by Helen Wells
“Did look for you there,” the old man grumbled. “Where in heck was you?”
Uncle Bob Wright was annoyed but he was a mild-tempered man. “After this, Mac, leave word with Tom or with Sophie in the kitchen where you’ll be. All right, go have your supper now.”
“Thanks, I’ve had it. Do you need me any more this evening?” Mac asked. He was in a hurry to leave, for once. Cherry noticed that he hitched a ride in one of the parents’ cars.
“My land,” Sophie complained to Cherry, when she went to consult the cook about a special diet, “here I laid out Mac’s supper and he didn’t eat a bite of it! I declare I don’t know what’s got into that young fellow.”
“Mac was in a hurry,” Cherry murmured.
Half an hour later she thought she knew why.
Paul Purdy burst in at the camp entrance, out of breath and excited. He wanted to notify the Wrights, he said, because maybe they knew who was responsible. He was so angry he sputtered.
“My barn—where I store my—Someone broke into my barn! Everything is upside down! Somebody ransacked the whole barn!”
Bob Wright came out on the steps of the Main House. Campers and counselors gathered round, curious.
“Why, Mr. Purdy, that’s terrible! When did this happen?”
“This afternoon! While I was here judging the children’s pictures!” Purdy shouted. “Did someone from here mess up my barn while I was away?”
Suddenly, Cherry saw, Purdy was no longer a jolly kewpielike little person but a man with a flash of savage temper.
Bob Wright said coldly, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Purdy, or perhaps you ought to beg mine. We have been neighbors for two summers, this is the third summer, and surely you know we are not people who break into barns.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I am sorry, Mr. Wright. But you don’t think it was any of the children who picked the lock, maybe to borrow costumes?”
“I seriously doubt that.” Bob Wright’s eyes flashed in his turn behind his glasses. “All of our campers are under constant supervision. Besides, they know they only need to ask you for costumes, since you are generous about lending them. I’ll inquire, of course—but honestly, Mr. Purdy, you’re overexcited.”
“Well, maybe some of your employees—I think it was a man, because the lock was broken. The heavy trunks in the barn were moved. What about the riding master?” Purdy went on. “What about the old handyman? That young man who teaches athletics?”
Cherry was struck by the fact that the photographer did not mention Mac Cook. It occurred to her that Purdy did not know Mac Cook was in the vicinity. So if Mac really were trying to dodge Purdy, he had succeeded.
The camp director was trying to soothe Paul Purdy. “If you’d like to use our telephone to notify the police—”
“No, no, no.” Purdy brushed the suggestion aside. “Never mind the police just now. Thanks just the same. I guess—it’s as you say—I am overexcited.”
“But don’t you want to report your losses?” Aunt Bet spoke up. “Was anything valuable taken?”
“I—I don’t know.” Purdy wiped his round, sweating face. “I searched the barn very quickly—hastily, you know, using my flashlight. In the morning I will look more carefully. Then I’ll notify the state police.”
“Yes, that’s better,” Bob Wright agreed. “We’re awfully sorry about this, Mr. Purdy. Come on in and have some iced tea and catch your breath.”
The photographer went into the Main House with the Wrights. The crowd drifted down to the water’s edge, and forgot it.
But Cherry couldn’t dismiss the incident so lightly. “Mac Cook wasn’t anywhere to be found this afternoon,” she thought. “I wonder if he did it? He was the one who suggested the picture exhibit in the first place. And it was he who thought we should get Mr. Purdy to be the judge. He gave a pretty lame excuse when he finally did show up. Uncle Bob is too easy with everybody.”
For the first time, Cherry did not enjoy telling ghost stories around a bonfire. The rifling of Purdy’s barn left her uneasy, even a little frightened. She recalled the sharp look Mac Cook had given her today when she had tried to talk to him about the exhibit, and she wondered what that look had meant.
CHAPTER VI
Faceless Clue
MAC COOK RETURNED TO WORK MONDAY MORNING AS if nothing had gone wrong. He was—or professed to be—astounded at the rifling of Mr. Purdy’s storage barn. The hands at the Clemences’ farm had told him about it, Mac said, and so had the Eplers whom he visited on Sunday. The whole neighborhood was buzzing with the news.
Naturally the three medical people discussed the theft. Except that it was not exactly a theft, Dr. Lowell reported. He had gone to see the camp director at midmorning, and Purdy had dropped by.
“Funny thing,” said Dr. Lowell. “Purdy says nothing was taken, so far as he can determine. He says the barn was ransacked, contents turned upside down, but the thief didn’t steal anything.”
“How odd,” Jan Lowell said. “What did the thief break in for, then?”
“Maybe he was interrupted,” Dr. Lowell said, “and had to get out in a hurry before he could take anything.”
“Or maybe it was a prank,” Jan said.
Cherry kept her thoughts on the subject to herself.
“Well, whoever the thief was,” Dr. Lowell said, “he didn’t leave a clue in the barn.”
“I don’t like it,” Cherry said to herself. “Even though Uncle Bob questioned Mac this morning, and seems entirely satisfied, I still don’t like it.”
And yet she had not clearly made up her mind about this young man. His rootless, evasive actions troubled her, but his kindness with the children half allayed her suspicions. It was Mac who, repairing the dock, went to rescue the Midgets’ ducklings from the motorboat’s propeller. It was Mac who could whistle the best of anyone, and knew how to fashion stick figures from gnarled roots and twigs.
Sue Howard liked him so well that she saved cookies from home to give him. “He’s awfully nice to us, Miss Cherry,” she said. “He repaired the spotlights at the Playhouse and put in rose, yellow, and blue slides for us. Just wait till you see the show! And when we told him about Katy’s fern project—I mean we’re going to plant ferns around our cabin—Mac told us where we’ll find a whole hillside of ferns.”
So the fern project was going to be acted upon. Cherry was interested. She was spending some time herself, these hot sunny afternoons, helping the girls collect natural-science specimens. Lake and woods provided an abundance of plant and animal life, more than the girls or even Jean Wheeler and Cherry could identify. When no one knew the name of the exquisite vine of white blossoms, up they went on the Can-You-Name-This Shelf in the Mess Hall where everyone could see. Everyone took a guess, and several campers were bright enough to consult the nature books in the camp library. The white blossoms turned out to be moonflower, slowly unfolding its petals at evening.
Evenings were particularly lovely along the lakeside, Cherry thought. The campers were in bed asleep, quiet settled over Camp Blue Water, and the lake shimmered with moonlight. Cherry had been promising herself for some time that she would go for a moonlight swim. On Wednesday evening, after a full day, she was longing for a dip.
The counselors who were not on duty were unwilling to come with her. “Too tired,” Leona Jackson yawned. And Jean Wheeler said at their cabin window, “See those clouds in the west? We may have a thunder shower.”
“I’ll take a chance on it,” Cherry said, and changed into her bathing suit.
She found it peaceful to swim alone in the deserted lake. Although a strong swimmer, she did not venture out to deep water when lake and beach were deserted. Cherry swam quietly, not splashing, so as not to disturb the occupants of the lakefront cabins. Sometimes she floated on her back, looking up at the stars, drifting in the cool water. Now and then a cloud floated over the face of the moon.
Or was the lake deserted? Wasn’t that a rowboat with a single figure pulling at the oars? C
herry spun around almost soundlessly in the water for a better look.
Yes, someone was out on the lake, late as it was. That was unusual. When the counselors rowed out in the evening, they went in groups. This was someone alone. Cherry strained to see who it was, but the distant figure—a man? a woman?—was indistinct as clouds darkened the view. She could see dim outlines—the row boat looked ordinary enough, like any one of the camp boats or the boats which local people left tied up along the lake—
Just then, Cherry saw the rower make a throwing gesture, and a small splash sounded a moment afterward. Then the rowboat swung hard around and rapidly slid away. It vanished in the darkness.
Cherry was so astonished that she kept on treading water and watching, although she felt chilly and there was nothing left to see.
“The rower must have been a man,” Cherry decided as she ran out of the water. “No woman could row as hard and fast as that.”
She flung on her beach coat and gazed at the spot where she had seen the figure throw—throw what?—into deep water. She was tempted to swim out there, dive, and see what she could find. But that was something to do by daylight, when one could see to some degree underwater.
“I’ll dive tomorrow,” Cherry decided. She stood quite still for a moment, memorizing landmarks on this shore and on the opposite shore, in order to fix the spot where the stranger had halted the boat.
It was a shame to miss the vaudeville show next afternoon, yet in another way this hour gave her her best chance. The entire camp was pouring into the Playhouse, and the water front and lake were deserted. The day was brilliantly clear.
“Lucky thing I have the afternoon off,” Cherry told herself as she again changed into her bathing suit. From her cabin she could hear visitors from Camp Thunder Cliff hiking in to see the girls’ vaudeville show, and she also heard some station wagons arrive. Probably these were full of the smallest boys. She wondered if Reed Champion were driving. No matter. She had to make this hour count.
Cherry swam with long, easy strokes. Usually she swam with her hair free, but today she had her dark curls tucked tightly beneath a rubber cap, so no tendrils would obscure her vision. When she reached deep water, about midway across this long, relatively narrow lake, Cherry tread water and took her bearings. Yes, the landmarks tallied; this was just about the right place.
Now, how to allow for the thing’s underwater drift? If she only had some inkling of its weight, its color, of what she must look for … She took a deep breath, jackknifed, and plunged down, keeping her eyes wide open. The water streaming past her grew greener as she forced her way toward the lake bed. The bottom proved to be sand; occasionally her hand touched large, smooth stones. It was hard to distinguish anything down here where water, sand, and stones all merged together in a dark blur. Cherry groped with her hands to seize a floating object—and rose to the surface to find she was holding a handful of grasses and roots.
She dove again. How far could the thing have drifted, she wondered as she swam slowly to and fro, holding her breath. What was that? Drifting just out of her reach? Only a waterlogged rag. She came up into the blinding sunshine for breath, then made a fresh attempt.
This time Cherry poked among the stones and she was lucky. She did find something caught, wedged, down there—something slippery and rather sickening to touch, but possessing a hard core. No telling what it was, except that it felt—not natural.
But when she came up to daylight, Cherry could not at first determine what it was she held. It was rubber and it was wrapped around something, tied by two strings. She untied the strings and saw that it was a flesh-colored oblong about as long as two hands together, with two holes in it near one edge. “What in the world,” she thought. The object inside was only a stone, and she let that fall back into the water while she again examined her find.
Then it struck her. The thing was a mask. A faceless mask; simply a thin opaque sheath of rubber to be drawn over the face, with two eyeholes to see through.
“Cherry! What are you doing out there?”
Reed Champion stood on the shore, waving to her. Cherry tucked the mask in the neck of her swim suit and started toward him.
“Hi, Reed! Why aren’t you at the show?”
“I did stay for part of it. Not the most professional performance anyone ever gave, but the kids enjoy homegrown talent.” Reed gave her a hand as she came out of the water. “What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“Oh, just wanted a swim. I have the afternoon off.” “Want to drive to the village with me? I have to stop at the garage, and do a couple of errands. Come on. We could have a coke and a visit.”
“Fine. I’ll get dressed quickly.”
She took the mask with her, in her purse.
Driving with Reed was pleasant—he handled the station wagon easily, slowing down considerately for bumps in the country road. In the village Reed left the station wagon for a quick checkup, and they strolled around the quiet leafy square.
“This sure is a peaceful town,” Reed said. “Never a bit of excitement.”
“A thief breaking into Mr. Purdy’s barn caused quite a bit of excitement, don’t you think? Reed, is there any chance that anyone from Thunder Cliff did it?” Cherry asked.
“Absolutely not.” Reed seemed indignant. “We did discuss that with our fellows but—why, it’s out of the question for several reasons. No, some outsider broke in.”
But Reed was more interested in doing his errands, and presenting Cherry with a bottle of vivid strawberry pop than in discussing Mr. Purdy’s troubles.
“If the color doesn’t kill you, you’ll find it’s delicious,” Reed said with a grin. “Me, I drink milk. That’s for athletes who want to stay in training.”
As they went around the shops, Cherry held on tightly to her purse, and turned over in her mind two or three possibilities about what to do with the mask. A plan began to take shape.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Reed said as they picked up the car at the garage.
“Why, most boys complain that girls talk too much,” Cherry teased. “You’re hard to please.”
He smiled. Repartee was not for him. “You have something on your mind, I’d say.”
“Yes, Reed, I have. Perhaps later on I’ll ask your advice on it.”
When they had driven almost within sight of Camp Blue Water, they saw Fred and Vernie Epler in a jeep bumping along toward them. The two cars stopped side by side.
“Hello, Cherry Ames!” Vernie called. “We haven’t seen you lately. How are you?”
“Just fine, thanks. How are you and your pretty farm getting along?”
They chatted briefly about the crops and weather, about poor Mr. Purdy having his barn ransacked, about Mrs. Clemence’s gladioli taking first prize at the church flower show.
“Has Mac Cook been around to see you lately?” Cherry asked, trying to be casual. She knew—or Mac had said—he had visited the Eplers last Sunday, but she was curious to know their reaction.
Vernie Epler seemed to hesitate, then said quickly, “Why, yes, Mac came over Sunday afternoon,” and changed the subject. “I hear the vaudeville show was a great success.”
“What! Is it over?” Reed exclaimed. “I’d better hurry up and pick up my boys. Excuse us, folks.”
They said goodbye and drove off in opposite directions. So Mac had told the truth about where he was on Sunday, if not on Saturday when the barn was rifled. Cherry wondered how the rubber mask fitted in with the raid on the barn—if it fitted in at all.
Just before supper that evening, Cherry put her plan into effect. She placed the mask on the Can-You-Name-This Shelf in the Mess Hall. To lessen the chance of its being stolen, she made a point of calling everyone’s attention to the oddity.
“It looks like a homemade diving mask,” Sue Howard speculated.
“Don’t be silly,” Mary Alice retorted. “It’s just an old piece of bathing cap with holes in it.”
Katy, who was clearly still pl
aying Juliet in her mind’s eye, stopped long enough to declare, “It’s a theatrical property, that’s what. An actor could paste a beard on it, or draw a clown face on it, or anything.”
The person whom Cherry most wanted to see the mask—Mac Cook—did see it. He came in with a tray of desserts, helping Sophie, and paused in front of the shelf. He looked for a long time, not saying a word, his face noncommittal.
Cherry kept silent, too. She waited.
The next morning Mac came to see her at the infirmary.
“Miss Cherry, can you take a few minutes out to talk to me? Sort of privately?”
Dr. Lowell excused her. Cherry and Mac Cook strolled along a path which took them out of range of the campers. He seemed subdued and anxious.
“Yes, what is it, Mac?”
“The kids say you’re the one who fished that mask out of the lake.”
“Yes, I did. Do you think it is a mask?”
“Anyone can see it’s a mask. Well, I wonder if you’d do me a favor. I wonder if you’d give me the mask? Please, Miss Cherry?”
“Whatever for?”
“It’s not valuable. Anyone can make a mask like that. Once in New York I—” He caught himself. “I just want it for a joke, Miss Cherry.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of a reason.”
He faced her almost despairingly. “What kind of reason do I have to give you? Honestly, I want it for just an innocent—joke.”
“See here, Mac Cook. Did you throw that mask in the lake?”
Her question came so unexpectedly that he was stunned. His eyes blazed. “No, I didn’t! But I can tell you who did! It was Purdy.”
“Purdy? Do you expect me to believe that? What makes you think it was Purdy?” Cherry demanded.
“For a very good reason. I know it was Pep. Only I can’t tell you how I know.”
Cherry saw that Mac Cook was nearly in tears. The mask must be terribly important to him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Mac said angrily. “You think I’m the one who broke into the barn, and you think I used the mask to cover up while I did the job. Well, it’s not so! The mask has nothing at all to do with the barn. It isn’t even my mask! It belongs to Purdy. I swear it, Miss Cherry.”