“About that I know nothing. Oh, you dear, foolish children! What do you think has happened? Murder? Abduction? Come, I am going back!” Olga swept out of the small space. She had succeeded in making the girls feel very young and rather silly. They followed her almost against their wills, and she drove them back to the cottage, where she stopped and, smiling brightly, said:
“Please don’t distress yourselves. I tell you, Dimitri is very capable. You believe me—yes?”
“Yes, of course,” Arden faltered.
“Oh, and if you see my little friend Melissa, tell her I have been here, will you?”
The girls nodded dumbly, and Olga drove off up the muddy road, splashing the brown water widely out from beneath the wheels.
There was a temporary lull in the storm, a sort of breathing spell. The rain had ceased, and the wind was less. The surf, though, was heavier than ever, booming on and tearing at the beach.
Arden stood in a little pool of rain water watching the car fade from sight. She suddenly moved aside as the water soaked through her shoes and wet her feet.
“What next?” she asked of no one in particular. “She is the queerest person I ever saw.”
“Do you think she really was disturbed about Dimitri and just pretended she wasn’t?” Sim inquired.
“If you ask me,” Terry began, “she doesn’t care a snap about Dimitri. But she did seem mad about the box and the broken cupboard.”