The Secret of the Sand Castle (10 page)

“If only we’d boarded the boat! Then we could be out there helping, too,” lamented Judy.

The two girls stood in an agony of suspense, watching as two more small boats appeared from 100

somewhere and went out to offer what assistance they could. Through the fog they could just see the dim shape that must be the wrecked plane.

“Oh, Judy! This is dreadful,” groaned Pauline. “I can hardly bear to look at it. How many people were in it, do you think?”

“Not more than two or three. It was a light plane like the one Arthur used to have.”

“His plane crashed, too, didn’t it?”

“Yes, but we were wearing parachutes and got out safely. I didn’t see anyone jump from this plane, did you?”

“I thought I did. The boats would have picked up any survivors by now, wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. Oh, Pauline! There must be something we can do.”

“What about those telephones by the firehouse?”

“That’s right,” Judy agreed, “we could call the Coast Guard. They’re the nearest. We’ll tell them a big boat and two little ones are already out there.”

“We’re too late,” Pauline observed. “Here comes one of the boats back.”

Judy ran toward the man as he stepped from the boat. It was amazing how many other people had suddenly appeared, all running to see what had happened. Among them was Flo, who said Irene would be coming as soon as little Judy woke up from her nap.

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“I couldn’t wait for her when I saw that plane,” Flo continued. “Was everybody in it—” She couldn’t finish the question.

The Coast Guard already had been called, Judy was informed by a stout man who emerged from the telephone booth. “I called them myself,” he said pompously. “Two boats from the Police Department’s Marine Bureau and a Coast Guard cutter are on their way.”

He gave the same information to the younger man who had gone over in the boat.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Judy asked.

The young man shook his head. “I’m afraid there’s nothing anyone can do. The plane crashed in the water and buried itself in the mud. Those men out there are doing what they can. I came back for an axe. They must have one in the firehouse.”

“Why do you need an axe?” the stout man asked.

“The door jammed when the plane hit bottom.

We’ll have to chop it open to get the bodies out.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” The man’s explanation left everybody speechless, but only for a moment. The stout man who had been telephoning was the first to break the horrified silence that fell over the crowd on the dock. He turned to Judy and her friends with an outward gesture of his chubby hands and what he probably 102

thought was a reassuring smile.

“It’s all over now,” he said as if he were dismissing them from school. “Why don’t you girls go on back to your cottage and forget that you witnessed this tragedy?”

“Forget it!” Pauline expressed the amazement felt by all of them. They might go back to their cottage, but they certainly weren’t about to forget what they had seen. Judy said as much.

“What, exactly, did you see?” the man inquired.

Pauline and Judy looked at each other, ashamed.

They had acted on impulse, protecting themselves under the dock. They confessed to their fear and were about to introduce themselves when Flo answered for them.

“I saw the airplane go into a tailspin. I was watching from the window when it crashed. I came as soon as I could.”

“So did everybody else.” He seemed to resent the crowd, which was now thinning out.

“I don’t know where all those people came from,” Judy began. “The island seemed to be deserted before the crash, but I guess some of those houses aren’t as empty as they look.”

“None of them are really empty.”

The tone of his voice made Judy suspicious. She knew what he meant, but she had no intention of encouraging such talk. Instead, she switched the 103

subject back to the wrecked plane.

“How many people were in it?” she asked anxiously.

“Two men, I’m afraid, and a twelve-year-old girl.

I was supposed to meet them here,” the man added solemnly, “but it was not to be. You do believe in Fate, don’t you?”

Judy would have liked to tell him that what she believed was her own business. She didn’t like the way he kept looking at her. His next question explained it.

“You are Roxanna Zoller, I presume?” Judy hesitated. Then she said, “How did you know?” not telling him he had mistaken her for her cousin.

“Don’t you remember meeting me?”

Judy shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I meet so many people. Were the—the people in the plane my relatives?”

He chuckled. “You wouldn’t know your relatives if you met them, would you?”

“I know Florence Garner,” Judy said with dignity.

“She’s my cousin.”

“Well, these were cousins, too. The son and granddaughter of Agnes Purdy.”

“Oh!” gasped Flo. “She was—”

Judy stopped her before she had a chance to say

“the woman in black,” and quickly put in, “Our aunt 104

Agnes.”

“She wrote to Mother before she died and sent a picture of little Aggie,” Flo began.

“And now I’ll never meet her,” Judy added, genuine tears stinging her eyes.

“Were they going to land on the beach?” Pauline questioned. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Not usually,” he replied. “The young man with them was an experienced pilot and a good friend as well. You might call it Fate or the hand of God—”

“I
wouldn’t call it that,” Flo interrupted.

“You want to argue? You’re Florence Terry’s daughter all right,” he said with another chuckle.

“Does your mother know you’re here?”

“She will when you tell her.”

It was a flippant answer, but Judy felt Flo could be excused. The man had not yet introduced himself.

“My card,” he said, presenting it with a flourish when Judy asked him his name. “I’ll be here on the island at your service until the estate is settled. You are living at the Sand Castle, aren’t you?”

“Only until we can find a boat to take us to the mainland—”

“No sooner said than done,” he interrupted. “My friend, Captain Ottwell, will be glad to take you over. That gray boat out there belongs to him.”

“And I suppose you came over with him?” Judy guessed.

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“Exactly so, Miss Zoller, or should I call you Roxanna?”

“My friends usually call me Roxy,” Judy replied with a meaning glance toward Pauline.

She and Flo seemed to understand.

“We have to get our things first,” Judy told the man. “They’re back at the cottage. Mrs. Meredith and her little girl would like a ride, too. Will you wait?”

“Gladly,” he replied although, even then, Judy suspected he had no intention of waiting. “I’m Mrs.

Meredith’s lawyer. I also represented your stepmother when she made out her will,” he continued, turning again to Judy. “It is odd that you don’t remember me.”

“Now I do,” she replied, glancing at the card.

The name on it was
Walter Brand, attorney-at-law,
and the address was
Bay shore, Long Island.

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“LUCK is with us,” Pauline was saying when Judy overtook her walking with Flo. Both girls were hurrying back to the Sand Castle with what Pauline seemed to think was good news for Irene. Flo was more skeptical.

“What kind of luck?” she asked.

“Well, we do have a ride—”

“And there was a wreck just as you said there might be, Pauline. You were right about all our luck being bad, too,” Judy put in. “I hope you won’t be too disappointed if we don’t take that boat.”

“Why on earth not?” Pauline demanded.

“I can think of a few reasons myself,” declared Flo, “but go ahead, Judy—or are you Roxy for the rest of the day? Either way, tell us what you have in mind.”

“Well, it isn’t anything definite,” Judy admitted.

“Call it a hunch or a premonition if you like. I just 107

have a feeling that we’d be taking the wrong boat.

Who is this Captain Ottwell and why is that lawyer I wanted to see over here on Fire Island instead of back in Bayshore where he has his office? Monday morning is usually a busy time.”

“You’re right,” agreed Flo. “It’s a busy time back on Madison Avenue, too. Don’t you think we ought to take a chance and get back any way we can?” Judy shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t trust Walter Brand. Oh, I know Irene and Dale trust him, but Peter said he’d been retained by some big wheels in the crime syndicate and I’d better watch him. It isn’t just on TV that some lawyers resort to all sorts of tricks for their clients.”

“What do you mean?” gasped Pauline. “Surely you don’t think that plane accident was—arranged, do you?”

“No, but I’m beginning to suspect that some of the other things that are going on might be. We did have an overnight guest, remember? And wasn’t it Mrs. Hatch, a real estate woman, who started all those stories about the woman in black and the buried jewels? The Sand Castle is hiding some secret,” Judy declared. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m not in a hurry to leave before I find out.”

“But our jobs! We have to go back,” Pauline and Flo objected in the same breath.

“I know. All of us have to get back before the 108

week is up, but not on Captain Ottwell’s boat,” Judy insisted. “I don’t trust him any more than I do this lawyer who wants us to forget we saw anything.

What does he
think
we saw?” This question shocked both girls into silence, but Judy was not finished.

“Whatever it was,” she continued, “he wants us to leave. He thinks I’m Roxy and he knows who you are, Flo. He even knows you’re here against your parents’ wishes—”

“Not my mother, just my father,” Flo objected.

“He always tells Mother he married her, not her relatives. He doesn’t like gossip and so he won’t even talk to her about them.”

“Is that fair to your mother?” Pauline questioned.

Flo had to admit that it wasn’t. She adored her father and, up until now, she had never admitted the possibility that he might be wrong.

“But this girl—this twelve-year-old. It breaks my heart that now I will never know her. She was such a sweet child in the picture,” Flo continued. “I’d like to know Roxy, too, and all the rest of them, but my father says they’re always talking against one another and it’s better not to know them.”

“Do you think it is, Flo?”

Suddenly she was in tears. “Oh, Judy! I don’t know what to think. Mr. Brand was trying to frighten us, making us think there were ghosts in all 109

the houses. And then those people appeared out of nowhere. Half of them didn’t seem real. Where do you suppose they all went?”

“Back to their cottages, I suppose. Those on the bay side didn’t look as empty as these do. Oh, here comes Irene with little Judy and all our things in the wagon,” Judy observed. “How are we going to tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Irene asked. “You shouldn’t have gone off and left me the way you did, Flo.

What happened, anyway? Was that plane you saw really in trouble?”

“Big trouble,” Flo said solemnly. “It crashed into the bay and at least two people were killed. They haven’t found the twelve-year-old girl, but she must be dead, too. I feel so guilty. She was my cousin but I never answered her letter.”

“Was it important?” asked Judy.

“Not really,” Flo answered. “It was just little-girl chatter. My father said to ignore it. He didn’t want us involved. Now I’ll feel guilty every time I think of it.”

“Don’t feel that way. It won’t help,” Pauline said.

“What
will
help?” Irene asked, and Judy could see that she was upset, too. “I want to leave as soon as possible.”

“That may be exactly what they want,” Judy began.

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“
They
?
What do you mean by that? The ghosts that haunt the Sand Castle?”

“No, Irene, you know better than that,” Pauline scolded her. “Judy is worried because that lawyer, Walter Brand, may be trying to frighten us away.”

“Perhaps he wants the property himself,” Flo put in. “My cousin Aggie, the little girl in the plane, must have wanted to see the place, too. I’m sure that’s why she and her father were flying over here—and on such a foggy morning. If they told him it was safe—”

“Him?” Irene questioned, puzzled.

“The young pilot. The one who was killed. Oh, it’s just dreadful to think of it! Some people will do anything for money,” Flo continued, sounding more like herself as her grief changed to anger. “I mean it, Irene,” she finished. “I know he’s your lawyer and you trust him, but how do you know all the heirs aren’t in danger?”

“That question was in my mind, too,” Judy admitted. “Walter Brand mistook me for Roxy.”

“Cousin Roxy. Isn’t that something?” Flo asked bitterly. “I lose one cousin and gain another.”

“Are you Judy now?” little Judy asked from the wagon where she sat surrounded by suitcases.

“It’s a game,” Irene explained. “Don’t call her Judy if anyone is listening. Her name is Roxy Zoller.”

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Little Judy began to pout. “I don’t like the game.

It scares me. I want to go back to the Sand Castle and see the witch.”

“Hush, dear. She isn’t really a witch,” Irene said soothingly. “She’s just a poor old lady who came to the cottage looking for a little peace—”