Dig Here!

  XXIII

  A Belated Visit

  HATTIE MAY came over early next morning. She was in a frightful temperand declared she was going to take the next train back to Mason's Coveand leave Hamish to his fate.

  "What's he done now?" I inquired. "No more run-ins with the police, Ihope?"

  "So far as I'm concerned," she stated, "he could languish in a fouldungeon before I would lift a finger to extrapate him!"

  "Extricate, I expect you mean," I said. "But what has he done?"

  She flung herself into Aunt Cal's rocker on the back porch and began torock violently. "He locked me in my room, that's what he did!"

  "Locked you in your room? But whatever for?"

  "You'll have to ask him that! It was last night. As soon as I wasconvinced he actually meant to carry out his crazy plan of watchingthat house, I told him he shouldn't go one step without me."

  "Yes, well? I suppose he didn't take to the notion?"

  "My dear, he just shut up like a clam. And all during supper I couldn'tget a single solitary civil word out of him. It made me awfullyembarrassed, sitting at the table with the other people all chattingaway and him acting like that! Never once opening his mouth except toshovel in food."

  "Disgusting!" I agreed.

  "Well right after supper I went upstairs to get me a heavy sweaterbecause I knew if I'd got to sit up all night out in your yard I'd needit. Well I was rummaging in the closet when I heard the door close verysoftly and locked from the outside! Can you imagine! The ingrate hadfollowed me upstairs, waited till my back was turned and then turnedthe key."

  "But how did you get out?" I asked, stifling a desire to giggle. "Didthe ingrate return?"

  "I suppose he must have," she answered indifferently. "The door wasunlocked this morning. He didn't appear at breakfast so I suppose he'sasleep."

  "I know how you must feel, Hattie May," said Eve sympathetically. "ButI suppose Hamish felt that what he had to do was a man's job----"

  "Man's job!" she interrupted, with a scornful snort.

  "Well he felt that girls around would sort of gum things up. He sent uspacking in pretty short order."

  "Then he came?" she asked with curiosity. "Did anything happen?"

  I told her about Aunt Cal's interruption of the vigil and then aboutthe departure of the mysterious stranger from the house next door.

  "My goodness," she exclaimed when I had finished. "Then there issomething to it. The man's a crook or he wouldn't sneak off like thatin the dead of night. I certainly am glad Hamish wasn't there to seehim, though. Why he might have been trailing the man yet, he might evenhave followed him onto a ship and gone to sea!"

  "Well, you know persistence is a fine quality," I remarked.

  "Oh, yes, it's all very well for you to stand up for him but you didn'tspend the night under lock and key. I kept waking up and thinking whatI would do if there was a fire, and I thought how Hamish would feelwhen he gazed at my charred body!"

  "Oh, well, there wasn't any fire and you spent a comfortable night inbed instead of on the damp ground," Eve said soothingly.

  Hattie May seemed to be thinking. "I do think it's a crime that a manlike that should be allowed to escape," she said at last. "I wonder ifHamish knows about it?"

  "Well, since you're not on speaking terms with him," I giggled, "Idon't see how you're going to find out. Besides if you're leaving onthe afternoon train----"

  "Oh, I suppose I'd better stick around," Hattie May said. "We can't besure that the fellow has gone back to sea and--there's the key!"

  But for all Hattie May's sticking around, no more was seen of CaptainTrout's mysterious visitor. Aunt Cal reported to the local constablethat a tramp attempted to pass the night in her yard and the followingevening we saw a uniformed figure peering over our hedge just afterdusk. But apparently discouraged by his failure to round up anythingmore criminal than Daisy June chasing fireflies, he soon abandoned thepursuit and retired--we guessed--along with other respectable citizensto the shelter of his own roof.

  So much for the tramp! As for Captain Trout--whom Hattie May now dubbedour perfidious neighbor--nothing much was to be got out of him. Aguarded reference on Eve's part to his late guest elicited merely thestatement that he, the Captain, couldn't stomach so much fried food andhad sent the fellow packing.

  It was one day after dinner, the following week, that Aunt Cal, who hadspent the morning baking, said she had made a little spice cake forMrs. Viner. "I was expecting to take it out to her this afternoon," sheremarked, "but Rose has called a meeting of the Civic Betterment to seeabout those folks burning rubbish in the lot beyond the millpond. Ofcourse the cake will keep----"

  "Oh, do let us take it out, Aunt Cal?" I begged. "We'd just love to."

  "I don't know about that," she shook her head doubtfully. "After whathappened to my dandelion wine----"

  "Oh, please don't hold that up against us," Eve pleaded. "You mustadmit the circumstances that time were unusual. Hamish isn't likely tofall into another well--at least I hope not!"

  No one can resist Eve for long. And so in the end, Aunt Cal packed thecake in a basket and entrusted it to our keeping. "Tell Mrs. Viner I'llbe out to see her in a few days," she said. "That is, if you see her!"she added dryly.

  I took the basket. "Aunt Cal," I said, "this day will vindicate ourreputation, you can depend upon it!" I blew a kiss toward her as Iopened the door.

  "Well, if you take my advice," she sent a parting shot after us, "youwon't make any stops on the way."

  We decided to walk down the shore road and call for Hattie May. She hadbeen so disappointed at our failure to take her to Millport onMichael's affair that we were anxious not to seem to slight her again."But I'm not at all sure she'll be good for the invalid," Eve remarked."She's quite as likely as not to tell her she's looking poorly or starttalking about some lovely funeral she went to!"

  We found her alone. "I've just finished a letter to Mother," she said,"and I guess Hamish'll be hearing from Dad before long!"

  "You don't mean he's still acting strangely?"

  "My dear, I scarcely see him at all except at meals and he won't tellme a solitary thing!"

  We caught the two o'clock bus from the square and at a little beforethree were opening the gate of the big stone house which Aunt Cal haddescribed to us. Somewhat to my relief, we found the invalid muchimproved and sitting out in the sun. She welcomed us cordially and Iguessed that she was pleased enough to have some one new to talk to. Wechattered on, telling her about school, about Hamish's fall into thewell and about our discovery of the statue of Circe at the bottom of it.

  "Dear me," she exclaimed, "what a terrible experience for the poor boy.I wonder that he retained his reason, I'm sure I shouldn't have!"

  "I'm not a bit sure that he has," Hattie May said feelingly, "at leastnot all of it. The way he acts!"

  We laughed and Mrs. Viner said, "I remember so well when the oldCaptain--as we used to call him--first set up those statues in hisgarden. My, what a lot of talk it made!"

  "You knew Aunt Cal when she was a girl, I suppose?" I said.

  "Oh, dear, yes, we went to school together. At the old district schoolthat was torn down when they put the state road through."

  "Did you know my uncle, Tom Poole, too?" I asked.

  "Yes. Cal and Tom were married the year before the old Captain died.When she came back from the West, I hoped I would have her for aneighbor but--well, things turned out differently," she addeddiscreetly.

  We talked on till suddenly Eve jumped up. "We were cautioned the othertime we started to call on you not to stay more than ten minutes," shesaid, "and not to talk any nonsense. I'm afraid we've broken bothrules."

  "The idea!" Mrs. Viner laughed. "You mustn't take your Aunt tooseriously."

  "But we really must go now," I agreed. "You see our reputation is atstake today. Aunt Cal doesn't really trust us out of her sight anymore."

  "Cal's bark i
s a lot worse than her bite," Mrs. Viner returned. "Andyou're to tell her from me that I'm feeling much better for your visit."

  A short distance beyond Mrs. Viner's gate, Eve stopped suddenly. "Ifthere was any other way to go home," she said, "I'd be in favor oftaking it."

  "Well there isn't," I retorted. "And if you find that old house soenticing that you can't even walk by it, it's just too bad! For my partI wouldn't care if I never saw it again."

  "Just the same let's--well, let's rest a minute," she said. "Here onthe wall."

  "Rest? Gracious we've just started!"

  Eve sat down. "I just happened to think," she said carelessly, "thatit's about time for Michael to come along."

  "Huh!" I retorted. "I'll bet you've been planning to wait for him allthe afternoon. I think you're a shameless hussy!"

  Hattie May giggled. "I don't see why we shouldn't wait for him," shesaid. "If he has his wagon he'll give us a lift."

  "Yes, and if he's on his bicycle, he'll wave his hand and go sailingby. And we'll miss the bus!"

  We were still arguing when the faint rattle of a wagon fell on our earsand a moment later, Michael's blue shirt and brown head appeared abovethe brow of the hill. "Hello," he called as he drew alongside of us,"waiting for some one?"

  "Just resting," Eve told him with a twinkle.

  "Don't want a lift then?" he grinned.

  "Well perhaps we might--what d'you think, girls?"

  But Hattie May was already in the front seat and Eve and I climbed intothe rear as we had done that first day when we had fairly to beg for aride.

  "Anything new in the mystery line?" Michael inquired with a slap of thereins.

  "Well," said Eve between jolts, "your friend Captain Trout has beenharboring a visitor--a kind of cooking recluse, if you know what Imean. But he left in the dead of night arrayed in white trousers and avisored cap."

  Michael did not seem greatly impressed by these revelations. "TheCaptain knows a lot of seafaring birds," he said. "Very likely thefellow blew in between sailings."

  "Then you don't think it was Bangs?" I asked.

  "How should I know. But there's something else you might be interestedin--somebody's been digging up that old garden again."

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