This of course was too absurd to answer. Nevertheless it compelled me to get reluctantly out of the car and follow the others over the wall. Hamish was in the lead but with Hattie May panting closely at his heels. He vouchsafed no explanation as to where he was headed or what his purpose was. And for my own part I didn’t care much. I was sick of the whole subject of buried treasure and wished heartily at that moment that we had never opened Mr. Bangs’ smelly old suitcase. It had been just like Pandora’s box, I reflected bitterly, for nothing but trouble had come out of it.
But if it was treasure that Hamish was intent upon, at least he was seeking it in a new spot. For he passed rapidly through the garden and plunged into the underbrush beyond. “Well,” I said determinedly, “I’m not going to get myself all scratched and bitten up again. I’ll wait here by the fountain and if any of you fall down any wells, don’t expect me to do anything about it.”
“All right,” said Hattie May. “But I’ve got to keep Hamish in sight.” And Eve added, “I guess I’d better go along to look after Hattie May.”
So they left me and I heard their voices die away in the distance. I took out my handkerchief and mopped my hot face. I wished that the fountain were playing so that I could have stuck my head into its cooling spray. By and by I heard the others returning. Hattie May’s voice was high-pitched and excited but that was nothing unusual.
Hamish was in the lead, he was carrying something under one arm. I looked at Eve and saw that she too was excited. “Well I see you’re all here,” I remarked.
Hamish walked to the bowl of the fountain and set down the thing he was carrying. “What is it?” I asked. And then, “Why, it’s a statue! Where did you get it?”
“Hamish’s found it!” Hattie May cried. “He’s found the Circe!”
“The Circe!” In truth I had almost forgotten about the missing statue. “Why—where in the world——?”
“It was at the bottom of that awful well!” Hattie May cried.
“I brought it up with me when they hauled me up this morning,” Hamish explained, taking off his glasses to wipe them. “I guess you were all too excited to notice it. It was pretty heavy so I just dropped it in the grass and left it. Bein’ without my spectacles, I couldn’t be sure what it was. You see when Hattie May dropped that bottle down it hit on a stone and broke to smithereens. This was the stone, that’s how I happened to find it.”