Like a character from the “King of the Golden River” he looked, getting farther and farther away until a sand-dune suddenly cut off their sight of him.
Only the footsteps were left, big ones for Dimitri and a series of small holes where the dainty Tania had followed him.
“What a strange man!” Mrs. Landry exclaimed.
“I think he’s just awfully shy,” Arden said. “I suppose he couldn’t bear to come in with all us women staring at him.”
“Perhaps you’re right, my dear,” Terry’s mother answered and once more turned to the window.
A big storm, a wild wraith of a girl, a real hermit, and a majestic wolfhound! What more could the girls have expected?
CHAPTER III
The Russian
When the storm was over and the late summer sun came out for a brief half hour before settling down for the night, there was hardly a hint of rain left. The sandy ground absorbed the water almost as quickly as it fell, leaving only tiny pock-marks behind.
The girls opened doors and windows to capture the cool air, and Arden let the porch awnings down and jumped back just in time to escape a small cascade as the rain water tumbled free of the canvas pocket.
Then Arden and Sim, Terry and her mother sat on the comfortably screened porch and watched night fold her dark-blue wings over everything.
“Funniest thing the way that ‘Tess-of-the-Storm-Country’ creature peeked in at the window and then ran away,” Terry observed dreamily. “Who could she have been?”
“I suppose she saw Dimitri Uzlov coming up the path and was frightened. That dog of his certainly looked like nothing human,” Sim replied.
“A case of ‘see what the storm blew in,’” Arden chuckled. “But don’t you think he’s fascinating? I love his accent.”
Terry’s mother gave a little laugh.
“You youngsters always find something romantic in the most everyday occurrences, don’t you? But you mustn’t bother Mr. Uzlov. He seems a serious young man, and he hinted, quite charmingly, that he would rather be alone. Well—” she smothered a little yawn—“I’m going to bed. It must be half-past ten. Good-night, girls.”
“Oh—Mother—” Terry drawled—“as if we’d bother him.”
That was one of the nicest things about Terry’s mother. She never intruded, and any advice she gave was always offered in a way that they could not possibly object to. But this evening her well-meant plan of leaving them alone to talk was not needed, for they soon followed her into the house, and after talking a while in sleepy monosyllables, without much ceremony fell asleep in comfortable beds.
The next morning brought a blue-and-gold day with a stiff northwest wind kicking up whitecaps on Bottle Bay. “Buckingham Palace” stood on a little neck of land, with the ocean on one side and the bay on the other.
“Let’s take the rowboat and go down the bay a bit,” Terry suggested. “It’s too cold for bathing.”
“We could take a look at the houseboat without disturbing the hermit,” Arden remarked. “Maybe—”
“Exactly what I had in mind,” Terry said. “You’re positively uncanny, Arden, the way you read people’s minds. We don’t need to mention it to Mother, though.”
It was after breakfast, and the girls were sitting on the bottom step of the porch, idly watching tiny ants rebuild their houses that had been washed away in the storm.
“Let me row, Terry, will you?” Sim asked. “I’m going to start in training this very day, and when we go back to Cedar Ridge in the fall I’ll be the champion swimmer of the college,” she bragged.
“You can row, all right, I’ve no desire to raise blisters on my lily-white palms,” Terry answered her, and going to the door of the house she called: “Mother, we’re going for a little row in the bay. The girls want to take a look around. Yes, we’ll be careful. ’Bye!”
On the bay side an old though seaworthy rowboat was moored, covered with a canvas which had kept out the rain. They quickly pulled off the cover, and Terry took the oars from their place. With a few uncertain pushes, they finally made one strong enough to get started.
They were wearing shorts with sneakers, and bright handkerchiefs knotted at their throats; no hats, but Sim had tied a ribbon like Alice in Wonderland around her head to keep her short curls in place. It was becoming, too, and perhaps Sim knew that.
“Now let’s see how good you are, Sim,” Terry suggested. “Hail the champion—”
“I’m not good at all, but I will be. Arden, you get in the what-do-you-call it—stern—the back, and, Terry, you sit there, too, then you can watch me and tell where we’re going.” Sim found a place to brace her heels and grasping the oars began to back water until they could turn.
“Don’t just row down there and bump into the houseboat. Pretend we’re going some place else,” Arden suggested. “We don’t want to appear so curious.”
“It won’t make much difference; the wind is taking us there, anyway. Oh—ouch!” Sim exclaimed. “I caught my fingers between the oars.” She shook her hands quickly to “throw off” the pain.
“Well, don’t let the oar go, silly!” Terry cautioned quickly. “Oh, Sim, you lovely chump, there it goes!”
The oar, as though pulled by the water, slipped out of the oarlock and floated away entirely unconcerned.
“Here, give me the other one, I’ll paddle,” Terry cried, reaching for the one faithful remaining oar.
Sim tried to hand it to her and in so doing gave Arden a little bump on the head.
“Oh, Sim, you’re hitting me,” Arden squealed.
“Sorry!” grunted Sim.
“Fine bunch of sailors you are. You can’t paddle against this wind. Look where we’re going!” Arden was indicating the shore line. The houseboat was only a few hundred feet away now, in a little cove, down the bay from Terry’s house, the distance being about a half mile.
“We’re going right toward it. What’ll we do?” Sim wailed. “We’ll hit it in a minute!”
“Oh, hush, Sim! We can’t help it. Stick out the oar, Terry, so we don’t bump too hard,” Arden ordered.
Terry tried her best, but the oar slipped to one side, and the boat rammed the houseboat with a little bump that, to the girls, sounded like a crash.
Instantly there was a ferocious barking, and the girls could hear a call: “Tania! Tania!” and then a rush of words uttered in a soothing tone.
They sat quite still, an embarrassed little group, while their lazy old craft hugged the side of the houseboat.
“Sim Westover,” Arden hissed, “I could cheerfully duck you, clothes and all. What will the man think?”
“But, Arden—” began Sim, and then stopped as she heard footsteps on the upper deck of the boat near them.
Dimitri Uzlov had come on deck and was gazing down at them silently. They looked back, uncertain how to explain their presence. Arden spoke:
“We’re sorry to have disturbed you, but we lost an oar and the boat drifted over here.”
“I let it slip,” Sim added a little nervously. “I’m not very good at rowing, I’m afraid.” She smiled up at him apologetically.
He still looked down at them, saying nothing, half amused and half angry, apparently.
“If you could lend us an oar we could row over and get ours,” Terry suggested. “We’d bring yours right back.”
Suddenly the young man burst out laughing, and they all felt better, so much better that they joined in the laugh themselves.
“You are char-r-rming,” he chuckled. “Of course you may take my oar; I will get it for you,” and he disappeared from sight as if he had dropped down a hatchway.
“See!” Arden whispered gleefully. “Isn’t he nice?”
Then they heard him call: “Can you push down to this end of my castle? My rowboat is moored here.”
Terry poled the boat in the shallow water, for the houseboat was tied up at the shore, to the place Dimitri indicated.
There was a boat similar to theirs
fast to the larger craft. Dimitri handed Terry the oar, smiling.
“Do you think you can recover your own?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, easily,” replied Terry. “I’ll row this time.”
Sim climbed to the stern a little humbly and sat panting while Terry, with long strokes, pulled toward the deeper water where their oar was bobbing about in the sunlight.
“Grab it, Sim,” she called when they reached it, “and don’t murder anyone with it!”
Sim grabbed and recovered the dripping wooden shaft successfully and also gratefully.
“Now we’ll take his back,” Terry went on, and turned their craft toward the houseboat.
Tania once more barkingly announced their arrival, and Dimitri appeared at the signal.
“Will you come on board and rest for a minute?” he invited hospitably. “It was unfortunate that you lost your oar.”
“I don’t know whether we ought—” began Terry but Arden, seeing his smiling face take on an embarrassed look, interrupted with:
“We’d love to, for just a second. I’ve never been on a houseboat.”
Terry tied their boat up near his, and the three girls went around to the stern of the houseboat over a little boardwalk and up the rickety stairs to the deck of the floating old craft.
There they hesitated. Tania was keeping up a barrage of barking, showing her fangs and growling at intervals.
“Please, if you will come with me,” Dimitri said. “I will impress on her that you are my friends.”
They followed him guardedly. “Tania, come here,” he ordered sternly. The big white-and-tan dog stood like a statue. “Come here!” her master repeated. Tania walked toward him with queenly dignity.
Dimitri then put his hand on Arden’s arm. “These are my friends,” he said; and then to the girls: “I will tell her that in Russian, and she will be sure to understand. Then if you will each pat her head, you will be fast friends.” He smiled enthusiastically.
The little ceremony of introduction was carried out, and Tania ceased her worried barking. The dog put a dainty paw on Arden’s white shorts as if to reassure them all most completely.
“Such a lovely dog,” murmured Sim.
“And intelligent, too,” added Terry.
“I will have pleasure in showing you my little floating home here, if you would like to see it,” said Mr. Uzlov, smiling his invitation. “It is the first time I have ever lived on a houseboat. They are rather strange creatures, is it not so?” Again he smiled.
“This one is very old,” Terry said. “I don’t know how many years it has been here. It belongs to Mr. Reilly, the town chief of police. This is the first time it’s been rented in I don’t know how long. I think you hadn’t better try to move it either by sail or an outboard motor,” she warned with a laugh. “I fancy it would leak like a sieve.”
“Doubtless,” he agreed, also laughing. “But I shall be safe enough on my boat. I don’t intend to move her, and probably she rests on the muddy bottom of this bay and marshy land.”
The houseboat was not large. It consisted of a sort of large shed, with windows, doors, and a flat roof perched on what had once been a scow. There was a narrow space running all around the house part, between it and a low rail. There was a small float at one end to which a rowboat was made fast. From the float a cleated plank gave access to the lower deck of the boat, if a deck it could be called. There was also a short flight of rather rickety steps at the stern by which the girls had come aboard. The houseboat had once been painted green, but little of the original color remained.
“Will you follow me?” Dimitri Uzlov requested, opening a sagging door which led into the rear part of the houseboat. “This is where I do my work.”
The girls saw that the interior of the craft consisted of really but one large room, divided by heavy hanging curtains into two apartments. The one they had entered did the double duty of a sleeping and working space, for there was a cot in one corner. On a table gleamed a bright brass samovar with some dishes about it. There was an easel and on a chair near it brushes in pots, tubes of paint, and a much-smeared palette. The curtained-off part was the kitchen.
“I am finishing a marine for a client,” the artist said, indicating the half-finished canvas on the easel.
Arden and her chums noticed several canvases stacked together near one wall, and standing beside a window was another easel with a picture on it. But what the subject of this picture was could not be seen, for it was covered with a sheet.
“Oh, how lovely it is here!” Arden exclaimed. “To have a place all your own to do just as you please in and no need to worry about neighbors looking in your windows!”
“At least I am sufficiently isolated here,” the Russian agreed. “The houseboat is hard to come at. I always loved marshlands. That is one reason I was attracted to this boat, old and shabby as it is.”
“It’s wonderful, I think,” murmured Sim.
“But a little lonesome,” suggested Terry.
“I came here for lonesomeness—as one reason,” Mr. Uzlov said.
Arden glanced at the exposed picture showing a stormy ocean with sea gulls fighting the wind. Dimitri smiled understanding as she said:
“It is lovely!”
The artist seemed to be losing some of his reluctance.
Arden walked over toward the other painting—the one covered with a sheet. She wondered what it could be.
“What is this?” she asked, extending a hand as though to lift the covering. “Is it your masterpiece?”
Instantly the young man’s face clouded.
“Please—that—do not touch it—please! It is—unfinished. I cannot show it to you. I am sorry!”
His first words had been hurried—stiff—exclamatory. The girls at once sensed a change in his manner. But his last word had been almost pleading. Even then it seemed as if his friendliness, which had been so pronounced on the arrival of his visitors, was now as covered as was the picture.
Arden drew back as if hurt.
“I didn’t mean to be curious,” she faltered. “I’m sorry!” Even her words sounded empty of meaning.
Another change came over the face of Dimitri Uzlov.
“You will be so good as to pardon me for my seeming ill haste,” he murmured. “But that picture—no—it must not be seen—yet.”
Matters were becoming a little strained and awkward, but Terry went into the breach cleverly by saying:
“We had better be going. It must be nearly lunch time. Mother will be expecting us. Thank you for your help, Mr. Uzlov, and for letting us see your houseboat.”
He did not try to stop them, nor did he express regret at their sudden departure, but simply said good-bye and then watched them pull away in the waiting rowboat.
“Queerest person I ever met,” Terry began. “One minute all sunshine and gladness, and the next, all worked up because Arden asked about his old picture.”
“I wouldn’t have touched it, anyway,” Arden replied. “I was just trying to show a little interest. My goodness! Who would want to live in such a messy place? No one but the sort they call—artists!”
“I wonder what the hidden picture was?” Sim asked curiously. “Perhaps he’s a spy, making maps of the coast and inlet.”
“Now who said they refused to get mixed up in another mystery?” Terry jeered. “Well, let’s go home, I’m hungry.”
“So am I, but I would like to know what was on that easel,” Sim remarked as Terry pulled with strong strokes back to “Buckingham Palace.”
CHAPTER IV
A Girl and a Bracelet
By afternoon the sun was warmer, and the girls, dressed in bathing suits, were lying on the caressing sand of the little beach not far from the house. They had spread their beach coats out beneath them and were sprawled in favorable attitudes to acquire the all-important tan. At intervals one of the girls sat up and coated herself liberally with cocoanut oil. They did not seem to feel exactly like talking, as the sun
made them deliciously lazy. Perhaps they were thinking of their adventure at school when, as told in the first volume of this series, The Orchard Secret, many surprising things happened. Or they may have been letting their minds wander to more surprising occurrences, as told in the Mystery of Jockey Hollow.
Sim, Arden, and Terry had been chums and schoolmates ever since they first began to acquire knowledge in Vincent Prep, and their friendship and loyalty continued until the present time, when they were just finishing their freshman year at Cedar Ridge, the well-known college for girls at Morrisville. This small city was not very distant from Pentville, where the three lived.
As Sim sat up to apply the oil again, she saw a dark object bobbing up and down far out on the ocean.
“Look, girls,” she cried, “does that look like someone to you, or is it just a log?”
“Where?” Arden asked, squinting at the bright water toward which Sim pointed, and then they were left in no doubt, for the bobbing dark spot began to swim. With long, sure strokes it came nearer to them, and they could see the white foam where the thrashing feet churned it up in perfect timing.
“Some swimmer,” Sim said admiringly. “Wonderful form. I wonder who it is?”
“We’ll soon see,” Arden replied, and Terry nodded in agreement.
The figure was making rapid time, and as it neared the beach, waited for just the right minute and then coasted in on a blue-and-white breaker.
The girls watched while the swimmer crawled a stroke then sprang upright and shook off water like a happy young animal.
“Why, it’s the girl who looked in at the window last night,” Terry exclaimed. “She can swim, can’t she?”
The girl saw them suddenly and was about to run up the beach and away when she hesitated. Sim saw an old gray sweater on the sand near them. It obviously belonged to the swimmer, and she would have to come quite near them to get it.
Sim smiled at her as she looked at them in an almost frightened way.
“You swim beautifully,” Sim remarked to relieve the shy girl. “Did you learn in the ocean?”
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