigh on your conscience.”
“I’m not sure,” suggested David, “but that we ought to call Benjie the Professor and call Mr. Tuckerman, John. Benjie’s getting to be a real professor. Just listen to the way he talks.”
“Ever since he found the treasure——” began Tom.
“Oh, let up on a fellow, can’t you?” Ben interrupted. “I haven’t mentioned the treasure to-day.”
David gave a chuckle. “You haven’t been out of bed an hour yet. And that puts me in mind of something important. Breakfast is waiting on the beach.”
Four splashes of water as the campers dove from the rock. Tuckerman could manage a very passable dive now. A swim across to the beach, a rub-down, a quick donning of clothes, and then preparations for breakfast. “I’ve never known coffee to taste so good as it does on Cotterell’s Island,” said Tuckerman, draining his cup.
Tom looked up at the man with the horn-rimmed spectacles. “Have you ever known anything to taste so good as it does on Cotterell’s Island?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“No, now I come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever have. It’s a wonderful place.”
“Wonderful cooking, you mean,” put in David.
“Wonderful fish,” said Ben.
“Just listen to them,” expostulated Tom. “Each taking the credit to himself. When the fact of the matter is that it’s all due to me. You’d never have come out here, Professor, would you, if I hadn’t agreed to come along?”
“Picture me alone here!” said Tuckerman. “No, I didn’t believe I should. Alone on a deserted island. It sounds all right in stories; but for practical purposes give me three companions. Boys, when I go back to my middle-western city I’ll think a great deal about this summer on the coast.”
“It is pretty good here,” David admitted, looking across the water to where a white sail was peeping around a point of land. “And in winter there’s fine skating.”
“And wonderful coasting,” said Ben. “There’s a hill back of Barmouth where you can coast for a mile.”
“And skiing,” Tom added. “You ought to be good at that, Professor, you’ve got such long legs.”
Tuckerman put his hands to his ears. “Hold on, hold on!” he exclaimed. “You overwhelm me. Do you want to make me desert my home and business, and do nothing but play?”
The three boys laughed. “We don’t play all the time by any means,” said Ben.
“Not a bit of it,” said David. “Sometimes we wash the dishes.” And taking Ben by the collar of his flannel shirt he lifted him to his feet. “Benjie’ll show you how we do it.”
When they had cleaned the dishes they walked over to Cotterell Hall. Tuckerman opened the front door, which was unlocked. “While I was so very particular about the key,” he chuckled, “both Joseph Hastings and the crew of the fishing-smack were coming in whenever they wanted. They made their own keys to fit the locks. Well, I ought to have been more hospitable.”
A week had passed since the famous party, and in that week the police of Barmouth had found the jewels that were stolen from the Gables, and also duplicate keys to the front and back doors of Cotterell Hall, hidden in the cabin of the fishing-smack. On the strength of that, and of the testimony of Tom and David and Lanky Larry as to what they had seen on the afternoon when they were at the cove, Sam and the other men had been held in jail for the next term of court.
“There’s one thing,” said Ben, as the four went into the big room on the left of the hall, “that still puzzles me a bit. Why did Christopher Cotterell write those lines in his notebook? ‘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?’” Ben looked at the others. “What do you suppose the mahogany man did have in his pocket?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Tuckerman. “He certainly didn’t have Sir Peter’s silver plate. That may be one of those legends, Ben, that get changed from their original meaning as they are handed down from one to another.”
“I suppose that may be it,” agreed Ben, though he did not look altogether satisfied.
“Every colonial house,” Tuckerman continued, “ought to have some legend to make it interesting. The mahogany man can be the legend of Cotterell Hall.”
Tuckerman looked at the portrait of his ancestor. “We’ve found what you meant by the place of the three pines and the two rocks where the sun goes down,” he said; “but we haven’t found what it was that the mahogany man had in his breast pocket. So you’ve still provided a conundrum for Ben to puzzle over. Sir Peter, I don’t believe you’d have any objection to our having found the plate. I think that to-day you’d be as good an American as any of the rest of us.”
“Of course he would,” said Tom, “I can understand how he’d have objected to his neighbors telling him to hand over his silver to them. I’d have objected myself.”
Tuckerman turned to the three boys. “You approve of Sir Peter, don’t you?” he asked. “Even if he was a Tory?”
“I do,” said Ben promptly.
“I do,” said Tom.
“I think he was a corker, Professor,” said David. “I wish he’d been in my family.”
“And that’s the opinion of three boys of good old Barmouth families,” said Tuckerman with a pleased smile. “Well, boys, you’re to feel free to camp on Sir Peter’s island and use his house any time you want.”
“Now,” said Tom, “the next thing is to get the Professor to sail us around to the north shore, so we can get Mr. Hastings’ chest and bring it back to the house. We don’t want to leave any tempting bait for other prowlers to find.”
They went aboard the Argo, and Tuckerman took the helm. He was now a proficient skipper, and he gloried in it, as he gloried in all the new accomplishments he had acquired in the past month.
The chest was brought to Cotterell Hall, and again the Argo set sail. This time the three boys fished, while Tuckerman handled the boat. Flounders were biting in plenty, and soon they had enough for dinner. Ben pulled in his line. “We’d better leave some for another day,” he suggested.
“The wind’s just right for a southerly run,” said Tom.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Tuckerman, and brought the bow about.
South they sailed, past the flag at Camp Amoussock, past the cove with the shacks on each side, past Joseph Hastings’ private dock, almost down to Gosport before Tuckerman came about.
North to the island and dinner. And as they sat on the bank afterwards and Tuckerman smoked his pipe, he said, “Well, to-morrow I must start back to the city. But I tell you, I’ve learned more since I’ve camped out in Barmouth Harbor than I ever learned in college.”
“If you stayed here much longer,” said David, “you’d be almost as learned as Benjie.”
“I don’t know about that,” Tuckerman answered. “I’m not as keen-witted as he is. I’m more lazy, like you, Dave.”
David grinned. “Well, it takes something really important to make me move around. I wouldn’t go trailing a snuff-box all over the country.”
“It takes Lanky Larry’s pitching,” said Tom. “Dave has to get mad before he does his best work.”
“I wasn’t mad. I was cool as a cucumber,” David responded. “I have a nice friendly nature.”
“If it hadn’t been for my following the snuffbox,” Ben spoke up, “Joseph Hastings wouldn’t have come out here and given his party; and if he hadn’t given his party and told us to get our costumes up in the attic, I wouldn’t have noticed that wallpaper; and if I hadn’t noticed the wallpaper we’d never have found the treasure. Q. E. D.”
“There!” exclaimed David, “Ben’s off again! No, Professor, I was wrong; you couldn’t possibly be as learned as he is; nobody could.”
“I’ve half a mind to duck you for that,” said Ben.
“Come on!” retorted David, pretending to roll up his sleeves.
“Only it’s too soon after dinner,” answered the dark-haired boy. “I’ll overlook it this once; but don’t you do it again.”