Download - Melody Lane #6 The Dragon of the Hills
THE DRAGON OF THE HILLS
MELODY LANE MYSTERY STORIES
The Ghost of Melody Lane
The Forbidden Trail
The Tower Secret
The Wild Warning
Terror at Moaning Cliff
The Dragon of the Hills
The Mystery of Stingyman’s Alley
The Secret of the Kashmir Shawl
The Hermit of Proud Hill
MELODY LANE MYSTERY STORIES
DRAGON OF THE
HILLS
BY
LILIAN GARIS
ILLUSTRATED BY
PELAGIE DOANE
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1936 by
GROSSET & DUNLAP, INC.
The Dragon of the Hills
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I GREY EYES 1
II LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS 8
III PERFUME OF MYSTERY 17
IV THE NIGHT PROWLER 29
V THE FLEETING BREATH 36
VI CONFUSION 44
VII EVEN AT MELODY LANE 52
VIII BACK TO BRAMBLE HILL 59
IX STRANGE AROMA 69
X AN UNEXPECTED CALLER 79
XI SUSPICIONS 89
XII SEARCHING 98
XIII GETTING AT IT 107
XIV THE PROBLEM OF JEANETTE 115
XV VANISHED 123
XVI PRISCILLA’S SECRET 133
XVII DETECTIVE CAROL 141
XVIII UNDER FIRE 149
XIX THE DESERTED CAMP 160
XX BOB WHITE 169
XXI DANGER 178
XXII CAPTIVE 184
XXIII TO THE RESCUE 196
XXIV THE “DRAGON” DISCOVERED 204
XXV THE OLD SCARF 215
XXVI WHAT REALLY HAPPENED 223
1
DRAGON OF THE HILLS
CHAPTER I
GRAY EYES
With a sense of real disappointment Carol
Duncan turned her little green roadster toward the
hills of Millford, the territory so isolated from
Melody Lane and other active villages, that the spot,
although beautiful by nature, was considered sinister
by reputation.
Carol was disappointed because Isabel Bennet,
her friend out at Brighton Rock whom she had been
visiting, could not drive in to Melody Lane with her.
At the very last minute Isabel received a message
that obliged her to change her plans and certainly
she was quite as disappointed as was Carol.
“Can’t you possibly wait another day, Carol?”
Isabel urged. “Cecy may be glad to run her party
without the big sister,” Isabel joked, in trying to hold
Carol from taking that solitary trip.
“She might be,” Carol answered, “but she isn’t.
No, Belle, I’ve got to be there to ring the curfew.
Cecy is pretty young, you know, and she has some
very lively friends even younger. They might take a
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notion to make bonfires, or something. So I’ll be
going.”
Facing the long lonely drive so near nightfall,
when the very best time her car could make would
take all of two hours, Carol waved to her friend and
was off.
Being the older sister of Cecy, and having no
mother for so many years (although a fond father
had brought up his two girls a credit to all
concerned), Carol Duncan did not alter a decision
without real cause. And what if Belle couldn’t drive
in with her? There were no bandits nor mountain
lions in the hills, so why shouldn’t she dash on
home to be there to superintend Cecy’s party?
“But it would have been such fun to have Belle”
she could not help thinking. “Besides, we really
needed her for the party. Why do city relatives
always feel that country folks’ summers are
especially mapped out for their own impulsive
visits? As if that old uncle of Belle’s thought his
visit would bring joy to the whole countryside. But
Belle knows her Uncle Ben best, of course, so she
just had to be there when he arrived.”
Guiding her car cautiously over the heavy dirt
surface, where taxes had not yet been applied for the
general highway improvements, Carol tried not to
see the heavy shadows settling so suddenly on the
evergreen trees that shrouded the uncertain strip of
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road. Cheerful and happy as any girl in her teens
might hope to be, Carol had already proved herself
capable of handling dangerous situations, and what
was a lonely ride on a late summer afternoon if not
the promise of adventure?
A snarling rumble from far away, unmistakably
thunder, brought the first real threat of danger. It had
been unseasonably hot for days, and the heavy air
could do most anything reckless if touched off by a
sudden change with tornado-like winds. Carol
stopped her car instantly to put up the summer top,
and fasten the curtains which offered some
protection although they were not waterproof.
No longer even thinking of what might happen
along that road, where no gas stations cheered the
way, the girl at the wheel bent every effort to get
over the hills and into the farm house section before
the storm should break.
Shooting past better looking side-roads she did
not dare venture to turn in one, as that would make
her so much later; besides there was no telling how
long the big storm might last. Thunder now crashed
and cracked and lightning flashed through the trees
like spurts of fire, and even Carol, not really afraid
of most storms, could not have denied that she was
afraid of this one.
“If only I can get over to Bramble Hill,” she was
thinking, “I know there are a few houses there.”
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Then the rain came in blinding sheets, completely
wiping out the last remnant of daylight, and Carol
quickly switched on her car lights, just as another
car shot past her, too near and going too fast to make
her feel better for the momentary company of
another person also “trying to beat the storm.”
“I wish I hadn’t ‘phoned Cecy I was coming.
They will be worried to death,” she was thinking.
A blinding flash of lightning and a crackling of
nearby thunder caused Carol to push on the brake.
“Oh!” she screamed. Then a tree, with a few
warning snaps, fell almost in her very path.
How she dragged that tree from the road, and
how she managed to edge her car past it without
going headlong into the deep country ditch Carol did
not want to know. But again she was on her way
with a sigh of relief that the tree had not been very
large and that she had not been drenched to the skin
in dragging it away.
“And there’s Bramble Hill,” she was telling
herself. “At least I can stop there some place until
this blinding rain lets up.”
A sudden shift in the wind, coming straight from
the North with a drop in the temperature that felt
like a cold blast, gave Carol assurance that the torrid
spell was broken. But the rain continued to pour
down and now the wind drove it in cold sheets
through her car curtains and in at the sides where the
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roadster was not exactly storm proof.
In a few moments she was not only soaking wet
but very cold. She had a coat under the rumble seat
but to get that would mean a thorough drenching.
“There’s a house!” she breathed gratefully. “I’ll
go up there and mend my sails. There’s always a
driving-in shed around country houses; one good
thing.”
Intent upon her hoped-for relief, Carol Duncan
drove into the lane that led to a queer old house
quite hidden amid the trees. As she expected, there
was a shed, but also, what she could not have hoped
for, there was built out from this shed at the front
steps an arched covering, almost the porte-cochère
of better days.
“Swell!” Carol was saying almost aloud. “And
actually a little run-board up to the porch. I don’t
even have to climb steps.”
Quickly as she could slip from the wet car up to
the door, where, in spite of the porch, the rain was
being lashed by the strong wind, she found herself
facing a printed sign:
“No Admittance.”
“No admittance,” she repeated vaguely. “But that
must be for trades’ people. I’ll just knock—no
there’s a bell.”
Giving the old-fashioned handle a twist, she
heard a heavy bell answer and then sounded a fierce
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barking.
“Oh, a dog! I might better have gone on—”
But before she had time to regret, the door was
opened on a chain and the face of a girl, a child
really, appeared.
“Oh!” the girl gasped. “I’m sorry but I can’t
ask—you in!” The great gray eyes looked out kindly
at Carol who felt something must be wrong, very
wrong behind the chained door, to make that girl
refuse her admittance.
“Someone sick?” Carol asked.
“Oh no, not exactly, but— Wait, you’re soaking
wet! Wait a minute, please,” and the door was
closed, chain and all.
Carol couldn’t turn away: she felt obliged to wait
as the girl had asked, but now she was more soaking
wet than ever. After all, she might have gone on
driving, she realized. Just to get her coat out of the
back of the car did not necessitate this much trouble.
But how could she have driven to a person’s door
without saying why she had come?
The chain rattled harshly as the door was again
opened, and “Gray Eyes” appeared.
“Come in—in here,” invited the timid voice.
“There’s a little seat.” She had opened an outer door
and Carol was now standing in a small enclosure
like a shed with a bench along the side. “The storm
is not over yet,” said Gray Eyes. “You had better
7
wait,” for she guessed that Carol was not inclined to.
“Sometimes the worst part is at the end,” said the
girl.
Confused at the girl’s strange manner, Carol felt
she could do no less than to wait a few minutes in
that hot-box, which, being shut so tight, had not yet
cooled off. She reluctantly sat down on the narrow
strip of bench thinking: “It’s hot enough to dry me
out a little,” and saying to the girl whose face still
filled the inner door crack:
“Thank you. Perhaps I had better wait a few
minutes.”
And she waited. She heard the girl’s voice
evidently talking to the dog, for a heavy bark was
answering. She could see a tiny light through the
small piece of glass in the door that made her feel
like a prisoner in a real dungeon.
“Whatever can all these precautions mean?” she
wondered, when a terrible explosion of thunder
shook the house and again brought Gray Eyes to the
door.
“Oh, come inside!” she begged Carol. “It—it will
be all right. Wasn’t—that—terrible!”
“I can wait here. I’m not afraid,” Carol answered.
“Oh, no, please come in,” the girl entreated. “I am
sure it will be all right,” and she held the inner door
wide open while she gestured for Carol to enter.
8
CHAPTER II
LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
The girl motioned Carol to a chair.
“Do sit down,” she murmured, but Carol was not
inclined to. There seemed nothing unusual about the
room, except its quaint beauty, for the rug on the
floor was an exquisite hand-made hooked, and the
chairs were upholstered in needlepoint. All this
Carol saw at a glance.
“Are you all alone?” she asked, feeling that that
might be the reason the girl did not wish to admit
any one, not even another girl.
“Oh, no. My grandmother—is—here,” almost
whispered Gray Eyes, but Carol saw no one.
Sensing that the grandmother must be in a rear
room on the first floor, Carol decided to leave, storm
or no storm, so she said:
“I really must go, thank you. I have quite a long
drive and it’s getting dark. Thank you for asking me
in—”
“If you need anything,” the girl interrupted rather
too willingly, “there’s a tea shop at the next turn. A
9
girl keeps it and—”
“Oh, yes, I’ll stop there if I need anything,” Carol
helped her out. “You see, it was pouring so I had to
drive under shelter to get my coat from the back of
the car and then I felt I should tell you why I had
come in, so that’s why I rang,” she added. It gave
her a very queer feeling to know she was
unwelcome, and it was perfectly plain the girl was
anxious to have her go.
A scraping sound upstairs gave the gray-eyed girl
a start. Carol turned quickly to leave. But as the girl
again opened the door she gave Carol an irresistible
look of appeal or perhaps apology. Impulsively
Carol asked:
“Can’t I know your name? I might meet you
again sometime, I hope I may. My name is Carol
Duncan and I live in Melody Lane.”
“Oh, Melody Lane!” exclaimed the girl
brightening. “I’ve heard of that place.” She stopped
and listened again to the scratching on boards,
apparently near the kitchen.
“And your name?” pressed Carol.
“I’m Priscilla Hunt,” she said finally, her restless
hands clinging strangely to the dangling door chain.
“Well, good-bye Priscilla, and thank you,” said
Carol finally not sorry to be outside again, even if
the rain was still drizzling.
“Oh!” she breathed in relief. “I felt trapped in that
10
place. And yet— Perhaps I was nervous from the
storm in spite of myself,” she reasoned, as she
guided her car out of the lane. The low branches of
the trees, brushing the top, sent down a heavy
shower of the imprisoned rain. “I’m glad to see that
sunset light,” Carol continued to reassure herself.
“It isn’t quite night after all.”
Then she thought of the wayside shop Priscilla
Hunt had mentioned, and decided to take that next
turn where she could see the sign and get herself a
cup of tea.
“I seem to need it,” she concluded, although she
knew very well that she, Carol Duncan, never really
needed a cup of tea or anything else to restore her
courage.
At the sign she stopped. It read:
“The Dragon Tea Shop,” and an arrow pointed
the way. The sign was most unusual, for a country
place like Bramble Hill, Carol saw, for it was large
and artistically painted, a flaming yellow dragon on
a jade-green back-ground in the Chinese manner.
“Like Dad’s big yellow vase,” she thought. “And
it is actually built under a wooden hood to protect it.
That artist must have been practical. I thought they
never were.”
As she drew up to the quaint tea shop, near the
door of which was a smaller dragon sign done in the
same coloring, Carol was glad to see a determined
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sunset seeping through the drenched trees. The
countryside at Bramble Hill was a lonely enough
place but when it rained it was gloomy indeed.
The long, low, shingled bungalow that was the
tea shop had all its pretty bright cretonned chairs
stacked back against the porch sides, but the brilliant
yellow awnings made a lovely spot of color in all
the greens.
Carol parked and hurried up the few stone steps
that were stuck into the little hill like a patched
walk. Then the door was opened by—actually by a
girl she knew.
“Dorothy Graham!” she exclaimed. “This can’t
be your shop!”
“Carol Duncan!” the other called back. “Why
can’t it? It is!”
“Oh, how lovely.” Dorothy was leading her in.
Plenty of welcome here at least. “You told me you
were going to start a shop—”
“And I sent you cards; didn’t you get them?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Carol was gazing about
the attractive place all but spell-bound. “Whatever
can be lovelier than a pretty tea shop! Dorothy, this
is simply sweet.”
Then, as girls are bound to, they reviewed their
personal histories since the winter before, when
Carol had met Dorothy at a High School dance and
Dorothy had disclosed her plans for a great, grand
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and glorious tea shop that next summer, away out on
Bramble Hill, because so many motorists would
surely come that way when the new turnpike would
be opened in spring.
“And I took the dirt road and all but swamped my
car in mud,” Carol complained. “I could have saved
time by going out to the turnpike but I was in such
an awful hurry trying to beat the storm.”
“And you got caught in it,” rejoined Dorothy. “I
must get you a cup of real tea—”
“I really don’t need it, if you have to bother
making it, Dorothy,” Carol interposed.
“No bother, a real joy. I’ve been so terribly lonely
this afternoon.”
“All alone?”
“Yes. You know I came out here on account of
mother’s health. And to-day, suddenly, they had to
take her to the hospital.”
“Oh, Dorothy dear! I thought you looked worried
and how I have been rattling on. Don’t bother with
the tea, or else let me make it.”
They compromised by both going to the kitchen,
and while Carol gratefully sipped the splendid brew
Dorothy served in the yellow cups, she was only too
sure that her friend was greatly worried about her
mother, who had just that day been taken to the
hospital, leaving Dorothy alone in the shop because
the storm had prevented the woman she expected
13
from coming out to stay with her.
“But you can’t stay here alone tonight,” Carol
insisted.
“I have to. What else can I do?”
“Lock up and ride home with me.”
“If only I could,” sighed Dorothy, “but I must
stay here. I couldn’t leave the place unprotected.”
“As if you could protect it.”
“I have a telephone.”
“But what is there valuable?”
“Oh a lot of things, some of them considered
beyond value,” Dorothy told her. “You see, the
Ladies Home Club is planning a sale here, and they
have been sending their antiques in, you know, old
bed quilts, candle sticks and I don’t know what all. I
just couldn’t walk away and leave that stuff. In a day
or two I’ll see what I can do about it, if they find
mother has to stay at the hospital. Mary Ellen, our
housekeeper, drove in with her. Another reason I
have to stay is that a woman promised to come late
tonight, or even the first thing in the morning, with
some money she owes me for a card party she held
here two weeks ago. I didn’t know she was such
poor pay or I wouldn’t have let her have my shop.
So I must be here when she comes. I’ll need the
money for mother’s hospital expenses.”
“Oh, then of course you must stay and I’ll stay
with you.”
14
“How could you, Carol? You’re a darling to
offer. But I thought you said you had to get back to
Melody Lane—to Cecy’s party.”
“This is more important than Cecy’s party. I’ll
’phone her I can’t get in—that I’m going to stay
with you. Perhaps it will be just as well, I’m sure
Cecy will think so, at any rate.”
“Oh, you really will stay? But I do hope Cecy
won’t blame me for keeping you.”
“She doesn’t,” Carol reported after a brief talk to
her sister over the wire. “On the whole I’d say she’s
glad I won’t be there to give orders. So now I can
stay with a clear conscience.”
The good news of Carol’s actually staying
seemed a real blessing to the perplexed Dorothy,
who finally stopped offering polite objections. As
for Carol, she was rather glad to stay.
Finally the two girls settled down to talk quietly.
“Any more mysteries in Melody Lane?” asked
Dorothy. “It runs in my mind that you solved one or
two either there or that had some connection with
the place. Wasn’t there a ghost?”
“In the old organ loft,” laughed Carol. “Yes, a
sort of a ghost.”
“Then you took a forbidden trail to find out a
secret in a tower—how romantic!”
“Two entirely separate mysteries,” Carol said.
“And it wasn’t I who took the forbidden trail. It was
15
another girl, but Cecy and I managed to save her
from indiscretions. Did you hear about our last
episode, though, where we had a real mystery to
solve? Not that it was in Melody Lane. It was at a
queer old house owned by Dad’s eccentric aunt who
was afraid of a terror at Moaning Cliff.”
“Moaning Cliff! It gives me the creeps. Tell me
about it,” begged Dorothy.
“No, not now—later.” Her mention of Melody
Lane Mysteries referred to events described in other
volumes in this series.
“But I want you to tell me about your tea shop—
how in the world you ever hit on such a quaint
name—Dragon of the Hills? Tell me that first. And
why don’t they let anyone enter that house on
Bramble Hill? My second question.”
“Well, if you are interested—”
“Of course I am—especially in the dragon.”
“That is easiest told and yet—” Dorothy
hesitated.
“Don’t tell me it’s a mystery dragon!” exclaimed
Carol, swinging around excitedly.
“Well, there was something strange about how I
came to get that sign—you noticed it, I suppose.”
“Yes, it’s perfectly fascinating and very well
painted. However did you get it, who did it and
what’s the mystery? After that we come to the
forbidden house of no admittance. Oh, I can see I
16
am going to have a perfectly swell evening with
you, Dorothy. I’m glad I’m not at Cecy’s stupid
party. Begin the magic tale,” she entreated.
“First about the sign,” said Dorothy. “But wait a
minute.” She paused and seemed to be listening
intently. It was dark now. Suddenly she arose and
started toward the kitchen.
17
CHAPTER III
PERFUME OF MYSTERY
Carol sat still for a moment, then got up to follow
her friend, asking: “Is anything the matter? Did you
hear a noise?”
“Not exactly. But I just happened to remember
that I hadn’t locked up and I’d better see to locks
and chains. Not but what this is a most quiet
neighborhood—almost too quiet, in fact. Nothing
ever happens here. I wouldn’t like to live out
Bramble Hill way, though.”
“Why?”
“Oh, it’s different out there,” and Dorothy shook
here pretty brown head meaningfully, as Carol
watched her make sure the back door was securely
fastened. The same precaution was taken at the front
entrance and then the girls went back to the sitting
room, off the tea shop, and resumed their talk.
“You started to tell me about your fascinating
sign,” Carol reminded Dorothy.
“Oh, yes. Well, when Mother and I came here the
business had no distinctive name—it was just
18
Bramble Hill Tea Shop, without the final pe, so
many use. I despise that! After business began to
come in, several customers suggested names for the
place—everything from Ye Olde Spinning Wheel—
we really have one—to Dew Drop Inn.”
“Terrible!” agreed Carol.
“Well, I happened to buy some vases and other
ornaments from a Japanese art store in Millford,
that’s our nearest big city, if you can call it a city,
and the proprietor, delivering them out here, was
responsible for my sign. His name is Wu Ting and
he’s really very nice and polite and speaks very
good English. He was educated at Oxford, I believe.
At any rate, when he saw I had no name for the shop
he proposed calling it Dragon of the Hills. I liked it.
Then he offered to paint me a sign. He’s really quite
an artist and is never very busy. So he made the
picture of the golden dragon writhing amid jade-
green hills. I hope you noticed the peculiar sinister
face on the dragon and that the tail has two quirks or
twists in it, also there are six claws on each of the
feet. Mr. Ting informed me that it represents an
imperial dragon and was copied after a well known
Chinese jade carving said to be almost priceless.”
“But if the dragon is Chinese, and I believe they
have a monopoly on dragons, how did it come that a
Japanese art dealer knew so much about it, and
could design it for you, Dorothy?”
19
“Oh, I don’t know. I imagine there isn’t any racial
line when it comes to art and the Japs have no
compunctions against adopting a Chinese dragon
when it suits their purpose. Anyhow, Mr. Ting
painted my signboard for me and he wouldn’t take a
penny for it. He said I was a good customer. And I
must say the sign has attracted attention. I believe it
brings trade here, and goodness knows I need it and
will need more if Mother is to be in the hospital
long,” sighed Dorothy.
“Let’s hope she won’t be,” said Carol
sympathetically. “So that’s the story of the
dragon?”
“No, not quite all,” Dorothy replied. “I don’t
know how long the sign had been up when, one day,
I had rather a curious customer and visitor, for he
filled both roles.”
“How did he manage that?”
“Well, many passing motorists stop here for tea,
some of my cinnamon or cheese toast and cookies.
Mary Ellen is a dab at cookies. This particular
visitor, a very presentable young man, as they say in
stories, after he had been served (and he had an
excellent appetite) worked the talk around to my
sign. That wasn’t unusual—lots of customers do. It’s
really a good talking point for my shop.” Dorothy
again insisted. “But this young man seemed to
actually know about the Dragon of the Hills. He
20
asked me if I had ever seen the original and he gave
it a name which was either in the Chinese or
Japanese language. I recognized it as the same name
Mr. Ting had used.”
“You don’t mean your hungry visitor was a
foreigner, Dorothy?”
“No, he was a perfectly good American boy—at
least he was American,” and Dorothy laughed. “But
he seemed to know considerable about Chinese and
Japanese art for he looked at the vases and things I
had bought from Mr. Ting and commented critically
on them and he wanted to know all about the man
who painted the sign. When I told him about Mr.
Ting he just said ‘Oh, Mr. Ting. He should know
about the Dragon of the Hills.’ ”
“He knew Mr. Ting?”
“Seemed to. At any rate I was flustered and he
probably noticed it, so we quickly switched our
conversation to things more commonplace. We got
to be quite friendly in the half hour he was here—
that is as friendly as a tea shop hostess and a
customer are supposed to get—and when he left he
gave me his card. I have it somewhere about—I
have good reason to remember him.”
“Why?”
“I’m coming to that. The name was James Dutton
and he was connected with the Oriental Importing
Company in New York. As he was leaving, after
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standing outside to again admire my dragon sign, he
asked me if Mr. Ting had ever said anything about
the Dragon bringing luck to whoever displayed it. I
said he hadn’t, though I was very fond of good luck.
Then he drove away in his car. He was a nice—
chap.” She ended absently.
“Is that all?” asked Carol and she was a little
disappointed. Didn’t you ever see him again?”
“I haven’t seen him but I have heard of him.”
“Oh, Dorothy, letters? Fancy,” Carol laughed.
“No letters. It was rather a tragic hearing. Soon
after he left here, to drive on into New York, as he
told me, Mr. Dutton was in a serious auto accident at
Bramble Hill. His car skidded and overturned in
front of the house where you took shelter this
afternoon. He was thrown out and badly hurt. He
had to be in the Millford hospital for some time—
that’s how I heard of him again, though I have never
seen him. I have often thought, since, that perhaps
he meant the Dragon of the Hills brought bad luck
though he didn’t say so. At any rate, he had bad
luck, and now with poor mother—”
“Oh, don’t get such notions in your head,
Dorothy,” scoffed Carol.
“No, I mustn’t, I know. Well, that’s all there is
about my dragon sign. It still creaks in the wind,
though, as if to remind me it’s there.”
“Well, go on,” urged Carol as Dorothy fell into a
22
silence.
“About what? Oh, yes the old house at Bramble
Hill. I don’t know whether I spoke of it or not when
you blew in here, but it was very strange that you
got in there.”
“I didn’t get in very far.”
“Even as far as you did. None of the folks around
here are ever admitted.”
“Why?”
“Nobody knows that answer. I’ll tell you all I
know, which isn’t much. I’ll have to begin a little
way back.”
Pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts,
Dorothy again took up the story.
“The old house on Bramble Hill was here when
mother and I arrived to open the tea shop. You could
easily guess that, for the place where old Mrs. Hunt
lives is quite ancient—a regular landmark.
Gradually I came to know that she is an expert
weaver of rugs, also does hooked ones and beautiful
needlepoint.”
“I had just a glimpse of some,” Carol admitted.
“But why be so secretive about it? After all, she isn’t
the only old lady who makes hooked rugs.”
“It has something to do with the colors used—I
believe Mrs. Hunt claims to have the secret of some
special dyes she got from the Gypsies years ago.
Anyhow, she has an old Gypsy woman, who comes
23
regularly to a camp near here, with others, to help in
the rug weaving and dyeing.”
“I didn’t see any Gypsies, and why does the rug
weaver need help?”
“Probably Zada Leigh—that’s the old gypsy to
distinguish her from her daughter Tamma, a fortune
teller and palmist—wasn’t there when you fairly
forced your way past the no-admittance sign,”
Dorothy said. Zada and her tribe camp in a tent back
in Bramble Hill. But the reason old Mrs. Hunt needs
help is that she can’t walk—arthritis or something
like that. She has to use a wheeled chair.”
“That accounts for the inclined runway,” Carol
said.
“Yes. Not being able to use her legs, old Mrs.
Hunt can’t work a foot-power loom which is in the
house. That’s where the Gypsy woman comes in,
though of course the granddaughter, Priscilla, and
her brother, Dick, help in the harder work of the
weaving. That is Dick did until he passed out of the
picture.”
“Passed out?”
“Well, I mean he went away—unexpectedly—
suddenly. I wondered at him deserting his
grandmother and the pathetic little sister, but when I
mention it to Priscilla—she stops in once in a while
to buy cinnamon toast for her grandmother—
Priscilla said her brother went to find work. He was
24
tired of hanging around the house helping to weave
rugs or deliver them to customers. In spite of her
rather crotchety notion about never admitting
visitors, Mrs. Hunt manages to do a fairly good
business and her rugs really are wonderful,”
declared Dorothy.
“I’m not much of a judge of them,” Carol said.
“They all look the same to me.”
“Well, I happen to know they are exceptional,”
said Dorothy. “The colorings and designs are
beautiful, delicate and odd. I don’t wonder the old
lady doesn’t want her secret of dyes stolen. She even
keeps rather a savage dog to discourage visitors.”
“Yes, I heard him bark. But when did this Dick
go away?”
“Right after the accident to Mr. Dutton—the
accident happened in front of the no-admittance
house at Bramble Hill.”
“You don’t mean there was any connection?”
“None at all, as far as I know, but I just happen to
remember the time. Well, there you have the two
stories, that of my dragon sign and the mysterious
house—only I suppose after what has happened to
you and Cecy in Melody Lane you wouldn’t call it
at all mysterious.”
“I am not so sure of that,” Carol said rather
dreamily as she recalled the air and manner of
Priscilla. “But I’m not going to get mixed up in any
25
more mysteries if I can avoid them. So that’s all?”
“No, not quite,” Dorothy said after musing a few
moments.
“Well, go on,” Carol urged. “Don’t let us be anti-
climactic.”
“After Mr. Dutton was taken to the hospital,”
Dorothy continued, “I mean a few days later when
he was out of danger, I received a visit from a very
queer character. It seemed to me he was in disguise.
He must have been young but he had a growth of
wild beard and—well, I’m sure he was made up.”
“A man—made up?”
“Yes, his voice was young but his face was
horrid. That is what I could see of it, for it was
getting dark and he took precious good care not to
come into the light. And oh, that heavy smell of
oriental smoke.”
“Now you are telling me,” slanged Carol.
“Not much. After some foolish questions, this
man drove off in a snappy car, and soon after a real
foreigner appeared.”
“Hope he told you who he was.”
“He did. He was either a Chinese or a Japanese,
and his name was Wong Sut. He gave me a card—I
mean he left it. I wouldn’t take it from him for fear
he might touch my hand—and I don’t like to be
touched by strangers.” Dorothy gave a little shiver.
“But you haven’t yet said why he visited you.”
26
“Oh, yes. It was about Mr. Dutton. This Wong
Sut was connected with the Oriental Importing
Company of New York, for whom Mr. Dutton
worked. Word of Mr. Dutton’s accident was sent to
the firm and Wong Sut came out to see how his
man, Mr. Dutton, was getting on. He seemed like an
insurance investigator, asking me all sorts of
questions about the time Mr. Dutton was here—
what he did, how long he stayed, what time he left
and all that.”
“It may have had to do with insurance,” Carol
agreed.
“Yes, it may have, but I don’t believe it. What
Wong Sut was more concerned with was whether
Mr. Dutton had left any property here with me.”
“Property with you?”
“Oh, not in any friendly way. Just that he might
have forgotten something—a package or something
like that. Maybe he had lost a cigarette case, but
didn’t say so.”
“Then, what did Mr. Dutton lose?”
“Wong Sut didn’t say. He intimated, though, it
was something very valuable and that Mr. Dutton
had had it with him, but that it wasn’t found either
on his person when he was taken to the hospital or in
his car which a garage man towed away after the
accident.”
“So your unpleasant visitor asked if the package,
27
by chance, might have been left in your tea shop,”
reflected Carol.
“Yes. But of course it hadn’t and I told Mr. Wong
Sut as much. I understand he also went to Bramble
Hill to make inquiries but learned nothing and was
refused even as much admittance as you obtained
from Priscilla.”
“If the accident to Mr. Dutton occurred in front of
the strange house, do you suppose Mrs. Hunt,
Priscilla or Dick know anything about what was
lost?”
“They might have seen the accident. In fact I
believe either Priscilla or her brother called help.
But Mr. Sut got very little from them if he wanted to
establish an insurance claim. Poor Dick, that’s
Priscilla’s brother! I’m sorry he went away. He was
a very nice boy—used to take me to the movies in
Millford occasionally—I drove in with my car. He
was really a nice youngster and I miss him.”
“Well, now that everything has been told, we’re
going to miss a lot of sleep if we don’t go to bed
soon,” urged Carol. “Are you sure everything is
completely locked?”
“Very sure. And I am tired too. I know I shall
sleep soundly. It’s so much cooler after the storm.”
“And windier,” observed Carol as they went up
stairs. “Hear the dragon creaking.” The sound of the
swaying sign seemed to mock them.
28
“Yes, he is noisy,” Dorothy admitted. “I must
have the iron hangings oiled tomorrow.”
Dorothy got Carol pajamas and after a little more
talk, which included the making of tentative plans
for next day, they got into Dorothy’s pretty twin
beds in a room above the porch.
It was past midnight, as Carol learned later, when
something suddenly awakened her. At first she
thought it was just a noise but as she sat up, startled,
and looked at Dorothy sleeping in the next bed, she
knew it was not a noise at all but the heavy odor of a
strange perfume—a perfume as of scented smoke,
that came into their room with such a sudden gust
that it had actually awakened her.
29
CHAPTER IV
THE NIGHT PROWLER
Carol’s first thought and fear was of fire, when
she smelled that perfumed oriental smoke. It seemed
to have drifted in through the open bedroom
window, borne on the night wind that followed the
heat of the storm. And quickly, seeking a possible
reason for the perfume in the smoke, Carol recalled
that Dorothy had several incense burners about the
tearoom.
“One might have been left burning—though we
didn’t light any,” Carol mused rapidly, as she sat up,
her heart pounding and the smell of smoke
becoming stronger. “Or the tea shop may be on fire
and the incense may have caught.”
Fear and dread assailed her, as in a shiver of
anxiety she leaped out of bed and began shaking
Dorothy who was sleeping soundly.
“What—what is it?” Dorothy asked. And then, as
Carol had done, she breathed in deeply and
murmured: “The perfume—the Oriental smoke.”
“Maybe the place is on fire,” said Carol. “You
had some incense in the burners—and a fire—”
30
“There’s no fire!” declared Dorothy. “At least I
hardly think so.”
“It smells like incense. We’d better look!”
insisted Carol.
In slippers and quickly-donned robes they crept to
the top of the stairs. No fearful billows of smoke
arose to choke them and they felt the heat of no
flames. In fact, after they left the bedroom the
strange, mysterious perfumed smoke was hardly
noticeable at all. It seemed only to have been blown
in the open window—perhaps from a distance.
“Thank goodness the shop isn’t on fire!”
murmured Dorothy. “That would have been
dreadful.”
“But there is some kind of smoke,” Carol
persisted. “And it’s like incense, too. Are you sure
none of the burners may be smoldering?”
“I’m positive. Besides, that isn’t incense smoke. I
use a peculiar kind of sandal wood I get from Mr.
Ting and it isn’t that odor. I know what it is,
though.”
“What?”
“It comes back to me now. It is Ambar—a
peculiar oriental or Egyptian scent used in some
cigarettes. And Wong Sut smoked this same kind of
cigarette when he came to ask if James Dutton had
left any package here. And the queer fellow—the
one I thought was made up—he reeked of it.”
31
“How do you know it’s Ambar cigarette smoke
you smell now?”
“Because Wong Sut left one here when he went
away. I showed it to my Japanese friend and he
identified it for me. Oh, Carol! If they come back
here again—” Dorothy’s eyes were wide with fright.
“What would either of them be doing back here?
Don’t be silly!”
“I can’t help it. I’m afraid of them, especially
Wong Sut, and I hate his cigarettes!”
“He may not be the only one who smokes them—
probably he isn’t. A passing motorist may be
responsible for the odor that came in our window.”
“Yes, that’s possible. I only hope it is so.”
“But don’t you think we had better go down stairs
and look for a possible fire here?” suggested Carol,
as they had been standing, listening.
“Yes, I suppose so. Wait a minute.”
Dorothy hurried back to the room and, switching
on the lights, secured her flash-torch—then reached
beneath her pillow and brought out something small
and blue-black.
“Oh, Dorothy! A revolver!” gasped Carol.
“Not a revolver—an automatic. But don’t be
afraid. I know how to use it. I always keep it handy.
It gives me courage.”
“You don’t need an automatic against smoke,”
Carol said.
32
33
“There’s smoke, though there may be no fire,”
said Dorothy significantly. “But there may be
something else, so I’m going to take the automatic
down with us.” She held it conspicuously as she and
Carol, the latter carrying the flashlight, descended
the stairs, a little past midnight, as Carol saw by the
clock.
They found the tea shop and lower rooms in
perfect order. Not a vestige of fire or smoke, and
without even a faint aroma of the strange perfume.
Relieved and with hearts beating less rapidly, they
were about to go back up stairs when suddenly, from
the darkened tea room, came the unmistakable noise
of a door fastening being cautiously tried, or, rather,
one of the long, French windows of the shop,
windows that opened on a broad porch.
“Did you hear that?” whispered Dorothy.
“Yes,” responded Carol, her voice tense and low.
“Somebody’s out there on the porch—trying to
get in. Oh, Carol, it must be that cigarette-smoking
fiend—or some one like him!”
Completely alarmed now the girls listened again.
“We must telephone for help,” Carol said firmly.
“It may be only a tramp or some motorist who is
befuddled by a night’s celebration, and who has
mistaken this for another road-house. We must
telephone the police.”
“There aren’t any police out here, Carol. Only
34
some constables or special officers in Millford.
That’s too far away.”
“We’ve got to do something! We can’t have a
midnight prowler around here.”
“Wait,” whispered Dorothy.
“What? Don’t shoot!”
“There’s someone on the porch.”
“But you wouldn’t fire!”
Dorothy gave Carol’s arm a tug. “We must
protect ourselves,” she whispered again, and the
next moment Dorothy had raised her arm level to the
small opened windowpane in the glass door border
and Carol saw a spurt of flame.
Then the six successive shots, bing—bing—
bing—bing—bing—bing of the automatic rang out
like the swift explosion of so many fire crackers.
For a few seconds neither girl spoke. But when
the unmistakable whirr of a motor gave notice that a
car was racing away, the girls sank down, still
breathless.
“They’re gone,” said Carol at last.
“Yes,” answered Dorothy, “but we are not going
to take any chances. I’ll call up Mr. Anderson. He
lives just down the road. He’s our milkman. He said
any time mother or I wanted him he’d come right
over. I’ll telephone him!”
“Yes, do: That’s best,” Carol agreed. “I’ll never
forget your cracking automatic!”
35
Dorothy called and found Mr. Anderson very
good-natured after being awakened from a sound
sleep. He agreed to come right over and he did, with
a flashlight and a revolver that, while it was less
modern than Dorothy’s now unloaded automatic,
looked very business-like and protective.
Admitted, after properly identifying himself at the
front door, the burly milkman made a search of the
house and also a tour around it. As might have been
expected, he saw no prowler nor did he admit that he
smelled any perfumed smoke.
“You’re all right—no danger at all,” he assured
the girls. “There isn’t any sign that the window has
been tampered with. I guess it was only some late
celebrator wanting to keep on celebrating, thinking
this was a road house. If you want, I’ll have Harry
come over and spend the rest of the night with you,”
he offered, referring to his big, fifteen year old son.
He can bunk down stairs on the couch.”
“Oh, it would be lovely if you’d do that,” said
Dorothy. “But I hate to give you all that trouble and
it would be a shame to spoil Harry’s sleep.”
“He won’t mind, he’s a Scout. Glad to do it.
Make him think he’s growing up!” chuckled Mr.
Anderson. “I’ll call him over. And I’ll stay until he
gets here,” he added, going to the telephone.
So, a little later, under Harry’s guard, Carol and
Dorothy went back to bed.
36
CHAPTER V
THE FLEETING BREATH
From an exhausted, heavy slumber, into which
they had fallen after the strange prowler and the
stranger perfume had disappeared, Carol and
Dorothy were suddenly awakened in the dim, gray
dawn, by a pounding on the front door of the tea
shop.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Carol, sitting up in her
bed.
“Sounds like someone at the door,” answered
Dorothy. “Oh, if it’s that prowler of the night—”
“It isn’t night now, it’s morning,” Carol said.
“I’m glad of it,” declared Dorothy as the
pounding sounded again.
“Shall we answer?” Carol inquired.
“We’ll have to, of course. It may be some
message about mother—”
“It wouldn’t be that. They would have
telephoned,” Carol comforted her friend.
“Yes, I suppose so.” Dorothy was fumbling into a
robe and feeling with bare feet around the floor
37
beneath her bed for her slippers.
“Could it be a customer?” Carol asked as she, too,
got out of bed.
“At this hour—barely daylight—hardly. Besides I
don’t serve breakfasts. But we’ll soon see.”
As they started down they heard the Anderson
boy calling to them that it was daylight and he was
going out the back way. With a casual word of
thanks the girls continued on their way to the front
door.
The chain rattled when Dorothy opened the door
a crack, and Carol had a glimpse of a girl’s
frightened face—the face of Gray Eyes from the
strange house where she had taken shelter in the
storm.
“Oh!” gasped Carol. The exclamation was echoed
by Dorothy and in a sobbing voice by Priscilla.
“Something—something terrible has happened!”
she burst out. “My—my grandmother—she’s dead!”
“Dead!” cried Carol and Dorothy together.
“Yes, I’m afraid she’s dead. She’s lying on the
bed in a queer way and her face is so drawn and
white and she doesn’t answer when I call to her,”
sobbed the girl. “I—I’m afraid to go to her. I don’t
know what to do—we have no telephone so I ran
over here. I—I—” She burst into tears and could tell
them no more.
“You poor child!” murmured Carol. “Come in
38
and we’ll see what’s best to do.”
“Yes, come in!” urged Dorothy glad, now, that
Harry Anderson had run home, although at the time
he called he was going, it hadn’t seemed very
scoutlike. “Have you had breakfast, Priscilla?”
“No—I couldn’t eat now. I got up when I heard
Grannie moving. She has been very restless since
the house was entered the other night—”
“The house entered!” broke in Carol.
“Yes.” Priscilla nodded. “I’ll tell you about it
later. But since then Grannie insisted that I sleep
down stairs near her. So this morning, just a while
ago, I woke up when I heard her moving around. I
thought it was early for her to be getting breakfast,
but she wasn’t up for breakfast. I heard her call out
about someone outside. I was so frightened I
couldn’t move. Then everything was still and quiet.
It was almost dark. Quickly as I could I ran into her
room but she was all in—a heap—on the bed, and
I—I was afraid—”
“No wonder, child!” said Carol. “Make her some
tea or coffee, Dot!” she urged. “She needs
something. You can do it quicker than I can. I’ll stay
with Priscilla and as soon as she’s a little calmer
we’ll decide what to do. We must go over there at
once.”
“Would you rather have coffee or tea?” pressed
Dorothy, kindly.
39
“I—I don’t want anything,” sobbed Priscilla.
“Oh, but you must have something. You will
have a hard day ahead of you, even if your
grandmother is only ill.”
“She is more than ill—I’m afraid it’s death,” the
girl said with a little shiver. “Oh, it’s terrible!”
“We’ll help you—we’ll stay with you until some
one comes,” offered Carol. “It will be all right.
Don’t be so alarmed. Haven’t you any relatives?”
“No, there’s only Grannie and my brother—but
he has gone away.”
Carol did not want to question further just then.
Priscilla was under strain enough about her
grandmother.
Still protesting that she couldn’t take anything,
Priscilla however did manage to swallow a little of
the hot coffee. Soon she seemed brighter, and while
Carol and Dorothy also took some coffee they
gently attempted to find out what really had
happened. They knew they must get some
information quickly.
Finally Dorothy said: “We must notify the
authorities if it’s a case of sudden death”—and she
looked meaningly at Carol as she said this. “We
should also immediately call a doctor. Did your
grandmother have a doctor lately, Priscilla?”
“Not lately, but I heard her mention Dr. Baker.”
“I’ll call him. Then I’ll have to get Squire Eaton.
40
He’s the local police and almost all other official
authority around here,” Dorothy explained to Carol.
“He’ll know what to do. And then—well, I guess
we’ll have to go back there with Priscilla.” She
meant, of course, to the house of tragedy on
Bramble Hill.
“Yes, of course,” Carol agreed. “We couldn’t let
her go back there alone. But there’s a dog—and I
don’t like dogs. Priscilla will have to go in first to tie
him up.”
“Rusty isn’t there now,” said Priscilla. “Rusty’s
the dog you heard barking when you were at our
house in the storm yesterday,” she said to Carol.
“But he’s gone now.”
“Gone—where?”
“I—I think he must have been poisoned in the
night. Anyhow he’s lying dead out in the back.
Maybe he died because Grannie died. They were
great friends,” she sighed.
Something like a shock went through Carol and
Dorothy as they heard the girl say this so simply and
unaffectedly. Despite her efforts to throw off the
idea, Carol could not help feeling that something
sinister had come to the strange house.
Dorothy used her telephone efficiently. She soon
had Dr. Baker’s promise to go at once to Bramble
Hill. Next Squire Eaton said he would promptly look
into the matter, and when he had realized that
41
something mysterious might have happened he
added that he would bring with him Constable
Higgon.
This was all attended to quickly and then Carol
and Dorothy got ready to go back with the girl. By
this time Mary Ellen had returned from the city on
the first bus.
“I can leave the shop in her charge; she’s a
jewel,” Dorothy whispered to Carol. “And she can
accept the money that woman may bring in today
since she didn’t come last night. I hope she does
come with it.”
“I’ll have my roadster around in a jiffy,” Carol
offered.
“Good I I’ll say a last word to Mary Ellen to be
sure just how she left poor Mother.”
In the car Priscilla said little but nestled between
the two as though glad of their company, warmth
and friendship, for the morning was cold after the
storm. It took but a few minutes to reach the
desolate house on Bramble Hill.
“Weren’t you afraid to run all the way over from
your house to my shop so early in the morning—
before it was really light?” asked Dorothy.
“I was thinking so much about Grannie that I
didn’t have time to be frightened,” was the answer.
“Oh, do you think she is really dead?” gasped
Priscilla. “And could she have died of fright?”
42
“It is hard to say, dear,” Carol murmured. “But
try to be brave.”
The green roadster reached the strange, silent
house just as another car drove up.
“Dr. Baker,” Dorothy announced as she saw the
physician alight and start up the inclined runway. He
heard the girls’ voices and waited for them. With a
few hurried explanations from them, Dr. Baker went
into the silent chamber to which Priscilla pointed,
while the girls waited breathlessly in the front room.
The physician was not long inside. His face was
serious as he came back to them.
“Dead,” he said with his lips only, over the
bowed head of Priscilla who sat slumped in a chair.
Then as she looked up suddenly Dr. Baker put his
arms about her and said very gently: “Your
grandmother is out of all her suffering at last,
Priscilla. She has gone where there is no more pain.”
“Oh—oh—” It was a long, wailing sob and the
girl’s frail form shook as she clung to him. “Oh,”
she murmured, “if Grannie could only have lived a
little longer. Just a little longer until she could have
finished her work. Until she could have finished it!”
Again she was shaken by sobs.
It took some time for the stricken girl to recover
her composure for she realized her good friend, her
own dear grandmother was gone from her forever.
“Look after the child,” Dr. Baker said, simply. “I
43
shall have to make ready for an investigation,” he
said aside to Carol.
“An investigation, Dr. Baker?” she whispered.
“Yes, from what you tell me of this sudden death
and the fact of the dog being poisoned in the night,
an investigation will be necessary. Ah, here comes
Squire Eaton and his man, now,” he said as he
looked from a front window down toward the lonely
road along which Carol had driven in the storm the
night before.
But Carol had not even told Dorothy that when
she hurried out to get her car, she had also looked to
see what damage the automatic bullets might have
done and had picked up a bit of oriental silk. It was a
narrow strip like a scarf and the figures were
wrought into tiny dragons. Loath to touch a strange
bit of clothing, Carol nevertheless did pick it up
gingerly and in the garage got a piece of paper in
which to wrap it and stick it in her coat pocket.
Surely this must be a clue to the midnight prowler.
44
CHAPTER VI
CONFUSION
Squire Adrian Eaton who was local justice and in
charge of the police or, rather, constabulary force of
Bramble Hill, strode up the inclined runway
followed by his helper, Lem Higgon. The Squire
was a heavy, thick-set man, with a shock of white
hair, rather picturesque in appearance with a kindly
wrinkled face, while the constable was a brawny
individual. In fact he ran a garage and filling station
just to make sure he would be kept busy.
“Well, Doc, what’s going on here?” asked the
Squire after a nod to Dorothy and an appraising
glance at Carol and Priscilla.
“Old Mrs. Hunt is dead, Adrian,” solemnly
answered Dr. Baker.
“Too bad! Mighty sorry for you, Priscilla. But
don’t you worry. I’m your friend—I’ll stand by you.
Your grandmother, years ago, told me if anything
ever happened to her that I was to take charge and
look after things until everything was cleared up—
yes, cleared up.” The Squire had a habit of repeating
45
his words. Perhaps he thought this was necessary
because he used so few of them. “How’d it happen,
Doc?”
“Well, it just happened. I should say Mrs. Hunt
died from a heart attack probably induced by fright.
I’ve been treating her, you know. The rheumatism
she’s suffered from for years naturally weakened her
heart. But something may have touched it off—a
fright. That was all that was needed. Of course I
won’t make that my official opinion until I’ve
investigated, but from what Priscilla tells me there
was a fright.”
“Who frightened her, Priscilla?” asked the justice
kindly. “Who?”
“I don’t know. It was some one prowling around
the house last night or early this morning.” Hearing
this, Carol and Dorothy exchanged glances but said
nothing. They had their own prowler to explain.
Priscilla repeated what she had first disclosed about
hearing her grandmother moving, listening to the
frightened exclamation and then going in to find the
old lady crumpled on the bed.
“Hum!” said the squire. “You listening, Lem?
Listening?”
“I sure am.”
“Anything else, Priscilla? Anything else?”
“The dog.”
“What about him? What?”
46
“Dead.”
“Oh. Um. Dead?”
“Looks as if he was poisoned,” explained Dr.
Baker. “Just from a first glance, you know. My
theory is that some tramp, perhaps having heard
there were valuable rugs here, came around to get a
few. He needed the dog out of the way so he
poisoned him. But the frightened cries of Mrs. Hunt
drove the intruder away. Now what’s to be done,
Squire?”
“You take the medicine end, Doc, and Lem and I
will look after the police end. Lem, you’d better take
a look around. I’ll look after Priscilla. I promised her
grandmother I would. I’ll take charge until things
are cleared up. You know anything about this, Miss
Graham?” he asked Dorothy.
“Only what Priscilla told me when she ran over to
get me to telephone for Dr. Baker. But this wasn’t
the only place where there was a night prowler,
Squire Eaton. There was one at my tea shop last
night, too.”
“No!”
“Yes.” Dorothy then related the circumstances
but said nothing about her automatic.
“Hum!” murmured the Squire. “It looks like
something more than I thought at first. Probably that
tramp took a chance at your place, Miss Graham,
before he came here. Look over both places, Lem.
47
Look ’em over!”
“Sure, Squire.”
“I’ll come with you. Back in a few minutes, Doc.
Back soon.”
“All right. And now I’ll see what’s to be done.
But you can’t stay here alone, Priscilla,” he said
kindly. “Yet there must be somebody in charge here.
There are too many valuable things to be left
unguarded,” and he looked about at the various rugs
and pieces of embroidery.”
“I’ll have my housekeeper, Mary Ellen, come
over and stay until after the funeral,” said Dorothy.
“She will be just the one to be with Priscilla. Mary
Ellen won’t be afraid of any tramps.”
“No, from what I know of Mary Ellen I should
say she wouldn’t,” agreed Dr. Baker with a little
smile.
“Mary Ellen is a very determined Scotch
woman,” Dorothy informed Carol in a low voice.
“She’s very firm and afraid of nothing. I can easily
manage for a few days without her by getting some
one else in. Besides, I don’t care whether or not I do
any business until I am sure about mother. But then
there’s the big affair next week,” she went on rather
helplessly.
“What affair, Dorothy?”
“The Ladies Aid is going to have a big party at
my shop. It will mean a hundred dollars to me and
48
I’ll need the money. I can’t call it off even if I
should want to.”
“I’ll find some way to help you,” Carol promised.
“By then we’ll have time to turn around and see how
things come out. We must help Priscilla, first. I wish
we could induce her to leave here now, but she’s
determined to stay.”
“Yes, I’ll go back and get Mary Ellen,” decided
Dorothy.
“Yes, we’d better get back,” suggested Carol.
“But can’t we take Priscilla with us until Mary Ellen
can come over here and take charge?”
“That would be a good idea,” said Dr. Baker with
a significant glance toward the room where old Mrs.
Hunt lay dead. “There are things I must do. Do you
know where your grandmother kept any papers she
might have, Priscilla?”
“In that old clock.” Priscilla pointed to a tall
Grandfather clock in a far corner of the quaint room.
“She always kept papers there.”
“I’ll look for them. Now, you go along with Miss
Graham and her friend,” he ordered. “Those girls are
better for you than a flock of gabby old women.”
“Yes, come, Priscilla,” Dorothy urged. “Things
will be all right. Don’t cry, now,” she begged, for
she saw tears welling into the girl’s eyes again.
“Grannie is out of her pain, at least. That’s a
blessing.”
49
“Yes, I suppose so. But if only she could have
lived until she had finished her work. It was so
important and she wanted so terribly to finish it.”
“Her work, Dorothy, what do you mean?”
“In here.” She pushed open the door of a room
they were passing to reach the entrance to the old
mansion. In the room, which appeared to have been
at one time a stately parlor, was a loom and on it,
partly finished, a magnificent rug, not the hooked
type, for they require no looms, but a woven rug of
the most beautiful design and coloring. “Grannie’s
greatest ambition was to finish that rug before she
died,” Priscilla explained as she softly closed the
door. “She said it would bring her in a lot of money
and she wouldn’t have to weave any more. But it
never happened—she’s gone.”
She struggled to compose herself, and as they
were going out Carol, who was in the lead, looked
through the shed where she had taken shelter from
the storm, out beyond, toward the road and, seeing a
strange figure approaching, exclaimed:
“Who is this coming up the path? It looks like a
Gypsy woman. We don’t want any begging Gypsies
here now.”
Dorothy and Priscilla pressed up behind Carol to
look out and Priscilla said:
“Oh, that’s Zada. She is a Gypsy, yes, but she’s a
good woman. She helped Grannie weave and color
50
the rugs. Oh, I wonder—I wonder if Zada couldn’t
go on and finish the rug Grannie was so anxious to
finish?” she asked eagerly. “I think she might.”
“Perhaps,” said Dorothy. “You can talk to Squire
Eaton about it later. He seems to have taken charge
of everything.”
“Oh, yes, he was a good friend to Grannie. He
can tell me what to do. But I must speak to Zada.”
The Gypsy woman, in the usual gaudy red,
yellow and purples her kind affect, strode on up to
the house. She seemed much surprised when she
saw Priscilla with the two strange girls. In broken
sentences Priscilla told her about her grandmother’s
sudden death.
“Oh, my dear! My dear!” murmured the Gypsy.
“It is a sad heart!” She muttered something in
Romany and then, bending down, made some
strange marks in the dirt. “That is the Gypsy’s
comfort sign,” she said with a smile that further
wrinkled her brown face. “Later on I shall do more
for to make you happy, Priscilla. Now I go back to
my tent. My people shall work comfort for you.”
“But you will come back to me, again, Zada? You
know Grannie needed your help,” Priscilla urged,
“and now I may need it.”
“Yes, I will come back, child. I will come back
and comfort you. Ah, death must visit all of us. Your
Grannie—I loved her, too.”
51
She turned away muttering in a strange tongue,
while the girls hurried down to Carol’s car. They
had a glimpse of the Squire and his man tramping
around the strange old house, probably for clues to
the mystery.
“I shouldn’t leave Grannie there alone,” demurred
Priscilla, taking a long look at the vine-hidden
house.
“Oh, but you must,” insisted Carol, knowing too
well what searching for clues, what sad rites about
the cold, aged body, and even what an examination
of the dog, Rusty, for traces of poison would mean
to a girl, so unfitted for such a gruesome ordeal.
“If it had just been simply heart disease,” Carol
was thinking, “but the doctor said it might be
induced by sudden fright. So I suppose the real
search will be for that appearance at the window that
had made the woman cry out. And I have my own
ideas about the intruder,” Carol decided secretly, as
she pushed the bit of paper containing the small
silken scarf she had found on the tea-room porch
deeper into her pocket.
52
CHAPTER VII
EVEN AT MELODY LANE
The three girls were again back at the tea shop
where all the interest of Carol and Dorothy was
naturally devoted to caring for Priscilla. Mary Ellen
promptly agreed to go over to the Bramble Hill
house but was reluctant to leave her own charge,
Dorothy, without real adult help, at hand.
“Well, things have to happen,” the woman
reasoned philosophically. “So you’ll do no business
today, Dorothy?”
“No, Mary Ellen. I think we’d better close up.”
“Maybe it’s best. There’ll be a lot to do over
there.”
“I rather planned that you’d go and stay with
Priscilla, Mary Ellen, until after the funeral.”
“Of course I will. Who else? But what will you
do?”
“Carol will stay until I can get some one in and
matters are straightened out. I wonder if I could get
Mrs. Ranson? She sometimes goes out housekeeping
and for day’s work.”
53
“Of course you can!” decided Mary Ellen. “Sairy
Ranson is beholden to me. I’ll make her come.
Telephone her to come right over. She’ll come.”
Dorothy promptly ‘phoned and before noon Mrs.
Ranson was temporarily installed in Mary Ellen’s
place in the tea shop, and Mary Ellen had gone back
to Bramble Hill, Carol driving her in her car.
But try as they might they could not induce
Priscilla to stay away from the lonely house longer
than a few hours, so when Dorothy and Carol had
made sure that the most trying details there had been
attended to, again Carol drove over the hill, this time
taking the girl, whose wonderful gray eyes were
now sadly rimmed with red tear stains, back to her
dismal home.
Meanwhile Mrs. Hunt’s body had been taken to
an undertaking parlor in Millford. The autopsy
would be held there.
“But I wish my brother were here,” Priscilla said
to Carol as they were parting.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He went away suddenly and hasn’t
written. I don’t even know how to get in touch with
him.”
“Perhaps Squire Eaton will find something
among your grandmother’s papers to show where
your brother is.”
“Perhaps. I hope so.”
54
The old constable was on the porch and he spoke
to the girls.
“We didn’t find nothing of any account,” he
reported. “The Squire told me to tell you, Priscilla,
that he would take charge of everything until after—
er—the—funeral. He’s got the papers. It seems there
was some insurance so that will be all right. And
now, if you don’t need me, I’ll be getting back to my
garage.”
“We don’t need you!” sharply said Mary Ellen,
who had come out to the door. But the constable
only grinned. He knew Mary Ellen and her ways.
Satisfied that Priscilla was in good hands, Carol
drove back to the tea shop and there she found
Dorothy in a state of despair.
“Oh, I’ve just had the most disquieting news!”
she exclaimed.
“Your mother—she is no worse?”
“No, but the doctors have just finished examining
her. The operation will be more serious than they at
first supposed. I’ll have to go to her and I’ll have to
stay with her. She will need careful nursing if—if
the operation is a success. Oh, I don’t know what to
do. I must keep this shop going—I’ll need the
money the Ladies Aid affair will bring me next
week. And yet I must go to Mother. What shall I
do?”
“Look here, Dorothy,” said Carol. “If this tea
55
shop must be kept going and you must go to your
mother, of which there is no doubt, then I’m the one
to operate this shop while you’re gone.”
“Carol, would you?” Dorothy’s face lighted up.
“It isn’t a question of whether I will or not, it’s
more a question of can I?”
“Of course you can. Anybody could with Mary
Ellen to help and she will soon be here again. It isn’t
hard. I’ll tell you everything you need to know. The
Ladies Aid affair will be the only big one. The rest
will be just casual customers. You can easily do it
with Mary Ellen. But couldn’t you bring some girl
up here with you—Cecy or your friend Thalia?”
“I might bring Thalia. I wouldn’t dream of
bringing Cecy. She would be dancing all over the
place, making experiments to evolve a new kind of
cinnamon toast and probably having a crowd of
boys out here to see how she could run a tea shop.
No, Cecy must not come. Anyhow, she has other
plans for the remainder of the summer. But I must
get in touch with her. I promised to be back early
this morning. It’s a wonder she hasn’t ‘phoned.”
“But, Carol, you won’t dream of being here even
a single night alone?”
“I’ll have Mary Ellen, won’t I?”
“Yes. But—”
“Maybe I can inveigle Thalia to come out.
Anyhow you may count on me.”
56
“Oh, Carol, you are a darling! But am I right in
accepting such a generous offer?”
“I’m only too glad to help you. It will take me a
day or two to go back home and get ready. Then, I’ll
have to do some explaining and talk Dad over to
this. But I can manage. If I get back here in three
days will that be all right?”
“Oh, it will be lovely! They won’t operate on
Mother until next week, anyhow. And she will stand
it better if she knows I will be with her and that the
shop will be run to bring in the needed funds. Oh,
Carol, you’re two darlings!”
“Don’t make such a fuss over it. I’m only too
glad. So you may expect me back here in three
days.”
“By that time things will be settled—or at least in
the way of being settled—at Bramble Hill. I mean
the funeral will be over and Priscilla— Oh, I wonder
what about her? If Mary Ellen comes back here—”
“Can’t some one else stay with Priscilla?”
“I suppose so. I guess Squire Eaton will look after
that. And you can sort of have her over here now
and again, can’t you?”
“Of course. And when there’s no rush here I can
run over there and see that she is all right.”
“Yes, do. You never need worry about leaving
the shop when Mary Ellen is on the job. She’s a
treasure. But I feel sort of guilty, Carol, leaving you
57
with all this work. I do wish you had some other girl
to come out here with you.”
“Don’t worry about that. If I need one I’ll get
one. Thalia will never desert me. But before I go,
Dot, I’ve got something to tell you,” Carol
unexpectedly said.
It was then she got out the paper in which was
wrapped the scarf clue. Dorothy was amazed, as,
putting the piece of silk down where they could see
it without touching the strange fabric, they both
considered it.
“It smells of that perfumed smoke,” said Dorothy.
“Yes, but it isn’t foreign. Even the strange,
crooked snakes in it aren’t dragon figures,” said
Carol critically.
“I wish I had never had that sign put up,”
declared Dorothy. “It seems to draw—snakes!”
They laughed at that idea, and Carol put the strip
of silk away carefully in a back drawer of a desk
under the stairs.
“We’ll go back to that later,” she concluded.
“I’ve got to be on my way home right now.”
“And Cecy will blame me for keeping you.”
“Cecy will have plenty of other things to think
about. But now I will ‘phone her.”
Cecy expressed only mild interest when Carol,
over the wire, informed her of new plans.
“That’s up to you,” Cecy said. “But you’d better
58
come home as soon as you can. Something has
happened here.”
“What? Not Dad—”
“No, he’s all right—fine. But you ought to see
what’s been wished on us. On you, rather, for I’m
getting out. I’m going to Harbor Bay with Rosie,
you know. This will be your job.”
“What do you mean—wished on us?”
“Wait until you see it!” mocked Cecy, laughing.
“I don’t envy you. But what’s the big idea, going
back to Bramble Hill? Don’t tell me there’s another
mystery to solve!”
“A mystery— Oh, no—well, yes, perhaps,” said
Carol slowly as she hung up.
She made good time driving back home to
Melody Lane. In fact Carol was so busy thinking,
the way seemed too short to get her thoughts
straightened out in. Cecy, hearing the sound of the
car on the drive, ran out to greet her sister. There
was a curious look on Cecy’s face—a look Carol
knew meant more than mere mischief.
“You’ve got to do something I You’ve got to do
something, Carol!” the younger girl exclaimed.
“What do you mean?”
“Wait until you see what’s been wished on us!”
59
CHAPTER VIII
BACK TO BRAMBLE HILL
Wondering whether Cecy could be joking, for she
had a habit of doing that, and thinking that perhaps
some pet—anything from an Angora kitten to a
Great Dane dog—had been acquired in her absence,
Carol followed her lively young sister up the steps
of the old stone house in Melody Lane.
“It’s in there,” Cecy whispered indicating the
library. “In there!”
“What do you mean, Cecy? Don’t be silly!”
“Silly! If you want something silly go in where
she is. Wished on us, she’s been or, rather on you.
I’m out, thank goodness!”
“Whatever do you mean, Cecy?”
“Listen, do you remember Mr. Ripley?”
“Daddy’s old college friend who once was in
business with him?”
“Yes. That’s the one. Well, Mr. Ripley has sent
us one of his daughters.”
“One of his daughters! Do you mean—a—baby?”
“If it was a baby it might be easier. No, it’s fully
60
grown, or almost—that is as much as I am and
maybe you’ll say that isn’t much. But Jeanette
Ripley isn’t a baby, whatever else you can call her.
Wait until you see. She’s in the library.”
“What’s she doing there?”
“Writing letters.”
“That seems harmless enough.”
“Letters to boys—three different boys,” Cecy
went on inexorably. “She told me so herself—
boasted of it, in fact. And she’s using my best paper
and envelopes. I let her have some but I’ve got the
rest hidden and I’m going to take them away with
me. Mr. Ripley sent his Jeanette on to us to be cured
and you’ve got to do the curing.”
“Curing! Is she ill?”
“Love-sick, I’d call it. Maybe not quite as bad as
that but she has a bad case of romanticitis in its
worst form. She’s just the kind of a girl that will
grow up to be in love with love if she isn’t cured,
and Dad and her father think it’s up to us to cure her
of the malady.”
“Cecy, you can’t be serious!”
“But I am! I wish I didn’t have to be. I’m only
sorry for you. It sure isn’t going to be easy. I feel
almost guilty getting out and leaving you to face the
music alone but I’ve got to go. You’re so
resourceful and efficient that maybe you can find a
way out. I never could.”
61
“Cecy, whatever do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you in as few words as I can. Dad’s
friend, Mr. Ripley, has been having trouble with
Jeanette, one of his daughters. I don’t just know how
many he has but she is one. She’s about seventeen, I
should say and pretty—too pretty, if you ask me.
You know, the silver blonde type. It seems that
some days ago Dad had a letter from Mr. Ripley
which said that the problem of Jeanette was too
much for him—he’s a widower, you know. He said
he wanted Jeanette to get some of the silly romantic
notions out of her head—to get rid of the idea that
she was in love, and always trying to look into the
future—fortune tellers and all that.”
“Fortune tellers!” exclaimed Carol.
“Yes. Why not? I’ve been to them with the girls
just for a lark. Silly stuff, but fun if you don’t take it
seriously. Why did you mention it?”
“Oh, no particular reason.” Carol’s mind was
back at Bramble Hill—there was a fortune teller
there, Dorothy had said. “Do go on, Cecy.”
“Well, there isn’t much more to tell. Mr. Ripley
having trouble with Jeanette and wanting, as he
wrote Dad, to get her into the company of some
sensible, wholesome girls, like us, Mr. Ripley sent
Jeanette to us for a visit. We’re to reform her.”
“You don’t mean to say,” gasped Carol, “that he
sent Jeanette on to us without any warning—without
62
asking permission or anything like that?”
“Oh, no, he wrote Dad about his problem, asked
Dad’s help and Dad agreed that Jeanette might come
for a visit. The trouble is Dad forgot to tell you or
me—the letters were written a week ago but Dad
forgot all about them and this morning along comes
Jeanette. She’s here now for an indefinite visit and
you’ve got her wished on you. I’m out,” and with
that Cecy, laughing, hurried off, leaving Carol in a
panic of bewilderment.
A moment later as Carol, still bewildered, stood
on the porch, a tall, slim, pretty, blonde girl came
out of the front door with three letters in her shapely
hand and called:
“Oh, Cecy, where’s the nearest letter box?”
Seeing Carol she stood uncertain for a moment and
then with an engaging smile said:
“You must be Cecy’s sister. She said you were
coming. I’m Jeanette Ripley and it seems your Dad
asked me for a visit. We used to know each other
when we were kids.”
“Yes,” assented Carol, dimly remembering. “I’m
glad to see you, Jeanette.”
“You are Carol, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes. I—I’m Carol, and I’m very glad you
have come to visit us. Cecy—Cecy had to run down
the street—Cecy is always running, you know.”
“Yes, I found that out. I’m going to run, too, so I
63
can post these letters. I’ll be back directly,” she
apologized for her abruptness. “Where’s the mail
box?”
“Right at the end of Melody Lane.”
“Thanks! I think that’s the most romantic name I
ever heard, Melody Lane I And it’s mysterious, too.
At least Cecy said, in the short talk we had since I
arrived this morning, Cecy said you had a lot of
mysteries here. How thrilling!”
“Yes—er— Oh, yes,” Carol murmured. “But
there aren’t any more mysteries here.” She didn’t
want to excite Jeanette’s romantic side.
“Oh, how disappointing. I had hoped there would
be. But do you know of any more some other place?
I adore mysteries! Back in a moment and then we’ll
get acquainted. I hope you’ll like me! I like you
already.”
“Thanks,” said Carol passing her fingers over her
forehead in a vain endeavor to brush away some of
the cobwebs rapidly accumulating. “We are very
glad you—”
Jeanette didn’t even stop to listen but was
hurrying down to the end of the lane to post the
three letters to three different boys, if Cecy was
correct.
Mr. Duncan, grave and studious as always, came
out on the porch, one finger in a book to mark the
place.
64
“Oh, Carol! I thought I heard your voice. I am
glad you are home again. Did you have a nice visit?”
“It wasn’t exactly a visit, Dad. I had to stay all
night with Dorothy Graham. There was some
trouble out at her tea shop and I was caught in a
storm,” she said kissing this dad who was the best of
good fathers.
“So I gathered from what Cecy said. I remember
Mr. Graham. A very fine gentleman—very fine. I
was sorry to hear of his death. I trust his wife and
daughter are in no serious trouble.”
“Well, Mrs. Graham has to be operated on and,
Dad, I think I’ll have to go back and help Dorothy,
for a while at least, with that tea shop. It’s out
Bramble Hill way. She has to be with her mother
and I—”
“Oh, of course. Go by all means. I—er—I don’t
know whether Cecy told you or not, but we have a
visitor.”
“Yes, she told me. Jeanette Ripley.”
“Yes. It seems that the child is a little upset—
she’s of the intense, nervous type. Too romantic, her
father writes me. A very fine man, Mr. Ripley. One
of my good old friends. I’d be glad if you and Cecy
could help his daughter get back to—er—well,
perhaps normal. She needs companions like you
girls. I meant to have told you a few days ago that
Jeanette was coming for a visit. But I’ve been very
65
busy at the office this week and neglected to tell
you.”
“Yes, Dad, you did forget,” Carol said smiling.
“Not that it mattered.”
“Of course. Not that it mattered. Well, now, do
you think you and Cecy can-”
“There’s no use counting on Cecy, Dad. She’s
going off on a trip with Rosie. If Jeanette is to be—
influenced, I’ll have to be the one to do it.”
“No one could do it better, Carol.” His eyes were
like Carol’s when he smiled.
“Thanks. But here’s the complication. I promised
Dorothy I would go back to Bramble Hill. I knew
Cecy was going away and you are soon going on
your usual trip, so I thought we could give Rachel a
rest, close the house and everything would be all
right.”
“Yes, of course, exactly.”
“But now with Jeanette—”
“Very simple, Carol. Take Jeanette to Bramble
Hill with you.”
“Yes, I might do that, Dad,” said Carol,
hesitantly.
“Of course. It will be the best possible thing. It’s
out in the country, not too lonely, but the country.
That’s just what her father suggested— the country.
It will work out fine. Take Jeanette to Bramble Hill
with you and you’ll both benefit by it. I’ll write Mr.
66
Ripley at once. I was going to, anyhow, telling him
Jeanette had arrived safely. It was rather a long
trip—over night and she came alone. I’ll go in and
write him now. You look after Jeanette. By the way,
where is she?”
“Gone to post some letters.”
“And Cecy?”
“She’s run out to meet Rosie, I suppose.”
“Well, you’re here, Carol. I never worry when
you are on hand. Now, my dear, you arrange to go to
Bramble Hill. I’m sure everything will come out just
right. Stay as long as you wish, a month or two, I
shan’t be back for quite a spell, going to have a fine
time at Dave McNamee’s fishing camp. I’m glad
you thought of Bramble Hill. And Cecy will be with
Rosie’s folks!”
He went back into the house and Carol, with
mingled emotions turned to see Jeanette hastening
along Melody Lane. The girl looked back several
times and when she reached the porch she asked:
“Who is that tall, good-looking boy I just saw in a
tan roadster?”
“He—he might be almost anybody,” Carol
answered.
“Oh, but I’m sure he lives around here and you
ought to know him. He looked up Melody Lane as
if—well, as if he had half a mind to turn into it. I’m
sure you know him.” Jeanette described him more
67
minutely and Carol, rather dryly, said:
“Oh, that must be Glenn.”
“Awfully good-looking. Do you know him? Will
you introduce me?”
“Perhaps. But, Jeanette, several things have
happened since you started from home. I mean we
have had to make some new plans. Cecy has an
engagement to travel with some friends. She can’t
very well break it. I have promised a friend to help
her in an emergency—it means operating a tea room
or at least supervising it. And the point is wouldn’t
you like to come with me?”
“Oh, I’d love it! Where?”
“To Bramble Hill, out in the country.”
“Oh, what a cute, romantic name! Of course I’ll
go. I always wanted to run a tea shop with spinning
wheels and gifts and little jiggers that you put hot
water in and tea, chocolate and coffee comes out,
and there are candles on the table—wonderful. I’m
thrilled! When do we go?”
“In about three days,” said Carol. “It’s too bad to
rush you off almost as soon as you’re here but-”
“Oh, I know I’m going to love it! I adore the wild
open country with shady lanes! But Bramble Hill!
Oh, I am dying to see it! Sweet of you!”
Carol felt too helpless to say a word, so she had
to be content merely to smile foolishly at Jeanette’s
ravings. Certainly the girl was pretty, with wide-
68
open blue eyes, a tiny mouth and star-dust hair. But
as to personality, Carol thought she looked like a
pretty candle, unlighted.
Three days later, days filled on Carol’s part with
packing and arranging to close the Melody Lane
home, she and Jeanette started for Bramble Hill.
Cecy had left with Rosie.
69
CHAPTER IX
STRANGE AROMA
Carol introduced Jeanette and, leaving her to go
into extravagant rapturous exclamations over the tea
shop, took Dorothy aside and asked:
“Has anything happened? I mean is your mother
all right?”
“Hardly all right, Carol, but not definitely worse.
Only they are anxious to proceed with the operation
and I am needed. I was so afraid you couldn’t come
to take charge here!”
“As if I wouldn’t when I promised.”
“I know, but I thought something might happen to
prevent you. It is sweet of you to take such a
responsibility off my mind. Now I can go to
Mother.”
“Then hurry to her, there is no reason for
delaying.”
“There is no such need of haste as that. I must run
over a few matters with you and tell you what to do
about the affair the Ladies Aid Society is to hold
here in a few days. I’ve written out a few things
70
you’ll need to know. You’ll find the ladies very
competent.”
“And they won’t hold back your money as that
other woman did?”
“Oh, no, they’re good pay. The other woman
paid, too, soon after you left. But I thought you were
going to bring Thalia back with you.”
“I had to bring her,” and Carol nodded at Jeanette
who was parading up and down the now deserted tea
room examining the various ornaments and making
delighted exclamations. “She was wished on us, as
Cecy put it. I’m sorry for the child—that’s all she is,
and I have a sort of duty to reform her—in a mild
way. She has the romantic bug bad.”
“So I judged. I don’t know that this was just the
place to bring her, though.”
“Why?” asked Carol, noting that they could talk
for a little while without being overheard as Jeanette
was now out on the porch going into raptures over
the view toward Bramble Hill. “Why isn’t this a
good place to bring a girl that needs to get rid of
some fantastic notions?”
“Because, Carol, more things have happened.”
“You mean about mysterious prowlers and the
inquiries of the Oriental who smokes perfumed
cigarettes?”
“Yes. Oh, they haven’t been around here,” she
hastened to say as Carol looked a little alarmed.
71
“But I understand there has been a strange man
making inquiries over at Bramble Hill.”
“What sort of a man?”
“Well, not an Oriental, so Priscilla said. An
American but rather an unpleasant one. She thinks
he’s a detective.”
“Oh, are we getting into anything like that?”
“Not us nor the tea shop—he hasn’t been here.
But I fancy whatever it was that Mr. Dutton lost, or
what was taken from him after the accident, must
have been very valuable.”
“You think the perfumed cigarette-smoking
Oriental and the strange detective are trying to find
what was lost?”
“What was lost or what was taken,” Dorothy
answered. “I can’t quite figure it out, but whatever it
was Mr. Dutton had, and is now missing, seems to
have stirred up a lot of secret interest. So if Jeanette
gets to hear about it, and she probably will, it may
only increase her foolish romantic notions.”
“I’ll try to see that she doesn’t hear of it,” Carol
said. “After all, it doesn’t concern us. We don’t have
to find lost articles for that perfume company for
which Mr. Dutton worked and who is represented by
an Oriental who smokes Ambar cigarettes; do we?”
“Certainly not. We are out of it. Though I don’t
see why they should think that whatever it is they
are after should be out around Bramble Hill.”
72
“Nor I. By the way is everything straightened out
here?”
“Yes. The funeral is over. It was very simple. I
felt so sorry for Priscilla. She was all alone. Her
brother ought to have been with her.”
“What about him?”
“Not a word from him. Of course he may have
joined the navy and be on a ship at sea so he
couldn’t hear of his grandmother’s death. I believe
Squire Eaton is trying to have the authorities locate
him. But you know what boys are—so irresponsible
and never thinking they may be needed back home.”
“Yes. I know. Is Priscilla back at Bramble Hill?”
“Yes, she is living there. Squire Eaton arranged
everything. He got Mrs. Mason to come and live
there. She’s a sort of charity worker from Millford, a
good, capable woman, almost as good, in some
ways, as Mary Ellen.”
“Is Mary Ellen back here?”
“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t leave you until I knew she
would help you carry on. She is on the job again and
we have done a pretty good business since you went
away. The season seems to have taken on a new
spurt.”
“That’s fine. I like to be kept busy. I’ll make a lot
of money for you, Dorothy.”
“I shall need it with mother’s illness. Well, now
with what I have told you, and what I have written
73
here I think you can manage. You will run things
here and Priscilla will be looked after at Bramble
Hill. At least for the time being.”
“What do you mean for a time?”
“Well, Squire Eaton, as the executor of Mrs.
Hunt’s small estate, decided that the rug business
had better be closed out and Priscilla sent to some
sort of a home or given in charge of a guardian until
she comes of age. There will be a little money
coming to her when everything is settled. The big
rug, which was to have been the pride of Mrs.
Hunt’s heart, will be finished and sold. It will bring
a large sum. Of course part of it will go to Zada.”
“The Gypsy?”
“Yes. She is to finish weaving it. She did the
actual weaving, anyhow, as Mrs. Hunt couldn’t
work the loom and she knows about the colors, dyes
and so on. So Squire Eaton engaged her to finish the
work.”
“Does she stay with Priscilla?”
“Only during the day when she does the weaving.
Priscilla helps at that. At night Zada goes back to her
fortune-telling daughter.”
“That’s what I hope to avoid,” said Carol. “I
don’t like those Gypsy fortune tellers.”
“You’re not afraid of what they might reveal?”
“Certainly not,” and Carol laughed. “But I have a
queer, romantic girl on my hands, a girl who writes
74
to three boys at once, and if she hears there’s a
fortune teller in the neighborhood—”
“I see. Well, she may not learn about Tamma. But
if she should and if she insists on having her fortune
told you’ll have to laugh her out of it if any strange
love affair or danger is predicted.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Well, it’s my job and I must
do it. Now, Dorothy, you hop along. I can take
charge. I’ll get Jeanette to help me. It may be just
what she needs—a little hard work and
responsibility.”
“It’s wonderful of you. And I hope you won’t be
bothered by any strange happenings or mysteries at
Bramble Hill.”
“Cecy and Thalia would say it wouldn’t be me if
I didn’t run into some sort of mystery,” Carol
answered. “Since all the available ones at Melody
Lane seem to have died out I must tap a new vein.
But don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
“I hope so,” said Dorothy.
“Did that funny country detective find out
anything about the prowler at Bramble Hill and the
one who tried to get in here?” asked Carol.
“Oh, you mean Lem Higgon,” answered Dorothy.
“No, he didn’t. He couldn’t ‘git no clue to him
nohow,’ ” and Dorothy laughed as she imitated the
garage-detective’s peculiar accent. “He did find out,
or Dr. Baker did for him, that Mrs. Hunt’s dog died
75
of poison.”
“Poison?”
“Yes, but there wasn’t any evidence that it was
given purposely to get the animal out of the way
while the place was inspected by some mysterious
person. A farmer not far away had put out poison for
rats and it was assumed that the dog got some of it
by mistake. So that element of mystery vanishes.
Also the autopsy showed that Mrs. Hunt had organic
heart trouble which disposes of the fright having
killed her,” Dorothy added. “Nevertheless some one
did prowl around there that night. Priscilla is sure of
that.”
“Well, now I must get to work. It’s going to be a
nice change for me to come here, only—”
“You mean—Jeanette?” asked Dorothy softly.
“Yes. She’s a problem but maybe I’ll solve it.”
“I hope you do, Carol.”
After the details of the business were hastily gone
over, Dorothy, having already packed, took herself
off in her small car to be with her mother in her
hours of danger.
“Oh,” giggled Jeanette when she and Carol were
left alone in the tea shop, except for the bustling
presence of Mary Ellen, “I think this is the most
romantic thing I ever heard of. To think I’m actually
going to help run a tea shop! It’s thrilling!”
“There’s work to be done,” Carol warned her.
76
“Oh, I adore work—when it’s this kind. Tell me,
do many customers come in?”
“Not as many as, I suppose, Dorothy could wish
for. But some days she has been very busy, I
understand.”
“This isn’t strictly a ladies’ tea shop, is it?” asked
Jeanette pausing in front of a mirror to inspect her
lipstick effect.
“Of course it isn’t.”
“I think it is much more fun to wait on gentlemen
customers,” went on the romantic one. “They’re not
so fussy as the ladies, and they talk to you more
readily. Of course, I’ve never waited in a tea shop,
but we sometimes have little suppers and teas out
home to make money for our club and I’ve waited
on tables then. I always liked to wait on the men.
And I had the cutest, cutest costume—I wish I had
brought it with me.”
“I don’t believe you’ll need it here,” said Carol.
“And now we’d better unpack and get ready for
work. There’s no telling when customers may drop
in on us.”
“Dragon of the Hills,” murmured Jeanette as she
looked out at the quaint and artistic sign. “I think
that’s the most adorable name for a tea shop. But
where is Bramble Hill?” she asked.
“That’s the general name of this neighborhood,”
Carol answered. “The real Bramble Hill is about a
77
mile from here. It’s rather a lonesome place.
Nothing very attractive about it.”
“I must go see it, Carol.”
“Well, yes, later. I’ll take you over. Now let’s go
up stairs and see about our rooms. Is there anything
we need to do at once, Mary Ellen?” she asked the
Scotch helper who was continually bustling about
with quick, springy steps.
“Not but what I can do, Miss Duncan,” was the
answer. “But there’ll be plenty for you and your
friend later on. I can’t wait on the tables and do the
cooking.”
“Waiting on the tables will be our part,” Carol
said.
“Oh, it’s going to be such fun!” Jeanette
exclaimed.
“But what about this tea the Ladies Aid is
having?” Carol asked. “Won’t we need extra help
for that?”
“No, they do everything themselves, provide their
own waiters and even do the cooking. Miss Dorothy
simply hires the shop out to them for the afternoon
and evening. We are free that day,” declared Mary
Ellen.
“But we can look on, can’t we?” asked Jeanette.
“I don’t see what there is to stop you,” was the
somewhat grim reply. But Jeanette didn’t seem to
hear this. She was fussing with her hair as she and
78
Carol went up stairs.
Changing her traveling dress for one more suited
to a tea shop, in her room which was across the hall
from the room which had been assigned to Jeanette,
Carol was again suddenly aware of a strange aroma.
It came floating in her half-closed door and in a
moment she was sure of its nature.
“The Ambar perfume!” she exclaimed. “Has that
Oriental come back?”
79
CHAPTER X
AN UNEXPECTED CALLER
For a moment a wave of wonderment swept over
Carol Duncan. The story Dorothy told of the visit of
the wily Oriental had impressed Carol more deeply
than she realized. She wanted no interview, however
friendly it might be, with the smoker of the Ambar
cigarettes.
Then, as she thought what a coward she would be
to give up without at least a show of fight, she
nerved herself to go out and meet the caller.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she told herself.
“It is broad daylight and Mary Ellen is able to cope
with any strange Japanese or Chinese. So am I for
that matter, and a telephone call will bring help
soon. I’ll go confront him and ask him what he
means by bothering to call.”
But as she stepped out into the hall she became
aware that the odor of the Ambar cigarettes did not
come from below, from the tea shop or the lower
hall, but from the room where Jeanette was
supposed to be dressing. Then she saw a little curl of
80
smoke coming from Jeanette’s room and a moment
later had a glimpse of her, attired in another dress,
coming out, a cigarette between her lips.
“Jeanette—smoking?” questioned Carol,
astonished.
“Sure. Why not? I didn’t dare light up at your
house and I don’t dare do it home—but what are tea
rooms for if a girl can’t smoke in them? Lots of girls
do it.”
“I haven’t any right to say what one shall or shall
not do in the matter of smoking cigarettes. It’s your
affair not mine. Only your father—”
“Don’t tell me he wrote you not to let me smoke!
If he did—”
“Nothing of the sort. Really,” and Carol smiled,
“I’m afraid I made a little too much of my surprise. I
know that other girls who stop here for tea light their
cigarettes and Dorothy says some of the elderly
women do, also. I’m not a crusader by any means. It
was just—well the kind of cigarettes you are using.”
“Oh, yes, Ambar. Don’t you like them?”
“I can’t say I do. Somehow, they seem so
heavy—so strongly scented—” Carol wasn’t going
to tell Jeanette about the Oriental until she had to.
“Yes, they are strong, but I like them,” and
Jeanette blew out a fragrant cloud. “Better have one.
They steady your nerves.”
“My nerves don’t need steadying—just yet,” and
81
Carol forced herself to laugh, trying to make little of
the matter. “But they don’t smell like American
cigarettes nor yet like a cigar. I rather enjoy the
smell of a cigar, though I can’t say I would take pipe
smoke for choice.”
“No, that’s too strong. But Ambar cigarettes—I
love ’em!” Jeanette inhaled deeply and really
seemed to enjoy what she was doing.
“Where do you get them?” Carol asked.
“Oh, from one of the boys back home. They’re
imported. You can’t get them everywhere. I wrote to
him and he’s going to mail me some. Now let’s go
down and get ready for customers. I do hope some
boys come in.”
“This isn’t exactly a college location,” said Carol.
“Though you never can tell what the autos will
deposit at your doors.”
Later, when a passing motorist and his wife came
in for some tea and toast, Carol let Jeanette serve
them, to get her accustomed to doing the work. She
could not but admit that the girl, with all her
irresponsible ways and manners, was a perfect little
waitress. She had an assured but respectful manner
that was demure and pretty. Carol, watching her
from the kitchen where Mary Ellen had prepared
some of her celebrated cinnamon toast, saw the man
put some question to Jeanette that, evidently, she
could not answer. For Carol saw her leave the table
82
and come toward the little room between the tea
shop proper and the kitchen.
“He wants to know,” Jeanette reported, “how
come the sign Dragon of the Hills.”
Carol went forward and spoke to the customers.
“My assistant tells me you are interested in our
sign.” Carol was really assuming the role of the
shop’s proprietor which she was, temporarily.
“Yes,” said the man, “it’s a quaintly beautiful
sign. I haven’t seen one like it since I traveled in
China.”
“Oh, then it is used there?” Carol asked in some
surprise.
“Yes, I saw it in several places. It seems the
device of the crawling dragon amid green jade hills
is the subject of many Chinese works of art. Of
course, dragons are indigenous to China, you might
say,” he added with a laugh. “But this is a particular
beast of its kind. It is copied from a celebrated jade
carving done by one of China’s best artists—I don’t
recall the name.”
“This one was patterned by a well known artist
and curio dealer in Millford. We think it rather
quaint.”
“It is,” said the lady. “I don’t admire dragons but
your sign is novel and attractive.”
“Throughout some parts of China,” resumed the
man, “the Dragon of the Hills is held in as much
83
esteem as, in Japan, is the picture of Fujiyama.”
“Oh, that most beautiful mountain of the snows,”
murmured the woman. “It is something to dream of!
You have a most delightful little place here.”
“I am glad you like it,” smiled Carol. “Did you
enjoy your tea?”
“Very much so, my dear. The cinnamon toast was
delicious.”
“We rather pride ourselves on it.”
“But it is lonesome,” said the man. “I mean the
location out here, not the toast,” and he smiled as he
arose to pull back his wife’s chair. “We drove
through Bramble Hill. Another lonesome place.”
“Well, yes, it doesn’t teem with excitement,”
Carol admitted.
Some other customers came in soon after that and
she and Jeanette were kept rather busy. So it was not
until toward evening that the two had a chance to
talk. Then Jeanette, lighting another Ambar
cigarette, remarked:
“Well, I got the dope on the dragon sign all right
by hearing what you told the customers, Carol. Is it
really a copy of a celebrated piece of jade?”
“So Wu Ting told Dorothy. At any rate it makes
an effective sign.”
“I’ll say it does! Well, we’ve made a good start.
Plenty of business.”
“Yes. I do hope we do well for Dorothy,” Carol
84
replied, sincerely.
The next day Carol and Jeanette found
themselves settling into a routine of business that,
for a time at least, promised to be rather enjoyable.
At any rate Carol liked it, and Jeanette, like the
proverbial child with a new toy, expressed herself as
“crazy” about the tea shop.
She seemed to be settling down, Carol thought, in
a way her father had wished for. And to further | this
Carol decided to leave Jeanette on her own for a
time while she ran over to see Priscilla. She didn’t
want to introduce Jeanette to Bramble Hill just yet.
So, remarking that she was going out on business
and suggesting that Jeanette could run the shop in
her absence (a responsibility Jeanette promptly
accepted) Carol got out her car.
“Don’t feel that you must hurry back,” Jeanette
said as she lighted another “Ambar” as she called
them.
“I do hope she isn’t smoking too much,” Carol
found herself thinking.
At Bramble Hill the “no admittance” sign was
still in place but when Carol knocked and Priscilla
had opened the door on the chain, as before, it was
at once thrown wide as the visitor was recognized
and the gray-eyed girl said:
“Oh, do come in! I’m so glad to see you! Is
Dorothy with you?”
85
“No, she had to go to her mother so I came over.
A friend and I are running the tea shop now.”
“Yes, so Dorothy said. I wish I could be in a tea
shop instead of here,” and Priscilla’s tone was a
little wistful. Carol couldn’t blame her, for certainly
there was an air of gloom in the old place. From an
inner room came the murmur of voices and the thud
and clank of some machinery. To Carol’s
questioning look Priscilla said:
“Zada, the Gypsy woman, and her daughter,
Tamma, are in there finishing the weaving of the big
rug that poor Grannie was so proud of. It will take
them some time to finish it. I help a little but they
are quite expert at it. Most of the other stuff has
been sold,” Priscilla finished.
“Did they bring good prices?” Carol asked.
“Yes, I think so. Squire Eaton attended to all of it.
He hopes, when Grannie’s estate is closed, to have
some money left for Dick and me. Only we don’t
know where Dick is.”
“Haven’t you any trace of him?”
“No,” and Priscilla shook her head. “I miss him,
too. Poor Dick. He went away so impulsively.”
“Impulsively?”
“Yes. He just flared up and said he wasn’t going
to hang around here any more like a sissy helping to
weave rugs. So he went away.”
“He may come back when he finds the going
86
harder than he expected,” Carol said. “What will
you do when the rug is finished and there is no more
business here?”
“Oh, Squire Eaton says the place will have to be
sold. After the mortgage is paid, what money is left
will come to Dick and me. Maybe I can go back to
school then,” she said with a smile.
“Yes, you should go back to school,” Carol said.
“But you are in good hands with Squire Eaton, I
think.”
“Yes. He has been like a father to me. I’m sorry I
can’t ask you in to see Zada and Tamma weave, but,
though it seems silly, they don’t like to have
visitors. Grannie always claimed the dyes she and
Zada made were valuable and secret. I suppose Zada
is still carrying that idea on.”
“I don’t mind,” Carol said. “I’m glad to find you
are all right. And when the rug is finished I suppose
it will be shown?”
“Oh, yes. You can see it then—so can anybody. It
will be offered for sale, perhaps in New York,
Squire Eaton says.”
“I hope it brings a big price, Priscilla. Well, I
must be getting back. Jeanette may be rushed with
customers. Come over and see us when you get the
chance.”
“I shall, thank you,” was the parting promise.
When Carol approached the tea shop she saw a
87
little crowd of young men coming out. Two cars
stood in the parking space. The customers appeared
to have had an enjoyable time for they were
laughing and talking.
“Jeanette had customers to her liking,” thought
Carol as she put away her car. And when she went
in she saw that Jeanette was in high spirits.
“Big business!” she exclaimed. “A lot of college
boys stopped in and they ate nearly everything we
had. Mary Ellen had to work fast for once.”
“I guess you did, also,” Carol remarked.
“Oh, I liked it! I wish it was like this every day.
They were so funny—but nice to me—not at all
rude,” she added quickly, as she saw Carol’s
eyebrows go up. “Oh, I was the proper and demure
little waitress, Carol.”
“So I can imagine,” Carol said, laughing. “Now
let’s have some tea ourselves. I’m sure it will rest
you.”
“It certainly will. Dorothy called up while you
were gone and I told her everything was fine.”
“That’s good.”
It was while Carol and Jeanette were having tea at
a little table in a secluded corner, to be ready for any
guests who might come in, that an unexpected
visitor entered. He was a good-looking young man
and walked with a limp which a cane did not seem
to aid much.
88
The visitor who had alighted, as Carol noted,
from one of the buses that passed in front of the tea
shop, glanced around as though looking for some
one. A moment later he was speaking to Carol who
went forward to direct him to a table.
“I beg your pardon,” said the visitor, “but I was
looking for another young lady—one who was in
charge here when I called before. A Miss Graham, I
believe.”
“She is away for a time,” Carol said. “I am in
charge. You can be served as before,” she smiled
agreeably.
“Yes, I shall want some tea and some cinnamon
toast, but that wasn’t exactly why I called. I am
James Dutton,” he said next. “Do you mind if I sit
down? My leg is still rather painful.”
Carol remembered him at once. He was the young
man who, after his auto accident at Bramble Hill,
had lost some valuable object. She wondered if he
could have found it? Or was its loss the real mystery
of the Dragon of the Hills?
89
CHAPTER XI
SUSPICIONS
Realizing that her unexpected caller was painfully
lame, Carol pulled out a chair for him. He sank into
it with a sigh of relief and smiled at her, saying:
“Sorry to be such a bother. I haven’t been out of
the hospital long and it’s rather painful getting
about. But I felt I had to come to find out what I
could. Though if Miss Graham isn’t here—”
“She has told me about you,” Carol hastened to
say. “We are friends. Her mother required hospital
care and Dorothy has gone to her. I am running the
tea shop while Dorothy is away.”
“All by yourself—er—Miss—”
“I am Miss Duncan, Mr. Dutton. And I have a
helper, another of our girls,” she explained.
“It’s best not to be alone in these woody places,”
the young man said kindly.
“You don’t mean there is any particular danger
out here, do you?” Carol asked, grateful that
Jeanette was not within hearing.
“Oh, no, not exactly,” answered Mr. Dutton. “But
90
your Dragon sign does attract attention.”
“Why?” asked Carol directly.
“The story is so long and so complicated it almost
defies telling,” Mr. Dutton said, brushing his hand
across his forehead in a gesture of futility. “But at
least I must press my own part in it. You have heard
of my accident?”
“Yes.”
“And my loss?”
“Yes, to that also, but what was it you actually
lost?”
“Something so valuable it is actually impossible
to estimate the loss. I am connected with the
Oriental Importing Company and when I met with
the accident directly in front of the old Bramble Hill
house, I had with me—this precious bit of essence
we had named the Dragon of the Hills.”
“Oh,” gasped Carol. “Essence!”
“Yes. The world’s most famous perfume, we
expected to make it.”
“A perfume?” exclaimed Carol in surprise.
“I don’t wonder you are surprised,” went on Mr.
Dutton. “It seems rather silly to make such a fuss
over a bit of perfume. But this was of a very
different sort of extravagance. The firm I had been
with had employed the world’s most renowned
Eastern perfume scientists to evolve from oriental
secrets the Dragon of the Hills.”
91
“Is Dragon of the Hills the name of a perfume?”
asked Carol with animated interest.
“It was to be—that’s what Mr. Wong Sut is going
to call the new perfume if he can eventually get it on
the market. But the whole thing is at a standstill now
because I lost it—or because it was taken from me.”
“You mean,” said Carol, “that a shipment of
Dragon of the Hills perfume you had in your car was
lost—or taken after the accident?”
“Not exactly a shipment, more properly a
potential shipment of the perfume. I had better tell
you about it from the start and then perhaps you can
help me.”
“I wish I could,” said Carol, “but all I have found
around here is just the atmosphere of mystery; the
interest in our sign and all the inquiries about it.”
“This Dragon of the Hills was to be a new
oriental perfume,” said the visitor, beginning his
story in an enthusiastic voice. “My boss—or my
former boss who is a clever Chinese—got the idea
from the same jade carving that your tea shop sign is
patterned after, though the jade carving has nothing
to do with perfume. I don’t know whether you girls
know it or not, but the basis of some oriental
perfumes is made in very concentrated form like a
wax or gummy paste. At any rate, the essential part
of the new Dragon of the Hills perfume was a mass
of waxy paste that Mr. Wong Sut imported from one
92
of his research workers in Japan or China, I don’t
know where. And this mass of concentrated
perfume, and it has a most exotic odor, this
concentrated wax or jelly came to our New York
shop. I was taking it to our factory in Satlenburg,
about fifty miles from here, where we were to start
manufacturing. Then I had the accident directly after
I stopped in here for tea. Up to date the lead box in
which the lump of essence came from the Orient has
been missing. I am trying to locate it to clear myself
and get my job back. I need it.”
“Surely this Mr. Wong Sut who came here
looking for this perfume base, though he didn’t
exactly say so,” spoke Carol, “surely he doesn’t
think you took his property.”
“He hasn’t said so,” answered Mr. Dutton with
whimsical ruefulness, “but he may think I did. At
any rate, he holds me responsible for the loss and I
must find that lead box. Being sealed in lead the wax
is safe from damage.”
During the conversation Mr. Dutton had been
taking his toast and had had a second cup of tea.
Carol could hear Mary Ellen speaking sharply to
Jeanette about something in the back hall, and when
finally Jeanette did poke her head in the tea room
door to tell Carol she “would be back in a little
while,” Carol was glad to be sure the girl was safely
out of the way.
93
“But why couldn’t more be made like the oriental
sample?” Carol asked when again they returned to
the question of the lost box.
“That’s the point,” answered Mr. Dutton.
“Either he can’t or won’t or thinks he can’t. The
oriental mind is peculiar. He wants this particular
concentrate to use in making his new perfume
‘Dragon of the Hills’ and none other will do.
Perhaps it’s true, this particular odor can’t be
duplicated.”
“How, then,” asked Carol, “did he expect to go
on making it if there happened to be a demand for
it? You only had one box of the concentrate.”
“Yes, but there was enough for an immense
supply of perfume. Only a very little of the gummy
wax was needed to scent a big lot of the stuff that
was to go in bottles. It’s like amber or ambergris,
you know. Amber, which is a fossil resin, is used
not only to make beads and pipe stems, but treated
with chemicals is a base for some oriental
perfumes—rather too strong for my taste, though.”
“Is that how the cigarettes are made?” asked
Carol.
“Perhaps. Mr. Wong Sut is addicted to them.
They’re a little cloying for my taste. But I believe
the cigarettes are called Ambar, spelled with an ‘a’
while the fossil resin is spelled with an ‘e.’ It may be
the same for all I know.
94
“Ambergris, as I found out by reading about it,
was originally called amber but it has nothing in
common. Ambergris is a fatty substance found in
dead whales and occasionally lumps of it are picked
up at sea or on shore. The whale evidently got rid of
it as an undesirable alien. But ambergris is valuable
for the making of many expensive perfumes. It was
at one time used as a medicine. It takes only a little
ambergris to make a lot of perfume. It’s the same
with this stuff my firm got from the Orient. A little
of it will go a long way to make scents, and in this
case scents were to make dollars—a lot of them for
Mr. Wong Sut.”
“Then the lead box of concentrate was indeed
very valuable?” asked Carol.
“Worth about $15,000,” was the answer and as
Carol gave a little gasp of surprise, Mr. Dutton
continued: “That’s why I was personally taking it to
the factory. Mr. Wong Sut didn’t want to trust it to
the mail or express though, as things turned out, it
would have been better if he had. It was my hard
luck. Now you can see why I must get trace of it.”
“I’m afraid we can’t help you,” Carol said. “Mr.
Wong Sut came here on a similar errand, but
Dorothy is sure you left nothing here after you
stopped in for tea just before the accident.”
“I’m pretty sure, myself, that I didn’t. I brought
the box in with me but I’m certain I took it back to
95
the car. It was too heavy for my pocket but I always
kept it in sight. Then I drove out through Bramble
Hill and the accident happened. I was knocked out
and when I found myself in the hospital, and could
gather my wits, I asked about the box. But no one
seemed to have seen it.
“It may have been tossed out of the car in the
upset—probably it was—but a thorough search of
the ground hasn’t yielded a trace of it,” he went on.
“And the box was about eight inches long, and about
the same in height and width. Not exactly a vanity
case—it ought to have been seen if it popped out of
my car and was thrown on the roadside.”
“Can you recollect seeing any other cars just
before,” asked Carol in true detective style.
“I can recollect events just before the accident.
There were no other cars in sight. I was driving
along, trying to plan an advertising campaign for the
new perfume when, all of a sudden, it happened. I
simply found myself turning over.”
“Did you lose consciousness at once?” asked
Carol.
“Not immediately. I had my senses long enough
to know that some voices were shouting in an old
house up on a hill, in front of which the accident
happened. I looked up and saw a girl and a boy
running toward me. And I fancied I heard an old
voice, like that of an old woman. I had a glimpse of
96
an old woman looking out and calling something—
probably directing the boy and girl what to do. The
last I remembered was that the boy and girl were
trying to pull me out of the wreck—that’s all until I
woke up in the hospital.”
“You might have heard old Mrs. Hunt calling, but
she’s dead now—died last week,” Carol said
carefully.
“Dead! Did she die suddenly?”
“Yes; in the night. Her granddaughter Priscilla
was alone with her and we were all pretty much
upset. At first it was thought the old lady had been
frightened by some prowler, but it was afterwards
found she had had heart disease and so died from
natural causes.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Mr. Dutton. “It would
have made things more complicated if she had been
frightened.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, suppose she happened to have had my box
and someone had been determined to get it from
her—”
“Oh, no, nothing like that could have happened.
You can talk with Priscilla. Dorothy and I were
there from the very beginning and no strangers were
in any way mixed up in it.”
“That’s exactly what I am grateful for,” repeated
Mr. Dutton.
97
“Priscilla’s brother Dick is not home now. He has
been away for some time,” said Carol realizing that
remark might bring suspicion toward Dick. “But you
had better talk with Priscilla.”
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CHAPTER XII
SEARCHING
For a moment, after Carol had made this
announcement, Mr. Dutton, sipping his tea, said not
a word. Then he slowly repeated:
“So the boy has disappeared?”
“Oh, I believe he just went away to seek his
fortune, as many boys do,” Carol answered, trying to
speak lightly and not give any hint of the dark
suspicion that had entered her mind. “He became a
little dissatisfied and peeved at the irksome work his
grandmother did—rug weaving—so he just went
away his sister told me. The sad part of it is he
wasn’t here when the poor old lady died and
Priscilla, that’s his sister, misses him very much. He
was a very nice boy, so Dorothy said. She knew him
rather well—he used to go to the movies with her.”
“Boys will be boys,” remarked Mr. Dutton rather
tritely and Carol thought he only said it to cover up
something that was in his mind. “Well,” he moved
to leave his chair slowly, “if my Dragon of the Hills
isn’t here it may be at Bramble Hill. I’ll have to get
99
over there and inquire, I suppose.”
“You mean—” began Carol and for a moment she
was fearful lest he might be on the verge of giving
voice to the silent suspicion in her own heart.
“I mean some one, not knowing about the
valuable perfume concentrate in the lead box, might
have picked it up after my accident and that it might
be somewhere around the old house on Bramble
Hill. Oh, of course, without anyone there knowing
its value,” he hastened to say. “As a matter of fact,
some personal belongings I had in the car were
picked up after my smash and taken into the house, I
have been told. They were returned to me after Mr.
Wong Sut came out here and began to make
inquiries. My stuff was collected and left for me at
the hospital. But the lead box wasn’t there. It seems
to have completely vanished.
“I was thinking,” he went on in a tone that he
intended to be casual, “that perhaps the boy or girl,
or perhaps the old lady, might have picked up the
lead box that was tossed out of my car together with
some of the tools and my own possessions. It might
have been thought to be a box of spare light bulbs or
some other car accessory and even now be in the old
house or the barn or shed, overlooked.”
“It’s possible,” Carol said. “But if it was picked
up it wasn’t by old Mrs. Hunt. She couldn’t walk, or
at least not enough to go to the rescue of any
100
motorist. If Dick or Priscilla picked up the box of
concentrate—”
“I don’t say they did!” Mr. Dutton quickly
remarked. “I don’t suppose they were the only ones
who rushed to the rescue after my accident. I have a
hazy recollection of several persons about my
overturned car before I lost consciousness and was
hustled off to the hospital. But if I could get back
that box of perfume it would put me back on my feet
financially as I soon hope to be back on them
physically,” and he tapped his cane on the table leg
as he stood leaning against the table.
“I think you should inquire at Bramble Hill,”
suggested Carol. “Though the old Gypsy woman
who is helping to finish the valuable rug Mrs. Hunt
had under work, is rather secretive. I’m sure if you
appeal to Priscilla, though, you’ll find out all that
she can tell you.”
“I hope so. I made this my first stop after the
hospital people said I could move about, but it’s
awkward. My next stop will be at Bramble Hill,” he
said conclusively.
“Yes,” Carol said after a moment of thought,
“and I’ll be glad to drive you over and introduce you
to Priscilla.”
“I’ll take it as a great favor if you’ll come with
me to Bramble Hill while I make some inquiries of
Miss Priscilla. She was the girl who came to my
101
rescue, you say?”
“She and her brother Dick,” Carol answered. “But
Dick isn’t there. I may as well go with you now, Mr.
Dutton.”
“Oh, but I can’t take you away from the shop,” he
said suddenly.
“There isn’t likely to be any business now—not
until later, if then. Anyhow Mary Ellen can look
after stray customers. I shall be glad to help you all I
can.”
Telling Mary Ellen she would soon return, Carol
went out to get her car and in a short time she was
driving over the hill with Mr. Dutton.
Priscilla seemed a little surprised to see Carol
back so soon and more surprised when Mr. Dutton
was introduced. Priscilla admitted them into the big
lower room of the old house, and they could hear the
clanking of the loom and the murmur of voices in a
strange tongue.
“Gypsies!” said Mr. Dutton. “Working here?”
“The mother does,” said Priscilla before Carol
could answer. “The daughter is just helping her
finish a piece of work.”
Mr. Dutton looked toward the back room, Carol
thought, rather suspiciously. Then he quickly turned
toward Priscilla.
“So this is the young lady who helped me when I
was hurt?” he said.
102
“Oh, I didn’t do so much,” Priscilla answered, her
gray eyes drooping under his smiling gaze. “My
brother actually pulled you out. It was all rather
exciting with Grannie shouting from the window. It
was the first real auto accident I ever saw. I was so
sorry to hear you had been seriously hurt,” she said
politely.
“Well, I’m still here,” said the young man. “But
what I came for was to inquire if you or your brother
saw anything of a lead box, about this size,” and he
illustrated with his hands.
“A lead box?” Priscilla repeated. “I really don’t
know. There was a lot of stuff scattered out of your
car and my brother gathered it up—there were some
tools—and he put everything in the barn. He said
you’d likely send out for it later.”
“I got back everything of mine except the lead
box,” continued Mr. Dutton, and as he had
previously asked Carol not to say what was in the
box she made no mention of its value. “I’m
wondering if it still might be out in the barn where
your brother piled my tools and other things?” he
asked casually.
“You’re welcome to look,” said the gray-eyed
girl. “I haven’t been out there since the accident. I’ll
show you where Dick put the stuff. Dick isn’t here
now,” she added, rising.
“If you hear from him, in case we don’t find the
103
box now,” said the young man, “would you mind
asking him—”
“I don’t know where Dick is,” and Priscilla’s eyes
looked as if tears were near them. “But if I do get
the chance of course I’ll ask him. You may come
out this way,” she said, opening a rear door. The
sound of the loom in the other room went on as
before but the two Gypsies were no longer talking.
Priscilla, as Mr. Dutton and Carol followed her to
the old, unused barn, pointed out where, in a corner,
her brother had piled the things he had picked up at
the scene of the accident. But after looking carefully
the only thing Mr. Dutton found which he could
claim was a small wrench. There was no trace of the
lead box, and after Carol had invited Priscilla over
to the tea shop any time she could spare even a few
minutes from the work of finishing up the little
home, Mr. Dutton and Carol were presently on the
way back to the shop themselves.
“Well, the only thing to do now,” he said with a
little sigh of disappointment, “is to look around the
scene where my car turned over on me. It’s rather
late to do that and perhaps there has been traffic
there, but the box might have been hurled some
distance and still be lying in the grass and weeds.
It’s getting late to make a search now, it will soon be
dark. I’m afraid I couldn’t see well even now,” he
concluded, ruefully.
104
“Yes, it is quite dark under the trees,” agreed
Carol. “You can’t search until morning. Are you still
staying at the hospital?”
“Oh, no. I have a room in town. I’ll go back there
and come over here again in the morning. I don’t
fancy the bus ride—the roads are rough and the
buses old and unfortunately my leg—”
“Won’t you stay at the tea shop?” asked Carol
impulsively. “There are a number of rooms vacant
since Dorothy and her mother are away. Mary Ellen
can make you up a bed. I’m asking you as a guest—
not a paying guest—the Dragon of the Hills doesn’t
take boarders at present,” she assured him. “But if
you want to search around here more thoroughly
you can start early in the morning. There is no point
to going back to town and coming out again, do you
think so?”
“Thanks a lot for so much consideration,” he
replied. “But I couldn’t think of putting you to all
that inconvenience.”
“No inconvenience at all. You are quite welcome.
Mary Ellen will be happy to have a little more to
do.”
“Very well. It will be a great convenience,” said
Mr. Dutton. “I brought a bag with me on the chance
that there might be a hotel or boarding house out
here, for I had resolved on an intensive search for
the missing box. I can hardly tell you how much the
105
loss means to me. I shall accept your kind invitation
because it may, as you say, give me a better chance
to look thoroughly. But I insist on paying for my
meals.”
“I won’t say no to that,” said Carol. “I’m trying to
make money for Dorothy and her mother.”
In the car Mr. Dutton asked Carol about the
Gypsies.
“You say they are well known here?” he began.
“I believe they are. But, you see, I also am a
stranger in these woods. By the merest accident I
went to Mrs. Hunt’s home for shelter from a storm,
then I found Dorothy, a friend of mine, in her tea
shop. She so needed some one I just stayed and now
I am here substituting. So you see, I know little
more than you do about my surroundings,” Carol
finished, as they made the turn where the big sign
pointed to:
“The Dragon of the Hills.”
And as they turned into the pebbly drive that led
to Dorothy’s garage they both saw, apparently at the
same instant, a figure dash out of the dense thicket
into their very path.
“Oh!” exclaimed Jeanette, who was the figure in
the path. “I got all torn to pieces on those awful
briars.”
“Why did you go into those thick woods?” Carol
asked pointedly.
106
But Jeanette, the romantic, was smiling at Mr.
Dutton, so she really couldn’t answer.
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CHAPTER XIII
GETTING AT IT
Jeanette had to hear why Carol and Mr. Dutton
had been to see Priscilla. They were all indoors now
and apparently Jeanette had forgotten her torn
stockings as she asked:
“Now doesn’t it look like a real mystery?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Carol admitted when
Jeanette murmured:
“Oh, it’s all so romantic. I wouldn’t have missed
this for a thousand dollars.”
“And I’d give a thousand dollars now, if I had it,
to get back that box,” said Mr. Dutton. “In fact,
though Mr. Wong Sut and I aren’t exactly on the
best of terms and I actually may be under
suspension, as it were, I think I shall suggest that he
post a $1,000 reward for the return of the Dragon of
the Hills. It might bring it back. We’ve got to get it,”
he said very definitely.
“A reward might be a good idea.” Carol agreed.
“Money is always a ready talker.”
“If I find the box will I get the thousand dollars?”
108
asked Jeanette suddenly quite serious.
“I’ll recommend you for it,” declared Mr. Dutton
smiling.
“If this can’t be found isn’t there any chance of
getting more of the concentrate from China or
wherever it came from?” asked Carol. “Then your
firm could start making the perfume. Of course they
would lose the value of this box of concentrate that’s
gone, but it seems to me your firm is losing a chance
to start the business it believes will be profitable.”
“There is something in what you say,” he replied.
“But there is a reason why Mr. Wong Sut and his
friends aren’t trying to get more of the concentrate
from China, or at least these Orientals think there is
a good reason. We Americans can never understand
the tenacity of the foreign mind. It is possible that
another supply may eventually have to be obtained
though, as I said, the same wonderful delicacy and
lasting qualities of the perfume might not be
identical with this batch of concentrate. I have some
of the scent made up as samples from a tiny bit of
this lost gum—we experimented with it in New
York before I started to take it to Satlenburg to the
factory. I have a blotter in my bag permeated with
it—”
“Oh, I’d love to even—smell it,” exclaimed
Jeanette.
“So would I,” said Carol. “But you started to tell
109
us there might be a reason why your firm didn’t
want to try to duplicate this concentrate.”
“Oh, yes,” went on Mr. Dutton. “You see there
are, or have been, strangers around here and it is
very possible that the missing box has fallen into the
hands of a rival perfume company. It is likely that
the impact tossed the box a considerable distance
out of my car and that it was picked up soon after
the accident, or a few days later, by some one who
may have known me and—my business. The box is
inscribed in Chinese with the name and character of
the contents. A translation of that would have shown
its value, and so it could have been sold to one of the
many rivals to the Oriental Importing Company.
Then if we do put a Dragon of the Hills perfume on
the market eventually, some one else could do the
same, and even cut under our prices. I am speaking
as though I was still with the firm,” he added with a
laugh. “I’m out but if I can find that box I can
quickly enough get back. So the thing to do, and I
believe Mr. Wong Sut agrees with me though we are
on the outs for the present, is to try to find the
missing box and not try to get more concentrate
from China until all our efforts have failed.”
“May I help you look? I mean at the place of the
accident,” begged Jeanette. “I can scramble around
through briars and brambles like a wild goat, and
your lame leg, Mr. Dutton—”
110
“Yes, it will rather hamper me,” he admitted. “I
shall indeed be glad of your help,” he assured the
eager Jeanette.
“Wish I could go too—” Carol began.
“Then maybe I shouldn’t have said I’ll help,”
exclaimed Jeanette. “I can’t leave you alone, Carol.”
“Oh, I can manage for a while. Go on the treasure
hunt if you like,” she suggested merrily.
“I shall. And if I find it we’ll share the reward,”
declared Jeanette.
“Go slow on that reward!” warned Mr. Dutton.
“It hasn’t been posted yet. But I think it will be,” he
temporized.
Carol sought out Mary Ellen who reported a few
customers had been fed and “teaed” when Carol
asked her what had happened during the trip to
Bramble Hill, but she closed the door on Jeanette
and motioned Carol into the kitchen to hear
something privately.
“Now, Carol, you are doing fine and I’ve no fault
whatever to find except with that silly little thing
Jeanie,” began Mary Ellen, as she tipped out her
maple custards so that the little puddle of caramel
spilled all over the bottom-turned-tops on the yellow
heaps. “And I don’t think she should be rummaging
among Dorothy’s things,” ended the woman with a
tight drawn line on her thin lips.
“Rummaging in Dorothy’s things!” exclaimed
111
Carol, incredulously.
“Exactly that. And in a desk, of all things else—
—”
“You mean the old desk under the stairs?”
“I do that. She went at it while you were gone and
turned things inside out-”
“Oh, there’s nothing there but funny old-
fashioned painted post cards and such stuff,” Carol
was glad to say. “Dorothy told me she bought the
desk in a second-hand store and had left the queer
old stationery in it.” (Carol never even thought of
the silken scarf she herself had put in it after
Dorothy’s little shooting affair.)
“But she has no right to be messing into things,”
insisted the prejudiced housekeeper. “What’s it her
business to be digging about like a ferret-”
Carol felt it would be impossible to make Mary
Ellen understand why a girl like Jeanette would seek
mysteries in old desks, so she just said a lot about
the lovely caramel custards and went back to the tea
room.
She found Jeanette all excited about the
marvelous sample of Mr. Dutton’s perfume.
“Here is a little of the Dragon of the Hills. I’d like
your opinion of it as a scent,” he said to Carol as she
came in.
He uncorked a tiny flask and at once a most
wonderful and subtle odor pervaded the room. It was
112
like the perfume of a wind blowing over a garden of
the most fragrant flowers—the scent delicate and
elusive. The eyes of the girls showed their
wonderment at such a new aroma.
“As judges of perfume what do you think of it?”
asked Mr. Dutton expectantly.
“Oh, it’s the most wonderful scent I ever
smelled!” declared Jeanette.
“It is unlike anything I’ve ever smelled,” Carol
said. “It seems like incense—”
“That’s exactly it,” interrupted the young man.
“Our experts worked to get the effect of a dry
perfume. If only the Dragon can be found, I am
more and more convinced of its value.”
He corked the tiny bottle but the strange, elusive
aroma still seemed to fill the place.
“Value!” repeated Jeanette. “I know a girl who
paid thirty-five dollars for one ounce of perfume.”
“I too have heard of such fabulous sums,” Carol
said, “but I have never known or even smelled such
perfume.”
Reluctant to leave the admiration meeting, for
indeed the perfume subject was not only engrossing
but still mysterious, Carol did finally get a chance to
speak to Jeanette alone.
“Where did you go this afternoon?” she asked
directly.
“Why?” Jeanette wanted to know, but her face
113
had flushed up guiltily.
“Because, Jeanette, I really should know—”
“Now, Carol, you have been such a dear—”
“Yes, that’s all right,” she interrupted, “but you
came in through the woods. Were you at the Gypsy
camp?”
“Yes, I was,” faltered Jeanette.
“But the other night you told me you had given
up that sort of nonsense-”
“Listen, Carol, this is dreadfully important—to
me,” declared Jeanette in a sudden burst of
confidence. “Please, please, don’t hold me back,”
she begged. “It’s nothing wrong. I wouldn’t do
anything really wrong.”
“Not if you knew it was wrong, Jeanette,” Carol
spoke up, “but you might not know.”
“Oh, I’m sure there can be no real harm in this,”
Jeanette insisted, and Carol was obliged for the time
being, not to press her further.
Very early next morning Carol heard Mr. Dutton
go out. However quietly he had tried to leave the
cottage his lameness had prevented him from
walking noiselessly, and Carol quickly reasoned he
was going out this early to avoid having Jeanette go
along to help in the search for the precious box.
Last evening, after her unsatisfactory talk with
Jeanette, in which she, Carol, had only succeeded in
adding to her alarming suspicions about the
114
romantic girl and her interest in the Gypsies, Carol
sat down “quietly with herself” to take stock of the
entire situation.
“First,” she recounted, “we are making a little
money for Dorothy and I have convinced her that I
like it out here and want to stay. As if I would leave
without finding out who got that Dragon of the Hills
box,” she reminded herself slyly.
“Next.” Carol was making mental notes of all
this, believing that Jeanette’s fondness for
rummaging in desks might make written notes too
dangerous. “Next,” she repeated, “we have helped
dear little Priscilla in her sorrow, but I feel she may
need more help, for the missing brother may easily
bring her more trouble.”
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CHAPTER XIV
THE PROBLEM OF JEANETTE
“Now I suppose I am to have some real worry
about Jeanette,” Carol decided next. “I just can’t let
her have secrets about those old Gypsies, and I
know even Priscilla says the Gypsy girl Tamma,
Zada’s daughter, runs around a lot and worries her
mother. There’s no telling what mischief a girl like
that might lead silly Jeanette into.”
Such was the line of serious thought which Carol
Duncan was occupied with the night that Mr. Dutton
was a house guest at the tea shop. Of course Carol
had not forgotten about her own home in Melody
Lane, but with her father gone fishing, her sister
Cecy as usual “dashing around” with her dear friend
Rosalind Wells, whose full-fledged family knew
well how to take care of both Cecy and Rosie; there
was really nothing for Carol to worry about home in
Melody Lane.
Carol’s school friend, Glenn Garrison, was busy
again this summer training his boys to swim and
scout at camp, so that the tea shop had given Carol
116
her chance at a last-rose-of-summer fling and she
Was bound to make the most of it.
But next morning had come and was passing
quickly now, with such tasks as ‘phone marketing
for Mary Ellen, letter writing for Dorothy, and
attending to business generally for the tea shop. As
soon as Carol had satisfied Jeanette that Mr. Dutton
had to hurry with his search for the precious box and
so couldn’t wait to take her along, the girl seemed
content to fix up the porch, her real childish joy in
arranging the bright cushions always amusing Carol.
Presently, however, Jeanette insisted upon running
off the corner mail box with her usual packet of
cards and letters.
“And I’ll go out to the Four Corners for a
magazine, Carol,” she called back as she started
off—calling back being one of her tricks to get away
without Carol’s protest.
“And now I suppose it will be the Gypsies,”
Carol sighed, as she saw Mr. Dutton coming.
He was smiling, but not waving or showing any
particular jubilation, so Carol was right in guessing
he had not found the box.
“No luck,” he told her reaching the porch steps
and dropping down to rest the troublesome leg. “As
a matter of fact I didn’t expect any. I never have
doubted that the box was stolen.”
“Stolen!” Carol repeated.
117
“Yes. It was too heavy to get far away from the
road even if flung out of my car and now I’m
convinced it never remained very long where it may
have landed.”
“Would anyone, or could anyone, guess its
value?” Carol asked.
“People around here might. I mean the strangers
like the prowler who came here, and the one who
frightened poor old Mrs. Hunt. Whoever that was
might have been actually following me and even the
car accident may not have been completely an
accident, you know,” he told Carol in a lowered
voice intending confidence.
“Oh, I never thought of that,” she answered.
“Would Priscilla’s missing brother be suspected?”
she in turn whispered.
“Until Dragon of the Hills is found or he is
eliminated, of course his actions at that time or after
that time would have to be accounted for,” he
replied.
“Poor Priscilla!” Carol sighed. “Isn’t she awfully
young to have so much trouble?”
“But certainly she will not be involved,” Mr.
Dutton spoke quickly.
“But if her brother is?”
“Well, he isn’t at present. There are others, you
know. I have trace of more than Mr. Wong Sut in
the village. However, Miss Carol, I can’t thank you
118
enough for all you have done for me,” the young
man said warmly. “It’s very unusual to find a girl so
young as you so free from petty formalities—”
“Oh, you see, Dad has always given me so much
freedom, perhaps I do do things other girls might
hesitate about. But there’s always a good old Mary
Ellen in the background,” she put in naively. “I
have a darling old Rachel at home.”
“Good for Rachel,” cheered Mr. Dutton, “and for
Mary Ellen too. Which reminds me, I must say
goodbye to her,” he remarked tactfully. “I hear her
in the kitchen.”
Carol knew Mr. Dutton would give Mary Ellen a
“nice tip” for her attention while he was at the tea
shop, and hearing her chuckle as he talked to her
confirmed that suspicion. Back again to speak to
Carol he recalled he had promised her and Jeanette a
bit of blotting paper scented with the wonderful
perfume.
“It may help you if you ever find a clue,” he said.
“I have it in my small bag. I’ll get it.”
When he returned with the bit of absorbent
blotting paper wrapped carefully in waxed paper and
protected by an envelope besides, it was easy to
realize that the elusive and mysterious incense of the
Orient was in the room.
“Oh, how lovely!” Carol exclaimed. “It will
perfume all—my things.”
119
“Yes, I think it will. And here’s one for little
Jeanette,” Mr. Dutton offered.
“She will be crazy about it, I know,” Carol
assured him. Then, as her expression changed, he
asked if she was worrying about Jeanette.
Briefly and tactfully she tried to tell him why she
felt rather responsible for the girl, then, in a flash,
she remembered about having put the bit of silk in
the desk under the stairs the morning after Dorothy
had tried out her automatic. And at the same time
Carol remembered that Mary Ellen had complained
of Jeanette rummaging in that desk!
“But you are worried,” Mr. Dutton insisted. “Just
now your eyes are miles away. Can’t I help you?
I’m a lot older than a little girl like you.”
“Oh, thank you, but there really is no reason for
worry. Jeanette has been splendid until now, and
she’s only just becoming interested in the Gypsies,
they’re so romantic, you know,” she added lightly.
“And tricky,” added Mr. Dutton.
“But old Zada is very reliable, Priscilla says. In
fact she has been a good friend to both Priscilla and
her grandmother.”
“Oh, yes, the old Gypsy would be reliable, I’m
sure. But how about that dashing young daughter?”
“Tamma? I suppose she is dashing,” conceded
Carol, “and I don’t want Jeanette to get too
interested in her fortune telling either. But, Mr.
120
Dutton, I had not realized until you told me your
suspicions about your accident that your life was in
danger while you were known to have had that
precious box.”
“It was, I guess,” he admitted hesitantly.
“And perhaps the prowler who came here that
night I told you about, he might also be looking for
the box and think it was in here, since you were in
here that day,” Carol reasoned.
“You mean that a desperate character was
searching for it; had looked over the road, perhaps,
was trying to see if old Mrs. Hunt had it and had
even tried looking in here? Well, that isn’t my
theory. I believe now more than one person was
trying ‘to get me,’ as they say, to secure the box.
One got it first, but the other, not knowing that, kept
on looking. However, don’t feel you are in any
danger here,” he assured Carol. “By now the entire
situation has changed.”
“You mean there will be no more searching?”
“I think not, it has been found, I am almost sure
of that; it is the thief we have to look for now.”
Carol drove Mr. Dutton to the bus station and as
he left she felt a sense of loneliness.
“Perhaps Dorothy will be able to come back
soon,” she told herself. “Or maybe Thally will turn
up; she usually does when I need her most.”
Thally was Carol’s best and dearest friend, afraid
121
of nothing and eager for everything.
But the thought of Jeanette going through the old
desk and taking that scarf was something to worry
about definitely.
“The old rag might be dirty,” Carol was
deliberating. “Might have been around someone’s
neck—I had intended to put it in a big envelope, and
then forgot all about it. Well, that’s one thing I can’t
postpone. I must ask Jeanette about it this very day.”
And then she turned her car in the direction of the
narrow little lane that cut in from the main road and
brought up in the fields where the Gypsies were in
camp.
At the cedar tree point, where a lane connected
with the main road, Carol was surprised to see a blue
sport car parked under a group of low trees. So low
were some of the tree branches that they touched the
glistening top of the auto.
“My!” Carol thought, “some young man must be
interested in fortune telling, or maybe, it’s a young
girl, for certainly that model of a car must belong to
some one young.”
Then it occurred to her she had better wait for
Jeanette at a little distance from the camp. It would
be embarrassing to abruptly meet whoever this car
belonged to. So she turned around and drove back to
a secluded road that was the entrance to a farm. She
waited a few minutes and then turned back toward
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the Gypsy camp.
When she was again within a short distance of the
lane, just as she expected, the blue sport car passed
her.
“And the driver is a young man,” Carol was
noticing. “Very dark. I couldn’t get more than a
glimpse of his face as he dashed by, but I’m sure he
was dark,” she concluded, this time making straight
for the lane leading to the Gypsy camp.
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CHAPTER XV
VANISHED
It was but a few minutes before Jeanette came
smiling down the lane. She appeared a little
surprised to see Carol and the car.
“You didn’t need to come for me,” she said,
“though it was sweet of you, Carol. I could have
walked back.”
“It’s too far, Jeanette, and it’s getting past lunch
time. Well, did you get a good fortune?” she tried to
ask pleasantly.
“Oh, Tamma was quite wonderful! Not like a lot
of the ordinary fortune tellers. She really knows
things. And she told me things that puzzled me—
really that frightened me a little.”
“You shouldn’t be so credulous, Jeanette,” chided
Carol. “Come along.”
“Oh, well, you don’t know what she said. Not
that I believe them—at least not all of them. But I
am to go back again,” she announced climbing into
the car.
“Go back again?”
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“Yes, in about a week. She is going to dream on
my handkerchief.”
“Jeanette, you surely aren’t serious!” Carol
exclaimed.
“Oh, but I am. She said she had to have
something very intimate from me—something I had
worn. The handkerchief was all I could think of.
Perhaps it was on account of the perfume.”
“Perfume?”
“Yes—the Dragon of the Hills, you know. I held
that bottle a moment last night you know, and some
of the scent must have gotten on my handkerchief.
As soon as I went in the tent Tamma noticed it,
though I had almost forgotten it. She asked me what
scent it was.”
“Jeanette,” Carol said severely, “you know you
should never have even mentioned that perfume to
the Gypsies.”
“Why, is it a secret?”
“Well, a sort of secret for the time being. Perhaps
the less we say about Mr. Dutton’s perfume the
better. So Tamma was attracted by it, was she,
Jeanette?”
“Well, I had to leave her my handkerchief. She
says she will put it under her pillow and dream on it
and tell me more of my fortune. Oh, of course it’s all
nonsense,” and Jeanette laughed, “but it’s awfully
thrilling. And I’m starved!”
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“Well,” Carol said, “I must warn you not to get
too close to these Gypsies. Next time she may want
your wrist watch to dream on.”
“Oh, she wouldn’t get that! But Tamma is
perfectly honest. Why, you told me her mother
worked for years for old Mrs. Hunt,” Jeanette
reminded Carol.
“So I did. Oh, she may be all right. Only don’t
think too much about Gypsy fortunes, Jeanette.”
Carol just couldn’t question Jeanette about the old
scarf just then.
“I shan’t, Carol,” the other promised. “But it was
lots of fun.”
As they drove back past the old house on
Bramble Hill, a man ran out in the road waving his
arms to halt them.
“Why, it’s Squire Eaton!” Carol exclaimed. “I
wonder if anything can have happened?”
Evidently something had happened for there was
an anxious look on Squire Eaton’s face as Carol
brought the car to a stop near where he stood in the
road.
“Isn’t she with you?” he asked.
“Do you mean Tamma?” asked Carol. “Does her
mother want her to help on the rug?” For from the
open window of the room where the valuable rug
was being secretly woven came the clank of the
loom.
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“No, I mean Priscilla,” answered the justice of the
peace. “I thought she went to the Gypsy camp with
you or your friend,” and he looked particularly at
Jeanette. “I thought—”
“No, she didn’t go with me,” Jeanette answered.
“I went alone, but I saw her as I passed. She was
walking, too. Why do you think she might have
gone with me?”
“Because she isn’t here,” was the answer.
“We haven’t seen anything of her since early this
morning,” Carol said.
“I am right worried, Miss Duncan,” said the
squire. “There’s no two ways about that. It isn’t like
Priscilla to go away from the house so suddenly. I
don’t like it. I came over here, leaving some of my
business, to have a talk with Priscilla about some
matters of her grandmother’s estate and I am told
she went away in a hurry a little while ago. Now
I’ve got to drive around to look for her and I haven’t
much gas. Not much gas!”
He nodded toward an ancient roadster parked just
beyond where the path led uphill to the old house.
“I’ll have to go to the Gypsy camp, I guess. I’ve got
to see Priscilla.” He was talking more than he was
saying things. This made Carol feel that he was
unusually stirred up. “Got to see her!”
“I don’t believe you’ll find Priscilla in the camp,”
Carol said. “We just came from there and if she
127
hadn’t yet reached it we would have passed her on
the road. Unless,” she added, “there is some other
way of getting there.”
“There are other ways,” the Squire admitted. “But
Priscilla wouldn’t be likely to take ’em. There’s a
lonely road over back of Bramble Hill but it’s longer
than the main highway. She wouldn’t go that way.
No, she wouldn’t.”
“What makes you think she went to the Gypsy
camp?” Carol asked.
“I’m only guessing at it,” he admitted. “There
doesn’t seem any other place for her to go. I thought
maybe she went after you, fearing you might have
lost your way.” Again he looked at Jeanette. “Lost
your way.”
“No, I didn’t get lost and I saw Priscilla only a
moment,” declared Jeanette.
“Well, I was waiting here until you got back
hoping you might have seen her,” and he addressed
himself to Carol. “But if you haven’t—”
“Tell us just what happened, or what you think
happened?” Carol suggested.
“’Twon’t take long to do that. As I say I came
over on a matter of business with Priscilla. The law
reads that I have to consult with her on certain
matters and I always uphold the law. So I drove over
here. Priscilla wasn’t here so I talked to Zada. She’s
one of the best of the Gypsies—woman of sound
128
common sense—none of the silly fortune-telling
business.”
“But about Priscilla,” urged Carol fearing the
subject might get side-tracked. However there was
no fear of that with Squire Eaton as engineer.
“Well, when I found Priscilla wasn’t here,
naturally I asked where she was and Zada told me
she was out some place. I looked up and down the
road but I didn’t see her or any of you folks. None of
you folks.”
“Zada said she went out early didn’t she?” Carol
asked the Squire. “And didn’t she come back at all,
Mr. Eaton?”
“Oh, yes, she came back, but I didn’t see her,” the
Squire replied. “She came in the rear door, as I
could tell by her voice for I was up stairs lookin’
over some truck, and I heard her call to Zada that
she would be back in a little while. I thought that
would be all right. I figured she was busy about
errands or somethin’. But she didn’t come back the
second time. And I’ve been waitin’ ever since,” he
added impatiently. “Ever since.”
“Where could she have gone? There are so few
places, and I have been almost to town myself,”
Carol told them.
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” said the
official. “I admit it’s got me worried for Priscilla
isn’t the kind of a girl to go gallivanting away over
129
Bramble Hill and just now ‘taint any too safe for
her.” He didn’t explain what that meant.
Carol was also worried, more especially as she
remembered the prowler of the night who had come
trying doors at the tea shop. If some Orientals who
were employed by Wong Sut to find his missing
perfume were sneaking about Bramble Hill they
might have terrified Priscilla when she unexpectedly
encountered them on the woody roadway.
There was considerable questioning and
answering and it sifted down to this:
Carol knew very little of the matter. She had not
seen Priscilla for some time before having driven
Mr. Dutton to the bus station.
“I was going to help him in his search,” said
Jeanette, not specifying to the Squire what the
search was. “But he got up too early and went
away.”
“Yes,” Carol confirmed. Then, seeing that the
Squire looked rather interested at the mention of the
word “search,” Carol went on to add: “Mr. Dutton
lost something from his car at the time of the
accident and came back to search for it.”
“Did he find it?” asked the Squire.
“No.”
“I wonder if he saw Priscilla?” Carol ventured.
“Yes, he did,” said Jeanette unexpectedly.
“How do you know?” asked Carol quickly.
130
“Because Priscilla, though I only saw her for a
moment, said she had seen him searching along the
roadside and she helped him look. But she had no
luck, either, and then she left him and went back
home.”
“How do you know that?” asked the Squire.
“Priscilla told me.”
“Then you must have had quite a talk with her—
quite a talk.”
“It didn’t take long just for what we said,” smiled
Jeanette.
“But did anything happen just before or just after
you met her and she said, after she had met Mr.
Dutton, she was going back home, and she did come
back home for I was there?” asked the Squire of
Jeanette. “Did you see or hear anything suspicious?”
“No, not a thing. I saw some cars pass after
Priscilla went around the turn in the road and I went
on to the Gypsy camp. Wait, though, I did hear
something.”
“What?” asked the Squire and Carol together,
quickly. “What?” the Squire repeated.
“I heard a whistle,” Jeanette said. “A queer
whistle just after Priscilla went around the turn of
the road.”
“Whistle!” exclaimed Carol.
“Oh, you mean the Bob White?” asked the
Squire.
131
“Bob White?” repeated Carol, thinking for a
moment it might be some Gypsy lad who, strolling
over Bramble Hill had whistled at Priscilla. Then in
another moment she remembered the call of the
quail, whose whistle, freely interpreted sounds like:
“Bob White!”
“You’re right,” said the squire suddenly. “It was
right after Priscilla ran out. I did hear a quail
whistling. I didn’t think anything of it just then, but
she did hurry off right after that.”
“And we haven’t seen her since,” Jeanette said.
“It’s mighty queer,” mused the Squire.
“Something happened between the time she went
down to the turn of the road where this girl, Jeanette,
saw her, and the time she came back to the house
and called to Zada that she’d be back in a little
while. She went off somewhere and—well, I don’t
like to say it, but I feel sure something happened to
her. Something has happened.”
“Oh, no!” Carol exclaimed. “It’s broad daylight
and—”
“Well, how do you account for it?” he asked
rather sharply. “She’s gone. There’s no getting
around that. And she isn’t a girl to stroll about
Bramble Hill. I guess I’d better get Lem. Better get
Lem.”
Jeanette said aside to Carol:
“That old fellow must know more than he’s
132
telling us. Why ever would he make all that fuss
about Priscilla being away from home in broad
daylight?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Carol answered
her. “But since he is sure to know what he’s talking
about although we don’t, we had just better follow
his advice and go looking for Priscilla.”
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CHAPTER XVI
PRISCILLA’S SECRET
Jeanette seemed happy at the very prospect of a
live mystery.
“I thought,” she remarked, “that they didn’t
happen away from Melody Lane. Oh, I’m thrilled!”
Then she raised her voice so that Squire Eaton could
hear, “Do you think anything really has happened to
Priscilla—I mean something that we’ll have to get
detectives out here for and will it be in the papers?”
“Not if I can help it,” said the Squire grimly. “I
don’t want Priscilla’s name read all around Bramble
Hill. And I don’t believe it’s anything of a mystery,”
he snapped back. “No mystery at all!”
“We didn’t mean it exactly that way,” Carol tried
to explain. “We meant it was strange she should go
away so suddenly and remain so long.”
“’Tis strange,” the executor admitted. “But I
guess it can all be explained. It’s likely,” he went on,
“that she may have slipped and sprained an ankle
and so she can’t walk home. Though why she should
want to go so far away and on such short notice I
134
can’t imagine. As for detectives, we’ve got one right
in town.”
“You have! How thrilling!” exclaimed Jeanette
with her usual hair-trigger poise.
“I’ll get Lem on the case if Priscilla doesn’t come
back or we can’t find her ourselves,” he decided.
“Of course we’ll help look for her,” Carol
offered. “But I really ought to go back to the tea
shop. I’ll come back immediately after lunch, Squire
Eaton, and help all I can—if she isn’t heard from
before then.”
“I’ll appreciate that, Miss Duncan. ’Tis near
lunch time. I guess we’d all better eat. We may be
all the afternoon hunting. I’ll run on to town and
come back as soon as I have a bite.”
“How would it be,” suggested Carol, “to get Zada
and her daughter Tamma and some of the Gypsies to
look for Priscilla? The Gypsies are wood-folk.”
“I don’t trust ’em!” said the officer shortly. “Not
but what Zada is all right and maybe her daughter.
But there’s always a lot of strange Gypsies that
come to the encampment every year and it’s them I
don’t trust. No, we’ll work this out ourselves. Work
it ourselves,” he repeated.
He went into the old house to tell Zada, who was
still clanking away at the rug loom, that they would
all return and start the search for Priscilla soon. The
old Gypsy woman did not seem much perturbed at
135
Priscilla’s strange absence. Perhaps she was
accustomed to the young people of her own tribe
going away like that.
“But then,” Carol reasoned when the Squire came
back to report Zada’s seeming indifference,
“Gypsies are more accustomed to looking after
themselves in the woods and fields than Priscilla can
possibly be.” She was beginning to take on some of
the Squire’s strange anxiety.
When Carol and Jeanette returned to the tea shop
Carol still holding back her question about the
missing scarf from the old desk, Mary Ellen was
found in rather a flustered state. For once the
efficient Scotch woman seemed to have lost her
poise.
“I was getting worried about you, my dear,” she
said to Carol, ignoring, as was her wont, the
frivolous Jeanette. “I guess you were near to
forgetting that this afternoon the Ladies Aid are to
have their affair here.”
“Oh, I did forget it! I’m so sorry!” Carol
exclaimed. “But something strange happened to put
it out of my mind. Is there any trouble about it—I
mean because I wasn’t here?”
“Oh, no. I took care of everything. They’re
sending their own people to take charge. There’ll be
no need for you or the other young lady to be here at
all this afternoon or evening. The other ladies will
136
do everything. Though I’ll stand around to make
sure they do no damage to Miss Dorothy’s
possessions. Only I was worried lest you have a
headache from not eating your lunch on time.”
“I am hungry,” Carol said.
“Starved!” declared Jeanette.
Mary Ellen served a substantial lunch. Then
Carol, making sure everything was in order for
turning the tea shop over to the Ladies Aid for the
remainder of the day, instructed Mary Ellen to
receive and take care of the money to be paid.
“Now, we’ll see what we can do in the way of
finding Priscilla,” she said as she brought her car
around to the side door. Already some of the ladies
were arriving for their annual affair, all a flutter and
each simply swelling with her own importance.
Carol and Jeanette got away quickly although
Jeanette did say she would like to stay “to see the
fun.”
They found Squire Eaton waiting for them when
they arrived at Bramble Hill. One look at his face
told Carol there was no news. The Squire said he
had shouted himself hoarse but found no answering
call back from Priscilla. With the Squire was
Detective Lem Higgon.
“What’s the thing to do now?” Carol asked. “You
had better do the directing, Mr. Eaton.”
“All right. I will. Lem and I mapped out a sort of
137
plan. He’s going to cast around on foot over the hills
and dales around here. It’s possible Priscilla’s lost.
There’s swamps and bogs not far from here where
anybody might get lost. Lem knows ’em better than
I do. Though why Priscilla wanted to wade through
’em I can’t guess.”
“It does seem strange,” Carol agreed. “But what
will we do?”
“You drive along the roads and make inquiries,”
suggested the Squire. “Somebody must have seen
the girl. I’ll do the same, but first I’ll go to the
Gypsy camp and make some inquiries there, I’ll do
that myself. It’s possible some of the young fellows
who are always wandering around—they don’t seem
to have much to do—they might have seen Priscilla.
After I get through with the camp I’ll scour around
on the roads. We’ll meet here at the wind-up but if
she isn’t back by then—”
He didn’t entirely finish. But Carol, determined
not to give in to even such faint suggestion, said:
“Oh, she’s sure to be back or we’ll surely find her
before then.”
“I hope so,” said the Squire.
So the search began.
Carol, with Jeanette who, in spite of Carol’s
advice to remain quiet, kept repeating that she was
“thrilled,” took a road that wound about Bramble
Hill and came out in the lonely country beyond it.
138
Detective Lem started straight up over Bramble
Hill on foot. He had a determined air about him as
though by his very strength and persistence he
would solve the mystery and as Jeanette would and
did say: “Bring her back alive.”
Squire Eaton headed his rattling car down the
road that led to the lane at the end of which, in the
woods, was the Gypsy camp.
Up in Priscilla’s strange, old house Zada clanked
away at the loom. It seemed to be an obsession with
her to get the rug finished—the rug that was to have
crowned the life work of old Mrs. Hunt. In all the
talk and conjecture about Priscilla the Gypsy had not
once shown herself out of the house.
Following the plan the Squire had outlined, Carol
drove along various roads. Occasionally they met
other motorists, mostly country people from the
neighborhood. Of them, as well as of casual
travelers in smarter cars they asked for news of the
missing girl. They gave no explanation of their
inquiries and, in fact, none seemed to be expected.
The answers were all in the negative.
“She just seems to have disappeared,” said
Jeanette. “Oh, I do hope she’s all right,” she finally
settled down enough to remark.
“I do not know,” Carol said. “Bramble Hill is a
very lonely country. There are so few houses around
here and we ourselves have seen quite a few
139
strangers, you know.”
Carol saw how quickly Jeanette turned her head
away and changed the subject, making some
unimportant remark about how late the summer
weather was remaining. Once again Carol felt she
would have to ask Jeanette about the old scarf, and
once again she hesitated.
“I just must have a chance to talk seriously to her
when I begin on that,” Carol decided. “And just now
while she is bound to be with me I don’t believe she
will be seeing much of the Gypsies.”
As they drove along they stopped to make
inquiries of the few persons passing thinking
Priscilla might have been seen by some one, or even
have been taken to a farm house if she had met with
an accident. And as very few houses around
Bramble Hill had telephones, the farmers could not
have notified anyone except personally.
It was a disappointing search. It just seemed no
one had seen Priscilla, and yet where could she have
gone?
The long afternoon passed. The shadows were
lengthening and Carol, now fully realizing what this
might mean, decided they had better turn back. After
all, the Squire or Lem might, by this time, have
located Priscilla. Jeanette was glad enough to give
up the search. So the car was turned around and they
headed back for Bramble Hill.
140
When they were within perhaps a mile of the
place, and it was now fast getting dusk, Carol saw,
just ahead of them on the side path, a girl walking
along. And she knew who it was.
“Priscilla!” she called, in a shrill, sharp voice.
The girl turned, after a start of surprise at hearing
her name, and waited for the car to come up.
“Priscilla!” Carol exclaimed. “Where have you
been? We’ve been looking all over for you. Squire
Eaton is so worried! Where did you go?” She was
breathless now, and Jeanette was exclaiming also.
For a moment the girl hesitated. She looked down
at the dusty road and then her clear, gray eyes met
those of Carol unflinchingly.
“Where were you?” Carol demanded again.
“I—I’d rather not tell,” Priscilla answered. “But
I’m all right. I’ll ride back with you if I may. But I
can’t tell you where I have been. Please don’t ask
me.”
But her little gingham dress and her well worn
“sneaks” showed that, wherever she had been, the
way must have been rough and dusty.
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CHAPTER XVII
DETECTIVE CAROL
Priscilla’s determination not to tell where she had
been seemed to shock the searchers into silence—at
least for the moment.
Jeanette, rather pertly, as might have been
expected, said:
“I think that’s hardly fair.”
“Fair!” faltered Priscilla.
“Yes,” went on Jeanette. “Here we all give up our
afternoon to look for you, and you come along as if
you’d just been for a walk and say you won’t tell us
where you were. And you know we were all terribly
frightened.”
“I’m sorry,” said the gray-eyed girl. “I didn’t
mean to give you any trouble. But couldn’t I just go
for a walk by myself?” she asked suspiciously. “I
often used to do it when Grannie was alive. I didn’t
see any harm in it,” she drew in with a show of
something like indignation.
“None, as long as you didn’t come to any harm,”
said Carol kindly. “But get in the car, do. I must
142
hurry you back home. The Squire will be there
wondering and worrying.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry if you worried,” said Priscilla
contritely, as she got into the rumble seat. “But
really it wasn’t anything. I just went to be off by
myself. I wasn’t needed to help Zada with the rug
and—”
“Well, if you just went for a walk,” Carol said, “it
took you an unusually long time, I think. And I can’t
see why you don’t want to tell us where you were.
Not that it’s any of my business,” she tried to
explain. “We are only helping Squire Eaton who, in
a way, is responsible for you. I suppose you will tell
him where you were,” she pointed out, wisely.
“No,” said Priscilla and her voice seemed firmer,
“least of all will I tell him. Oh, it isn’t anything!”
she burst out with a little sob. “I haven’t been up to
any mischief—I haven’t done anything—I have
come to no harm—I just wanted to be alone! Oh,
why do you have to tease me!” She seemed on the
verge of tears and realizing this would not help
matters Carol quickly said:
“We don’t mean to tease you. If you think you
shouldn’t tell that is your affair. You aren’t a little
child. It remains to be seen whether or not the Squire
will accept your refusal, that is all I am trying to tell
you.”
“He’s got to accept it!” Priscilla cried with energy
143
that seemed to preclude the possibility of tears. “I
just won’t tell him every time I take a walk.”
“Well, we mustn’t get excited,” Carol tried to
soothe as she drove on. “And you haven’t had any
lunch.”
“I had berries—there were plenty of them,” said
Priscilla and she showed her stained, brown hands as
proof of this. “I didn’t get hungry, though I am
now,” she admitted. “It’s too bad there was all this
fuss over nothing.”
“It wasn’t exactly ‘nothing,’ my dear,” said Carol
gently.
They saw Squire Eaton walking restlessly up and
down in the gathering dusk as they approached
along the road in front of Priscilla’s home. The
clanking loom was quiet. Zada had evidently gone
back to the Gypsy camp and in the doorway of the
house stood Mrs. Mason, shading her eyes with her
hand.
“Did you find her?” called the Squire as Carol’s
car drove up.
“Yes, I’m here! I’m all right!” Priscilla answered
for herself. Carol thought it best to let her handle the
matter with her guardian.
“Well, where in the name of goodness were
you?” Mr. Eaton demanded rather sharply. “You’ve
given us a fine fright, Priscilla! I was thinking, if
you hadn’t come along now, of sending out a
144
general alarm to the State Police.”
“Oh, the police!” exclaimed Priscilla as she
alighted from the car. “Oh, no! Don’t do that!” She
seemed frightened. “Not the police!”
“No need for ’em, now you’re back,” said the
Squire grimly. “But where were you? Where’d you
find her, Miss Duncan?”
“Walking along the road,” Carol answered,
smiling.
“Where were you all this time, Priscilla?”
demanded the Squire.
“Gathering berries—for one thing,” she said,
slowly.
“Gathering berries! Without a pail or basket?”
“I ate them!”
“What else did you do?” His voice was getting
angry.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you every little thing,
Squire Eaton,” Priscilla answered. “Oh, let me
alone! I’ve done no harm—I’m all right—I just
wanted to be alone!” And again her voice was
tearful.
“Well, of all—” began the Squire but Lem broke
in with: “There’s no tellin’ what young folks do
these days. Goin’ berryin’ ’ithout a basket an’
wantin’ to be alone when night’s comin’ on.”
Priscilla walked on up toward the house. Squire
Eaton looked at her with a half-puzzled, half-angry
145
air but the girl seemed strangely determined and self
reliant now. She appeared to have gotten over the
little hysteria which was noticeable when she first
encountered Carol and her friends.
“Well, I’ll have a talk with you later,” the Squire
said. “I’ve got to be getting back now. I came over
on some business about your grandmother’s affairs,
Priscilla, but it can keep until tomorrow. I thought
you’d be back any minute when you ran into the
house and out again so quick.”
“I thought I’d be back in a little while myself,”
Priscilla told him over her shoulder, “but I walked
farther than I intended. And it was so lovely I hated
to come back. But I’m here now,” she said with a
little laugh, “and I’m sorry I gave you all so much
trouble. Thank you for your interest, Carol.”
“Oh, I was glad to help,” Carol said.
“She’s queer!” said Jeanette as Priscilla went on
into the house with Mrs. Mason the house-worker
and the Squire, who with another shake of his head,
motioned to his detective to get in the car for the trip
back to town.
“Well, Carol, what do you think of the latest
development in the Dragon of the Hills case?” asked
Jeanette as they drove back to the tea shop.
“Do you imagine that Priscilla found the box of
valuable concentrate and has it hidden somewhere?”
Carol said, forgetting for the moment her suspicion
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of Jeanette’s possible intrigue with the Gypsies.
“If you ask me,” drawled Jeanette, “she went out
to meet a boy friend and they got talking and she
didn’t realize how late it was.”
“Nonsense!” said Carol. “Don’t be silly,
Jeanette!”
“All boy friends aren’t silly,” Jeanette said
importantly. “And besides that,” she went on, “she
possibly slipped off to have her fortune told by the
Gypsy and she was ashamed to admit it. I’m not—I
don’t care what people think of me. I like the
Gypsies’ fortunes.”
“Well, Jeanette,” Carol began, her voice showing
how hard she was trying not to show her
indignation, “I’ve been waiting for a chance to ask
you something. And although the ladies are here
now for their party—”
“Ask me something!” Jeanette laughed lightly.
“Fire away, Carol dear, I’ll be right here with all the
answers.”
“If you take that silly tone I’m afraid I’ll still
have to wait for a better chance.”
“Whew! Serious as all that? Murder or
something?”
“It might have been,” Carol replied surprisingly,
remembering Dorothy’s firing her automatic in the
dark when the bit of silken scarf must have been
dropped that night on the porch—the scarf now
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missing from the old desk under the stairs. But Carol
could hear the chatter of the Ladies Aid at their
party as she turned her car in the drive. And
remembering her duty to Dorothy’s interests, and
how much the money from this sale would mean to
her, Carol actually bit her tongue in new
determination to wait a little longer for the important
talk with Jeanette.
But Jeanette’s interest was aroused. She cared for
nothing more than for things that concerned herself
and she flung back at Carol:
“Go ahead, Carol. Don’t tell me I’ve got to wait
for a story with murder in it.”
“Jeanette, please,” Carol begged. “You know we
must do all we can to help Dorothy with this affair.”
“Dorothy, Dorothy,” scoffed the other girl as she
followed Carol who was already out of the car. “I’m
just sick of hearing of all we should do to help
Dorothy,” she sneered.
“Are you?” fired Carol, aroused now beyond
endurance. “Then, perhaps, Jeanette, you should end
your visit here. Remember you are still Dorothy’s
guest.”
“End my visit! Now?” What a quick change that
idea brought to Jeanette.
“Yes; why not? If you are sick and tired of it
here—”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that, Carol,” and Jeanette
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seized Carol’s arm to detain her. “I just—meant—
well, why doesn’t Dorothy come back and take care
of her own place?” she blurted out. “You said in her
last letter—”
“Yes, I know,” Carol interrupted. “Dorothy’s
mother is being brought to a rest home and Dorothy
could leave her if I wanted to give up here. But I
don’t—not yet,” said Carol definitely.
“So keen on the mystery,” Jeanette’s composure
was returning; the little scare of being sent home
seemed to be patching itself up. “I don’t blame you.
When is Mr. Dutton coming back?” Carol was
almost at the kitchen door.
“I don’t know,” she answered sharply. “Please
give this cheese to Mary Ellen. I must put the
lemons in the pantry.”
For the Ladies Aid party was getting well under
way now.
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CHAPTER XVIII
UNDER FIRE
Not even the success of the Ladies Aid party,
which netted for Dorothy more than she expected
according to her estimate given Carol, served to
divert Carol from the ever increasing suspicions and
problems in the mystery of the Dragon of the Hills.
“I thought a mystery was just that, a straight go-
get-it mystery,” Carol reasoned, after counting her
petty cash for the day and putting it in the big strong
envelope with the check from the Ladies Aid, “but
this isn’t just that, it’s a mystery made up of a lot of
pieces scattered here and there, yet they must
somehow fit together in one pattern in the end.”
Mr. Dutton had returned that evening and Mary
Ellen had insisted upon his staying, although he had
already made other arrangements.
“What’s the expense of this place for,” the
woman argued as Mr. Dutton was about to leave, “if
it shouldn’t be used in some way? Certainly we will
take a roomer now and then,” she went on, “and
don’t we know you? And why shouldn’t you take
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the accommodation?”
So Mr. Dutton was staying, perhaps even now
asleep in the alcove room, for he had been traveling
all day over the wild country, searching out garage
men who were said to have towed his car away after
the accident, although, as he told Carol, he might
have saved himself that trouble for he had learned
exactly nothing about the lost box.
And there was the strange disappearance of
Priscilla that day, still unexplained. No use denying
that it was strange, for even Priscilla’s own attempts
to treat it lightly and “laugh it off,” as Jeanette had
said, merely added to the suspicions that Priscilla
had been some place she was unwilling to own up
to. And that was so unlike her that Carol felt she was
either shielding some one or hiding something or, it
might be, she was doing both.
Then, there was Jeanette to be watched and
perhaps to be sent home, for Carol was no
“policeman,” as she had often told Thally, her best
girl friend, who, by the way, had just written Carol
that she was going to do some extra studying before
school opened, and so could hardly get out “to take a
whack at the Dragon of the Hills mystery.”
This news had been disappointing to Carol, for
Thally was the last word in the best of girl friends
and the first and last word on Melody Lane
mysteries.
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Trying to reason out some answer to the queer
mixup, Carol took out her little note book and added
the newest memorandum. It concerned Priscilla and
Jeanette, in different items, it included Mr. Dutton’s
“report” of no new clues, but progress by
elimination, which meant, of course, that the loss of
the box was narrowing down to a “few suspects.”
Mr. Dutton had refused to make that any clearer
even for Carol. And when she spoke of Priscilla’s
queer disappearance that day (Mr. Dutton
confirming the fact that she, for a little while, had
helped him search), she watched his face to see if
she might be able to guess whether he had any
suspicions against the girl, who could do no wrong
intentionally, Carol was sure, but who might all
unknowingly do a real wrong to help some one else,
especially if that some one else should be her own
brother Dick.
Carol wondered about Dick. Nothing was being
said about him lately, in fact even his name was not
being mentioned in the little group surrounding
Priscilla.
And the rug that dear old Mrs. Hunt had set such
store on must surely be almost finished now, for the
Gypsy woman Zada had been working constantly on
it. Thinking of Zada, Carol wondered about the
Gypsy’s daughter, Tamma. She didn’t like the girl’s
laugh; it was too bold, Carol thought, and she
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seemed too proud of that mouthful of flashing white
teeth. The color on the dark girl’s lips was always a
brilliant red, and the color on her cheeks, not natural
but the most flaming rouge Carol had ever seen
used, even in their school plays, when Gypsies were
supposed to be greatly exaggerated in make-up.
No, Carol didn’t like the Gypsy girl. Now, sitting
in Dorothy’s neat little room, not listening to but
clearly hearing the chirp of the anxious crickets, the
call of the katydids and the trilling of the tree-toads,
Carol suddenly wished she had not said “all right”
that evening, when Jeanette came dashing in after
supper to ask could she go to the pictures. Jan, the
girl on the corn farm, and her brother Stan, the boy
“with the most gorgeous tan and the handsomest
head of blonde hair Jeanette had ever seen” were
driving the little car to the village movie.
So she had gone. The farmer’s children were hard
working and bore the very best of reputations and
Carol felt it was good for Jeanette to see the real
splendor of such simple yet brave country folks. But
the movie was never out very early and Jeanette was
sure to insist upon giving them ice cream. And what
young folks, especially a girl and a boy who had
been working all summer in every single hour of
daylight, could be expected to hurry when eating ice
cream after a movie?
Carol was, nevertheless, waiting for Jeanette.
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Tonight, although it might be midnight, she was
determined to ask the girl what she knew about the
bit of silk scarf that was gone from Dorothy’s desk
under the back stairs.
There were voices now sounding outside.
Yes, there was the car; and they were coming. No
need for quietness in those woodlands even at night;
in fact, it was better to be noisy, it seemed braver
and certainly happier.
Jeanette was calling good-night, and Stan was
answering with that healthy, carefree laugh of his.
How strong such boys seemed, Carol was thinking;
she hoped Glenn, her own good friend, would be
strong and well and have a laugh like that ready
after his summer at the boys’ camp.
“I wish Jeanette wouldn’t shout like that,” Carol
was thinking, as the car groaned away and Jeanette’s
light step sounded upon the porch. “She never thinks
that Mary Ellen might be sleeping now, after being
up since five this morning.”
After that there was the usual talk about the
movie, although Carol scarcely heard a word while
Jeanette was rattling on, for Carol was certainly
going to ask the girl about the scarf.
Jeanette looked very pretty and very young
tonight, Carol could not help noticing; her blond hair
was beautiful from the dampness and her eyes just
sparkled from excitement. Jeanette surely was
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155
pretty—perhaps that was why she so loved romance.
“Sit down, Jeanette,” Carol began, “you know I
have been waiting to speak to you alone—”
“About that murder story,” giggled Jeanette.
“Don’t disappoint me now, Carol. I’ve been waiting
for days.”
“Please be serious. It’s late and I’ve been wanting
to have a serious talk with you.”
“Oh! Go ahead. I’m sitting down and I’m
serious.” Jeanette was sitting down, but didn’t look
exactly serious.
“Did you take an old scarf out of that desk under
the stairs?” The question was simple but startling.
Jeanette’s face flushed guiltily and her eyes
sought refuse by shifting their gaze to Dorothy’s old
whatnot in the corner. Her lips moved but she closed
them, as if she had changed her mind in replying.
Carol waited. She had asked a simple question
and she expected as simple a reply.
“An old scarf?” Jeanette finally spoke. “Why?
What about—an old scarf?”
“Did you take it?”
“Carol, what do you mean?” she was almost
sobbing. “Why are you questioning me like this?”
“Because I have a right to; you know that
Jeanette. I must know if you took that scarf.”
“If I took it?” stumbled Jeanette. “You don’t
think I would steal—”
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“Now listen, Jeanette,” Carol interrupted. “I am
not going to act like some one in charge of you. That
would be silly. I am only a girl like yourself, but I
am in charge of Dorothy’s place, and I did promise
Dad to do all I could to—well—to have you enjoy
yourself while you are out here.”
“Enjoy myself—”
“Please don’t raise your voice. Others might be
sleeping.”
“Others,” sneered the girl who had tossed her
sweater aside and now looked angry and defiant.
“You think you, Mr. Dutton and his precious
Dragon of the Hills mystery is terribly important,
don’t you? Well, let me tell you, Carol Duncan,
you’re fooling yourself. Perhaps there is no
mystery.”
“What do you mean? Do you know anything
about that lost box?” Carol demanded.
“And if I did?” snapped Jeanette.
Carol bit her lip and tried to decide quickly how
best she could reason with the girl who had so
suddenly flared up into such a rebellious mood. It
would surely not be wise for Carol to show temper,
although she felt pretty indignant and completely out
of patience. But it was late, and this discussion
which she had been putting off was now, just as she
had feared, running into trouble. Finally she decided
to reason quietly, if possible, and perhaps reach
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Jeanette’s sense of honor.
“You know, Jeanette,” she began, “the loss of that
box means more to Mr. Dutton, and even to his firm,
than we girls can possibly understand. I’m willing to
admit,” she said humbly, “I don’t understand it, but
I’d be the happiest girl around here if I could
actually help find the wonderful box.”
“So would I, if I got the reward,” answered
Jeanette rather cynically.
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that,” Carol said. “But
you know, Jeanette, besides the mystery of its loss
there is the suspicion thrown upon—well, upon a
number of persons, and it might happen some one
would be accused unjustly.”
“So what?” asked Jeanette slangily. It was not
easy to appeal to her sense of honor, Carol was
discovering.
“They could be arrested,” she answered Jeanette.
“And then this old dump would wake up,
wouldn’t it?”
Carol looked at her companion while she felt her
face burning. “Now look here, Jeanette,” she said
sharply, “I’m not going to keep this nonsense up all
night. I began by asking you about the old silk scarf.
If you won’t tell me what you know about it and you
insinuate you also know something about the lost
box, why, what more can I do?”
At the mention of the scarf Jeanette seemed to
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lose her fighting spirit. Her eyes sought Carol’s with
a look distinctly appealing.
“Whatever makes you think I took that rag?” she
mumbled.
“I am almost sure you did,” Carol said gently,
“but I am really sure you did not know what it might
mean.”
“What?” Jeanette asked.
“I told you about the night Dorothy fired her
automatic when we heard a prowler outside, didn’t
I?”
“Yes,” Jeanette whispered.
“Well, that scarf was dropped on the porch by
whoever was trying to get in, and it was our only
clue to whoever that might have been.”
“It was!”
“Yes. I put it away myself and intended—well, I
intended to use it as a clue however I could find it
might help. You know, we were terribly disturbed
when poor old Mrs. Hunt, Priscilla’s grandmother,
was found dead. There had been prowlers about that
night, too, and at first the doctor thought she might
have been frightened into a fatal heart attack.”
“But Priscilla told me the doctors said she just
died naturally,” Jeanette interrupted.
“Yes, I know. But there had been sneaks about.
— Oh, well, we all know they tried more than once
to get in here and when Dorothy frightened them
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they must have dropped that old scarf,” Carol
finished rather wearily.
“Couldn’t some one else have dropped it?”
Jeanette asked eagerly.
“No; the person who tried the big window
dropped it; both Dorothy and I are sure of that. But
look at the time! Jeanette, you must tell me. Did you
take that scarf?”
“Oh, please Carol! If you knew how I feel about
this. That you should suspect me of—of doing
anything really wrong,” sobbed Jeanette, who was
no longer trying to keep her courage up.
“But I don’t suspect that, Jeanette,” insisted
Carol. “I feel sure you did not knowingly do
anything wrong. But you admitted you had been
going to the Gypsy Camp.”
“Yes.”
“Do they know about the mystery of the Dragon
of the Hills?”
“They—tell the future,” murmured Jeanette
hesitantly.
“And perhaps they, that Tamma, has promised to
tell your future?” urged Carol.
“Yes, yes, she has. That’s it,” Jeanette’s face
lighted up at the suggestion. “And, Carol, Carol
dear, please give me until tomorrow to answer your
question about—the scarf!”
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CHAPTER XIX
THE DESERTED CAMP
Complete realization of Jeanette’s pitiable
weakness, her love of so-called romance and her
will to attain it even at the cost of principle and
uprightness caused Carol, herself so free from such
pettiness, to look now upon the girl before her as if
she were actually a child.
“She can’t see things straight,” Carol was quickly
deciding. “That’s why my dad offered to help her
dad, and so I must be careful. A wrong move may
cause her to do something desperate.”
Jeanette, seeing through her own misty eyes that
Carol was softening, that Carol’s deep blue eyes
were deeper in perplexity, seized upon the moment
to get away from the unpleasant situation.
“Yes, Carol,” she was saying, her hand on the
door knob, “it is dreadfully late. Is there any early
marketing I can do for Mary Ellen?”
“Yes, I have her list,” Carol replied in even tones.
She might wait for the answer to that question about
the missing scarf, but she could not forget how
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important that answer might be—for Jeanette.
So the night was finally put to its proper use and
Dorothy’s guests were, presumably, sleeping.
Early in the morning Mr. Dutton, having
breakfasted first, told Carol he was leaving.
“I’ve about run down all possible clues,” he said,
“and I am truly sorry that my presence around here
has brought suspicion to this pretty little tea shop,”
he apologized.
“Suspicion?” Carol repeated. “How? What?”
“Didn’t you hear anything last night?”
“Not late—I had been talking with Jeanette until
almost twelve; after that I didn’t want to hear
anything,” she said, smiling.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” the young man continued.
“But I smelled smoke—”
“Smoke?”
“Yes, the Ambar cigarette kind, and I came down
stairs to look around. As I suspected, I saw some
one sneaking off and I just fired a shot after him, for
luck.”
“I never heard a sound,” Carol answered,
incredulously.
“Mary Ellen did though, and she joined my Light
Brigade,” laughed Mr. Dutton. “Just as you said
before, I first thought the cigarette smoke and noise
were caused by someone mistaking this for a road-
house, but when I saw the someone run, I knew I
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was wrong. I’m convinced that some of my rivals in
trade know I am here and probably think I have
found my box,” he said in an undertone, as a few
breakfast patrons were on the porch eating at a
secluded table.
“But if they are merely trade rivals,” Carol
ventured, “why should they sneak around at night?”
“Well, that accident of mine doesn’t exactly seem
so simple now as it did at first,” he reminded her. “A
car might have side-swiped mine purposely. You see
the sort of Orientals that have followed the Dragon
of the Hills from the desert are not easily frustrated.
But now, I imagine, some simple minded person
may have outwitted them and have actually found
the precious box.”
“Some simple minded person?” Carol repeated
thinking of Priscilla or even Jeanette. “Have you any
suspicion of such a one?”
“Now, now, young lady,” he objected, “don’t be
too much of a detective; you might trip me up. Let
things rest for a while. I think the guilty party is just
getting plenty of rope—you know, the old saying
about plenty of rope?”
Carol did not answer that. She was listening with
one ear to Jeanette’s talking to Mary Ellen in the
kitchen. Certainly Jeanette was in a hurry to do the
marketing this morning.
Nor was it the marketing that caught Carol’s
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interest. It was Jeanette’s nervousness to get out,
and, of course, Carol linked that with Jeanette’s
promise of the night before to tell her very soon
anything that she knew about the scarf. That piece of
silk that Carol had been so loathe to touch she had
picked it up gingerly and put it in tissue paper to
save her fingers from contact with it.
But she knew she could not mention to Mr.
Dutton the slightest hint of suspicion against
Jeanette, the girl she had rather unwillingly
undertaken to influence—yes, merely to influence
not to “cure,” as Cecy had so sensationally put the
matter.
Mr. Dutton was ready to go, and that brought to
Carol a sense of relief. He would not be there to see
what might happen if Jeanette had foolishly been
tempted by the Gypsy, Tamma, and also, as he
himself had said, his leaving might remove that
reason for the mysterious prowling around at night,
the prowler always smoking Ambar cigarettes.
Just as he was shaking hands with Carol and
thanking her for her part as hostess in Dorothy’s
Dragon of the Hills shop, he said quite too casually:
“How long is little Jeanette going to stay with
you?”
“Why?” stammered Carol, immediately alarmed.
“Oh, I just wondered,” the young man replied
evasively. “I was thinking you have undertaken
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quite a job here, considering you are doing it for
some one else.”
Carol laughed merrily at that. “Every summer our
crowd of girls run into something different,” she
answered. “You should know what we did last year,
the year before and the year before that,” she told
him. This was her way of referring to the other
stories of this series, the Melody Lane Mysteries,
and, as she was saying, this tea shop story with the
mystery of the Dragon of the Hills was not thus far
quite as exciting as the others had been.
“But you still have this mystery unsolved,” he
reminded her. “You can’t tell. I might even find the
box.”
“Then what?” she asked, hopefully.
“Well, I could get married then, as I had
planned,” he said sort of boyishly. “But that great
loss and the old game leg—”
“But you scarcely limp at all now,” Carol
encouraged. “Oh, I do hope we find the box. I didn’t
know it would mean so much as that to you.”
“It does,” he said going to the door. “And of
course she is the sweetest little girl in the world.”
As he walked over the little hill to meet the bus—
he had insisted upon walking as he could not drive
his own car until the injured leg was entirely
better—Carol stood on the porch and saw him as he
turned to wave when he reached that clear spot on
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the top of the hill.
“We must get that box,” Carol was thinking with
renewed and increased determination. “Mr. Dutton
has simply got to marry the ‘sweetest little girl in the
world.’ ”
But the summer was going fast; Cecy would soon
be ready to leave all other joys to join her sister even
out on lonely Bramble Hill. And surely Dorothy
would want to come back as quickly as she had
finished those special lessons in beauty work which
she was now taking in the city, while at the same
time she could be near her mother. Besides all these
considerations, Carol had decided to take two weeks
at the beach before she herself went back to her high
school work.
“So I’ve got to work fast and spare nobody,” she
was deciding. “First, I’ll try my luck at the Gypsy
Camp. I’m not afraid to ask Tamma questions,
although I’m almost sure she will not answer them.
Perhaps I had better drop in to see Priscilla on my
way over,” she again reasoned. “If she wouldn’t
persist in being so mysterious about the times she
slips away I might get some clue to work on.”
“I’ll tell her, which is true,” Carol decided, “that
Dorothy wanted me to help her in any way I could.
And I’d love to help her myself. I wish she wouldn’t
be so mysterious.”
But Priscilla wasn’t in the old house. Zada was
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working away at the loom and Mrs. Mason who was
still in charge of Priscilla’s home, when asked where
the girl was, answered:
“Priscilla hurried away soon after breakfast.”
“Did she say where she was going?” Carol asked.
“To the Gypsy camp,” Mrs. Mason replied,
frowning. She had told Carol before she did not like
the girl, Tamma.
“I’ll drive over and meet her,” Carol quickly
decided.
But when she parked her car at the foot of the
lane leading up to the grove she was surprised to
find the place vacant.
It was apparent that the Gypsies, like the Arabs
from whom they were descended, had folded their
tents and silently sped away.
Startled and a little alarmed, Carol stood at the
edge of what had been a large Gypsy encampment
and looked on all sides. There was no doubt about it,
the dark-faced men, women and children—for there
had been several of the latter—had departed.
Contrary to what might have been expected they had
left the place neat and in order. There was no
rubbish scattered about, no litter of empty cans and
rumpled papers.
“I suppose,” Carol mused, “they expect to come
back here next season, or perhaps later this season,
and they know if they left the place untidy the owner
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of the land wouldn’t let them camp here again.
These Gypsies have a sense of order and neatness I
wouldn’t have given them credit for.”
Carol looked curiously about her. Here and there
were worn places beneath trees where, evidently,
horses had been tethered. For despite the fact that
most of the wanderers used autos, the old-fashioned
covered wagon had been part of the equipment here.
In other spots the grass was worn down showing
where tents had stood and on several spots the grass
had faded to a pale, sickly yellow, where autos,
parked over it, had cut off the sunlight.
But there were no signs of the dark-faced tribe,
neither was there any sign of Priscilla. At that Carol
had a most alarming thought.
“Can Priscilla have gone away with the
Gypsies?” she asked herself. She knew there could
be no question of the Gypsies having taken the gray-
eyed girl away against her will. The Gypsy tribe was
well known in the neighborhood, they had returned
to the same place year after year and could easily be
traced. They attracted almost as much attention,
wherever they went, as did a circus parade. The
women and girls always wore such strikingly
colored dresses and their dark braids of hair were
ornamented with glittering coins.
“If Priscilla went with them she went of her own
accord,” Carol decided. “Could it be possible that
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she was overcome with the supposed romance of
leading a Gypsy life, after her drab existence in
Bramble Hill, and has really run away with them?
That might account for her strange disappearance
the other day and her refusal to tell where she had
been. She may have been arranging for this
departure, and the Gypsies wouldn’t betray her
secret.”
Yet the first, natural thought that Priscilla had
gone away with the Gypsies was soon modified as
Carol remembered that Zada was still back at the
house on Bramble Hill finishing the weaving of the
rug. Why should the tribe go away and leave Zada
behind? That seemed strange. She was one of the
oldest and most important members, Carol felt sure.
No, Priscilla was not the sort of girl to turn
Gypsy. But where could she be?
“It’s just another puzzle to add to the
complications of the Dragon of the Hills,” Carol told
herself. “I wonder if there is any connection between
Priscilla’s going away and the loss of Mr. Dutton’s
precious box?”
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CHAPTER XX
BOB WHITE
Standing a moment on the little path that had
served the departed Gypsies, Carol tried to fit this
last piece into the mystery puzzle. The Gypsies were
gone, Priscilla was nowhere in her usual haunts.
Jeanette would not tell about the silken scarf and
Mr. Dutton wanted to marry his “sweetest little girl
in the world,” but was afraid he could not if the
precious box was not found.
The first thing to do, Carol knew, was to find
Priscilla. To make sure she could not go far, if she
really had gone with the Gypsies even for a lark,
Squire Eaton must be told. He could follow the
Gypsies easily and bring Priscilla back if she had
been foolish enough to have gone.
“But I don’t think she would be so foolish,” Carol
decided. “Yet I cannot take chances. Something
might happen to her, she is so young and such a
little mousie creature.”
Then another strange aspect of the matter
occurred to Carol.
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“If Priscilla planned when she left the house early
this morning to go away with the Gypsies, why did
she tell Mrs. Mason where she was going? If she
wanted to keep her movements secret she would
have said she was going anywhere else but to the
camp. And from the looks of things I believe the
Gypsies must have left in the night or late yesterday
afternoon. They couldn’t have gotten ready to leave
and cleaned up the place so well even if they got up
at dawn. They must have left late yesterday or in the
night.”
For a moment this theory seemed plausible and
she was trying to fit in another piece of the puzzle.
This was where Priscilla would proceed to some
prearranged meeting place, there to join the
migrating tribe. That was possible.
But again, if the Gypsies left in the night how was
it Zada came at her regular time to work on the rug,
saying nothing about the departure of her people?
“The only way I can account for that,” thought
Carol, “is that Zada kept secret the fact of her tribe
going to another camp. She would have to have a
reason for that. Surely she could not have deserted
the tribe.”
It was all strange and puzzling. Carol felt that it
was her duty to do something to save Priscilla from
whatever secret she was harboring. Squire Eaton, as
her guardian, would be the one to act. He must be
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told at once.
Carol decided to take a last look around the camp
before she went back to her car to drive to Millford
to report to the executor of the rug weaver’s estate.
She hoped she might see Priscilla, perhaps lingering
under a tree or in some little glade, herself surprised
to find the Gypsies gone. But there was no sign of
the gray-eyed girl wherever Carol peered through
the lanes.
She was on the farthest edge of the camp site,
where broad fields and patches of woodland
stretched to the distant hills and as she stood there
she heard suddenly the clear, sharp whistle of a
quail.
“Bob! Bob White! Bob White!”
Carol looked quickly around her, for the quail’s
whistle sounded near at hand and she always liked to
see one of those rather rare birds. In Melody Lane
she had often heard the characteristic call of “Bob
White,” and, occasionally she had caught a glimpse
of the bird. But quail are shy creatures, because of
persistent hunting, and being rather small, not as
large as a pigeon, and having a mottled gray and
brown plumage that gives effective color protection,
they are not easily seen though they may whistle
within a hundred yards of a listener.
But Carol now saw nothing of the quail although
the whistle continued, seeming to decrease in
172
volume, as if indicating that the bird was going
away.
Then, suddenly, as suddenly as had come the
whistling call, Carol had a sight of a girl hurrying,
almost running, across a distant field toward the low
hills. There was something in the figure and
movement of the girl that instantly Carol
recognized.
“It’s Priscilla,” she exclaimed.
She was sure of it. Then, in a flash, came another
thought.
“That quail whistle is a signal I Priscilla came out
here to meet some one and she goes to the place
where the call sounds and it isn’t a quail at all.”
Surprised she stood there and watched Priscilla
hurry across the fields toward a patch of woods
beyond which rose the hill.
“I’m going to follow her and see where she goes,
what she does and whom she meets—whoever the
mysterious quail whistler may be,” Carol decided.
“Here’s where I do some more detective work,
though perhaps I flatter myself,” she mused with a
little inward laugh. “I haven’t really done any yet—I
haven’t found out a thing. But I think I’m going to
find out something this time.”
Crouching low in the grass and weeds of the field
between her and Priscilla she determined to follow
without being seen. Now and then Carol raised her
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head above the green foliage and looked ahead. She
could see Priscilla still hurrying on toward the edge
of the woods where the hills began. The girl
apparently was not aware that any one could see her,
as Carol was too low in the grass to be seen and the
lane to the camp site was completely deserted.
There was no further whistling of the quail, or, as
Carol felt sure it was, of the signal call of some one
hidden whom Priscilla was going to meet. But who
could it be?
It was hard to make progress through the grass
and weeds in this crouching fashion, and Carol soon
began to feel stiff, but she did not give up. At last
she reached the edge of the field of high grass and
taller weeds. At the same time Priscilla—and she
was now positive of the girl’s identity—had come to
the edge of the woods.
“As soon as she’s fairly in there,” Carol thought,
“I can stand upright and what a relief that will be.”
“I don’t believe she can see me now,” thought
Carol. “I can straighten up.” She waited another few
seconds before doing this. It was just possible that
Priscilla might suspect something and hide behind a
tree to look back and watch for possible followers.
Then, as she had brief glimpses of the hurrying girl
passing on and on among the trees, Carol rose to her
full height.
As she did so she could not repress an
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exclamation of surprise. For up from behind another
clump of burdock, not fifty yards from where she
had been concealed, arose the figure of Zada, the
Gypsy rug-weaver.
If Carol was surprised so was Zada. It was as
though the two had been spying one on each other
and both on Priscilla. It was a complete surprise.
“Oh!” exclaimed Carol and her voice in the clear
air must have carried to the ears of the Gypsy
woman for Zada turned to face her. “I thought you
were back in Bramble Hill,” Carol said.
“All’s finished at Bramble Hill,” said Zada. “Rug
all finished. I just do the last of the weaving so I
come away. Come back later for my money. Squire
Eaton—he pay me.” The Gypsy affected this way of
speaking, Carol knew, although it was merely
affectation.
“Oh, yes, he’ll pay you,” Carol said, not knowing
what other reply to make. “But what are you doing
here? Were you looking—” Suddenly Carol decided
not to mention Priscilla. After all, Zada might not
have seen the girl. So Carol shifted her remark to:
“Your people have gone away. The camp is moved.”
“Yes, I know,” Zada said. “I go to them in new
place. Good-bye!”
Saying that brief word the Gypsy woman
suddenly walked back across the field toward the
former camp site whence Carol had come. Then,
175
while Carol watched, Zada actually disappeared. It
was as though she had gone down some hole in the
ground, but Carol quickly realized there must have
been a little hollow there, deep enough to conceal
the Gypsy.
“But what does it all mean?” Carol mused. “I’m
sure she was either following me or Priscilla. Then,
as soon as she was discovered, she turns back. And
she must have left Bramble Hill suddenly too. I
wonder if Priscilla knows the rug is finished?” Then
many questions rushed into Carol’s mind as she
looked first in the direction of the woods that now
hid Priscilla and then toward the waving grass and
weeds that concealed the Gypsy.
This was surely a peculiar coincidence.
“If Zada knew her tribe was going to move away
and she didn’t plan on going back to the old camp,
why is she away off here in the fields? Why didn’t
she go along the road to the new camping place?”
reasoned Carol.
“And why, if everything is all right, did Zada go
away so suddenly when she encountered me?
Though I wasn’t exactly friendly with her she knew
I was trying to help Priscilla. So why should Zada
act as if she was afraid to talk to me?”
There were no answers to these questions and
Carol was becoming completely confused by them.
“I’ve got to make a choice,” she mused. “I’ve
176
either got to follow Priscilla or Zada. Which shall it
be?”
She quickly decided that it would be best to keep
on after Priscilla. The trail of the Gypsy would be
easier to pick up if that seemed necessary.
Pausing to give one last glance in the direction
where she had last observed Zada, so she would be
sure to remember the spot, Carol now hurried across
the field toward the woods. She felt Priscilla was too
far away to see her and she didn’t want her to run
away.
Hurrying her pace she was soon in the woods.
Once in the shadow of the trees she paused for a
moment to get her bearings and to listen to any
crackling branches or trampled underbrush that
might give a clue to the direction taken by Priscilla.
But the woods were silent.
As she stood there, pondering and beginning to
fear she was not really on the right track after all,
Carol caught a glimpse of something waving in the
breeze. It was red and in an instant she remembered
Priscilla had on a red skirt.
“There she is!” she murmured and once again she
was on the trail.
Then she saw the girl swing off to the left and cut
across a small triangle of trees. Once more Priscilla
was in the open beyond the woods at the foot of the
hill. And as Carol followed, concealed by trees and
177
bushes, she saw the girl she was following pause for
a moment in front of a dark spot in the side of a hill
that rose abruptly from the fringe of forest.
Then and there Priscilla disappeared.
“She’s gone into a cave!” Carol was now
positive.
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CHAPTER XXI
DANGER
Caves! There were natural caves in many parts of
these country sections; Carol knew that. But each
cave had always presented its own particular
dangers, that too she remembered from other
adventures in Melody Lane. What would this bring?
“I’m quite sure Priscilla went into that dark hole
in the side of the hill,” Carol reasoned. “It must be a
cave, but what sort of cave can it be?” she
wondered.
Then she laughed at her fears. Bramble Hill might
conceal a mystery but “pirates’ dens” had
disappeared long since from that part of the country.
“At worst it can be only a natural cave,” Carol
reasoned, “and it may be a place where farmers keep
their supply of ice. I’ve seen plenty such places in
Melody Lane, so why shouldn’t there be some out
this way?”
Carol, having waited a few minutes without
moving forward and without seeing Priscilla come
out of the cave, now decided she would at least have
179
a look inside the cavern.
“I wish I had a flashlight,” she said, half aloud.
“It’s sure to be dark in there. And I must have a
reason ready if Priscilla asks, as she is likely to, why
I am following her.”
Pausing another moment to make sure of her
surroundings, Carol was startled by again hearing
the call of the quail. Once more came the almost
spoken name:
“Bob! Bob White!”
And the whistle came from the cave!
Suddenly Carol had a new theory. Perhaps
Priscilla was catching and trying to tame some quail.
She might have cages of them in the cave. Though
almost as soon as she had given thought to this
fantastic idea Carol dismissed it. Wild birds—any
birds, in fact—would not live long in a dark cave.
She even had doubts about the possibility of caging
a quail. But certainly that characteristic whistle had
come from the black hole that concealed Priscilla.
“I’ve just got to see what she’s doing in there!”
Carol sighed. “I don’t care if she does see me! I
have a right, in a way, to look after her. I’m sure
Squire Eaton will say I did right in following her
here.”
Casting aside all hesitation now, Carol advanced
toward the cave. The way led up a little hill to the
abrupt face of one of the largest of the group of hills
180
surrounding the territory. It was in the rocky and
gravelly side of the hill that the entrance to the cave
presented itself. The entrance, in fact, was like a
rough archway between two slanting rocks coming
to a point overhead, picturesque and unusual.
“I hope the rocks are fixed firmly in place,” Carol
found herself reasoning. “I shouldn’t like them to
tumble down on me.” The rocky entrance, however,
looked very substantial. So Carol finally dipped her
head to clear the jagged entrance, and then she was
in the cave.
At first the transition from the bright sunlight
enclosed her in intensely dark, dank gloom. She
could see literally nothing and with a little shiver of
fear she took not another step but stopped to listen.
There might be some deep cavern close within the
mouth of the cave and she might step right into it,
then what?
Fearful lest she stumble into unknown pitfalls,
she moved very cautiously. Then, as her eyes
became accustomed to the gloom she saw that the
cave was not altogether dark. Far in the distance was
a dim natural light as if some of the rays of the sun
filtered in through the cracks and crevices of the
rock.
Carol stood still waiting and listening, but she
heard nothing. The whistle of the quail did not
sound again. As she waited it seemed to be getting
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lighter in the cave, but Carol knew it was only her
eyes adapting themselves to their new requirements.
Cautiously she advanced one foot, feeling her
way in the dark. And she was relieved to find firm
earth and rock reply to her touch.
Step by step she advanced, looking, listening and
wondering. Then, some distance ahead of her, Carol
caught the bright gleam of what she at once knew to
be artificial light. It was the gleam of an electric
torch. Priscilla—or somebody—had switched on the
light they carried. More than ever Carol now wished
she had one of her own to light her way.
And then Carol, in the light of the distant torch,
saw a strange sight. She saw Priscilla run to meet a
young man and a moment later throw her arms
around him and kiss him.
Gasping in surprise, she had to put her hand over
her lips to keep from calling out. And as she stifled
herself into silence there came to her ears the
murmur of voices. They were distorted and made
rumbling by the echoes of the cavern, so she could
not catch any words. But it was certain that Priscilla
and the youth she had met and kissed were talking
together in great earnestness.
“Oh, I mustn’t spy on her!” Carol found herself
thinking and she felt her cheeks burn under this
accusation. “But what shall I do? Shall I wait
outside until she starts home and then meet her? Or
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shall I slip out and go to Squire Eaton? I wish Thalia
were with me instead of that little kitten of a
Jeanette, though she might be better than no one.
Whoever can Priscilla be meeting here secretly?”
The distant murmur of voices came to her still,
and the light, glowing steadily as if it had been set
down on a ledge of rock, threw into relief the two
figures standing close together. Whatever they were
talking about must indeed be a serious matter to
them both.
In complete bewilderment Carol turned to go
back out of the cave. They must not catch her spying
on them. But she had come in farther than she
realized and as she turned she was surprised to find
blackness confronting her. It seemed much darker
here. Could she have stepped out of the path?
Then as her panicky fears subsided, and with a
sense of relief she reasoned that she must have made
a turn after coming in and there was a wall between
her and the mouth of the cave. Once she had swung
around this angle she was sure she would see
daylight ahead of her.
Turning her back on the two young persons she
had seen within the cave, she retraced her steps
quickly, advancing with outstretched hand so she
would not collide unexpectedly with the rocky wall.
But she had not gone more than a few yards when
she was startled by a light flashed in her face. And
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by the gleam she saw that before her stood a man—
obviously an Oriental.
It needed but a moment of thought to identify him
from Dorothy’s description.
Mr. Wong Sut, owner of the lost Dragon of the
Hills, was blocking Carol’s exit from the cave.
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CHAPTER XXII
CAPTIVE
To meet a strange man, an Oriental, at the very
mouth of a cave was surely enough to frighten any
girl, and Carol Duncan was girl enough to be
frightened. But quickly realizing the situation called
for common sense reasoning, she attempted to smile
as she stood there, not taking a step farther out of the
cavern.
This certainly was Mr. Wong Sut, and very likely
he had just discovered the cave. What could be more
reasonable than he would look within it for the
precious box? Caves and robbers and their loot still
held the sensational possibilities of old stories, in
spite of the dashing away in autos, and other modern
means of escape. Autos must have license plates and
even a common car is easily recognized when one
takes a good look and wants to remember it.
“Priscilla and that boy can’t be far in the cave,”
came a reassuring thought to Carol.
But Mr. Wong Sut, after the momentary glimpse
of Carol that his flashlight had given him, did not
185
continue on into the cave. Instead with a startled
exclamation he turned away and his light vanished.
Carol was again in darkness. Mr. Wong Sut was
actually running away from the cave.
Her feeling of relief was shattered a second later,
for instantly her ears were filled with a dull,
rumbling sound and that was followed by the
unmistakable noise of rocks falling against rocks, of
stones clattering on stones, of gravel sliding over
gravel, and of soft dirt piling itself up on other piles
of dirt. A blast of air, driven against her from the
unseen mouth of the tunnel cave, for it was more
like a tunnel than a cave, sent the girl staggering
back. Then the dreadful thought came to her that she
was made captive by a fall of rocks and dirt over the
mouth of the cavern.
“I’m trapped in here!” Carol exclaimed aloud and
her voice re-echoed in the darkness that was like a
pall of impenetrable blackness all about her. “I’m
trapped!” she murmured, helplessly.
The heavy fall of earth and rocks was probably
brought about by the recent heavy storms the girl
realized, and this cave was a dangerous place she
knew now, although there had been no intimation of
danger when Carol entered.
But Priscilla and her friend must still be in the
cave Carol knew, as surely they would have to pass
her to get out.
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“How silly I am to be afraid,” she told herself.
“That Oriental came here only out of curiosity. He
must have been as much surprised as I was at the
landslide. It’s lucky he got out in time. Perhaps he
can take word to some one and they’ll come to
rescue me. But I’ll make my way back to where I
saw Priscilla and that boy. I must.”
It was one thing to come to this resolution but
quite another to put it into effect. For as Carol turned
to leave the pocket that the falling rocks and earth
had made her captive in, she realized more fully that
it was dangerous to even try to walk about in that
cave in the dark. She might tumble into some deep
pit or fall on jagged rocks.
She could see absolutely nothing. The darkness
seemed to press down on her heavily for there was
scarcely any air to breathe. She had not seen the fall
of rocks and earth, she had only heard the noise
made, but she could picture what had happened. The
entrance by which she had entered the cave was
closed. Perhaps the Oriental was now crying the
alarm, running down the hillside and toward the
woods where the quail had whistled, surely some
one would come soon to rescue her.
“I don’t dare walk toward where I saw Priscilla
and the boy in the other end of the cave,” Carol
reasoned. “I must stand still and call to them.
“They have a light and perhaps can walk safely.
187
Oh, why are there always caves to swallow people
up like this!” That fevered thought dashed through
her anxious mind as she remembered The Forbidden
Trail with a cave accident similar to this.
Now she raised her voice in a loud shout for help.
She called Priscilla saying this was Carol calling and
wouldn’t someone help her?
“Help me! Come quickly! I’m Carol,” she
screamed. “I’m shut in the cave! Can’t you hear me,
Priscilla?” she called hoping Priscilla might hear.
“Only come to me! It’s terribly dark and I have no
light! Come to me! Priscilla! Please!”
Frantically, desperately, imploringly she called
and called, and as the echoes ceased, there was
nothing but silence. Priscilla did not answer nor did
the boy she had been with at the other end of the
tunnel. Could they have left the cave?
Regaining her breath, again Carol called but
silence was her only answer.
Once more came the panic of fear. How terrible!
If only she could live to get out!
“They’ve gone out by some other way and left me
here alone!” she gasped, speaking aloud in a
trembling voice. “Or they may have been injured by
a fall of rocks and earth at their end of the cave. Oh,
what am I to do? The only one who can save me is
that Oriental. He alone knows I am in the cave. But
will he go for help?”
188
Fear made Carol desperate. She decided to risk
working her way in the dark toward the place where
she had last seen Priscilla and the boy. They had a
light. Perhaps there were no hidden pits around her.
The path might be level and clear; that was her only
hope.
With her hands out before her, Carol moved
slowly to penetrate deeper into the cave. Inch by
inch she moved her feet shufflingly along the rocky
floor. Then, suddenly, something seemed to strike
her on the head. It stunned her, and with a low,
moaning cry she collapsed. The blackness was
complete and nothing at all mattered.
Unconsciousness engulfed her.
When Jeanette had rushed off to do Mary Ellen’s
marketing that morning just as Carol had guessed,
there was something much more urgent than
marketing hurrying her on.
“That scarf! I must get it back,” the girl kept
repeating to herself. “That old piece of silk Carol
says she had wrapped in a paper because she
wouldn’t even touch it. And I—”
Ever since Jeanette had been confronted and
practically accused by Carol of taking the scarf out
of the old desk under the stairs, the girl’s mind had
refused to obey her own pleadings, and the words
“clue, scarf, clue, scarf,” racked her brain until sheer
189
exhaustion gave her rest last night, while the hint of
day and her palpitant awakening brought back the
same cry:
“Scarf! Get that scarf! It is the only clue!”
Small wonder she had hurried off without waiting
for Mary Ellen to look over her stock in the back
pantry. Hurried off, but now she was back and upon
her worn little face there was no sign of relief.
She brought in the groceries and dropped the bag
on the kitchen table.
“Take care of those things!” protested Mary Ellen
sharply. “They have to be paid for.”
To that challenge Jeanette usually would have
given a retort in kind, since she was a visitor and
even at that she was paying board. Her father would
not have allowed her to stay at Dorothy’s place
under any other conditions. But now Jeanette let
Mary Ellen’s sharp words pass. They didn’t seem to
matter in the least.
Sensing this change, Mary Ellen glanced at the
girl.
“What’s the matter?” she asked in a softened
voice. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have,” replied Jeanette. “Where’s
Carol?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” the woman
retorted. “She’s a long time away. If it was that
Prissy the whole town would be out scouring for her
190
now.”
“Prissy? Oh, you mean Priscilla. Yes, that’s so,”
answered the still down-cast Jeanette. “But Carol is
different. She knows how to take care of herself.”
A step on the porch stopped their talk. Jeanette
went toward the door and there met Mr. Dutton.
“Oh, Mr. Dutton!” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad
you came back.”
“Why?” the young man asked, taking off his
Panama hat and preparing to cool off his forehead
with a handkerchief, as it was a sultry morning.
“Why?” Jeanette had no answer ready, but
somehow she was glad to see him. “Oh, nothing
especial,” she answered with a flattering smile.
“Where’s Carol?” he asked. First names had been
decided upon soon after early introductions.
“I don’t know. Mary Ellen doesn’t know—”
“You mean—”
“I wish she’d come back,” Jeanette interrupted.
“She’s been gone a long time. I’m getting anxious
about her. She may have had a flat tire or her car
may have broken down. I wonder—” Jeanette
stopped suddenly.
The sound of girls’ laughing voices out in the
road, and of a car coming to a stop arrested her
attention. Some one was calling out merrily.
“Here it is girls! Here’s the Dragon of the Hills!”
Surprised, Jeanette and Mr. Dutton looked toward
191
the road. Then they understood that the voice was
referring to the sign of the tea shop.
Someone else called:
“Carol! Jeanette! Where are you?”
“Oh, it’s Cecy! She’s Carol’s sister,” Jeanette
exclaimed as she saw three girls coming up the
steps. “And Rosie Wells and Thalia Bond are with
her. Isn’t it great! Hello, girls!” she called running
out to greet them. “However did you get up here?”
“Oh, I finished my tour,” Cecy answered
casually, “and I just couldn’t stay away from Carol
any longer. So I collected Thalia and Rosie, and we
packed our bags, got Thalia’s car and here we are.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you came,” Jeanette exclaimed
sincerely. Somehow the girls’ presence gave her
courage. Now, perhaps, she would not have to
worry every minute about the old scarf. Surely all i
these girls would lend distraction.
“Where’s Carol?” Cecy wanted to know at once.
“I went out marketing for Mary Ellen and while I
was away she left to see a girl,” Jeanette answered,
feeling that was not giving Cecy much information.
“She’s been gone quite a long time—”
“Who’s the gent?” asked Thally gaily, referring
to Mr. Dutton who had strolled off toward the side
porch.
“Oh, yes,” Jeanette eagerly answered, “he’s Mr.
Dutton.” Then in a louder voice: “Mr. Dutton, these
192
are our friends from Melody Lane. Carol’s sister
Cecy and her friends Thally Bond and Rosie Wells.”
Thally never missed a chance for a little fun and
while meeting Mr. Dutton’s polite glance with one
eye, she was all but winking at Jeanette with the
other. Mr. Dutton was, after all, more than just a
young man with a very slight limp: he was very
good looking.
Getting acquainted was a simple matter and the
break in her own anxiety, from worrying about the
old silk scarf, seemed to help Jeanette. She was
already recovering her usual frivolity.
“This surely is visiting day,” she went on, “and,
girls, you don’t need to think Melody Lane has all
the mysteries—we have one up here—”
The sound of rapidly running feet brought them
all to silence. Mr. Dutton looked out the window,
and then said, in rather a restrained voice.
“It surely is visiting day. Here comes Mr. Wong
Sut and he seems much excited.”
A moment later, the Oriental stood before them.
Indeed he was much excited, even his dark skin
showing a flush of red as he tried to tell them all that
something terrible had happened.
Just for a moment there was a flash of hostile
glances between Mr. Dutton and Mr. Wong Sut.
Jeanette was the only one of the girls who
understood why the Oriental and Mr. Dutton might
193
not be friendly. It was because of the loss of the
Dragon of the Hills, of course.
“I beg your pardon for so abruptly appearing
before you,” said Mr. Wong Sut, “and what there is
between us, Mr. Dutton, may be laid aside for the
moment. There is another matter more important.”
Even the Oriental showed excitement. “There is a
girl—a young lady and I believe she is a friend of
yours, and from this very restaurant—” and he took
in the tea shop with a quick darting glance of his
dark eyes.
“Do you mean Carol?” cried Jeanette interrupting
him impatiently.
“I do not know her name—I have seen her in
your company,” and he indicated his former
employee and Jeanette.
“That’s Carol! Where is she? Has anything
happened to her? Tell us quickly!” Jeanette
demanded, all her girl-life centering into the dread
she felt for Carol.
“That is why I ran here to tell you,” went on the
Oriental. “I wish I had had my car, I could have
come quicker. But I left it in the town to roam the
woods and fields afoot. Miss Carol is held prisoner
in a cave,” he actually exploded.
“Prisoner!” exclaimed Cecy. “Oh! In a cave! Oh,
where?”
“Do you mean held by Gypsies?” demanded Mr.
194
Dutton.
“No. The Gypsies have gone. But I had a glimpse
of Miss Carol in a cave back of Bramble Hill,”
panted Mr. Wong Sut. “Then came the land slide
just as I sprang out. Great rocks fell, closing the
entrance. Much help will be needed to dig them
away so Miss Carol can get out. I do not believe she
is hurt but she is shut in. I came to tell you to
organize a rescue party.”
“Of course we will!” cried Cecy.
“Poor Carol! I was beginning to be afraid
something had happened to her,” Jeanette broke in
more practically.
“But where is this cave—how far from here?”
asked Mr. Dutton.
“Not far. I can guide you. I saw a big car outside
as I ran up,” the Oriental told them.
“It’s mine,” Thally said. “It will hold us all. Oh,
let’s get going.”
“What were you doing in the cave that you
happened to see Miss Duncan there?” Mr. Dutton
asked Mr. Wong Sut rather stiffly, as they made
their way to the car.
“We may pass that question for the moment,”
answered Mr. Wong Sut. “It so happened that I
started to explore the cave, not knowing anyone was
within. I had a flashlight with me. I went in a little
way when, of a suddenness, I saw this young lady
195
coming out of the darkness toward me. She
screamed in fright, naturally, and startled, darted
back. No sooner was I outside than the rocks fell. So
I ran back here as the nearest and best place to give
the alarm, the Gypsies being no longer in their
camp, no one was nearer than this.”
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CHAPTER XXIII
TO THE RESCUE
Of all the group, thus brought together under such
exciting circumstances, poor Cecy, Carol’s “little
sister,” was naturally the most frightened.
“Carol always takes such risks,” she sobbed, as
Thally, Carol’s best friend, tried to comfort her.
“But she always comes out all right,” Rosie,
Cecy’s friend was saying.
“Yes, and I feel she is all right now,” spoke up
Jeanette as if trying to assure herself of that.
“But to be trapped in a cave—” wailed Cecy.
“Well, we’ve got to hurry,” Mr. Dutton told the
anxious group. “Does anyone know anything about
the cave? It may have another exit besides the one
that the rock slide has closed and it would save time
to find that out. Do you think your housekeeper
would know about it? And are there any picks or
shovels around here, Jeanette? We may need them,”
he finished ominously.
“Yes, there are some out back in a sort of tool
shed. I’ll run and get them.”
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“We’ll all go,” offered Thally, as Mary Ellen, the
Scotch woman appeared excited and worried when
told what had happened to Carol. She wanted to go
to her at once, but it was pointed out that Thalia’s
car could hold only so many. As for any information
about the cave, Mary Ellen was dumb.
“I never knew there was a cave,” she said. “But
you had better stop at Priscilla’s house and ask her.
She’s lived around here a long time and she’s like a
boy for roving the woods and fields. Stop and get
Priscilla,” she ordered, sharply, as they finally got
the shovels.
“A good idea,” Mr. Dutton said. “And we’d better
telephone the alarm to Squire Eaton. We may need
men to dig. Now girls, let’s get going,” he insisted.
“I will stay here in case you need to send
messages back,” said Mr. Wong Sut. “I will have
my car sent out from the village. It may be needed. I
will help all I can. And after this is over I may have
a word to say to you, Mr. Dutton.” He spoke rather
formally.
“I shall be at your service, Mr. Wong Sut,” called
back Mr. Dutton who seemed to have forgotten all
about his lame leg.
Jeanette called out to Priscilla as Thally slowed
up the big car before the Hunt house.
Priscilla, hearing Jeanette’s call came hurrying to
the door. Her face showed surprise as she saw Mr.
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Dutton and the others in the car.
“Priscilla!” burst out Jeanette. “Carol is caught in
a cave. There was a slide of rocks over the entrance.
Mr. Wong Sut was there. He saw Carol in the cave
and he ran to us to get help. We’ve sent for Squire
Eaton and some men to dig, too,” she went on
breathlessly. “But can you tell us about the cave?
Has it more than one entrance? Quick, tell us! You
must come with us!”
“The cave? The cave?” Priscilla’s voice was
questioning.
“Yes. It’s a cave somewhere around here. You
must know about it.”
“I do know about it. I was in it a little while ago,”
Priscilla admitted, surprisingly. “But I didn’t see
Carol there. It’s a big cave, though. It’s like a tunnel
and I was at the far end—the end that comes out
near Briar Creek. She may have gone in the entrance
near Crow Woods. That’s where I went in but I
didn’t come out that way. I walked through and
came out the Briar Creek end.”
In spite of their anxiety and haste it seemed that
Jeanette and Mr. Dutton at least, would like to have
asked Priscilla what she was doing in the cave. But
they all knew that Carol must be in danger, and
quickly as the extra girl had piled in with the rest of
them, Thally had started her car.
“Can you take us to this other entrance you speak
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of?” asked Mr. Dutton. “I mean the one you came
out of at Briar Creek?”
“Oh, yes, I can show you that, easily,” Priscilla
said. “You can go almost to it in the car but you’ll
have to do a little walking. It’s in a lonesome place.
You won’t have to do any digging,” she went on as
she noted the shovels. “That is, if Carol isn’t caught
by the rocks. She can easily walk out at the Briar
Creek entrance. Maybe she’s found it by this time,
though I doubt that. The cave is very dark unless
you have a flashlight and she probably doesn’t know
about it.”
“I’m sure Carol didn’t have a flashlight.” Jeanette
had not lost her own sense of guilt.
“But while we are talking she may be frightened
to death or something dreadful may be happening to
her!” cried Cecy. “Oh, let’s hurry and get her out of
there!”
“But the car can’t go any faster, Cecy,” Rosie told
her. “And we must find out all we can.”
As they hurried on, away from Bramble Hill
along the road that led to the former Gypsy camp,
they noticed waiting near the lane that led up to the
place, a blue sport car, new and glittering in the sun.
A young man, as sporty in appearance as his car,
was just getting out. He started to walk up toward
where the camp had been when the noise of Thalia’s
car attracted his attention. He turned, gave one look
200
at the car, crowded with five girls, and a man, then,
leaping to his seat he grasped the steering wheel,
stepped on the starter and was off down the road in a
cloud of dust.
“Looks as if he thought we were after him,”
remarked Rosie.
“Maybe we ought to be,” said Thalia. “He did act
as though he was afraid. Does anybody know who
he is?”
No one had ever seen him or his car before and
Thalia said he might have been looking for the
Gypsy camp.
“But they’re gone,” said Priscilla. “I don’t know
why and Zada wouldn’t tell me. She was at our
house this morning finishing Grannie’s rug. I just
went out for a little while and when I got back Mrs.
Mason said Carol had called, but I never dreamed
she was in the cave. Oh, I hope she isn’t hurt!” she
sighed, ruefully.
Thalia drove on fast, taking the roads and lanes
indicated by Priscilla and in a few minutes they were
at Briar Creek.
“From here we’ll have to walk,” said Priscilla.
“But it’s only over that little hill.”
“We’d better take at least one shovel,” suggested
Mr. Dutton. “We may need to move some dirt away,
as Wong Sut said a lot had caved in. I’m not going
to be of much help, but I’ll do all I can.”
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202
“I brought my flashlight,” Priscilla said. She
seemed to know the cave and its frightening
darkness.
“And we have another flashlight,” Thally said, as
hurriedly they all left the car and started over the
hill.
Pushing their way along a small trail, amid
brambles, briars and through brush, over fallen trees
and amid rotting stumps, along the chattering, noisy
creek, the rescue party, led by Priscilla, made its
way. Mr. Dutton showed how completely better the
lame leg really was by keeping up with the rescue
party although Cecy was running on ahead calling
Carol’s name and showing the natural anxiety she
felt for her sister.
“It’s lonesome here all right,” observed Rosie,
trying to keep up with Cecy.
“Oh, I’m so glad you girls came up!” exclaimed
Jeanette. “I wouldn’t have known what to do in this
awful time without you.”
“You’re doing all right,” Thally remarked dryly.
“Oh, I’m so glad I can do something to help,”
Jeanette went on. “Carol has been so sweet to me,
really she has.” There was that same guilty tug at her
conscience she had felt ever since Carol had asked
her about the old scarf. Suppose that had had
something to do with poor Carol’s predicament?
“Well, here’s the place!” announced Priscilla
203
suddenly as they made a turn in the trail and came to
a tangled thicket of small trees and bushes. “The
other entrance to the cave is just behind that rock.”
They crowded forward and looked at the dark spot.
204
CHAPTER XXIV
THE “DRAGON” DISCOVERED
“Do we have to go in there?” exclaimed Jeanette.
“We do if we’re going to rescue Carol!” said
Cecy sharply. “Come on.”
“There’s no danger,” Priscilla assured them. “But
it’s dark. The floor is almost level. It’s like Walking
into a tunnel and the roof is high enough so you
won’t hit your heads once you’re inside. You have
to crouch to get in, though. I’ll go ahead with my
light and one of you can come with the other light.
Don’t be afraid. There’s not a bit of danger.
“Let’s call first,” Thally said and immediately
Carol’s name rang out through the woods.
The cave, as Priscilla had said, opened up high
and had some width once they were through the
Briar Creek entrance. As if Nature had actually
helped to make the cavern ideal for secret purposes,
that entrance was well hidden with accommodating
hazel-nut trees, their knotty clumps of dark green
providing a dense screen back of which and against
the rocks, thicker blankets of wild ivies and wild
205
honey-suckle fell in a curtain over the top of the
hole in the wall. But there was a hole, an entrance,
and the broken vines surrounding it showed it had
been used often and even recently.
“Oh, can we get in there?” Rosie demurred, as
they faced what seemed to be complete density.
“It’s all right,” insisted Priscilla. “Don’t be afraid.
Inside it is like a tunnel. I often go in. I was in there
a while ago,” she stated, amazingly.
“A while ago! Then Carol cannot be in there,”
Mr. Dutton concluded quickly.
“Oh, yes she might be. This is one end and before
you get to the other, there are turns. You see,”
Priscilla pointed over the rough green toward the
West, “the cave is very long. It runs all the way—”
“Oh, come on,” wailed Cecy. “I’m going to
shout. Carol!” she called, her two hands against the
sides of her mouth.
“Here—I am!” came back a call in an unsteady
voice—but it was Carol’s!
“That’s Carol!” cried the excited sister. “Where
are you?”
“Here! Here! In—the—cave!”
Everyone glared at Priscilla.
“You said you were—in the cave?” Mr. Dutton
accused her.
“I was—”
“Then why didn’t you see Carol?” Cecy
206
demanded.
“She is at the other end.”
“Come quickly. You know the way,” Thally
ordered. “Let’s get to Carol. Car-ol! We’re
coming—”
“It isn’t so far,” protested the embarrassed
Priscilla. She had been in the cave and Carol had
seen her, but who knew that besides Carol? She,
herself, had no idea that she had been seen.
“Well, she’s alive anyway,” Cecy murmured.
“Oh, my head! Look out for that sharp rock—” for
Priscilla was quickly leading the small band with
their flashlights into the dark cave that poor Carol
had been trapped in so suddenly.
Between calls and exclamations the girls finally
reached Carol, and even in the close little tunnel
Cecy’s arms went joyously about the girl who was
always brave but this time, foolish.
“Oh, oh,” she gasped. “However—did—you get
here?”
“Are you hurt?” Rosie begged to know.
“Those stones, Carol darling, look out—” Thally
exclaimed.
Mr. Dutton was trying to save the girls’ heads
from rocks, and trying to save their feet from
pitfalls.
“Hello, gold-digger,” he said to Carol. “Or is it
coal-digger? Let’s get out of here. This is no place
207
for a tea-party.”
There always is a rift in cavern rocks and there
was one just beyond this perilous turn in the cave.
“See Priscilla go!” said Jeanette.
“Like a—a mountain goat,” Thally put in. “See
her leap over the rocks.”
“Priscilla? Is she—gone?” Carol asked.
“Oh, no. I guess she’s just making room for the
return march of the doughboys,” Mr. Dutton
remarked.
They were just emerging into the welcome air
and daylight when Mr. Dutton saw Carol’s hand
covered with a handkerchief.
“Phew! What’s—that—perfume!” Thally
exclaimed.
“Whatever—” Cecy began.
But Mr. Dutton seized Carol’s hand and brought
it to his face.
“Kissing her hand?” Jeanette charged gaily.
“Not exactly,” Carol said quietly. “You know
what that scent is, don’t you, Mr. Dutton?” she
asked seriously.
“Cat’s sake, let’s sit down some place,” begged
Rosie. “This sort of world’s tour is too much for my
tootsies,” and clear of the cave now she found
enough space to squat down on.
“That perfume!” Mr. Dutton’s words were tragic
in tone. Carol and Jeanette knew the complete story
208
of the lost Dragon of the Hills, but the other girls
from Melody Lane had only received the barest
outline of it in Carol’s and Jeanette’s letters.
“Carol!” he said, slowly, and no one attempted to
interrupt him. “Where—is—it?”
“In the cave,” she replied, looking at the young
man with sparkling eyes, for she knew what her
discovery meant to him.
“In there—”
“Don’t go in now, Mr. Dutton,” Carol stopped
him. “It was just where the rock hit me that suddenly
I put my hand out and on a little ledge I felt—a
smooth, small thing—”
“The box.”
“Yes; I soon realized that,” Carol answered, while
the girls listened in wonderment. “And it must have
been cracked—”
“It is lead,” Mr. Dutton insisted.
“But whoever put it there might have pierced the
lead,” Carol ventured.
“You’re right; they might have tried to open the
box. This handkerchief” (he had the handkerchief
Carol had given him from her hand) “is pretty well
scented. One drop, you know, or even the spot
where one drop had been, would make plenty of
perfume,” he explained. “But I can’t take any more
chances. I’ve got to get it now.”
“But, Mr. Dutton,” Carol implored, “it’s
209
dangerous. You might get penned in. The rocks
seemed to tumble all about me.”
“Can’t wait,” he declared, “it might get covered
up. And you know what I told you, Carol, about my
marrying that sweetest little girl in the world, if I can
only get back the priceless box I lost,” he managed
to declare.
“Yes, of course, I remember, Mr. Dutton,” Carol
answered smilingly. “But if Priscilla hadn’t run
away she could have shown us the way. She knows
the tunnel.”
“Said she had been in there—” he was already
slashing the young trees back from the hole under
the hill.
“Yes, and there was a young man with her,”
Carol finally said.
“A young man!” exclaimed Jeanette. “What did
he look like?”
“I don’t know; I couldn’t see. Why?”
At that instant there flashed between Carol and
Jeanette a look of strange understanding. Carol was
thinking: “That’s about the scarf,” and Jeanette was
thinking: “That’s the fellow Tamma has been talking
about.” The other girls had been standing aside.
Cecy was trying to give a few words of explanation
to Rosie and Thally, but she herself knew very little
about the Dragon mystery.
Presently Mr. Dutton was already in the cave and
210
Carol was following him.
“Here!” called Jeanette to Thally. “Let me take
your flash, please. There’s a big reward for finding
that box and maybe I haven’t been working on it.”
“Are you going in too?” Cecy asked.
“You bet I am. I’d take the risk of plenty of big
rock falling on my head to get hold of that box,” and
with Thally’s flashlight in her hand Jeanette went
forth like a torch-bearer, the small light held high
and her calls to Carol adding to the melodrama.
“Is she crazy?” Rosie exclaimed.
“They used to think she was—a little,” Cecy
answered jokingly, “but Carol wrote she was not in
the least spoofy and romantic now; not since she
came up here.”
“Another one of Carol’s reform cases,” Thally
added. “Well, when they get through running in and
out of this old cave I’d like to sit down some place
myself,” and she groaned loudly in protest of all the
excitement.
“You certainly are entitled to a recess, Thal,”
Cecy agreed. “Driving out here wasn’t so easy—”
“But did you get that perfume?” Rosie asked with
a loud sniff of the air which might even yet hold a
faint aroma of the “Dragon.”
“Did I! No wonder Mr. Dutton had to find that. It
is like the stuff Mildred Powers paid thirty-five
dollars an ounce for last Christmas,” Thally told
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them from her precious seat on a little hill of dirt.
“Thirty-five dollars an ounce for perfume?”
gasped Rosie.
“And even more,” added Cecy. “But imagine
Jeanette trailing it to get a share of the reward.
Maybe we’re just dumb standing out here.”
“Listen! They’re shouting. Thirty-five an ounce
or a hundred an ounce I guess they’ve got it,” Thally
ventured, falling off her hill in a cloud of dry dust.
“You bet Carol didn’t leave that trail unmarked,”
Cecy said. “Carol is used to caves. Remember the
one out at old—”
“Here they come! Listen to Jeanette. I tell you
she’s not like the Lane girls,” Rosie criticized.
“Thanks,” said Cecy, “but she’s the first out all
the same.”
“We’ve got it! We found it!” Jeanette was yelling
as she came out with her flashlight high in the air
even into the broad daylight.
“We!” said Thally aside.
Then they saw Carol. She was carrying the small,
precious box and Mr. Dutton was holding his
flashlight in true comedy style right over her head.
“Star of hope!” he intoned. And everyone knew
he meant it, too.
“Let’s see it! Let’s see it!” the girls were begging
in one voice.
“No; I was only allowed to carry it out, because I
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found it. Here you are, Mr. Dutton. Here’s your
precious Dragon of the Hills!” Carol said, passing
the small battered lead box to the young man’s eager
hands.
They all watched him as he took it. Somehow it
was easy enough to understand what it meant. He
had lost the box when he had almost lost his life in
the auto accident. As soon as he could leave the
hospital he started the search. That was what
brought him to the Dragon Tea Shop; what caused
him to come again and again to this same vicinity.
From the beginning Carol had helped, and, to give
Jeanette her due, she also had tried to help. Perhaps
Jeanette’s seeming failure, her unfortunate dealings
with the Gypsy girl had, in reality, helped more than
she knew, as yet.
“I’ve got to get back to Mr. Wong Sut,” Mr.
Dutton said, with pardonable excitement in his voice
and manner.
“Where is he?” Carol asked.
“At the tea shop,” Cecy answered her. “We had a
sweet reception. Got here to find you missing,
Jeanette tearing out her pretty hair in alarm, and a
good-looking and very gentlemanly Chinese running
around telling us you, Carol-love, were buried in a
cave—”
“Oh, then Mr. Wong Sut gave you the alarm—”
Carol now realized.
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“We’ll say he did and some alarm, too,” quoth
Rosie.
“Pile in,” ordered Thally. “Never shall it be said
that the charge of the girls’ brigade failed to bring
home the bacon,” she ended up in her old good-
natured way.
“Hold on to your box, Mr. Dutton,” called out
Rosie.
“Better sit between two girls this time,” suggested
Cecy. “The same fellow might come dashing along
and run you down again.”
“He won’t,” said Jeanette surprisingly. “That
sport car is far from here by this time.”
“The blue sport car!” exclaimed Mr. Dutton.
“Then that was the car that ran me down and the car
we saw leaving the cave, wasn’t it?”
“According to Tamma the Gypsy girl, yes, it
was,” said Jeanette. For some minutes no one asked
Jeanette any more questions as the car finally got
going along.
Carol knew this was no time for her urgent
questioning of Jeanette, the other girls knew better
than to confuse matters with such questions as they
might ask, and Mr. Dutton, with his priceless box
that even now sent out a “perfectly heavenly
perfume” according to Rosie, cared nothing about
the mysterious details.
“But I must see Priscilla, soon,” Carol said as
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they neared the tea shop.
“She was in the cave, wasn’t she?” Jeanette
repeated, her face serious and her laughter gone.
215
CHAPTER XXV
THE OLD SCARF
“Did you ever see two men happier?” exclaimed
Thally, when back in the tea room the girls were
trying to understand what magic power had urged
Mr. Dutton and Mr. Wong Sut to jump into Mr.
Wong Sut’s car and dash away toward the city like
racers at a motor meet.
“Can you blame them?” Carol asked. “Just the
loss of a formula for the world’s choicest perfume,
doesn’t seem like a life and death matter, but it
really was just about that.”
“And you mean to say the man in the sport car
deliberately ran Mr. Dutton down to get that
concentrate?” Cecy asked, as bit by bit the mystery
was being explained to the new arrivals.
“Followed him half way around the world to do
it, too,” Carol added. “But as usual crime didn’t
pay,” she finished.
“But, as usual also, crime cost a lot in stopping
payment,” Thally attempted to paraphrase.
“But what’s on your mind, Jeanette?” Cecy
216
asked, for there sat Jeanette as solemn as a young
owl while all the others were chattering.
“Plenty,” replied Jeanette.
“Why, Jeanie,” Carol coaxed, “surely there’s
nothing for any one to feel badly about now. The
box is found, Mr. Dutton and his friend in business,
Mr. Wong Sut, are on top of the perfume world
again, and not the least but possibly the most of the
big things will happen when Mr. Dutton marries his
‘sweetest girl in the world.’ I like a man who talks
like that about his girl,” she told the crowd who
were spooning ice cream sodas around one of
Dorothy’s little orange and black tables.
“Come on, Jeanie, be a sport,” further coaxed
Rosie. “Why are you so disappointed?”
“I’m not really,” Jeanette finally spoke, “but I
feel like such a fool.”
“What kind of fool? Is it about the old silk scarf?”
Carol urged, knowing that must be in the
background of Jeanette’s worry.
“Yes; exactly that, Carol; the dirty old scarf—”
The girls were again mystified but in a few
sentences Carol quickly explained about Dorothy’s
shot in the dark that night when Carol had just come,
and her own, Carol’s, finding the old scarf next day,
and later her putting it away as a clue to the
midnight prowler. Then, finally, its disappearance
from the old desk under the stairs. And at that point,
217
of course, Jeanette’s part in the plot thickened.
“Yes, I took it,” she admitted quickly, as if now
eager to have it over with, “I took it to the Gypsy
girl, Tamma.”
“Why?” Cecy asked first.
“She told me if I brought her something to dream
on, a bit of ribbon or a handkerchief or some silly
thing like that, she could tell me about the lost box,”
Jeanette said weakly.
“She knew about it?” Carol asked.
“I should say she did,” flared back Jeanette.
“From the mysterious way she acted about it I
suspected she was the one who found it.”
“Tamma!” exclaimed Carol. “Mr. Dutton himself
suspected the Gypsies but I knew how loyal old
Zada had been to Priscilla’s grandmother, and to
Priscilla, too, since her grandmother’s death.” Carol,
for the moment seemed to be thinking out loud,
rather unmindful of her listeners’ rapt attention. This
matter was certainly between Carol and Jeanette.
“I’m sure Zada is all right, Carol,” Jeanette said,
still very serious. “But that Tamma—”
She broke off suddenly and jumped up from the
little table. Carol followed her as she sank down on
the wicker divan in the corner. She was completely
upset, and almost sobbing.
“Now, listen, Jeanette,” Carol said sharply, “don’t
be silly. I know you have done nothing wrong.”
218
“Nothing wrong to listen to that—that Tamma?”
wailed Jeanette. “She asked me to bring her—
something to—dream on—” Jeanette was plainly
nervous; no pretense this time.
“Yes?” Carol encouraged.
“First, I brought her my own handkerchief.”
“Wasn’t that enough?” Carol knew Jeanette
would have to tell her story, and the girls sitting
quietly at the table a few feet away, also seemed to
understand Carol’s questions.
“At first, yes, she said that was fine. But she kept
asking me if I ever saw any young Oriental
customers at the tea shop; ‘Chinks,’ she called them
but I knew what she meant,” Jeanette added. “Then
when I was dusting the old desk under the stairs and
I found the old scarf there, somehow, I don’t really
know why, I did mention that to Tamma. You see,
the scarf looked Oriental, and because this shop was
the Dragon Tea Shop—oh, I suppose I just got
sentimental again and that’s exactly why I made that
mistake,” finished Jeanette lamely.
“After all, Jeanette,” soothed Carol, “what
difference does it make now?”
“A lot of difference to me, Carol. Frankly, at first
I had to try hard to drop those foolish sentimental
ideas I had about writing letters and all that.”
“But you did drop them, Jeanie,” Cecy put in,
kindly. “You’re an entirely different girl now. We
219
all noticed it when we came up.”
“That’s because I liked Carol so and she was so
kind and understanding. After my first attempt it
seemed perfectly easy to fall into her busy ways—”
“But go ahead, Jean,” urged Rosie, “tell us about
your Gypsy scarf. I can just see it waving,” and she
waved her brief skirt because it was the only thing
she could grab.
They all joked and laughed so that Jeanette’s
story lost some of its grimness, and she herself lost
some of her nervousness. Finally she went on:
“As soon as I said ‘scarf to Tamma she made me
describe it. Then she got so excited nothing would
do but I must come right back here and get it for her.
I know now I had never intended to touch it. I just
felt it was a good story to tell Tamma,” Jeanette said
a little shyly.
“Too good!” chimed in Thally. “Trust them
Gypsy gals to make the most of a fellow’s lost
necktie.” Thally always saw the funny part of a
story.
“That’s just what she did,” said Jeanette. “It was
the fellow who rides around in the sport car who lost
that scarf.”
“Then he was the one who tried to get in here the
night Dorothy fired her automatic,” Carol said.
“Yes, he was. And when Tamma got the scarf and
recognized it as belonging to Lon—she just called
220
him Lon—she said that changed everything,”
Jeanette tried to explain.
“How could it?” Carol asked.
“Because Tamma had promised to get the
precious box for Lon and he had promised to get her
a big reward for finding it.”
“She did find it then?” That was another question
from Carol.
“She said she did, but now I don’t believe
anything she told me. She got wildly excited when I
gave her the scarf, she said Lon was trying to get in
here to search for the box when he had pretended to
believe her and all that— Well, I imagine that was
when the so-called love affair blew up,” said
Jeanette, and in spite of the seriousness of her story
they all laughed at the way she told it.
“Those Gypsies can be desperately jealous,”
Thally said. “Don’t you know, Carol, the tribe that
settled on Fern Hill one summer? They watched
their own youngsters pretty closely.”
“Yes,” Jeanette answered, instead of Carol doing
so, “and Zada watched Tamma pretty closely, too.
Tamma told me she never dared take a ride in Lon’s
new car.”
“That’s something,” remarked Thally.
“But, Carol, I did try to get the scarf back,”
Jeanette declared. “I went right up to the camp and
asked Tamma for it.”
221
“Did she give it to you?” Rosie asked. This was
exactly Rosie’s kind of romantic story.
“No; indeed she didn’t. She started in all over
again to blame Lon for everything that had gone
wrong with her plans to get the big reward, in fact,
she even started in to blame me, when her mother,
Zada, came along. Then she closed up like a trap.”
“Did she say she had really found the box?” Carol
asked again.
“No she didn’t. It was only after I brought her the
scarf that she admitted knowing about it.
“Then she lost her temper and said anything and
everything; it was hard to know what she did say,
she was so excited,” Jeanette finished.
“But Zada put her in her place. Well, that’s that,
Jeanie,” Carol said lightly, “and your record is
perfect. The scarf matter only proved you could do
hard things when you tried. I know it was hard for
you to confront that fiery young Gypsy and demand
the old scarf back.”
“Yes, it was rather hard,” admitted Jeanette and
the jangling telephone interrupted presentation of
more “bouquets” as Rosie remarked aside.
Carol answered the phone.
“She’s talking to Dorothy,” Jeanette whispered.
“I hope she’s coming back here soon,” Thally
also whispered. “We came up here to get Carol to go
to the Shore; remember?”
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But Carol talked on and the girls waited patiently
to hear her report of the phone message.
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CHAPTER XXVI
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
When Carol turned away from the phone and
faced the girls, she was smiling happily.
“Of course Dorothy is coming right back,” she
told them, “but we don’t have to wait for her. She
says leave everything to Mary Ellen.”
“Checks and all? I mean all the money we have
made for her?” Jeanette asked, childishly.
“Of course, darling. Mary Ellen ran this shop
before we came up here, that is, she often tended it
in Dorothy’s absence,” Carol pointed out.
“Oh,” sighed Jeanette. “Then we didn’t do so
much after all.”
“Sure you did,” chimed in Thally, “and you had a
lot of fun doing it. Now, Carol, let me warn you. No
more schemes to hold you back. We’re going. In
fact, we’re practically on our way. Can we leave
tomorrow morning?”
“There are a few things—”
“I knew it. Well, ‘leave them stayin’,’ as our dear
old maid Mary used to say.”
224
“But I’ve got to see Priscilla. Do you forget I
saw her in the cave with a young man—”
“And she ran like a mountain goat before you
could speak to her? No, we’re not forgetting that,”
Jeanette put in, “and as Carol says, we’ve got to see
Priscilla.”
“We,” mocked Rosie.
“Why, of course, Rosie, we,” repeated Carol.
“There are no more secrets; no need for them, but I
wouldn’t go away from here and not know how
Priscilla is making out. She, too, may need girls to
talk to.”
“It looks as if she might,” Cecy ventured. “Well,
when do we go over to see her?”
“No time like the present,” Carol answered glibly.
“I’ve just got to tell Mary Ellen the good news about
Dorothy and her mother coming back, then we’ll all
ride over to Bramble Hill.”
“But say, Carol,” Cecy asked when Carol had
returned from conveying the good news to Mary
Ellen, “what about this shop and the Dragon of the
Hills? How did it come by that big scary dragon sign
at the corner and the one out front? Is Mr. Dutton or
Mr. Sut Wong—”
“Mr. Wong Sut,” Carol corrected her.
“Well, all right, have it your own way,” Cecy
continued. “But did either of those gentlemen paint
that sign to advertise their world’s best perfume?”
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“Oh, no,” Carol explained. “It seems that
particular dragon is the most famous of all their
kind, and when Dorothy was buying her supplies at
an Oriental shop in the village, she mentioned to the
proprietor her want of a name for her place. He, an
artist as well as a dealer in foreign wares, quickly
suggested Dragon of the Hills. He told her a
fascinating story of the dragon legend and even
offered to paint her signs. Of course she gladly
accepted so generous an offer, and that’s how the tea
shop got its name,” Carol concluded breathlessly.
“But Dorothy never guessed what publicity that
sign and name might bring to her little shop, did
she?” mused Cecy.
“Like queer people coming around losing their
neck-scarfs.” That was Thally.
“And getting shot at—” That was Cecy.
“And grabbing up stray boxes. Rosie, please take
my candy box off that window sill and you might
stop nibbling at it at the same time,” Thally teased.
“No use leaving more precious boxes around in
plain sight to tempt dragon robbers.”
“Come along, if we’re going to Priscilla’s,” Carol
ordered. “But after all, girls, you just got here. Don’t
you think you ought to stay a few days? This is a
lovely place—”
“Beautiful,” agreed Thally, facetiously, “but I
already feel as if I had spent the best part of my life-
226
time here, so much has happened. No, as the girl
who runs the big bus, I insist on getting back to
Melody Lane, from whence to take our departure for
the ocean’s briny path—”
“Oh, come on, Thal; it’s getting late and we still
have things to do,” Carol urged. “Besides, those
flights of oratory are being wasted on us. Save them
up for a dull evening at Seacrest. Pile in, girls. Thal
says she’s the big bus driver, so we’ll take her at her
word.”
More chatter but no more serious conversation
filled in the short time it took to reach Bramble Hill,
and Carol was thinking, if not saying, that this was
like old times; that no amount of adventure could
make up for the loss of companionship among girls.
Now they were all together again, now Thally was
teasing. Rosie was joking, Cecy was agreeing and
even Jeanette was having a good time.
“I’ll be glad to get back to Melody Lane,” she
admitted. “After all, the same old hills, when they
are strange hills, do grow monotonous.”
“That’s exactly what I told you,” said Thally.
“Oh. Look at the swell car in front of Priscilla’s,”
exclaimed Jeanette, as they neared the place.
There certainly was a swell car in front of
Priscilla’s, a big limousine and a driver standing
before the door, on the rough country road.
While the girls were exclaiming, there flashed
227
through Carol’s memory that day when she had
driven up to Bramble Hill in the heavy
thunderstorm. So much had happened since that day
and now she was almost ready to turn away from the
summer country place, and go back to the more
substantial beauties of Melody Lane.
“She’s got company,” said Rosie, foolishly,
meaning Priscilla, of course.
“So we see,” said Thally.
“Perhaps we better wait,” Carol began. But as the
sound of the girls’ car must have reached those in
the little cottage, Priscilla appeared at the door.
“Come along, girls,” she called out, “come on in.
I’m so glad you came.”
“That settles it,” said Jeanette, “we’re glad we
came ourselves. How does my hair look?”
Paying no attention to such flippant remarks, they
all started up the walk. Not a single comment was
made about the little runway Carol had been so
curious about when she first came up to that door,
for every one was too intently speculating upon the
visitor who had come in the big car.
Priscilla was simply dancing with excitement.
Her prim little gingham dress that had always
covered her brown knees was flying recklessly now,
her light hair was just as wild as it had been when
she ran out of the cave “like a mountain goat,” and
her wonderful gray eyes were flashing happily.
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“Pretty,” said Cecy under her breath.
“Lovely,” added Thally.
“Come right in. I was hoping you might come.”
Priscilla was leading them in through that queer
little shed on the front porch, and now they were in
the living room.
“Girls,” sang out Priscilla, “first, this is my
brother Dick; Dick these are the girls I have been
telling you about. And Mr. Bradshaw, let me
introduce my friends—”
But it was her brother Dick, and not the stately
Mr. Bradshaw, who held the girls’ attention.
Carol knew now. This was the young man
Priscilla had met in the cave. And wasn’t he
handsome?
“I wish I could stay longer, Priscilla,” Mr.
Bradshaw interrupted. “But I’m delighted with my
rug. It’s superb. If only I could have thanked your
dear grandmother—”
Priscilla stepped aside and Mr. Bradshaw could
be seen handing her a check. He also kept
expressing his pleasure at getting the rug that poor
old Mrs. Hunt and Zada had worked so hard on.
As he left he bowed courteously to all the girls
but clasped Priscilla’s hand.
“I want you and Dick to come up to my place in
Vermont and see this rug on the floor of a real
farmhouse,” he insisted.
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The chauffeur carried the rug from the room
down the walk to the big car.
As the elderly gentleman entered the machine,
while the chauffeur carefully stowed the rug in the
front seat, Priscilla stood at the door of the
grandmother’s small home where so many hours had
been spent in planning, designing and weaving the
great hand-made piece.
Now, as Priscilla turned again to face her friends
in the living room, her eyes were glistening with
tears.
“Dick,” she said, “you must take this check over
to Squire Eaton right away. Excuse me for a minute,
girls,” she apologized, “but we have so many things
to attend to and—”
“We can just as well run over again some other
time,” Carol interrupted.
“Oh, no! Stay now, please. Dick and I won’t be a
minute. Now, Dick, be sure to tell the Squire that
Zada must have more out of the money this rug
brought than Granny promised her. Tell him Zada
has done more work on it than was planned because
Granny—wasn’t able to do it all—all of her part.”
“All right, sis, I’ll fix it up. So-long, girls. Hope
I’ll be seeing you again some time.”
And while Dick made one more attempt to get
that blonde curl off his well-tanned forehead, he
smilingly rushed away to carry out his gray-eyed
230
sister’s orders. He was whistling “Bob White,” and
Carol recognized this as the mysterious signal she
had heard from the cave.
Then Priscilla turned quickly to Carol.
“Carol,” she exclaimed, “did you get the box?”
“Yes, Priscilla.”
“I was so afraid it might be covered up when all
that cave dirt fell.”
“Did you put the box there?” Jeanette asked
sharply.
“Yes, I did,” Priscilla answered just as sharply.
“Did you find it, Priscilla?” Carol asked that.
“Not where it was first lost. I mean not directly
after Mr. Dutton’s accident. But I found it later,”
Priscilla said. “Girls, do let’s sit down,” she invited
and it was upon the needlepoint chairs they all
finally found places.
“Yes, Priscilla,” Carol said quietly, “we are all
very anxious to hear the real story of the lost Dragon
of the Hills.”
“You see,” Priscilla began after a pause,
seemingly to collect all the loose ends of her
thoughts, “Granny, Dick and I saw the car accident
and we all saw the blue sport car that struck Mr.
Dutton’s auto. Right after that Tamma came running
along. She was coming here to see her mother, Zada.
Of course Dick and I ran out. Mr. Dutton was soon
taken away in another car to the hospital and Tamma
231
kept looking around on the road and in the grass
where the things had been scattered out of Mr.
Dutton’s car.”
“Then she found the box!” broke in Rosie.
“Yes, she did. I saw her pick it up but of course I
didn’t know it was anything valuable. Well, you
know Grannie died soon after that and everything
else went out of my mind except that she was dead
and that Dick had gone away.”
“Why did Dick go?” asked Carol simply.
“He was all ready to go. I knew about it but he
made me promise not to tell Granny until he wrote
me that everything was all right. He had gone to a
forestry camp—he wants to be a forest ranger—and
Squire Eaton wanted him to keep on at school and
then become a lawyer,” Priscilla explained.
“He’ll make a handsome ranger,” Jeanette
managed to get in, but no one noticed the remark.
“I wanted Dick to tell Squire Eaton his plans and
then go, no matter what was said, but Dick thought
the best way would be to try it out first. Well, he has
done that and now he is back and Squire Eaton is
perfectly satisfied.
“But I heard people say that perhaps Dick had
taken the box of perfume,” went on Priscilla, “so I
made up my mind to get it and prove Dick didn’t
take it.”
No one attempted to interrupt her story now.
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“I noticed Tamma so often going out to the spring
back of the old oak,” proceeded the gray-eyed girl,
“that I just looked around there and found the box
hidden in a little cradle of bricks. I took it.”
“You did right to take it,” Carol declared.
“I knew I did because I had heard Tamma and
that fellow she calls Lon talking about it. He was
offering her a lot of money if she would find it for
him and she was holding back until her mother
would consent to her going with this stranger. Of
course Zada never would, and I knew the box
belonged to Mr. Dutton. So I just took it and hid it in
the cave until Dick could come back and be cleared
of all suspicion. He came back today,” Priscilla’s
gray eyes were lighting up proudly, “and I was
going to get the box right after Dick came back from
seeing Squire Eaton—he went there first.”
“Then I got caught in the trap,” laughed Carol.
“And the box literally fell into my hands.”
“Yes, and I’m so glad it did, Carol!” murmured
Priscilla. “You deserve to have found it.”
“And you deserve to get some of that reward Mr.
Dutton talked about,” said Jeanette, keeping her
interest in that end of the business.
“Oh, I don’t want anything. I only took it to save
Dick,” declared Priscilla, and the honesty of her
remark was indicated in her eyes.
“But you took a big chance between that Lon and
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a girl like Tamma,” Carol said. “But it’s all right
now and, Priscilla, as we are all going back home
tomorrow, can’t you tell us what you plan to do?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You see Squire Eaton was
related to my Grandfather Hunt, so he and his
wife—we call her Aunt Harriett—they are coming
here to live. Then Dick can go to his forestry school
and I guess I’ll finish High at Swanton. After that,”
she flushed a little, “maybe I can go to college.”
“If we don’t all go into Dragon Tea Shops or
Dragon Perfume factories,” Carol suggested as the
girls of Melody Lane and little, gray-eyed Priscilla
Hunt went on planning ever greater adventures.
THE END