Phyllis stared at her incredulously, but Leslie continued: “Yes, I really think so, and I’ll tell you why. This isn’t an ordinary bead. In the first place, it’s a rather peculiar shade of green—one you don’t ordinarily see. Then, though it’s so small, it’s cut in a different way, too, sort of melon-shaped, only with about six sides. Do you see?”
On closer examination, Phyllis did see. And she had to acknowledge that Leslie was right.
“Then there’s the broken penknife and the brick with one side pried out,” went on Leslie. “It’s pretty plain that the person was trying to pry up that brick with the penknife and found it hard work because the mortar or cement is solid. Then the blade of the knife broke and the attempt was probably given up. Now why did they want to pry up that brick?”
“I know!—I know!” cried Phyllis, triumphantly. “They wanted to bury ‘The Dragon’s Secret’ under it!”
“Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t,” replied Leslie, more cautiously. “They certainly tried to pry up the brick, but perhaps it was to look for something under it, rather than to hide anything. However, I rather think it was to hide it. And because they didn’t succeed, they went out and buried it in the sand, instead. How about that?”
Phyllis sprang up and hugged her impetuously. “You have a brain like a regulation sleuth-hound’s!” she laughed. “What else?”
“Well, this is what I can’t understand. Suppose this person (we’re sure now it must be a woman) came down here that first stormy night with ‘The Dragon’s Secret,’ and tried to hide it somewhere, and finally buried it in the sand outside. The question is, what did she come for the second time?”
“To get it again?” suggested Phyllis.
“I’m almost absolutely certain not, because, if so, all she would have had to do was to go outside and dig. (Of course, she wouldn’t have found it because we had it!) But she never went outside at all. I know that positively. I passed right by the place where Rags dug the hole, on my way up from your bungalow, and it was quite untouched, just as we left it after we filled it up again that day. And when we came back again, I looked a second time, and still it was the same. And I watched half the night and would certainly have seen if any one had gone there. No, I’m sure it wasn’t for that. But what was it for?”
“Give it up,” advised Phyllis, “at least for the present. Anything else?”