Dan Carter And The Haunted Castle Part 30

"I'm in charge here and I say you're not to bother the master. He's not well enough to talk to anyone."

"In that case, we'll not press the matter," Mr. Hatfield accepted dismissal. "However, since Colonel Brekenridge is up and about, I thought-"

"Visitors worry him," the gardener cut in. "I ain't aiming to be unfriendly, but my orders are to see he's not disturbed."

"We'll go," the Cub leader said. "But first, tell us if you've seen a boy pa.s.s this way in the last ten minutes."

"I've been tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a hedge. I ain't had time to be looking for anyone."

"I see," said Mr. Hatfield, aware that the man would give no information.

"Thank you."

All the Cubs started to leave. As they moved away, they heard a faint call from the veranda.

"Oh, Pete!"

The gardener became somewhat confused upon seeing that Colonel Brekenridge was beckoning to him.

"Tell those folks to come here," the master of the estate called.

"You heard him," the gardener muttered, annoyed that Colonel Brekenridge had interfered. "He's willing to see you. Why, I wouldn't know, after telling me to keep folks away."

The Cubs and the three men went on to the pillared veranda.

Colonel Brekenridge, once a large man now wasted to a shadow of his former self, lay in a specially built reclining wheel chair. He wore gla.s.ses and had been reading, for several English magazines and _The Spectator_ were spread on a table beside him.

"You were sending these people away, Pete?" the master of the estate asked the gardener. "Did I not hear them ask to see me?"

"You know you're not to over-tire yourself, Colonel Brekenridge," the man replied. "I was only trying to look after your best interests."

"I'm sure you were," the colonel replied kindly. "Sometimes I fear you are inclined to be over-zealous in your duty. At any rate, I am feeling much better these days and welcome interesting visitors."

"I trust we'll prove interesting then," said Mr. Hatfield with a smile.

"In any case we will endeavor to be brief."

Colonel Brekenridge waved the three men into porch chairs. The Cubs sat on the steps in front of them.

"I'm not as much of an invalid as my gardener would have you believe,"

the colonel said with a smile. "When I first came here to live, I was seriously ill and required absolute quiet. Now, I'm happy to say, I appear well on the road to recovery."

The three men introduced themselves and presented the Cubs. Mr. Hatfield then explained that the boys had been using the adjoining property in rehearsing for a play which they hoped soon to put on.

"You had a fire over there the other day, didn't you?" the colonel inquired. "I saw smoke and was a little worried lest this property be in danger. Fortunately for my interests, the wind carried it in the other direction."

"We're still trying to learn how that fire started," Mr. Hatfield said.

"That is not our reason for coming here today though. We're searching for someone who hid a small bag inside the Castle, and then ran off in this direction."

"We thought you might have seen him come this way," Mr. Kain added.

"No, I can't say I have. I must admit I dozed off for fifteen or twenty minutes."

The Cubs now felt that they were at a complete dead-end in their search for the elusive archer. Believing that Colonel Brekenridge was unable to provide any useful clues, they arose to leave.

At this point, however, Mr. Kain brought out the small leather bag.

Even before the bank employee explained anything about it, the colonel's eyes fastened attentively upon the pouch.

"That little bag has a familiar look," he remarked.

"It isn't yours by chance?" inquired Mr. Kain in surprise.

"Those symbols remind me of a bag I once owned. May I see it please?"

"Certainly." Mr. Kain offered the coin-filled leather pouch.

"This certainly looks like a bag I once bought from an Indian on one of my trips through the west," Colonel Brekenridge said. "Come to think of it, I don't know what ever became of it either."

"You are a coin collector perhaps?" interposed Mr. Holloway.

"No, I have no hobbies. In my younger days I enjoyed travel and picked up a few curios. But in no sense of the word could you call me a collector."

Curiously, Colonel Brekenridge felt of the coins inside the bag. Mr. Kain bade him open the pouch.

The colonel poured the coins out onto the robe which covered his wheel chair.

"Well!" he exclaimed. "These too have a somewhat familiar appearance."

"Then the coins are yours?" asked Mr. Kain.

"No, but I think I recognize them. They belonged to my son."

"Is the boy here now?"

Colonel Brekenridge smiled as he moved his wheel chair so that the sun would not s.h.i.+ne directly into his eyes.

"Oh, my son is a grown man," he replied. "At present he is abroad serving in the army."

"This puzzle grows more confusing by the minute," declared Mr. Holloway.

"Suppose we tell you exactly how we came into possession of the bag of coins."

The Den Dad then related how the arrow with a message attached had been shot near Mr. Kain's car.

Colonel Brekenridge's amazement increased as he learned that the bag had been hidden inside the chimney of the bank-owned dwelling.

"These coins are very valuable," he a.s.sured the Cubs. "I am certain it was never my intention to give them away. As I said, they belonged to my son."

"Can you explain how the bag came to be in the hiding place?" Dan questioned.

"When last I saw that bag it was reposing in a drawer of a desk upstairs," Colonel Brekenridge replied. "But I might have a theory-yes, it amounts practically to a conviction."