The Girl Scouts at Bellaire Part 21

CHAPTER XIX

HIDDEN TREASURES

A feeling akin to relief, if not that of actual safety, brightened the girls next day when, with keen antic.i.p.ation for the promised excitement, they started off for a hike to the studio, there to box up Reda's belongings, and also to hunt for possible clews to the ever-deepening mystery of Mary's ident.i.ty, and the professor's secret.

Having a.s.sured Mrs. Dunbar that the next door neighbors to the studio were easily within call, as well as convincing her that gardeners and workmen were constantly in the fields and estates adjoining the studio, she consented to their going in charge of Shep, who was now fully recovered from his wound and lame leg.

It was early, and the dew still lay in a liquid veil over the gra.s.s and wild flowers along the way, but the Girl Scouts, Mary being a novice and on probation, were too much interested and excited to observe the beauties of nature this day.

"I suppose Reda has lots of queer things," ventured Madaline when they had pa.s.sed the mountain house and started on the down-grade the other side.

"Yes," replied Mary. "She was always bringing things from New York.

Her sort of people never seem to have enough. They keep storing and piling up every sort of trash. Grandie would get out of patience at times and threaten to throw it all out of doors."

Tangles of wild morning glories crept cautiously over the steps at the studio, where now the absence of human traffic was beginning to show in that vague, venturesome way vegetation has of creeping in where mortals have deserted. The gra.s.s grew so much higher on the lawn, the flowers were having such a joyous time spreading all over and blooming as they chose, while the trumpet vine had actually climbed down from its arch with the ramblers, and was shamelessly romping all over the fern patch, fairly strangling the wild maidenhairs in its reckless ramblings.

"Where shall we begin?" Cleo asked as the girls tramped into the long, quiet hall. "Isn't it cave-like to come into an empty house? Oh, I know; see the hall clock has stopped ticking, and when a tick goes out it seems to leave a smoke of silence," she finished. "There, don't you think I have an imaginative brain?"

"I'd call it a loony brain," replied Grace. "Talking about the smoke of silence! Sounds like a new name for a cigarette!" and they all enjoyed a good laugh at the comparison.

"At any rate," decided Cleo, "it is always more quiet after a clock stops than it is in any other room where no clock ever ticked. So there!"

"Let's wind the clock, start it up, and stop the argument," proposed practical Grace. "Tell me how many winds, Mary!" She had climbed on a wooden chair, had the door of the big clock open, and was examining the queer mechanism.

"I don't know a thing about the clock," Mary admitted. "Grandie always attended to it, but I suppose you just turn the key until it feels hard to turn. I have always heard a clock must not be wound too tight----"

At the side of the grandfather's antique time-piece a long door opened, Grace discovered, and being interested in the odd piece of furniture, she swung this out. As she did so a package rolled out on the floor.

"Something stored away here, I suppose," said Grace. "Shall I replace it, Mary?" picking up the newspaper package and holding it out to Mary.

"Let me see it?" Mary asked.

It was a long, slim package, wrapped in a faded and yellow newspaper.

Unfolding the wrappings, nothing but a piece of bamboo-like cane, about as large as a flute, was revealed.

"That's queer," Mary commented. "I wonder what good that old piece of stick is?" She held it up and saw that the ends were sealed.

"Something is bottled up in that," declared Cleo. "Bamboo is always open and hollow between joints."

"Let's get something and press the ends in," suggested Grace. "It might be something breakable."

"Or explosive," ventured Madaline, who had not forgotten her first night's experience at the studio.

Mary was turning the piece of cane upside down, shaking it, listening for any rattle within, and otherwise examining it most carefully.

Meanwhile Cleo had rescued the wrappings, and was trying to connect the line of print. She smoothed out the torn, yellow pieces, and presently her eye fell upon a ringed line paragraph, the ring being a penciled circle, usually made to attract the eye to a special item.

"Let's see what's marked here," she suggested, going closer to the window for better light. "Oh, look, Mary," she exclaimed again, "this tells of an exploring expedition leaving New York. Maybe that is a report of your folks and the professor! See, it reads," and she pressed the very much crinkled pieces to something of smoothness.

"'Left for the tropics to hunt orchids. Professor Blake and party----'

Now, that's torn out into a real hole, and we can't get the names of the party. Did you ever see anything so aggravating?"

"But Professor Blake," repeated Mary. "That isn't our professor!"

"Didn't you say his name was not Benson?" Cleo reminded her.

"Yes, I knew it was not Benson, but I thought it was," she hesitated.

Her grandie had not given his permission to the publication of his real name. "At least," continued Mary, "I didn't know it was Blake."

"How foolish we are!" exclaimed Cleo. "Surely there would have been more than one professor on that trip. And this may only, after all, be an item of general interest. But don't you think, Mary, we had better take it along and read it carefully when we have time?"

"That's a good idea," agreed Mary, "and I think I had better do the same thing with this shiny stick. It may be some kind of flute, but I would not like to try to blow on it. So many things from the tropics are poisonous. Let's wrap it up again," she suggested.

"But not in this paper," objected Cleo. "I want to read all of this again, and it must not be further damaged. Here, Shep," to the faithful dog, who lay nose deep in a big soft rug, "come along and I'll get you a nice cool drink. You are cooled off now, and I know you want a drink after that tramp over the mountain."

The s.h.a.ggy shepherd dog followed Cleo to the faucet that dripped on a stone flagging near the back door. He drank the pan of water Cleo drew for him, shook himself vigorously, then started in for a "sniffing tour," as Madaline described the canine method of investigation. He was left quite alone and to his own resources while the girls continued in their attempt to gather up Reda's things.

"I feel queer to go among her trinkets," said Mary. "She was always so careful no one should see her belongings."

"All old people are that way," said Madaline, who was having the time of her life pulling trash out of the big rattan trunk. "You don't intend to send all this stuff, do you, Mary?" she asked.

"Oh, no, certainly not," Mary replied, "but it is rather hard to tell the hay from gra.s.s in Reda's wardrobe."

"And I must say," put in Grace, "she had a queer idea of the uses of a bureau. Just look at all the moldy roots and growing things!" Grace was gingerly touching the "moldy things" in a rather vain attempt at exploring the depths of the old mahogany bureau drawers.

"Don't throw any of those away," warned Mary, "because--well, because they might grow into pretty orchids, you know," she finished, with such a poor attempt at disguising her real meaning that it almost shouted out past her actual words.

"Of course they must be flower bulbs," a.s.sented Grace, "but fancy keeping them in a bureau drawer!"

Bits of bright ribbons, odds and ends of lace, so much lace of all kinds, and such a tangle of threads, strings, tapes and almost everything that could snarl up, was dragged out by Madaline from a work box, that she jammed the whole ma.s.s back in despair. "She won't need any of that," Cleo decided, "and I guess some new sewing stuff will be welcome whenever Reda gets a chance to use it."

"But she must have her thimble," insisted Mary. "Just wait until I get this dress and shawl in the box, and I'll try to find it--I think she kept it there."

"Oh, look here," called Madaline. "Here is a cute little secret place in the work box. See, the top comes out when you press here." As she pressed the indicated spot in the finely inlaid box a secret drawer shot out. This was literaly crammed with papers, printed and written, and even here were the remains of the dried roots, the dust of bulbs, and the powder of dried leaves.

"Should we look over her papers?" asked Madaline, again referring to Mary.

"Well, I don't believe we should," decided the girl, whose face was flushed with the excitement of the hunt. "Yet they might be important to Grandie. Suppose we tie them up in something and save them until he is strong enough to look over them? He brought Reda here penniless, and without any belongings, and whatever she has he would have a perfect right to look over," finished Mary.

"I think so, too," agreed Madaline, evidently disappointed her find had not yielded some exciting clew.

Gathering up the papers, a picture fell to the floor. Madaline quickly recovered it, and presently all the girls were scrutinizing the photograph.

"It is you and your mamma," declared Cleo. "Look at both your eyes, and her wonderful mound of hair."

"Yes, that is truly Loved One," said Mary, tenderly brushing the bits of leaves from the picture. "I have never seen this before. I wonder why Reda hid it away from me?"

"And here's another," called Grace. "This is some man dressed as a--tourist--I guess. See his big hat and the short trousers."