As they went along the pasture trail, the younger girl suggested:
“Do you suppose he could be making up another of his fake medicines? Like those ‘Stonehedge Bitters?’ Lucas says they ought to be called ’Stonefence Bitters,’ for they are just hard cider and bad whiskey–and that’s what the folks hereabout call ‘stonefence.’”
“It looked like only water in those bottles,” Lyddy said, slowly.
“And he’s so afraid old Mr. Colesworth–or Harris–will come up here and find him at work–or come across his water-bottles,” continued ’Phemie. “Lucky this new boarder–Mr. Chadwick–isn’t much for long walks. It would keep old Spink busier than a hen on a hot griddle, as Lucas says, to watch all of them.”
“Well, I wish I knew what it meant. It puzzles me,” remarked Lyddy. “And I never yet asked Mr. Pritchett about the evening we saw him and a man whom I now think must have been Professor Spink at the farmhouse.”
“Ask him–do,” urged ’Phemie, at last curious enough to have Lyddy share all the mystery that had been troubling her own mind since they first came to Hillcrest.
“I’ll do so the very first time I see him,” declared Lyddy.
But something else happened first–and something that brought the mystery regarding Professor Lemuel Judson Spink to a head for the time being, at least.
’Phemie lost the key to the green door!
Now, off and on, that missing key had troubled Lyddy. She had seldom spoken of it, for she had never even known it had been in the door when the girls came to Hillcrest. Only ’Phemie, it will be remembered, had the midnight adventure in the old doctor’s suite of offices in the east wing.