Leslie turned slowly around, with the air of a fashion show model, displaying a sweater much the worse for wear and her oldest gym bloomers. “I really meant to put on something better, like Sarita, but I thought that I could sneak up to your room without your mother’s seeing me, and we want to go out in the boat afterwards, or we did want to go.”
“I mind the maids more than I do your mother,” laughed Sarita. “The last time, you should have seen the scorn with which your mother’s maid looked at me.”
“Pooh! What’s the difference? You girl’s always look like somebody nice, no matter what you have on. Jack says so, too. But what has happened to change you about going out in the boat? Is it going to be bad weather?” Peggy glanced toward the window, where sunshine was driving the mists away.
“Mercy no! It’s going to be a wonderful day. Leslie, tell Peggy what we heard. It’s a great discovery, Peggy.”
Peggy threw across the bed her most cherished frock which she had saved for the last to show them, and clasped her hands together in her eagerness to hear what had happened. They all sat down together on Peggy’s low day bed, a pretty wicker affair which stretched at the foot of the other bed. Peggy was in the middle. A background of silk and fluffy chiffon and tulle behind them set off the three heads bent close together, as the girls related in whispers what had occurred.
Peggy was delighted, with little thought of what the discovery might imply. “Then there is a cave somewhere! Girls, we have simply got to find it! Will you go back there now with me? I’ll call Pugs, to hang up the things, and get into my knickers and sweater in a minute!”
Peggy’s maid came into the room while the girls were still waiting for Peggy to scramble from one costume into another. She tried to smile and help Peggy, but the girls could see that she had been crying. Peggy explained as soon as they started out.
“I didn’t know that dear old Pugsy cared that much for me. I’ve been a lot of trouble to her. But honestly, she’s almost a part of the family to Mother and me. Perhaps Mother can get out of it, but Dad says that Pugsy’s got to leave. I must have a maid that speaks French now! If it were Mother that wanted it, I could understand, but what does Dad care whether I speak French or not?”
“It will be fine when you travel,” said Sarita.
But Leslie, thinking of what Jack had said, wondered if Mr. Ives did not want to employ another foreigner instead of “Pugsy.”
A dark-browed maid who was dusting in the hall looked at them in none too friendly a way. Even Sarita spoke of it afterward. But Peggy paid no attention to their surroundings as they left the house behind and darted past flower beds and masses of shrubbery on their way to the rocks.
Once there, Peggy viewed the hole and was duly impressed. She had brought a flashlight, which disclosed nothing but rock beyond the hole, with a slight descent to where the loose rock had rolled. Granite walls and an arching ceiling were above.
Leslie knew that it was foolish for all of them to enter, though Sarita declared that never a rock could fall on them. Nevertheless the prospect was so tempting that Leslie crawled in after the others. There was at least good air within. They hoped to find a passage to the cave whence the voices had come; but after a short distance, which they could cover without stooping, they were stopped by a granite wall as hard as the rest of Steeple Rocks. There was a deep fissure, however, and there they could feel a decided draught.
The light turned off, they sat down to listen. Perhaps they could hear something more, if the people were still in the cave. Peggy suggested that perhaps they had heard the Count and someone back in the office. “I feel pretty sure that they have something back in the rock,” whispered she, “perhaps a real cave, and more than just Dad’s safe.”
But Leslie shook her head. “I may be mistaken, but I think that this came from below.”
As if to confirm her words, there came the sound of conversation, a mere murmur at first, then a few words very loudly conveyed by this queer speaking tube which nature had provided. The next were fainter, and then there was the murmur. “He’s walking around,” Leslie suggested.
Peggy had a picture of someone restlessly pacing a cave.
“Well, I hope that Ives will hurry up this house party. I’m certainly sick of staying here. How do I make up as an English lord, Bill?”
A hoarse laugh was the answer to this, but Bill was not standing so close to the fissure, it was obvious.
“And how am I going to get out of this?”
“Same way you got in, by boat and at night.”
“Why can’t I leave in the daytime if you can?”
“Well, in the first place, you wouldn’t care to play the fisherman, I think, the way you look now, or to stay in one o’ the shacks with the rest o’ the crowd. I kin take you out tonight, if you want to go, but what I’m going to do now is to swim under water a ways. Want to try it?”
“No thanks. But I’ll join the rest tonight. A little dirt on my face will make it all right, and I’d rather be with folks than in this terrible place.”
“A little timid, huh?”
“I’ll show you whether I’m timid or not!”
The girls were breathless, wondering what was going to happen, but the ferocious Bill was evidently possessed of soothing powers. “No, now there ain’t no call to git excited. There’s going to be enough people here when the schooner comes in.”
“Yes,” sarcastically said the other man. “You’re going to make enough money to give up fishing by that time, aren’t you?”
“I might if they wasn’t others I had to divide with,” growled Bill. “You pay attention to yer own affairs. You got it fixed with Ives about yerself?”
“Yes.”
The girls heard Peggy gasp, but the voices were not sounding as if either man were very near the “Steeple Rocks speaking tube,” as Leslie began to call it. Probably Peggy would not be heard.
For some little time the girls sat still, in uncomfortable positions, but they heard nothing more. Peggy was the first to jump up, and by the light of the flashlight which she carried, they all found their way back to the opening and crawled out. “I forgot to look, girls,” said Leslie, “to see if there were other rocks that could get loose outside, and after we were in there, listening to Bill and that other man, I began to think what if a rock fell down and closed up this hole!”
“We could have called down the speaking tube, Leslie,” Sarita suggested.
“Yes,” said Peggy, “and have Bill see that we stayed in there forever! ‘Sad loss of three bright young people at Steeple Rocks’, would be in the paper.”
Peggy was so funny as she said this that Leslie and Sarita both laughed, though the subject was far from laughable. Peggy was frowning now. “Let’s go right now and tell Jack,” she said. “I certainly heard enough about Dad, didn’t I?”
Neither Leslie nor Sarita replied to this question, for they knew that Peggy did not expect comment. They were helping each other around the jutting part of the cliff now and did not resume conversation until they were on the path. Then Peggy cried, “Oh, girls! I was going to watch to see where Bill came out, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Leslie. “I thought of it when Bill said that he was going to ‘swim under water a ways.’ What possessed us? But, after all, we could not have seen anything from the Retreat. Come on; let’s climb down sort of near your yacht dock, Peggy. Perhaps we can see Bill come out of the water yet.”
This was no sooner said than done. As quickly as possible, the girls found a spot which would command most of the shore around the bay. The girls looked over the surface of the cliff, as they had done many times before, without finding any opening. “If he has to swim under water, the cave must be at the bottom,” said Leslie, decisively, “and the only place, girls, where a boat could go in, is in Pirates’ Cove!”
“Then Bill will swim out there and get to the rocks outside on this side—unless he has a boat tied in the channel.”
“I think t
hat it would be too great a swim to the channel, unless it would be right near our dock around there, and Bill would run the risk of Mother’s coming down to the beach or of somebody’s seeing him from the house.”
“Your mother wouldn’t be surprised to see Bill there—not very, would she, Peggy?”
“Perhaps not. Let’s get up a step higher. We can look over these rocks then, and duck down if Bill should come out anywhere near the dock. Then we shall have to scamper up and out of sight as quickly as possible.” In spite of Peggy’s evident chagrin at the implications about Mr. Ives in the conversation which they had overheard, she was enjoying the excitement, Leslie could see. There might be some compensations for Peggy, Leslie thought, in the discovery of Mr. Ives’ operations, if it led to her freedom from their shadow. But would it? What ought to be done now? She must tell Jack at once—so much was clear. But it might be even dangerous for anyone who interfered. Could Jack and Peggy keep their knowledge from Mr. Ives and that household of suspicious foreign servants? The more Leslie thought, the more undecided she felt.
For some time the girls waited uneasily. Perhaps Bill had gone, or perhaps he was taking some time, making ready for the “enough people” who were to be there when the “schooner” came in! Probably they would miss him altogether. No! There he was!
Peeping over the rocks, the girls caught each other’s hands in their excitement. Bill came up out of the water and shook it from him like a big mastiff. He looked around hastily to see if he were observed and the girls kept very still. Sarita and Leslie, indeed, ducked behind the rocks, but Peggy, who had taken a black silk handkerchief from her neck, wrapped it about her head and kept on looking.
It was not very likely that Bill would see them, yet he might if he looked above on his way over the rocks from those at the base of Steeple Rocks, where he had emerged from the Cove waters.
Peggy gave the word to start up. “He’s going over the rocks now. Stoop low and you’ll get to the top in a jiffy! He’ll only hope that we haven’t seen him, if he does see us. But it isn’t so wonderful for a person to go in swimming anywhere here.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE DILEMMA
From the rocky steps where they had been watching the return of Bill Ritter, Leslie, Sarita and Peggy plunged into the woods as soon as possible and by that more devious route reached the Secrest camp. They were rather surprised to find it not yet ten o’clock, but they had spent much less time with Peggy, at what she called her fashion show, than they had expected. Then the time spent in the Retreat and in waiting for Bill’s appearance must have been much less than it seemed.
When they reached the new clearing on the slight rise of ground not far from the spring, they found Dalton and his men hard at work and Dalton jubilant over the prospect of speedy building. Beth was sitting on a pile of logs making a sketch of the place and the workers, “for us to remember how it looked,” she said.
Dalton dropped his work to join the girls and look at the sketch. “Pretty good, sister,” said he. “Do you know I’ve a great notion to plaster this house and stay here through the winter.”
“What do you mean, Dal—stay alone, or no school for any of us?” The tone of the surprised Beth was not as reproving as Dalton might have expected.
“No school for anybody,” asserted Dalton, though he had really not thought this out before. “It would be the best thing in the world for you, Beth, and think what snow scenes you could immortalize with your pen, pencil and brush!”
“Ridiculous boy!”
“Oh, let me board with you instead of going to Florida. I never have had any winter sports!” Peggy’s voice was coaxing. “We’ll have skiing down the hills, that hill where you saved my life, Dal—and skating, and ice-boating and everything on the bay!”
Even Leslie and Sarita, who were more interested in lessons than Peggy, brightened at the thought. “Poor me!” exclaimed Sarita. “I’d have to go home and miss it all!”
“Vacation, Sarita,” suggested Peggy, “the Christmas vacation.”
“We’ll skate on our little lake, Peggy,” said Dalton, “as if it were already decided, and we can have a dog-sled to take us to town—”
“Crazy!” laughed Leslie. “But, Beth, I believe that Dal is in earnest.”
“Wait till he has fires to make some morning when it is below zero, ice to break, water to carry and everything frozen up.”
“Not much worse than a furnace to take care of, Beth,” said the man of the house. “We’ll have a big fireplace in one room and a big heater somewhere, a shed full of coal, and wood on the place—think it over. I’ve got to work.” Whistling a little, Dalton went back to help and direct.
“Dalton just loves this,” said Leslie, “but look, Beth, here comes Mr. Tudor.”
With a salute to everybody, Evan Tudor stopped first to speak to Dalton, then joined the other group with greetings. Peggy, remembering her impulsive entrance of the previous day, bowed sweetly, but with dignity, while Leslie asked if he had been annoyed by the sounds of building so early.
“I slept as if I should never waken this morning and I have only just eaten my breakfast. There must be something in this air, as advertised! I prowled around a while last night, enjoying the woods and the shore. At this rate, it looks as if you would have a house up in no time.”
“They will,” said Peggy, “and Dal is planning to make it so they can stay all winter.” Peggy looked wickedly at Beth.
Evan Tudor looked surprised, but said, “It would be very beautiful here in winter.”
“I’d like to try it once,” said Leslie, “but not unless the whole family wanted to do it, for Beth might get pneumonia and then we’d be in a pretty pickle!”
“It would be lovely here, with the ice and snow,” Beth acknowledged, relenting a little, “and I seldom ever take cold. I’d have to watch the rest of you to see that you were not careless.”
“Oh, Beth,” cried Peggy, assuming her own presence, “we’d fish through the ice, and Leslie and I would do the cooking!”
Then Leslie and Sarita did laugh, for Peggy could not cook anything and had confessed the fact before. “Well,” Peggy continued, answering their thought, “couldn’t I learn?”
At this point Beth glanced at her wrist watch and asked if a short trip in the Sea Crest would not be possible before lunch, in order to show Mr. Tudor the bay and the rocks. “If we should be late, Dal will make the hot coffee for the men. They bring their lunches, but we give them something hot, and I have everything ready, beans all cooked and some meat.”
Everybody thought this a good plan, especially as they could take Peggy home by launch and Jack, if he thought best. Otherwise, Jack could have beans and coffee with Dalton. But Jack decided to go with them, for Peggy privately informed him that she must consult him about something.
On the way to the boat, Beth exhibited the Eyrie to Mr. Tudor, while Jack, Leslie, and the other girls went on down the rocks to get the launch ready and start the engine. None of them were disappointed by any lack of enthusiasm on the part of their guest, for though Evan Tudor was not particularly voluble in his speech he gave the impression of not missing any practical or inspirational detail in the comments which he made.
After the start Mr. Tudor sat or stood with Beth, who pointed out the sights, while Jack at the wheel listened to what the girls had to tell him with Peggy as chief spokesman. He made little comment at first and the impatient Peggy urged him, saying, “Well, Jack, why don’t you go ‘up in the air’ about it?”
“It is too serious, Peggy. I don’t think that you know just how serious it is. That fake English lord in the cave only proves what I have been suspecting.”
“What have you been suspecting, Jack?”
“I’d rather not say, Peggy. Suppose we wait a little. I am thinking that about the twenty-eighth we may find some others of the same sort, only pretending to carry out the house party idea with your mother, and then some that are very likely real titled exiles.”
“But why would they do that? Why should this man hide away? Is he afraid of somebody? And why should Dad let him hide there? Just what is it that Dad is doing?”
“I am very much afraid, Peggy, that your step-father is helping these people into the country against the law, and probably for a good price. I hope that it is the Count who is doing it—that is, I have been hoping that, with Uncle’s just letting him use the place and entertaining as his guests only some people brought here in his yacht that really have a right to be here. But I think now that the yacht is a blind and that everybody will come in on the ‘schooner.’”
“Oh!” Peggy began to understand more clearly. “Shall I tell Mother, Jack?”
“No. I’ve got to find out what to do.”
But as it happened, neither Jack nor Peggy nor any of the Secrests decided what was to be done; and it was better so.
The little cruise was delightful. Troubles seemed far away after they gave themselves to the lure of the water and sky and the motion of the boat. Even Peggy, who had at first been startled and distressed at Jack’s clear statements, seemed to forget and joked as usual with the girls. Leslie was thoughtful, wondering what their duty was. It was not pleasant to have such a problem presented to them.
Evan Tudor, who could run a launch quite well himself, was entirely content to be a passenger, visiting with the pretty artist and forgetting his quest in these parts, except to fix in mind the location of Steeple Rocks and Pirates’ Cove. He intended to go out in a row boat to investigate that region.
Jack and Peggy were left at the dock in Ives Bay, while Leslie took the wheel for the homeward trip. This they made quickly, landing in time for Beth to superintend the hot lunch. Mr. Tudor was invited to partake, but he thanked Beth and declined, saying that he had work to do and that his late breakfast made a late lunch desirable.
For Leslie and Sarita it had been a full and surprising morning. After lunch was over, with its work, they found a quiet place apart where they could discuss the present dilemma.
CHAPTER XVII
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 303
