CHAPTER IX
The Arrest
When the girls came home from the fire that night they found Mrs. Gay and Freckles both awake and dressed. The boy was pleading with his mother to be allowed to go to the Smiths’.
“The fire’s out,” announced Jane, sinking wearily into the swing on the porch. “Mary Lou passed out for a few minutes, too.”
Mrs. Gay uttered an exclamation of alarm.
“Oh, but I’m all right now, Mother,” her daughter hastened to assure her. “Only I would like something hot to drink. And my own bed to sleep in, if Freckles doesn’t mind changing again.”
“A hot drink?” repeated her brother, in amazement. “Why hot?”
Briefly Jane told the story of Mary Louise’s daring act of heroism, and Mrs. Gay hurried off to make her daughter comfortable for the night.
In their own soft bed again, the girls slept soundly until nearly noon the following day. Mary Louise was vexed with herself for wasting so much time when she saw the lateness of the hour. For if she was to do anything about solving the mystery of the fires she hadn’t a single minute to lose.
“Have you heard any news this morning?” she demanded of her brother as the family all ate their breakfast-lunch together.
“Not much,” replied the boy. “We went over to see the place, of course, as soon as we were up this morning. It must have been some fire! What’s left of the house isn’t fit to live in… Gee, Sis, you and Jane were lucky to be in on it!”
“Lucky for the Smiths!” amended Mrs. Gay. “I shudder every time I think of what might have happened to little Ethel.”
“Where are the Smiths now?” inquired Jane.
“Moved over to the hotel. The chauffeur telegraphed Mr. Smith, and he and Mrs. Smith are coming this afternoon, with clothes and stuff.”
“Did you see the boys this morning?” questioned Mary Louise.
“Yeah,” replied the boy. “I took the canoe across the river, where they were in swimming early, with the chauffeur.”
“And couldn’t they tell you anything more about the fire?”
“Nope. Robby said he never wakened up till he heard the chauffeur yelling at them. Then they all grabbed their clothes and ran. The nurse was sleeping in the same room with little Ethel, and she saw to it that the kid got out safely.”
“And she went back for her dolly!” whispered Mrs. Gay, with a catch in her voice.
“Mother, please stop thinking about that!” begged Mary Louise. “Everything came out all right – so do try to forget it.”
“I will, dear. But I think I’ve had enough of Shady Nook for one summer. I’ve about decided to pack up and go home tomorrow.”
“Oh, no!” protested Mary Louise, aghast. “We can’t – run away!”
“If only your father were here, he’d find out what’s the cause of all these disasters. But I feel so unsafe – so helpless without him!”
“I’m going to find out!” announced Mary Louise, with determination in her voice. “Just stay a little while, till we have a chance to see what develops!”
“I won’t promise. By the way, I’ve decided that we’ll all go over to the Royal Hotel for dinner tonight. It will be a nice change – and you girls can dance afterwards, because practically everybody from Shady Nook eats there now.”
“Everybody except the Ditmars,” said Mary Louise, with a significant look at Jane.
She said nothing further about the young couple now, but an hour later, when the two girls were getting into their bathing suits, she mentioned the Ditmars again.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the criminal, the person responsible for the fires, is one of two people,” she said, “with the possible chance of a third.”
“You suspect Horace Ditmar, of course?” asked Jane.
“Yes. I think everything points to him. First, he has the motive. To get work for himself – to plan new houses to take the place of those that have been destroyed. If you’ve noticed, Jane, the three places that have been burned have all been big, expensive ones. The finest at Shady Nook! The Smiths and the Hunters are rich people, well able to afford to rebuild. And Flicks’ was such a flourishing business that anybody would naturally expect them to want to start it up again.
“Next, Horace Ditmar had the opportunity. He was absent from the two parties which were going on when the Hunters’ and Flicks’ places burned, and he could easily have slipped out last night and set Smiths’ on fire.
“And last – and most important of all, Dad often says – Ditmar’s the kind of man who could do it. Quiet, almost sullen, I think, and deceitful. I’ve never spoken two words with him, but that’s my opinion.”
Jane nodded solemnly: her chum’s logic appeared sound.
“But still,” she remarked, “Horace Ditmar isn’t profiting any by these fires. Nobody seems a bit inclined to rebuild.”
“No. Not yet. But wait till the Smiths come, and see whether Horace Ditmar tries to chum up with them. You know Adelaide Ditmar admitted that they went over to call on Mrs. Hunter after their fire and the woman almost snubbed her.”
“True… Who’s your other suspect, Mary Lou? Is it – Cliff?”
“No. Positively not Cliff! In spite of that pack of cards they found over there last night. Imagine Cliff Hunter setting fire to a house that had three children asleep in it! It’s unthinkable.”
Jane breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said.
“The other person I suspect strongly is Rebecca Adams,” continued the young detective. “I hate to, for she seems harmless, but you just never can tell about a half-witted person like that. She wanders around at such queer times, and then her coming here last night, after predicting a fire in the afternoon, looks bad. She’s got to be watched.”
“Right again,” agreed the other girl admiringly. “But go on, ‘Spencer Dean’! Who’s your third suspect – the one you called a possible chance?”
“The hotelkeeper, Frazier. It’s meant a lot to his business. He has the motive all right, but I just can’t see how he could have actually accomplished setting the places on fire. He was with us all evening the night Flicks’ burned down, and Cliff says he was at the hotel when the Hunters’ cottage burned. Still, Frazier’s sly. He might have managed it.”
“I’ll have to take a good look at him tonight when we go over to dinner,” observed Jane, “and try to size up his character.”
Mary Louise reached for her beach robe and stepped into her slippers.
“Come on, Jane,” she said. “We’ve got to hurry, or the crowd will go home before we get there.”
They ran out to the canoe and jumped in, paddling down the river half a mile to the spot which was generally accepted as the best swimming place near Shady Nook. Here they found about twenty-five people gathered on the shore, all talking in the wildest excitement. And not a single person was in the water!
“What’s happened?” demanded Jane. “Anybody drowned?”
“Another fire?” asked Mary Louise.
“Neither,” explained Sue Reed, turning to the newcomers. “But something almost as bad. A detective arrived from Albany and arrested Cliff Hunter! As an incendiary, I believe he said. A person who sets things on fire.”
“No!” gasped Jane in horror.
“But how could he?” cried Mary Louise incredulously. “I mean, how could a detective from Albany know about the fires here at Shady Nook – let alone suspect Cliff?”
“Somebody wired,” said Sue.
“Who?” demanded both girls in the same breath.
Nobody seemed to be able to answer that question. All anyone knew was that Cliff had gone off in the detective’s car and that his mother had insisted upon going with him. Mrs. Hunter was positive that it was all a put-up job, a plot of some kind to kidnap her son.
The talking died down at last, and the crowd dispersed into the water. But nobody seemed to enjoy the swim that day. Discouraged and worried, Mary Louise and Jane decided to paddle back home in their canoe.
“All your detective work gone for nothing!” lamented Jane miserably. “I’d just like to know, who’s responsible for that arrest! It was such a dirty trick. I wonder if it was one of the Smiths’ servants.”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out tonight,” returned Mary Louise. “Thank goodness we’re going to the Royal to dinner, where we’ll see everybody! Keep your eyes and ears open, Jane.”
As soon as the girls reached their cottage they told Mrs. Gay the startling news about Cliff Hunter. She was as much distressed as they were over the announcement, for she had known the young man so long that he seemed almost like a son. And, like the girls, she was positive of his innocence.
“Let’s get dressed early and go over to the hotel. Maybe we can find out something there,” she suggested.
“That’s just what we’re hoping,” replied Jane. “And believe me, if we find that the Smith chauffeur is responsible – or that sneaky Frazier – ”
“It wasn’t Mr. Frazier, I can assure you,” interrupted Mary Louise. “He’ll be losing money without the Hunters and their friends. No – but maybe – ”
“Maybe what?”
“Nothing. No use of making guesses in the dark. We’ll wait and see.”
The girls went into their room to dress. Mary Louise was surprised to see Jane take a simple white voile out of the closet.
“Why, Jane, we’re going to the Royal Hotel! To dine and dance. Don’t you want to wear your pink georgette?”
Her chum shook her head.
“No. White’s more appropriate for the way I feel tonight. I’m not in a party mood. Maybe I’d wear black, if I had it!”
Mary Louise lowered her voice.
“Do you care that much about Cliff, Jane?” she asked seriously.
“I don’t know about that part of it, Mary Lou – but I do feel dreadfully. Cliff was always so care-free and happy – just like a child with his card tricks. And then for somebody to pounce down on him like that and carry him off without any chance to defend himself – ”
“Don’t worry about that, Jane,” interrupted Mary Louise. “Don’t forget that the Hunters are rich, and Mrs. Hunter will hire the best lawyer in the whole state of New York to defend him.”
“Well, that’s comforting! But, just the same, it was a mean trick. And I’m going to miss Cliff dreadfully… By the way, where was David McCall today? I didn’t see him in swimming.”
Mary Louise frowned. “Neither did I,” she muttered.
Jane swung about sharply.
“Mary Lou, you think David sent that wire, don’t you?” she demanded.
“I’m trying not to think so!” responded her chum. “But we’ll find out tonight.”
The girls were ready in a few minutes, but they waited for Mrs. Gay and Freckles. They had expected to go across the river in the canoes, but Stuart Robinson stopped in to invite them to join their family in the motorboat, so that there was further delay. Instead of getting off early, the party did not leave until after six.
Naturally, everybody talked of the arrest on the way over, but none of the Robinsons knew who was responsible for it. Stuart blamed it upon the Smiths’ servants.
When they reached the porch of the hotel, they found it deserted. Everybody ate early at the resort.
The large dining room, with its pale yellow walls, its long screened windows, and its snow-white tables, was certainly a pleasant-looking place. The floors were of polished hardwood, so that when these same tables were removed the room was fine for dancing. The space was ample, too, for it was intended to accommodate a couple of hundred people at a meal. Tonight it looked fairly well filled, with all the guests from Shady Nook in addition to the regular diners.
Mr. Frazier himself came up and found two tables for the Gays and the Robinsons. The little man looked happy and confident tonight, pleased, no doubt, that business was more flourishing.
“Is David McCall here, Mr. Frazier?” asked Jane abruptly.
“Yes,” was the reply. “He’s sitting with the Smiths this evening. Mr. and Mrs. Smith arrived this afternoon.”
“Thank you,” answered Jane, without going into any explanation.
Mary Louise smiled. “Nothing like going right to the point, Jane,” she remarked when the hotelkeeper had turned away.
“I mean to ask David point-blank! I hope I can make him ashamed of himself, if he did cause Cliff’s arrest!”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” put in Mrs. Gay wisely. “These self-righteous people who feel that it is their duty to tell on others – ” She stopped, wondering whether she was hurting Mary Louise’s feelings by speaking thus about David McCall, but her daughter was scarcely listening. “I think he’ll come over to see us,” Mrs. Gay concluded as she gave her order to the waitress, “with the Smiths.”
Mrs. Gay was correct in her surmise: when the Smiths had finished their dinner, they came straight to the Gays’ table.
Mrs. Smith, a well-dressed woman of perhaps thirty-five – though she looked much younger – put her hand on Mary Louise’s arm.
“I can never thank you enough for saving my baby, Mary Louise,” she said. “All my life I’ll be grateful to you!”
Mary Louise smiled.
“I’m thankful I was there in time, Mrs. Smith,” she said. “Ethel is such a darling.”
“I wish we could do something for you, Mary Lou,” put in her husband. “Can’t you think of something you want?” He was too well bred to offer her a reward in money, the way old Miss Mattie Grant at Dark Cedars had done.
“All I want is to find out who really did start that fire at your house,” replied the girl. “Because I’m sure Cliff Hunter didn’t!”
She was staring past Mrs. Smith right at David McCall as she said this, with scorn in her eyes.
Jane couldn’t keep quiet any longer. She turned angrily to the young man.
“Are you responsible for Cliff’s arrest, David McCall?” she demanded.
“I am,” he stated calmly. “I did it to protect our insurance company. It just happens that our company holds most of the insurance up here at Shady Nook. And they’ve paid enough already – or will pay. So I don’t want any more fires. It’s my duty to protect their interests.”
“Oh, yeah?” retorted Jane, hot with fury. “Well, you’re not doing it! Cliff Hunter never started those fires, and you’ll find out soon he’s innocent!”
“How?” demanded David.
“There will be another fire, just the same. We haven’t got the guilty person yet. I know it!”
Mrs. Gay shuddered. “Oh, I hope not!” she exclaimed. “But I believe we’ll go home tomorrow.”
“We’re planning to stay on here at the Royal while we see about repairing the damage,” said Mrs. Smith. “But if it isn’t safe – ”
“I guess the hotel’s safe enough,” put in her husband. “It’s practically fireproof.”
David turned nonchalantly to Mary Louise. “Will you dance with me after supper, Mary Lou?” he asked. “It’s my last night here. I’m going to Albany tomorrow.”
“I don’t believe I care to dance,” replied the girl icily – to Jane’s infinite delight. “Jane and I are going to stay with Mother this evening.”
The party moved on, and Jane reached for her chum’s hand under the table.
“That’s telling him!” she murmured in deep satisfaction.
CHAPTER X
The Visit with Rebecca
The following morning Mrs. Gay relented from her decision to pack up the family’s things and go home immediately. It was such a perfect day; the river sparkled beautifully in the sunlight, the birds sang sweetly in the trees beside the cottage, and her children seemed happy. Yes, it would be absurd to run away from all this beauty.
Mary Louise was overjoyed at her mother’s decision. Immediately she began to make important plans for the day. She would go over to Adams’ farm and find out where Rebecca was. If necessary, she could have the boys trail her during the day, in case the crazy woman might be planning another fire for tonight. Then she would call on the Ditmars and make it a point to talk to the man himself. Maybe she’d run over to Eberhardt’s store at Four Corners, later in the afternoon, just to check up on his business. Oh, it promised to be an interesting day for Mary Louise!
“Where will the ‘Wild Guys of the Road’ be today?” she asked her brother at breakfast.
“Over at our cabin, I guess,” replied Freckles. “Why?”
“I may want to call on you for some sleuthing,” explained Mary Louise. “I am a little suspicious about Rebecca Adams – that queer-looking woman you boys saw the night Flicks’ Inn burned down. Remember her?”
“Sure I do! Nobody’d forget a scarecrow like that!”
“Well, you stay around here, where I can get hold of you, while I drive over to Adams’ farm right after breakfast. If I can locate her, I’d like you boys to keep your eyes on her all day.”
Freckles’ face lighted up with excitement.
“You can count on us, Sis!” he assured her.
“Thanks a lot. Now, you help Mother with the dishes, and I’ll run along. Want to come with me, Jane?”
“Yes, I do,” replied her chum. “I’m really interested in the mystery of the fires. I admit now that they couldn’t all be accidents.”
“And you’d kind of like to prove Cliff Hunter is innocent, wouldn’t you, Jane?” teased Freckles.
“Naturally! Who wouldn’t?” was the retort.
Mary Louise backed the car out of the garage and followed the same road she and David McCall had taken on their first visit to Adams’ farm. She drove very cautiously now, almost as if she expected Rebecca Adams to dart out again from the bushes into the path of her car.
But nothing happened, and the girls reached the top of the hill in safety. An old man was sitting out on the porch with one leg propped up on a chair. A young man was standing on the steps talking to him. He was a big fellow in overalls; Mary Louise remembered seeing him at Flicks’ the day after the fire. He must be Hattie’s brother Tom.
The girls left the car at the fence and approached timidly, not quite sure how they would be received.
“Good-morning,” began Jane briskly, to hide her nervousness. “Is Hattie home today?”
The old man looked questioningly at his son.
“Have you seen her since breakfast, Tom?” he inquired.
“Yeah,” replied the young man. “She’s still in the kitchen, or else upstairs with Rebecca… Well, I’ll be movin’ on, Dad. I’ll be away all afternoon – the hired man’ll have to look after things.”
“Where you goin’?”
“Four Corners.”
“What for?”
Tom shrugged his shoulders: he wasn’t going to tell his business in front of strangers, Mary Louise decided. Then he shuffled off.
“See that you get back in time for the milkin’,” was his father’s command. “And stop around at the back now and call to Hattie. Tell her she’s got visitors.”
Mary Louise and Jane sat down on the step and waited.
“Too bad about that fire night before last,” remarked the old man. “Lucky thing they saved the little girl.”
“It was Mary Louise who did that,” announced Jane proudly, nodding towards her chum.
“Hm! You don’t say!” returned Mr. Adams. “Well, I reckon girls are braver’n boys nowadays. My Hattie’s a good girl, too. Can’t say anything ag’in’ her.”
“Oh yes, everybody likes Hattie,” agreed Mary Louise instantly. She wished that she could ask Mr. Adams about his other daughter – Rebecca – but she didn’t know just how to begin.
Jane, however, came bluntly to the point, as usual.
“Mr. Adams,” she said, “may I ask a question? You wouldn’t mind – if it was something about your family?”
The old man grinned.
“I know what it is, miss. It’s about my daughter Rebecca, ain’t it? Yes, go ahead. I ain’t sensitive about her – we ought to be used to her by now!”
“That’s right,” agreed Jane. “Do you think she could be starting the fires? Do you know, she warned Mary Louise day before yesterday there would be another fire? And of course there was. And then she came to our tent that night and wakened us up to tell us that Smiths’ house was on fire.”
Mr. Adams nodded.
“I can believe it. But I don’t think Rebecca would ever set anything on fire. She’s afraid of ’em. She won’t even light the stove or do any cookin’ for that very reason. Many’s the time she’s come in with her pitcher of water and poured it right on the coals in the stove. It’s aggravatin’ if you’re ready to get dinner. Hattie and me have both slapped her for doin’ it, but she keeps right on… No, I don’t see how we could lay the blame on poor old Rebecca.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Mary Louise. “She seems like such a happy, harmless creature that it would be a shame to shut her up somewhere or accuse her of a crime.”
“Didn’t you say she is home now?” inquired Jane.
“She’s upstairs in bed with a sore throat,” replied Mr. Adams. “That’s why Hattie’s stayin’ around – and because my rheumatism is bad ag’in. Otherwise I reckon she’d be over to the Royal trying to get work. She was sorry to lose her job at Flicks’.”
“Yes, she told us.”
The girl herself appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, hello, girls!” she exclaimed. “Glad to see you. Come on into the kitchen. I’m fixin’ some broth for Rebecca. She’s upstairs sick.”
The two girls entered the old farmhouse and followed Hattie through the hall, back into the old-fashioned kitchen. It was a large room, with several chairs near the windows, and Mary Louise and Jane sat down.
“I am going to be frank with you, Hattie,” began Mary Louise, “and tell you why we’ve come. You’ve heard, I suppose, that they arrested Cliff Hunter on the charge of burning three houses, and Jane and I believe he’s innocent. So we want to find out who really is responsible. We thought there might just be a chance that it was Rebecca.”
“I don’t blame you for thinking that,” agreed the girl. “But I’m sure she couldn’t be guilty of that particular thing. She’s crazy enough to do it – only she’s scared of fires.”
“Yes, so your father said. But she must know something, or how could she predict when they are going to occur?”
“She’s always predicting them,” laughed Hattie. “Even when there aren’t any. And sometimes when it’s just a fire to toast marshmallows she gets all excited and swears it’s the wrath of heaven descending on Shady Nook.”
“She came and warned us about the Smiths’,” put in Jane.
“She probably saw the flames. Sometimes she gets up in the middle of the night and goes out with her pitcher. She was probably wandering around that night. I guess that’s how she caught her sore throat.”
Mary Louise nodded. “Could we go upstairs and see her when you take up her broth?” she inquired.
“Sure. But I’m afraid you won’t get much sense out of her today. She has a slight fever, and her mind’s wandering a lot.”
Nevertheless, the girls followed Hattie up the carpeted staircase to a room on the second floor. The blinds at the windows were pulled down, but they could see Rebecca’s face, surrounded by its tangled gray curls, on the pillow. She was muttering to herself when they entered the door.
“Here’s some chicken broth for you, Rebecca,” said Hattie cheerfully. “And a couple of visitors.”
The woman stared at the girls blankly, and then shook her head.
“Don’t know them,” she remarked.
“Of course you do!” insisted Hattie, pulling up the window shade. “These are the girls who saved the little child at the Smith fire the other night.”
Rebecca sat up and peered at them. Suddenly a smile broke over her face.
“Yes, oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “I do remember. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are wicked people, traveling off and leaving their children alone, and the Lord sent a fire to punish them. But I put the fire out with my well water, and these girls saved the baby. Yes, yes, I remember.”
Hattie straightened her sister’s pillow and handed her the tray.
“Get me my well water,” commanded the woman, indicating the familiar pitcher which she always carried with her about the countryside.
“Can’t you tell us where you were when that fire started?” asked Mary Louise. “Didn’t you go to bed that night?”
The woman sipped her broth slowly.
“No, I didn’t,” she said finally. “I was sittin’ on the porch till Tom come home. About midnight, I guess you call it. And then it seemed as if I could see smoke over at Shady Nook. We’re high up here on the hill; we can look down on the wickedness of you people in the valley.”
Jane repressed a giggle. Without noticing it, Rebecca continued:
“So I picked up my pitcher and ran down the hill to Shady Nook to warn the people. I saw Smiths’ house burnin’ then, and I heard folks shoutin’. So I run along and tried all the doors at Shady Nook. All of ’em was locked. Then I looked in that tent and found you girls sleepin’ and give you the warnin’.”
Apparently exhausted with the effort of eating and talking, she dropped over on her pillow asleep. Hattie picked up the tray, and the girls followed her out of the room.
“I wish we could talk to your brother,” remarked Mary Louise as they reentered the kitchen. “If he was out late that night, maybe he saw the fire start. Maybe he knows something – ”
“Maybe he wasn’t out at all,” laughed Hattie. “You can’t depend on what Rebecca says. For the most part she’s sensible, but sometimes she gets sadly muddled. Especially about fires. That’s the one subject in particular that she’s hipped about.”
“Well, I guess we better be going, Hattie,” concluded Mary Louise, “if we want a swim this morning. Why don’t you come over and go in with the crowd, now that you haven’t any job? We’d like to have you.”
“Thanks awfully,” returned the girl, “but I’ve got to stay here. Tom’s gone off in the Ford, and I have to look after things. Dad can’t even cook his lunch, on account of his rheumatism.”
“Where did your brother go?” inquired Mary Louise.
“Four Corners, I think. He likes to play cards over there. I’m afraid he gambles. Dad doesn’t know about it.”
No sooner were the girls out of the gate than Jane asked her chum why she had shown any interest in Tom Adams’ whereabouts. “You don’t suspect him, do you?” she questioned.
“I suspect everybody,” returned the other girl laughingly. “No, I really don’t,” she corrected, “because Tom Adams lost a job by Flicks’ burning down. That won’t be so nice for him, especially if he likes to gamble and needs the money to pay his debts. But I just thought he might know something, if he really was out till after midnight the night before last. He might even be protecting somebody!”
“So I suppose we have to go to Four Corners this afternoon?” sighed Jane.
“Not till after we call on the Ditmars,” replied Mary Louise. “And a swim and a lunch come before that!”