Michael was waiting for us at The Corners at five that afternoon. He had left the horses tied there in order not to attract attention to our visit to Craven House. “Haven’t seen anything more of Bangs, have you?” was his first question.

Eve shook her head.

“Well, he’s left Trap’s,” Michael said. “I went in there just now and inquired for him. They said he departed the day after he came and they don’t know anything about him. Didn’t leave any address or say where he was going.”

“Then he never got his letter back,” I said. “It must be at the Inn now.”

“No, it isn’t, I’ve got it in my pocket. I just told old man Trap that a friend of mine had mailed a letter to him and that, as long as they didn’t know where he was, I thought this person would like to have it back. So he just handed it out without a word and here it is.”

“Oh, I’m glad you got it,” exclaimed Eve. “For after what Captain Trout told us this afternoon, I can’t help thinking maybe it is important.”

“So you’ve been talking to the Captain?” Michael queried.

“Yes, you see it was Daisy June’s doing,” Eve began.

“The kitten you left on our doorstep this morning,” I put in. “That was a marvelous idea of yours, Michael!”

“Say, did it work?” he demanded eagerly. “Did your aunt really take to it?”

“Aunt Cal? Not on your life! It was Captain Trout. We left Daisy June asleep on his knee with every appearance of being settled for life. And when Adam saw her, he just walked out—came back to us!”

Michael threw back his head and roared. We went on to tell him what Captain Trout had told about Judd Craven and the blue emerald. He nodded, “I guess everybody around here has heard of old Captain Judd,” he said.

“But Aunt Cal has never mentioned him to us,” I said. “Though I did fancy she looked sort of funny the other day when we told her about being locked in the old house. I expect maybe she knows it well.”

“Wills make a lot of trouble, don’t they?” I went on. “Whether one makes one or doesn’t, it seems to be always the same. Bad feeling of some kind.”

Michael grinned at this. “Well, what would you do about it?” he inquired.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess maybe it’s better not to have anything to leave when you die. Then your relatives and friends will go on loving you.”

“Yeah, or forget you entirely,” he retorted cynically.

We had been climbing the hill as we talked and had come once more to the tumbling stone wall which bordered the Craven property. We climbed over it and made our way through the tall grass and bushes to the spot where we had found Mr. Bangs and his measuring tape two weeks before. The grass was considerably trampled around the stone figure but, at first glance, that was the only sign that anybody had been near the spot.

Michael dropped on his knees and at once set to work examining the ground. Presently he took a tape measure from his pocket and began measuring. “You look,” remarked Eve, “quite like Mr. Bangs himself, except that you’ve got more hair on your head.”

Michael paid no attention. He measured thirteen feet and six inches south from the statue. Then, turning west at a right angle, counted off another seven feet. “There,” he exclaimed at last, “that ought to be the spot, if any!”

We were kneeling beside him now, all three of us, bent eagerly over the matted grass. Suddenly Michael’s finger dug into the earth and he lifted bodily forth a big square of ragged turf. “Why!” I stammered, “how queer!”

“Golly!” cried Eve. “He’s dug here already! We—we’re too late!”

“You mean he fitted the turf back like that to cover his tracks?” I cried with rising indignation.

“Looks like it,” returned Michael, gazing down at the newly disturbed earth. “Naturally he didn’t want to leave traces of his operations for anyone to see. Especially after you two came spying on him.”

“The old villain! What right has he got to Captain Judd’s treasure, I’d like to know!”

Michael looked up with his quizzical grin. “Did you really expect to find treasure buried here?” he asked.

“W-well,” I stammered, somewhat embarrassed by the amusement in his gray eyes. “After what Captain Trout told us—I mean about the blue emerald and all——”

“Oh, that!” returned Michael scornfully. “That story sounds pretty fishy to me.”

“But there must have been something here,” put in Eve. “Or else Mr. Bangs wouldn’t have been carrying around those measurements and all.”

“If you didn’t believe there was anything, why did you bother to come up here and look?” I demanded a little hotly.

“Well,” he returned slowly, “I was curious to know what the fellow was up to for one thing. Then,” he grinned again, “I knew you girls wouldn’t sleep nights till you’d had a look.”

“Oh, is that so!” I retorted haughtily. “Of course, we’re just a couple of weak, credulous females——”

Michael paid no heed to my ill temper. He had drawn the letter out of his pocket and was studying it. “I’d give a lot,” he remarked, “to know who wrote this!”

“What I can’t understand,” mused Eve, “is this: why, if Mr. Bangs found what he was after, was he so anxious to get the letter back? Anxious enough, in fact, to break into Aunt Cal’s house last night to look for it?”

Michael shot her an approving glance. “That’s just the point that has me guessing,” he said. “It rather looks to me as if the fellow’s excavations didn’t prove successful after all.”

“But he had the measurements right—we’ve proved that, haven’t we?”

Michael nodded. He seemed to be thinking deeply.

Suddenly Eve got up and wandered over to the blackened stone figure. She stood with her back to us for several minutes, examining it. At last she turned around. “Suppose,” she said slowly, looking down to where Michael and I were sitting, our backs propped against the bowl of the fountain, “suppose this isn’t the statue of Circe after all!”

“What!” Michael was on his feet like a flash. “I say,” he cried, “that’s an idea! Maybe the old fellow got the wrong statue!”

“You see,” went on Eve, “Captain Trout told us there were several statues which Captain Judd brought home from his travels. He said there was one of Diana and one of Mercury. And this statue, even though it is so dingy and weatherbeaten, looks to me a lot more like Mercury than anyone else. Look, you can see the places where the wings were broken off on his back.”

“Gee, Eve, you’re dead right!” Michael cried appreciatively. “Pretty dumb of me not to notice that myself!” It was the first time that Michael had addressed either of us directly by our first names. I felt that it was a tribute to Eve’s intelligence.

“We simply took it for granted that it was the right statue,” Eve continued. “And, of course, our friend Bangs couldn’t be expected to know a great deal about mythology. I suppose one statue looks pretty much like another to a fellow like him.”

“Then the thing to do,” I burst in excitedly, “is to find the right one—the missing Circe! She surely must be somewhere around.”

The garden, as I have said, was so overgrown with weeds, tall grass, rambling rosebushes and every other variety of shrub that the space around the fountain where Mr. Bangs had made his measurements was practically the only clear spot in sight. But we now set to work to make a thorough search of the entire place. But though we combed it from one end to the other, startling toads from their lairs and stirring up swarms of mosquitoes, we found not the slightest trace of any other statue.

We were so absorbed in our search that none of us had noticed the swiftly darkening sky till Eve exclaimed suddenly, “Goodness, it’s going to rain.”

“Sure is,” Michael agreed, emerging from a thicket of blackberry bushes, with a scratch across one cheek. “Guess Circe’ll have to stay wherever she’s hiding for tonight. I’ll run on ahead and get the wagon and meet you.”

The drops were already beginning to fall before we reached him. “Better get in behind,” he ordered, “and put this blanket over your heads.”

It was pouring by the time we reached Fishers Haven. Michael did not let us out at the farmhouse as he had done before but drove on to Aunt Cal’s gate. There was no time for any further plans that night. We just called out our thanks and made a dash for the house. But I was sure that Michael would not be satisfied until he had fathomed the mystery of the old garden, whatever it was. For my own part, I was determined to go back and continue the search at the earliest possible moment.