For an entire week thereafter Aunt Minerva went her own mysterious way, calm and unruffled herself, but keeping the rest of her family on tenter-hooks of excitement.
She wrote mysterious letters which she would allow no one but herself to mail, and received mysterious replies, the contents of which she kept a dark secret. They watched her with the feeling that they were quite outside the game now, and that she had the keys of the situation entirely in her own hands. Which was indeed the truth!
At last one day, after receiving a particularly bulky communication, she deigned to speak.
"Can you carry a message for me to Miss Benedict?" she inquired of Marcia and Janet.
"Yes!" they replied eagerly, but humbly.
"Ask her if she could possibly grant an interview in her own house to the four of us here—and one other. It's very important."
"Oh, Aunt Minerva, you know she never receives any strangers in the house!" expostulated Marcia.
"I know that, of course. And you told me the reason, which I quite appreciate. But there's bound to come a time, even in her peculiar experience, when it's expedient to break a rule like that. The time has come now, and you can tell her that I'm sure she'll be very sorry if she does not grant this request. The matter intimately concerns her, or I would not dream of intruding on her."
"Well, you may as well tell us what you've been concocting, Minerva," interrupted Captain Brett. "You've kept us in the dark about long enough, haven't you? And if I'm to go in there with the procession, I'd like to know a thing or two about where I'm at, instead of sitting around like a dummy! And who is this 'other one' you allude to, anyway?"