“Maybe it isn’t worth telling.” Grace was growing stubborn now.
“Well, all I can say is,” Laura replied to this, “that if the fact that a mysterious person went through Nan’s luggage once and then followed her from the time we got off the boat until we got here isn’t worth telling, then nothing is. Now, come on.”
There was no more argument. Together the girls went downstairs to where James Blake and Dr. Prescott were holding consultation with two villagers who had been called in when Dr. Prescott had finally given her consent to ask for outside help.
“You understand,” James Blake was saying, as they entered, “the lassie has gone off by herself and been lost. There is to be no word of anything else told to anyone, but we want a thorough search made of every likely hiding place in the neighborhood. No one would hurt her, but as you both know, there might be good reason to keep her in hiding until after the good king is crowned. Now, mind you, hold your tongues, and report back to me as quickly—” He left the sentence unfinished as he saw the girls.
“What is it lassies?” He smiled reassuringly down at them.
Laura plunged into her story without any preliminaries.
“And he was—a hunchback—red headed—with strange eyes?” The old man seemed to grow much older even as he repeated the words. “Then it is as I feared. The man we want is Robert Hugh Blake, my own poor, misguided brother!”
He rubbed his hand across his face, as he spoke. For a moment, he looked as though the whole thing was more than he could possibly stand.
Those in the room watched him silently, feeling at once how deeply he was hurt. To Bess alone, the name, Robert Hugh Blake, had a familiar ring. As she heard it, her thoughts flashed back to the last day on the boat when she had surprised the hunchback at Nan’s luggage. She remembered Nan’s revelation then, remembered her own puzzling over a clue that just escaped her memory.
Now, she puckered her brows over it again and tried to go back further over the things that had happened. There! No, it didn’t quite come. She tried harder, sure now that the fact that was escaping her had an important bearing upon the present mystery. She went back in time over the scenes on the boat, their farewells to their parents, the trip to New York, the last days at school, the worry when for so long they didn’t receive any letters—