by Andre Norton
"Don't be silly," Ricky scolded him; "we're taking you. Does Val have to come and hold you down?"
"Ah can't!" His eyes flickered from Val's face to hers. There was something more than independence behind that firm refusal. "Ah ain't a-goin' theah."
"Why not?"
He seemed to shrink from her. "It ain't fitten," he murmured.
"How perfectly silly," laughed Ricky. But Val thought that he understood.
"Because of the secret you know?" he asked quietly.
The pallor beneath Jeems' heavy tan vanished in a flush of slow-burning red. "Ah reckon so," he muttered, but he met Val's eyes squarely.
"Let's leave all explanations until later," Val suggested.
"Ah played haunt!" the confession came out of the swamper in a rush.
"Then you _were_ my faceless ghost?"
Jeems tried to nod and the action printed a frown of pain between his eyes.
"Why? Didn't you want us to live there?" asked Ricky gently.
"Ah was huntin'--"
"What for?"
The frown became one of puzzlement. "Ah don't know--" His voice trailed off into a thin whisper as his eyes closed wearily. Val signaled Ricky to keep quiet.
"Ahoy there!" Along the bank toward them came Rupert and after him Sam. Beyond them lay the Ralestone landing. Val headed inshore.
"Just what does this mean--Val! Has there been an accident?" The irritation in Rupert's voice became hot concern.
"An intended one," his brother replied. "We've got the real victim here with us."
They tied up to the landing and Sam came down to hand out Jeems who apparently had lapsed into unconsciousness again.
"You'd better call a doctor," Val told Rupert. "Jeems has a head wound."
But Rupert had already taken charge of affairs with an efficiency which left Val humbly grateful. The boy didn't even move to leave the boat. It was better just to sit and watch other people scurry about. Sam had started for the house, carrying Jeems as if the long-legged swamper was the same age and size as his own small son. Ricky dashed on ahead to warn Lucy. Rupert had Sam Two by the collar and was giving him instructions for catching Dr. LeFrode, who was probably making his morning rounds and might be found at the sugar-mill where one of the feeders had injured his hand. Sam Two's sister had seen the doctor on his way there a scant ten minutes earlier.
Val watched all this activity dreamily. Everything would be all right now that Rupert was in charge. He could relax--
"Now," his brother turned upon Val, "just what did--What's the matter with you?"
"Tired, I guess," Val said ruefully. But Rupert was already in the boat, getting the younger boy to his unsteady feet.
"Can you make it to the house?" he asked anxiously.
"Sure. Just give me an arm till I get on the landing."
But when Val had crawled up on the levee he did not feel at all like walking to the house. Then Rupert's arm was about his thin shoulders and he thought that he could make it if he really tried.
The garden path seemed miles long, and it was not until Val had the soft cushions of the hall couch under him that he felt able to tell his story. But at that moment the short, stout doctor came through the door in a rush. Sam Two had led him to believe that half the household had been murdered. At first Dr. LeFrode started toward Val, until in alarm the boy swung his feet to the floor and sat up, waving the man to the stairway where Ricky hovered to act as guide.
Then Val was alone, even Sam Two having edged upstairs to share in the excitement. The boy sank back on his pillows and wondered where their late assailants were now, and why they had been so determined to learn Jeems' secret. As Ricky had said once before, the Ralestones seemed to have been handed a gigantic tangle without ends, only middle sections, and had been told to unravel it.
Boot heels clicked on the stone flooring. Val turned his head cautiously and tried not to wince. Rupert was coming in with a bowl of water, from which steam still arose. Across his arm lay a towel and in his other hand was their small first-aid kit.
"Suppose we do a little patching," he suggested. "Your face at present is not all it might be. What did you and your swamp friend do--run into a mowing machine?" He swabbed delicately at the cut the Boss had opened across Val's cheek-bone, and at another by his mouth.
"I thought it might be that for a moment--a mowing machine, I mean. No, we just met a couple of gentlemen--enterprising fellows who wanted to see more of this commodious mansion of ours--" Val's words faded into a sharp hiss as Rupert applied iodine with a liberal hand. "They seemed to think that Jeems knew a lot about Pirate's Haven and they were going to persuade him to tell all. Only it didn't turn out the way they had planned."
"Due to you?" Rupert eyed his brother intently. The boy's face was swollen almost out of recognition and he didn't like this sudden talkativeness.
"Due partly to me, but mostly to Ricky. She--ah--created the necessary diversion. I had sort of lost interest at the time. I know so little about gouging and biting in clinches."
"Dirty fighters?"
"Well, soiled anyway. But if the Boss isn't nursing a cracked wrist, it isn't my fault. I don't know what Jeems did to Red, but he, too, departed in a damaged condition. Do you have to do that?" Val demanded testily, squirming as Rupert ran his hands lightly over the boy's shoulders and down his ribs, touching every bruise to tingling life.
"Just seeing the extent of the damage," he explained.
"You don't have to see, I can feel!" Val snapped pettishly.
Rupert got to his feet. "Come on."
"Where?"
"Oh, a hot bath and then bed. You'll be taking an interest in life again about this time tomorrow. I think LeFrode had better see you too."
"No," Val objected. "I'm not a child."
Rupert grinned. "If you'd rather I carried you--"
There was no opposing Rupert when he was in that mood, as his brother well knew. Val got up slowly.
The program that Rupert had outlined was faithfully carried out. Half an hour later Val found himself between sheets, blinking at the ceiling drowsily. When two cracks overhead wavered together of their own accord, his eyes closed.
"--still sleeping?" whispered someone at his side much later.
"Yes, best thing for him."
"Was he badly hurt?"
"No, just banged around more than was good for him."
Val opened his eyes. It must have been close to dusk, for the sunlight was red across the bedclothes. Rupert stood by the window and Ricky was in the doorway, a tray of covered dishes in her hands.
"Hello!" Val sat up, grimacing at the twinge of pain across his back. "What day is this?"
Rupert laughed. "Still Tuesday."
"How's Jeems?"
"Doing very well. I've had to have Rupert in to frighten him into staying in bed," Ricky said. "The doctor thinks he ought to be there a couple of days at least. But Jeems doesn't agree with him. Between keeping Jeems in bed and keeping Rupert out of the swamp I've had a full day."
Rupert sat down on the foot of the bed. "You'd know this Boss and Red again, wouldn't you?"
"Of course."
"Then you'll probably have a chance to identify them." There was a grim look about Rupert's jaw. "Ricky's told me all that you overheard. I don't know what it means but I've heard enough for me to get in touch with LeFleur. He'll be out tomorrow morning. And once we get something to work on--"
"I'm beginning to feel sorry for our swamp visitors," Val interrupted.
"They'll be sorry," hinted Rupert darkly. "How about you, Val, beginning to feel hungry?"
"Now that you mention it, I _am_ discovering a rather hollow ache in my center section. Supper ready?"
"Half an hour. I'll bring you up a tray--" began Ricky.
But Val had thrown back the sheet and was sitting on the side of the bed. "Oh, no, you don't! I'm not an invalid yet."
Ricky glanced at Rupert and then left. Val reached for his shirt defiantly. But his
brother raised no objection. The painful stiffness Val had felt at first wore off and he was able to move without feeling as if each muscle were tied in cramping knots.
"May I pay Jeems a visit?" he asked as they went out into the hall. Rupert nodded toward a door across the corridor.
"In there. He's a stubborn piece of goods. Reminds me of you at times. If he'd ever get rid of that scowl of his, he'd be even more like you. He warms to Ricky, but you'd think I was a Chinese torturer the way he acts when I go in." There was a shade of irritation in Rupert's voice.
"Maybe he's afraid of you."
"But what for?" Rupert stared at the boy in open surprise.
"Well, you do have rather a commanding air at times," Val countered. If Ricky had told Rupert nothing of Jeems' confession, he wasn't going to.
"So that's what you really think of me!" observed Rupert. "Go reason with that wildcat of yours if you want to. I'm beginning to believe that you are two of a kind." He turned abruptly down the hall.
Val opened the door of the bedroom. The sunlight was fading fast and already the corners of the large room were filled with the gray of dusk. But light from the windows swept full across the bed and its occupant. Val hobbled stiffly toward it.
"Hello." The brown face on the pillow did not change expression as Val greeted the swamper. "How do you feel now?"
"Bettah," Jeems answered shortly. "Ah'm good but they won't le' me up."
"The Doc says you're in for a couple of days," Val told him.
Somehow Jeems looked smaller, shrunken, as he lay in that oversized bed. And he had lost that air of indolent arrogance which had made him seem so independent in their swamp and garden meetings. It was as if Val were looking down upon a younger and less confident edition of the swamper he had known.
"What does he think?" There was urgency in that question.
"Who's he?"
"Yo' brothah."
"Rupert? Why, he's glad to have you here," Val answered.
"Does he know 'bout--"
Val shook his head.
"Tell him!" ordered the swamper. "Ah ain't a-goin' to stay undah his ruff lessen he knows. 'Tain't fitten."
At this clean-cut statement of the laws of hospitality, Val nodded. "All right. I'll tell him. But what were you after here, Jeems? I'll have to tell him that, too, you know. Was it the Civil War treasure?"
Jeems turned his head slowly. "No." Again the puzzled frown twisted his straight, finely marked brows. "What do Ah want wi' treasure? Ah don't know what Ah was lookin' fo'. Mah grandpappy--"
"Val, supper's ready," came Rupert's voice from the hall.
Val half turned to go. "I've got to go now. But I'll be back later," he promised.
"Yo'll tell him?" Jeems stabbed a finger at the door.
"Yes; after supper. I promise."
With a little sigh Jeems relaxed and burrowed down into the softness of the pillow. "Ah'll be awaitin'," he said.
CHAPTER XIII
ON SUCH A NIGHT AS THIS--
It had been on of those dull, weepy days when a sullen drizzle clouded sky and earth. In consequence, the walls and floors of Pirate's Haven seemed to exude chill. Rupert built a fire in the hall fireplace, but none of the family could say that it was a successful one. It made a nice show of leaping flame accompanied by fancy lighting effects but gave forth absolutely no heat.
"Val?"
The boy started guiltily and thrust his note-book under the couch cushion as Charity came in. Tiny drops of rain were strung along the hairs which had blown free of her rain-cape hood like steel beads along a golden wire.
"Yes? Don't come here expecting to get warm," he warned her bitterly. "We are very willing but the fire is weak. Looks pretty, doesn't it?" He kicked at a charred end on the hearth. "Well, that's all it's good for!"
"Val, what sort of a mess have you and Jeems jumped into?" she asked as she handed him her dripping cape.
"Oh, just a general sort of mess," he answered lightly. "Jeems had callers who forgot their manners. So Ricky and I breezed in and brought the party to a sudden end--"
"As I can see by your black eye," she commented. "But what has Jeems been up to?"
Val was suddenly very busy holding her cape before that mockery of a blaze.
"Why don't you ask him that?"
"Because I'm asking you. Rupert came over last night and sat on my gallery making very roundabout inquiries concerning Jeems. I pried out of him the details of your swamp battle. But I want to know now just what Jeems has been doing. Your brother is so vague--"
"Rupert has the gift of being exasperatingly uncommunicative," his brother told her. "The story, so far as I know, is short and simple. Jeems knows a secret way into this house. In addition, his grandfather told him that the fortune of the house of Jeems is concealed here--having been very hazy in his description of the nature of said fortune. Consequently, grandson has been playing haunt up and down our halls trying to find it.
"His story is as full of holes as a sieve but somehow one can't help believing it. He has explained that he has the secret of the outside entrance only, and not the one opening from the inside. In the meantime he is in bed--guarded from intrusion by Ricky and Lucy with the same care as if he were the crown jewels. So matters rest at present."
"Neatly put." She dropped down on the couch. "By the way, do you realize that you have ruined your face for my uses?"
Val fingered the crisscrossing tape on his cheek. "This is only temporary."
"I certainly hope so. That must have been some battle."
"One of our better efforts." He coughed in mock modesty. "Ricky saved the day with alarms and excursions without. Rupert probably told you that."
"Yes, he can be persuaded to talk at times. Is he always so silent?"
"Nowadays, yes," he answered slowly. "But when we were younger--You know," Val turned toward her suddenly, his brown face serious to a degree, "it isn't fair to separate the members of a family. To put one here and one there and the third somewhere else. I was twelve when Father died, and Ricky was eleven. They sent her off to Great-aunt Rogers because Uncle Fleming, who took me, didn't care for a girl--"
"And Rupert?"
"Rupert--well, he was grown, he could arrange his own life; so he just went away. We got a letter now and then, or a post-card. There was money enough to send us to expensive schools and dress us well. It was two years before I really saw Ricky again. You can't call short visits on Sunday afternoons seeing anyone.
"Then Uncle Fleming died and I was simply parked at Great-aunt Rogers'. She"--Val was remembering things, a bitter look about his mouth--"didn't care for boys. In September I was sent to a military academy. I needed discipline, it seemed. And Ricky was sent to Miss Somebody's-on-the-Hudson. Rupert was in China then. I got a letter from him that fall. He was about to join some expedition heading into the Gobi.
"Ricky came down to the Christmas hop at the academy, then Aunt Rogers took her abroad. She went to school in Switzerland a year. I passed from school to summer camp and then back to school. Ricky sent me some carvings for Christmas--they arrived three days late."
