For a time, Phyllis was equally puzzled. Then suddenly she had a bright idea. “I’ll tell you! That top shelf in your pantry where the refrigerator is! You said you’d put quite a few kitchen things that you didn’t use there, and it’s dark and unhandy and neither your aunt nor any one else would think of disturbing it. Wouldn’t that be the best place, really?”
“I guess you’re right,” admitted Leslie, considerably relieved. “Wait till Aunt Marcia has gone to sit on the front veranda, and we can put it there.”
The Dragon’s Secret had probably known some strange resting-places in its time, but doubtless none stranger than the one in which it now found itself—a dark, rather dusty top shelf in a pantry, hobnobbing with a few worn-out pots and pans and discarded kitchen-ware! But the girls tucked it far into a corner, and, wrapped in its burlap bag, it was as successfully concealed as it would have been in a strong-box.
“And now, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” said Leslie, as the two girls strolled down to the beach. “Do you happen to know anything about the people who hired Curlew’s Nest the latter part of this summer?”
“Oh, yes!” answered Phyllis, “though I didn’t happen to see them myself. Mrs. Danforth told me that in July the Remsons had it, as they always do. But in August and September she rented it to an elderly gentleman,—I can’t think of his name, just this minute,—who stayed there all by himself, with only his man or valet to do all the work. He wasn’t very well,—was recovering from some kind of a fever, I think,—and wanted to be alone in some quiet place. You know, Mrs. Danforth herself spent all summer in your bungalow, and she said she saw very little of the man in Curlew’s Nest, though they were such near neighbors. He sat on his porch or in the house a great deal, or took long walks by himself on the beach. He used to pass the time of day with her, and make some other formal remarks, but that was about all. She was really rather curious about him, he seemed so anxious not to mix with other people or be talked to. But he left about the middle of September, and she closed up that bungalow for the winter. That’s about all I know.”
“It’s too bad you can’t think of his name!” exclaimed Leslie.
“Why?” demanded Phyllis, suddenly curious. “You surely don’t think that has anything to do with this affair, do you?”
But Leslie countered that question by asking another: “Has it ever occurred to you as strange, Phyllis, that whoever got into that bungalow lately, knew the little secret about the side door and worked it so cleverly?”
Phyllis’s eyes grew wide and she seized Leslie’s arm in so muscular a grip that Leslie winced. “No, it didn’t, you little pocket-edition Sherlock Holmes! But I see what you’re driving at. To know about that side door, one must have been pretty well acquainted with that bungalow—lived in it for a while! Aha! No wonder you’re curious about the last occupant. We’ll have to count that old gentleman in on this!”
“Yes, but here’s the mystery,” reminded Leslie. “You said he lived here alone except for his man-servant. Remember, please, that the footprint we saw—was a woman’s!”