The Girls of Hillcrest Farm; Or, The Secret of the Rocks

by Amy Bell Marlowe

  CHAPTER XXV

  IN THE OLD DOCTOR'S OFFICE

  The two girls, almost at once, began to shrink away through the bushesagain--and this without a word or look having passed between them. BothLyddy and 'Phemie were unwilling to meet the professor under theseconditions.

  They were back at the strawberry patch before either of them spoke aloud.

  "What _do_ you suppose he was about?" whispered 'Phemie.

  "How do I know? And those bottles!"

  "What do you think was in them?"

  "Looked like water--nothing but water," said Lyddy. "It certainly _is_a puzzle."

  "I should say so!"

  "And there doesn't seem to be any sense in it," cried Lyddy. "Let's gohome, 'Phemie. We've got enough berries for supper."

  As they went along the pasture trail, the younger girl suggested:

  "Do you suppose he could be making up another of his fake medicines?Like those 'Stonehedge Bitters?' Lucas says they ought to be called'_Stonefence_ Bitters,' for they are just hard cider and bad whiskey--andthat's what the folks hereabout call 'stonefence.'"

  "It looked like only water in those bottles," Lyddy said, slowly.

  "And he's so afraid old Mr. Colesworth--or Harris--will come up here andfind him at work--or come across his water-bottles," continued 'Phemie."Lucky this new boarder--Mr. Chadwick--isn't much for long walks. It wouldkeep old Spink busier than a hen on a hot griddle, as Lucas says, to watchall of them."

  "Well, I wish I knew what it meant. It puzzles me," remarked Lyddy. "AndI never yet asked Mr. Pritchett about the evening we saw him and a manwhom I now think must have been Professor Spink at the farmhouse."

  "Ask him--do," urged 'Phemie, at last curious enough to have Lyddy shareall the mystery that had been troubling her own mind since they first cameto Hillcrest.

  "I'll do so the very first time I see him," declared Lyddy.

  But something else happened first--and something that brought the mysteryregarding Professor Lemuel Judson Spink to a head for the time being, atleast.

  'Phemie lost the key to the green door!

  Now, off and on, that missing key had troubled Lyddy. She had seldomspoken of it, for she had never even known it had been in the door whenthe girls came to Hillcrest. Only 'Phemie, it will be remembered, hadthe midnight adventure in the old doctor's suite of offices in the eastwing.

  Lyddy only said, occasionally, that it was odd Aunt Jane had not sent thekey to the green door when she expressed all the other keys to her nieceswhen the project of keeping boarders at Hillcrest was first broached.

  At these times 'Phemie had kept as still as a mouse. Sometimes the keywas worn on a string around her neck; sometimes it was concealed in acunning little pocket she had sewn into her skirt. But wherever it was,it always seemed--to 'Phemie--to be burning a hole in her garments andtrying to make its appearance.

  After finding Professor Spink filling the bottles with water up byPounder's Brook, the girl was more than usually troubled about the eastwing and the mystery.

  She moved the key about from place to place. One day she wore it; anothershe hid it in some corner. And finally, one night when she came to go tobed, she found that the cord on which she had worn the key that day wasbroken and the key was gone.

  She screamed so loud at this discovery that her sister was sure she hadseen a mouse, and she bounded into bed, half dressed as she was.

  "Where--where is it, 'Phemie?" she gasped, for Lyddy was as afraid of miceas she was of rats.

  "Oh, mercy me!" wailed 'Phemie, "that's what I'd like to know."

  "Didn't you see it?" cried her trembling sister.

  "It's gone!" returned 'Phemie.

  Lyddy got gingerly down from the bed.

  "Then I'd like to know what you yelled so for--if the mouse hasdisappeared?" she demanded, quite sternly.

  And then 'Phemie, understanding her, and realizing that she had almostgiven her secret away, burst into a hysterical giggle, which nothing butLyddy's shaking finally relieved.

  "You're just as twittery as a sparrow," declared Lyddy. "I never _did_see such a girl. First you're squealing as though you were hurt, and thenyou laugh in a most idiotic way. Come! do behave yourself and go to bed!"

  But even after 'Phemie obeyed she could not go to sleep.

  Suppose somebody picked up that key? She had no idea, of course, whereit had been dropped. Certainly not on the floor of her bedroom. Some timeduring the day, inside, or outside of the house, the key, with its littlebrass tag stamped with the words "East Wing," had slipped to the ground.

  Now--suppose it was found?

  'Phemie got out of bed quietly, slipped on her slippers and shruggedherself into her robe. Somebody might be down there in old Dr. Phelps'soffices right now.

  And that somebody, of course, in 'Phemie's mind, meant just oneperson--Professor Lemuel Judson Spink.

  Why had he come to Hillcrest to board, anyway? And why hadn't he gone awaywhen he had been made the topic of many a joke about old Bob Harrison'streasure trove?

  For nearly a fortnight now the professor had stood grimly the jokes andlaughing comments aimed at him by the other boarders. The presence of Mrs.Harrison, too, in the house, was a constant reminder to the breakfast foodmagnate of how his own acquisitiveness had made him over-reach himself.

  'Phemie went downstairs, taking a comforter with her, and went intothe long corridor leading from the west wing entry to the green door.The girls had never taken the old davenport out of this wide hall, and'Phemie curled up on this--with its hard, hair-cloth-covered arm for apillow--spread the quilt over her, and tried to compose her nerves herewithin sight and sound of the east wing entrance.

  Suppose somebody was already in the offices?

  The thought became so insistent that, after ten minutes, she was forcedto creep along to the green door and try the latch.

  With her hand on it, she heard a sudden sound from the room nearby. Wassomebody astir in the Colesworth quarters?

  This was late Saturday night--almost midnight, in fact; and of courseHarris Colesworth was in the house. Sometimes he read until very late.

  So 'Phemie turned again, after a moment, and lifted the latch. Then shepushed tentatively on the door, and----

  _It swung open!_

  'Phemie gasped--an appalling sound it seemed in the stillness of thecorridor and at that hour of the night.

  Often, while the key had been in her possession, she had tried the door asshe passed it while working about the house. It had been securely locked.

  Then, she told herself now, on the instant, the key had been found and ithad been put to use. Somebody had already been in the old doctor's officesand had ransacked the rooms.

  She crossed the threshold swiftly and groped her way to the door of thesecond room--the old doctor's consulting room. Here the light of the moonfiltered through the shutters sufficiently to show her the place.

  There seemed to be nobody there, and she stepped in, leaving the greendoor open behind her, but pulling shut the door between the anteroom andthe office.

  There was the old doctor's big desk, and the bookcases all about the room,and the jars with "specimens" in them and--yes!--the skeleton case in thecorner.

  She had advanced to the middle of the room when suddenly she saw that thedoor into the lumber room, or laboratory, at the back, was open. A whitewand of light shot through this open door, and played upon the ceiling,then upon the wall, of the old doctor's office.