I admit this. I admit, too, that, as I have said before, I know nothing of her actions for the next few moments. Personally, I believe that she went to the house, as she has stated, to get the Gilbert cook’s recipe for jelly roll; and as anyone knows, considerable damage may be done to an uncovered engine by flying stones. To say that she cut certain wires while absent is to make a claim not borne out by the evidence.
But I will also say that the Smith boys up to that moment had had an unfair advantage, and that the inducing of a brief delay on their part was not forbidden by the rules, which are on my desk as I write. However——
As Mr. Gilbert is not only prominent in the church but is also the local prohibition officer, judge of our surprise when, on the well bucket emerging, we found in it not only the clews but some bottles of beer which had apparently been put there to cool. And Mr. Gilbert, on arriving with the others, seemed greatly upset.
“Hawkins,” he said to the gardener, “what do you mean by hiding six bottles of beer in my well?”
“Me?” said Hawkins angrily. “If I had six bottles of beer, they’d be in no well! And there aren’t six; there’s only four.”
“Four!” said Mr. Gilbert in a furious voice. “Four! Then who the dev——” Here, however, he checked himself; and as Tish had now returned, we took our clews and departed. Hawkins had given us the next password, which was “Good evening, dearie,” and the clew, which read:
“Down along the lake front, in a pleasant place,
Is a splendid building, full of air and space.
Glance within a closet, where, neatly looped and tagged,
Are the sturdy symbols of the game they’ve bagged.”