"And there's another thing," added Margaret. "Do you remember what I told you Mother said about that trunk of hers? It was found floating around in an old wreck. Now how did it get there? If there was a wreck and she was on it, she was probably drowned and never got back to Bermuda alive. But how did she come to be on a vessel with her trunk if she had been captured by the steward? Did he put her there?"
"Maybe she wasn't on that vessel at all!" was the contribution Jess made to the problem. "Somebody else may have taken possession of her trunk for all you can tell. A trunk is something anybody can use!"
"But did you ever hear of such a maddening thing as that journal breaking off just the minute she was going to tell where she'd hidden the signet!" exclaimed Corinne in thorough exasperation. "Why couldn't it have gone on just a second longer—at least till she'd had time for a tiny hint! And, see here! Do you realize that she was actually talking to us (though she didn't know it) when she begs the person who finds and deciphers this journal in the future to find the signet and return it to her people?"
"Why, that's so!" cried Margaret in a tone of hushed awe. "It didn't strike me at first. She's actually speaking to us—for we must be the first ones who have read this journal! Isn't it amazing!"
"You don't know whether we are or not," contradicted Bess, with her usual cold common sense. "Lots of people may have seen it before we did, and found the signet, too."
"I don't think it's likely," argued Corinne, coming to Margaret's defense. "And besides, how could they find the signet when she didn't even have a chance to tell where it was! No, I feel quite sure we're the first; but how are we ever going to know where she hid it? And even if we did know, would we be able to find it after the changes that have come in all these years?"
"Then too," put in Jess, "there's a chance that Alison got out of the trouble all right, anyhow, and took the signet back to her grandfather herself. How are you going to tell?"
"There's one thing you all seem to have forgotten," suggested Alexander. "And it's the biggest boost of the whole outfit! We are wise to her last name—Trenham. Now you, Corinne,—you've been down there to that little old joint, Bermuda. Did you ever hear of any one by the name of Trenham?"
"No, I didn't. Of course, I never inquired particularly, not knowing anything about this, then. But I never heard that name. There's a very common one on the island that's a good deal like it—Trimmingham—but that doesn't help much. It probably isn't the same, though the English do have the funniest way of shortening their names and pronouncing them in queer ways!"