“If we had only known then,” said Terry, “we could have made a thrilling rescue. But we didn’t. Or if we had taken Tania she would have discovered you. A pity we didn’t.”
“Yes,” agreed Arden.
“Please do not reproach yourselves,” said Dimitri. “I am too much in your debt to allow that. It is all over now.”
“Another thing I wonder about,” said Arden. “You know when we went to the shack with Melissa after she promised to restore the box, and it wasn’t where she said she had hidden it, she was, or appeared to be, greatly surprised. I wonder if she was acting or if she knew her father had taken the treasure?”
“I don’t believe Melissa could act that much, though she is very clever at times,” said Terry. “I don’t believe she suspected her father had taken the box from where she had concealed it. And it would be well within reason, considering her character, for her to have thought that perhaps she had forgotten where she had put the box. You know, when we first talked with her father, after he wouldn’t let her keep the bracelet, he said she often took trifling bright objects and hid them all around the house. He said she often forgot where she had hidden her simple treasures and would go looking for them day after day. Then she would suddenly recall the place and be happy again. So in this case Melissa might have thought that, after putting the box in her poor little bureau, she herself had removed it and couldn’t recall where it was.”
“Yes, that would account for it,” Sim said.
“It’s very possible,” Arden agreed. “It is all very strange. The poor girl certainly needs careful and regular training. I’m so glad this aunt of hers remembers her in time.”
“I wonder if Melissa knew you were down in the cellar?” asked Sim.
Dimitri shrugged his shoulders, answering: “It is difficult to say. I don’t know just when her father told her what he had done. I believe, though, it was only a short time before they both left.”
“It’s queer Melissa didn’t discover you,” spoke Arden.