Phyllis tore at her hair in mock despair. “Worse and more of it!” she groaned. “But the deeper it gets, the more determined I grow to get to the bottom of it!”
They strolled on a while in silence. Suddenly Phyllis asked, “Where’s Rags this morning?”
“He doesn’t seem to feel very well to-day. Something seems to have disagreed with him—perhaps too many hermit-crabs! Anyway, he’s lying around on the veranda and seems to want to stay near Aunt Marcia and sleep. She said she’d keep him there.”
“Best news I’ve heard in an age!” exclaimed Phyllis, delightedly. “That dog is a most faithful article, Leslie, but he’s a decided nuisance sometimes! And now, I have a gorgeous idea that I’ve been wanting to try for two days. Father and Ted have gone off for the day up the inlet, and Rags is out of commission. Here’s our chance. Do you realize that there’s one bedroom in Curlew’s Nest we didn’t have a chance to explore the other day? Let’s go and do it right now. I’ll run down to our house for the electric torch and meet you at the side door. There’s not a soul around to interfere with us!”
“Oh, no, Phyllis! I really don’t think we ought—” objected Leslie, recalling all too vividly the unpleasantness of their former experience. But Phyllis was off and far away while she was still expostulating, and in the end, Leslie found herself awaiting her companion in the vicinity of the side door of Curlew’s Nest.
They entered the dark bungalow with beating hearts, more aware this time than ever that mystery lurked in the depth of it. Straight to the unexplored bedroom they proceeded, for, as Leslie reminded them, they had no time to waste; Rags might have an untimely recovery and come seeking them as before! Ted also might be prompted by his evil genius to descend on them; or even Aunt Marcia might be minded to hunt them up.
The bedroom in question, as Phyllis now recalled, was the southwest one, and the one Mrs. Danforth said that the last tenant had chosen for his own. “Therefore it ought to be more than ordinarily interesting,” went on Phyllis. “I remember now that Mrs. Danforth said he had asked permission to leave there, as a little contribution to the bungalow, a few books that he had finished with and did not wish to carry away. She left them right where they were on a shelf in his room, instead of putting them in the bookcase in the living-room. I’m sort of remembering these things she told me, piecemeal, because Mrs. Danforth is a great talker and is always giving you a lot of details about things you’re not particularly interested in, and you try to listen politely, but often find it an awful bore. Then you try to forget it all as soon as possible!”
They found the bedroom in question somewhat more spacious and better furnished than the others. But though they examined every nook and cranny with care, they discovered nothing thrilling, or even enlightening, within its walls till they came to the shelf of books. These, with the exception of two books of recent fiction, were all of travel and politics in foreign countries.
“My, but he must have been interested in India and China and Tibet and those countries!” exclaimed Leslie, reading the titles. “I wonder why?”
She took one of them down and turned the pages idly. As she did so, something fluttered out and fell to the floor. “Oh!” she cried, picking it up and examining it. “Phyllis, this may prove very valuable! Do you see what it is?” It was an envelop of thin, foreign-looking paper—an empty envelop, forgotten and useless, unless perhaps it had been employed as a bookmark. But on it was a name—the name no doubt of the recipient of the letter it had once contained, and also a foreign address.