The Golden Eagle Mystery (17 page)

“I put
mine
where it belongs,” said Emmy. “I put it in the money part of the book. The first part of the book is about stamps, and the rest of it is about money, so that’s where I put my dollar.”

Djuna picked the book up again and read the name printed on the outside. It was called: “
THE UNITED STATES STAMP & COIN CATALOG
.” Djuna began to look through it. The beginning of the book had pictures of postage stamps in it. Then, as Djuna kept on turning the pages, he came to a page which had pictures of pennies on it. Another page had pictures of nickels—five-cent pieces—on it. Then came pictures of dimes, and of silver half-dollars, and silver dollars, and of all the different kinds of money.

“Gee, this is a dandy book!” said Djuna. “Where did you get it, Emmy?”

“Oh, a man gave it to me,” said Emmy.

Djuna kept on turning the pages. Suddenly a strange look came over his face. He sat staring at the page as if he had seen a ghost.

“Hey, come on, Djuna,” said Billy, impatiently. “Aren’t you ever going to stop looking at that book? I’m hungry!”

Djuna jumped, as if somebody had waked him out of a sound sleep. “Huh?” he said. “Oh, all right, all right, I’m coming. I was just thinking, that’s all.”

He shut the book and handed it back to Emmy. “That’s a swell book,” he repeated. “Do you suppose I could get one like it? From the man that gave it to you, I mean. Who was he?”

“Oh, just a man,” said Emmy. “He came here and asked my mother if she had any old furniture or anything to sell. And I was fixing my stamp album, so he asked me if I wanted a book about stamps, and he gave me this book. He was awful nice.”

“For Pete’s sake, Djuna!” exclaimed Billy. “Aren’t you ever coming?”

“Oh, all right,” said Djuna. “Thanks a lot for the ice cream, Emmy.”

He followed Billy outdoors, but when they got to Billy’s house Djuna hesitated on the doorstep.

“Say, I think I’ll go on home, Billy,” he said. “Be sure and tell Mr. Primrose about the fingerprints, will you? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“What’s the matter with you?” exclaimed Billy. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Oh, I don’t want anything now,” said Djuna. “I’ve got to go home and do some work. I just don’t feel like eating anything, thanks.”

And taking the cane that Champ had dug up on Haypenny Island, he hurried off, followed by Champ, leaving Billy staring after him in astonishment.

“This is something we’ve got to think out by ourselves, Champ,” said Djuna, after they got home, and he had tied Champ up in the woodshed. “You do your thinking in the woodshed, and I’ll give you an extra big dinner tonight.”

Djuna was very busy indeed all the rest of that afternoon. The first thing he did was to go to his room, get out the package of old letters, and read them over and over, very carefully. The next thing he did was to go to the Public Library, which was a small gray stone building covered with ivy vines, in the middle of a little park. He took with him a list of five questions he had written out and handed them to the librarian.

“Could you help me find the answers to these, please?” he said.

The librarian read the questions and then looked at Djuna in astonishment.

“My gracious!” she gasped. “You’d better sit down. This is going to take a long time.”

These were the five questions Djuna had written out:

“My gracious!” said the librarian again. But she began looking in different books, and in a few minutes she had found all the answers, because she knew the right books to look into. She wrote them down on the piece of paper, and when Djuna read them he grew so excited that he could hardly keep from shouting out loud.

“Thanks a lot!” he said. “Oh, gee, thanks an awful lot!”

On the way home, he stopped at Emmy’s house, and asked her if he could look again at the book with the pictures of stamps and money. “And have you got a ruler to measure with?” he asked.

Emmy got the book and a ruler, and Djuna turned over the leaves of the book until he came to the page he was looking for. He measured the width of one of the pictures on the page. Emmy was bursting with curiosity.

“What in the world are you doing?” she asked, dancing up and down.

Djuna grinned. “It’s a secret,” he said. “I can’t tell you, right now. But I will, just as soon as I can, cross my heart”.

“Oh, I think you’re just as mean as you can be!” wailed Emmy.

“Well, I’m in a hurry,” said Djuna. “I’ll tell you later, don’t worry!”

When he got home, he mystified Aunt Patty, too. He borrowed her tape measure, emptied her spools of thread out of the box where she kept them, and measured the inside of the box, without telling her why he was doing it. Then he took the tape measure out to the woodshed, where he had hidden the cane he had brought home from the island, and measured the top of the cane, inside and out.

After that, for another hour or two, he sat in his room, frowning at a piece of paper on which he had written down everything he could think of that might have anything to do with the mysterious things that had happened since he came to Stony Harbor.

“There’s just one thing missing,” he muttered to himself. “Well, I’m going to ask Doctor Holder. I guess he knows more about birds than anybody else.”

He hurried over to Doctor Holder’s house and rang the bell. The old gentleman came to the door.

“Could I please ask you a question?” said Djuna breathlessly.

“Why, of course, my boy,” said Doctor Holder, “What can I do for you?”

“Well, it’s about that eagle we saw,” said Djuna. “That bald eagle, I mean. Can you please tell me if that’s the only kind of eagle that there is around here? Is there any other kind?”

Doctor Holder smiled. “That’s very odd,” he said. “That’s the second time I’ve been asked that question lately. Yes, the bald eagle is the only true eagle in this section of the country. People see turkey buzzards and fish hawks occasionally, and think they are eagles, but they aren’t really. They don’t belong in the same group.”

“Thanks very much,” said Djuna. “That’s all I wanted to know. But did you say somebody else asked you the same question?”

“Why, yes,” said Doctor Holder. “Just a day or so ago. Some stranger, who wanted to see my collection of eggs. I’m sorry, but I don’t recall his name.”

“Well, thanks a lot,” repeated Djuna. And he hurried back home.

When he took Champ’s dinner out to him, he looked very thoughtful.

“I’ve got an awful lot to do tomorrow, Champ,” he said, patting the little black dog. “You stay here and take care of Aunt Patty till I get back, do you hear?”

A
S SOON
as he had finished breakfast the next morning, Djuna started for Billy’s house. But first he went around to the dingy little hotel, the Harbor House, creeping up the alley that led to the back of the hotel, and keeping carefully out of sight of anyone who might be on the front porch. Peering in the kitchen door, he saw Mr. Primrose, the colored man, and gave a low whistle to attract his attention. Mr. Primrose came over to the door.

“Did you take them up to their rooms?” whispered Djuna.

“Yes, suh, I sure did,” whispered Mr. Primrose. “I put them right on the little tables, right alongside of their baids, just like Mister Billy told me. You want to see ’em?”

“No, not now,” said Djuna. “But don’t let anybody else see them. Are they up yet?”

“No, suh,” said Mr. Primrose, grinning, “they is sleeping like babies.”

“Okay,” whispered Djuna. “We’ll be back pretty soon.”

He hurried on to Billy’s house. As soon as Billy saw him, he could tell that Djuna had something important to tell him.

“Listen!” said Djuna, excitedly. “You know who the Count of Monte Cristo was, don’t you?”

“Sure,” said Billy. “He was a sailor, and he found a box full of diamonds and everything, on an island, and he got rich. Why?”

“Well,” said Djuna, “so is Aunt Patty! We’re going to help her so she can be
Mrs
. Count of Monte Cristo! Hurry up, let’s get started!”

Billy stared. “Started for where?” he said.

“For Sixpenny Island, of course!” said Djuna impatiently. “Have you got a spade, or a shovel, or something?”

“My golly!” exclaimed Billy, commencing to get excited. “Is there a box of diamonds out there? Do you know where it’s buried?”

“It isn’t a box of diamonds,” said Djuna. “I never said a word about any diamonds. But, gee whiz, if we don’t start right away, we might be too late! I’ll tell you about it while we’re sailing over there, everything I found out. Where’s the spade?”

Billy ran and got the spade from the cellar, and then both boys ran down to the wharf and tumbled into Billy’s boat. They were in such a hurry to hoist the sails that they got the ropes all tangled up, and had to start all over again.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t bring Champ along this time,” said Djuna. “He’d get in your way even worse than I do.”

They got the mainsail hoisted. Billy ran back and took the tiller. “Stand by to hoist the jib,” he commanded. The breeze was coming strong and steady from the southwest. “We’ll go out on the port tack,” he said. “Hoist away!”

Djuna hoisted the jib, made the halyards fast, and took charge of the jib sheets. The boat moved slowly away from the landing float and soon began to gather speed, as Billy trimmed in the mainsheet. They crossed the harbor on the port tack, then came about and headed straight for the islands on the long windward reach. Djuna got the jib to pulling just as Billy wanted it, and then settled himself beside Billy in the stern sheets to tell him what he had been doing, and why he had decided that on Sixpenny Island they would find the answer to the whole mystery. The boat seemed to jump from wave to wave, cutting its path swiftly through them. Billy watched the sails steadily, but as he listened to Djuna’s story his eyes sparkled.

“Oh, boy!” he exclaimed.
“That lantern!
When are you going to tell the police?”

“Just as soon as we get back,” said Djuna. “But I thought we’d better do this first. I haven’t told Aunt Patty a single thing about it, yet. Gee, I thought that if I told her, and then we came over here and couldn’t find anything at all, it would be awful!”

“I sort of wish we’d asked my father to bring us over here,” said Billy, uneasily. “What if they followed us out here and caught us?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Djuna confidently. “They’ll never think of it. I’ll tell you what we’d better do, though—we’ll hide the boat in our secret cove, and you stay on guard there and keep a lookout. I can do the digging by myself, and then I’ll call you. But if you see a boat coming, you come over and tell me. Okay?”

Billy agreed to this plan. Soon they reached the narrow channel separating Sixpenny and Haypenny Islands, lowered the sails, and paddled the boat into the tiny cove sheltered by Eagle Rock. Djuna got into his swimming trunks and went back to the channel, taking the spade with him. He waded out as far as he could, and then had to swim only a few strokes before his feet touched bottom again, and he was able to wade the rest of the way to the beach of Sixpenny Island.

The roofless cabin that had once belonged to Captain Tubbs, Aunt Patty’s husband, stood right at the edge of the beach. Djuna walked toward it, the water squishing out of his wet sneakers. He looked back once, to see if Billy was watching him. But the steep slope of Eagle Rock hid Billy and the boat completely from sight. He went on.

Peering cautiously around the corner of the cabin, Djuna saw no one anywhere. The deserted island lay sleeping peacefully in the sun. Nothing stirred, except the leafy branches of the old lilac bushes, moving in the breeze.

Djuna stole up to the sagging door of the ruined hut and listened. But there was no sound except the crying of the seagulls flying overhead.

Reassured, he went on in. The one room was half in darkness, for boards had been nailed across the windows, on the outside; but so much of the roof was gone that Djuna could see patches of blue sky overhead, and a shaft of sunlight streamed slantingly across the dusty floor.

Djuna went straight to the fireplace.

Ashes were heaped thick upon the brick hearth. During the many years when the cabin had stood empty, fishermen had now and then built fires of driftwood in the fireplace, but no one had ever bothered to clear away the ashes. The rusty old iron kettle in which they had steamed clams still stood there at one corner of the fireplace, and around it were heaps of the empty clam shells.

Djuna began to shovel away the ashes with his spade, heaping them against the sides of the fireplace. Soon the brick floor came in sight. Djuna’s heart gave a jump.

In the center of the floor was a flat stone, about a foot square. Letters were carved in it.

Djuna brushed the dust away, eagerly. The words cut in the stone were these:

“KEEP THE NEST WARM.”

Djuna seized his spade again and excitedly set to work. Loosening the bricks around the stone, he lifted them out one by one. Then, with the edge of the spade, he pried up the stone.

Underneath it lay a small box of dark wood, about the size of a cigar box.

Small as it was, it was surprisingly heavy. Djuna tugged, lifted it out and put it down near the old kettle.

For a moment he hesitated. Then, deciding to cover up the stone again, he lifted it back, put the bricks back in place around it, and began to shovel the ashes back on top of the bricks. He was so excited, and was working so busily that he was deaf to the sound of a motorboat that came quietly up to the beach, paused a moment, and then went away again.

Too late, he heard footsteps coming toward the cabin.

He looked around wildly. There was no way of escape. There was no door except the front door. Frantically, he threw a shovelful of clam shells over the box he had taken from the fireplace, and then bounded to the other corner of the room.