Tranquillity House

CHAPTER I

CONNIE FALLS DOWNSTAIRS–AND PUTS HER FOOT IN IT

UP to the day when Connie fell downstairs at Tranquillity House, and broke her ankle, I had never connected anything strange or mysterious with the place or with Uncle Benham. Her accident changed all that. From the moment she put her foot through the wainscot on the lower landing—things began to happen!

But perhaps it would be just as well to explain at once how Connie came to tumble downstairs at Tranquillity House and how we came to be there at all. For old Mr. Benham isn’t our real uncle, though we have called him that ever since we were babies, when we moved next door to him in the new little house right close to the Benham grounds.

It was before Connie remembered anything much, as she was only two and a half and I was about four when we left Philadelphia a dozen years ago, with Father and Mother, and moved out to Penryd in New Jersey. As every one knows, that is a dear little old fashioned village sitting cozily on the banks of tiny, lovely Sawmill River. Father had been lucky enough to find a delightful little new house rather outside the town itself, built right alongside of the beautiful Benham place, with no other near neighbors. In fact, the ground had been a part of the Benham place, but old Mr. Benham had become tired of living all alone out on Sawmill Road and thought that if he built an attractive little house near by, he might acquire some nice neighbors. Father heard of the place through a mutual friend, and that was how we came to live here.

Well, naturally, Connie and I hadn’t been in the new house long before we began to tumble over the low stone fence that separated ours from the big, park-like grounds of the Benham place and toddle about in there. Mother, of course, didn’t realize it, as she was too busy getting settled, or she would have forbidden our trespassing. But we didn’t know any better, as we’d always lived in the city before that, and thought, I guess, that all country spaces belonged to everybody. Anyhow, the second day, as we were toddling along together down one of the beautiful garden paths (I remember it was the box garden, where the most wonderful box plants grow—some more than a hundred years old!) we suddenly came upon the dearest old gentleman, who acted quite bowled over for a minute to see two tiny girls, perfect strangers, calmly making themselves at home in his grounds.

“Hel-lo!” he said, sort of startled, and we both said, “Hello!” and Connie toddled off to pick some nasturtiums that she liked the looks of. Something about our calmness must have amused him, for he suddenly sat down on a bench and chuckled and lifted me to his knee and asked our names. I told him I was Elspeth Curtis and that was my sister Constance and we lived in the little house beyond the wall.

“I like this place,” I told him. “I’m glad we moved into a park with a nice red house in the middle!”

He laughed another chuckling laugh at that and said: “Thee must come often to the nice red house. And the park belongs to thee too, and the little sister also, as often as thee wishes to play in it!”

I wondered very much, I remember, that he should call me “thee,” and didn’t quite understand it. But at that time I had never before met a real Quaker, and, as I later discovered, Mr. Benham was a “Friend.” He often reminds me of the statues and pictures of William Penn, with his long, straight white hair and his beautiful bright blue eyes and the broad flat hat he wears.

He called on Father and Mother that evening and asked them to allow us children to run in and out of his place as freely as we pleased and regard it as a second home. He said he dearly loved children and was so lonely that it did him good to see us about. This is how it came about that we practically grew up at the Benham place. Old Beulah, the colored cook in the kitchen, simply adored us, especially Connie, who could always wheedle a piece of hot gingerbread from her, no matter how cranky she was; and Beulah was (and still is) desperately cross at times.

Tomkins too, who is Mr. Benham’s valet and butler, would do anything in the world for us. But we neither of us ever liked Mr. Cookson, the secretary, a long, lanky man, and always grouchy, who acted as if he was too busy to notice us—not that we wanted him to, for we detested him so that we rarely came to the house when he was about. But he was often ill with indigestion and in bed for days, or else off on long business trips, so we never saw much of him.

I haven’t yet said anything about the house itself, but I must describe it now, as it is the most fascinating place that two children ever had to grow up in. It is big and rambling and built of red brick trimmed with white wood-work—white shutters, with crescent moons in the top of each, and a four-pillared portico, also of white, that reaches above the second story. Off at the back are a number of ells and additions, which make it rather hard work to find your way about in it at first. Inside, it is all white woodwork, with beautiful carvings, great open fireplaces, and the most wonderful mahogany heirlooms for furniture that I have ever seen. It is almost like a museum. Mr. Benham said that his father's great grandfather left Pennsylvania and settled here way back in the days of William Penn, because the climate suited his health better. He built the house and laid out the grounds, and his descendants have lived here ever since. Mr. Benham feels it a great pity that when he dies there will be no descendants to leave it to, as he is the last of them all and has never married.

One of the rooms is a great library, with shelves of books reaching clear to the ceiling, and here Connie and I have browsed all our lives. We hardly needed to belong to the circulating library in the village, as we could find almost everything we wanted here. All over the house are portraits of his Quaker ancestors, most of them in the Friends’ costume. One of them even married a nephew of William Penn and had a wedding in this very house, so he said.

It wasn’t long before he asked us to stop calling him “Mr. Benham” and say “Uncle Azariah” instead. Connie couldn’t quite man age “Azariah,” with her baby tongue, but made it “Uncle Benham.” From this we both settled into calling him “Uncle Benham,” and, as time went on, we quite forgot that we weren’t his very own nieces, and I believe he did, too.

Years before, when I was eight and Connie six, we began to go to school in the village. As it was at least three quarters of a mile away, Mother and Daddy were a good deal worried about our getting back and forth. Mother began by walking there with us and going for us every day (we didn’t have a car then), but Uncle Benham found it out and insisted that his carriage should be used to take us. He said the horses needed exercise and ought to have an excuse for being taken out. He often drove with us, and we felt pretty fine rolling up to school every day behind that handsome team. On Sunday he would frequently take us to Friends’ Meeting in the fine old Quaker meeting-house on the other side of the village, overlooking the valley. Connie and I soon got used to sitting still through that quiet hour, when sometimes no one said a single word. But we always liked it best when “the spirit moved” Uncle Benham to speak.

So in a hundred ways he came to be woven in with most of the things of our lives. And when we weren’t to be found at home, we could always be located somewhere over at “Tranquillity House,” as Uncle Benham’s place is called, from the word “Tranquillity” in old English letters over the fan-light of the front door. As we grew older, we almost preferred it to our own home, dear as that always is and will be. But we found we could study better in Uncle Benham's library, where everything was so quiet (especially after Baby Ralph grew old enough to make our house so rackety!), and Uncle Benham was always at leisure to help us over the hard places in our arithmetic, and, later, in our Latin and algebra.

For a week before Connie had her accident, Uncle Benham had been confined to his room with a severe cold and rheumatism. It was partly this that accounted for one reason that led to the accident. He was still confined to his room that afternoon, and Mr. Cookson was away for several days. Connie and I came over to study our natural science and look up some notes in the library. We stopped in the kitchen on the way, and Beulah gave us some hot cookies. Then we ran up to see Uncle Benham, who was sitting in his room reading by the open fire.

Before we went down to study, he said to Connie: “Will thee do me the great favor, Connie dear, to bring me the big ledger that is in my office? I wish to look up something that is rather urgent. Cookson is away in Philadelphia, and I have just sent Tomkins to the village on an errand, or I would not ask it. I hope thee won’t find it too heavy!”

Connie laughed at the idea of finding a ledger too heavy, when she’s been doing all sorts of stunts in the gymnasium, and ran downstairs to Uncle Benham's office, which is a small room off the library. She came back carrying a big book; but when Uncle Benham saw it, he exclaimed: “Oh, this is too bad! Thee has brought me up the day-book instead of the ledger. They look alike and are in the same rack. Never thee mind, child. Another time will do just as well!”

But Connie jumped up and said she was so sorry to have made such a stupid mistake and took it away, to get the right one. The next thing we knew, there was the most awful sound, as if a couple of chairs were tobogganing down the staircase. Uncle Benham started to get up, but sank back quickly with the pain of his rheumatism. But I rushed out to the head of the beautiful curving staircase, and there at the bottom landing lay Connie, all mixed up somehow with the unwieldy book that was sprawled open on top of her. She was moaning softly, and when I got down to her she whispered: “Oh my ankle! I’ve hurt it awfully. Don’t let Uncle know!”

“What nonsense!” I cried, not realizing for a moment that she was hurt so badly. “As if he didn’t hear you coming down like a ton of coal!” But just then she fainted away from pain, so of course she couldn’t answer.

By that time, Beulah had come hurrying out from the kitchen, for she’d heard the racket. But the only thing she did when she saw Connie was to throw her apron over her head and rock back and forth and groan. So she wasn’t much help. I was pretty nearly distracted—the only able-bodied person who had any sense left, apparently, and Connie lying there unconscious, with that big book spread all over her like a cover.

“Help me lift her up!” I cried to Beulah; but she only rocked back and forth harder than ever.

“Oh, she’s daid—she’s daid! O Lawd, hab mussy on us!” she howled.

But suddenly the quiet voice of Uncle Benham floated down the stairs, just as calm as if there were nothing the matter.

“Stop that performance, Beulah!” it hardly more than murmured. “Put down your apron and help Elspeth to lift her sister.”

I never saw such an amazing change as came over Beulah at the sound of his voice. Down came the apron, and, with a “Yas, suh, Mr. Benham!'” she bent and lifted Connie in her strong arms.

“Bring her up here and lay her on my couch,” the calm voice went on. And Beulah strode upstairs with Connie in her arms like a baby, and me trailing behind.

Connie came to by that time, and Uncle Benham directed me to telephone for the doctor at once. Fortunately I was able to catch him just before he left his office, and he was up there fifteen minutes later.

During that time, Uncle Benham directed that Beulah and I open the room across the hall, light a fire there, and prepare the bed for Connie. When I asked if she hadn’t better be taken home, he said: “No, thee must run over later and tell your mother that we will keep Connie here while she is laid up. Thee has enough trouble at home without this extra burden.”

This was true, as Father was just getting a wee bit better after a severe attack of influenza, and Mother was worn out with nursing him and trying to get Baby Ralph through his teething besides.

Well, we got Connie into bed in the room across the hall, and the doctor set her ankle,—and a pretty painful performance it was, and Uncle Benham got a trained nurse from Philadelphia in the course of the next two hours. He declared that Connie was to remain where she was till she was well, because it was his fault, anyway, that she had the fall, since she was carrying the big book at his request, and he was going to see that she got over it as comfortably as possible.

After the excitement was all over, I went downstairs to put away the book, which no one had yet had time to pick up from where it lay near the foot of the stairs. The stairway in Tranquillity House is different from ordinary ones. It sweeps down from the upper floor in a beautiful wide curve—one of those exquisite white stairways with mahogany railing and mahogany treads. Just before it reaches the bottom, it spreads out into a landing, and, opening on this landing, a door at the left goes into the kitchen region. Right in front is a beautiful semicircular window with a low seat. Then, at the turn, the stair goes on three more steps to the bottom.

It was on this landing that Connie was lying after she fell. But as I went to get the book, which some one had stood against the wainscot below the window-seat when we picked her up, I received the shock of my life! There was a great hole in the wainscot and a piece of splintered wood driven right in—at first I couldn’t think by what, till I realized that it must have been by poor Connie’s foot, and doubtless it was striking this so hard that had broken her ankle.

Of course, I couldn’t resist the impulse to examine the thing. The white-painted wood was a rather thin piece, and evidently grown brittle with age. There was a big space left inside under the window-seat, so I put in my hand to pull out the piece of wood that had been broken in. Groping about for it, my hand struck something that felt queer—like some sort of wooden box, with something rough around the edge. This seemed very strange! Before I had time to think whether I was doing anything out of the way, I ran to the library, where I knew Uncle Benham kept a little electric torch, brought it back, turned it into the hole, and also got as much of one eye as I could into the opening.

And what I saw there is the cause of all the curious things that happened afterward at Tranquillity House!

 

CHAPTER II

THE TEAKWOOD CHEST

CONNIE and I often wonder now what would have happened if I had gone straight to Uncle Benham and told him about the broken wainscot without bothering to look in the hole first. I’m sure I can’t imagine how it would have turned out. Perhaps the same, for Tomkins might have discovered it, though it is possible that he mightn’t have. At any rate, I did look into it and discovered the curious old box that was the cause of all the confusion and mystery.

The only thing I could see, as I peeped into the hole, was a dark, oblong affair, about a foot and a half long but not so wide. As well as I could see, for the dust, it seemed to be of some dark-colored or black wood, all carved around the edges, and a metal handle in the middle of the top. I could see that it stood about eight or nine inches high. My first impulse was to get it out, of course; but this was not possible unless I made the hole in the paneling larger, and it didn’t seem right to do that. Then I decided to tell Uncle Benham about it and let him settle what was to be done. So I took the big day-book back to the library and went up to his room.

I’ve never seen a stranger change than that which came over him when I explained my discovery. It seemed as if he, whom I had never before seen anything but perfectly calm and collected, suddenly lost all the beautiful serenity that makes him different from any one I ever knew. He started up in his chair as if to rise, then dropped back with a little groan of pain. And his eyes had the expression of a happy child that has suddenly been alarmed and hurt.

“A box or—or chest, did thee say?” he stammered. “Of what sort is it? Describe it to me again, please!”

I did so, the best I could, and he seemed to grow more excited every moment.

“Could thee not get it out if thee broke down the woodwork a little more?” he next demanded.

I said I thought I could, and he sent me flying down post-haste to try. I managed to wrench away the entire board that had been splintered, and when that was done, it was an easy matter to reach in with both hands and draw out the box. I had expected to find it rather heavier than it was (I don’t know why); I was a little surprised to find that I could lift it and carry it upstairs without difficulty.

So I took it to Uncle’s room and, at his request, placed it on his knees as he sat by the fire. I thought he turned actually pale as he placed his hands on it, and he bit his lips as if to control himself better. If only Connie hadn’t called me just at that moment, I might have seen what happened when he tried to open it. But just then there came the sound of her faint little voice calling me, and I had to see what she wanted.

It was a drink. The poor child was feverish and horribly thirsty all the time, and the trained nurse hadn’t arrived yet. While I was giving it to her, she asked me what all the fuss was about, as she’d heard me running up and down, and sounds as if I were breaking something at the foot of the stairs. I tried to explain to her hurriedly, as best I could, all the while crazy to get back to Uncle Benham and see what he was doing with the box. But I was destined to a horrible disappointment.

For when Connie at last consented reluctantly to let me go and I had rushed back to Uncle Benham's room, I found Tomkins there with him, Uncle sitting back quietly in his chair again—and not a trace of the box to be seen! This seemed remarkably strange, as I hadn’t been gone so very long, and made me feel a little queer, too, about speaking of the matter. But my curiosity made me ask if he had discovered what the strange old box was.

Before he answered me, he turned to Tomkins and said: “Go downstairs at once, get the necessary tools and wood, and fix that hole in the wainscot, if thee will, Tomkins. And when thee has finished, put several coats of white paint over the work. I wish the spot to be so well mended that it will not be noticed.”

Tomkins went out at once to get at the work. I must say right here that Tomkins once told me he had been a carpenter in his younger days, so I did not think it strange, his being called on to patch up the hole; only it seemed a little queer that Uncle Benham should be in such a hurry about it.

When he had gone, Uncle Benham called me over to him and bade me sit by his side. He seemed to have recovered a good deal of his usual calmness, but there were still traces of uneasiness and upset in his kindly blue eyes.

“Thee must think it very strange, Elspeth,” he began, “all that has happened this afternoon—especially about the—the box. That, I must tell thee, is an old Chinese teakwood chest that has been in the family for a great many years. It was given to my grandfather by a sea-captain, who said it had been with him on his travels all over the world. It was always regarded as a great curiosity. A number of years ago the thing disappeared, and I never could find out what had become of it. But Connie's accident has brought it to light in a very curious way, and I am glad to know again where it is. I shall now put it away so safely that it can never more be lost.”

When he had said this, I thought he looked at me a little wistfully, as if he wished me to accept this explanation and ask no more questions about it. Perhaps I ought to have taken the hint, but I’m only human, after all, and, much as I think of him, it just seemed as if I couldn’t be put off in this way after having had such a terrific amount of curiosity aroused!

“But, Uncle Benham, did it have anything in it?” I cried; “and how do you suppose it came to be hidden in such a queer place?”

He sighed—a long, tired sigh—before answering. “Yes, it had some—some important papers in it,” he said, “and—and other things. But thee must not ask how it came to be in this strange place, for I have no means of knowing and am as much puzzled about it as thee is. Sometime—perhaps—I shall know. But I am going to ask thee to do me a great favor. Promise me that thee will say nothing about this—this affair of the hole in the wainscot to any one. For—”

“But I’ve already told Connie!” I interrupted.

“That will not matter, for she will keep it secret too. None know about it except ourselves—and Tomkins. I wish no others to know. I have been much upset by this affair—Connie's fall and—and this discovery, and I know thee will forgive me for—for my reticence?”

“Why, of course, dear Uncle Benham!” I cried. “It’s all right and, you can depend upon it, Connie and I won’t say a word! I'll run now and sit with her a while, if you don’t need me, for I think she’s a bit lonesome.” I thought he saw me go with a good deal of relief in his expression, but I may have been mistaken. Anyway, I ran in to Connie, so bursting with excitement and curiosity that I could hardly explain to her sensibly all that had happened.

We did not have time to talk about it very long, for the trained nurse Uncle had sent for came in a little while and took Connie completely out of my hands, if I may express it that way. She was a very commanding sort of a person, this Miss Carstair,—nice, but extremely businesslike,—and she hustled me out of the room as soon as I’d had a chance to finish telling her about Connie's fall. She said Connie had a temperature and that it wouldn’t be best for her to talk any more, and that I could safely go home and leave her now, as everything would be all right till morning. I kissed Connie good-by and went—very meekly—though Connie whispered to me imploringly to stay. But I knew it wouldn’t have been any use even to suggest it. Besides, Mother was waiting anxiously to hear all the details, for I’d only had a chance to telephone her about what had happened.

Before I left, however, one thing more happened that added to the mystery of the affair. On the way downstairs, I encountered Tomkins with a kit of carpentering tools and some boards, busily engaged in mending the hole. I must explain a little about Tomkins. He’s a queer, interesting sort of man, not so very much younger than Uncle Benham, and has been in his service more than forty years. He came over here from England as a young man and went to work on the big dairy-farm that Uncle Benham owns. Uncle took a great liking to him and soon took him into his personal service. That was what Tomkins liked best, so there he has been ever since. But he has never dropped his English ways.

As he had the bottom landing pretty well littered with his tools and things, I sat down on an upper step and watched him work and talked to him a little while, for we have always been great friends and I was curious to see what he thought of the affair.

“Your poor sister, miss!” he began, shaking his head dolefully. “She must have had a turrible fall! ’Tis a fair wonder she didn’t kill herself—making such a hole as this here!”

“Oh, Connie’s not so bad!” I assured him. “The doctor says she came off pretty easily, for her ankle isn’t badly broken and she might have been hurt internally—which would have been much more serious. He says the big book saved her—it broke her fall, probably. But that’s some hole you have to mend there, Tomkins! And you’re making it look as good as ever. By the way, was there anything else inside? I didn’t think to look after I found—” Here I stopped pretty abruptly, for I just remembered that Uncle Benham hadn’t wanted me to speak about the box to any one else. But I needn’t have worried about Tomkins. He knew all about it!

“No, miss, you can set your mind at rest! I felt all around before I began, and there isn’t another livin' thing in there. But it’s fair strange about that there chest!” Here he lowered his voice mysteriously and shook his head again. Now I knew Tomkins had been associated with Uncle Benham long enough to be pretty well acquainted with his affairs, at least in an outside sort of a way, and I did long to have him go on and say something else. I didn’t feel it right to ask him straight out anything about it—that would have seemed like prying. But if he would only say it himself, I thought I’d be perfectly justified in listening. Well, it almost seemed as if he guessed my thought, for he went on:

“It would have been well—it would have been best—if that there thing hadn’t never come to light!” he said ominously, still shaking his head, not realizing at all how simply bursting I was with interest and curiosity. “He’s all upset over it. He hasn’t been so upset since—well—er—I mean—I don’t know when I’ve seen him so upset!”

Now, naturally I was “all upset,” too, when he stopped so abruptly after that “since” and changed what he was going to say! It was rather maddening! For the life of me, I couldn’t help but ask: “How did it happen that it disappeared, Tomkins? I suppose that must have upset him a good deal, too.”

Tomkins gave me a queer look, at that, and his manner grew several shades more mysterious.

“I’m very sorry, miss, not to be at liberty to tell you all about it. You see, I’m Mr. Benham's confidential man, so of course, I keep my mouth shut. But you’d be surprised if you knew what had happened here some years past!”

“Then you know the whole thing?” I couldn’t help the question.

“Well, no, miss. I’m bound to confess I’m not by any means acquainted with all the facts. Some of it is rather blank to me. But I know how it began, so to speak. It took Mr. Benham several years to get over the blow. This—this here to-day is like opening an old wound, if I may say it that way.” But after this, evidently feeling he had said enough, possibly too much, he shut up like an oyster and would only shake his head again and again while he worked.

So, as there seemed nothing else to be gained by lingering around, I ran off home, going out the back way through the kitchen, as it was the shortest. Beulah tried to bribe me with a big piece of apple pie to stay and tell her all the news she’d missed by being in the kitchen; but I shook my head and hurried on, for I was awfully anxious to see Mother and talk it all over with her. And then I remembered that I couldn’t talk it over with her, at least the most mysterious and exciting part of it, because of my promise to Uncle Benham, and it made me feel queer.

“Well,” I thought, “at least to-morrow, when I go over to see Connie, I’ll get a chance to discuss the strange affair—that is, if Miss Carstair will only leave us alone.”

CHAPTER III

CONNIE MAKES SOME OBSERVATIONS

OF course, I had to go to high school next day and do double duty at home, so it didn’t leave me very much time to spend with Connie. I did, however, get over there late in the afternoon, when I understood that Miss Carstair would be out for a couple of hours. First I ran in to see Uncle Benham and found him very much better and able to walk about his room a little. He seemed in the main his usual serene self and declared he would be entirely recovered by the next day. But I thought there was still an expression of anxiety at times in his peaceful face, as if things might be all right for the moment, but that he was expecting trouble.

Connie, however, was plainly full to the brim of something she wanted to tell me; but between Miss Carstair bustling around getting ready to go for a walk and, later, Uncle Benham coming in to sit with us a few minutes, it seemed as if she’d never get a chance. She was in quite a good deal of pain from her ankle and felt queer from the general shock of the fall, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from being perfectly absorbed in other matters. When we were alone, at last, she raised herself up and whispered:

“Put some pillows behind me, Elspeth,—I’ve just got to sit farther up a while,—and let me tell you some of the things I’ve been noticing about that—that mysterious affair!” She was all excitement, I could see, and I was almost afraid to let her talk, for fear her temperature would go up again. (Miss Carstair told me it had gone down to nearly normal.) But on the other hand, I thought it might make things even worse if I refused to let her go on, so, between the two things, I decided that the best course was for her to have her way.

“I didn’t sleep much last night,” she began, “partly on account of my ankle, but mostly because I just couldn’t get this thing out of my mind. What do you suppose it’s all about, Elspeth?” I shook my head, but Connie didn’t wait for me to answer. “Do you see anything queer about this room?” she demanded.

I looked about it in surprise. “Why, no!” I said. There didn’t seem anything strange about it—a great, airy, beautiful room, furnished, as was all the rest of the house, with wonderful old mahogany heirlooms and looking as if all the colonial governors, not to speak of Washington and Lafayette and all the rest, might have occupied it with perfect propriety. “No, it seems all right to me.”

“Of course it’s all right!” she cried. “What isn’t, in Tranquillity House? But does anything about it seem queer to you?”

Again I looked around and this time a partial light did dawn on me. “There’s just one thing,” I ventured; “the furnishing seems—seems—yes, I believe I see what you mean. Every bit of this furniture just exactly duplicates what's in Uncle Benham's room, almost every single piece, and even the position of it is pretty nearly the same. That’s a little strange, because, as I remember, all the other bedrooms are quite different. It’s curious I never noticed it before.”

“No, it isn’t strange,” declared Connie, “because—you’ve never been in this room before!”

“Nonsense!” I cried. “I’m sure there isn’t a room in this house we haven’t explored over and over again!”

“Not this one,” persisted Connie. “The door has always been shut—not locked, but just closed. I remember once when I was quite little (you didn’t happen to be around at the time) I opened the door one day and was going to play in here when Uncle Benham came along and told me not to, that he preferred not to have the door opened at all—that I could play anywhere I chose except in this one room. I was too little to think anything about it at the time, and soon forgot all about the affair. But I never tried to come in again.”

“I always supposed the door opened into a closet,” I added. “I remember being a little surprised yesterday when Beulah opened this door and came in here. I thought Uncle meant the next room down the hall. But I was so upset over your accident that I didn’t have much time to think about it. Uncle told me afterward that he put you in here because it was the most comfortable room in the house and he wanted you to have the very best. He didn't say anything else about it. How curious this is!”

“It’s more than curious—it has something to do with that—that other affair,” Connie went on mysteriously. She is very clever at guessing riddles and solving puzzles and is never happier than when she has something of the kind to mull over.

“That’s impossible!” I cried. “Where can you find the slightest connection between the two things?”

“You haven’t heard, yet, all I have to tell,” she answered provokingly—and then sent me for a fresh drink of water, just to keep me on tenterhooks, I believe. Connie is that way—loves to tease and exasperate and keep one guessing. It amuses her to see people fuss! Well, I got her the drink and then begged her to go on.

“It was a conversation—or just a wee bit of a one—between Uncle Benham and Tomkins that I couldn’t help but overhear last night. It was late and Miss Carstair had gone to her room—she’s in the one right next and leaves me this bell to ring in case I need her. My door was partly open and the light was out, and I guess they thought I was asleep. Uncle Benham's door was partly open too, and Tomkins was fussing around in there getting him ready for the night, I suppose. Presently I heard him say: “And what shall we do with this chest, sir? It is most greatly in the way on the closet floor. There is no room, sir. Uncle Benham’s reply was in so low a tone that I couldn’t hear it, but I did catch Tomkins's next remark: ‘Yes, yes, sir! Of course, sir. Until Miss Connie is well, sir, we can most certainly get along with it here. I’ll lock it in the secretary-desk when the room is vacant, sir!’ And then he said something in a lower voice that I couldn’t hear, but it ended with, ‘most appropriate place for it anyway, sir! And to that Uncle Benham replied something like, ‘No matter, no matter! Thee must not refer to that!' in a sort of half-vexed tone. That was all, but it certainly set me to thinking! What do you make of it?”

Very naturally, I couldn’t make anything of it and said so. Everything she had told me simply made the mystery deeper. And we had just settled down to a good old talk about it when back came Miss Carstair, long before her time, saying that the walking was so bad on account of the thaw that she’d decided to give up her walk and come in and read to Connie. Of course, it was very kind of her to think of it, but we were both secretly furious with her for interfering with our chat. However, there was nothing to be done but leave her with Connie and “David Copperfield,” and I went on home to think about the strange new developments.

Before I left the house, however, another queer thing happened. At least, it seemed strange to me. Perhaps another might not have noticed it particularly, but by that time I was on the watch for every little event that had the slightest bearing on this queer state of affairs. As I was going down the stairs, whom should I see on the lower landing by the window but Mr. Cookson, the secretary. I must explain right here that Mr. Cookson frequently had to go off on business trips for Uncle Benham. Uncle had two or three large dairy-farms in Pennsylvania and the business connected with these was mainly transacted by Mr. Cookson. That was what Uncle kept him for, as he himself was not able to travel much and the business was rather large. Mr. Cookson had evidently just returned from one of these trips. He was standing there by the window with his grip in his hand and staring hard at the panel in the wainscot that Tomkins had put in and freshly painted the night before.

Now, I can’t exactly explain why it seemed strange to me that Mr. Cookson should be staring so at that panel. It did look slightly different from the rest of the wood, because the paint was just a little fresher and whiter than the woodwork around it. But then, on the other hand, there was so little difference that a person not acquainted with the circumstances would not have been at all likely to notice it, and Mr. Cookson had only that moment arrived (I saw the taxi he came in from the station just driving away). He certainly hadn’t had time to be informed of yesterday’s events, so why the interest in that panel?

At any rate, I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him anything, for as I’ve said before, both Connie and I disliked him extremely and he certainly showed no wild enthusiasm over us. We usually avoided each other, except for politely passing the time of day when we met. So I came on down just as if nothing unusual were the matter. I wondered how I was going to pass him, as he was occupying just about the whole landing, with his grip planted right in the way. But he didn't appear to notice me at all. When I got right up to him I said, “Good afternoon!” and this simple remark seemed to have a very surprising effect. He started violently and appeared to notice me for the first time and hastily moved aside, mumbling something I suppose was meant for a polite reply. He did not mention anything about the panel, but snatched up his suitcase and hurried off upstairs, and I went on out. The little happening stayed in my mind, how ever, and I couldn’t forget it all that evening.

The next day was Saturday and I had more time to be with Connie. By that time she was over the worst of the pain and just had to be pretty quiet, waiting for the break in her ankle to knit. In the morning, as usual, Miss Carstair was full of business and I scarcely got more than a glimpse of Connie. So I spent a few moments with Uncle Benham (who by that time seemed quite restored to his usual quiet serenity and was also around and downstairs, though walking with a cane), and then went back home till later.

In the afternoon, however, Connie and I had a wonderful time together, for Miss Carstair had asked leave to go to Philadelphia and be away till dinner, and Uncle Benham had gone off with Tomkins for a long drive and a call on some one, and Mr. Cookson, if he was in the house at all, was nowhere to be seen. So except for Beulah, Connie and I had the place almost to ourselves—and we certainly made the most of those precious three hours!

“I’ve got something special to tell you!” Connie began in great excitement; “two or three things, in fact, but one particularly. What do you think? Mr. Cookson is back!”

“Well, that's not much news. I knew that last night!” I answered scornfully.

“Yes, but you don’t know what happened after he got here!” went on Connie. “And I’ve a great mind not to tell you now, Miss Know-It-All!”

“Oh, do be good and not tease!” I said. “What did happen?”

“Well, I heard him talking in the hall with Tomkins,” Connie relented and informed me. “I hear lots in this room that I’m not supposed to, but I can’t help that. He evidently hadn’t seen Uncle yet, but he noticed the trained nurse around and this room being occupied and couldn’t make out what had happened—that was plain. So he got hold of Tomkins and they talked for several moments in low voices—but not so low that I didn’t get about all of it!” And Connie chuckled gleefully. “He began by asking Tomkins very suspiciously what was the matter in the house, and Tomkins explained to him all about my accident. I noticed, however, he didn’t say a word about how I’d poked my foot through the paneling!

“But that evidently didn’t satisfy old Cookson! For then, Elspeth—then, I heard him ask if I’d done any damage to the woodwork or the paint! Said he’d noticed that there seemed to be fresh paint on the landing. Tomkins appeared to be clean bowled over at that and hardly knew how to answer him. But he got around it very well, saying that I’d struck the paint pretty hard and chipped it off, which of course I did, and he’d put on a fresh coat so that it would look all right. Wasn’t that clever of him?”

“It certainly was!” I agreed. “And I saw Cookson last night staring at that paint as if his eyes would pop out of his head. What in the world does he care about it, anyway?”

“Don’t ask me!” exclaimed Connie. “I’m going to find out yet, though. But I haven’t told you all. This explanation seemed to satisfy Cookson and he ended by saying: ‘You’d better not worry Mr. Benham by speaking of it, though. You know he is easily upset at present, especially since he’s not been well. And his heart—’ But Tomkins interrupted right there to say Mr. Benham knew all about it. And at that, old Cookson gave a snort and muttered something that sounded like ‘abominably unfortunate!’ and walked off!”

“Cookson’s mixed up in this thing!” I announced dramatically.

But Connie took the wind out of my sails by saying, “Why, of course! What else did you suppose? But I haven’t finished yet. There’s something else that happened. Last evening, during dinner, Beulah came up here to see me and get my supper-tray. The rest were having dessert and didn’t need her just then, and I think, anyway, she slipped up here just to see me and gossip a minute and satisfy her curiosity. Before she left, I couldn’t resist the temptation to find out about this room if I could, and I knew she'd been here years and years. So I asked her why the room was furnished just exactly like Uncle Benham's across the hall—and I wish you could have seen her eyes! They suddenly got as round as saucers and she rolled them in that funny way she has and shook her head till I thought her white turban would fall off. ‘Bress you, honey, Ah—Ah jes’ can’t tell you!' she stuttered. “Why not? Don’t you know? I asked. And what do you think she answered? That she knew,—oh, yes, well enough!—‘but Mr. Benham he done tol’ me nebber to mention it to no one—ef Ah didn’t want to get sent back, bag and baggage, to ol' Virginny!’”

Connie gave me a couple of minutes in which to think over this latest piece of news and then said, very solemnly, “Elspeth, I’m beginning to wonder why they ever called this place “Tranquillity’!”

CHAPTER IV

TRANQUILLITY HOUSE DOES NOT LIVE UP TO ITS NAME

IT was the next day—Sunday—that things seemed to break loose at Tranquillity. Mother and Daddy took turns going over to spend part of the morning with Connie, and I drove to First-day Meeting with Uncle Benham at his request. He has always liked to have me go with him to Friends' Meeting, because I enjoy sitting there quietly even if nothing happens during the whole hour of the service. I love to watch the calm, serene faces about me. It makes me wish my life could be as peaceful and well-ordered as theirs must be. Connie is always a little more restless and fidgets a bit, especially if there is no speaking. But I like the silence.

A dear old Quaker lady, in the quaint costume that a few of them still wear, was the only one who spoke that day. I remember she spoke (singularly enough!) on being prepared for the unexpected and striving not to be upset by it—or something to that effect and she ended with the words from the Bible, “‘I say unto you all—watch!’” Her talk seemed to affect Uncle Benham very much, and when the meeting was over we stood out side waiting for the carriage to drive up and looking out over the wide valley beyond the meeting-house. It was a beautiful mild day for winter and a lavender haze hung over the valley. Uncle laid his hand on my shoulder and sighed a little and then said:

“Thee must not think it strange—what has happened at the house this past week, Elspeth. There are many curious things that transpire in a lifetime—and I have lived long. I have seldom been taken unawares, but I confess that I was—on Thursday. A chapter, a painful one, that I had long thought closed, was reopened. It was like a thunderbolt. But it is over now, I trust. Some day, perhaps, I may tell thee about it—but not now, not now.” Just then the carriage drove up. (Uncle still likes to ride in the carriage on mild days, behind those beautiful horses. When it storms he uses the limousine.) All he said to me after that was, as we got in: “Thee understands, I’m sure, Elspeth. We will not speak of this again.”

Of course, my curiosity was roused to the limit, but I would sooner have been beheaded than ask any more questions. Uncle urged me to stay to dinner, but I thought I ought to go and help Mother out with Baby Ralph and talk to Daddy a while, who was so much better that he was going back to business next day. So I told Uncle I’d be over later in the after noon and sit with Connie while Miss Carstair went out for her two hours, and perhaps stay to tea. I followed out that program, and it turned out to be a very eventful afternoon and evening.

To begin with, I met Mr. Cookson in the big living-room downstairs before I had a chance to get up to Connie. As he never took the trouble to say more than “Good day” to me, I was passing him with the same remark and had turned to the stairs (which come down right in one corner of the same room) when, to my surprise, he broke the ice by saying most affably what a pity it was my sister had had such a bad accident and how frightened I must have been.

I replied that I had been very much frightened at first, but that Connie was less hurt than we had feared and was doing very well. Then, as there didn’t seem any more to say and as I didn’t care to talk to him anyhow, I moved off to the stairs. But he followed right after me and his manner was extremely nervous, I thought. At the foot of the stairs, he pointed to the freshly painted woodwork and remarked, “Did quite some damage to the stairs, didn’t she?” There was something so strange about his way of saying this that it put me on my guard right away. I knew as well as if he had told me in so many words that he was trying to pump me as to how much damage she had done. And I made up my mind then and there he’d never get the information from me! So all I answered was, “Oh, it seems to have been fixed very nicely with a little paint!”

Maybe I imagined it, but I’m almost certain that the expression which came into his face on hearing this was one of relief. Anyway, nothing more was said on the subject and I went along up to Connie's room. He came up right afterward and went in to Uncle Benham. I don’t know why it was, but something about him always put me in mind of Uriah Heep in “David Copperfield.” Not that he looked like him (Mr. Cookson was really a rather impressive-looking man in his way) or was “oily,” like Uriah, but there was something about him that seemed not real to me, and Connie felt the same. But Uncle Benham liked him and trusted him implicitly with all his affairs. I always thought that Mr. Cookson had no sympathy with children and rather disliked them, and that this was-what we felt.

Connie was restless and fretful that afternoon. The novelty of her accident and being at Tranquillity House in the capacity of invalid had all worn off, and she was as unreasonable and hard to manage as could well be imagined. Also, she was rather annoyed because nothing new had happened to keep up her interest in the mystery that her accident had so curiously opened up. I began to read to her, but she didn’t care about that and soon said so. Then I tried talking and told her all about the Meeting that morning and about my encounter with Mr. Cookson, coming up the stairs. But as neither event led us any nearer a solution of the puzzle, she soon grew impatient over that too.

“It’s just maddening to have to lie here in bed and think of all the strange things that must be going on and not be able to be up and around or do a thing!” she moaned. I reminded her that she probably wouldn’t be able to do anything if she were up and around, so it was useless to fuss about that. Presently she declared she was sleepy and would try to take a nap; so she turned over with her back to me and closed her eyes and I began to read a book I was interested in.

The door of the room stood partly open and I could see from where I sat right across the hall to the door of Uncle's room, which also was partly ajar. Mr. Cookson had evidently gone out, as Uncle never transacted any business on “First Day” and allowed his secretary freedom to do as he pleased. I had heard him go out earlier in the afternoon; Tomkins also was off somewhere and the place was very, very quiet indeed—so quiet that a mouse scratching behind the woodwork somewhere sounded like a terrific racket. I heard Uncle get up and walk about his room for several moments and then go back to sit down again by the fireplace. Right after that there was a sudden sharp noise, as if he were wrenching something apart, or breaking something, and then a silence for a long while.

By that time Connie had plainly gone to sleep and I had grown so interested in my book that I hardly realized how much time elapsed; but I suppose it must have been about half an hour when I heard a strange sound from Uncle Benham's room. It was something between a groan and a call, but so faint that I couldn’t be sure which it was; so I listened hard, thinking it might come again. Presently it did, this time more distinctly, and I was sure I heard him trying to speak my name. Of course, I hurried right out, on tiptoe so I shouldn’t wake Connie, and crossed the hall to his open door. But when I looked in, the sight I saw there almost stunned me with surprise.

In his chair, half lying back and over to one side, sat, or rather lay, poor Uncle Benham. That something terrible was the matter I could easily see at the first glance. His face was almost scarlet in color, and there was a queer, limp look about him that I could not understand. Some things were scattered all about on the floor, but at first I didn’t stop to notice what they were.

“Oh, what is it? Are you ill, Uncle Benham?” I cried, kneeling down by him. For answer, his lips moved, but not a sound came from them. Thinking that perhaps he was too weak to do more than whisper, I leaned my ear close to his mouth and then caught the words, hardly more than breathed, “Chest—lock—”

Not till then did I look down at the floor. Open at his feet lay the old teakwood chest, and scattered all around were papers and letters and various legal-looking documents and one flat red velvet case or box. He had evidently been looking these things over when he was taken with this strange illness.

“Do you wish me to put them away, Uncle?” I asked, and a very slight nodding of his head made me know that I had guessed rightly.

“But hadn’t I better send for Tomkins first?” I suggested; for it didn’t seem right to leave him even a moment more in that state without help. But at this he rolled his head so violently from side to side that I hastily gave up the idea and scrambled around on the floor picking up and trying to arrange in some orderly fashion the papers about his feet. And all the while his wonderful blue eyes followed me as if he longed to say something more and couldn’t. When I had them all back in the chest in some fashion, I asked him where he wished them placed, and his eyes traveled to the closet door. So I closed down the lid of the chest, discovering as I did so that he had evidently broken the lock to open it, took it to the closet, placed it on the floor, and shut the door, turning the key in the lock, for I guessed that was what he had meant when he whispered, “Lock!” I was very anxious to save him any exertion in answering questions.

What to do with the closet door-key was the next problem. Plainly, it was useless to lock the door and then leave the key in it; so I took out the key and turned to ask him where he wished it put, when I realized that he had grown suddenly very much worse. He had slipped farther down in his chair and his eyes were closed and his face had lost the bright red color. I was frightened to pieces, for I thought surely he must be either dead or dying. But when I got to him he was breathing heavily and his hands were warm. I felt his pulse, as I had seen Miss Carstair do to Connie, and found it quite strong, so I knew he was at least not so bad as I had thought.

Then commenced a wild hunt for help. I dreaded to get Beulah, for I knew as well as anything that her first performance would be exactly what it was when Connie fell. She was worse than useless. Tomkins was nowhere to be found, and then I realized that this was no doubt his afternoon off and that he had gone to the village. Mr. Cookson was away, too, and so was Miss Carstair. I did have sense enough to call up the doctor at once. He wasn’t in, but his wife said she knew where he was and would telephone him to come immediately.

I had just decided to call up Mother and ask her to come right over, and had even taken down the receiver, when who should walk in at that moment but Miss Carstair. I never was so delighted to see any one in my life. It wasn’t quite time for her return, but she said it had begun to rain and she had hurried back. No one could have been better at that moment than a trained nurse, and in less than two minutes I had taken her in to see Uncle Benham.

The rest of that afternoon will always remain in my mind as the most confusing experience I have ever lived through. Miss Carstair was a trump. She seemed to know just what to do for Uncle till the doctor got there, and I helped her the best I could. When the doctor came he immediately telephoned for more doctors, and two came all the way from Philadelphia, breaking the speed laws forty times and getting held up three times on the way, so they said. Then Tomkins arrived and I wanted to speak to him about what had happened, but I never had a chance. And later, Mr. Cookson came in, looking, or trying to look, very much concerned at the news, I thought. Of course, I didn’t speak to him about anything that had happened that afternoon!

It was lucky Miss Carstair was on hand and could give all her time to Uncle. She quite neglected Connie, for which she apologized—as if that were necessary! So Connie and I huddled by ourselves in her room and tried to make each other think that everything would be all right for Uncle. I gave Connie a hasty idea of what had occurred, but had neither the time nor the heart to go into any details just then.

About six o'clock Miss Carstair came in to tell us that they were taking Uncle away to Philadelphia, in a big, comfortable ambulance, to a hospital, where it was hoped that he would have a better chance of recovery. He was in a very serious state, she said, but not necessarily fatal, especially with the proper kind of care and some special treatment that he could get at the hospital. She said he must have had a shock of some kind, and it had brought on a partial paralysis—a trouble he had stood in dread of for a number of years, so his doctor had told her. But there was hope that it might pass off in time. Tomkins was to go with him, but she was to remain here with Connie, and she said I had better arrange to sleep over here too, so that we could all be company for each other in the big, lonely house. Of course, I knew, almost without asking, that Mother would want me too.

It was a strange supper that Miss Carstair and I had alone together that evening at Tranquillity. Mr. Cookson had complained of a headache and said he would just have some tea and toast in his room. Neither of us said much, though Miss Carstair tried very hard to be cheerful. But an air of gloom hung over us and I could have cried, for I missed Uncle Benham's beautiful smile and delightful conversation and his chair seemed so empty there at the head of the table.

Connie begged that I be allowed to sleep in her room that night because she was so lonely. Miss Carstair did not approve of it, but Connie grew so excited and tearful over it that she finally gave in and said I might if I’d be careful not to hurt Connie's ankle. It was not till the lights were all out and every one else had retired that I began to give Connie a whispered account in detail of all that had happened that afternoon and especially about—the chest.

“It’s locked in the closet, Connie,” I finished, “and no one knows about it but myself; and I have the key right in my pocket, for I didn’t know what else to do with it and didn’t dare leave it lying around. If I could have seen Tomkins alone, I would have given it to him. But there’s no one else I’d trust it with—certainly not old Cookson!”

“Well, I guess not!” cried Connie. “I think it’s just as well that we have it in our own keeping. But, Elspeth, what do you suppose caused Uncle to have that trouble? Do you think it was anything in the chest that disturbed him?”

“I don’t think it—I know it!” said I, in such an intense way (so Connie afterwards told me) that I almost scared her out of her wits.

“What do you mean?” she whispered, pinching me, unconsciously, till I almost shrieked.

“Just what I said!” I repeated. “I know it because, when I picked up the things on the floor, I saw—I couldn’t help seeing, as it lay right open in front of me—one of the papers that belonged in the chest!”

CHAPTER V

AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT

IT just did me good to tease Connie a bit by keeping her guessing, for she has so often irritated me in the same way. So I did not at once tell her my secret, though she almost shook me in her eagerness to hear the rest of the story. But I very soon realized that this was making her far too excited and nervous and that Miss Carstair would never approve of it. So I soothed her by saying:

“There, there, Connie! Just calm down and I’ll tell you about it at once. I didn’t mean to make you cry!” For by that time she was actually sobbing. “The paper I saw was a letter; at least I think it must have been a letter, for it began like this: ‘Dear Twin Brother.’”

There was a long silence while Connie digested this piece of news. “‘Twin brother’! How very strange!” she murmured incredulously. “But go on—go on! Don't stop there, for mercy's sake!”

“But I’ve got to stop there,” I replied, as coolly as I could.

“Why? why?” she demanded impatiently.

“Because, of course, I didn’t read any more. You don't suppose I’d go on and read another person's letter, do you? As soon as my eye had taken in that much, I folded it up quickly and put it into the chest!”

Connie sank back on her pillow. We’d both been sitting up in bed in the dark, from sheer excitement, I suppose. She heaved a great sigh and finally said:

“Well, of course that explains everything!”

“I don’t see that it does,” I retorted.

“Oh, not exactly everything, naturally, but lots and lots that we haven’t understood and have been puzzled by. For instance,” she went on, “it explains about this room. We’ve been wondering why the furnishings were exactly like those in Uncle Benham’s room; but if he had a twin brother, you can easily under stand it. Twins are about the only people who ever have clothes and things just alike.”

“Twin children,—yes,-but who ever heard of twin grown men following that custom?” I demanded.

“Well, if you can explain it any other way, I’d like to hear you !” continued Connie, sarcastically. “Now, the question is, what was the matter with this twin brother, and why has Uncle never mentioned him?”

“You remember, I told you he said this morning that the chest had something to do with a very painful chapter that has long been closed,” I reminded her.

“So he did. Something must have happened to that brother. Perhaps he got killed or met with some awful accident—or something like that. Certainly, such a thing would be painful enough!”

“But not as painful as some other things that might happen,” I interrupted her. “Do you suppose that if it had been anything like that, Uncle would have forbidden Beulah ever to speak of it under penalty of being sent back to “ol’ Virginny? Or that Tomkins would be so careful not to tell me a single thing about it, though it's plain he knows a good deal?”

“That’s true,” mused Connie. “I’d almost forgotten that. But here’s something that’s even more mysterious. This letter was in a chest that Uncle told you had been lost for years—until my accident brought it to light. Now, then, my question is, did Uncle know about the letter being in the chest—or didn’t he? Had he ever seen the letter before?”

“I think he didn’t know about it,” I answered; “and I’ll tell you why. In the first place, that chest was locked, and Uncle couldn’t have had the key to it, for he broke the lock open this afternoon. It was broken when I picked it up. That, and the fact that something must have given him a severe shock—and that letter was lying open directly at his feet!—make me almost certain it was something he had never seen before, and it must have upset him terribly.”

“Oh!” sighed Connie, “I know it’s wrong, of course, but I do wish you had just happened to see a wee bit more of that letter!”

“Two things are worrying me even more than that,” I replied. “One is, how did that chest get into such a queer place as the space under the window on the stairs. But the biggest of all is, what does Mr. Cookson know about all this and why is he so worried about your damaging the stairs? There’s something very queer about the way he acts. You said last night that he was mixed up in it, and I’m ready now to believe it!”

“He’s more than mixed up in it: he’s at the bottom of all the trouble, I believe!” declared Connie, so positively that I couldn’t help agreeing with her. “And what do you suppose is going to happen, now that he’s left alone here without either Uncle or even Tomkins to restrain him? Why, he will just have everything his own way!”

“That’s something neither you nor I can help, I’m afraid,” said I. “After all, we really know nothing about it and perhaps he isn’t planning to do anything wrong. We’ve no right to think he is, till we’re sure.”

But Connie couldn’t be persuaded to believe this, and we argued about it for a long while. Then, as we were both growing drowsy, I proposed that we stop talking and go to sleep, and Connie agreed with my suggestion. It must have been past midnight, for I heard the big old clock downstairs chime something that I thought was twelve, and I was just about to drop off when Connie pinched me hard and whispered, “Hush! Listen!”

I was wide awake in an instant, sitting up and asking under my breath what was the matter.

“I heard footsteps tiptoeing down the hall past this door,” exclaimed Connie, so low that I could hardly hear her. “It was certainly some one sneaking past and not wanting to be heard!” We both listened hard, after that, and—sure enough!—in a moment or two there came the faintest creak from the direction of the stairs. Then and not till then did I feel certain that Connie had not been dreaming.

“I’m going to find out who it is!” I muttered, creeping softly out of bed and finding my wrapper in the dark.

“Oh, don't!” shuddered Connie. “Maybe it’s a burglar!”

But I somehow felt certain that it wasn’t a burglar, or any one that didn’t belong in the house, and something in me just felt thoroughly indignant that, simply because Uncle was ill and away, there should be anything underhand going on. So, while Connie shivered and protested, I crept to the door and peered out.

The upper hall was dark, but Uncle had always insisted on having one light kept burning all night on the lower floor. So usually there was one burning in the living room, and the light from it would show faintly in the upper hall. To my surprise, however, all was pitch-black when I looked out. Some one must have turned off that light.

But while I stood there listening, I heard distinctly another creak on the stairs and a sound as if some one were brushing along close to the railing. Then silence again. But two minutes later I was startled to see a faint light, like that from an electric torch. It was only for an instant and out again immediately. Then, a moment after, it was flashed on again and remained on. This was too much. I could not resist another second the temptation to see what was going on, so I tiptoed along the hall and reached the head of the stairs.

If I needed any proof of our suspicions, here it was! On the floor by the window seat on the last landing knelt Mr. Cookson. He had an electric torch turned on and laid by him on the seat. He was dressed as he had been in the evening and was working away at the screws in the window-seat with a screw-driver! So furtive and so wicked did the whole thing look that it made me shudder. No need to guess what he was trying to do there! If he had shouted it aloud, he couldn’t have told it more plainly. But, as I didn’t care to be discovered watching him, I turned and hurried back to Connie.

Of course, we held a red-hot indignation meeting, huddled there in bed, not daring to raise our voices above the faintest whisper.

“Didn’t I tell you?” almost snorted Connie. “I knew all along he was up to something. He knew that chest was hidden there! Though how he came to know it, I can’t imagine. But he knew it and was pretty well scared when he thought, on account of my accident, it might have been found. As he couldn’t be sure, he’s trying to find out by unscrewing the seat, when every one he’s afraid of is away! The old coward! Well, he’ll soon have the shock of his life when he gets that window-seat off!”

As she said that, suddenly an awful thought occurred to me.

“Connie,” I whispered, “do you realize what this means? If he doesn’t find that chest in there, he'll know it was discovered and taken away, and that no doubt Uncle has it and—he'll certainly go hunting it up in Uncle's room—and—he mustn’t find it! ”

“But it’s locked in the closet, and you have the key, haven’t you?” Connie asked.

“Locks don’t mean a thing to him, I believe,” I declared. “He can get into any thing, just as he’s getting into that window seat now! What shall we do?”

“There’s only one thing I can see to do—and that is for you to go across the hall and get the chest and bring it in here. It’s the only place where it will be safe.”

But the thought of the risk I’d run almost frightened me out of my wits. “Perhaps he won’t try to get it to-night,” I said. “It’ll take him a good while to fix that window-seat back after he takes it off.”

“You make me wild!” cried Connie. “I wouldn’t be such a coward! If it weren’t for this ankle, I’d go myself, as quick as anything!”

Well, I just couldn’t stand being called a coward by my own sister, so I braced up and said certainly I’d go.

“Then you’d better do it at once,” warned Connie, “for there’s no telling what may happen when he finds the chest gone from under the window-seat!”

This was not encouraging, but I decided to give myself no time even to think about it. I got the key from the pocket of my sport-skirt and tiptoed out into the hall again. Before I ventured into Uncle’s room, I made up my mind I’d see how much progress Cookson had made and how much time I was likely to have. So I crept to the head of the stairs again and peeped over.

From what I could see in the dim light, he had several of the screws out,—about half of them, perhaps,—but I thought that it would take him at least ten minutes to take out the rest and put them all back again. And that ought to give me plenty of time. So back I crept to Uncle’s door and opened it as softly as I could. It creaked, of course! All doors do in the night, it seems to me, and especially when you don’t want ’em to! The very soft rustling and scraping sounds from down below stopped at once, and I stood rooted to the spot, not daring to move an inch. I thought that he’d come right up to see what was the matter.

But nothing happened, and I suppose he concluded that he was mistaken about hearing anything; for presently the sounds began again. At that I slid into the room, closing the door, but not latching it, as I was afraid it would creak again when I came out. I was all in the dark, of course, and had to grope my way to find the closet door. Fortunately, I knew just where all the furniture stood, or I might have stumbled over some thing. At last I reached the closet door, put in the key, and turned it without a sound. If that door creaked, at least it could not be so plainly heard downstairs as the other had been.

But the door did not creak and I bent down to raise the chest and carry it away, when a sudden thought occurred to me. It would be difficult to carry that chest across the hall in the dark without mishap. And, after all, the chest itself did not matter particularly. It was only the contents that were of any importance, so I wouldn’t bother with the chest, but empty the papers and everything into the skirt of my wrapper and carry them that way. Besides, it would be a good joke on Mr. Cook son to let him find the empty chest!

No sooner said than done, as they say in the old story-books. In a jiffy I had every single bit of the contents of the chest securely wound up in the skirt of my wrapper, had shut and locked the closet door, and was ready to creep back to our room.

I had steered successfully around all the furniture, particular avoiding Uncle’s great winged chair and footstool by the fireplace, and had reached the door without a sound—when I heard distinctly the soft, tiptoeing footsteps of Mr. Cookson coming up the stairs!

CHAPTER VI

THE NEXT DAY

THERE are simply no words in which to tell how I felt as I stood there by the door, carrying the papers from the chest in my wrapper, and Mr. Cookson coming up the stairs, bound straight for that room. I hadn’t a doubt that he had finished sooner than I had expected, and, not finding the chest, was hurrying right to the next place to hunt for it—Uncle's room! It was a terrible moment for me. I could not make up my mind what to do—and so did nothing but wait for the coming catastrophe! I hope I shall never again be called upon to live through such a dreadful five minutes.

But, singularly enough, the unexpected happened! Mr. Cookson came along the hall, still on tiptoe, and at the door where I stood he stopped! My heart absolutely stood still with fright. But in another instant he had passed on, stepping softly, and I heard him going up the stairs at the other end of the hall to the floor above, where his own room was.

The suspense had been so great that I was almost too weak to move. My knees fairly shook, but somehow I opened the door and got across the hall to the other room without being seen or heard. I had just closed our door when I heard the footsteps coming down again. Connie was pretty nearly as frightened as I had been, for she thought surely I was going to be caught. We listened breathlessly while the footsteps passed and went on downstairs again. I can only suppose that he had gone up to his room for some other tool to complete his work. I wanted awfully to go out again and see what he looked like when he discovered the hiding-place was empty. But we both decided it would hardly be safe, so I listened as best I could from behind our closed door.

It seemed a long time after that that we heard him coming up again, and we thought of course he’d go straight into Uncle's room. But he didn’t. He passed on and up the stairs at the far end and did not come down again, though it seemed to me I waited half the night, standing by our door. At last, when I felt certain he had gone for good, I peeped out and saw the usual faint light in the hall from the floor below. I even got up courage enough to go softly to the head of the stairs, and could see that all was as usual down on the landing, the window-seat appearing as if it had never been touched. Plainly, all was over for that night!

But even so, there was little sleep left for Connie and me during the hours that remained before morning. Too much had happened, and there was a great deal to decide. In the first place, we had to think what to do about the contents of the chest—all the letters and papers that were now lying in a heap at the foot of our bed. I suggested going back for the chest, now that it was evident Cook son was not coming down again. We could put the things back in it and lock it in our closet, or put it in the old secretary-desk there, as I had heard Tomkins once suggest. But Connie declared that either place was far from safe, for Cookson would probably make some excuse to get at them, even if she were still there in the room.

“The safest thing for you to do,” she declared, “is to put them in my suitcase and take them over home with you in the morning. As long as they’re in this house, he will get his hands on them somehow, I believe. But he’d never guess they’re over there!”

I couldn’t but agree with her, though I did suggest that we ought to let Tomkins know about them, if we could. He seemed to be the only other person that was in the secret, and of course it was impossible to tell Uncle yet, while he was in that state. She said she would keep watch for Tomkins, if he returned from the hospital sometime, as he probably would, and let him know about it at the first convenient moment. Then I suggested handing them over to Father for safe-keeping, but she reminded me that as Uncle seemed to want the whole thing kept a secret, that would hardly be fair. So I concluded I’d lock them up in my lowest bureau drawer, where all my own treasurers are and where even Mother never thinks of looking. When the right time came, we could return them to either Uncle or Tomkins.

After the hectic night we’d had, neither of us seemed able to settle down to sleep, and it was nearly five next morning when I dropped into a dose. Miss Carstair bustled in at seven-thirty and found Connie feverish and restless and wasn’t at all pleased with things. I breakfasted alone, shortly after, waited on by Beulah, who was still big-eyed and tearful and inclined to be talkative over poor Uncle's sudden collapse. But my mind was too full of what I had before me, to give her much attention.

Miss Carstair telephoned the hospital before I left, and we learned that Uncle’s condition was no worse, and that he’d passed a comparatively restful night. He was still partly paralyzed and could not speak. But the doctors were more hopeful of his recovery than they had been the day before. Miss Carstair said this was really better news than she had expected, so we were very much cheered.

Then came the task of getting the suitcase out of the house without questions being asked. I made the excuse of taking home some clothes of Connie’s, and put them in the case while Miss Carstair was having her breakfast. Without waiting for any more remarks, I left at once, telling Connie I’d be back in the afternoon, just as soon as school was over. Then I went out to the stairs.

As luck would have it, who should be coming up the stairs from his breakfast at that very moment, but old Cookson himself. I must have turned fairly green as he came along, for, of all the people I didn’t want to see, he was the one most unwelcome. I thought he looked haggard and as though he’d passed a sleepless night, and he seemed to eye me with a rather questioning gaze as we passed and nodded good morning. If he could have but guessed what I was carrying in that harmless-looking suitcase, I can’t imagine what he would have done or said. To me, it seemed fairly to shriek at him for notice, of course. But he passed on without a word, and with a great sigh of relief I escaped from the house and hustled across the park.

At home, another trying session awaited me. I had thought I’d rush those papers and things into my bureau drawer at once and have them under lock and key. But Mother followed me right up to my room and wanted to hear all about everything, as I’d had little chance to give her details about Uncle. Then she asked if I’d brought Connie's clothes over for the laundry, and started to open the suitcase herself.

“Oh, wait a moment!” I cried distractedly. “They’re all mixed up with some things of mine. I’ll get them out.” She answered that I was late for school already and had better let her attend to it. And, actually, she was just opening the bag when a loud yell from Baby Ralph, who had tumbled and bumped his head, sent her hurrying downstairs. It was most providential. I thankfully removed the papers and locked them up in my drawer and hurried off to school, with my head in such a whirl as it had never before been in.

As if that weren’t enough excitement for one twenty-four-hour interval, I had another amazing adventure that same afternoon. As the weather in the morning had been mild and free from snow or ice, I had ridden to school on my bicycle. Before closing-time that afternoon, a light snow began to fall; but I got home before it was very bad, and, in fact, it stopped shortly after I reached the house. Finding all as usual at home, I decided to go right over to Tranquillity, for I could hardly wait to see if there were any new developments.

Connie and I had a short cut between the two houses that we sometimes used when we were in a great hurry. It led from our back garden over the fence, through a thick mass of shrubbery in the park, and along the river edge to the kitchen door of Tranquillity. About half-way along the park, on a little Knoll above the river, there was a tiny old cemetery plot that had long ago been used by Uncle’s ancestors. It was fenced in by a low box hedge, and there were just a few stones in it, flat slabs lying on the ground, or only slightly raised from it. There was a quaint old stone bench under a great tree in the middle, and Uncle was very fond of sitting there in the summer and watching the river.

On coming out of the thick rhododendron shrubbery—most of the bushes were so tall they were above my head—what was my astonishment to see Mr. Cookson just stepping over the low hedge of box around the plot and coming in my direction, with a big bundle, done up in paper, under his arm. That he was dumfounded at seeing me was evident. He hesitated, stopped short, and then apparently decided to behave as if nothing unusual were happening, and came along with his head bent and his eyes on the ground. I hardly knew how to act—whether to pretend I didn’t notice him or to pass the time of day. But as it was foolish to act as if he weren’t there when he had to brush right by me, I simply nodded to him when he came up. He returned the nod with such a savage expression that I was glad to hurry away from him as fast as I could. But what he was doing off on that little path, at that time of day, I couldn’t fathom.

If this was puzzling, however, something else that I noticed a moment later was more than that—it was baffling! I had supposed, of course, that he had come across the grounds from Tranquillity, and I became interested in tracing back his footprints in the light “tracking-snow,” as the hunters call it. I had followed them as far as the little cemetery, when something queer seemed to happen to them. Instead of skirting along the outer edge of the box hedge, as would have been natural, he seemed to have stepped from inside the plot. And all round the old stone seat the snow was very much trampled; I couldn’t guess why, unless he had stopped there and rested, perhaps. The bundle he was carrying had seemed heavy, and the bench itself looked as if he might have rested it there, as the snow was disturbed.

I didn’t have time to stop and make any further investigations, so I walked on. But I hadn’t gone more than five feet when I suddenly realized something with an actual shock. There were no footprints from the plot to the house!

First I stood stock-still in surprise. Then I took to my heels and ran all the way to the house, watching at every step to see whether any footprints would appear. But they did not, and I burst into Connie’s room, breathless with running. Fortunately, Miss Carstair was not around at the moment.

“Have you seen or heard Mr. Cookson lately?” I panted as I kissed Connie.

She looked at me curiously. “Naturally, I haven’t seen him,” she replied, “but I happen to have heard him, just a few minutes ago. He passed the door just as Miss Carstair was going to her room and asked her to mail a letter for him in the village if she was going down. Then he went on downstairs. I thought he went into the library—from the sound.”

“A few minutes ago! a few minutes ago!” I stuttered, sinking into a chair and staring at her, wild-eyed.

“Whatever is the matter with you?” she demanded; and as soon as I could get myself together, I explained to her what had happened.

“I thought the only explanation could be that he had been sitting there on that stone since before the snow began, though it certainly would have been a long, cold wait,” I ended. “But if what you say is so, he must either have used an aëroplane or taken a flying leap from this house to the spot. How do you explain it?” I demanded, with a rather poor attempt at humor.

But Connie was too dumfounded to explain anything, and we simply sat and stared foolishly at each other!

CHAPTER VII

BEULAH'S STORY

AFTER our talking it over for an hour and looking at the situation from every possible angle, Connie concluded that Cook son must have come from some other direction, by some circuitous route, and approached the plot that way. If he had hurried he might have been able to do it in time to meet me as he did. But I soon squelched that theory, for I was able to assure her that there were no other footprints (except my own) coming toward the spot from any other direction. I had thought of that, myself, and taken a good look around before I rushed off to the house.

It was certainly the darkest bit of mystery we’d ever heard of, not to speak of encountering personally, and we were compelled to leave it as unexplained as we’d found it. Connie was able to be partly dressed and sit up in a chair that day, though of course she still couldn’t put her injured foot to the ground. But she said it was a great relief to be out of bed, and the doctor had promised her that from then on she could be up and dressed the better part of every day. As soon as she could be moved, Daddy and Mother wanted her to be brought home, for they didn’t think it right for her to stay on at Tranquillity, especially with Uncle so ill and away. But Connie did not want to go just yet, for she said (and quite rightly, too) that after she had left the house we should have almost no excuse for going over there, and goodness knows what might be happening in our absence. So she declared she wasn’t going to hurry her recovery too much!

That afternoon, while Miss Carstair was out, I went downstairs to get a little afternoon bite for Connie, from the kitchen. Beulah did not have it quite ready when I came, so while she was heating the broth and fixing the tray, I sat down and ate a piece of chocolate layer-cake myself. Of course Beulah was full of gossip about all the recent events, and an idea suddenly entered my head that here was a good chance to pump her. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it, but I felt that, in the light of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, even Uncle would think I was doing right. After all, it wasn’t just idle curiosity but a real desire to protect his interests that prompted me. Realizing that it would be useless to question her in the way I had before, I determined to carry the war right into the enemy's country, so to speak.

“What ever happened to Uncle Benham's twin brother, Beulah?” I asked abruptly. The effect of this was remarkable. She dropped the saucepan and spilled the broth all over the floor and cried:

“Jerusalem de Golden!” and then, as she always does in any excitement, threw her apron over her head. When she came to enough to be able to speak, she whispered: “Honey, who done tole you Mr. Azariah had a twin brudder?”

I replied casually that I’d known that for some time, but didn’t enlighten her as to the fact that it was rather a short time! But I added, as she mopped up the spilled broth, that I didn’t know much about him except that he occupied the room across the hall where Connie then was. This, of course, was a chance shot, but it served its purpose. Beulah seemed to feel that since I knew so much there could be no harm in talking the subject over, a thing she plainly yearned to do. So while she heated up some more broth she babbled on, a long and rambling and often incoherent tale. But from it I managed to glean the following items, some of them of vital importance, as will be seen.

According to her tale, she had come to Tranquillity some thirty or thirty-five years before (she’s very vague about dates or numbers!) straight from “ol’ Virginny,” having been sent by a relative of Uncle Benham's who lived there. She found here twin brothers—Azariah Benham and Ashbel—so alike that it was almost impossible to tell them apart, except that Ashbel had a little scar on one cheek, due to some boyhood accident. They were both unmarried (they must have been about thirty-five or so in age, as far as I could figure) and were utterly and absolutely devoted to each other. So alike were their tastes in everything that they even had rooms furnished identically. They lived alone at Tranquillity except for Tomkins, who was valet for them both, and one or two other servants.

Beulah spent a deal of time marveling about why they had never married, declaring they were both “as han’some as de Angel Gabriel, chile!” She spoke vaguely of a beautiful distant cousin by marriage who used to visit at Tranquillity occasionally with her mother—“Missy Margaret Spence,” Beulah called her—but though it had at first been thought that one of the brothers might marry her, neither had, and the girl had died unmarried some ten years ago. Beulah declared that every one thought the two brothers too devoted to each other to be separated even by matrimony.

Then, not more than a year or so after Beulah came (as far as I could make out), a strange thing happened. One terrible morning it was discovered that Ashbel had disappeared. No one knew how nor when nor where. Tomkins was certain he had gone to bed the night before as usual, since he himself had assisted, as was the usual custom, and had even returned to blow out the light after Ashbel was in bed. But Ashbel’s room was empty and the front door was unlocked, though not open. There was not a note nor a word nor a sign to indicate what had become of him. In the next day or two, Uncle Benham, who was almost distracted, set on foot every possible means of tracing him; and then, strangely enough, he suddenly stopped all those measures with curious abruptness and forbade his household ever to mention the subject again, under pain of instant dismissal if the order were disobeyed. Why, no one had ever found out. As for himself, he had changed, from that momentous day, into a prematurely old man. Week by week his dark hair had grown grayer, till at forty it was almost pure white. And for a long time his face wore the haggard look of one constantly fearing or worrying about something. Beulah declared that it was only in recent years that it had settled at last into the peaceful lines we knew. As far as she knew, nothing more had ever been heard of “Mr. Ashbel.”

This was all she knew about the matter, but, while it was thrillingly interesting, it didn’t help me out a bit with some of my problems. Where, for instance, did the teakwood chest come in? Beulah hadn’t mentioned the thing, and I was sure she would have if she'd known about it. I wouldn’t speak of it, of course, as Uncle Benham had asked me not to. But I did question her about Mr. Cookson and when he had appeared upon the scene. I knew Beulah didn’t like old Cookson any better than I did, and she scowled and made a dreadful face when his name was mentioned.

“Dat ol' snake in de grass!” she exploded, flouncing around and banging the silver down on the tray. “How come Mr. Azariah ever take up wid him, anyhow? He done come yere 'bout fifteen, sixteen years ago, I reckon, an I done hated him fust time I set eyes on him. He done got Mr. Azariah woun’ roun’ his little finger, he hab!”

But by that time the tray was ready and there was no more information to be had from Beulah, so I hurried upstairs, so bursting with the news of this latest discovery that in my excitement I almost dumped the refreshments over Connie. The toast did slide into her lap, but we rescued it, and while she ate, I repeated to her Beulah's story, with the bewildering new set of facts we had acquired to fit into our mystery.

“Elspeth, you’ve made the biggest discovery yet, in this story of Beulah's!” declared Connie, when I had finished. “Now we know, at least, what must have been the beginning of all this puzzle. Poor Uncle Benham! And we have always thought his life had been so calm and unruffled. If we had only known! But what do you suppose happened to his brother?”

I didn’t answer at once, for I had been thinking hard. Suddenly I burst into her reflections with this remark:

“Do you realize that that letter I saw the beginning of must have been from the brother to Uncle Benham? Can it—can it be possible that it explains anything? Perhaps that is what upset Uncle so much that it brought on his illness!”

Connie started up in her chair so violently at this suggestion that her broken ankle gave her a hard twinge and she sank back with a little howl of pain.

“It’s not only possible; it’s entirely likely! And, what's more, I think the time has come when we ought to read that letter and find out what it’s all about, anyway!”

“But, Connie,” I cried, aghast at such a breach of all the rules of courtesy and honor that we’d been taught, “how can you suggest such a thing? What would Daddy and Mother think? What would Uncle Benham think of such an awful thing? I wouldn’t do it for anything! I’m astonished at you!”

“Well, you needn’t be,” she insisted doggedly. “Of course I know as well as you that such a thing would be inexcusable under ordinary circumstances. But these are extraordinary circumstances. You can’t deny there is something very peculiar going on in this place. Uncle is ill and unable even to talk, and he certainly can’t be disturbed. Tomkins might be questioned, but he isn’t even here and we can’t get at him at present. Old Cookson is up to something—that’s as plain to me as the nose on your face—something that’s going to harm Uncle in some way. There’s no one else to speak to, not even our own parents, for Uncle clearly wanted this all kept a secret, for some reason. To read that letter might give us some light on the subject and show us what to do. How can you think any other way?”

But somehow I couldn’t see it in just that light, yet. All Connie said might be true—was true, undoubtedly. But still it seemed to me that there must be something else we could turn to before we went to the length of reading that letter. We argued and argued about it for a long while, but got no farther, for neither one of us seemed able to convince the other. Finally Connie clinched the matter this way:

“Well, Elspeth, in the excitement of hearing your story this afternoon, which I will admit is about the rippingest thing yet, I quite forgot to tell you mine. I do have some little adventures, even if I am cooped up here in this room with a game ankle. It was just at lunch-time. I’d had my lunch and Miss Carstair had gone down for hers, and I was lying here quietly reading when I heard some one come rather softly down the hall and go into Uncle's room. At first I thought it might be Tomkins, come back from the hospital for something, and, as I was awfully anxious to see him, for a lot of reasons, I decided I’d call out and ask him to come in a moment. So I raised my voice and called, ‘Is that you, Tomkins?” There was absolute silence for a moment, and then Mr. Cookson's voice answered in that irritated tone it has: ‘No, it’s not Tomkins. Is there anything you wish?’ I fairly jumped when I realized who it was, but I just answered that I had only wanted to inquire about Uncle, if it were Tomkins. Nothing more was said, and there was perfect quiet over in that room for a while. Then I began to hear him stepping around, very softly, and sounds as if he were turning a key or trying a key in a lock—a key that probably didn’t fit. After that there was a rattling and crackling of paper and then he came out again, closed the door and went up to his room.

“Now then, Elspeth Curtis, I’d be willing to warrant dollars to doughnuts that he went in there to get that chest out of the closet, and that he got it and wrapped it up and carried it away with him somewhere, when you saw him disappearing in that mysterious manner with a bundle, down by the river!”

“But, Connie, he could easily have seen that the chest was unlocked and empty, by simply lifting the lid!” I cried. “Why should he bother to carry it off when all its contents were gone?”

“You’d better believe me, he never stopped to find that out!” retorted Connie. “Of course, if he had, he would have left it, I suppose. But I figure that he just grabbed it and wrapped it up and took it off to examine later, probably glad enough to just have his hands on it. Wasn’t the bundle you saw him carrying big enough to be the chest?”

I had to admit it was, and shaped like it, too.

“But, oh! I’d like to have seen his face when he opened it—and found it empty!” I added, giggling.

“So would II” agreed Connie. “But now listen. Here’s something I’ve got to propose. When you think of all that’s happened just this afternoon, can you doubt any longer that the only thing for us to do now is to read that letter?”

“I don’t see how it has changed anything in regard to that matter,” I said stubbornly. “Mr. Cookson may not have taken that chest away at all; you can’t tell.”

“Well, will you at least admit that if he has, we ought to do something—read the letter, or anything to help solve the mystery?” she cried impatiently.

“Yes, I will admit that!” I agreed.

“Then go to that room and see for yourself!” commanded Connie, triumphantly.

It certainly did seem a logical solution of the matter. There was no reason in the world why I should not. No one unwelcome was around at the time and I had the key of the closet in my pocket. I walked boldly across the hall and into Uncle’s room, unlocked the closet, and flung open the door.

Connie had won: there was no chest standing on the closet floor!

When I got back to the room and told her, she only nodded her head wisely.

“I’m not surprised,” she declared. “I knew it would be so. Now, when you go back home this afternoon, be sure you bring the letter back with you and we’ll read it together after we’re in bed to-night!”

CHAPTER VIII

THE TEAKWOOD CHEST GIVES UP A SECRET

ICAME as near having a case of nerves that evening before getting back to Connie, as I shall ever hope to come. Somehow the thing we were planning to do had got me all unstrung and I was ready to jump at nothing at all. Even Mother noticed it, for I caught my breath and started when Ralph dropped his spoon on the floor at supper, and couldn’t suppress a little shriek of protest when Daddy rattled his paper suddenly and violently.

“You’re completely used up, Elspeth,” she declared. “All this has been to much for you. Perhaps you had better stay here to-night, if you can manage Baby, and I’ll go over and stay with Connie.” But I protested so violently against this (for reasons she couldn’t guess, of course!) that she finally consented to let me go. But she fussed about me so, upstairs, where she had followed me, that actually I didn’t even have a chance to get the thing I wanted from my bottom bureau drawer. I had to let it go and get all the way downstairs and then pretend I’d forgotten something and rush up after it, before I could get a moment to myself.

But at last I had the letter safe, hidden in my blouse, and was streaking down the road toward Tranquillity. I felt like all kinds of a criminal, but had to admit that there didn’t seem to be any other way out of the difficulty as far as we could see. It was a bright moonlight night and, with the light fall of snow, everything was almost as clearly to be seen as in the daytime. As I looked over toward the house, standing up on its slight eminence among the dark cedar-trees, somehow it had never appeared more utterly lovely and calm and serene; yet I knew that in reality it had never been less so. It didn’t seem as if “Tranquillity” would ever become its rightful name again! And if I had realized what an ordeal was in store for me when I entered, I should probably have run home again—and stayed there.

As soon as I got in, Connie whispered to me excitedly that Mr. Cookson had come back and had asked Miss Carstair if he could see me for a few moments when I returned after Supper.

“Look out, Elspeth!” she warned. “He’s got something up his sleeve; he wants to see if he can get some information from you. Don’t you let him know a thing—not a thing—even if you have to keep as dumb as an oyster! Do you hear?”

Naturally this wasn’t a very good preparation for facing what I knew was sure to be an ordeal, but I had no time to consider the matter, for Miss Carstair came in just then and asked me if I would go down to the library, where Mr. Cookson wished to speak to me a moment. I went without more ado, my knees shaking with foolish fright, but with an absolute determination in my heart to keep our secret at all cost. As I was soon to discover, we were only too correct in our guess.

Mr. Cookson was pacing the library in what I could see was a very ferment of nervous excitement. His eyelids twitched continually and he rumpled up his stiff gray hair with one hand till his head looked as if he’d been having a shampoo. If things hadn’t been so serious, I could almost have giggled at his appearance. He hardly knew how to begin, for he hemmed and hawed a moment before opening the attack. Then, tapping the table with his forefinger, he charged into the matter:

“Ahem! I just want—ah—just want to er—ask you a question or two—ah—about the day your sister—er—had her accident,” he stammered. “A very important—er—matter hinges on it!” He stopped short and stared at me after this, as if expecting me to say something. And in my own mind I thought, “Aha! so this is the line you’re going to take!” But aloud I said not a word, only returning his gaze gravely and silently. If he could have known how my knees were quaking under me, he would have been braver himself; but fortunately he didn't!

“Do you happen to—ah—know whether, when your sister fell, she did—er—er—any damage to the woodwork under the window seat? That is—ah—made a hole in it, for instance?”

I had expected this, as soon as I saw how he opened the attack, and saw no harm now in answering that I believed she had made something of a hole but that Tomkins had fixed it nicely. He replied hastily:

“Ah—yes, yes! No doubt. But did you—er—do you happen to know whether any one—er—looked into that hole before it was fixed? Whether anything was found in that hole?”

“Why, what a strange question, Mr. Cookson!” I parried. “What on earth could there be in that hole! Or who would think of looking into such a place!” I couldn’t have made a more fortunate reply, for he straightway began to flounder.

“Oh, er—ah—yes, of course!” he stuttered confusedly. “It must—er—seem extremely queer. Nevertheless—er—a very important—ah—yes, a vital matter hangs on this very curious—er—question I’m asking.”

“Vital—to whom?” I couldn’t help querying. Now that I had plunged into the thing, I rather enjoyed seeing his discomfort, and I was gaining courage every minute.

“Why, to—ah—to Mr. Benham, of course!” he retorted, and I mentally added, “No doubt—and to you also!” But he went on: “I thought possibly, as—er—you were there at the time, you might have known whether anything—er—was discovered in—in the hole so made. If so, I’d be glad to know it.”

Here was just the inquiry I was most dreading, but somehow, when it came at last, something gave me the courage and ingenuity to make the following reply:

“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Cookson, that I can’t give you any information on the subject. You see, I was so busy with Connie just then that I couldn’t be expected to know anything about that hole she made—or what was in it. I had so many other things to think about and attend to. I'm afraid you’ll have to ask Tomkins when he comes back. He’ll know more about it, perhaps.”

When I told Connie afterward about my last answer, it just tickled her to pieces. She insisted that she couldn’t have done any better herself (which at first I resented a good deal; but, after all, Connie is quicker at a clever reply than I ever was or shall be!) and said that without telling the slightest bit of a falsehood I had thrown him completely off the track. I imagine it did just that, for regarding me with a rather baffled expression, and thanking me not very graciously, Mr. Cookson began to shuffle some papers on the library table, and I gathered that the interview was over. No one will ever realize with what relief I hurried out of the room and back to Connie. And we spent a good deal of time thereafter speculating as to what he might have been doing after he left the house with the chest, and how thoroughly angry he must have been when, after all his trouble, he found it empty. No doubt his session with me was a final desperate effort to learn what had become of its contents. And it hadn’t been successful!

At last Miss Carstair, after an interminable number of false starts, left us alone for the night, and, with only the bedside reading light going, we settled down to the task of reading the letter.

“You read it, Connie,” I said, “for somehow I just can’t. I hope we’re doing right, and that Uncle will think so, if he ever knows of it, but I’m just silly enough not to want to be the one to do it!”

But Connie had no such qualms, now that she was sure we were right, and she opened the letter and spread it out.

“It’s rather long,” she announced, glancing over it, “and I’m not sure it contains any information that will help us, but here goes!” And she plunged into the reading. I have it by me now and will copy it as it stands:

Dear Twin Brother:

After all these years, and from a sick-bed in a distant land, I am writing to you. It must have seemed an unpardonable thing—my sudden and unexplained disappearance, so many years ago. Had I been myself, you should have known it, have known all and speedily. But I have not been myself, except for these past few weeks. However strange this may seem, I can explain it all—or almost all.

I started to go to bed that night at old Tranquillity in my right and proper mind. I awoke or at least I came to myself—years after in Arcot, India. And the interim has been a blank to me for weeks past, till at last I have partially filled in the gaps, not by my own memory, but mainly by consulting others. The physicians say it is a clear and curious case of amnesia—one of the most remarkable in the history of medicine and due probably to the result of that fall I had from my horse a few months before. Somewhere in my brain, on that memorable night, a cog slipped, and all my past was blank to me. I became another man, an other personality, and what I did afterward can only be guessed at, for no one will ever know accurately.

It is probable that I slipped away quietly from the house, perhaps by the secret passage, and so got off unseen. What my wanderings may have been after that, I have no means of knowing, nor how I kept my identity hidden. Suffice it to say that now, after nearly twenty years, and partly owing to a severe and prolonged illness from which I shall never recover, I have been restored to my rightful identity and have discovered that I have for years been acting as a missionary here in Arcot, India. I have been, also, a number of years married and am the father of two fine boys of ten, twins, as we were, Azariah. But my wife has been dead over a year. Strange that I do not retain the faintest memory of her! I discovered that I had been living all this time under the name “Campbell Mason,” though where or under what circumstances I adopted this name I cannot tell. As it would now create too much confusion to change it here, I am still bearing it. My physician is the only one who knows my secret.

I know that I have not very much longer to live. The physicians have not told me, but I am too well acquainted with this climate and its effect on foreigners, to be deceived. I have not weathered fifteen or more unbroken years of it unscathed. You, dear brother, may not even be alive yourself. But if you are, I pray you to care for my little boys when I am called to go. They have no one else in all the world to turn to, for their mother (so I have learned) was an orphan with no near relatives. To me, in my newly restored state, they are almost like little strangers yet, but even so I am beginning to love them and see in them a marked resemblance to ourselves when we were their age. If you cannot forgive me for my unconscious dereliction of long ago, at least remember that they had no part in the wrong.

It is strange that in all the chaos of blankness surrounding that night of my disappearance, one incident stands out with comparative distinctness. I remember the fact that that evening I had been going through the papers—or did we do it together?—the ones we kept in that old teakwood chest in the secretary in my room. Had we not been sorting them out and planning a division of those bonds and other contracts and also the family jewels between us? I seem vaguely to remember it that way. Now I have a curious impression that I tried to carry that chest away with me, though there is no trace of it among any of my belongings, nor of its contents. I feel sure that I left it behind some where after first deciding to take it. Perhaps I left it in the secret passage as I went through. Do you remember the secret passage? We explored it as boys, but after we grew to manhood I almost forgot that it existed. It would be well to search there. What can you have thought of me—

At this point, Connie stopped short and looked up at me. “That’s all!” she finished quietly. “The rest is missing!”

“It can’t be!” I cried. “I brought every part that belonged to it. The letter was in an envelop, wasn’t it? Then how can any part of it be missing?”

“Well, it is!” she declared. “Perhaps you didn’t put it all together that afternoon when you picked it up from the floor at Uncle's feet.”

“But I did! I did!” I continued to insist. “I remember distinctly that all the other things were documents in their own envelops and this was the only thing lying open or scattered around. It was on two big sheets of thin paper, just as you have it, and that’s all there was of it!”

“Then some one else has lost or destroyed the rest of it,” declared Connie. “But oh, Elspeth, Elspeth, what have we stumbled upon? There’s some awful mystery here!”

“There certainly is!” I agreed in an awed voice. “Did you ever hear of anything so queer, Connie? But it explains one thing, at least—how he came to disappear so completely and why he was never heard from again. But it doesn’t explain why Uncle stopped searching for him so suddenly, after a day or two.”

“Why, yes it does!” asserted Connie, scrambling to a sitting position in bed and thereby giving her ankle a fine twinge. “You’re pretty stupid if you can’t see that! Uncle must have discovered about that time the loss of the chest and naturally thought his brother had taken it with him—dishonestly, of course. And then he was no doubt so shocked and disappointed and disgusted, and at the same time probably so concerned lest it be found out and his brother dishonored, that he simply shut right down on the whole matter and decided never to mention it or have it mentioned again. Isn’t that simple?”

“Yes, since you explain it so, it certainly is. But Connie, there are about forty mysteries that we can’t explain. How about the finding of the chest through your accident, and this secret passage he talks about, and where does old Cookson come into it all, and—”

“There’s one thing,” interrupted Connie, “that’s worrying me more than all these things. It’s this: did Uncle know of this letter before the other day? And what became of those poor little children if he didn’t?”

CHAPTER IX

THE NEXT MOVE

WE literally did not sleep one wink that night. Connie said she didn't care, because she could take naps during the day, but it was harder on me, as I had to go to school no matter what happened, and I’d had so much excitement already that I felt almost like a nervous wreck. However, we were too absorbed in the new developments to think about it or care much.

“I tell you, something has got to be done about this!” declared Connie, toward morning. “I’m helpless, with this ankle, so we’ll have to depend almost entirely on you.”

“But what can I do?” I demanded in despair. “And what is there to do, anyway? Until Uncle gets better—if he only does—I don’t see that we can do a thing!”

“If we were to wait for that,” decided Connie, “it might be too late to do anything; and think of those two poor little boys!”

“Did I tell you the date on this letter?” I suddenly interrupted. “It is fully ten years ago that it was written!”

Connie fell back on the pillow, in sheer amazement.

“Ten years ago?” she murmured, trying to convince herself she’d heard it right. “Why—why, Elspeth, if that’s so, they’re—they’re grown men by this time! And where can they be now?”

“Don’t ask me!” I sighed. “But here’s the biggest poser of all—and I never thought of it till this minute. How—how did that letter ever come to be in the chest—of all places? It was sent to Uncle—ten years ago—and at that time the chest must have been missing. Uncle said, himself, the thing had been missing for a number of years. And when it was found it must have been in some entirely different place,—certainly that little place under the window is never a secret passage, -and and—”

But I was too breathless to go on. And Connie finished for me by supplementing:

“And Mr. Cookson knew where it was; and Uncle never knew anything about it—the letter, I mean—till the other day!”

Then, in the pale gray light of dawn, Connie sat up in bed and gripped my fingers.

“We’ve struck it at last!” she whispered

“We’ve struck it at last!” she whispered. “Old Cookson knew about that letter—and the chest—and Uncle never did! It's as plain as daylight—that part of it—to me now. How it came to be so, I can’t imagine, but there are certainly the facts.”

“And when Uncle found it out at last, on Sunday, the shock was too much for him and brought on this attack. And maybe he will never recover—and—and—what then?” I added. Suddenly an idea came to me and I faced Connie with this question: “Do you suppose that if Uncle were to know about those two boys, his own nephews, and could hear that they were all right, and could perhaps see them sometime, that it would help his recovery?”

“I’m certain it would,” declared Connie. “But how in the world are we going to find out such a thing, after all these years? India’s a big place, and it’s awfully far away, and they may not even be there any more. They may be dead, for all we know.”

“We could write—to some one out there, couldn’t we?” I ventured. “Aren’t there generally officials of some kind in all those foreign places who can give you information about things like that? I’ve always rather thought that was what consuls and people like that were for. Why couldn’t we write to the consul at Arcot, perhaps?”

“Do you realize that it would take about two months to get a reply—by mail?” demanded Connie. “And by that time it might be much too late to help Uncle. Your idea of asking a consul or some one like that is good, but we’ve got to do it in some quicker way. How about a cablegram?”

“That would cost an awful lot of money,” I said, “especially if we have to send money for a reply, which would be the only correct way to do. I expect it would cost as much as forty or fifty dollars—perhaps more. And we can’t get it—unless we use our savings-bank money. I’ve forty dollars and you have nearly as much.”

“Well, I’m glad enough to,” cried Connie, generously. “And I’m sure Mother and Daddy would approve, if we could only tell them. It’s fortunate we haven’t put it in the bank yet, for we’d have an awful lot of trouble getting it out. Daddy was going to take it to Philadelphia next week. Now, you’ll have to make an excuse to go to Philadelphia the minute you can get away, to-morrow afternoon—or rather, this afternoon (for it’s morning now!)—and make some inquiries and send off that cablegram. Then we’ll feel that at least we’ve done everything we can to help matters along. I’ll never have a minute’s peace till we have.”

I was overwhelmed at the responsibility and hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about it, but we decided that I could tell Mother I was going into the city, after school, to take Uncle some flowers at the hospital, and could do the other errand on the way. Connie advised me to ask at the cable office just how it would be best to find out about any one in such a distant place, and how much it would cost, and whom to refer to for the information. She thought we had better ask if they knew what had happened to a Mr. Campbell Mason who was ill there about ten years ago, and also if his two sons were still in that city. As he had said he was keeping that name to avoid confusion, it would be of little use to inquire for him under his other. On the reply we got, if we did get any, would depend the next step we should take.

By that time it was nearly seven o’clock, and I decided to get up immediately, as it was impossible to get any sleep. Miss Carstair telephoned the hospital shortly after and learned that Uncle was still about the same. There had been no change and would be none, the doctor said, till something brought about the second phase that would either cure him or have the opposite effect. They said it would be all right for him to see visitors, provided it was not any one who would excite or disturb him. So Miss Carstair thought I could safely go there and take him some flowers, as I told her I’d like to do. That much settled, I ate a hasty breakfast and ran over home to tell Mother my plan for the day—at least about going to the hospital.

Mother approved of my plan to take the flowers to Uncle and so, before getting ready for school, I prepared to go to the city. I took the money that Connie and I had received at Christmas to put in the bank-accounts we’ve both had since we were babies. I somehow felt guilty in doing this, even though I was perfectly sure Daddy and Mother would approve if they knew what we were using it for—if I could only tell them. And so prepared, I set out for the day.

It was late that afternoon when I returned and, after reporting at home for a few moments, I ran away at once to Tranquillity. I found Connie in a perfect fever of expectation to see me and hear my news, but Miss Carstair was so pervasive (I can’t think of any other word to express her constantly remaining in our vicinity!) that I could not do more than nod an “All right!” to Connie till after dinner. Then Connie declared that as she was sleepy and hadn’t slept very well the night before (which was entirely true!) she thought she’d better prepare for bed early. At last we were both left alone for the night and had a chance to unburden our minds to each other.

First I told Connie about my visit to the hospital. It had not been so very satisfactory. I saw Uncle for just a moment, and of course he could not say a word. He looked very unnatural lying there in that long white hospital bed. I gave him the flowers and all our love, and knelt and kissed him on the forehead. I thought his wonderful blue eyes, which are still just the same, followed me with something like a question constantly in them. But it may have been only my imagination. I was rather glad to leave quickly, it all made me feel so bad.

Then came the matter of the cablegram. I was dreadfully puzzled how to go about that, but it too was made easy for me by a very kind clerk in the office to whom I explained as much as I could of my difficulty. She looked up all she could find about the proper procedure and helped me to word a short yet comprehensive message to the proper authorities in Arcot, India, and arranged to have a reply sent to me at home, C. O. D., or what ever they call it. She told me it might be a couple of days before I heard anything, if I even did then, as it might take some time to hunt up the information. She was to hold the message at the office and telephone me that it is there, after it came, so that no one would get it but me. “I’m sure I don’t know what Mother will think if she gets word when I am away, that a message from India is there for me. But I can’t worry about that now. I'm just doing the best I can!” I ended.

“You’ve certainly done splendidly, Elspeth!” Connie declared. “And now I’ll tell you about my afternoon, which hasn’t been wasted, even if I did have to spend it sitting in a chair in this room, with my game foot bolstered upon a pillow and footstool. Mother came over for a little while and brought Ralph, while Miss Carstair took her walk. But after she went, I had a lot of time to myself which I pretended to spend absorbed in a book. But really I was thinking this whole thing out and piecing together a lot of things we haven’t had time to consider in the puzzle.

“It’s a pity we both missed speaking to Tomkins. I thought you might see him at the hospital, but, as luck would have it, he took that very opportunity to come out here and get some things for Uncle. Just when he was in and around the house, Mother was visiting me, so of course I didn’t have the ghost of an opportunity to speak to him about the chest. I know he went to that closet where Uncle had it, for I heard him fussing with the lock, and finally opening it with his pass-key. What he must have thought of not seeing it there, I can’t imagine. He put his head in at this door a moment, to ask how I was, but that was all. Then he went away. It was very provoking to have it happen so.

“But now I want to tell you a few things I’ve thought out that we haven’t given any attention to at all as yet. To begin with, there’s that matter of the secret passage. We know there’s one in the house,—somewhere,—and old Cookson knows it too, and has known it a long time, I imagine. I remember Daddy saying once that many of the old colonial houses in these parts have secret passages connected with them that lead to the outside somewhere. They were made and used in the time of the Revolution, to help escapes from the enemy and things like that. But none of us ever knew there was one in Tranquillity. But—do you know one thing? I’ve made a pretty correct guess as to where one end of that secret passage is located! Can you imagine?”

I stared at her in bewilderment.

“Of course not! I haven’t had a chance to do any exploring lately; and you know it. Where do you think it can be? and why?”

“You goose! You’re the one who really discovered it!” she retorted, chuckling. “It’s somewhere in or near the old cemetery plot where you saw old Cookson appearing so strangely yesterday. How else can you possibly account for no footprints leading up to the place? He has found it—and evidently been using it frequently!”

It certainly takes Connie to reason a thing like that out! She’d make a splendid detective. I wouldn’t have thought of it in a million years. That was the explanation, beyond a shadow of doubt. But where could the other end be? That was something still more mysterious, and I said so.

“Somewhere in the house, naturally—perhaps in the cellar. But we’ll find that out yet; never you fear!” declared Connie. “That’s going to be your job!”

“Mine?” I cried, aghast at the program she had mapped out for me.

“Certainly! I can’t tend to it in the state I’m in, and it must be found! There’s no telling what old Cookson may be up to, and he’s evidently using that secret passage for some reason that means no good to Uncle. Therefore we’ve got to discover it and track him down.”

“Have you heard or seen anything of him to-day?” I asked.

“Not a sign or a sound,” said Connie. “Miss Carstair told me he said at breakfast that he would be away in the city over-night and went off immediately after. He told her he was terribly busy, as he had the whole of the business on his hands now that Uncle was unable to attend to it at all. However, I’m not wasting any sympathy on him. I’m only curious to know what his game is, in all this nice muddle he’s brought on Uncle!”

“How do you know he’s brought anything on Uncle?” I asked curiously. “You seem very sure of things.”

“I am sure of them!” she insisted. “I have a brain, and I’m not afraid to use it. I can see one thing plainly—and it’s another question I settled by myself this afternoon. Uncle never saw that letter before till the other day. But Mr. Cookson did; and he’s the one that hid it away all these years. Don’t ask me why! That’s something I haven’t settled yet. When we find that out, we’ll have the key to the whole thing.

“But now there are two things that you’ve got to do, Elspeth. You’ve got to trail old Cookson till you find out about that secret passage—somehow. And you’ve got to bring over the rest of those papers and things and that jewel-case to-morrow, and we’ll examine them. I’ve been thinking it out that maybe there’s another clue we’re missing by not searching through the rest of them. Now don’t begin to have any shudders about our doing anything dishonorable in this. We’ve done positively the worst we could do, in reading that letter. And you agreed to that. Anything else can’t begin to be as dreadful! You bring them all over to-morrow!"

CHAPTER X

CONNIE HAS ANOTHER INSPIRATION

IT must have been the middle of the night when Connie suddenly woke me up out of a sound sleep. I felt her shaking and pushing me, and I jumped up with a start.

“What’s the matter now?” I shuddered.

“Hush! don’t speak so loud!” she whispered. “I’ve just had an awful idea.”

“For pity’s sake, what is it?” I demanded, for by this time everything was getting on my nerves so that I would get all jumpy at the slightest provocation.

“Why, I couldn’t sleep, and I’ve been thinking of this,” she explained. “You know that letter mentioned a jewel-case, and you know there was one among the things in the chest. I wanted to open it, but you, of course, said you thought we’d better not, so we didn’t. But in the letter it spoke about dividing some family jewels, so they must be the same ones, and they probably are worth a lot of money.” She stopped there, impressively.

“Well, what of it?” I replied, rather unpleasantly, I’m afraid, for I was very cross and sleepy.

“Just this: We have gone to work and carelessly left those things shut up in a bureau drawer over at our house, where any one is liable to break in at any time—and steal them!” she announced dramatically.

“What absolute nonsense!” I cried. “The bureau drawer is locked; and why are they any more unprotected there than here?”

“You never use your head a bit!” she retorted, not very amiably. “Can’t you see that a simple lock on a bureau is no protection? But it’s worse than that. You know perfectly well that our house is left alone a good deal during the day, when Daddy and you and I are away and Mother takes Ralph out for his airing. What’s to prevent any one getting in then and cleaning out the whole place?”

There certainly was something in that, I had to admit. The house was left alone considerably. It had never bothered any of us before, as we never had anything specially valuable to part with. But with those Benham jewels on the premises, quite unprotected, it was another matter.

“We’d find it a pretty difficult thing to explain, if any of them disappeared,” went on Connie, “and we’d feel pretty bad about it and so would Daddy and Mother, if they knew.”

“But what ought we to do about it?” said I. “At this time of night it would be ridiculous to go over there. And I don’t know what in the world to do with them if we do take them away from there. They are certainly not safe here, with old Cookson prowling around.”

“They simply must be brought back here,” declared Connie, “and it can’t be done too quickly. They’re not safe over there a minute. You’ve got to get up and dress, Elspeth, and run over and get them. It’s bright moonlight, and nothing can hurt you!”

“Constance Curtis, do you think I’m crazy? I shall do nothing of the sort! It’s one o’clock in the morning. What would they think here, and what would they think over at our house, if I did such an insane thing? Mother and Daddy would be sure to hear me and ask what it was all about!”

“You could tell them you were getting something for me,” she insisted. “It would be quite true; you are! And just think! There might be a fire or something over there to-night and they’d be completely lost!”

“Once for all, Connie Curtis, I tell you I am not going to do anything so insane and ridiculous. We’ll have to take the risk of fire and burglars to-night, and I promise to get them first thing in the morning. Though where we can keep them here, after I get them, is a puzzle I warrant not even you have solved!”

“Well, I have!” she announced triumphantly. “I thought of it while I was lying awake here, planning this all out, and you were still asleep. Yesterday I discovered something while I was sitting up in the chair near the bed and Miss Carstair had the bed all stripped and airing and was turning the mattress over. It was only a slight hole or rip in the silk ticking that covers the box-spring. I didn’t think anything special of it at the time, and I don’t believe Miss Carstair even noticed it. But to-night when I was trying to plan where we could hide that jewel-case, I suddenly thought of the rip in the ticking. We can put the case in there and then you can get a needle and thread and sew up the hole. No one will ever think of it in the world, for the spring is too heavy for Miss Carstair to lift and she never touches it. So how about that, Miss Elspeth Curtis?”

I had to admit that it was a clever idea,—and just like Connie to think of it,—but still I was firm on the subject of not getting the case till morning, so Connie was finally compelled to give up her scheme about that and let me go to sleep. But she declared she would wake me up at daylight—and she did!

“Oh, I simply can’t get up just yet!” I moaned, as she shook me violently in the first chilly dawn. “This is the first quiet time we’ve had in an age. Do let me sleep a little longer, Con!”

“You mustn’t. Those things are on my mind every minute,” she urged. “Do get them right away, Elspeth dear! You’d feel as badly as I should, if anything happened to them before we could hand them over to Uncle.”

So I got up, shivering, and dressed as quickly as I could, and as noiselessly. And I astonished Beulah by trying to hurry out quietly through the kitchen as she was lighting her morning fire. And it was impossible to slip into our own house unperceived, for, though I had a latch-key, Daddy had set the night lock, and I had to ring and wake him up to come down and open the door.

Immediately the whole house was aroused by my ridiculously early entrance, and all demanded to know what was the matter and if we’d had any bad news, or if anything was wrong with Connie. I felt remarkably foolish as I tried to assure them that everything was all right and that I’d just come over early to get something for Connie that she wanted at once. Naturally Mother hurried right into our room with me and tried to help while I sorted out a few clean clothes for Connie that I’d made the excuse of getting. She never left me alone a minute and I had finally to go downstairs with her without getting the case and then pretend I’d forgotten some thing and hurry back for it alone, before I could get a chance to slip it into my bundle of things.

When I got back, Miss Carstair was up and fussing around, and our troubles with that terrible jewel-case began. I had to hide the thing behind the bookcase in Connie's room, during a moment while Miss Carstair was not there, till we could get some chance to put it where we had planned. I knew it was anything but safe there, for Miss Carstair was very thorough in her dusting and she would get at that task directly after breakfast. So I decided to let her go down and breakfast alone while I stayed with Connie so we could dispose of it then. But she was never very long at her breakfast, as she ate very little in the mornings and, to our dismay, announced that she had had a glass of milk, which was all she wanted, and would dust now, while I went downstairs to mine!

Here was a fresh predicament. Connie and I glanced at each other and gasped. And, as usual, I was quite at loss, but Connie saved the situation by asking, very sweetly:

“Miss Carstair, I wonder if you’d mind giving me my bath right away, so that I can get up and sit in the chair to eat my breakfast. I’m so tired of lying in bed and of eating in bed, too. Would it be too much trouble?”

“Why, not at all!” Miss Carstair said. “I know just how you feel. I’ll go and get the things ready right now." And she hurried away to the bath-room, while Connie and I hugged each other in relief.

“Quick!” whispered Connie. “She will be several minutes fussing in there, and I want to have a glimpse of those things before we hide them away!”

I hurriedly snatched them from their nook behind the bookcase and, sitting on the side of the bed by Connie, I opened the case, which had a rather complicated catch. When we threw back the faded velvet lid and saw what lay before us on the white satin lining, we both drew in a long breath and uttered a startled “Oh!”

I think we had both expected to see some pretty, even handsome jewelry, but nothing like the sight that lay before us. For there, on the white satin, sparkled the most wonderful pair of emerald ear-rings,—each a big, beautiful stone set around with lovely diamonds,—a pair of bracelets set with emeralds all around, two immense emeralds set in rings, and a necklace of the same stones most beautifully matched and finished with a diamond clasp. The whole thing must have been worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars, if not more!

The unexpected sight so took our breath away that we forgot everything and just gazed and gazed at the sparkling mass of gems spread out before us.

“I never dreamed of such a thing!” breathed Connie, after a while. “It seems all the more strange because Uncle is a Quaker and they have never gone in much for jewelry and that sort of thing. I don’t quite understand it. These are handsome enough for a court lady to wear! How came they to be his?”

“I think I know the explanation,” I said. “I remember Uncle telling me once that his father went over to England for a long visit, at one time, and there met and married a very wealthy English lady and brought, her back here. She wasn’t titled, but her father had a great estate there, and Uncle said he gave her many handsome presents, family heirlooms and things, at the time of her wedding. Probably this was the most important one. He said she too became a Quaker after she got here, so she probably didn’t wear her jewels much in this country and they have just been kept put away ever since. But look! Here’s a note or something pinned on the inside of the cover! I didn’t notice it before. I don’t suppose we ought to read it, and yet it might give us some hint of what these are for and what we ought to do about them.”

“Certainly we’ll read it!” declared Connie, scornfully unpinning the note as she spoke. “It’s no time now to fuss about such matters. We must know something about what to do.”

The little note only said, in faint and faded and very precise writing; “To the wives of my sons on their wedding-day.” And it was signed with the initials “J. B.”

But we knew that Uncle’s mother’s name was “Julia” for her portrait in Quaker costume hung in the living-room, and her name was engraved on the bottom of the golden frame. There could be no doubt about it. These were her most valuable jewels, and we held them now in our keeping, by a strange chance, and were responsible for their safety.

Suddenly Connie realized what we had to do and exclaimed:

“Good gracious, hurry! Miss Carstair will be in here any minute now. We must get these things into that hole in the springs. Did you bring the needle and thread, as I told you?”

“Oh, me! I didn’t!” I moaned at the awful thought. “Mother was around so much and got me so confused this morning that I clean forgot it!”

“Then it isn’t safe to hide it in there without!” declared Connie. “Miss Carstair would certainly see it. And we can’t borrow her sewing-things without arousing suspicions and causing questions. We’ve just got to think of something else!”

But before we could, we heard her coming down the hall with Connie's bath arrangements and knew that the opportunity was past.

“There’s no use! You’ll have to carry them around with you to-day!” groaned Connie. “Don’t you dare lay them down or let them out of your sight a minute! Quick! Stuff them into your blouse!”

And at that moment Miss Carstair entered the room, carrying towels and soap and humming a cheerful tune. And from that instant my troubles began!

CHAPTER XI

A TEMPESTUOUS DAY

IT seems very foolish, as I look back at it now, to think of my carrying that wretched parcel around with me all day and suffering as much as I did. Yet, at the time, it appeared to be the only way. If we had felt free to tell any one about the jewels and leave them in competent care,—as, for instance, with Daddy,—it would have been so much better. But Uncle had seemed to wish the whole matter kept a secret, so what could we do? Even Tomkins was not within reach or we might have entrusted them to him. There was nothing for it but that I must carry them about with me, somehow, till afternoon came and I could hide them in the box-spring as we had planned, while Miss Carstair was out.

As it was impossible to carry so bulky a parcel around inside my blouse all day, I went to the storeroom and found some paper and a string and wrapped it up as inconspicuously as I could. Then I went to the dining-room and ate breakfast with it lying in my lap. Once it slid to the floor with a bang, as I reached for my napkin, and Beulah, who was standing by me at the time, picked it up and handed to me, asking curiously:

“What dat all, Miss Elspeth? It sho’ do feel powerful heavy!”

“Oh, just something Connie wants me to take to school for her,” I answered, as carelessly as I could, but I blushed to the roots of my hair and Beulah noticed it, for she replied:

“Well, you ain’t no need to feel ’shamed of it, honey chile!” And from then to the end of the meal she never gave me a moment’s peace, but hovered around me, hoping for some further revelation!

I decided that the only sensible way to carry my burden would be to take my old lunch-bag with me—a thing I hadn’t carried in over a year, because a nice cafeteria lunch counter had been established in the school, and we never took our lunches from home any more. Then, in order to make an excuse for the bag, I had to go over to our house and make some sandwiches to take in it. Mother wondered very much about this, as she knew I hated sandwiches and liked the hot lunches we always bought, so, of course, I had her to reckon with.

I placed the parcel on the hall table, under my coat, devoutly hoping no one would disturb it, and hurried into the kitchen to make the sandwiches, trying to explain to Mother that I thought I’d study my English history during lunch-hour, as I was behind in it, and eat my sandwiches in the class room as I studied, instead of going to the cafeteria, which always took a lot of time. I did really intend to do this, so I felt I was not telling an untruth.

Mother helped me with the sandwiches and put in a couple of nice drop-cakes and I had just gone to hunt up my bag in the attic, when I heard a loud crash from the hall. Grabbing the bag and hurrying down, I found Ralph sitting on the floor of the hall, howling, while Mother tried to sooth him, at the same time holding in her hand that dreadful parcel.

“He toddled to the table and pulled your coat off, and this heavy thing was under it and hit him on the head,” she explained. “What in the world is it, Elspeth?”

“Oh, just something I’ve got to take to school!” I explained again, rather impatiently, I'm afraid. Mother looked at me with a little hurt wonder in her blue eyes, but only answered: “All right, dear! But you’d better hurry. It’s late now!”

I crammed the hateful parcel into the bag with my lunch, kissed her and Baby Ralph contritely, and hurried away, angry at myself for my clumsiness, and angrier still at the miserable Benham jewels that were causing me so much trouble and putting me in such an unpleasant light with every one. But I wasn’t through with them yet, as I was to discover!

One would think, on the face of it, that to carry a jewel-case in an old black silk lunch bag embroidered with yellow nasturtiums, in company with some sandwiches and cake, would be a simple matter and cause no special remark! But such was not to be in this case!

As there was too much snow on the ground to ride my wheel, I had to walk. And, as luck would have it, when half-way there I was joined by Lucy Shaver. Now, Lucy is a girl I dislike extremely. She is of the inquisitive and pushing kind that always wants to know everything about your affairs and doesn’t hesitate to ask.

“What are you carrying your old lunch-bag for?” was her first question on joining me. I gave her, as amiably as I could, the same reason I had given Mother.

“You could have had a hot lunch brought to your seat, if you’d wanted. I often do it,” she retorted, still eying the lunch-bag skeptically.

“I didn’t think of it,” I answered, hoping that would end the matter. But it didn’t. She continued to eye the lunch-bag, and finally reached over and felt it.

“My! but it’s heavy!” she cried. “Surely that isn’t all just your lunch, Elspeth! What have you got in there?”

There was something perfectly infuriating to me about her inquisitiveness. It made me angry clear through. And if it had been anything else I was carrying I would have given her a pretty short answer and refused to speak to her the rest of the way. But I knew Lucy too well to take such a risk in this case. She would make my life perfectly miserable for the remainder of the day. So I swallowed my wrath and only said very quietly:

“It’s a bundle I have to deliver after school. It is heavy, and I’m rather afraid of losing it, so that’s why I'm carrying it this way. Did you get all those geometry problems worked out, Lucy?”

I hoped to divert her mind by talking about school matters, and it worked, for Lucy was keen on her mathematics and we talked about that all the rest of the time before reaching school. But I never again want to put in such a day as I passed before three o'clock came—not if I live to be two hundred!

Not for a minute did I dare to lay that lunch-bag aside and I kept it in my lap or in my desk, right under my eye, during every recitation. When we assembled for chapel I took it along on my arm, though every one stared at me curiously and I saw Lucy giggling and whispering about it to her seat-mate. In the gymnasium I had to hang it on one of the hooks along the wall and I kept my eye fixed on it every minute of the time, in perfect agony, thereby missing a number of the cues and spoiling our drill and getting reprimanded for inattention!

At lunch-time I did hope to be left alone and have a few moments of peace. But even this was not to be! Lucy strolled into the empty class room, carrying a tray with a nice hot lunch from the cafeteria on it, and plumped herself right down beside me.

“Thought I'd keep you company; you looked so lonesome!” she remarked wickedly. I knew, as well as if she’d told me, that that wasn’t her real reason. So I just remarked that it was very kind of her, but I really wanted to study. And I took out my English history and buried my nose in it while I nibbled peanut-butter sandwiches. But even that didn’t phase Lucy! She continued to sit by me and chatter, though I tried hard to close my ears to it all. But presently I heard her saying:

“You are absolutely a scream, Elspeth, the way you’ve been carrying that old bag around with you all day, as though it were filled with jewels! All the girls are giggling over it and dying to know what you’ve got there. Do tell us and satisfy our curiosity, won’t you?”

If she had only known how near she had come to the truth! But of course I wasn’t going to enlighten her, and I had a miserable time all the rest of the hour fencing with her and holding her off and trying to divert her attention to other things. I was pretty thankful when the bell rang and the hour was over.

There were only two periods after lunch, and I didn’t worry very much about them because in both cases we were in our own class room and could sit at our own desks and not be disturbed. The first one, English history, went off very well without anything happening to worry me. And I settled down to the last, our geometry period, feeling perfectly safe, for I expected that we were to have a written test and I could therefore remain quietly in my seat with the terrible lunch-bag reposing comfortably in my desk. But fate was against me! Professor Cobb elected to omit the test that day and instead call on various ones for the work to be done at the blackboard. This would mean trouble for me, if I was called on, as we were never allowed to carry anything in our hands when we worked on the boards. So I sat shuddering through the period and almost praying that I mightn’t be called on.

The hour was almost over and I was beginning to breathe freely when he announced that there was time for just one more problem and called on me to go to the board! I shivered all over and said something about not being prepared, but he urged me very kindly to try, assuring me he would help me out if I got stuck, so there was simply nothing else to do. I tucked the lunch-bag as far down under other things as I could get it, and went to the front of the room, where I had to stand working with my back to the class. Of course, with my mind so distracted, I made a miserable failure of the problem, but the final bell put an end to my agonies and I hurried back to my seat. But when I reached my hand into my desk to assure myself that everything was all right, I had a horrid shock. The lunch-bag and contents were missing!

For a moment, I stared about me wildly. The room was in the usual confusion of pupils getting ready to leave for the day, and several had already gone. No one seemed interested in me or my predicament, and somehow I found it hard under the circumstances to explain about it. But one thing I did notice. Lucy Shaver, who had sat near me, and a number of her cronies were not there, and it struck me they had gone suspiciously soon. So, without saying anything to the others, I seized my wraps and books and tore out and down the stairs, looking everywhere for them. I hadn’t a doubt now that Lucy had played a trick on me and hidden the thing to tease me. She was perfectly capable of it—or worse, if she took it into her head.

But there was no Lucy to be seen, either in the halls or the yards and no one had seen her leave, though I questioned every one frantically. It was a wretched predicament, far more serious than Lucy could dream, for I did not imagine for one moment that she would dare to examine the parcel. But she might hide it away in some unsafe place, thinking to watch me hunt for it, and meantime some one might pick up and walk off with all those wonderful jewels! What was I to do?

Once more I hurried through every room in the building, fruitlessly, and then I did the only thing left to do—determined to walk straight to Lucy's house and wait for her there. She must arrive there sometime before evening and would doubtless have the lunch-bag with her. What she might do with it in the meantime I did not dare to think. To say that I flew along that wintry road would be putting it mildly. But half-way home my shoe-lacing came untied and I stooped to adjust it.

As I did so, I thought I heard a giggle from a clump of bushes beside the road and, when my shoe was fixed, I walked boldly round to the other side of the bushes, and this is what I saw: Lucy Shaver was standing there with three other girls. Lucy held in her hands my precious parcel (the lunch-bag she had dropped to the ground) and she was just in the act of removing the string from around the paper. They were all giggling and grinning and whispering about the silly way I had acted with the bag all day.

“I’m just crazy to see what she has here!” I heard Lucy say. “We'll wrap it all up again afterward and hand it in at her house and pretend we found—”

But she never got any farther! I burst in among them and seized the parcel before Lucy could even unwrap it, stuffed it into the bag, and turned away, without uttering a single word! But I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had left a lot more consternation behind me than if I had spoken for half an hour on the subject. They were the most ashamed lot I’ve ever seen, and not one of them came to school next day!

CHAPTER XII

TRAILING MR. COOKSON

IT seemed as if I never should get home after my troubled day, but I finally arrived without further mishaps. I had hoped to run right over to Tranquillity after reporting home, and get that detestable bundle at last into the only safe place we knew for it. But even this was not to be. When I got to our house, I found that Mother was very much in need of me and had telephoned Miss Carstair to see if it couldn’t be arranged that I stay at home for the afternoon and come over about dinner-time instead. Miss Carstair had replied that the arrangement would suit her exactly, as she was very anxious to go to Philadelphia to dinner with a friend. She would stay with Connie for the afternoon and leave just before dinner-time, not to return till later in the evening. She said she knew I could get Connie ready for bed, as she was so much better.

So it had to be, and, after all, perhaps it was just as well, I thought, as I rocked and sang to Baby Ralph all afternoon while Mother had a long-needed rest and outing. Connie and I should probably have more time together alone that evening because of the change. While Mother was out, I got the jewels and papers together and tied them up in a bundle, so that there would be no question and no difficulty about them when she re turned. And at half-past five I was hurrying over to Tranquillity with the bundle under my arm, plus a large needle and a spool of thread, devoutly hoping I’d not encounter old Cookson on the way.

Connie reported that nothing of any interest had happened that day, except that Cookson had returned late in the afternoon, and that she had heard him around at intervals. We sewed the jewel-case into the ticking and decided that we’d have supper together up in Connie's room, as I had no notion of dining alone with old Cookson downstairs. And Beulah was in a good humor and delighted to serve us up there, so we had a cozy meal. It all seemed very tranquil and calm and serene, that hour or so, but it was the last quiet interval we were to know for some time to come!

After supper was over and Beulah had taken away the tray, Connie proposed that we begin on the papers at once. I was just about to open the package, when a sudden thought struck Connie.

“I heard old Cookson answering the telephone just before you came in,” she informed me. “He was using the telephone in the hall, and the door was open and his side of the conversation was perfectly plain. I think it was the hospital he had, for he kept saying: ‘Yes! yes! No better? Ah, you don’t say! Too bad! No—ah!—no. I do not know where it is—er—never saw it, to my knowledge. Er—yes—I’ll look for it. Where did you say? Oh, very well! I’ll call you up. Good-by! Now, Elspeth, what do you suppose he meant by those remarks?”

“Whom was he talking to?” I asked.

“I’m sure it was Tomkins, though I didn’t hear the first of it, he spoke so low. But it has just occurred to me that perhaps Tomkins might have been asking him about that chest. You know, when he was here, he didn’t find it in the closet and maybe he is worried and thought Mr. Cookson took it, or something like that. Can you explain it any other way?”

“No, I can’t, but I still don’t see what we can do about it,” I replied.

“Well, I do. I’ve just had a sudden inspiration! Elspeth, I believe Tomkins knows a lot about this matter—more than any one else except Uncle himself. Don’t you remember what he told you once? He was with Uncle when all this happened. He ought to know as much as we do. You go downstairs and use the telephone in Uncle's study and get Tomkins at the hospital and tell him to come here at once! We can't get hold of him a minute too soon!”

“But just suppose Mr. Cookson should be in there—or in the library?” I quavered.

“Wait till he gets out, then!” commanded Connie.

“But suppose he should come in while I’m doing it?” I still objected.

“Oh, he’ll think you’re calling up home, or something like that,” she remarked. “You can make your remarks sound as if that were it. And if he should by any chance go to the hall telephone and try to listen in, I’ll call down to you and pretend I need you awfully, right away. So you’ll be warned. Now go and do it at once, so you can catch Tomkins there before he goes out!”

It was certainly unfortunate that Connie's accident made all the difficult tasks fall to me, for I’m not naturally as brave or resourceful as she is. She would have gone about these things with positive joy; whereas it was torture to me, and the nervous strain of anticipating that something might go wrong was enough to give me brain-fever. However, I went downstairs and found Mr. Cookson writing in the library, so I made the excuse of looking for a book there and came up again.

We spent an anxious half-hour after that, waiting for him to leave. I did not dare use the upstairs telephone for fear he might be “listening in” downstairs and we not know it. We were so uneasy that we couldn’t even settle ourselves to go over the papers, but finally we heard him come up and go to his room. Then, although there were many chances that he might not stay there, I ran down and got the hospital on the wire. Tomkins was just going out, but fortunately I caught him in time and asked him to come over to Tranquillity at the earliest possible minute, that very night. And I was enormously relieved to hear him say he would. I had just hung up the receiver, when in walked Mr. Cookson, and, to my amazement, he had the same bundle in his arms that I had seen him carrying two days before when I met him near the river. I had the presence of mind not to act surprised, but he, who evidently had not been expecting to see me there, was so completely bowled over that he nearly dropped the parcel in his astonishment and dismay. I didn’t stop to say a word, however, but ran up to Connie as fast as I could.

“You’ve got to see what he’s doing!” she commanded when I’d whispered to her what had happened. “It won’t do to let him escape this time. You trail him,-right now!—and if Tomkins comes I’ll tell him what you’re doing!”

“But what shall I—” I was beginning, when Connie simply shooed me from the room and I had to go. I had no choice from that moment, but tiptoed down at once, and through the living-room to the library door. What would happen if old Cookson came out suddenly and found me, I had no time to consider. I listened there by the library door for as much as five minutes, I'm certain, but there was not a sound inside. This puzzled me, as I was positive he had not come out while I was upstairs that few moments. So, gathering up all the courage I possessed, I pushed open the door and peeped in.

The room was empty. I hurried through it into the study beyond, determined that if he were there I’d make some kind of excuse for this invasion. But the study also was empty. A door from that room opened into the hall, as did the library, but there was no other exit. I should positively have heard him if he had come out of either door. What was the meaning of it all?

Unable to solve the riddle, I flew up to Connie with it, but it didn’t take her an instant to find the answer.

“There’s only one answer: he’s got into the secret passage somehow or other. It must open into the library or study somewhere,” she cried.

“But what shall I do now? How am I to find it? I might hunt all night!” said I, in calm despair.

“You can't find this end of it, but you know where the other is!” she retorted. “Get a wrap on at once, and Uncle's electric torch, and hurry out there to the river. You haven’t a minute to lose! He must have been gone some time now!”

“But—good gracious Connie!—what do you expect me to do if I should see him? I have no right to be following him. I can’t demand that he explain everything to me. This is simply ridiculous!”

“You can keep him talking there on some pretext or other till Tomkins comes. He ought to get here in a short time now, for he took the roadster back with him to-day and no doubt he'll come in that. He’ll make the fastest time he can—you can bank on that—after your message. Now go!” she commanded. “I’ll send Tomkins out to you the minute he gets here. You haven’t anything to be afraid of!”

Well, I went. I snatched up my big coat and tam, tore down to the library and got the electric torch, and then ran out through the kitchen and back entrance. Beulah was rather aghast to see me come flying through.

“Whar you gwine dis time o’ night, chile?” she demanded. “Doan you try goin’ ober home by dat back way; ’t ain’t safe, nohow, past dat ole graveyard! Dey’s hants dere, honey, sho’s you born!” A sudden idea came to me at her words.

“Beulah!” I cried, clutching her arm. “Are you willing to do something for me,—something awfully important,—and for Uncle too, most of all? If so, you stand here at the door and keep watch up toward the old cemetery. You can see me plainly, for it’s bright moon light. I’m going there,—I’ve got to, for a certain reason,—but if you should hear me call or see anything happen to me, you just run to my house and get help, as fast as you can. Will you do that?”

Beulah keeps watch

She looked at me as if she thought me crazy—as well she might!—but I gave her no chance to answer, for I hadn’t time to argue about it, and sped away along the path toward the river. Beulah stood gazing after me in mingled curiosity and fear, but I knew well that wild horses wouldn’t drive her indoors after what I’d said and I began to feel quite safe. With Beulah watching and Tomkins soon to appear on the scenes, I had little to fear.

When I got to the plot with the big old tree in the middle and the quaint old marble bench under it, I halted, for there was absolutely nothing and no one unusual in sight. The river wound away like a band of silver, a crust of light snow glittered in the moonlight, and the tree branches creaked in the chilly wind. But there was nothing else. If this was the end of the secret passage, there wasn’t a thing to indicate it.

How was I to know whether Mr. Cookson had already got out of this end of the passage, or was yet to come, or, for that matter, were coming at all? One thing I felt sure of: if he had already come out and got away before my coming, certainly I ought to find traces about in the light crisp snow. But look as I might, no recent footsteps except my own showed anywhere in the vicinity. Plainly, if he were coming, he had not emerged yet. Glancing back over my shoulder, I could see Beulah standing on the back porch staring after me and the sight heartened me to remain a little longer at this cold vigil. Surely, if he intended to make this exit to the outside world, he must be coming soon. Otherwise I must take it for granted that such was not his intention.

Nor had I the least idea just where the exit (if there were an exit) from the secret passage would be, though I somehow suspected that it must be inside the plot if anywhere. So, standing, myself, just outside the low box hedge, I kept my eyes fixed on the whole expanse and waited. And as moment after moment slipped by, I began to feel more and more discouraged and cold—and foolish! I had just decided that it was nonsense to wait any longer, when a slight grating sound reached me, and, primed even as I had been to expect something unusual, my blood fairly froze in my veins.

For, staring straight in front of me, I beheld the seat of the old stone bench slowly and cautiously and almost noiselessly rising to an upright position, propelled by a hand and an arm in a dark sleeve, plainly visible in the moonlight!

With a great effort I restrained the cry that almost broke from me, and watched the amazing spectacle. The seat was almost entirely upright when a head came into view—an unmistakable head, with stiff gray hair and the black, gimlet-like eyes that were old Cookson’s. For just one moment more the hand and arm and head continued to rise in the effort to push the seat upward. Then the black eyes caught sight of me standing there outside the hedge, staring fascinated at the performance, and a singular thing happened!

There was a low gasp of astonishment and a crash. The head and arm disappeared, and the seat fell back into its original position with a resounding slam!

CHAPTER XIII

THE SECRET PASSAGE

FROM that moment on, I seemed to act automatically, without giving myself an instant, at any time, to reason or be afraid of anything. Looking back on it all now, I often wonder how I had the courage; and I certainly shouldn’t have had it except that I seemed to be driven by some force outside of myself and I simply obeyed its orders.

For just a moment after the disappearance of that head and arm, I stood staring at the old bench, scarcely believing I wasn’t dreaming. Then I rushed over to it and tried with all my strength to lift the stone seat. It was heavy beyond belief, and, under ordinary circumstances, I believe I couldn’t have budged it an inch. But excitement seemed to give me more strength than I had ever had before, and I felt it move perceptibly. I used every ounce of muscle I possessed and raised it a couple of inches. And even as I did so, I heard a faint groan from down below.

“He’s hurt! He’s fallen somewhere!” I thought, and that gave me courage to try harder than ever. That time, with a mighty heave, I managed to get the seat raised a foot, at least, and then, almost of its own accord, it fell against the back of the bench and remained there. And I looked down at last into the outer opening of the secret passage!

On turning the electric torch down into the depths revealed, I could see a tiny flight of stone steps descending,—so narrow that one could hardly squeeze through them except with elbows pressed pretty tight to the sides,—and at the bottom of those steps, almost out of the range of light, lay a huddled form that I knew was none other than old Cookson!

A distinct groan from the bottom also told me I was right in guessing that he was pretty severely injured. So, with the torch turned full on him, I called down, “Are you hurt?” There was silence for a moment, then a faint voice answered:

“Yes, badly. I–er—think my arm is broken; and—I—must have—sprained my knee! Who are you?”

“I’m Elspeth,” I said. And then all my indignation at him returned, and I added: “But what are you doing here? Why are you trying to get out of sight by using this secret passage? I know something of what you’re up to and I’d like an explanation, for Uncle's sake!”

There was an astonished silence. I imagine he had had one more shock, the biggest of all, at my announcement. Then he answered, slowly and painfully:

“You have—no right to—assume—that I am doing—something wrong! I see—no reason—to explain my—conduct to you!” This made me more angry than ever and I resolved to give him another dose. So I continued relentlessly:

“I found the teakwood chest in that hole under the window-seat, the chest you have right now along side of you!” This was a chance shot, but he groaned and started up and acted as if he were trying to hide the bundle. “It’s empty now,” I went on, “but it wasn’t when I first found it. But perhaps you’ll be interested to know that I have in my possession all the things it contained and that I shall keep them to return to Uncle as soon as he recovers!”

There was almost a howl of anguish from him at this. But even then, he tried to recover himself and act as if the matter were of no consequence to him.

“That may—all be true!” he muttered. “I—er—the contents are—of no consequence—to me. They concern only—Mr. Benham!”

“Then why were you so interested in their hiding-place on the night poor Uncle was taken to the hospital?” I demanded. “And, besides that, I happen to know that the window-seat wasn’t their original hiding-place, either!”

At that shot, I thought he was going into an actual fit. He struggled up on one elbow and stared at me through the half-lighted gloom, with horror written all over his face. Then he dropped back, muttering: “How—how do you—know that?”

“Because I found Uncle’s twin brother’s letter in the chest!” I told him bravely. “He said he thought he had left the chest in the secret passage.”

And this last statement appeared to finish him.

“The letter? The letter?” he groaned, over and over again. “It wasn’t—it couldn’t have—been—in there!”

I couldn’t quite see what he meant, but I assured him that it was “in there,” and added that I thought he had better explain matters, since they had gone so far. For answer he moaned:

“Get me out of here! In pity’s name get me out of here, and I’ll explain everything presently!”

“You’ll have to wait till Tomkins gets here,” I told him. “He’s on his way now, for I telephoned him before I left the house. He said he’d come at once. Perhaps he and Beulah can get you up. Meantime you might tell me why you took the teakwood chest and hid it where you did.”

But his only answer to this was another question:

“Did—did Mr. Benham see—the chest?”

“He certainly did!” I replied indignantly. “And reading that letter gave him such a shock that it no doubt brought on his illness!” At this information he groaned again and put his head down and would not say another word. But, looking back toward the house, I saw Beulah wildly gesticulating to me and a figure that I knew was Tomkins running up the path. And, with a great sigh of relief, I realized that assistance was at hand. I had not heard the approach of the roadster with Tomkins in it, so great had been my absorption with affairs in hand.

Well, it was an astonished Tomkins who reached my side breathless and peered into the depths of the stairway at the huddled figure at the bottom.

“What is it, miss? What’s happened to Mr. Cookson?” he panted. “How came he in this strange place?” But it was no time for many explanations just then.

“I’ll tell you later how it happened,” I said, “but now let’s get him out of here and into the house. He’s had an accident and hurt himself pretty badly, I imagine. I’ll get Beulah and we’ll help him to the house!”

But getting Beulah was easier said than done. I ran back to where she was, bursting with curiosity and fear all that time. But inducing her to come to our assistance was an other matter.

“No, honey chile, Ah ain’t gwine near dat tomb, nohow! How come Mr. Cookson to be down in dat dere tomb? You doan ketch ole Beulah gwine near no graveyard dis time o’ night!” she declared.

“But, Beulah, he isn’t in a tomb!” I assured her. “There’s the entrance to a secret passageway under that old stone seat. It leads to the house here. You must come and help us get him out. He’s badly hurt!”

“Ah doan take no stock in no passage-ways!” she repeated. “Dat kind ob ting in a graveyard's sho to be a tomb!' But at last I convinced her, and very reluctantly she joined us and, when Tomkins had carried Cookson up the steps, lent her rugged strength to lifting him toward the house. Miss Carstair had just arrived when we got there, and we had to get the village doctor and patch him up. It seemed that he had only sprained his arm and knee, but had injured himself internally in a rather severe way and would probably be laid up for some time to come.

Connie was jubilant over the outcome of the affair, but I knew I had caused his injuries, even though unintentionally, and the knowledge didn’t make me feel very comfortable. However, we had gained so much by his suffering that I'm afraid we didn’t feel as sorry as we should.

“But we must get the whole story from him, somehow!” Connie declared. “We haven’t found out half of what we should know. Get Tomkins to come in here and we’ll explain the whole, thing to him and then he can tell us what we’d better do about old Cookson.” So I went and hunted up Tomkins, who was lingering about outside Mr. Cookson's door, waiting for the doctor and Miss Carstair to be through fixing him up. He came down willingly enough and listened open-mouthed while we explained to him, from the beginning, just what had happened. Things had gone so far (and we were sure he knew so much, anyway) that it seemed the only sensible course. When I had finished with the account of trailing Mr. Cookson that very night, and the results, he sat back, white and rather shaken, and mopped his forehead with a large handkerchief. Then he told us his side of the story—not so very different an account from Beulah's except that he was closer in touch with Uncle Benham and knew more of how he had felt. He said that Uncle Ben ham had almost died of grief when he found the teakwood chest missing from the secretary in his brother's room, because then he believed that his brother had taken it with deliberately dishonest intention and had gone away with it, though why Ashbel should suddenly do such a thing was something Uncle Benham could not fathom. But he thought maybe Ashbel would be sorry and come back some time. And for this Uncle Benham had been hoping in vain, all these years.

Tomkins said he was certain Uncle had never seen that letter until the Sunday before. Why, he could not imagine, nor how it came to be in the chest, nor how Mr. Cookson had gotten hold of the chest, nor why he had hidden it. That, old Cookson would have to explain presently. The chest was locked on that night when I found it, and the key, of course, was nowhere to be found. Uncle had decided not to try to open it then, as Tomkins had said he thought he could get a key somewhere. But when he was alone on Sunday, he had evidently changed his mind and had broken the lock, with what consequences we knew. That was all Tomkins could tell us. He added that the doctors were confident that Uncle's brain was practically unimpaired by the shock, that he was conscious of all that went on, and that his reasoning powers were still all right. Only his speech and one side of his body were affected. But they had not yet put the matter to an absolute test, as his condition was still too critical. Tomkins had seen him but little, though the doctors said Uncle seemed to want him near by, and to be better when he knew that he was there.

“And now, what about Mr. Cookson?” we demanded. Tomkins looked very grave.

“I think you’d better leave him to me,” he decided. “I’ve promised to sit with him to night, and no doubt I can get him to talk! He's got enough on his conscience to send him to jail, and I guess I can push him into a full confession!”

We were thankful enough to do this! But before Tomkins left us, we asked him if he had ever known anything about the secret passage and where the other opening to it was.

“No, indeed!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Azariah never told me there was one. I much doubt if he remembered it himself! I never thought of such a thing, though I might have suspected one in such an old house as this! But—I’m going to find that opening to-morrow, young ladies!”

CHAPTER XIV

MR. COOKSON CONFESSES

ANOTHER almost sleepless night ensued for Connie and me. I’d have defied any one to sleep with such an exciting proposition on his hands as we had! I got up in the morning with a terrific headache, and Miss Carstair thought it very unwise for me to try to go to school and advised me to lie down and rest and telephoned Mother to that effect. I think she rather suspected something unusual and upsetting was in the wind anyway, after the curious accident to Mr. Cookson. She couldn’t understand at all how he’d injured himself, for we didn’t explain to her about the secret passage, only telling her he'd had a fall out in the grounds.

I was only too glad to remain on the scene of action, and looked forward impatiently to an interview with Tomkins. He had had to hurry back to the hospital, but planned to return at lunch-time, and, true to his word, arrived just about then. While Miss Carstair was having her luncheon, he came in and re ported to Connie and me. Mr. Cookson had confessed all, during the night, under pressure from Tomkins and in fear of being imprisoned, which Tomkins promised to avert if he could, provided Mr. Cookson would tell the truth. And this is the story he told:

When he had first come into Uncle's employ as secretary and confidential manager of the business, he had not suspected that Uncle had ever had a twin brother nor anything about the unfortunate disappearance. But a few years later, Uncle had told him briefly the mere fact of his having had a brother who had gone away rather suddenly some years be fore without telling any one of his destination and who had remained unheard of ever since. Uncle was certain that he was dead, as he had once in the interval read a description of some unknown man who had met with an accident and been killed. The description seemed to fit his brother, as nearly as he could judge, and he had made many inquiries later into the unknown man's identity without ever coming to any satisfactory conclusion. But he was convinced that it was his brother, and so counted him dead. This was told Mr. Cookson by Uncle in connection with the making of a new will, which seemed necessary, as his former one was concerned mainly with leaving the estate to his brother. Since he felt certain the brother was dead, he intended to make a new disposition of his property.

He intended to leave generous bequests to Tomkins and Beulah, and something more than half the estate to a lady, a Miss Margaret Spence, whom he had once hoped to marry, but who had been found to be more deeply interested in his brother and had never married. But what remained, to Mr. Cookson's great surprise, Uncle proposed to leave to him, as he had proved so faithful and efficient and untiring in his services. Of course, this made Cookson very happy and he began to take an even more absorbing interest in Uncle's business and estate, which would some day be partly his.

A year or so later, Miss Margaret Spence died and Uncle again had to consider altering his will. Mr. Cookson thought surely that Uncle would now make him the sole principal heir, but by that time Uncle had begun to be deeply interested in Connie and me, saying he felt almost as if we were his own nieces, and proposed putting us in Miss Spence's place as heirs to her portion. But Cookson must have been always grasping and mean-spirited in nature, for this did not please him at all, and explains why he was always so unpleasant in manner to us—or, rather, so un-cordial! How he must have disliked us! However, Uncle had delayed making this new will from year to year, and Cookson took care not to remind him of it.

But just about that time a new element entered into the game. While Uncle was away on a long trip to Europe, about ten years before, and Mr. Cookson was managing his affairs here alone, there came this letter from his twin brother, dying in India, and Cookson in his capacity of secretary of course read it. This put an entirely new complexion on the affair. But Mr. Cookson, far from being pleased, was furious that his chance of the big inheritance was gone—or going. And then a great temptation came to him. Uncle was far away and knew nothing of this letter. Why need he ever know? The brother was dying and could never benefit by it anyhow. The children might never survive the Indian climate, which is so hard on growing young people. Moreover, he had said in the latter part of the letter (the part we never saw) that if he received no reply, he would have to take it for granted that his brother was either dead or unwilling to forgive him, and he would let the children remain in ignorance of their real ancestry and name.

This statement decided him. He would destroy the letter and drop the subject forever. And Mr. Benham would never be the wiser. The best that can be said to his credit is that he had many fits of wavering in the matter, for he didn’t become as dishonest as that all at once. Mr. Benham was to be away several weeks longer, and meantime Cookson kept the letter and began a systematic hunt for the secret passage, to satisfy his curiosity and get possession, if possible, of the teawood chest. After much studying of the architecture of the house and exploring of all its nooks and crannies, he stumbled upon the opening to the secret passage, which, it seems, is under a sort of trap-door just in front of the library fireplace. This door swings open at the touch of a secret spring in the bricks of the fireplace, and he learned how to open it, and on exploring the passage discovered the teakwood chest, left down at the other end near the steps.

After a time, and with the aid of many old keys, he managed to open the chest and there discovered all the bonds and jewels that had been missing so long. But just at that time he received word from Uncle that he was re turning unexpectedly, as he was not very well, and would be home the next week. This finally decided old Cookson. He determined to find a new hiding-place for the chest (as Uncle might some time remember and explore the secret passage) and, by testing the wood work, he found a hollow space under the window-seat on the stair and concealed the chest there. But first he locked it, replacing all the papers, just as he had found them. He says he cannot imagine how that letter came to get in among the other things. It was never his intention that it should. He had destroyed the latter part of it and supposed he had torn up and burned it all. That part must have been slipped in among the papers, unrealized by him, for he had to hide it in rather a hurry for fear of being discovered.

He had never since that time had a chance to get the chest from its hiding-place. In fact, it seemed so thoroughly secure that there was no reason to get at it, as he would never want to use those papers or sell the jewels till after Uncle's death. So they had remained, untouched, till Connie's accident. But naturally the spot was very constantly in Cookson’s thoughts! His eyes always seemed to turn to it the first thing whenever he entered the living-room or came down the stairs. On the day of Connie’s accident, when he came in and saw the fresh paint on the woodwork and evidences of it having been disturbed, he was very much alarmed, but until that Sunday night he couldn’t discover whether or not the chest had been found.

He had been almost frantic when he found it missing, and then later he came upon it in Uncle’s room. But he only wrapped it up hurriedly then and, fearing to keep it even in his room, took it out through the secret passage to a lonely spot way off by the river where he could examine it without fear of molestation. Of course when he found it empty he had been deeply alarmed. But, not knowing that the old letter had been in it, he concluded that Uncle had merely found the papers and jewels and had been shocked by having his memory of the painful episode revived. So he had brought it back. After Tomkins called up that night to inquire whether he had seen the chest, and he had, on the spur of the moment, denied ever having seen it, he determined that the safest thing to do was to take the chest away and destroy it, and that was what he had been about to do when I interrupted him getting out of the secret passage.

That is all of his story. Tomkins said he was a completely broken man, now that his duplicity had been discovered, and expected nothing but disgrace, if not actual arrest and imprisonment for his crime.

“But what about those poor children in India!” I cried. “Has he never done any thing at all about them? Did he simply leave them to starve—or to the mercy of strangers?”

Tomkins said that Mr. Cookson had made inquiries, in such a way as not to involve himself, a few months after the letter came. He discovered that Mr. Campbell Mason, a missionary, had died there a few weeks before, leaving two young sons. But in a severe epidemic of plague in that vicinity, soon after, one of the boys had died and the other was still so seriously ill from the effects of it that his death was expected hourly. Mr. Cookson concluded then that, all legal heirs having been removed, there was one less reason for him ever to disclose the secret to his employer. He had never investigated the subject again.

“Tomkins,” I said when he had finished, “what are we going to do about all this?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, miss!” he sighed. “Miss Carstair, here, thinks Mr. Cookson had ought to be took to the hospital, as he’s too sick to remain in the house unattended, and she can’t take care of two. So I’m going to take him in the limousine this afternoon when I go back. I think we’d best let it all rest till Mr. Benham gets better, I do!”

So it was settled. But before Tomkins left, he confided to me that he’d gone out to the old stone bench and cemented up that opening. “There isn’t going to be no more getting in and out of this house in no underhand manner, if I know it!” he had declared, fairly bristling with the thought of former outrages. They got Mr. Cookson down, somehow, into the limousine. I didn’t see him go, for neither Connie nor I felt we could bear ever to lay eyes on him again. And then we were left alone, to talk and think of all the strange and disturbing disclosures of the past twenty-four hours.

“And just to think,” exclaimed Connie, “that Uncle thought so much of us that he wanted to leave us part of his property in his will! I can’t get over it!”

“Well, he never actually did,” I reminded her. “Old Cookson took good care of that! And now, if Uncle were to die, that wretched criminal would get practically the whole of it, for Miss Spence is dead too, now. Not that I care about ourselves,—I couldn’t bear even to think of this place without dear Uncle here,—but I just can’t stand the idea of Cookson coming in for it!”

“Perhaps the will could be broken, after all that’s happened,” speculated Connie. “But, anyhow, Uncle is going to get well, I believe, and then things will be all right. But think how different it all might have been if only Uncle had known about his brother and those two poor little boys! They needn’t have had the plague and would be alive now and—”

At that moment the telephone rang and I went to answer it. It was Mother, telling me that I had been called up by the Western Union Telegraph office in Philadelphia, who said there was a cablegram there for me from India and asked that I come in as soon as possible to receive and pay for it. She was completely mystified by the message (as well she might be!) and demanded to know what it was all about.

All I could think of to tell her was that it was some business of Uncle’s that I was attending to for him. She said she couldn’t quite understand it, and I didn’t blame her, but said that was all I could say about it at present. I asked her if she could bring Ralph over at once and sit with Connie, as Miss Carstair was out and I must go to the city and get the cablegram. She said that of course she would if it were necessary, and I had to leave Connie to smooth out matters as best she could, while I hurried away.

CHAPTER XV

THE CABLEGRAM FROM INDIA

LOOKING back on it all, now that two or three years have passed, I can still feel the amazing thrill I experienced, as I stood in that Western Union office and read this message:

Campbell Mason missionary died Arcot ten years ago diseases due climatic conditions. Wife deceased. One son victim plague later. Other taken to America by Abercrombies missionaries of Presbyterian Board. Nothing further known.

The charges on this were enormous, and took every dollar of our Christmas money. But I paid it all joyfully, for I knew that now, at least, we had some definite clue that all Uncle’s relatives had not died—at least in India, as that heartless old Cookson had hoped.

The ferry and trolleys that took me back to Penryd were all too slow, and I whiled away the time by planning what we ought to do next. It was plain that Uncle could not yet be told anything about all this, and also that we had as yet no right to discuss it with any one else, except, perhaps Tomkins. I didn’t quite like to think how we were going to square things with Mother, but concluded we’d have to leave that to Connie’s ingenuity. I myself was too full of the wonder of all this discovery to be able to think how that was to be done.

As it turned out, Mother had gone home by the time I got back and Miss Carstair was again on duty. But Connie informed me, in one moment we had alone, that she had managed to quiet Mother’s curiosity by telling her that as Mr. Cookson was laid up and Tomkins so busy I had gone to get this message for Uncle. Mother still didn’t quite see the necessity for it, but had asked no more questions, being more interested in Mr. Cookson’s accident of the night before. This Connie described to her as well as she could, without telling any of the before and after developments. But she added that Beulah had pretty nearly given the whole thing away, when she came in with Connie's afternoon broth, by demanding “what for Miss Elspeth done run out to dat ole graveyard 'n stan’ dere while Mr. Cookson fell into dat dere tomb?”

“Mother's eyes almost popped out of her head at that!” laughed Connie. “But I managed to shoo Beulah out of the room and explain to her that Beulah had got things dreadfully mixed—how you heard Mr. Cookson groaning (which was true) and had stood by him and called for help and how Tomkins had come just in the nick of time and got him back to the house. It all sounded sort of confused, but fortunately Ralph began to make a fuss just then and when we got back to the subject again, I began to describe all about Mr. Cookson’s injuries, and Mother forgot about the other. But, for gracious sake, Elspeth, tell me what message you got! I’m dying to hear, for it’s far more important than all this!”

However, as usual, it was not till bedtime that we got any real chance to talk it all over.

“I tell you, Elspeth, this son must be hunted up, somehow!” declared Connie. “And we can’t get at it too quickly.”

“Yes, I quite agree; but how?” I questioned, for the thing really seemed to me rather baffling. “Ten years ago this young boy named Mason was taken from Arcot, India, to America by a missionary named Abercrombie. We don’t know the boy's first name; we don’t know where the missionary went, nor any way to trace him, that I can see.”

“Then you’re remarkably stupid!” snorted Connie, unfeelingly. “We know enough about them to trace them in the easiest way possible! Didn’t the message say Abercrombie was a missionary of the Presbyterian Board? Very well! Get some letter paper and write a note to the Presbyterian Board in New York. I’ll dictate it!”

Meekly I got together the materials, to do her bidding, and had just sat down, fountain pen in hand, when she commanded:

“No! That’s too slow! I have a better scheme than that. A letter would take too long, and we must have this information at once. To-morrow’s a half-holiday in school because of that teachers’ convention in Philadelphia, you said. Now, you come straight here at noon, get by yourself in the library, and call up the Presbyterian Board in New York. Tell them you want some information about these Abercrombie missionaries who returned to America ten years ago, bringing with them the young son of a dead missionary named Mason. Ask what has become of this boy. And if they don’t know, ask at least where these Abercrombie people are and how you can get in touch with them!”

Connie stopped triumphantly, and I could only gasp in wonder over her resourcefulness.

“How did you ever manage to think of it?” I exclaimed admiringly.

“Oh, easy enough!” she replied. “You see, I went once with Mother to New York when she was sent as a delegate from the missionary society of the church here to the Presbyterian Board in New York, where they were having a convention. It was a big affair and lasted two or three days; you remember it, don’t you? It was several years ago. You stayed home and kept house for Daddy, but I was so little that Mother thought she’d better take me along. Anyhow, I wasn’t too young to take in a lot of things, and I noticed what a big place it was and how there were people who seemed to be able to answer any kind of question you could think of. I always remembered that, and to-night it just came to me that there was where we were surely going to get some information. I can hardly wait for to-morrow to come. Wish we could do it to night, but of course there wouldn’t be any one there!”

It was hard to wait for the next day and I dreaded the morning in school, as it was the first time I had returned after the lunch-bag episode. But nothing was said about it. Lucy Shaver and her set avoided me very noticeably, for which I was thankful, and noon time came at last. It didn’t take me long to reach Tranquillity, and I found Connie in as great a state of excitement as I was.

“Now for it!” she cried, as we hunted up the number in the directory while Miss Car stair was eating her lunch. And, having found it, I hurried downstairs to my job, dreading it as I did all unusual and unfamiliar things.

It was only after much difficulty and a great deal of referring to other parties and departments, that I got anything like satisfaction. There were, it seemed, no missionaries named Abercrombie now on their lists any where. But, in looking up the records, they found that a Mr. and Mrs. Edward Abercrombie had returned from India about ten years before, and, as they were elderly and not at all in good health, had retired from the service. It was thought that the husband was living with his son in Litchfield, Connecticut. The wife was dead. Of the Mason boy the board knew nothing. Nor had they known of his father. They thought Campbell Mason had been a worker of some other denomination, probably. That was all the information I could get.

“Very well!” declared Connie, undaunted by the scarcity of it. “Go right down again and call up Litchfield Information and try to get hold of Mr. Edward Abercrombie if it is possible, or any one he lives with or who knows him. In a comparatively small place like that, it oughtn’t to be difficult to locate him.”

By this time I had warmed up to the work, and I returned to the task with a lot more confidence. I felt rather guilty at running up such a big telephone bill for Uncle without his consent, but, on the other hand, we were doing all this just for him, and he surely would not object to any lengths to which we might go. But it was a far more difficult piece of work to get in touch with Litchfield and find out anything about the Abercrombies. There wasn’t any such name in the directory and In formation seemed unable to get in touch with any one who knew anything about them. But finally she said there was a Mrs. Washburn in town whose father lived with her, and she thought she had heard that the old gentleman's name was Abercrombie. She connected me with Mrs. Washburn, and I told that invisible lady that I was hunting for a Mr. Edward Abercrombie who had once been a missionary in Arcot, India.

To my joy, she answered that he was her father and was now in the house, but she said he was very ill and quite unable to talk. He was not expected to live more than a few days longer. I said I was awfully sorry and then asked her if she knew anything about a young boy they had brought home from India ten years before, whose name was Mason, and if she could tell me anything about him.

“Why, no!” she said, in a very surprised manner. “I never heard of any such boy!”

Well, my heart went right down into my boots, at that, and the whole thing seemed a hopeless failure, when she suddenly exclaimed:

“Wait a minute! Hold the wire!”

I waited, in simply breathless suspense, and then she called again:

“Hello! I’ve just made inquiries of some one else here, about that. I was living out West at the time Father and Mother returned and didn’t see them for several months after, so I didn’t know about this. They did bring over a young boy who was called ‘Tony’ or Anthony Mason. His father and mother had died over there and he had no relatives and had been very ill. They kept him with them for a little while, but as they were traveling around and lecturing a good deal and were then coming out to me, they felt that they would have to find some other home for him. So they left him with some friends of theirs in New York. I don’t know the name of these people, but they were very nice people. They were not very well off, but they had no children and so they took the little boy to bring up as their own.

“I believe he lived with them for a number of years and is now supposed to be working his way through Princeton University, so my informant says. Is that sufficient information? It is all that I can give you, I'm afraid.”

I thanked her as best I could and stumbled upstairs to Connie, so bursting with the news that I was absolutely incoherent for a while. But at last I had told the tale, and Connie leaned back in her chair with a long sigh of content.

“Right here in Princeton, not fifty miles away from us!” she exclaimed. “Did you ever know anything to beat it, Elsbeth? Here is Uncle's own and only nephew so near him that he could be reached in a couple of hours, and not a soul knows it beside ourselves!”

“And if it hadn’t been for your accident, and all that's happened since, he might have gone right on living there and no one would ever have been the wiser!” I murmured. “But what are we to do next? Oughtn’t we to tell some one about it?”

“No; I have another scheme!” announced Connie, who seemed to have taken charge of affairs.

“Well, what is it now?” I demanded.

“You go right downstairs to the library and get Princeton University on the telephone!” she promptly ordered.

CHAPTER XVI

BACK TO TRANQUILLITY

"CONNIE CURTIS!” I gasped. “You don’t mean that we are to get in touch with this boy ourselves, and right now?”

“I most certainly do!” she announced coolly. “Why not? We’ve gone so far and we might as well push the thing through to the finish as quickly as possible. Uncle is in a very critical condition; Miss Carstair told me so this morning after she had been calling up the hospital. The doctors think there’s some crisis coming soon. And it will take something very definite and unusual to bring him out of this. He’s had a shock of a very unfortunate kind. Now, they think if he could have one of the other sort, and very soon, it might turn the tide and bring him out of it. That wasn’t just the way Miss Carstair expressed it, but I can’t remember all her medical terms. That’s what she meant, anyhow!”

“But how shall I get hold of this young fellow?” I demanded. “Princeton’s an awfully big place, you know.”

“Just the same way you managed the other,” Connie replied. “Begin by asking for the one you want, and never let up till some one gets him for you. Say it’s awfully important, a life-and-death matter. That’ll make ’em stand around lively, or I miss my guess!”

“But what shall I say to him, if I do get him?” I asked helplessly.

“Tell him that a very urgent matter that concerns him has arisen and that he must leave immediately and come over here to Tranquillity,” she dictated. “Say that he cannot get here too quickly!”

“But suppose he asks who I am and what it’s all about?” I still objected, for somehow the thing seemed pretty high-handed, and I couldn’t imagine any one coming all that way because some unknown person asked it and wouldn’t tell the reason.

“Well then, tell him it’s a legal matter that concerns his father, Campbell Mason, who died in India. That’ll fetch him, I reckon. And tell him you are talking for Mr. Azariah Benham. That’s perfectly true; you are talking for Uncle and he would heartily approve of it, too, if he could only know!”

Well, I went back to my task, for by that time I felt like an automaton who worked simply at the dictation of Connie. I had rather a hard time getting the university, and harder work yet to find out whether there was an Anthony Mason on their rolls. But at last there came a “yes” over the wire. Greatly encouraged, I then set about the task of locating him, which took more than an hour. But about three o’clock there came a nice, boyish voice over the wire, saying: “I’m Anthony Mason. What is it you wish?”

At the sound of that, I almost uttered a hurrah, and was so confused with excitement for a moment that I could hardly answer. But at last I managed to make him understand, and urged him to drop everything and come to Tranquillity at once. He replied that he had a very important chemistry lecture at four, and asked if the next day wouldn’t do just as well. He said he didn’t quite understand what it was all about, and I didn’t blame him much for that! But I implored him to drop everything and come immediately, and at last he agreed, though quite reluctantly, I thought. After all, I could scarcely wonder at it. It must have all sounded rather wild to him, I imagine.

When I told Connie the results, she gave a whoop of joy and commanded me to call up the hospital at once, get Tomkins, and tell him to come over immediately.

“What do you want him for?” I wanted to know.

“You’ll see when he gets here!” she answered mysteriously.

I got Tomkins, but he said he couldn’t get over till between five and six, know if anything was wrong. I told him it was just something that had come up that we wanted to talk over with him, and left it there. Then we sat down to wait.

“Do you realize,” I suddenly asked Connie, “that probably by the time that young man and Tomkins arrive here, Miss Carstair will be on hand and we can’t possibly keep the thing a secret?”

“I don’t care a thing about that anymore!” laughed Connie. “The whole world may know it now. But I am glad that Tomkins took charge of those jewels and papers and things, and put them in a safe-deposit vault in the city. I hated to have them on my mind.”

It seemed as if the moments would never pass and we tried to hurry them by imagining what kind of a person young Anthony Mason would prove to be. I said I did hope he would be a fine young fellow, for Uncle’s sake, and that his voice sounded very pleasant over the telephone. Connie said he would probably be a great, strapping football fiend with tousled hair and torn sweater and knobby shoes.

Mother strolled in with the baby, about half-past four, saying she had come to look me up, as I hadn’t been home since morning. I realized guiltily that this was so, for I’d been too much interested and occupied even to think of home! But I signaled to Connie to ask what we should do now, and she whispered:

“All right! It doesn’t matter; only don’t say anything. I want to see the fun!”

At quarter-past five, who should also drop in but Daddy, who said he had gotten away early, found no one at home, so decided we must all be over here and came to join the party. Then Miss Carstair arrived and Connie whispered to me that we had a very satisfactory audience to see the show. I was fearfully nervous about it all, myself, but Connie seemed to be enjoying the prospect.

At last we heard a car drive up to the front of the house, and I knew by that it was a station taxi and not Tomkins, who would have gone round to the garage. I got cold all over and my knees began to shake, and they shook more when Connie whispered to me:

“Go down, yourself, and let him in! See him first down there and tell him a little about it. Then bring him up here. I want to surprise every one!”

I don’t know how I got out of the room and downstairs to the front door, but I some how found myself confronting a very pleasant, slim, and even handsome young fellow who introduced himself as Anthony Mason and asked very shyly if I could explain why he had been asked to come here. He seemed rather surprised to have to talk to as young a person as myself, and said he had expected to meet a Mr. Azariah Benham on some legal matter concerning his father.

The most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do in my life was to break into the matter and tell that boy his father's real name wasn’t Campbell Mason at all, and who he really was. And I don’t remember to this day how I did it. My main impression is the look of perfectly blank dismay that came into his fine blue eyes (so like Uncle's!) when finally he grasped my meaning.

“I think—I’m sure—there must be some mistake!” he stammered. And I was just trying hard to assure him that there wasn’t, when who should appear in the room but Tomkins, who had just driven over from the hospital. He stood stock-still and simply stared at the young fellow, mouth open, eyes wide with amazement, and his hands working convulsively.

“This, Tomkins, is Mr. Anthony Mason, whose real name is Benham!” I announced.

Tomkins wiped his forehead with a big handkerchief and gasped:

“Oh, miss! I’ve had that bad a shock! It’s like as if Mr. Azariah or his brother stood before me, the way they used to look when I first came into their service—the very image, miss!”

Poor Anthony looked more confused than ever at this, and I took compassion on him and said:

“Let’s all go upstairs and see Daddy and Mother and Connie, and get this straightened out. I don’t know what else to say.”

So we went upstairs to find a pretty bewildered audience there, with Connie grinning delightedly among them. But Daddy, who is a lawyer and quick at grasping things and handling situations, got hold of the matter in short order and took young Mr. Mason right under his wing and after a while the muddle began to straighten itself out. None of them could get over the wonder of what Connie and I had accomplished, all by ourselves, and we quite shared the honors of the occasion with Anthony.

But the climax was reached when Tomkins brought out an old miniature of Uncle, painted when he was a young man of about twenty, which had been put away for years. It was Anthony himself, in every feature, even to the straight yellow hair and sensitive mouth. So accurate was the likeness that even Anthony was convinced and began to settle down into the belief of his changed identity.

Tomkins, still all aquiver with excitement, hurried back to the hospital to tell the doctors the wonderful news, and Daddy and Mother suggested that Anthony should come and make his headquarters at our house for a few days, till it could be decided what he was to do. And he seemed very glad to accept their invitation.

When it was all over and they had left us alone, Connie and I clasped each other tight and laughed and cried hysterically, in sheer relief of pent-up feelings.

“Oh, it was worth it! It was worth it all!” sighed Connie at last, mopping her eyes and sinking back with a sigh of content. “I’d do it all over again; yes, I’d be willing to roll down those stairs again and break every bone I possess, to have things turn out like this! And now, if only dear Uncle can understand it all and get well!”

Then came the question of how and when, or whether it would be wise at all, to break the news to Uncle, who remained in the same condition. There were long consultations with doctors and specialists. Some declared the new shock would kill him, others believed that such good news, if he could understand it, might bring about the very change that was desired. At last it was decided to tell him, but not in the ordinary way. And I, much to my consternation, was chosen to be the one to disclose the tale. This was because they knew Uncle was very fond of me and might be less disturbed if I could just tell him quietly than he would if even Tomkins were to try.

I shall never forget the day I went to the hospital to talk to him. I had taken him some fruit and flowers and placed them on the table by his bed. I used to chat with him a while, though never in a way that would need an answer, for he was incapable of making any response. But I would tell him all the simple news of our lives, about how Connie’s ankle was healing and my progress in high school and Baby Ralph’s new double tooth. He always lay and looked at me gravely, and sometimes it seemed as if he tried to smile, though even this faculty had been seriously impaired. But his eyes were never any thing but beautiful and understanding; they made me certain his mind was not affected.

On that day I chatted as usual, though horribly nervous under my calm, well knowing that two doctors and another famous specialist were listening and watching beyond the half-closed door. Presently I said—and I tried to make it sound as casual as if I were speaking of the weather:

“By the way, Uncle, I have some good news for you. We have found that the son of your twin brother, Ashbel, has been living in this country for some years. He is studying at Princeton, and is an awfully nice young fellow. They call him “Anthony Mason, and he has been at Tranquillity for several days, lately—”

I stopped there, for I simply could not go on. I was too frightened at the look in those beautiful blue eyes, that seemed fairly to burn with astonishment and—well, helplessness! All I could add, was:

“I know you’ll be pleased at the news, Uncle! And now I must run away and not tire you by talking any more.”

His eyes followed me as I kissed him and tiptoed away, and there was not the slightest doubt in my mind that he had understood. But the doctors, while praising me for the quiet way in which I had done it, were awfully worried about what the result might be.

We all sat together that night in Connie’s room, Miss Carstair and Anthony and Connie and I, wondering if we should hear anything from the hospital before bedtime. Anthony was taking it all very wonderfully, when one considered the curious position he was in. He was jolly and attractive, yet shy and simple in manner, and we all felt that we had become very fond of him, even in that short time.

“It’s strange, isn’t it,” he had just begun, “that I have never even seen my uncle, yet here I am hanging on the news of his condition as if I’d known him all my life! Why, I never dreamed I had a single living relative until—”

But at that moment the telephone rang and I rushed out to it. I was back the next moment with astounding news.

“Oh! Doctor Sprague has just called up to say that Uncle moved his head, and spoke, not fifteen minutes ago! He said only five words, but they were, ‘I want to see him!” The doctors are sure he means Anthony; and Tomkins is rushing here with the car and they want Anthony to come to the hospital—at once!”

It all seems very strange to look back on now. For Anthony has finished at Princeton and is giving his time to managing the big estate and dairy business, while Uncle sits and basks in the sun in the beautiful garden and hasn’t a care on his mind. Old Cookson recovered and got out of sight as soon as he could leave the hospital. Uncle refused to take any legal steps against him, saying that it would be no satisfaction to him to have Cookson held for his duplicity and deceit. Uncle thought the man’s own conscience would punish him sufficiently and we were all glad to forget him.

On the anniversary of Connie’s accident, Uncle Benham invited us all to Tranquillity to dinner in the evening, not even forgetting Miss Carstair. We found, when we got there, that Anthony, who loves a joke, had bought and hung up a wreath of artificial forget-me-nots over the paneling below the window-seat! It was a delightful reunion, and we all had a jolly time over the delicious dinner that Beulah had cooked, served by a smiling yet important Tomkins who tried in vain to preserve the proper dignity and not to laugh at Anthony’s absurd remarks and comical stories of college.

When the dinner was nearly over and we were cracking nuts and sipping the heavenly fruit punch, Uncle rose from his chair and announced:

“I have a toast to propose, and I suggest that we all drink it standing. To Tranquillity House—with its long-lost heir—and the co-heirs who will share it with him!”

At these words we all stared at him in such bewilderment that he could not restrain a smile. And then he explained:

“The co-heirs, I scarcely need mention, being the Misses Elspeth and Constance Curtis, the two loving, unselfish, and loyal little friends who have always felt this a second home, and through whose clever instrumentality Anthony was restored to us!”

I cannot begin to describe the surprise written on every face but Uncle's and Anthony's. (Anthony had plainly been in the secret.) We learned afterward that Uncle had that day made and executed a will, leaving two thirds of the big estate to Anthony and the remaining one third to us,—who he said had always been to him as his own nieces. But he gave us no time to speak, only repeating, “My friends, to Tranquillity House!”

And so we stood about the table, Uncle's dear face smiling at us from the head and Anthony’s from the foot, with Tomkins radiating benevolence from the background and Beulah grinning at us from the pantry door—and we drank to the prosperity of Tranquillity House!

THE END

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.