Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 21

BE CAREFUL, NAN!

"Are your pa.s.sports all stamped for landing? Is your baggage tagged for Glasgow? Are you sure you have everything?" Dr. Beulah smiled down at the excited brood of young girls under her charge. "Have each of you a supply of English pounds and s.h.i.+llings? In short, are you ready to leave this boat and step your foot on foreign soil?"

They were all standing together on the boat's deck watching the maneuverings as the s.h.i.+p came to rest in its dock just outside Glasgow.

There had been no end to the excitement since the girls waved Maureen off at Belfast and the s.h.i.+p steamed across the North Channel to the Firth of Clyde, pa.s.sing countless fis.h.i.+ng boats along the way.

Bess had turned from waving Maureen off and started back to the cabin.

Midway, she had a strange presentiment that something was vitally wrong.

She walked gingerly down the hallway, looking to the right and left at the narrow corridors between groups of staterooms. When she came to that from which Grace had said the Scotch hunchback had come forth several mornings before, she walked very quietly and listened attentively. She neither heard nor saw anything. It was as if the cabin was empty.

That in itself was strange, for the doors of all the cabins along the way were open. In each, baggage awaited porters who were even now busy in front cabins labeling it and carting it to an upper deck. "Maybe the mystery has taken his baggage and walked out on us," Bess thought as she continued down the corridor intent on making one more check of the stateroom to make certain that nothing was being forgotten.

The thought relieved her, and she was even humming a little tune when she turned into her own stateroom. She stopped short. There, kneeling in front of Nan's baggage, was the red-headed hunchback!

He turned and looked at her. She would have screamed, but in a flash he was at her side and his hand was clamped over her mouth. He looked at her very intently with strange piercing eyes.

But his voice was almost gentle as he spoke. "'T would be weel, ver-r-ry weel," he said in a strong Scotch burr, "if ye didna speak. These things ha' no par-r-t of ye." With this, he turned and left the room.

Bess sank into a chair, full of conflicting emotions and was there thinking, when Nan came into the stateroom after her.

"Bess, why Bess," Nan exclaimed, "what is the matter with you? You looked scared to death."

Bess whimpered softly, "I am." This sounded strange coming from Bess, and was strange in the face of her avowal of a few days before that if she ever came upon him alone she would scream so loud that everybody on the boat would come running. It was strange too, because Bess, generally, when upset at all, responded with a torrent of words. Now, she looked wilted as though every ounce of energy had been squeezed out of her.

Nan got her a gla.s.s of water and held it as she sipped slowly. Then she smiled wanly and sat silent, for a while, collecting her thoughts.

"Nan, it's that red-headed hunchback again," she said, finally. "You've got to tell me what you know about him. I came upon him just now in our cabin. He was over there," her voice grew stronger as she spoke, but sounded sharp and nervous, "by your baggage."

Nan went over and carefully examined her locked baggage. It hadn't been tampered with. She felt this instinctively just as soon as she put her hands on it. What had the hunchback intended to do before Bess discovered him?

"What did he say to you?" She turned to Bess.

Bess considered before answering. Were the deformed little man's words a warning? Had he meant that she shouldn't repeat what he had said? Had he meant that she shouldn't tell of his presence at all? Bess was startled as this latter thought came to her, startled and frightened.

"I--I----don't remember what he said," Bess began.

"Elizabeth Harley," Nan looked down at her sternly, "You know very well that you remember what he said. Come, now, tell me. I have to know."

"_You_ have to know!" Bess was angry now. "Nan, I'd like to know, too, what all this is about. This man has been watching you ever since we boarded the steamer in New York. You know it, and I know it, too.

Moreover, your father warned you, just before he left, to be careful. I thought at the time that it meant nothing more than the warning my mother gave me, to take care of my luggage and myself. Now I think differently. Somehow, his voice sounded more earnest than that of the rest of our parents. I think he meant more.

"Then there's something else, some other clue that I can't quite remember, that makes me certain things are all wrong. Nan, please explain what it's all about," Bess pleaded. But before Nan had a chance to say anything, Bess went on untangling the confused jumble in her own mind.

"There's this I can't understand either," she said, "Grace couldn't remember whether he had a Scotch accent or not. I think it's something you couldn't possibly overlook."

Nan made a mental note and kept quiet, hoping, that Bess would go on revealing what she had found out.

"Besides," Bess continued, all unaware that she was doing just what Nan wanted her to do, "Grace was scared to death and kept talking about his piercing eyes that looked right through you and made you do what he wanted you to. The other girls spoke about them too, after he confronted them in the cabin that first morning. His eyes are strange, but when he spoke to me, his voice was as gentle as it could possibly be. Why, he all but patted me on the shoulder." Bess herself was surprised that the thought didn't bring any feeling of revolt.

Nan looked at her. "Why, I'd almost say you liked the mysterious old Scotchman," she said in a surprised tone.

"No, not that," Bess responded thoughtfully, "but I did feel almost sorry for him. He looked meek and gentle, but withal very frightened as he left this room.

"When he said, referring to the mysteries hereabouts, 'that these things didna ha' no part of me,' he really sounded very kindly."

"Did he say that?" The question was out before Nan thought. She had been worried for fear the plot that involved her would draw her friends into its net.

With Nan's question, Bess suddenly realized that she had revealed all she knew without learning a thing. "Why, you double-dyed deceiver," she said in a surprised tone, "I've told you everything I know, and you haven't said a thing."

Nan looked confused. "I couldn't help it, Bess," she confessed. "I had to know what had happened, and there seemed no other way of finding out.

Now, let's forget it all for the time being."

"Just tell me one thing," Bess begged, when she saw that Nan was not going to reveal all that she knew. "Do you know who the red-headed Scotchman is?"

Nan considered the question. "I'm not certain," she said as though to herself.

"But you think--" Bess spoke quietly, hoping that Nan would finish her deliberations aloud. She was trying Nan's own tactics now.

"That it is some distant member of my mother's family," Nan said slowly. "I saw the names and stateroom numbers, on a bulletin outside, of those who are disembarking at Glasgow. The man in cabin 846 is Robert Hugh Blake! 'Hugh' is an old family name on my mother's side and 'Blake'

is her maiden name.

"You remember the pa.s.senger list that was given us at the Captain's dinner?"

Bess nodded her head. Hers was among the things she was saving for souvenirs.

"His name is on that, too. And it has his home listed as 'Glasgow.'"

"You don't know anything more about him. You've never heard your mother or anyone speak of him?" Bess followed up Nan's revelation, hoping to hear more.

Nan ignored the first question. "Momsy never did speak very much of her people in Scotland," she said in answer to the second. "She was very fond of her great uncle, Hugh Blake, the one whose estate she inherited, but I don't think she ever saw him. She liked him, because her father did. She loved everything that he loved. Since this great uncle is the only one he ever talked much about, he is the only one I know of.

"Oh, she has mentioned others, vaguely, from time to time, but I don't remember their names. However, I don't think I've ever heard the name of this particular person."

"Do you know at all why he should be camping on your doorstep?" Bess questioned further.

But Nan was not revealing any more now. Certain that her friend had recovered from her shock, she ignored the question, took one more look at her baggage, and called a steward. He came promptly, and before Nan and Bess left their stateroom again, all the baggage had been taken upstairs.

"There, I guess that fixes that," Nan observed as they left the stateroom for the last time. "The steward will have charge of the baggage now until we land."

"What I can't understand," Bess began as though there was only one question left in her mind, "is why Mr. Robert Hugh Blake is so determined to get into your baggage. What have you that's so valuable?"

"Nothing, la.s.sie, nothing," Nan answered. "Only a lot of dresses that wouldn't become him, even if he could get them on."

Bess giggled at this. Nan took her by the arm. "Please," she said earnestly and quickly, "don't say anything to anyone about what has happened today. I'm sure it wouldn't do any good."

Bess remembered a similar promise, given at a time of other trouble in Florida, just as those readers who have read "Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach" will remember. "Of course I won't," she rea.s.sured her friend.

Nan looked her thanks. As the sound of the skirling of bagpipes reached them, they hastened their steps and joined Dr. Beulah Prescott and the rest of their Lakeview Hall friends on deck, and so were in the group when Dr. Prescott asked the question, "Are you ready to leave this boat and step your foot on foreign soil?"