Patty's Friends

“Who, indeed? But you know, of course, that the Cromarty people have been hunting it for nearly forty years.”

“Yes,” said Patty, and her eyes fairly blazed with determination, “yes—but I am an American!”

Tom Meredith shouted with laughter.

“Good for you, little Stars and Stripes!” he cried. “I’ve always heard of the cleverness of the Yankees, but if you can trace the Cromarty fortune, I’ll believe you a witch, for sure. Aren’t there witches in that New England of yours?”

“I believe there used to be. And my ancestors, some of them, were Salem people. That may be where I get my taste for divination and solving problems. I just love puzzles of all sorts, and if the old Cromarty gentleman had only left a cipher message, it would have been fun to puzzle it out.”

“He did leave messages of some sort, didn’t he? Maybe they are more subtle than you think.”

“I’ve been wondering about that. They might mean something entirely different from what they sound like; but I can’t see any light that way. ‘The headboard of a bed against a wall,’ is pretty practical, and doesn’t seem to mean anything else. And the oak trees and fir trees are there in abundance. But that’s the trouble with them, there are so many.”

“Go on, and do all you can, my child. You’ll get over it the sooner, if you work hard on it at first. We’ve all been through it. Nearly everybody in this part of the country has tried at one time or another to guess the Cromarty riddle.”

“But I’m the first American to try,” insisted Patty, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Quite so, Miss Yankee Doodle Doo; and I wish you success where my own countrymen have failed.”

Tom said this with such a nice, kindly air that Patty felt a little ashamed of her own vaunting attitude. But sometimes Patty showed a decided tendency to over-assuredness in her own powers, and though she tried to correct it, it would spring up now and again. Then the Hartley boys joined them, and all discussion of the missing fortune was dropped.

It was soon time to take leave, and as it was already twilight, Sinclair proposed that he should drive Patty home in the pony cart, and Mabel should return in the carriage.

Mabel quite agreed to this, saying that after her croquet, she did not care to drive. The road lay through a lovely bit of country, and Patty enjoyed the drive home with Sinclair. She always liked to talk with him, he was so gentle and kindly. While not so merry as Bob or as Tom Meredith, Sinclair was an interesting talker, and Patty always felt that she was benefited by his conversation.

He told her much about the country as they drove along, described the life and work of the villagers, and pointed out buildings or other objects of interest.

They passed several fine estates, whose towering mansions could be seen half hidden by trees, or boldly placed on a summit.

“But no place is as beautiful as Cromarty,” said Sinclair, and Patty entirely agreed with them.

“Is it true that you may have to leave it?” she asked, thinking it wiser to refer to it casually.

Sinclair frowned.

“Who’s been talking to you?” he said; “Mabel, I suppose. Well, yes, there is a chance that we’ll have to let it for a term of years. I hope not, but I can’t tell yet. But even if so, it will be only temporary. As soon as I get fairly established in my career, I hope to make money enough to take care of it all. A few years hence, when I’m on my feet, and Bob’s through college, it will be easier all round. But if some business troubles that are now impending don’t blow over, there’ll be no income to keep things going, and we’ll have to—to–But that shan’t happen!”

Sinclair spoke almost desperately, and Patty saw his fingers clench around the reins he was holding.

“I wonder,” said Patty slowly, for she was not quite sure how what she was about to say would be received. “I wonder, Sinclair, if we’re not good friends enough, you and I, for me to speak plainly to you.”

The young man gave her a quick, earnest glance.

“Go on,” he said, briefly.

“It’s only this,” said Patty, still hesitating, “my father has lots of money—couldn’t you—couldn’t he lend you some?”

Sinclair looked at her squarely now, and spoke in low, stern tones.

“Never suggest such a thing again. The Cromartys do not borrow.”

“Not even from a friend?” said Patty, softly.

“Not even from a friend,” repeated Sinclair, but his voice was more gentle. “You don’t understand, I suppose,” he went on, “but we would leave Cromarty for ever before we would stay on such terms.”

“No,” said Patty, “I don’t understand. I should think you’d be as glad to accept a friend’s help as he would be to offer it.”

“If you’d do me a real kindness, Patty, you’ll never even mention such an idea again. I know you mean well and I thank you, but it’s absolutely impossible.”

“Then there’s only one other way out of the difficulty,” said Patty, with an effort at lightness; “and that’s to find your buried fortune.”

“Ah, that would be a help,” cried Sinclair, also assuming a gayer tone. “If you’ll help us to do that, I’ll set up a memorial tablet to your cleverness.”

“Where will you set it? Between the fir trees and the oak?”

“Yes, if you find the fortune there.”

“But if I find it behind the headboard, that’s no sort of a place for a tablet!”

“You can choose your own spot for your Roll of Fame, and I’ll see to it that the memorial is a worthy one.”

“And will you put fresh flowers on it every day?”

“Yes, indeed; for if—I mean when, you find the fortune for us, the gardens will have immediate attention.”

“Then I must set to work at once,” said Patty, with pretended gravity, but in her heart she registered a mental vow to try in earnest to fulfil the promise given in jest.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GRIFFIN AND THE ROSE

Although the Hartleys had practically given up all hope of ever finding the hidden money, they couldn’t help being imbued with Patty’s enthusiasm.

Indeed, it took little to rouse the sleeping fires of interest that never were entirely extinguished.

But though they talked it over by the hour there seemed to be nothing to do but talk.

One day, Patty went out all by herself, determined to see if she couldn’t find some combination of an oak tree and a group of firs that would somehow seem especially prominent.

But after looking at a score or more of such combinations, she realised that task was futile.

She looked at the ground under some of them, but who could expect a mark of any kind on the ground after nearly forty years? No. Unless Mr. Marmaduke Cromarty had marked his hiding-place with a stone or iron plate, it would probably never be found by his heirs. Search in the house was equally unsatisfactory. What availed it to scan a wall or a bedstead that had been scrutinised for years by eager, anxious eyes? And then Patty set her wits to work. She tried to think where an erratic old gentleman would secrete his wealth. And she was forced to admit that the most natural place was in the ground on his estate, the location to be designated by some obscure message. And surely, the message was obscure enough!

She kept her promise to help Bob in his self-appointed task of going through all the books in the library. This was no small piece of work, for it was not enough to shake each book, and let loose papers, if any, drop out. Some of the old papers had been found pinned to leaves, and so each book must be run through in such a way that every page could be glanced at.

Nor was this a particularly pleasant task. For Mrs. Hartley had made it a rule that when her own children went over the old books, they were to dust them as they went along. Thus, she said, at least some good would be accomplished, though no hidden documents might be found.

Of course, she did not request Patty to do this, but learning of the custom, Patty insisted on doing it, and many an hour she spent in the old library, clad in apron and dust-cap. Her progress was rather slow, for book-loving Patty often became absorbed in the old volumes, and dropping down on the window-seat, or the old steps to the gallery, would read away, oblivious to all else till some one came to hunt for her.

At last, one day, her patient search met a reward. In an old book she found several of what were beyond all doubt Mr. Marmaduke Comarty’s papers.

Without looking at them closely, Patty took the book straight to Mrs. Cromarty.

“Dear me!” said the old lady, putting on her glasses. “Have we really found something? I declare I’m quite nervous over it. Emmeline, you read them.”

Mrs. Hartley was a bit excited, too, and as for Patty and Mabel, they nearly went frantic at their elders’ slowness in opening the old and yellow papers.

There were several letters, a few bills, and some hastily-scribbled memoranda. The letters and bills were of no special interest, but on one of the small bits of paper was another rhymed couplet that seemed to indicate a direction.

It read:

“Where the angry griffin shows,Ruthless, tear away the rose.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Patty, “it’s another direction how to get the fortune! Oh, Mabel, it will be all right yet! Oh, where is the angry griffin? Is it over a rosebush? You’re only to pull up the rosebush, and there you are!”

Mabel looked bewildered. So did the older ladies.

“Speak, somebody!” cried Patty, dancing about in excitement. “Isn’t there any angry griffin? There must be!”

“That’s the trouble,” said Mrs. Hartley; “there are so many of them. Why, there are angry griffins on the gates, over the lodge doors, on the marbles in the gardens, and all over the house.”

“Of course there are,” said Mabel. “You must have noticed them, Patty. There’s one now,” and she pointed to a bit of wood carving over the door frame of the room they were in.

“I don’t care! It means something, I know it does,” declared Patty. “We’ll work it out yet. I wish the boys were home.”

“They’ll soon be here,” said Mrs. Cromarty. “I can’t help thinking that it does mean something—Marmaduke was very fond of roses, and it would be just like him to plant a rosebush over his buried treasure.”

“That’s it,” cried Patty. “Now, where is there a rosebush growing, and one of the angry griffins near it?”

“There probably are some in the rose garden,” said Mrs. Cromarty. “I don’t remember any, though.”

“Come on, Mabel,” said Patty, “let’s go and look. I can’t wait another minute!”

Away flew the two girls, and for the next hour they hovered about the rosebushes with more energy than is often shown by the busiest of bees.

“I wish old Uncle Marmaduke had been less of a poet,” said Mabel, as they sat down a moment to rest, “and more of a—a–”

“More straightforward,” suggested Patty. “If he’d only written a few words of plain prose, and left it with his lawyer, all this trouble needn’t have been.”

“Well, I suppose he did intend to make it plain before he died, but he went off so suddenly. Oh, here are the boys.”

Sinclair and Bob came bounding down toward the rose garden, followed more sedately by their mother and grandmother.

“Not a sign of a griffin a-sniffin’ of a rose,” said Patty, disconsolately.

“Oh, you haven’t looked all round yet,” said Bob. “It’s such fun to have something to look for besides fir trees and beds, I’m going to make a close search.”

“Of course,” said Sinclair, “the same rose bush wouldn’t be here now that was here thirty or forty years ago.”

“But it would have been renewed,” said Mrs. Cromarty. “We’ve always tried to keep the flowers as nearly as possible the same.”

“Then here goes to interview every griffin on the place,” declared Bob. “Jolly of old uncle to mark the spot with a rosebush and a griffin. That’s what I call decent of him. And you’re a wonder, Patty, to find the old paper.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Patty. “I just followed your orders about the books. If you’d kept at it yourself, you’d have found the same book.”

“I s’pose so. But I’m glad you helped the good work along. Oh, dear! no rosebush seems to be near a griffin; and the griffins seem positively afraid of the rosebushes.” And try as they would, no angry griffin could they find, with a rosebush near it. Griffins there were in plenty; both angry and grinning. Also were there plenty of roses, but they were arranged in well-laid-out beds, and in no case were guarded or menaced by angry griffins.

“Never mind,” said Sinclair, as they returned to the house for dinner, “it’s something to work on. I shall stay at home to-morrow and try to find that particular rosebush, or the place where it used to be.”

“Maybe it’s a stone rose,” said Patty, as she touched a rose carved in stone that was part of an ornamental urn whose handles were the heads of angry griffins. Sinclair stared at her.

“You’re right,” he said, slowly, as if grasping a great thought. “It’s much more likely to be a rose of stone or marble, and when that’s ruthlessly torn away the secret will be revealed. Oh, mother, there is hope!”

Patty had never seen the placid Sinclair so excited, and they all went to their rooms to get ready for dinner, with a feeling that something was going to happen. Conversation at dinner was all on the engrossing subject.

Everybody made suggestions, and everybody recalled various partly-forgotten griffins in odd nooks and corners, each being sure that was “just the place uncle would choose!”

After dinner, the young people were anxious to go out and search more, but it had begun to rain, so they all went into the library and again scrutinised the old papers Patty had found.

They looked through more books, too, but found nothing further of interest.

At last, wearied with the hunt, Patty threw herself into a big armchair and declared she would do no more that night.

“I should say not,” said Bob. “You’ve done quite enough in giving us this new start.”

Although, as Patty had said, the looking through all the old books was Bob’s plan, he generously gave her the credit of this new find. Sinclair threw himself on a long leather couch, and began to sing softly some of their nonsense songs, as he often did when tired out. The others joined, and for a time the fortune was left to take care of itself.

Very pleasant were the four fresh young voices, and the elders listened gladly to their music.

In the middle of a song, Patty stopped, and sat bolt upright, her eyes staring at a door opposite her as if she had never seen it before.

“Gracious, goodness! Patty,” said Mabel, “what is the matter?”

“What is it, little one?” said Sinclair, still humming the refrain of the interrupted song.

Patty pointed to the door, or rather to the elaborately carved door frame, and said slowly, “I’ve been reading a lot in the old architecture books—and they often used to have secret hiding places in the walls. And look at that door frame! There’s an angry griffin on one jamb, and a smiling griffin on the other, and under each is a rose. That is it’s a five-leafed blossom, a sort of conventional flower that they always call a rose in architecture.”

“Though I suppose,” said Sinclair, “by any other name it would look as sweet. Patty, my child, you’re dreaming. That old carving is as solid as Gibraltar and that old griffin isn’t very angry anyway. He just looks rather purse proud and haughty.”

“But it’s the only griffin that’s near a rose,” persisted Patty. “And he is angry, compared to the happy-looking griffin opposite to him.”

“I believe the girl is right,” said Bob, who was already examining the carvings in question. “The rose doesn’t look movable, exactly, but it is not quite like this other rose. It’s more deeply cut.”

By this time all had clustered about the door frame, and one after another poked and pushed at the wooden rose.

“There’s something in it,” persisted Bob. “In the idea, I mean. If there’s a secret hiding-place in that upright carved beam, that rose is the key to it. See how deeply it’s cut in, compared to the other; and I can almost see a crack all round it, as if it could be removed. May I try to get it out, Grandy?”

“Certainly, my boy. We mustn’t leave a stone unturned.”

“A rose unturned, you mean. Clair, what shall we ruthlessly tear it away with? I hate to take a chisel to this beautiful old door.”

“Try a corkscrew,” said Mabel.

“You mean a gimlet,” said Bob. “That’s a good idea.”

Fetching a gimlet, he bored a hole right in the centre of the carved blossom, but though it turned and creaked a little it wouldn’t come out.

“It must come,” said Sinclair. “It turns, so that proves it’s meant to be movable. It probably has some hinge or spring that is rusted, and so it doesn’t work as it ought to. We’ll have to take hammer and chisel; shall we, Grandy?”

The boys were deferential to Mrs. Cromarty, for they well knew that she was tired of having the old house torn up to no avail. But surely this was an important development.

“Yes, indeed, boys. If your uncle’s words mean anything, they mean that it must be ruthlessly torn away, if removed at all.”

For quite ten minutes the two boys worked away with their tools, endeavouring to mar the carving as little as might be, but resolved to succeed in their undertaking. At last the wooden rose fell out in their hands, leaving a round opening.

Peering in, Sinclair saw a small iron knob, which seemed to be part of a rusty spring.

Greatly excited, he tried to push or turn it, but couldn’t move it.

“Anyway, we’re getting warm,” he cried, and his glowing face corroborated his words.

The boys took turns in working at the stubborn spring, trying with forceps and pincers to move it, until at last something seemed to give way, and the whole front of the door jamb fell out as one panel.

Behind it was a series of small pigeon holes one above the other, all filled with neatly piled papers.

Though yellow with age, the papers were carefully folded, labelled, and dated.

“Patty!” cried Mabel, as she embraced her friend, “you’ve found our fortune for us!”

“Don’t be too sure,” said Patty, laughing, and almost crying at the same time, so excited was she. “Your Uncle Marmaduke was of such uncertain ways I shouldn’t wonder if these were merely more files of his immortal verse.”

“They’re bills,” declared Sinclair, as he ran over a packet he took from a shelf.

“Let’s look them all over systematically,” said Bob. “Let’s all sit round the table, and one of us read out what the paper is about. Then if we come to anything important, we’ll all know it at once.”

This plan was adopted, and Sinclair, as the oldest, was chosen to read. He sat at the head of the long library table, and the others were at either side.

But the packets of bills, though interesting in a general way, had no bearing on the great question of the fortune. The papers were all bills.

“Not even a bit of poetry,” sighed Patty, as Sinclair laid aside one after another of the receipted bills for merchandise, household goods, clothing, and labour.

“These might interest a historian,” said Sinclair, “as they throw some light on the prices of goods at that time. But we’ll keep on, we may come to something of interest yet.”

“I hope so,” said Bob. “I’m so anxious, that nothing less than a straight direction to the fortune would satisfy me.”

“Well, here’s something,” said Sinclair, “whatever it may mean.”

The paper he had just unfolded was a mason’s bill, containing only one item. The bill was made out in due form, by one Martin Campbell, and was properly receipted as paid. And its single item read:

“To constructing one secret pocket.... Three Guineas.”

“Oh!” cried Patty, breathless with excitement. “Then there is a secret pocket, or poke as your exasperating uncle calls it.”

“There must be,” said Sinclair; “and now that we know that, we’re going to find it. Of course, we assumed there was one, but we had only that foolish doggerel to prove it. Now this regular bill establishes it as a fact beyond all doubt. Do you know this Martin Campbell, Grandy?”

“I know there was a mason by that name, who worked here several times for your uncle. He came down from Leicester, but of course I know nothing more of him.”

“We’ll find him!” declared Bob. “We’ll make him give up the secret of the pocket.”

“Maybe he’s dead by this time,” said Sinclair. “Was he an old man, Grandy?”

“I don’t know, my dear. I never saw him. He worked here when I was away in London. I fear, however, he is not alive now.”

“Oh, perhaps he is. It was only about thirty-five years ago, or forty, that he built this ‘secret pocket.’ Thirty-eight, to be exact. The date on the bill proves that.”

“Well, to-morrow you must go to see him,” said Mrs. Hartley, rising. “But now, my children, you must go to bed. You can’t learn any more to-night, and to-morrow we will pick up the broken thread. Patty, my dear child, you are doing a great deal for us.”

“It isn’t anything yet,” said Patty, “but oh, if it only leads to something, I shall be so glad!”

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OLD CHIMNEY-PIECE

But Sinclair’s search for the old mason in Leicester was absolutely unsuccessful. He learned that Martin Campbell had died many years ago, and had left no direct descendants. A cousin of the old mason told Sinclair all this, and said, too, that there were no books or papers or accounts of the dead man left in existence.

So Sinclair returned home, disappointed but not entirely discouraged.

“We’ll find it yet,” he said to Patty. “We have proof of a hiding-place, now we must discover it.”

“We will!” declared Patty. “But it’s so exasperating not to know whether the old mason built that ‘pocket’ indoors or out.”

“Out, I think,” said Sinclair. “It’s probably a sunken bin or vault of brick, made water-tight, and carefully concealed.”

“Yes, it’s certainly carefully concealed,” Patty agreed.

Sinclair was entitled to a fortnight’s vacation from his law studies, and he arranged to take it at this time. For now that the interest was revived, all were eager to make search all the time.

“Let’s be systematic about it,” said Bob, “and divide the estate up into sections. Then let’s examine each section in turn.”

This sounded well, but it was weary work. In the wooded land, especially, it was hopeless to look for any indicatory mark beneath the undergrowth of forty years. But each morning the four young people started out with renewed determination to keep at it, at any rate.

On rainy days they searched about the house. Having found one secret panel, they hoped for more, and the boys went about tapping the walls or carved woodwork here and there, listening for a hollow sound.

Bob and Patty went on searching the books. But though a number of old papers were found they were of no value. Incidentally, Patty was acquiring a store of information of various sorts. Though too eager in her work to sit down and read any book through, she scanned many pages here and there, and learned much that was interesting and useful. Especially did she like books that described the old castles and abbeys of England. There were many of these books, both architectural and historical, and Patty lingered over the illustrations, and let her eyes run hastily over the pages of description.

One afternoon she sat cross-legged, in Turk fashion, on the library floor, absorbed in an account of the beautiful old mansion known as “Audley End.” The description so interested her that she read on and on, and in her perusal she came to this sentence:

“There are other curious relics, among them the chair of Alexander Pope, and the carved oak head of Cromwell’s bed, converted into a chimney-piece.”

Anything in reference to the headboard of a bedstead caught Patty’s attention, and she read the paragraph over again.

“Sinclair,” she called, but he had gone elsewhere, and did not hear her.

Patty looked around at the mantel or chimney-piece in the library, but it was so evidently a part of the plan of wall decoration, that it could not possibly have been anything else.

Patty sighed. “It would have been so lovely,” she thought to herself, “if it only had been a bedhead, made into a mantel, for then that bothering old man could easily have tucked his money between it and the wall.”

And then, though Patty’s thoughts came slowly, they came surely, and she remembered that in the great hall, or living-room, the mantel was a massive affair of carved oak.