“Well, we did take a squint,” Hastings acknowledged. “But we didn’t think it likely we’d find that, if none of the Cotterells had been able to do it. We thought more about having some fun with you campers.” He looked at the three boys. “And we did give you a good time, didn’t we?—particularly Ben?”
“Yes, you did,” nodded Ben. “I was pretty well excited when I found that second piece of parchment in the hold of the ship.”
“When we’d fixed up the message,” Hastings resumed, “the next thing was to provide the treasure. Of course we’d already made a note of that crevice in the cliffs with the mark like a cross. I had an old chest at the Gables, and we filled it with some old costumes I had on hand, and then one day when I was in Barmouth I picked up some odds and ends from a dealer in antiques there, a fellow by the name of Haskins.”
“And that’s where the silver snuff-box comes in,” said Ben.
“Yes, that’s where it comes in,” Hastings admitted. “Though I must say that I was surprised when you drove up to the Gables that day and wanted to know if Joseph Hastings had anything to do with that snuff-box you’d found on the island. I didn’t tell the dealer my name.”
“No, he didn’t know your name,” said Ben. “I asked him that. You see, as soon as I saw what was in the chest I had a suspicion that someone was playing a game on us. Those things weren’t the Cotterell treasure; and why should anyone take so much trouble to hide such things on the island? Then I knew there had been people here, the footprints by the creek, the handkerchief in the kitchen——”
“What’s that about a handkerchief?” interrupted Martin Locke.
“The Professor found a handkerchief on the table in the kitchen,” Ben explained. “A lady’s handkerchief, with the initials A. S. L.”
“So that’s where I left it!” exclaimed Miss Lawson. “Those are my initials—Adelaide Sanderson Lawson.”
“Yes, there was the handkerchief and there were the footprints,” Ben continued. “That showed we weren’t the only people who had been to the island. And so, when we went to Barmouth, I took the snuffbox along, and dropped in on Mr. Haskins. He knew the snuff-box at once, and told me that the man who had bought it from him, and some other things too, had come in a big red car with a silver eagle on the radiator cap, and that the car had a Massachusetts license and the man was wearing green-checked knickerbockers. He didn’t know the man’s name.”