The Dragon's Secret Part 16

So amazed were they that they could scarcely reply, but the man took matters in his own hands and walked into the house. And Leslie never even thought to warn him to speak softly because of Aunt Marcia!

Unconsciously they grouped themselves about him at the open fire. And Rags, now that the obnoxious stranger had been admitted to the house on a hospitable footing, made no further demonstrations of enmity.

"My name is Barnes--Detective Barnes of the New York force," he began, "and I'd like to clear up one or two little puzzles here before I go on with this business. It's a rather peculiar one. I heard this young gentleman refer to a car that was standing in the road near here and say it belonged to one of you young ladies named Eileen. I'd like to inform Miss Eileen that the party who got that little article we were all sc.r.a.pping for to-night, jumped into her car when he got to the road, tore like mad in it to the station, left it there, and caught the express for New York. I was just in time to see him disappearing in it, but of course _I_ had to walk to the village. I suspected what he was going to do, though, and I went straight to the station and found the car standing there. So I took the liberty of getting in it, driving myself to the village doctor, and then back out here. You will find your car, Miss Eileen, standing just where you left it, but I thought you'd like to know it had had the little adventure!"

Eileen opened her mouth to reply, but the man gave her no chance, turning immediately to Ted. "And as for you, young man, I suppose you thought you were doing a wonderful stunt when you landed into me to-night, just as I'd unearthed the thing I've been on the trail of for a week; but I'll have to tell you that you've spoiled one of the prettiest little pieces of detective work I've undertaken for several years, and may have helped to precipitate a bit of international trouble, beside. I don't know what your motive was,--I suppose you thought me a burglar,--but--

"Just a moment!" cried Eileen, springing forward. "Tell me, why are you concerned in this? My name is Ramsay and I have a right to ask!"

Detective Barnes was visibly startled. "Are you a relative of the Honorable Arthur Ramsay?" he demanded; and when she had told him, he exclaimed: "Then you must know all about Geoffrey Gaines and how he disappeared!"

"I've known him since I was a baby," she answered; "but how he disappeared is still an awful mystery to us. My grandfather is very ill in the Branchville hospital, you know."

"But didn't he receive my letter?" cried Mr. Barnes. "I sent it two days ago!"

"He has been too ill to read any mail for the last two days," replied Eileen, "and, of course, I have not opened it."

"Well, that explains why I haven't heard from him!" the man exclaimed, with a sigh of relief. "Then I guess you will be interested to hear that Gaines is alive and well, but kept a close prisoner by some heathen Chinese in a house on a west side street in New York."

"But how?--Why?--Did it happen the--the night he--came down here?" she ventured.

"I see you're pretty well informed about the matter," he remarked cautiously. "And if these others are equally so, I guess it's safe for me to go on and give you a history of the thing."

Eileen nodded, and he went on:

"Gaines and I used to know each other in England, years before he entered your grandfather's service. In fact, we had been schoolmates together.

Then I came over to this country and entered the detective service, and he went into another walk of life. But we kept in touch with each other by writing occasionally. A week or so ago I was astonished to receive a letter from him, written on all sorts of odds and ends of paper and in an envelope plainly manufactured by himself. It contained some very singular news.

"It gave me first the history of those letters and how anxious your grandfather was to keep hold of them. Then it told how he (Gaines) had taken the box down here that night and tried first to conceal it in the bungalow. But no place in the house seemed safe enough to him. He tried to dig up a brick in the fireplace and bury it there, but gave it up after he had broken his knife in the attempt. Then he had the inspiration to bury it in the sand somewhere outside, and he described where he _did_ locate it, right by that log. If Gaines had known much about the tides here, he wouldn't have thought that a very good scheme. He didn't, though, and thought he'd found an excellent place. He then turned to walk back to the hotel, but hadn't gone more than a mile (it was storming hard, if you remember) when a terrific blow on the back of the head knocked him senseless. He never knew another thing until he came to, after what must have been a number of days, to find himself a prisoner in a house he judged to be somewhere in New York. And from his description I've located it about west Sixty-first street.

"He appeared to be in the keeping of a Chinaman who dressed American fas.h.i.+on and spoke good English. He was told that he was a prisoner and that it was hopeless to try to communicate with any one until he had reported exactly where and how those letters had been concealed. He begged for a day or two to consider the matter and was granted it, but told that if he did not comply with their wishes he would disappear for good and no one would ever be the wiser.

"In the meantime, he managed to get together a few sc.r.a.ps of paper, and with the stub of a pencil he happened to have about him, he wrote this letter to me, describing the location of the letters and how he had hidden them in a bronze box wrapped in a burlap bag. He urged me to go and get them at once, and then, later, he could safely describe to his captors where he had hidden them. Perhaps you wonder how he expected to get this letter to me, since he was so carefully guarded. He said that he was on the third floor, front, of the house, near a corner where he could see a post-box. He happened to have a solitary stamp in his pocket, which he put on the letter. Then, at some hour when he thought his captors were busy elsewhere, he expected to attract the attention of some children playing in the street and offer to throw them some money if they would mail the letter in the nearby box. As I received the letter, no doubt his plan worked successfully. At any rate, I got it a week ago and started on the trail immediately.

"I landed out here one morning while it was still dark, and dug all around the spot mentioned, but couldn't find a trace of the bag or box."

"Oh, I saw you that morning!" cried Leslie. "But when you walked away you seemed to stoop and had a bad limp! I don't understand!"

"I know you saw me," he smiled, "or, at least, that _some_ one did, for as I happened to glance back at this house, it was growing just light enough for me to realize there was some one watching at the window. So I adopted that stoop and limp as I walked away, just so you would not be likely to recognize me if you saw me again. It is a ruse I've often practised."

"But it didn't work _that_ time," laughed Leslie, "for I recognized you again this afternoon by the way you dusted the sand off your hands and threw away the stick!"

"Well, you are certainly a more observing person than most people!" he answered gravely. "But to go on. Of course, I was very much disappointed, but I remained here, staying at the village hotel, and kept as close a watch on the place as was possible, pretending all the time that I was here on a fis.h.i.+ng excursion. I tried very hard to keep out of sight of these bungalows, in the daytime, anyway. The day you all went off on the auto ride the coast seemed clear, and I went through the place. But I hadn't been out of it long and walked down to the beach, when I saw the two men drive up in a car and enter the bungalow also, and later come out to dig by that old log. Of course, they didn't see me about! I took care of that. And I knew, beyond a doubt, that they were Gaines's Chinamen, come to find the booty.

"Of course they didn't find it, any more than I had, and I felt sure they would go back and make it hot for Gaines, and I judged that he would probably try to gain time in some way. I went back to my hotel that night to think it all over and make further plans, and didn't visit the bungalow again till next evening, when I found to my astonishment a queer note, type-written, on the table there--a warning that the article stolen from its hiding-place had better be returned. And under it, a reply, printed in lead-pencil, saying it would be returned."

"I couldn't make head or tail of the business. I judged the type-written part to have been left by the Chinese. But who had scribbled the other was a dark-brown mystery. At any rate, I concluded that to-night would probably be the crucial time, and determined to get in ahead of every one else. The storm was a piece of good fortune to me, as it concealed things so well, and about nine o'clock I was on the spot, proceeding to dig down by the old log. Pretty soon I realized, though, that there was some one else around. And just as I'd unearthed the bag, which _had_ been mysteriously returned to its hiding-place, you appeared out of somewhere, young man, fell on me like a thousand of bricks, and we had a grand old tussle. I'll give you credit for being _some_ wrestler, but I was getting the best of it, when along came you others with that terrible beast and did the business for me!

"I thought all along, though, that you, Mr. Ted, were one of the Chinamen. But that person must have been on the scene also, probably lurking in the shelter of the bungalow and watching the fracas. And when your electric light blazed on the scene, Miss," he turned to Phyllis, "he no doubt saw the bag in my hand. Then, when the light went out for a moment, he rushed in and grabbed the prize and was off while we two were so busy with one another!

"It was a losing game all around. While I was in the village, I 'phoned my department in New York to meet his train when it got in and arrest him, if they could find him, and search him at once. But after I'd been to the doctor's (I had a long session there) I 'phoned them again and heard that the train had been met, but no one answering such description as I could give had got off. No doubt he was canny enough to get off at some station short of New York and so was lost to sight.

"Well, the prize is lost for this time, but perhaps we can pick up the trail again. At any rate, Gaines is probably free, for they promised to release him as soon as the letters were obtained."

When he had ceased speaking, Leslie got up from her chair and disappeared into the kitchen. When she returned, she laid a dark bundle in the lap of Eileen.

"I guess the prize was found some time ago!" she remarked quietly.

"Suppose you open that bag and see, Eileen!"

And amid an astounded silence, Eileen's fingers managed to unloose the fastening of the bag and insert themselves in its depths. Then with a little cry of joy, she drew out and held up, for all to view, the bronze box that had caused all the disturbance--the Dragon's Secret!

The complicated explanations were all over at last, and the curious, fragmentary story was pieced together. Detective Barnes took up the little bronze box and examined it carefully, experimenting, as they all had done, to find a way of opening it--and, of course, unsuccessfully.

"There's one thing that puzzles me, though," remarked Ted, "about that queer type-written note. How and why and by whom was it left originally?"

"It was written on thin, foreign-looking paper," replied the detective, "and I can only guess that the foreigners left it there, though probably not on their first trip that afternoon. No doubt they either went to the village, or, more likely, returned to the city to talk it over, perhaps with Gaines. And he, supposing I had long since captured the prize, and to put them off the scent, suggested that some one nearby may have been meddling with the matter and that they leave a warning for them. I feel rather certain he must have done this to gain time, for he knew that if I had found the thing, I would immediately set about having him released, and he must have wondered why I hadn't done so. Perhaps he thought I was having difficulty locating the house where they had him hidden. But, Great Scott!--that makes me think!--They must by this time have discovered the trick you played, Miss Phyllis, and be jumping mad over having been so fooled. Perhaps they think Gaines is responsible for it, and they'll certainly be making it hot for _him!_ I must get to the city immediately and get him out of that hole. Oughtn't to waste another minute. If you can spare your car, Miss Eileen, I'd like to run up to the city with it, as I know there are no more trains to-night. I'll guarantee to fetch it and Gaines both back in the morning!"

"You certainly may have it," replied Eileen, "and you may take me with you and leave me at the hospital, on the way. Grandfather must know of this at once. I'm positive he'll recover now, since the worry is all over. But first, wouldn't you all like to see something? I happen to know the secret of opening this box. Grandfather showed it to me when I was a little girl, and he used to let me play with it."

She took a pin from her dress, inserted it into the carved eye of the dragon and pressed it in a certain fas.h.i.+on--and the lid of the bronze box flew up! They all pressed forward eagerly and gazed in. There lay the packet of foreign letters, safe and sound. Eileen lifted them and looked curiously underneath. Nothing else was in the box except some strange, thin bits of yellow, foreign paper covered with vague pictures and curious Chinese characters. They seemed to be so thin and old as to be almost falling to pieces.

"I don't know what _these_ things are," she remarked, "but they probably have nothing to do with this affair, anyway. Grandfather was always picking up queer old things on his travels. But he must have thought them interesting, or he never would have kept them in here. But we must go now," she ended, closing the box. "And I'll see you dear people all to-morrow. This has surely been a wonderful night!"

But just as she was ready to go, she said: "Do show me the dusty shelf where this was hidden, please!" And then, as she stood gazing up at it, she exclaimed, "To think that it lay here behind those worn-out old kitchen things all the time we were so madly hunting for it! But perhaps it was the safest place, after all!"

The two girls escorted Eileen and Mr. Barnes to the door, Ted offering to see them to the car. As they came out on the porch, Leslie uttered a little cry of delight. The storm, which all had momentarily forgotten in the later excitement, was over. The ragged clouds were driving by in a strong northwest wind, and a few stars could be seen peeping through the rifts, while, best of all, the water had already retreated several feet, though the crash of the breakers was still tremendous.

As Leslie and Phyllis returned to the room, they were startled to see Aunt Marcia, in a dressing-gown, peering out of the door of her room and blinking sleepily.

"What on earth are you two girls doing up at this unearthly hour?" she inquired. "I woke and thought I heard voices and came out to see!"

"Oh, we've been talking and watching the storm!" laughed Leslie. "It's all over now, and the stars are s.h.i.+ning. You'd better go back to bed, Aunt Marcia. The fire's out and it's very chilly!"

And as the good lady turned back into her room Leslie whispered to Phyllis, "And she slept through all _that_--and never knew! How can I be thankful enough!"

CHAPTER XIX

THE BIGGEST SURPRISE OF ALL

"PHYLLIS! I've got a nibble, Phyllis! I believe I can land him, too. And it will be the first I've really managed to catch!" Leslie began to play her line, her hands fairly trembling with excitement.

The two girls and Ted stood at the ocean's edge, almost directly in front of the bungalows, whiling away a glorious, crisp afternoon in striving to induce the reluctant fish to bite. For some reason or other, they seemed remarkably shy that day. Leslie's nibble had been the first suggestion of possible luck. Just as she was cautiously beginning to reel in her line a pair of hands was clasped over her eyes, and a gay voice laughed "Guess who!"