LITMIR.BIZ

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gold or jewels, I’ll wager. How do you get the thing undone?”

      “Here, let me try.” Rupert took it from Val’s hands and put it down on one of the chests, squatting on the floor before it. With the smallest blade of his penknife he delicately probed the fastening sunken in the wood.

      “I could do a faster job,” he remarked, “if you didn’t all breathe down the back of my neck.” They retreated two inches or so and waited impatiently. With a satisfied grunt he dropped his knife and pulled the lid up.

      “Why, there’s nothing in it!” Ricky’s cry of disappointment was almost a wail.

      “Nothing but that old torn lining.” Val was as disgusted as she.

      Rupert closed it again. “I’ll rub this up some and put in another lining. This is too good a piece to hide away up here,” and he put it carefully aside at the end of the hall.

      Their investigations yielded nothing more except great quantities of dust, a mummified rat which even Satan refused to sniff at, and a large collection of spider webs. Having swept out the room, they went to wash their hands before unpacking the well-wrapped boxes.

      When their swathing canvas and sacking was thrown aside, the boxes stood revealed as stout chests banded with iron. Charity paused before one. “This is a marriage chest, late seventeenth century, I would judge. Look there, under that carved leaf—isn’t that a date?”

      “Sixteen hundred ninety-three,” Rupert deciphered. “That crest above it looks familiar. I know, it belonged to that French lady who married our pirate ancestor.”

      “The first Lady Richanda!” Ricky touched the chest lovingly. “Then this is mine, Rupert. Can’t it be mine?” she coaxed.

      “Of course. But it’s locked, and as we don’t have any keys which would fit the lock, you’ll have to wait until we can get a locksmith out to work on it before you will know what’s inside.”

      “I don’t care. No,” she corrected herself, “that’s wrong; I do care. But anyway its mine!” She caressed the stiff carving with her fingers.

      “What’s this one?” Val turned to the second box. It, too, was fashioned of wood, but it was plain where the other was carved, and the iron bands across it were pitted with rust.

      “A sea chest, I would say.” Rupert touched the top gingerly. “By the feel, it’s locked too. And I don’t care to play around with it. The men who made things like these were too fond of having little poisoned fangs run into your hand when you tried to force the chest without knowing the trick. We’ll have to leave this for an expert, too.”

      “What about the third?”

      Charity laughed. “After your two treasures I’m afraid that this will be a disappointment.” She indicated a small humpbacked trunk covered with moth-eaten horsehair. “No romance here. But the key is tied to the clasp beside the lock.”

      “Then open it before I expire of pure unsatisfied curiosity,” Ricky begged. “Go on, Rupert. Hurry.”

      “Oh,” she said a moment later, “it’s full of nothing but a lot of books.”

      “What did you expect,” Val asked her, “a skeleton? Do you know, I think that Rick’s ghost, or whatever influence presides over this house, has a sense of humor. You find a room, or a trunk, or something which makes you feel that you are on the verge of getting what you want, and then it all fades into just nothing again. Now, by rights, that writing-desk should have contained the secret message which would have told us where to find a hidden passage or something. But what is in it? A couple of pieces of lining almost completely torn from the bottom. I’ll wager that when you open those chests you’ll find nothing but a brick or ‘April Fool’ scrawled across the inside. This isn’t true to any fiction I ever read,” he ended plaintively.

      “Good Heavens!” Charity was staring down at what lay within a portfolio she had opened.

      “Don’t tell me you have really found something!” Val exclaimed.

      “It can’t be true!” She still stared at what she held.

      Ricky looked over her shoulder. “Why, it’s nothing but a picture of a bird,” she observed.

      “It’s a genuine Audubon,” Charity corrected her.

      “What!” With little regard for manners, Rupert snatched the portfolio from her hands. “Are you sure?”

      “Yes. But you must take it in to the museum and get an expert opinion. It’s wonderful!”

      “Here’s another.” Reverently Rupert raised the first sketch and then the second. “Three, four, five, six,” he counted.

      “Was Audubon ever here?” Charity looked about the hall, a sort of awe coloring her voice.

      “He might easily have been when he lived in New Orleans. Though we have no record of it,” answered Rupert. “But these,” he closed the portfolio carefully and knotted its strings, “speak for themselves. I’ll take them to LeFleur tomorrow. We can’t allow them to lie about here.”

      “I should hope not!” Charity eyed the portfolio wistfully. “Imagine actually owning six of those—”

      “They won’t pay our bills,” said Ricky, practical for once in her life. Treasure to Ricky was not half a dozen sketches on yellowed paper but good old-fashioned gold with a few jewels thrown in for her own private satisfaction. The portfolio and its contents left her unmoved. Val admitted to himself that he, too, was disappointed. After all—well, treasure should be treasure.

      Rupert carried the portfolio into his bedroom and locked it in one of his mysterious brief-cases which had somehow found its way upstairs.

      The two chests they moved out farther into the hall and the trunk was placed back against the wall, ready for further investigation.

      “Mistuh Ralestone, suh,” Letty-Lou, standing half-way up the back stairs, addressed Rupert, “lunch am on de table. Effen yo’all doan come now, de eatments will be spiled.”

      “All right,” he answered.

      “Letty-Lou,” called Ricky, “put on another plate. Miss Charity is staying to lunch.”

      “Dat’s all ri’, Miss ‘Chanda. I’se done done dat. Yo’all comin’ now?”

      “You see how we are bullied,” Ricky appealed to Charity. “Of course you’re going to stay,” she swept aside the other’s protests. “What’s food for, if not to feed your friends? Val, go wash up; your hands are frightful. I don’t care if you did wash once; go and—”

      “This is her little-mother-of-the-family mood,” her younger brother explained to Charity. “It wears off after a while if you just don’t notice it. But I will wash though,” he looked at his hands, “I seem to need it.”

      “And don’t use the guest towels,” Ricky called after him. “You know that they’re only to look at.”

      When Val emerged from the bathroom he found the hall deserted. Sounds from below suggested that his family had basely left him for food. He started along the passage. Not far from the stairs was the writing-desk where Rupert had left it. Val picked it up, thinking that he might as well take it along down with him.

      By Our Luck!

       Depositing the desk on the seat of one of the hall chairs, Val started toward the dining-room, a grim hole which Lucy had calmly forced the family to use but which they all cordially disliked. Its paneled walls, crystal-hung chandelier, marble-fronted fireplace, and inlaid floor gave it the appearance of one of the less cozy rooms in a small palace. There were also two tasteful portraits of dead ducks which had been added as a finishing touch by some tenant during the eighties and which still remained

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