“Dad would be awfully cross if he knew that. I’m not going to tell him. He’s had so much trouble hiring a man for this place. He’d go to Carlos and reprimand him and Carlos would leave and——Oh, what’s the use? We won’t bother with Carlos again, anyway. He’d never tell us anything. I’m going to write a letter to-day to Eulalie Fereda and have Mr. Haynes, the agent, forward it. I simply must learn the history of that dark, wicked-looking cavalier in the picture gallery. Of course she may not answer it, but then, she may. It’s worth trying, anyway.”
Entering the patio and finding it deserted, Bee and Patsy passed through it and on up stairs in search of Mabel. They finally found her in the big, somber sitting room, engaged in her favorite occupation of hunting for the secret drawer which she stoutly insisted the quaint walnut desk contained. This idea having become firmly fixed in her mind she derived signal amusement in searching for the mythical secret drawer.
“Is she crazy?” jeered Patsy, pointing to Mabel, who was kneeling before the massive piece of furniture, her exploring fingers carefully going over every inch of the elaborately carved solid front of the desk.
“Oh, so you’ve come back!” Mabel sprang to her feet, laughing. “I had to run away,” she apologized. “I felt so silly. I didn’t want to laugh in his very face. How was I to know that the witch woman was Carlos’ grandmother? Did you find out anything?”
“No.” Bee shook her head. “Carlos will never set the world on fire as an information bureau. According to his own statements, he sees nothing, knows nothing and remembers nothing. He is a positive clam!”
“I’m going to write to Eulalie now, while it’s on my mind,” announced Patsy. “Bee, you may play around with Mab while I’m writing. You may both hunt for the secret drawer. When I finish my letter, I’ll read it to you. Then I’m going to write another. When that’s done we are all going down to the beach. A great scheme is seething in my fertile brain. Where’s Nellie?”
“In our room, overhauling her trunk,” informed Mabel. “We can’t go to the beach without Miss Martha, and she said she wouldn’t go to-day.”
“Leave that to me,” retorted Patsy. “I know what I’m doing, even if you don’t.”
For the next half-hour, comparative quiet reigned in the big room, broken only by an occasional remark or giggle from Bee and Mabel as they pursued their fruitless search.
“There!” cried Patsy at last as she signed her name to the letter she had just finished writing.