Aunt Cal listened to our story without interruption at supper that night. Only at my first mention of the old Craven House, I fancied I saw an odd expression flit across her face. But her only comment, when we had finished, was the dry remark that the next time we felt moved to go poking about empty houses, we’d better make sure that the key was on the inside.
Following Eve upstairs that night, I found her standing in the middle of the room, scowling over a scrap of paper. “Is this anything of yours, Sandy?” she asked.
I peered at it over her shoulder. It was a soiled and dog-eared piece of notepaper which had been folded twice. Scrawled across the middle, I read: “Circe south 13-6, 90 degrees W. 7 dig here.”
“I never saw it before. Where did you find it, Eve?” I said, looking at it curiously.
“Saw it lurking under the bed as I came into the room,” she explained. “It doesn’t seem like Aunt Cal to leave pieces of old letters about.”
“What do you think it is?” I asked, still staring at the strange inscription. “A ship’s log maybe? Circe sounds like the name of a ship.”
“Perhaps. But ‘dig here’—what about that? That’s not exactly nautical, is it?” Eve returned musingly. Suddenly she lifted the paper to her face and sniffed at it. “Harry’s Hair Restorer!” she exclaimed.
“What!” I sniffed too. She was right. The scent of Mr. Bangs’ lotions when we had opened his suitcase had permeated everything. It was unmistakable. “Then—then,” I stammered, “this letter, or whatever it is, must be his. Must have fallen out when we opened the suitcase!”
“Looks like it. And the wind probably blew it under the bed when you opened the window. That’s why we didn’t notice it before.”
“I wonder if it’s anything important,” I mused. “What do you make of it, Eve?”