“Never mind, my dears. It isn’t your fault.”
“But I did so hope something would come of this,” said Terry. “After getting Melissa to admit she had the box, then not to find it!”
“Do you really think she had it?” asked Arden.
“That’s hard to answer,” Terry replied. “I don’t see why she would want to deceive us. She described the cupboard, told how she slipped aboard the houseboat while Dimitri was out in the marsh, painting, and we all know she’s crazy about such objects as that bright and beautiful snuffbox.”
“And to think it may be gone forever,” sighed Sim.
“We’re not going to let it be lost forever!” suddenly declared Arden.
“What are you going to do about it?” challenged Terry.
“I’m going to see to it that a thorough search is made of that shack, in spite of George Clayton!” Arden’s head went up bravely, and there was a determined look in her eyes.
“How?” questioned Terry.
“With the help of the police or that detective woman, Emma Tash!”
“I think it is time you got the authorities more actively interested, my dears,” said Mrs. Landry, who had heard, with some alarm, the actions of the crabber in the matter of the shotgun. “That man must be curbed. He is standing in the way of good to his daughter. If we could get in touch with Emma Tash she might bring some man with her who would proceed in spite of Clayton and his gun. This father of Melissa’s may be just ‘bluffing,’ as the boys say.”
“Didn’t Miss Tash leave you her address?” asked Arden.
“Yes,” Mrs. Landry answered, “she did. But it may take a few days to get in communication with her and get her down here. Instead of her, I would suggest our local chief.”
“Rufus Reilly?” asked Sim. “Oh, my goodness, he and his duck that can’t fly on one leg!”
“Besides,” added Terry, “he claims to have been working on the case, but all he does is to tinker with that old car.”
“Still,” decided Arden, “I think we should go to him again. It is up to him to do something. If we bring another officer here, he would first go to Mr. Reilly. I believe that is police law. So let’s go see our proverb-splitting chief and tell him what happened today. We can say we feel sure the stolen snuffbox is in the shack, and he can get a search warrant if he needs to.”
“I am coming around to your way of thinking, Arden,” admitted Sim. “Perhaps, when the chief hears about Clayton’s gun, it will stir him up to something like fighting rage, and we’ll get some action.”
“Well, then, let’s,” agreed Terry. “It’s too late now, but we’ll get the chief to go to the shack the first thing in the morning.”
However, when morning came, after an anxious night in which no news came of the missing artist, Mrs. Landry decided it might be well to wait for another day.
“Dimitri’s brother may learn something in New York,” she said, “and that may make it needless to go and beard this Clayton boor in his shack.”
“Yes, I suppose waiting another day will do no harm,” Arden agreed. “But I don’t believe Dimitri is in New York or has his box. He would not be where he is, a free agent, without sending some word to his brother Serge, at least, about himself. No, Dimitri is where he can’t get word to his friends.”
“And where do you think that place is?” asked Sim.
Arden shrugged her shoulders in a hopeless negative.
Time hanging heavy on their hands, the girls paid another visit to the houseboat but did not go on board. There was no sign of life about theMerry Janesave for Tania. She was shut up in what amounted to a kennel on the outside narrow deck, where the girls had put her on their last visit. There was plenty of food and water.
Poor Tania whined pitifully when she found that her friends were not coming to see her and departed without taking her with them.
“She misses Dimitri terribly,” said Arden.
“Yes,” agreed Sim.
The day passed and no word came from Serge. Later it developed that he was so frantically going from one to another of the friends of his brother in New York, a fruitless search, that he forgot all about his promise to communicate with the girls.
“Well, this settles it!” declared Arden as they were at breakfast the second day after the visit of Serge. The morning mail had come but brought no news. “I’m going to get the chief and visit Melissa and her father again.”
“Do you mean you’re going with him?” asked Terry.
“Yes. I think we should all go, I mean we three, don’t you, Mrs. Landry?”
“Well, if there’s danger—but then I hardly believe there will be if you have the chief with you. Yes, go, by all means.”
“This is going to be a real expedition!” declared Terry as she drove her chums over to the village, parked their car near the chief’s garage, and walked to where they found the officer still tinkering with his old auto.
“Good-morning, girls,” he greeted them, wiping a smudge of oil off his face. “You see I’m busy as usual, time and tide in a long race, you know,” and the gold tooth grinned at them cheerfully.
“Mr. Reilly, can you come with us at once?” asked Arden in businesslike tones. “There may be an arrest to make.”
“An arrest?” The chief showed new interest.
“Yes. Over at the Clayton shack. It’s quite a story.”
The chief, when he heard it, could not but admit it was. There was a new air about him now. He seemed much more in earnest than at any time since Dimitri Uzlov had been missing at Marshlands.
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes, girls,” the chief said. “Just as soon as I can wash up and pin my badge on. Then we’ll get in my motorboat and ride over to see this Mr. Clayton.”
“How would it be,” suggested Terry, “if you took us back to our dock in your boat and then we picked up our rowboat? You could tow us in that to the Clayton shack.”
“Yes, I could do that,” the chief agreed. “It’s a little ways from here to where my motorboat is docked, and my car isn’t running yet, but a walk won’t hurt none of us.”
“We can all go to your dock in our car,” Terry said.
“Sure enough. Didn’t think of that. Well, we’ll go see this Clayton. So he was going for his gun, was he? I’ll see about that! Don’t give up the ship and keep your powder dry. Be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” He was as good as his word, soon coming out of his garage office with a clean face and a badge on his coat. It did not take long to drive to the dock where the chief kept his motorboat tied. The girls got in and were soon chugging on their way to “Buckingham Palace.” Mrs. Landry was rather surprised to see them back so soon, but agreed, after an explanation had been made, that it would be wise to take two boats.
“You never can tell what may happen,” she said.
“True enough, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow,” chuckled the chief. “My boat isn’t very good to look at, and we might get stalled. In which case a rowboat would be as handy as a pocket on the end of a dog’s tail.”
His craft, if not very presentable, had speed, and they went along rapidly. As they passed close to theMerry Jane, Tania either saw, heard, or scented them, for she began to bark in a friendly way.
“Oh, that poor dog!” exclaimed Arden. “Let’s take her with us!”
“We could,” agreed Sim.
“It might be a good thing,” said Terry. “She’s a sort of hound, you know.”
“And you think maybe she can smell out where Melissa has hid the snuffbox!” chuckled the chief. “But a dog is always a good thing to have on a case like this. Two strings to your rubber boot, you know. We’ll get her.”
Tania was frantic with joy to be among her friends again and curled up on the stern seat with Arden as the chief again started his boat across the bay.
They were not long in coming in sight of the Clayton shack. The chief wasted no time in preliminaries but steered at once for the ramshackle old dock where he made his craft fast. Then he assisted the girls to tie theirs, and they got out, Tania following them and sniffing with her pointed nose in the direction of the gloomy house.
“Perhaps we had better be a bit cautious,” suggested Terry somewhat timidly. “This man may rush out at us.”
“What puzzles me,” said the chief, “is why he hasn’t hailed us before this. Accordin’ to what you told me, he ordered you off before, without you havin’ a chance to set foot on his land.”
“Yes, he did,” said Terry. “It is rather strange no one appears.”
The shack showed no sign of life in or about it.
“I’ll give him a hail,” suggested the chief. And he roared out: “Clayton, where are you? Here’s company! Come out, but if you bring a gun it won’t be healthy for you!”
There was no answer to this challenge.
Tania barked. Still all was silent about the place.
“I’m going in,” the chief suddenly decided. “You girls wait for me here.” He looked to make sure that his badge of office was conspicuous and pushed open the door. It was not locked.
The girls were a little nervous as the chief disappeared inside. But still there was no sound. The silence was almost terrifying. The chief came out in a few minutes to say:
“I can’t seem to find anybody.”
“I think you had better look again and go in every room,” said Arden. Her voice was firm. “There must be someone.”
“All right, I’ll take another look,” assented the chief. “No trouble to show goods and some pitchers go to the well too often.”
Again he disappeared inside the place.
Again portentous silence held them all in its grip.
Chief Reilly came out of the poor little house, a veritable shack it was, shaking his head.
“I suppose,” remarked Sim in an aside to Arden, “he is going to say ‘it’s a long road without a cat in the attic,’ or something equally brilliant.”
“He might,” remarked Terry, “propose that the race is not always to the swift but there are none so blind as those who won’t eat.”
“Meaning what?” asked Arden.
“That we’ve drawn a blank,” said Sim.
She was right. For the first impression, gathered on arrival at the home of the Claytons, that no one was there, was borne out as the chief emerged a second time from an inspection of the premises.
“Can’t find anybody,” he announced with a flourish of his big red hands.
“You mean there’s nobody home?” asked Terry.
“That’s about it,” said Mr. Reilly. “Nobody home. You can’t get anything out of an empty bag except dust, you know.”
“And I suppose there was plenty of dust?” suggested Sim.
“Well, not so much as you’d think for,” said the officer and garage owner. “Melissa must have humped herself, for the old shack was pretty clean. Case of pot calling the kettle black, you know.”
“Poor kid! I guess she had her own troubles,” remarked Arden. “I wonder where her father took her and why?”
“Maybe we’ll know that when we find Dimitri,” suggested Terry.
“If we ever do,” voiced Sim.
“Oh, don’t be Mrs. Gloom!” exclaimed Arden. “Of course we’ll find him.”
“And find out why he painted such a lovely picture of you,” said Terry.
“Silly!” murmured Arden as she blushed beneath her tan. But it was obvious that she was as curious as were her chums about the mysterious portrait.
“Well, I guess we’ve found out all we can here, which is about less than nothing with a hole in the middle,” said the chief, as he came back from a walk about the place. “None of the Claytons are here. Not that there’s many in this branch of the family—jest Melissa and her dad. But they’re gone.”
Suddenly Arden had a thought. She expressed it to Sim and Terry while the chief was looking into a rain-water barrel, as if he might find the missing Dimitri there. Arden said:
“I think we ought to tell him about the policewoman.”
“Emma Tash,” murmured Sim.
“Yes,” said Terry. “I think we had.”
“Mr. Reilly,” began Arden, after receiving this confirmation, “we have something to tell you.”
“You ain’t got that Russian stranger hid away with that there gold snuffbox, have you?” chuckled the chief. “Like a hen on a wet griddle, you know.”
“Oh, he’ll be the death of me,” sighed Sim.
“It’s about Melissa,” said Arden, and then, much to the astonishment of the chief, the girls told him about the visit of the detective woman and the happier prospects for the unfortunate girl.
“I always knowed there was something more than met the eye in them Claytons,” said the chief. “Hum! Melissa with a rich aunt that wants to send her to school and make her into a lady. Well, I hope she does. Melissa is a good girl in spite of being a bit queer. She’s the champion swimmer around here.”
“Maybe she might give me points,” said Sim.
“Oh, yes, she’s a natural swimmer,” went on the chief, taking no notice of this aside. “And a good girl. Loves bright things—birds and flowers. More than once I’ve seen her sitting on a fence where somebody had a garden full of red poppies, looking at ’em to beat the band. Her old man, though—there’s a case! All he cares about are crabs, lobsters, and fish.”
“Did you ever hear,” asked Arden, thinking to confirm what Emma Tash had said, “that Melissa’s mother came of a good family?”
“It wouldn’t have to be very good to beat the Clayton end of it,” said Mr. Reilly. “Yes, Mrs. Clayton was a different breed. Give a dog a bad name and throw him a bone,” he chuckled. “Yes, Melissa’s mother made a bad match of it. I hope this here detective woman can do something for the poor kid.”
“Maybe she has,” said Terry suddenly.
“What do you mean?” asked Sim.
“Maybe Emma Tash has been here without us knowing it and has taken Melissa away,” explained Terry. “That detective woman was smart. She may have come here, met George Clayton and Melissa, and have prevailed on him to let her take the girl. That would account for their being gone now.”
For a moment they were inclined to accept this theory. Then Arden, as usual putting her finger on the critical point, said:
“It wouldn’t account, though, for the barking of Tania.”
For the first time they all realized that the dog was barking with an unusual note in the tone and that she kept it up almost continuously. Up to this moment they had been so engrossed with approaching the shack without inciting George Clayton to the point of desperate resistance that they had not paid much attention to Tania.
Now they noticed that the dog was running about the shack in a most excited manner, scarcely ceasing her growls and barks. And, now that their attention was fixed on her, they saw that she stopped at a certain cellar window and barked there with unusual vigor.
“The barking of Tania,” murmured Sim. “No, the taking away of Melissa by the detective woman, with her father’s consent, and his desertion of his home, would not account for the barking of Tania. Arden, I think we are going to make a discovery—a big discovery.”
“What do you mean?” faltered Terry. “Do you think Dimitri——” She could not finish. She dared not finish. But the others knew what she had in mind.
“Now you speak of it,” said the chief, “that dog is making quite a row. Barking dogs, you know, catch no cats. But we’ll see what’s up.”
“You think, don’t you, Sim,” said Arden, “that there is something in the cellar?”
“I can’t help but think that, from the way Tania acts. Look at her now, barking into the window.”
It was as Sim said. The dog was trying almost to thrust her pointed muzzle into the glass.
“Maybe Clayton and Melissa are hiding there,” said Terry. “You didn’t go down cellar, did you, Mr. Reilly?”
“No, I didn’t. Didn’t see any use. But if you think we’d better, why, I got a flashlight in my boat.”
“I think we had better,” said Arden.
“Then we will. Nothing like eating your cake and having your bread,” the chief declared. “Wait a minute.”
He tried to run down to his motorboat but made a bad job of that, for he only waddled. However, he soon came back with the flashlight. Meanwhile Tania had not ceased her barking. She no longer ran frantically about the shack. She remained at the one window and barked continuously.
“Now, girls,” said the chief as he again started into the house, “there’s no use of you running into any danger. I don’t say thereisdanger but if it’sthereI ain’t going to let you run your pretty necks into no noose. I’m paid for this work and I’ll do it. Nobody can ever say Rufus Reilly let anybody else pull his pancakes out of the ice box. I’ll go down in that cellar alone.”
“But if Clayton is there,” said Arden, “and starts to fight you——”
“I’ve got a gun,” said the chief, showing an automatic. “I can fight as good as the next one if I have to, but I don’t think I’ll have to. If I do, well, you’re outside here to go git help. You know what I mean.” A gold-toothed smile.
“Yes,” said Terry. “If we hear shooting, or any calls for help from the cellar, we’ll take your motorboat and go get assistance. I can run a boat.”
“That’s the idea,” said the chief. “You go right back to town and get Henry Doremus and Ike Tantker. They’re deputy constables, and you can generally find ’em around my garage. If they ain’t there, Ted Rollaby, my mechanic, will tell you what to do. Now I’m goin’ in.”
There was an outside slanting door leading down into the cellar. The chief pulled this up, hooked it into place, and then, with his flashlight in one hand and his automatic in the other, started down the half-rotten wooden steps.
He had no sooner started down than Tania, deserting her barking post at the window, rushed past him and was into the dark musty cellar ahead of him.
“Oh,” murmured Arden, “I’m glad the dog went down.”
“So am I,” said Sim. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to the funny old chief, even if he does drive me crazy with his proverbs.”
“What do you think he’ll find?” asked Terry.
Before either of her chums could hazard a guess they all heard, above the frantic barking of Tania, the chief’s voice shouting:
“I’ve got him! I’ve found him! Here he is, tied up like a bag of potatoes in the cellar. I’ve found Mr. Uzlov!”
Gazing with fear-widened eyes at one another, the three girls waited for what might happen next.
The chief had found the man missing from Marshlands; but in what condition? The worst might have happened, for it was now obvious that Dimitri had been the prisoner of George Clayton ever since the mysterious disappearance from theMerry Jane.
“Oh,” murmured Arden, “if he is——”
She could not finish.
“I—I feel sort of funny,” said Terry.
“Girl, if you pass out on us now I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live!” threatened Sim.
“Oh, I’m all right—I guess,” Terry said. “But——”
She was interrupted by the voice of Chief Reilly coming, muffled, from the cellar.
“Guess maybe you girls had better come down here,” he called. “I might need your testimony for evidence.”
“Oh!” almost shouted Arden. “Is he——”
“Mr. Uzlov is all right. He’s alive, though I can’t say he’s very well,” went on the chief. “He’s bound and gagged and all knocked out, but I can’t see anything very wrong. There’s so many ropes on him I’ll need help in getting them off quick. But I want you to see him so you can testify against this rat of a Clayton. Nasty piece of business, if you ask me.”
The girls could hear Tania now joyously whimpering. The dog no longer barked fiercely. It was evident she was with her beloved master whom she found to be alive, at least.
Thus reassured, the three descended the outside cellar steps. The chief held his torch for them to see, and by its light they noted that he had already started on the work of rescue. A cloth that had been bound around the Russian’s mouth had been taken off. But he was still trussed up.
With a slash of his knife, while Arden held the light, the chief released the roped hands. And as Dimitri rubbed his numbed lips he said weakly:
“So you’ve come at last.”
“Oh, if we had only guessed this before!” exclaimed Arden.
“Still, you are in good time. I am not harmed,” said Dimitri. Then he could talk no longer, for Tania was frantically licking his face.
With the help of the girls, one of whom held the light while the chief and the others loosed the binding strands, Dimitri Uzlov was soon set free. He was a little weak in his legs, but after stamping about managed to regain the use of them and was able to leave the cellar.
He had been found in a sort of closet in one corner, small and dark, with only the cracks around the sealed window for ventilation.
“I seen that shut closet door as soon as I got down here,” said the chief as they all went into the upper sunlight. “I’d ’a’ knowed somebody was in that closet even if the dog hadn’t rushed for it like—well, like a mouse goin’ for cheese in a trap,” he finished.
“It is good to be out again,” said Dimitri as he paused at the top of the steps and took a long deep breath. “I have been in the dark too long.”
“But what happened?”
“How did he get you?”
“Did he harm you?”
“Where is he now, and Melissa?”
The girls’ questions came trippingly.
“I think it is best if I go back to my houseboat and there tell you the story,” said the artist. “Perhaps there is even left some tea—and I should dearly love a cup of tea. This Clayton jailer gave me nothing but coffee. I am so sick of it!”
“There is tea left,” said Arden.
“That is good. I suppose,” and his voice faltered, “that my precious box is not left. They must have taken that.”
“I’m afraid they did,” said Arden.
“Well, it is fate! I am glad at least to be alive,” and Dimitri shrugged his shoulders with resignation.
“You all better get in my boat and leave yours here until later,” said the chief when it was found that Dimitri, after a long drink of water, was able to walk with more ease. “We’ll make better time that way. More haste the quicker you get over it.”
Sim shook her fist at him behind his back.
They all piled into the motorboat, Tania never leaving her master’s side, and in a short time they were at theMerry Jane. After it was seen that Dimitri, though obviously suffering from neglect, was not seriously harmed, it came to Arden’s mind that she and her chums must make a confession.
They had looked at the forbidden picture. It was very likely that Dimitri’s trained vision would detect that the cloth had been removed and put back. Of course, he might think Clayton had done it, but it was better to tell. So Arden said:
“We discovered your secret.”
“My secret?” He appeared not to understand.
“That picture,” she added. “We looked at it.”
The whiteness of Dimitri’s face, blanched by many days of confinement in a dark cellar, was changed to a deep red as he murmured:
“I hope you do not think me too presumptuous.”
“It is lovely!” declared Sim.
“A beautiful picture,” said Terry.
“And you—have you nothing to say in forgiveness?” He was looking straight at Arden.
“Oh, I think it is wonderful,” she said. “There is no need of pardon. But it is too beautiful! I never——”
“It is not half good enough!” he interrupted. “It was only from memory. Perhaps you will do me the honor to sit for me that I may properly complete it.”
“If Daddy and Mother consent,” she said.
“As if they wouldn’t!” said Sim.
They were at the houseboat now. It seemed silent and deserted, but the chief said:
“Might as well take precautions. Nobody ever yet died of a broken neck by drinking milk. I’ll go aboard first.”
“And if he utters another of his famous sayings I’ll choke him with my handkerchief!” hissed Sim.
The silence of Tania as they approached close to theMerry Janewas fairly conclusive evidence that no strangers were aboard. They walked confidently up the little gangplank and, allowing Dimitri to take the lead, followed him into the living room.
He went through the curtains to the broken cupboard, and as they all stood grouped behind him they saw him, after a moment of hesitation, put his hand in and take out an object. Then they heard his delighted cry:
“Here it is! My box! And not harmed in the least. Wait!”
Quickly he pressed the spring, took out the key, and wound up the mechanism. Suddenly the jeweled bird began to sing. A fairy hymn of victory.
“But how did it get here?” asked Arden.
“The mystery is solved—but how?” questioned Terry.
“This has got my goat,” admitted the chief. “There’s no fool like a spring chicken,” he added, showing his gold tooth in a wide grin.
“I think this may explain matters,” remarked Dimitri as he again put his hand into the shattered cupboard and brought out several sheets of paper. He glanced over them and said: “It is a confession from this George Clayton—he who caught me and held me prisoner. It perhaps tells everything, my friends.”
It did. George Clayton, crabber, lobsterman, and fisher, proved to be more of a scholar than anyone had ever suspected. He wrote a good hand, though some of the words were rather shaky.
“‘First of all,’”the written sheets revealed,“‘I want to let the girls, who were kind to my Melissa, know that she is in good hands. Melissa had nothing to do with me catching Mr. Uzlov. After I got him she wanted me to let him go, but I wouldn’t. Melissa is a good girl. I’m going to let her aunt have her and bring her up right. A woman named Emma Tash came to my place the other day, though I told her to get out, but she didn’t.’”
“Emma Tash just wouldn’t do that a second time,” said Terry, recalling the crabbing party.
“‘So I had a talk with her,’”Dimitri read on from the letter,“‘and I decided it wasn’t right to Melissa to keep her here with me. Not that I’m going to be here any more. I’m leaving. But before I left I told this Emma Tash she could take Melissa and bring her up the way her aunt wants her brought up. So that woman took her off.’”
“Then the poor child will have something in life after all,” murmured Arden. “I’m so glad!”
“She may even become a champion swimmer,” suggested Sim.
“Oh, you and your swimming,” laughed Terry. “Let’s find out about the snuffbox.”
“That’s right here,” said Mr. Uzlov. He read on:
“‘Melissa has always been different from other girls. Mrs. Landry and the three young ladies know that. One day Melissa came home to me with this gold box that I’m leaving back in your cupboard. She told me she had broken open your cupboard and taken it from your houseboat, Mr. Uzlov. Melissa always loved bright things. Well, I was struck all of a heap when I saw she had it. I didn’t know what to do. In a way it was stealing, but not for Melissa. She didn’t mean to steal it. She just couldn’t help taking it once she saw it. I love my daughter. Nobody shall ever say I don’t. Anyhow, here’s your gold box back and I’m going to clear out and Melissa has gone with that good detective woman. That’s all. From George Clayton.’”
There was a little silence following the reading of the strange letter.
“But it isn’t all,” said Arden, looking at Dimitri. “How did he get you and hold you a prisoner?”
“I suppose that is my part to explain,” said Dimitri. “Well, it shall not take me long. First we shall begin with Olga.”
“Who is she?” burst out Sim impulsively.
“She is my talented but spendthrift sister,” said Dimitri with a little embarrassed laugh. “She always claimed to have an interest, and right, in the snuffbox, which once belonged to the late lamented Czar, but that was not so. I mean she had no interest in it. That box was mine alone. That is what we often quarreled about. My brother Serge, with whom you say you got in touch, can bear me out in this. I sent for him when Olga became—well, rather troublesome,” he said with a smile.
“So,” he resumed, “one day I came back here, after having been out in the marsh sketching, to find my cupboard broken open and my box gone. I was thunderstruck. Of course I suspected my sister. But before I had time to do anything, this Clayton man came on board with the box. He said his daughter had taken my treasure, as she often did with bright things, not knowing their value, and he had come to restore it. He asked me not to have her arrested or to prosecute her as he would give me the box back.
“But there I made a mistake.” Again Dimitri shrugged his expressive shoulders. “I was naturally resentful at being robbed, even by poor Melissa, who, I understand, is not wholly responsible. So I flared up and said the guilty must be punished; that the law must take its course. Yes, we Russians are too temperamental—I admit that. I said I would see that no real harm came to the girl but that she must be sent away and taught to do the right.”
“He didn’t like that, not for a cent, and it takes ten shillings to make a pound,” interpolated Mr. Reilly.
“You are right,” agreed Dimitri, evidently not bored by this cross quotation. “At once Mr. Clayton, what you call, flared up. Before I could avoid him, he had attacked me. He is a big man. He had me at a disadvantage, and before I could do anything he had put part of a fish net over my head, for all the world like the old Roman gladiators.” He laughed a little, for he had brewed some tea in his samovar, and the sipping of it appeared to revive him more than anything else. “So he had me helpless.”
“But Tania,” interrupted Sim. “Where was she?”
“He must have suddenly planned his attack,” resumed Dimitri, “for when he carried me away, half unconscious as I was, I dimly saw Tania tied and lying on the deck. He must, a little while before, have given her some drugged meat. He didn’t take time to make friends with her and entice her away.”
“But just what did Clayton do to you?” asked Terry.
“He threatened after the net was over me, to take me away and keep me away if I did not promise to let Melissa go unharmed. I would not promise. I felt it was for the girl’s own good that I be instrumental in sending her to some institution. I was stubborn. He grew very angry. I tried to hit him. He hit me. It all went black before my eyes, and when I awoke, I was bound and my mouth was tied, in the place where you found me.”
“Oh, how terrible,” said Arden.
“Such a brute!” declared Terry.
“You should have shouted for help,” argued Sim.
“I tried to, dear young lady, but one cannot shout with one’s mouth bundled up like a muff. So I remained a prisoner. At times the man came down to me and opened my mouth that I might eat, but he stood over me with a gun so I dared not shout. But his place is so isolated that it would have done no good if I had. Each time he said he would let me go if I would promise. But I would not promise. I assure you we Russians are very stubborn.” Even now he seemed proud of it, and the girls rather liked him for it.
“You couldn’t trick him out of it?” asked Mr. Reilly.
“Trick?” Dimitri questioned.
“I mean promise and then get out and later do as you pleased.”
“The Uzlovs never do that, sir! I beg of you! Yes!”
“Oh, well, all right. You can’t go two ways at the same time,” said the chief, grinning. “What else happened?”
“Nothing. I stayed in the cellar closet. Clayton maintained me bound and gagged as you saw. Once he came to me to say he had gone back to my boat to restore my beautiful box. But, as he was about to put it in the broken cupboard, he was surprised by you girls and my brother Serge coming on board. So Clayton leaped over the rail in great haste. I suppose you did not then see him or my box?”
“We heard a noise,” said Terry, “and saw a man jump off your boat, but we didn’t even guess who was leaving theMerry Janein such a rush. And to think at that time the snuffbox was on the point of being given back. If we only had known!”
“Perhaps it is as well,” said Dimitri with rather a wan smile. “If the box had been put back then, and my sister Olga, she of the so spendthrift habits, had paid another visit, she might have then taken it. And if she knew this Clayton had it, without doubt she would have so raged at him that she would have secured it. So it is all well as it is. Also Mr. Clayton told me something else. It seems my beautiful but desperate sister tried to bribe poor Melissa, with auto rides and some money and trinkets, to get the box for her. But that plot did not quite come off. It may have been Olga’s talk, speaking of my box in the cupboard, that caused Melissa to take it for herself.”
“And she got your tie pin, also,” said Arden.
“Oh, yes, but I have that back.” He showed it to them. “Mr. Clayton gave it to me. He said his daughter had picked it up off the floor in my paint room. It is very possible. Poor Melissa!”
“But how did Clayton and his daughter come to go away and leave you tied in the cellar?” asked the chief. “If it hadn’t been for the way your dog barked, we might never have found you.”
“Oh, yes. That I can explain. Good Tania!” He pulled her silky ears. “Only last night,” Dimitri went on, “Mr. Clayton came to my prison cell and told me he was then leaving to go to theMerry Janeand, under the cover of darkness, restore my box.”
“And he did!” exclaimed Sim. “Some virtue in him, anyhow.”
“Yes,” agreed the artist. “Also he told me that matters were all now settled. He did not require any promise from me, for he told me his daughter was going away with her aunt and he would separate from her. Perhaps that is not so?” He looked questioningly at the girls.
“Oh, yes, that part is true,” said Arden.
“I am so glad. The poor child! Well, Mr. Clayton went on to say that he was shuffling off, as he expressed it, though why shuffle, I do not know. Nevertheless, he said he and his daughter were going away. But he felt he had to protect himself. So he said he would not release me then. But when he was safely far enough away, he would telephone to you, sir, the head of the Metropolitan Police here, and tell you to come and unbind me.” Dimitri bowed to Mr. Reilly.
“First I heard about that,” said the chief. “I didn’t get no telephone call. Out of sight sours no cream.”
“Maybe a message has come since you started out with us,” suggested Sim.
“Maybe it has; better late than never get to the fair.”
“Oh——” Sim began, but she repressed herself.
“So you see how it all happened,” concluded Dimitri. “I was taken unawares, kept prisoner even when my lovely box was restored, and all because I was such a stickler for a principle. Yes, we Russians are very stubborn. But, to say the truth, I was on the point of agreeing to what Mr. Clayton wanted me to, about not being instrumental in having his daughter sent away, when he told me he had arranged for my release, so it is just as well. I have my pride left.”
“But you must have suffered,” said Terry.
“One must always suffer for one’s pride. Yes?”
There was little else to tell. TheMerry Janeseemed like her old self again with Dimitri and Tania on board. The Russian drank more tea and offered glasses to his guests.
“What are you thinking of, Arden?” asked Sim, noticing that her chum was scarcely sipping her tea and had a dreamy far-away look in her eyes.
“I was wondering,” came the answer, and Arden addressed Dimitri, “if you were down in the cellar of the Clayton shack the time we went to it, with your brother and Melissa, to get the box she said she had. Did you hear us talking or moving around up above you?”
“No, I can’t say I did,” the Russian replied. “But that is easily accounted for. I dozed or slept much of the time. More than once I think Clayton put some quieting potion in my food or drink, for I seemed always to have a heavy, sleepy feeling. No, I didn’t know how near you were.”
“If we had only known then,” said Terry, “we could have made a thrilling rescue. But we didn’t. Or if we had taken Tania she would have discovered you. A pity we didn’t.”
“Yes,” agreed Arden.
“Please do not reproach yourselves,” said Dimitri. “I am too much in your debt to allow that. It is all over now.”
“Another thing I wonder about,” said Arden. “You know when we went to the shack with Melissa after she promised to restore the box, and it wasn’t where she said she had hidden it, she was, or appeared to be, greatly surprised. I wonder if she was acting or if she knew her father had taken the treasure?”