"We surely do agree with you!" echoed Margaret. "We're just as crazy as you are to unravel it all. And what's an antiquarian club good for, I'd like to know, if not for something just like this! That's our business from now on!"
"The motion's carried!" agreed Bess. "But how in the world are we going to go about it? Somehow it seems as if we'd reached a stone wall a mile high—no getting around it or over it!"
"Then we'll tunnel under it!" laughed Corinne. "But first of all, there's a question I'd like to settle. Where did that old hair-trunk come from? How did it get in this house? Who owned it before you did?"
"I can answer that," replied Margaret, "for I asked Mother about it the other night. I did it in a roundabout sort of way, so she wouldn't suspect why I wanted to know or think it queer that I asked. She said it belonged to Father. He told her once that a friend of his, a sea-captain, had given it to him years ago. The captain said it was an heirloom that had been in the family many years. An ancestor of his had found it in a vessel that had been wrecked, and had been floating around for several months—a 'derelict,' Mother called it. This old captain said it was so handy and substantial that he had carried it with him on all his voyages. But as he wasn't going to sail any more, and hadn't any children to leave it to, he gave it to Father."
"Well, at least it explains one thing—how this strange book came to be in your house," mused Corinne. "But it doesn't help a bit about unraveling the rest of the mystery, after all. Now, the next thing is to go over all this writing carefully, and see if we can find anything we've overlooked that might be a clue. Oh, girls, I wish you'd let me show this to Father! He'd be so interested, and perhaps he could help us with it, too!"
"Well, as far is I'm concerned, you're welcome to," answered Bess, and Jess nodded her head vigorously in assent. But Margaret cried out pleadingly:
"Oh, no, no, Corinne! Don't do that yet! It would spoil all our lovely secret society to have grown folks know about it. Let's wait awhile and see what we can do ourselves. And then if we find we can't make any headway, I'll consent to telling Corinne's father."
She was so earnest and so pathetic in her appeal, that not one of the others had the heart to deny her request, knowing, as they did, what the little club and its absorbingly interesting secret meant to her shut-in, circumscribed life.
"Very well, honey! We will do just as you say!" agreed Corinne, giving her a hug. "Now let's read this whole thing over, and see if we can unearth a clue."