The Phantom Yacht

Dick was optimistic. “He’ll keep ahead of the fog all right, and those high-powered machines travel so fast he’ll be at the landing place, outside of Boston, before it’s really dark. He’s safe enough, but the big question is, who is he, and what was he doing over there close to the old ruin?”

“Maybe he knows about that opening in the swamp,” Nann ventured.

“I bet ye he does! Like’s not he has a little boat and goes up to the ol’ ruin in it.”

“But where do you suppose his airship was anchored?” Dories inquired. “Probably in the cove beyond the marsh,” Dick replied, when Gib broke in with, “Gee, I sure sartin wish we’d taken a chance and gone out in the punt. I sure do. I’d o’ gone, but Dick, he was afraid!”

The city lad flushed, but he said at once, “You are wrong, Gib, but I promised my mother that I would only go out in your punt when the tide was low, and when I give my word, she knows that she can depend upon it.”

“You are right, Dick. It is worth more to have your mother able to trust you, when you are out of her sight, than it is to solve all the mysteries that ever were or will be.” Nann’s voice expressed her approval of the city lad. Gib’s only comment was, “Wall, how kin we go at low tide? It comes ’long ’bout midnight!”

“What if it does? We can – ” Dick had started to say, but interrupted himself to add, “’Twouldn’t be fair to go without the girls since they found the opening in the swamp. It will be low tide again tomorrow noon, and I vote we wait until then.”

“O, Dick, that’s ever so nice of you! We girls are wild to go.” Nann fairly beamed at him.

“Wall, so long. We’ll see you ’bout noon tomorrow.” This from Gib. Dick waved his cap and smiled back over his shoulder.

“I can hardly wait,” Nann said, as the two girls went into the cabin. “I feel in my bones that we’re going to find clues that will solve all of the mysteries soon.”

CHAPTER XX

ONE MYSTERY SOLVED

A glorious autumn morning dawned and Dories sat up suddenly. Shaking Nann, she whispered excitedly: “I hear it again.”

“What? The ghost? Was he ringing the bell?” This sleepily from the girl who seemed to have no desire to waken, but, at her companion’s urgent: “No, not the bell! Do sit up, Nann, and listen. Isn’t that the airplane coming back? Hark!”

Fully awake, the other girl did sit up and listen. Then leaping from the bed, she ran to the window that overlooked the wide expanse of marsh.

“Yes, yes,” she cried. “There it is! It’s flying low, as though it were going to land, and it’s heading straight for the old ruin. Get dressed as quickly as you can.”

“But why?” queried the astonished Dories. “We can’t get any nearer than we did yesterday; that is, not by land, and the tide is high again, and so we can’t go out in the punt.”

Nann did not reply, but continued to dress hurriedly, and so her friend did likewise.

“I don’t know why it is,” the former confided a moment later, “but I feel in my bones that this is the day of the great revelation.”

“Not according to the yellow messages. They would tell us that in seven days we would know all.” Dories was brushing her brown hair preparing to weave it into two long braids.

“But, as I told you before,” Nann remarked, “I don’t believe the papers refer to the old ruin mystery at all. In fact, I think the ghost that writes the message on the papers does not even know there is an old ruin mystery.”

“Well, you’re a better detective than I am,” Dories confessed as she tied a ribbon bow on the end of each braid. “I haven’t any idea about anything that is happening.”

The girls stole downstairs and ran out on the beach, hoping to see the airplane, but the long, shining white beach was deserted and the only sound was the crashing of the waves over the rocks and along the shore, for the tide was high.

“I wonder if Dick and Gib heard the plane passing over their town?” Dories had just said, when Nann, glancing in the direction of the road, exclaimed gleefully, “They sure did, for here they come at headlong speed this very minute.” The big, boney, white horse stopped so suddenly when it reached the sand that both of the boys were unseated. Laughingly they sprang to the beach and waved their caps to the girls, who hurried to meet them.

“Good morning, boys!” Nann called as soon as they were near enough for her voice to be heard above the crashing of the waves. “I judge you also saw the plane.”

“Yeah! We’uns heerd it comin’ ’long ’fore we saw it, an’ we got ol’ Spindly out’n her stall in a twinklin’, I kin tell you.”

The city lad laughed as though at an amusing memory. “The old mare was sound asleep when we started, but when she heard that buzzing and whirring over her head, she thought she was being pursued by a regiment of demons, seemed like. She lit out of that barn and galloped as she never had before. Of course the airplane passed us long ago, but that gallant steed of ours was going so fast that I wasn’t sure that we would be able to stop her before we got over to the island.”

Gib, it was plain, was impatient to be away, and so promising to report if they found anything of interest, the lads raced toward the point of rocks, while the girls went indoors to prepare breakfast. Dories found her Great-Aunt Jane in a happier frame of mind than usual. She was sitting up in bed, propped with pillows, when her niece carried in the tray. And when a few moments later the girl was leaving the room, she chanced to glance back and was sure that the old woman was chuckling as though she had thought of something very amusing. Dories confided this astonishing news item to Nann while they ate their breakfast in the kitchen. “What do you suppose Aunt Jane was thinking about? It was surely something which amused her?” Dories was plainly puzzled.

Nann smiled. “Doesn’t it seem to you that your aunt must be thoroughly rested by this time? I should think that she would like to get out in the sunshine these wonderful bracing mornings. It would do her a lot more good than being cooped up indoors.”

Dories agreed, commenting that old people were certainly queer. It was midmorning when the girls, having completed their few household tasks, again went to the beach to look for the boys. The tide was going out and the waves were quieter. Arm in arm they walked along on the hard sand. Dories was saying, “Aunt Jane told me that she would like to read to herself this morning. I was so afraid that she would ask me to read to her. Not but that I do want to be useful sometimes, but this morning I am so eager to know what the boys are doing. I wish they would come. I wonder where they went.”

“I think I know,” Nann replied. “I believe they are lying flat on the big smooth rock on which we sat that day Gibralter told us the story of the Phantom Yacht. You recall that we had a fine view of the old ruin from there.”

“But why would they be lying flat?” Dories, who had little imagination, looked up to inquire.

“So that they could observe whoever might enter the old ruin without being observed, my child.”

“But, Nann, why would anyone want to get into that dreadful place unless it was just out of curiosity, which, of course, is our only motive.”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” the older girl had to confess, adding: “That is a mystery that we have yet to solve.”

Suddenly Nann laughed aloud. “What’s the joke?” This from her astonished companion. Since Nann continued to laugh, and was pointing merrily at her, Dories began to bristle. “Well, what’s funny about me? Have I buttoned my dress wrong?”

The other maid shook her head. “It’s something about your braids,” she replied.

“Oh, I suppose I put on different colored ribbons. I remember noticing a yellow one near the red.” She swung both of the braids around as she spoke, but the ribbon bows were of the same hue. Tossing them back over her shoulder, she said complacently: “This isn’t the first of April, my dear. There’s nothing the matter with my braids and so – ” But Nann interrupted, “Isn’t there? Unbeliever, behold!” Leaping forward, she lifted a braid, held it in front of her friend, and pointed at a bit of crumpled yellow paper. Dories laughed, too.

“Well,” Nann exclaimed, “that proves to my entire satisfaction that a supernatural being does not write the notes and hide them just where we will be sure to find them.”

“But who do you suppose does write them?” Dories asked. “This morning I’ve been close enough to four people to have them slip that folded paper in my hair ribbon. Their names are Nann Sibbett, Great-Aunt Jane, Gibralter Strait and Dick Moore. Dick, of course, is eliminated because he was nowhere about when the messages first began to appear. It isn’t your hand-writing,” the speaker was closely scrutinizing the note, “and, as for Gib, I’m not sure that he can write at all.” Then a light of conviction appeared in her eyes. “Do you know what I believe?” she turned toward her friend as one who had made an astonishing discovery. “I believe Great-Aunt Jane writes these notes and that she gets up out of bed when we are away from home and hides them.”

Nann laughed. “I agree with you perfectly. I suspected her the other day, but I didn’t want to tell you until I was more sure. But why do you suppose she does it – if she does?”

Dories shook her head, then she exclaimed: “Now I know why Aunt Jane was chuckling to herself when I looked back. She had just slipped the folded paper into my hair ribbon, I do believe.”

“The next thing for us to find out is when and why she does it?” The girls had stopped at the foot of the rocks and Nann changed the subject to say: “I wonder why the boys don’t come. It’s almost noon. We’ll have to go back and prepare your Aunt Jane’s lunch.” She turned toward the home cottage as she spoke. Dories gave a last lingering look up toward the tip-top rock. “Maybe they have been carried off in the airplane,” she suggested.

“Impossible!” Nann said. “It couldn’t depart without our hearing.”

When they reached the cabin, Dories whispered, “I’ve nine minds to show Aunt Jane the notes and watch her expression. I am sure I could tell if she is guilty.”

“Don’t!” Nann warned. “Let her have her innocent fun if she wishes.” Then, when they were in the kitchen making a fire in the wood stove, Nann added, “I believe, my dear girl, that there is more to the meaning of those messages than just innocent fun. I believe your Aunt Jane is going to disclose to you something far more important than the solving of the ruin mystery. She may tell you where the fortune is that your father should have had, or something like that.”

Dories, who had been filling the tea-kettle at the kitchen pump, whirled about, her face shining. “Nann Sibbett,” she exclaimed in a low voice, “do you really, truly think that may be what we are to know in seven days? O, wouldn’t I be glad I came to this terrible place if it were? Then Mother darling wouldn’t have to sew any more and you and I could go away to school. Why just all of our dreams would come true.”

“Clip fancy’s wings, dearie,” Nann cautioned as she cut the bread preparing to make toast. “Usually I am the one imagining things, but now it is you.”

Dories looked at her aunt with new interest when she went into her room fifteen minutes later with the tray, but the old woman, who was again lying down, motioned her to put the tray on a small table near and not disturb her. As Dories was leaving the room, her aunt called, “I won’t need you girls this afternoon.”

“Just as though she divined our wish to go somewhere,” Nann commented, a few moments later, when Dories had told her.