Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach Part 22

"That's just what I do mean," said Nan soberly. "I didn't want to worry you, Bess, so I didn't tell you. But something happened last night----"

She stopped suddenly, for the two men were coming back again, apparently absorbed in conversation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Nan's eyes were following the figures of two men strolling down the deck. (_See page 140_)]

Presently the tall man and his short companion pa.s.sed and as they did so Nan gave each a searching look. The men did not happen to see the girls, and soon were out of sight around a turn.

"I am almost sure they are the same," murmured Nan and her face was a study.

"Nan, you talk in riddles!" cried her chum. "What does it mean?"

"I'll tell you, Bess, even though I don't want to frighten you still more."

And thereupon Nan related how she had seen two strange men near her home and at the local drugstore and the railroad station, and how one had stepped up as if to speak to her and then hurried away.

"I am almost sure they are the same, and, oh, Bess, one of them has such an awful look in his eyes! I am sure they cannot be at all nice."

"Humph! That is certainly strange," murmured Bess. "I guess those chaps will bear watching. What can they be up to, do you think--watching your house and following you like that?"

"I haven't finished. Last night----"

"Oh, yes, you started to tell about last night. Go ahead--oh, it's so exciting--just like a movies!"

"You remember we went down to the dining-room together," Nan went on in a low tone, "and I suddenly remembered that we had forgotten to lock the door. I was a little frightened, for I thought of Mrs. Bragley's papers and our jewelry, and I almost ran back.

"Just as I opened the door," Nan's voice quickened with excitement and Bess leaped forward eagerly, "I saw a shadow on the gla.s.s of the other door--the one that opens upon the deck."

"Why, Nan! are you sure?" gasped Bess, catching herself up quickly to add, "Never mind. Don't bother to answer me. What happened next?"

"Well, for a minute I just stood there," said Nan, her eyes searching nervously for the reappearance of the two men on deck. "I guess I was just too surprised or frightened to speak, for the shadow on the door was that of a man, and he was trying the door!"

"Oh, Nan, what did you do?" demanded her wide-eyed chum. "I should just have screamed and run away."

"A lot of good that would have done," said Nan, a little contemptuously.

"I wanted to scream, but I didn't think of running away."

"Of course you wouldn't," said Bess humbly. "But go on, Nan. What did you do?"

"I threw a bathrobe over my grip in the first place," said Nan. "I had left it standing out in the room. And then I pulled the door open just as the man started to open it from the outside."

"Oh, Nan!" cried Bess again. "Then he really meant to come in?"

"Of course he did--although he said he didn't," said Nan grimly. "When I pulled the door open suddenly and stood looking at him he acted as if I was a ghost or something. He did for a minute, that is. Then he straightened up and sort of put on a smile--you know, the way you would put on a coat to cover up a soiled dress or something----"

"Why, Nan, I never----" Bess began indignantly, then interrupted herself again. "Never mind me," she begged. "You've got me so excited that I don't know just what I'm saying. What happened then, Nan? Didn't you say something?"

"Of course I said something," returned Nan. "I asked him what he was doing at my stateroom door and what he wanted."

"What did he say?" whispered Bess, her eyes wide in wonder.

"He said that he was very sorry. That he thought this was his stateroom.

That he wouldn't have startled me for the world. And then he bowed himself out and I slammed the door after him."

"But, Nan," Bess had regained her breath again and felt in the mood for an argument, "how do you know that the man really hadn't made a mistake?

I suppose it would be easy enough to get mixed up."

"Bess, that man didn't make any mistake," said Nan Sherwood with such conviction in her voice that once more Bess was startled.

"How do you know?"

"He was the meanest man I ever saw--his looks I mean," said Nan, apparently not noticing her chum's interruption. "If you could have seen him as I opened the door, you would feel just the way I do. He had probably seen us going down to dinner and thought it was a good chance to get into the stateroom and steal----"

"Steal!" gasped poor Bess, for Nan was getting her pretty thoroughly frightened. "You mean he was a thief, Nan?"

"Of course," Nan returned impatiently. "I don't suppose honest men are in the habit of sneaking into empty staterooms."

"But if it was a mistake----" Bess interrupted, grasping at a straw.

"It wasn't any mistake," Nan repeated gravely. "If he had thought it was his own door, he would have opened it quickly. He wouldn't have been so slow and cautious about it."

"But, Nan! what could he have wanted to steal from us? It isn't as though we had one of those handsome staterooms down below that cost a fortune to hire even for a night. We haven't anything so very valuable."

"Except Mrs. Bragley's papers," said Nan grimly. "I wonder you didn't think of them."

"Oh!" said Bess. "The papers! Yes, of course there were the papers. Why, Nan," she turned upon her chum excitedly, "do you really suppose they can be as important as that? Why, I never dreamed----"

"I know you didn't. But I did," said Nan decidedly. She then added under her breath as the two men turned a corner and again headed down the deck toward them: "Don't say anything. Wait until these men have pa.s.sed and then look at them, the tall, thin one in particular."

Bess was about to exclaim, but Nan silenced her with a look and they waited quietly while the strangers once more sauntered past them.

Evidently they were taking a prolonged const.i.tutional about the deck.

Bess stole a quick glance at them and then turned back to her chum.

"They are the same men who pa.s.sed us just a little while ago," she said with a puzzled frown.

"Yes. And one of them, the tall, thin one with a slit for a mouth, is the man who tried to enter our stateroom," said Nan earnestly. "I'm just telling you this so that you will be more careful to lock our stateroom door whenever you go in or out."

"Goodness--Gracious--Agnes!" gasped Bess, mimicking Procrastination Boggs in her agitation. "You are actually making me nervous, Nan Sherwood. Lock the door, indeed! As if we were afraid of being murdered in our beds! Why, I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night. I never heard of such a thing."

"You needn't look at me as if I were to blame," said Nan with spirit. "I didn't ask that horrid thin thing and his little fat friend to follow us all over and nearly give me heart failure. I'll be glad when this trip is over, I'll tell you that."

"So will I," said Bess morosely. "But I'll be gladder still when you get rid of those old papers of Mrs. Bragley's--if that is what they are after."

"The one thing that makes me feel good," said Nan thoughtfully, as if speaking to herself, "is that the papers must be worth something or these horrid men wouldn't be so anxious to get them back. Maybe we shall find that poor Mrs. Bragley is a rich woman yet."

"Either that, or else that we have made a big mistake and the men are not after the papers at all."

"But if not after the papers, what?"

"I don't know."