Mandie Collection, The: 8 (44 page)

“Sí, senator go out. Business. Tonight. Late,” Lolly replied.

Mandie and Celia looked at each other as they continued down the street.

“Senator Morton goes out on business late at night? Are you sure, Lolly?” Celia asked.

“Sí, senator go out late many times,” the girl replied.

“You don’t know where he goes, do you?” Mandie asked.

“No, not know that. Juan know. Ask Juan,” Lolly said.

Mandie looked at Celia and said in a low murmur, “Maybe we’d better go back to the house and see what goes on there.”

“I agree,” Celia whispered back.

Mandie looked at Lolly as they went on down the street. She didn’t think the girl could have heard the conversation between her and Celia. “Lolly, I think I’ve walked enough,” she said. “Why don’t we go back to the house now.” She slowed down.

Lolly looked surprised and said, “Tired?” She stopped and sighed loudly. “We go back, then.”

They walked back to the house faster than they had left. Mandie was anxious to try to check on Juan. Also, she wanted to be there when Senator Morton left. She wondered if he would speak to her grandmother about where he was going.

Mrs. Taft was surprised to see Mandie and Celia back so soon. She and Senator Morton were sitting in the parlor.

“Y’all weren’t gone very long. Is something wrong, Amanda?” Mrs. Taft asked, setting down her cup of coffee on the table by her chair.

“No, ma’am,” Mandie replied. “We just decided to come on back and sit down awhile. In fact, I need to see about Snowball. He probably needs to walk around in the yard and get some fresh air. I’ll take him out in a little while.” She sat next to Celia on a small settee near the senator.

“We did do a lot of walking around town today, so I’m not surprised you two decided to call it quits,” Senator Morton said.

After a short while Mandie and Celia went up to their room, got Snowball, and took him out in the yard. They kept watching for Juan but didn’t see him anywhere. The evening dragged on, and eventually it was time to go to bed.

“Good night,” Mandie told Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton. “I’m going up to my room.”

“That’s a smart idea,” Mrs. Taft agreed. “I’ll be doing the same myself shortly. Good night, girls.”

But Mandie and Celia had no intention of going to bed when they got in their room. They planned to stay up and watch out the window for anyone going and coming in the yard below.

“I just wonder where Juan went,” Mandie remarked as they sat surveying the town below.

Celia suddenly gasped. “Mandie, there is Juan down there! See? He’s leaving the yard behind those bushes.”

“Come on!” Mandie quickly replied and raced for the door, with Celia following closely.

By the time they got down to the yard, Juan had disappeared, and they walked around in circles in the darkness trying to spot him. Then they saw Lolly suddenly run out of the house and go directly to Juan, who was hidden by a tall bush as he walked away.

“Juan!” the girl called.

Mandie knew he could hear, but he ignored her call and walked on. Lolly finally caught up with him and grabbed his hand. She couldn’t hear what Lolly was saying, but Juan shook his hand loose and pointed back to the house for Lolly to go back. He started on his way again, and Lolly finally turned back toward the house.

Mandie and Celia silently circled around to avoid Lolly and then picked up Juan’s trail. They followed him directly into the park. He went
on through the graveyard there, and they kept following. It seemed to them that he was walking in circles, but he finally made his way down to the dock where they had boarded the ferry for the lighthouse.

Mandie motioned to Celia to stop behind some scrub palmettos that would keep them out of sight. After all the exertion, Mandie’s breathing was so fast she was afraid someone would hear her. She heard a faint noise behind her and turned to see Snowball standing there. They must not have closed the door to their room. She grabbed him up in her arms to keep him from meowing.

“Where is Juan going?” Celia whispered, stooping behind the bushes.

“Looks like he’s going right into the water,” Mandie whispered back.

Juan stopped on the bank and looked around. In a few moments a small boat came to the shore. Two men brought it in and stepped forward to meet Juan.

“Oh shucks! We’re too far away to hear what they’re saying,” Mandie complained.

“There aren’t any other bushes nearer where we can move without being seen, Mandie,” Celia said.

“Look! One of the men is giving Juan a piece of paper!” Mandie exclaimed in a whisper as she stared into the darkness.

The two men waved good-bye to Juan, went back to their boat, and pushed it out into the water to leave. Juan rolled up the paper, stuck it inside his shirt, and started back.

Mandie and Celia lay down on the ground to keep from being seen. They held their breath and tried to watch Juan through the bushes. Mandie glanced back at the departing boat. There was someone else down there on the bank. She squinted and rubbed her eyes. It was the strange woman from the ship to Europe.
What is she doing here?

“Look!” Mandie murmured to Celia, who had also spotted the woman.

The woman quickly disappeared behind bushes as she went in the opposite direction of Juan.

Juan came within a few feet of the girls as he strolled on back toward town, evidently not in a hurry. Mandie wished he would hurry past. She wanted to chase after that woman. Finally he got up to the top of the long bank and disappeared.

“Come on,” Mandie called excitedly to her friend as she jumped up, ran down the bank, and began searching for the woman. She got to the edge of the water and looked back just in time to see the woman farther down the bank, riding off on a horse.

Mandie finally straightened up as she stopped and stomped her foot. “Oh shucks! They both got away!”

“So we might as well go back to the house now,” Celia remarked. “Juan probably walked back that way, but that woman was going in the opposite direction.”

“I want to catch up with her,” Mandie said impatiently, stomping both her feet as she began walking back toward the road. “Just wait till next time.”

The girls returned to the house and went up the outside stairway to their room. They didn’t see or hear anyone, and the house was dark except for lamps in the hallway left burning for the night. Pushing open the door to their room, Mandie suddenly realized the door had been completely shut.

“Celia, someone let Snowball out. We did close the door,” she told her friend as she set the cat down inside their room.

“If you ask me, there are all kinds of strange things going on around this house,” Celia remarked.

Mandie quickly went over to the wardrobe to check their clothes. “No one has bothered our clothes this time,” she told her friend.

The girls sat back down at the window to rehash the night’s events.

“I’d like to know what that paper was that those two men gave Juan,” Mandie remarked. “And I’d like to know who they are.”

“I wonder why they came in a boat like that, in the darkness,” Celia said.

“We’ve just got to figure out what’s going on around here with Juan,” Mandie said. “He is right in the middle of whatever it is. And especially since he is not really deaf and mute, I’d say he is guilty of a whole lot of something.”

“And I believe Lolly may be involved, too. She seems to be chasing after Juan all the time,” Celia added.

“And that strange woman, Miss Wham, she really is here in St. Augustine. I knew that was her we saw at the lighthouse,” Mandie
said. “I sure can’t figure out how she would be connected to anything down here.”

“Maybe we can find her somehow,” Celia suggested. “It would be very interesting to be able to find her and ask her questions, wouldn’t it?” Mandie agreed.

“We don’t know for sure whether she and Juan had contacted each other, or whether one or the other was spying on the other one,” Celia remarked.

“And our time here is running out, Celia,” Mandie reminded her. “We have to figure out at least part of this puzzle, and soon.”

“Mandie, we don’t even know where Juan went tonight, or whether he came back to the house or not,” Celia remarked.

“I know, but we had to wait for him to get out of the way before we could start back,” Mandie agreed. “I just wonder where Lolly’s room is here, and whether she might still be up. Let’s go investigate.”

“This time of night, Mandie?” Celia questioned her.

“Celia, it’s not really all that late. Everyone went to bed early. Come on, let’s go investigate,” Mandie said, going toward the door. “And this time, let’s be sure Snowball is shut up in here.”

Mandie waited for Celia to go out into the hallway, then she closed the door tightly behind her. Snowball was definitely shut up.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TWO MEN AND A BOAT

Mandie and Celia slipped back down the outside stairway without seeing or hearing anyone. They crept through the bushes to the backyard and stopped to look up at the small house where the servants lived in the upstairs part. Walking slowly around the building, they couldn’t see any lights at all upstairs.

“Everyone must have gone to bed,” Mandie whispered.

“And we’d better go back and go to bed ourselves, Mandie,” Celia replied.

At that moment there was the sound of horses’ hooves and a vehicle entering the front driveway. The girls quickly ducked behind the bushes growing around the house and tried to quietly slip back to the big house to see who was there. They found a space through which they could look into the front yard. Senator Morton was descending from the vehicle.

“Thank you, Pedro,” he was saying to the driver. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He walked quickly to the front door, and the carriage was driven to the garage behind the house.

“That was Pedro driving and not Juan,” Mandie whispered excitedly to Celia.

“Yes,” Celia agreed. “That’s what Senator Morton called the driver. Mandie, let’s go back to our room now.”

“We have to wait until Pedro goes in the house or he’ll see us,” Mandie told her.

The girls waited silently behind the bushes for a long time, watching for Pedro to come out of the garage and go into the house. He never appeared.

Mandie whispered to Celia, “Let’s go. Be careful and don’t make any noise.” She moved forward toward the house. Celia followed.

The girls moved slowly from bush to bush and made their way around to the outside staircase and into the mansion. There was no sign of anyone. They finally reached their room. Snowball was curled up asleep in the middle of the big bed.

Mandie quietly closed the door behind them and blew out her breath. “I wonder where Senator Morton had been,” she said, going to the window to look down outside.

“Lolly told us he goes out late at night sometimes,” Celia reminded her as she took down her nightclothes from the wardrobe.

“But she said Juan goes with him when he goes out, remember?” Mandie said, bending out the window to look down into the yard. “And that was Pedro driving the carriage tonight.” Then she pulled the chair up to the window so she could sit down.

“I know, but I am going to bed, Mandie. It’s late,” Celia told her. She began changing into her nightclothes.

“Good night,” Mandie said, watching the yard below.

“Good night,” Celia replied as she finished putting on her night-clothes. She crawled into bed, upsetting Snowball, who began meowing and jumped down to join Mandie at the window.

Mandie couldn’t see the carriage garage from that side of the house, but she was hoping Pedro would come around there and go up the outside steps to his rooms that Lolly said he had in the top of the house. She wondered why Pedro had driven the senator when Lolly had said it was always Juan who accompanied him when he went out late at night. But then Lolly was probably guessing at a lot of things she had been telling Mandie and Celia. Mandie didn’t believe everything the girl had to say.

“Snowball, be still or I’ll put you down,” Mandie said to the white cat as he tried to curl up in her lap.

Snowball meowed once more and settled down. Mandie’s thoughts were jumbled with all the events that had taken place since they had
arrived in St. Augustine. Finally she nodded off to sleep in the big chair.

“Mandie!” Celia was calling her name and tapping her on her shoulder. Mandie opened her eyes and looked at her friend. “Mandie, you slept all night in this chair.”

Mandie straightened up. Snowball jumped down and ran across the room. She stretched and yawned. “I did?” she asked. “I must have dropped off to sleep while I was watching for Pedro down there.” She stood up and stretched again.

“It’s almost time for breakfast. You’d better hurry and get dressed,” Celia told her as she went across the room to the wardrobe and took down a dress.

“That was dumb of me,” Mandie muttered to herself as she, too, went to find something to put on.

“I overslept,” Celia said, hurriedly getting into her clothes. “Mandie, we have been staying up too late since we came down here.”

“I know, I know,” Mandie agreed as she quickly took off her clothes from the night before and put on a fresh dress. Turning to smile at Celia, she added, “But you know we could always take a nap in the afternoon like Grandmother does sometimes, and then we could stay up later at night.”

“Oh no, not me,” Celia protested, going over to the bureau to brush her hair.

“Anyway, we’ll make it to breakfast on time,” Mandie said, looking in the floor-length mirror to check her dress.

The girls did make it on time, but without a minute to spare. As they got to the bottom of the staircase, they saw Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton going through the doorway into the dining room. They rushed in right behind them. Mandie noticed Juan was presiding over the coffeepot again.

As soon as the meal was over, Mrs. Taft told the girls, “The senator and I have some business to attend to in town, Amanda, so you and Celia entertain yourselves while we’re gone. We should return by noon.”

“Is it all right if we take Snowball for a walk around the neighborhood?” Mandie asked.