We tried to sew carpet rags that afternoon but it was rather a farce. So much had happened that morning that it seemed impossible to settle down to anything so prosaic. We kept talking of Michael and his awful predicament, and racking our brains to think of some way of helping him. Eve was inclined to blame Hamish for his part in the affair, for not coming forward when he saw Michael being taken into custody and vouching for his identity. But I pointed out that Hamish himself would have had some explaining to do and would probably have only made matters worse by trying to account for Michael’s presence in the house.

We had of course told Aunt Cal the whole story but, though she had been rather decent about the dandelion wine, she had not displayed very much sympathy either for Michael or Hamish. Her attitude was that they had got no more than they deserved for meddling in things that didn’t concern them. I felt that Aunt Cal was being rather unjust for after all Michael had only been seeking to aid the cause of justice.

Beyond the hedge I caught sight of Captain Trout’s bald head gleaming in the sun. He waved a pruning knife at us and I said, “Let’s go over and tell him about Michael. Perhaps he’ll be able to think of something to do.”

The Captain greeted us cordially and invited us to take seats on his back porch. “We thought you ought to know,” Eve said, “about the trouble that Michael is in.”

“Michael in trouble?” The Captain’s astonishment was evident. “Dear me! Bless my boots! The finest boy in the world!”

This was comforting to hear at least. The Captain listened as we gave him an outline of the story. “Bless my boots!” he exclaimed again when we had finished. “Why those police are asses! What do they mean not believing the boy’s story—don’t they know he’s a Gilpatrick?”

“They don’t seem to consider it important,” I said. “And Michael declares he won’t go to his family for help.”

The Captain nodded understandingly. “That’s like him,” he said. “His mother would be upset and his grandfather, too, I expect. A grandson of Jason Gilpatrick accused of stealing—why it’s absurd!”

“Isn’t Michael’s father living?” I asked.

Captain Trout shook his head. “Killed in the war,” he said shortly. He seemed to be thinking deeply. “Well,” he said at last, “I’ll have to see what can be done—I’ll have to tell those guardians of the law a thing or two!”

Well at least we had done what we could for Michael; though, as we talked it over, we wondered if the Captain’s sputtering protestations would really have any effect in a court of law. What Michael needed was proof and that, alas, he didn’t have.

At last I flung down the blue calico strip I was sewing to another of black and white check. “I hate the very sight of these miserable rags!” I exclaimed. “Let’s go somewhere and do something quick before I chuck them all in the brook!”

Eve laughed. “We might go down to the Inn and inquire about Hamish,” she suggested. “After his frightful experience he may be in a state of collapse.”

We found Hattie May on the veranda at Wildwood Lodge, waiting, she told us, for Hamish to come out of the barber shop of the hotel next door. “I sent him to get a shampoo,” she said, “his hair was such a mess.”

“How is he feeling?” I inquired. “Fully recovered, I hope.”

“Oh, yes, he’s all right—physically, that is!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I just mean that he’s still acting kind of preoccupied.”

“It’s the shock,” Eve said. “Really you can’t be surprised.”

Hattie May shook her head. “There’s something he wants to do,” she said, “but he won’t tell me what it is. But he’s determined to go back to that terrible place again right away!”

“What! Go back to Craven House? Gracious, I should think he’d never want to see the place again!”

“I know. But he insists there’s something he’s got to see about. He says he was so hungry this morning that he couldn’t attend to it. That’s why I’m watching the door of the hotel, to be sure he doesn’t get away again without me!”

We sat down to wait. And it was not long before we saw the figure of Hamish emerge from the hotel. He cast a furtive glance in the direction of the Lodge and then, in response to his sister’s frantic summons, came slowly down the steps toward us. “What kept you so long?” Hattie May inquired sharply.

“Oh, I thought I’d have the whole works while I was about it,” he said. “Turkish bath, shampoo, oil treatment, face steamin’ and manicure!”

“Heavens, no wonder you look like a boiled rabbit!”

Hamish took out his watch. “Well, I got to be gettin’ along,” he said with an attempt at casualness. “So long, I’ll be seein’ you.”

As her brother’s form disappeared around the corner of the building, Hattie May got up. “Come on,” she whispered, and tiptoed down the steps. In single file we passed around the veranda and, keeping well under cover of the various barns and garages in the rear, came presently to the main road, just across which are the row of tin garages in one of which Hamish kept his car. He was just unlocking the door when he looked around and saw us. “What’s the big idea?” he inquired ungraciously.

“The idea,” answered his sister, “is that we’re going along. You don’t think for a minute that I’m going to let you go out to that place alone again?”

Hamish’s answer was unintelligible and he was still muttering to himself as he got into his seat. However he waited, though unwillingly, while the rest of us disposed ourselves—his sister beside him, Eve and I in the rumble. For my own part, I had little desire to take part in the expedition. If Hamish hadn’t had enough of Craven House, I had. Besides I wondered what Aunt Cal was going to think of more “meddling” on our part.

Hamish maintained an injured silence during the greater part of the drive. And to my inquiry as to whether he had heard anything more from Michael, he shook his head and replied shortly, “Been sleepin’.”

The day was hot and as we left the freshness of the sea behind, the heat increased by the minute. So we came again within the shadow of the old house. The sweetness of the honeysuckle was almost overpowering. I felt a sudden aversion to the place. All its air of romantic mystery had departed. I hated it because it had given shelter to that villain and ensnared Michael and yes, because it had brought disappointment and disillusion to Aunt Cal. “I think I’ll just wait in the car,” I said.

“Oh, Sandy, what for?” Eve cried. And Hattie May added, “Haven’t got cold feet have you?”

This of course was too absurd to answer. Nevertheless it compelled me to get reluctantly out of the car and follow the others over the wall. Hamish was in the lead but with Hattie May panting closely at his heels. He vouchsafed no explanation as to where he was headed or what his purpose was. And for my own part I didn’t care much. I was sick of the whole subject of buried treasure and wished heartily at that moment that we had never opened Mr. Bangs’ smelly old suitcase. It had been just like Pandora’s box, I reflected bitterly, for nothing but trouble had come out of it.

But if it was treasure that Hamish was intent upon, at least he was seeking it in a new spot. For he passed rapidly through the garden and plunged into the underbrush beyond. “Well,” I said determinedly, “I’m not going to get myself all scratched and bitten up again. I’ll wait here by the fountain and if any of you fall down any wells, don’t expect me to do anything about it.”

“All right,” said Hattie May. “But I’ve got to keep Hamish in sight.” And Eve added, “I guess I’d better go along to look after Hattie May.”

So they left me and I heard their voices die away in the distance. I took out my handkerchief and mopped my hot face. I wished that the fountain were playing so that I could have stuck my head into its cooling spray. By and by I heard the others returning. Hattie May’s voice was high-pitched and excited but that was nothing unusual.

Hamish was in the lead, he was carrying something under one arm. I looked at Eve and saw that she too was excited. “Well I see you’re all here,” I remarked.

Hamish walked to the bowl of the fountain and set down the thing he was carrying. “What is it?” I asked. And then, “Why, it’s a statue! Where did you get it?”

“Hamish’s found it!” Hattie May cried. “He’s found the Circe!”

“The Circe!” In truth I had almost forgotten about the missing statue. “Why—where in the world——?”

“It was at the bottom of that awful well!” Hattie May cried.

“I brought it up with me when they hauled me up this morning,” Hamish explained, taking off his glasses to wipe them. “I guess you were all too excited to notice it. It was pretty heavy so I just dropped it in the grass and left it. Bein’ without my spectacles, I couldn’t be sure what it was. You see when Hattie May dropped that bottle down it hit on a stone and broke to smithereens. This was the stone, that’s how I happened to find it.”

Hattie May threw me a triumphant look. “Don’t you think it’s the Circe, Sandy?” Eve asked. “You see the arms are broken off but one of them is lifted just as if it might have been holding a wand.”

It was true. The little figure was smaller than the other one in the garden and it was so blackened by age that the features were hardly discernible. But there was no doubt that it was a woman’s figure and that one arm had been upraised. In spite of myself, I felt a queer shivery thrill as I gazed at it. “But where did it come from?” I demanded eagerly. “Where did it stand?”

“That,” said Eve, “is just what we’ve got to find out. There simply must be a pedestal somewhere that we’ve overlooked. It certainly was never set up down by that old well, nobody would put a statue in a vacant lot.”

“And when we find where she stood,” put in Hamish, “then we’ll know where to dig!”

Almost with one accord we all got up again and set out on another tour of the garden. We had already raked it pretty thoroughly but this time we had something definite to urge us on. We had discovered the enchantress, there remained only to discover her resting place.

Back and forth we wandered, poking at every tangle of bushes and clump of thick grass, kicking at every fallen tree branch. In his zeal, Hamish even began turning up the slabs of stone which had once formed a walk as if he expected to find some clue tucked away with the horrid white crawly things underneath.

Discouraged at last, I came back to the fountain. After all, I told myself, I didn’t really believe in the buried treasure. Michael didn’t, I knew, and I was pretty sure he was right. Still I did wish we could find where the statue had stood just—well just for the satisfaction of knowing. But though Hamish and the others were still plunging madly about, the search seemed as hopeless as it had from the first. Indeed the discovery of the statue had really helped matters little.

Where would one put a Circe, I wondered? A small, graceful figure like that? On a pedestal of course—but where? Somewhere where she would not be overlooked, I thought—some conspicuous place——

And then, in a flash of inspiration, my eyes turned to the center of the fountain. In imagination I saw her there—lithe, poised, with arm upraised! And from that vanished wand, I was suddenly sure, had come the jets of water which had played in the sunshine of those bygone summers!

“Eve! Hamish!” I cried excitedly. Picking up the statue, I stepped across the leaf-filled bowl. I reached up and set it there in the middle. “Look!” I shouted, “It fits—fits perfectly!”

“It sure does!” I swung around to see Michael Gilpatrick advancing toward me. In our absorption none of us had heard the approach of his wagon. In a minute the others came running at the sound of my excited summons.

“Oh, Sandy,” Eve cried, “how clever of you! How did you happen to think of it?”

“My aunt!” There was a grudging admiration in Hamish’s voice as he gazed at the upright figure. “It sure looks as if that was the place all right. I was just thinkin’ of having a look at the fountain myself——”

Eve gave him a scathing glance. “But look here!” cried Hattie May. “If that’s the right place where are we going to dig? We can’t dig up the fountain!”

“We won’t have to, silly,” said her brother. “It’s thirteen and a half feet south of it that we’ve got to measure.” He pulled a tape line from his pocket as he spoke. “There’s a shovel hidden under that lilac bush by the road,” he said to Michael. “I brought it with me last night.”

“Preparedness is your motto!” laughed Michael. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten or thrown aside the trouble that was hanging over him.

By the time he had brought the shovel, Hamish had located the spot to his satisfaction. It turned out to be directly under a pink rosebush whose bushes hung thickly to the ground. But Hamish was not to be daunted by a few thorns.

“I wonder how deep down it’ll be!” breathed Hattie May as Hamish’s shovel began to scratch at the hard turf. “I’m glad you came along, Michael, in case it’s very deep.”

“Michael doesn’t believe there’s anything there,” I said.

“Not any buried treasure? Well, I’d like to know what all those measurements mean then and why?”

Michael didn’t answer. There was a whimsical smile on his tanned face as he stood watching Hamish clumsily manipulating the heavy shovel. After a few shovelsful of dirt had been piled in a heap on the grass with little to show for the effort except the steadily mounting color of Hamish’s face and the steam on his glasses, Michael offered, “Like me to take a hand?”

And still with that whimsical smile Michael set to work. And now the earth began to fly to some effect and the hole, which before had seemed to fill up almost as fast as the earth came out, now began to grow quite sizable. Hattie May stood at the very edge and watched each shovelful as it came out. I thought, “She’s going to be awfully let down if we don’t find anything.”

Five minutes went by—ten. Michael was breathing hard now, perspiration streaming down his face. “Better let me take it now,” Hamish said but the other shook his head.

Deeper and deeper. Finally Michael stopped to wipe his face. “If I was going to bury a blue emerald,” he remarked with a grin, “or even a green one, I wouldn’t bother to go much deeper than that!”

Hamish knelt down and thrust one of his lately manicured hands deep into the hole. “Feel anything?” his sister asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “It’s a washout,” he said disgustedly. “I don’t believe there ever was any bally old treasure!”

“Sure you got the measurements right?” Michael inquired with faint irony. The difference between his attitude and Hamish’s was that Hamish was in deadly earnest, while with Michael it was almost as if he was playing a game.

So perhaps it was only fair that it should be Hamish who was wielding the shovel when it finally did strike something. We all heard the impact. Hattie May screamed and began to jump up and down. Hamish dropped the shovel and dived, almost literally head first into the hole. “There goes his shampoo, too!” I thought.

“There—there’s something!” he gasped. “Some—something hard——!”

I giggled, I couldn’t help it. It was partly nervous excitement and partly the sense which had been with me all along of the ridiculousness of the whole proceeding. “That,” I said, “will be the iron bound chest full of doubloons and pieces of eight, no doubt!”

No one paid any attention to me. Hamish was groping desperately with his fingers. “I c-can’t—seem—to—get hold——!” he panted.

“Let me have a try?” Michael put in quietly. Reluctantly Hamish moved a little and, kneeling down in his turn, Michael thrust one bare brown arm into the hole. A minute later he was holding up a small, dirt-encased object. As he shook off the clinging earth, we saw an oblong tin box like a tobacco tin. I stared dazedly at it—“Royal Plug” I read.

Hamish seized the box from Michael’s hand. He shook it. It rattled! Hattie May screamed again. “It’s the emerald—the blue emerald!”

Hamish was prying at the lid with fumbling awkward fingers. His sister snatched at it impatiently. “It would take you a week to get that cover off!” she cried.

But the cover stuck obstinately. Michael took out his jackknife. “Perhaps this will do it,” he offered.