Back at the house we heard the whole story. The man Jo had gone back to work but Michael still lingered. Hamish had taken a long drink of Craven House well water in bold defiance of Hattie May’s warning that it was practically sure to be full of deadly germs; his attitude being, I think, that after what he’d been through a germ more or less was of trifling moment. He was seated on an old wooden bench at the back door. Hattie May had wiped some of the mud from his face but it still had a grayish unhealthy cast.

“How in the world did you happen to go way out there?” It was Michael who got the story going.

“It was on account of those cops,” Hamish said. “I was tryin’ to get to the place where I’d parked my car ’thout runnin’ into ’em. You see after they got you——”

“Were you in the house too?” Michael interrupted.

Hamish shook his head. “No, I was outside but I heard most everything that went on. I got here ’bout ten o’clock last night. You see I had kind of a hunch that that Bangs fellow wasn’t through with the place, after me runnin’ into him in Millport selling that hair tonic. I said to myself, ‘He’s still on the trail of sumpin or I miss my guess.’”

“Yeah.” Michael nodded understandingly. “Go on.”

“Well I parked my car up the road in that little lane that runs through somebody’s orchard. Then I came back here to the house. I hid out in the bushes there to sort of reconnoiter and I hadn’t been there more’n a few minutes when sure enough along comes a car. It stopped down the road a bit and after a while I spied a man comin’ through the bushes, making for the back door. I recognized him even though it was dark—it was Bangs.”

“Oh, Hamish, weren’t you scared to death?” cried Hattie May.

“Scared of what?” inquired her brother. “There was I lyin’ low behind a bush—he hadn’t seen me.”

“Oh, go on,” I urged, “what happened then?”

“Well he unlocks the door, goes inside and locks it after him. ‘All right, mister,’ I says to myself, ‘that’s all I wanted to know. Now I’ll just buzz over to Millport and get a cop and you can do some explaining!’”

Michael grinned wryly. “But you didn’t have to!” he put in.

“Gosh no! I hadn’t any more than got to the front wall creepin’ along so’s not to make a sound when, boy, ’long comes another car. I guess you know who that was,” he looked at Michael. “It stopped down the road about where the first one had, near as I could judge. Bye and bye I heard voices. I picked me a bush close by the house and lay down again. The voices got nearer. One of the fellows had a flash and I saw they were cops, two of ’em.”

“Oh, Hamish, what did you do then?”

“Do? I just lay low and listened. I could hear every word they said. One of ’em went to the back door and one to the front. Pretty soon I heard the back door crash in—that was the husky one did that,” again he looked at Michael and again, surprisingly, Michael nodded confirmation.

“Well so they got in and I could hear them walkin’ round through the house. Say, get me another drink.”

Michael brought the water. “Oh, do go on,” Hattie May said impatiently. “What did the villain do when they got him?”

Hamish finished the glass of water before he replied. “They didn’t get him at all,” he said dramatically. “They got Michael instead! Can you imagine that?”

“Michael!” All of us turned upon the other boy as if expecting him to deny this astounding statement. But he only nodded gravely. “But—but I don’t understand,” Eve cried, “what were you doing in the house?”

Michael gave a shrug. “Oh, it’s just a mess,” he said gloomily. “The worst I ever got into, I guess. You see I had the same sort of hunch as Hamish. After he told of seeing Bangs in Millport, I suspected right away that he was still hanging around for a reason and that that reason was somehow connected with this place. I thought if he did any more digging, he’d probably do it at night. So I rode out here last night on my bicycle and climbed into that upstairs window that you girls left unlocked.”

“Oh, wasn’t it awfully spooky!” I cried.

Michael gave a wry laugh. “No, it was quite peaceful—for a while. I poked around some with my flash to make sure the house was empty and then sat down by the window to wait in case Mr. Bangs should turn up. Well, everything might have been all right if it hadn’t been for the fool idea I’d had—” he hesitated, looking rather sheepish. “Well, you see, I’d had the brilliant idea of trying to disguise myself.”

“Disguise yourself!” Eve cried. “But how?”

“Well I had that wig I’d pulled off Bangs that night I chased him—I suppose it was that that gave me the idea. I thought it would prevent anyone’s recognizing me in case I was seen coming in here. So I fixed myself up with this wig and a straw hat and an old suit of Al’s. I found an old pair of spectacles around the house too.”

I giggled. “You must have looked rather like Bangs himself!”

“That’s just the dickens of it—I did! Too much so—enough at least to fool the police!”

“You don’t mean they took you for that villain—not actually?” cried Hattie May incredulously.

“They sure did!”

“But what did they want him for?” I asked. “Was it the hair tonic?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. It seems he picked up a car somewhere in Millport Saturday afternoon, drove it out here last night and hid it in the woods up the road. Then he came here to the house to pass the night.”

“You mean he stole a car—Oh, Michael, how terrible!” cried Eve.

“Well, it was bad luck for me, at any rate!”

“But surely you can prove that you didn’t take it,” I put in. “Surely it will be easy enough to clear yourself!”

“Well, I haven’t convinced ’em yet,” returned Michael sombrely. “You see it was this way. Seems somebody saw Bangs take the car around five o’clock that afternoon and turned in a report to the police. Said the thief had thick bushy hair and wore horn-rimmed glasses. The cops traced the car out this way somehow—they didn’t inform me how—and found it hidden in the woods. Then they came on to the house, broke in, and found me hiding in the hall closet, wearing a wig and spectacles. That’s all there is to it.”

“But didn’t you tell them?” I protested.

“Why, naturally! But it didn’t get me anywhere. They just laughed at me. Wanted to know what I was doing in the house and so forth. I told them about Bangs and that he was in the house too because I’d heard him come in just before. That was when I got into the closet. They pretended to make a search of the house but they didn’t find him. They didn’t expect to—they thought I was spoofing them.”

“Yeah and where was he—that’s what I’d like to know?” Hamish spoke for the first time since Michael had begun his story.

“I haven’t any idea—I suppose he was hiding somewhere.”

Hattie May gave a startled glance toward the open kitchen door as if she half expected the form of Mr. Bangs to emerge at any moment.

“Of course he’s had plenty of time to make a getaway now,” Michael went on. “He’s had all night.”

“But when they found you, did they—did you——?” I began hesitatingly.

“Yeah they took me over to the Millport jail,” returned Michael stoically. “I phoned Al, my cousin, and he came over about midnight and got me out. But I’ve got to go to court on Thursday when the case comes up.”

“To c-court?” Eve’s eyes were harrowed. “But can’t anything be done—your folks at home——?”

Michael shook his head, his lips were set. “I’m not going to tell them,” he stated. “I’ll take what’s coming to me.”

“But they can’t convict you of something you never did,” I broke in. “Why, it’s all too absurd!”

“Well, I don’t know. You see it’s going to be sort of hard to explain what I was doing in an empty house in the middle of the night. And if Bangs has left the country——” he shrugged.

“Wouldn’t it do some good if we were all to go over to Millport and tell the—the judge or whoever it is, that you were with us Saturday afternoon on the beach?” Eve asked.

Michael shook his head positively. “I wouldn’t have you get mixed up in it for anything,” he said. “Besides they would simply think you were my friends trying to help me out of a tight hole. They’d only have your word that I was with you, you see.”

Eve digested this. It was rather a new idea, I suppose, that her word might not be good for much in a court of law.

Michael got up. “Well I’ve got to be getting back to work,” he said. “How do you feel, Hamish? All right?”

“I’m awful hungry!” said Hamish.

“Poor Hamish!” Eve cried. “Here we’ve been sitting talking while you were starving to death! And after that awful night!”

“Well it was kind of messy down there,” Hamish said. “It was lucky the bally old well was half filled up or I might have been a goner. You see I landed on a lot of leaves and old junk that had been thrown down there to get rid of it, I s’pose. So I just made myself as comfortable as I could and waited for daylight. I figured that somebody’d be along lookin’ for me soon as it got light. But it was kind of tiresome waitin’.”

“Tiresome! I think you had pretty good nerve!” I said. We all got up. “Hope my car’s all right,” Hamish said, “I guess I’ll get me one of those Turkish baths up at the hotel after I’ve had dinner.”