The Boxcar Children Mysteries: Books One through Twelve (79 page)

“A woman!” she whispered. “What do you suppose she is doing here?”

“She’s going away at least,” answered Jessie. “We certainly don’t need to get Benny down again. And Watch is quiet. Look, Violet. She is hiding behind those bushes before she goes up the street.”

The street was empty. The stores were dark. Very soon the woman went quietly up the road and out of sight. The two girls went back to bed and fell asleep.

About dawn Watch growled softly. But everyone was sleeping deeply. No one awoke.

In the morning Jessie called everyone to breakfast out on the rocks.

“I know my place,” said Benny, “on account of the B.”

When everything was eaten, the girls told their strange story about the woman.

Mr. Alden said, “I think we had better look that little house over. Everyone can help. Try each board to see if it is loose.”

The Aldens began with the front windows and found everything tight. The door was locked. There was no loose window board. Watch trotted along quietly and did not bark.

“It’s funny,” said Jessie, “that Watch doesn’t bark.”

“Maybe there’s nothing for him to bark at now,” said Mr. Alden. “Certainly this house is shut tight.”

“Hey! Look at this!” said Henry suddenly. He caught a sheet of paper that was blowing down to the sand. The paper was marked into little squares. There were numbers and strange letters in each. Sometimes there were question marks.

“That doesn’t mean a thing to me,” said Jessie.

“Me either,” agreed Henry. “But I think somebody is pretty clever. It looks like college science work, but I don’t understand it. It’s not in my studies so far.”

“Just as if someone were testing something,” said Violet slowly. “Like an experiment.”

“Exactly!” cried Henry. He smiled at his little sister. “But how does it fit in with cooking smells and your seeing a woman at night?”

“Keep that paper, Henry,” said Mr. Alden as they went back to the rocks.

Just then Violet spoke of the shells.

“The beach is covered with them,” cried Benny

He jumped off the rocks to the sand. “I know this one. It’s a clam shell, and this one is a scallop shell.”

“Here’s a queer one,” said Jessie. “It has five toes.”

“That’s a cat’s paw,” said Mr. Alden. “See how many kinds we can find.”

Mr. Alden knew all about shells, as well as about birds and flowers.

They found a snail shell, a slipper shell, and gold and silver colored shells. In all they found fourteen different kinds.

“There’s plenty of seaweed here, too,” Benny said. “But who would want to collect that? Maybe that cross boy would find it interesting.”

“This makes me think of Blue Bay,” said Violet, smiling. “We ate out of shells there.”

“But this is safer for swimming than Blue Bay,” said Henry. “No sharks here.”

Jessie said slowly, “It’s too bad we don’t have swim suits. I suppose four new suits would cost too much.”

“No,” said her grandfather, “you need new ones anyway. And you mustn’t be on the beach and not go swimming.”

“Maybe Mr. Hall has some suits,” Jessie went on. “He has almost everything.”

She smiled to think of suits and groceries and everything else mixed together in the little store.

They put their shells on the rock table and walked over to the store.

“No,” said Mr. Hall, “I haven’t any swim suits. But there is a lady down the street who sells hats. She has suits, too. You’ll see the sign as you go out.”

Benny said, “I saw the sign when I came in. It said ‘
HATS
’—and that’s where we go to buy bathing suits? That’s funny.”

“Well,” said Mr. Hall with a laugh, “my sign says ‘
GROCERIES
’ and people come here to buy paint and wallpaper.”

They went out of the store and down the street.

The dock was near by and Benny pulled Henry over to see the boats. “Look at that one,” he said. “She’s a beauty. Her name’s Sea Cook II.”

Henry said, “I guess a boat like that isn’t too big for one man to run. You’re right, Benny, she is a beauty.”

Just then Jessie and Violet called to the boys. The girls were more interested in suits than boats. The boys saw Grandfather waiting with, the girls. Together the Aldens looked in the window of the hat shop. There were beautiful summer hats in the window—and one suit. It was blue.

“There’s your suit, Jessie, if it fits,” said Henry. “Of course, Ben wants red.”

“Right,” said Benny. “Red is my color.”

The lady in the hat shop smiled to see the whole family coming in. She said her name was Mrs. Ross.

Suddenly Henry looked out of the window. The black-eyed man was going by.

“Do you know who that man is?” Henry asked.

“Oh, yes, indeed. His name is Tom Cook.”

“What does he do for a living?” asked Mr. Alden.

“He’s really a fisherman. But sometimes the fishing is poor, so he works on odd jobs. They say he has made a fortune selling lobsters and renting houses to the summer people.”

“He doesn’t look it, does he?” said Henry. “He looks poor.”

“He saves his money,” said Mrs. Ross. “He won’t spend a cent. He has a fine boat and he won’t let his son use it, and his son is no little boy. He’s seventeen years old already.”

An idea hit Benny, but he didn’t say anything aloud. The man was a Mr. Cook. That beautiful boat was the Sea Cook II. It must be the blackeyed man’s boat.

Henry was thinking, too. That first day they had met Mr. Hall and rented the lighthouse—hadn’t he said a man named Cook had bought the summer kitchen? Maybe here was another clue.

“Too bad,” said Jessie.

“Yes, it’s too bad. The boy does use it, though. People say that he is always taking that boat out after dark. They say he has some fancy idea in his head. Nobody knows what it is. He always comes back carrying something. Sometimes it is a small thing like a jar, and sometimes a great big thing like a barrel. At least that’s what I’m told.”

“I wonder what it is?” said Benny.

“I haven’t the least idea,” said Mrs. Ross. “He goes way out. Out of sight. His father doesn’t know he takes the boat, though how the boy has kept him from finding out, I don’t know.”

“I bet some day he’s going to find out,” said Benny. “Then there will be trouble.”

“Trouble?” cried Mrs. Ross. “There’s enough trouble already in that house between Mr. Cook and his son. The mother stands up for the boy. The father will hardly speak to his own son.”

“Why?” asked Mr. Alden.

“Well, you see this boy is very smart. He finished high school at sixteen. He’s been just hanging around ever since. His father won’t let him work. Too proud. And the boy wants to go away to college. His father won’t let him.”

“Oh, my!” said Benny. “That’s the cross boy we saw in the store, and the cross man with the black eyes is his father. That explains a lot, doesn’t it, Grandfather?”

“Yes, Benny. Those two will always be in trouble unless we do something about it.”

“Did you say ‘we’?” asked Henry in surprise.

“Yes,
we,”
answered Mr. Alden with a smile.

T
he Aldens went right back to their lighthouse with the new suits. They put them on at once and went out to their own little white beach.

“Be careful now,” said Mr. Alden. “You don’t know this beach, and you must find out how deep the water is.”

“Mr. Hall says it is very deep on the other side of the lighthouse,” said Henry. “But it is not over your head on this side. I asked him.”

“I like it deep,” said Benny, swimming away.

Every one of the Aldens could swim very well. Henry and Jessie could dive. But this was no place to dive. It was too rocky.

The water was cool, but the day was hot. Mr. Alden sat in his own rock chair and watched the swimmers. They threw water and swam under water. Even Watch swam around, barking for fun.

“You bark all you want to now, Watch,” said Violet, laughing. “Just keep still at midnight tonight.” She really had no idea that Watch would bark every single night.

That night the family sat up late. It was dark when Benny went climbing up to his top floor. He put on light blue pajamas and went out on his little lookout. He sat down in a beach chair.

Benny did not know that he showed up plainly in the moonlight in his light pajamas.

He was looking at the stars. They looked very bright here because there were no street lights. Then one star moved. Soon Benny knew that it was not a star but a light on a boat. The boat was coming in. Suddenly the boat stopped and turned around and went out to sea again.

“Well, well,” thought Benny. “Whoever he is, he changed his mind.”

Ideas began to spin around in Benny’s head. He remembered what Mrs. Ross in the hat shop had said. He thought about seeing the Sea Cook at the dock.

Then next he thought, “I wonder if he saw me from his boat. I bet he did. I bet it’s our Cook boy with his father’s boat. That boat is certainly a beauty.”

Benny jumped up to turn out his light. He put on a dark coat and watched at the window. Very soon the boat turned around again and came in to the dock not far from the lighthouse. It looked like a man who jumped out. But Benny knew that the Cook boy was as big as a man. Benny watched him as he bent over his boat. He took out a pail.

“A pail this time,” thought Benny. “I do wonder what is in it.”

But he didn’t find out. The boy looked all around. The whole town had gone to bed. The boy took the pail and disappeared up the street. Benny went to bed. If he had watched a little longer he would have seen more. But he was soon asleep.

At midnight Watch began to bark.

“Oh, my, Watch!” cried Jessie. “I guess you are going to bark every night. But you’ll stop in about ten minutes. So bark away.”

That is just what the dog did. He barked and howled for ten minutes and then he went back to sleep.

Violet said, “You’re just like a baby, Watch! You wake us up every night crying.”

Several hours later Watch growled softly but nobody heard.

For the next few days no one was surprised to hear Watch bark during the night. No one got up. They knew Watch would bark for about ten minutes and then he would stop.

But one morning Henry said, “I don’t like it, just the same.” He frowned. “The dog must hear something.”

The girls said they had seen the woman again going away very quietly. She had a bag in her hand.

Henry said, “I am going to find out why that woman comes here. I’m going to hunt all over this point of land.”

“We’ll help you,” said Jessie.

On the other side of the lighthouse, behind the little summer kitchen, there were enormous rocks. The land went downhill to the water. The young Aldens hunted over every inch of land to find some way to get into the house. They found nothing.

Then Henry said, “Let’s look at those boards nailed over the windows. There must be a crack somewhere. Maybe we can see in.”

They all looked up at the windows. “Do you see that board high up?” asked Jessie, pointing. “There’s a big crack there, but it’s too high to see through.”

“Good for you, Jess,” said Henry. “I see what you mean. I am not tall enough, but Benny will be.”

“What do you mean?” asked Violet, laughing a little. “You are much taller than Benny.”

“Well, Ben,” said Henry, laughing, too, “I’ll bend over and you stand on my back and look through the crack.”

“Oh, boy!” said Benny. He climbed up on Henry’s back like a monkey and stood up. He put his hands around his eyes and peeked in the crack.

“I can see quite well,” Benny said, “because there is another big crack in the front door we didn’t find. Oh, somebody does cook here!” he shouted. “There is a stove and a frying pan on it. There are pails of water on the floor with something brown in the water. There’s a little microscope on the table. It’s no good. It’s too small. I bet it cost about three dollars. Then there are a lot of papers with little squares like the one we found. Books and other stuff, too.”

“Good!” said Jessie in excitement. “See if you can tell what is in the pails.”

“It’s seaweed,” cried Benny. “It’s all over the floor, and some is hanging over the edge of the kettle near the stove.”

“What a queer thing,” said Violet. “I wonder what it all means.”

“Certainly it means that somebody comes here at night and makes the dog bark,” said Henry.

“That woman?” asked Jessie.

“You sound funny, Henry, upside down,” said Benny. “There are plates and cups on the shelf and it looks like a bag of flour.”

“Better get down now, Ben,” said Henry. “You are getting heavy.”

Benny jumped down lightly.

“There was one pail under the window I couldn’t see very well,” said Benny. “But it looked as if there’s something glowing in it.”

“Glowing?” asked Henry. “What can that be? Wait a minute. Do you remember how we saw something glowing in the water near Blue Bay? It was plankton, I think.”

“I bet it is,” said Benny. “We saw that under the microscope going to Blue Bay. All tiny fishes and eggs and things you can’t see.”

“That’s what the microscope here is for,” said Henry slowly. “To study the plankton and seaweed.”