The Phantom Yacht

“Sh! Hark!” It was Dick in the lead who, having stopped, turned and held up a warning finger. They had reached the door out of which they had broken a panel the week before.

“What is it? What do you hear?” Nann asked.

“A sort of a scurrying noise,” Dick told her. “Nothing but rats, I guess, but just the same you girls had better wait here until Gib and I have looked around in there. Perhaps you’d better go back to the opening,” he added as, in the dim light, he noted Dories’ pale, frightened face. The younger girl was clutching her friend’s arm as though she never meant to let go. “I’m just as afraid of rats,” she confessed, “as I am of ghosts.”

“We’ll wait here,” Nann said calmly. “Rats won’t hurt us. They would be more afraid of us than even Dori is of them.”

Dick climbed through the hole in the door, followed closely by Gib. Nann, holding a lighted lantern, smiled at her friend reassuringly. Although only a few moments passed, they seemed like an eternity to the younger girl; then Dick’s beaming face appeared in the opening. It was very evident that he had found something which interested him and which was not of a frightening nature. The boys assisted the girls over the heap of debris which held the door shut and then flashed the light around what had once been a handsomely furnished dining-room. Dories’ first glance was toward the sideboard where they had left the painting of the beautiful girl. It was not there.

The boys also had made the discovery. “Which proves,” Dick declared, “that Gib was right about that airplane chap having been here. He must have taken the picture, but why do you suppose he would want it?”

“I guess you’re right,” Dick had been looking behind the heavy piece of mahogany furniture as he spoke, “and, whoever was here has left something. The rats we heard scurrying about were trying to drag it away, to make into a nest, I suppose.”

Arising from a stooping posture, the boy revealed a note book which he had picked up from behind the sideboard.

He opened it to the first page and turned his flashlight full upon it. “Those plaguity little rats have torn half of this page nearly off,” he complained, “but I guess we can fit it together and read the writing on it.”

“October fifteen,” Dick read aloud. Then paused while he tried to fit the torn pieces. “There, now I have it,” he said, and continued reading: “At Mother’s request, I came to her father’s old home, but found it in a ruined state. The natives in the village tell me there is no way to reach the place, as it is in a dangerous swamp, sort of a ‘quick-mud’, all about it, and what’s more, one garrulous chap tells me that the place is haunted. Well, I don’t care a continental for the ghost, but I’m not hankering to find an early grave in oozy mud.”

“I don’t recollect any sech fellow,” Gib put in, but Dick was continuing to read from the note book:

“I didn’t let on who I was. Didn’t want to arouse curiosity, so I took the next train back to Boston. I simply can’t give up. I must reach that old house and give it a real ransacking. Mother is sure her papers are there, and if they are, she must have them.”

The next page revealed a rapidly scrawled entry: “October 16th. Lay awake nearly all night trying to think out a way to visit that old ruin. Had an inspiration. Shall sail over it in an airplane and get at least a bird’s-eye view. Glad I belong to the Boston Aviation Club.

“October 18. Did the deed! Sailed over Siquaw in an aircraft and saw, when I flew low, that there was a narrow channel leading through the marsh and directly up to the old ruin.

“I’ll come in a seaplane next time, with a small boat on board. Mother’s coming soon and I want to find the deed to the Wetherby place before she arrives. It is her right to have it since her own mother left it to her, but her father, I just can’t call the old skinflint my grandfather, had it hidden in the house that he built by the sea. When Mother went back, she asked for that deed, but he wouldn’t give it to her. She told him that her husband was dead and that she wanted to live in her mother’s old home near Boston, but he said that she never should have it, that he had destroyed the deed. He was mean enough to do it, without doubt, but I don’t believe he did it, somehow. I have a hunch that the papers are still there.

“October 20. Well, I went in a seaplane, made my way up that crooked little channel in the swamp. Found more in the ruin than I had supposed I would. First of all, I hunted for an old chest, or writing desk, the usual place for papers to be kept. Located a heavy walnut desk in what had once been a library, but though there were papers enough, nothing like a deed. Had a mishap. Had left the seaplane anchored in a quiet cove. It broke loose and washed ashore. Wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t get it off until change of tide, along about midnight. Being curious about a rocky point, I took my flashlight and prowled around a bit. Saw eight boarded-up cottages in a row, and to pass away the time I looked them over. Was rather startled by two occurrences. First was a noise regularly repeated, but that proved to be only a blind on an upper window banging in the wind. That was the cottage nearest the point. Then later I was sure I saw two white faces in an upper window of a cottage farther along. Sort of surprising when you suppose you’re the only living person for a mile around. O well, ghosts can’t turn me from my purpose. Got back to the plane just as it was floating and made off by daybreak. Haven’t made much headway yet, but shall return next week.”

Dick looked up elated. “There, that proves that Mother did forget to fasten that blind,” he exclaimed. Dories was laughing gleefully. “Nann,” she chuckled, “to think that we scared him as much as he scared us. You know we thought the person carrying a light on the rocks was a ghost, and he, seeing us peer out at him, thought we were ghosts.”

Nann smiled at her friend, then urged Dick continue reading, but Dick shook his head. “Can’t,” he replied, “for there is no more.”

“But he came again,” Nann said. “We know that he did, because he left this little note book.”

“And what is more, he took away with him the painting of his lovely girl-mother,” Dories put in.

Dick nodded. “Don’t you see,” he was addressing Nann, “can’t you guess what happened? When he came and found a panel had been broken in this door and the painting on the sideboard, he realized that he was not the only person visiting the old ruin.”

“Even so, that wouldn’t have frightened him away. He evidently is a courageous chap, shouldn’t you say?” Nann inquired, and Dick agreed, adding: “Well then, what do you think happened?”

It was Gib who replied: “I reckon that pilot fellar found them papers he was lookin’ fer an’ ain’t comin’ back no more.”

“But perhaps he hasn’t,” Nann declared. “Suppose we hunt around a little. We might just stumble on that old deed, but even if we did, would we know how to send it to him?”

Dick had been closely scrutinizing the small note book. “Yes, we would,” he answered her. “Here is his name and address on the cover. He goes to the Boston Tech, I judge.”

“O, what is his name?” Dories asked eagerly.

“Wouldn’t you love to meet him?” the younger girl continued.

“I intend to look him up when I get back to town,” Dick assured them, “and wouldn’t it be great if we had found the papers; that is, of course, if he hasn’t.”

Nann glanced about the dining-room. “There’s a door at the other end. It’s so dark down there I hadn’t noticed it before.”

The boys went in that direction. “Perhaps it leads to the room where the desk is. We haven’t seen that yet.” Dories and Nann followed closely.

Dick had his hand on the knob, when again a scurrying noise within made him pause. “Like’s not all this time that pilot fellar’s been in there waitin’ fer us to clear out.” Gib almost hoped that his suggestion was true. But it was not, for, where the door opened, as it did readily, the young people saw nothing but a small den in which the furniture had been little disturbed, as the walls that sheltered it had not fallen.

One glance at the desk proved to them that it had been thoroughly ransacked, and so they looked elsewhere. “In all the stories I have ever read,” Dories told them, “there were secret drawers, or sliding panels, or – ”

“A removable stone in a chimney,” Nann merrily added. “But I believe that old Colonel Wadbury would do something quite novel and different,” she concluded.

While the girls had been talking, Dick had been flashing his light around the walls. An excited exclamation took the others to his side. “There is the pilot chap’s entrance to the ruin.” He pointed toward a fireplace. Several stone in the chimney had fallen out, leaving a hole big enough for a person to creep through.

“Perhaps he had never been in the front room, then,” Nann remarked.

“I hate to suggest it,” Dories said hesitatingly, “but I think we ought to be going. It’s getting late.”

“I’ll say we ought!” Dick glanced at his time-piece. “Tides have a way of turning whether there is a mystery to ferret out or not. We have all day tomorrow to spend here, or at least part of it,” he modified.

At Gib’s suggestion they went out through the hole in the back of the fireplace. The narrow channel was easily navigated and again they left the punt, as on a former occasion, anchored in the calm waters on the marsh side of the point. Then they climbed over the rocks, and walked along the beach four abreast. They talked excitedly of one phase of what had occurred and then of another.

“You were right, Dick, when you said that the mystery about the pilot of the airplane would be solved today.” Nann smiled at the boy who was always at her side. Then she glanced over toward the island, misty in the distance. “And to think that that girl-mother and her daughter are really coming back to America.”

“Do you suppose they will come in the Phantom Yacht?” Dories turned toward Gib to inquire.

“I don’t reckon so,” that boy replied. “I cal’late we-uns saw the skeleton of the Phantom Yacht over to the island that day we was thar, Miss Nann. A storm came up, Pa said, an’ he allays thought that thar yacht was wrecked.”

“If that’s true, then everyone on board must have been saved,” Nann said. “Of that much, at least, we’re sure.”

The boys left the girls in front of their home-cabin, promising to be back early the next day. On entering the cottage, Dories went at once to her aunt’s room and was pleased to see that she looked rested. A wrinkled old hand was held out to the girl, and, when Dories had taken it, she was surprised to hear her aunt say, “I’m trying to be resigned to my big disappointment, Dories; but even if I do have to live alone all the rest of my days, I’m going to make you and Peter my heirs. Your mother can’t refuse me that.” Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. She tried to speak, but could not.

Her aunt understood, and, as sentimentality was, on the whole, foreign to her nature, she said, with a return of her brusque manner, “There! That’s all there is to that. Please fetch me a poached egg with my toast and tea.”

CHAPTER XXVII

RANSACKING THE OLD RUIN

It was midmorning when the girls, busy about their simple household tasks, heard a hallooing out on the beach. Nann took off her apron, smiling brightly at her friend. “Good, there are the boys!” she exclaimed, hurrying out to the front porch to meet them. Dories followed with their tams and sweater-coats.

“We’ve put up a lunch,” Nann told the newcomers. “Miss Moore said that we might stay over the noon hour. We have told her all about the mystery we are trying to fathom and she was just ever so interested.” They were walking toward the point of rocks while they talked.

Gib leaned forward to look at the speaker. “Say, Miss Dori,” he exclaimed, “Miss Moore’s been here sech a long time, like’s not she knew ol’ Colonel Wadbury, didn’t she now?”

“No, she didn’t know him,” Dories replied. “He was such an old hermit he didn’t want neighbors, but she did hear the story about his daughter’s return and how cruel he had been to her. Aunt Jane wasn’t here the year of the storm. She and her maid were in Europe about that time, so she really doesn’t know any more than we do.”