“Then,” says Catty, “we made up our minds to help, so we started in to fool you, and send you off on a wild-goose chase while we lifted the treasure comfortable.”
“Yes.”
“So we fixed up that chart, with marks on it and everything, and arranged things so you’d see it there in Padanaram. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“It was too bad. Mr. Topper should have told us what was what. But we did the best we could. We picked out Nantucket as being about as out of the way as anything could be, and marked the treasure right here. It got rid of you, all right. But the worst of it was, we had bad luck. Instead of sending you off where we’d never see you again, we sent you right to the spot where the treasure was buried.... It was a lovely scheme.”
“Can you beat that?” says Mr. House.
“Huh,” says Mr. Dunn, “if it hadn’t been for fool luck, these kids would have bamboozled you. You’re a fine citizen, you are. It isn’t your fault we’re not digging holes in some place a hundred miles from here. Smart kids, I’ll say.”
“They’re that. They’ve been on our necks ever since we got here, prowling around, and what not. We caught them once and had them aboard the Porpoise, but they got away.”
“Is that where that document case went to?” says Mr. Dunn kind of savage.
“I don’t know, but we missed it that night.”