Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 11

"Oh, here they are now." Rhoda looked up as the two girls entered. "We were just wondering about you. The angriest looking red-headed man we've ever seen was just here demanding to see Miss Sherwood."

"He was near-sighted and slightly hunch-backed," Laura continued. "He lifted his shoulders, puckered his brows, and peered at Rhoda as though she was either hiding you in this cabin or lying when she said that she didn't know where you were."

"He looked slowly around," Grace contributed, "as though you must surely be here. I thought for a moment that he was going to open the cabinet.

But he hesitated and just stared at it. I'm sure he looked right through those doors and saw that you weren't there." She shuddered as she remembered the man's expression.

"Yes, and when Rhoda advanced toward that doorway, easing him gently out, you know," Amelia too looked frightened, "his face got so red that I thought he was going to die of apoplexy."

"Then all of a sudden he changed," Rhoda took up the story again. "He begged our pardon, said there was some confusion about baggage, and went away to find a steward."

Nan turned to the steward at her side. "Is that the man whose baggage you are enquiring about?" she asked.

"Answers the description perfectly, Miss." He was all politeness. "If you will pardon me now, I would like to see your luggage."

The other girls moved to one side and attempted to get their scattered belongings out of the way. The cabin was small, and they had not yet finished unpacking. Laura and Amelia, whose cabin was across the corridor left--reluctantly.

The steward stepped over the other bags in the room and went directly to Nan's trunk. He looked at it carefully, turned it over, and examined the tag. Finally, he looked up. "I'm sorry, Miss Sherwood," he said, "The porters have made a mistake. This luggage was meant for room 846 instead of 648. See."

Nan stepped over the luggage, as he had done, and looked at the tag.

"No," she said, more puzzled than ever, "that isn't my luggage. I can see now that it isn't quite the same color, though it is the same size and shape."

"But where is yours?" Bess asked the question that was on the tip of Nan's tongue.

"I'll bring it presently." The steward picked up the bag and walked out.

"Has the great mystery been solved," Laura asked as she and Amelia came back into the cabin.

"Well, partly," Nan said slowly, for she was still puzzled. "I don't see how Papa made such a mistake. I don't understand this yet."

"You would understand it even less, if you have seen the villain in the piece," Laura volunteered. She liked mysteries. "If I were in your shoes," she continued, "I wouldn't venture out of this cabin at any time during the crossing and I wouldn't let a morsel of food cross my lips until some one had tasted it. At night, I'd lock that porthole and bar the door, and I'd never stay alone for a second. You're in danger, la.s.s." She shook her head sadly. "There's a deep, deep plot," she added, as she saw that Bess seemed to be believing every single word of what she was saying, "to do away with you. Only the utmost caution will ever get you over this Atlantic Ocean alive." Her voice was deep and husky as she finished the sentence, and her eyes stared ahead as though she could see into the future.

"Oh, Laura, be still," Nan laughed at her friend. "You have Bess believing you now, and if you are not careful, she'll be seeing hunch-backed men disappearing into every cabin along that corridor."

Bess said nothing. Her busy mind was remembering Papa Sherwood's warning just before he left the boat. "There are those at Emberon," he had said, "that might want to do you harm. Be careful!" Again, as then, she had a vague feeling that there was something that had happened in the past, something strange and mysterious, that she ought to remember.

Again, it eluded her.

She shook herself, partly in annoyance, partly to bring herself back to the present and cabin 648. "He's awfully slow in bringing that baggage, isn't he?" she asked.

Amelia looked at her watch. "Yes, he's been gone fifteen minutes," she answered. "Maybe you had better ring for another steward, Nan. There is something queer about all of this."

"Yes, do!" Grace urged. "I feel rather frightened."

"Now there is no sense in getting all worked up over nothing." Nan was the only one who really appeared calm. "Baggage often gets mixed in the boats."

"Nan, will you please stop being calm, and do something?" Bess was working herself up into a real frenzy. "Maybe someone has stolen your luggage."

"Then you'll have to wear my clothes and will you ever be a sight!" This from Amelia who was fully two inches taller than Nan and much, much thinner.

"Or mine," This for Laura who was shorter than Nan, and plumper.

"I thank you all, but I guess I'll wear my own." Nan stepped toward the doorway as a steward knocked.

"Miss Sherwood?" he asked. Nan opened the door.

"Why-y-y, yes," she answered, hesitantly, for it was not the same steward who had taken the other bag away.

"Your bag, I believe," he half questioned as he dropped it inside the doorway and left.

The girls could hardly wait until they had examined it. The number on the tag was wrong just as the mysterious visitor had said, and the bag did look much like the other.

"Nan, get your keys!" It was Laura speaking. "It looks to me as though this lock has been meddled with."

"Right here," Nan opened her purse.

The six girls all stooped over the bag, as Laura tried the key. "Oh, that isn't the right one." She was impatient at the delay.

Nan handed her another.

"Please, will you all move round so I have more light?" Laura asked.

"This doesn't seem to fit, either."

They stood up and watched her.

"Something is wrong, Nan." Laura moved to one side. "Here, you try."

Nan took the key, fussed with the lock a second, pus.h.i.+ng and pulling, until finally the case flew open.

CHAPTER XI

BESS HOLDS HER TEMPER

Nan said nothing, but sat staring at the contents, a puzzled expression on her face. The girls looked from the trunk to Nan and back to the trunk again.

"Everything is all right, isn't it?" Bess asked the question.

"I--don't----know." Nan answered slowly and doubtfully. "Everything seems to be as I left it. Yet somehow it's all changed too."

"What do you mean?" Grace questioned timidly.

Nan looked up from her place on the floor into the anxious faces of the girls around her. "I'm as baffled as you are," she admitted. "I can't really tell whether anyone has touched the things in my trunk or not.

The underwear--slips--stockings--blouses" she touched each pile of things as she named it,--"pajamas, and even the dresses, are folded the same and in the same places as they were when I packed. I'm sure of that.

"Still, when that case flew open, I had a peculiar feeling that someone besides myself had been through it and touched everything there."

"Ugh." Bess shuddered. "Don't say things like that, Nan. They give me the creeps."