The Secret of the Sand Castle (11 page)

“Did she want a piece of bread or cake?” little Judy asked.

“I’m talking about a different kind of peace,” Irene explained. “You know, the kind we had before when everything was quiet except the ocean and the gulls.”

“There are sandpipers, too. Remember, Mommy?

We saw them dipping their toes in the water. They were funny.”

“That was last summer, Judykins. She remembers it so well,” Irene continued wistfully. “I thought then that we might buy the Sand Castle. It would be ideal for summer and Dale might like it even in the winter. He could get away for days at a time when he wanted to be alone with his writing. We could rent it to friends and . . . but what’s the use of dreaming about it? We didn’t know then that it was part of an estate.”

“You did know there was something strange about it, though, didn’t you?” Judy questioned.

“Just stories. I’ll never be afraid of the woman in black now that I’ve met her,” declared Irene.

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Flo took one look. Her face paled
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“What!” gasped Flo. “You didn’t really meet her face to face, did you?”

“Of course. She was there all the time. I don’t know where she was hiding. She was a little confused on that point and she kept muttering things about her lost jewels and the hurricane.” Irene spoke as if she hadn’t been at all frightened, but Judy doubted this. “What did you say to her, Irene? Weren’t you scared?”

“A little, at first, but then she let me take her picture—”

“Her picture!” all three girls gasped, and Flo added, “May we see it?”

“Of course. I’ll take it out of the Polaroid. I told her it was one of these ‘instant’ pictures,” Irene explained, “but she didn’t care to see it.”

“Oh boy! I can understand why,” Pauline commented, the first to view the picture.

“Isn’t she ugly!” Judy agreed, noticing the hard features and the mouth, a grim line across the square that was her face.

Flo took one look. Her face paled and a strangled cry came from her lips. At first Judy thought Flo was joking until suddenly—she fainted!

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WHEN Flo went limp in her arms Judy tried to hold her, but she slipped down to the boardwalk and lay there so white and still that, for a moment, it looked as if she would never move again.

“What happened?” Irene exclaimed, and Pauline demanded, “What made her faint? I didn’t think girls ever fainted today.”

“Flo, wake up!” Judy pleaded, trying to lift her to a sitting position. “It’s all right, Flo. It was just a picture.”

“A picture,” Flo repeated in a daze, moving her lips as though she wanted to say something more.

“She’s coming around. Was it shock or what?” Irene asked, bending over her.

“It was that picture you took,” Judy began. “I think she recognized the woman in black.”

“Aunt Agnes,” Flo murmured brokenly. “How could you—take a picture—of Aunt Agnes? She’s 115

dead. We went to the funeral—and saw her—lying there—in the coffin
just like that!”
The last three words came out in a frightened wail as Flo struggled to her feet, now wildly aware of what she had seen.

“It couldn’t be Aunt Agnes,” she exclaimed, “and yet it was!”

“Maybe—” Judy’s thoughts whirled as she searched for a logical answer. “I mean maybe that carpenter or somebody is trying to frighten you.”

“Or that lawyer,” Pauline put in. “You said he represented criminals—”

“That’s right,” agreed Judy. “I think the thing to do is to turn around and go back to the Sand Castle and face this woman, whoever she is. I’m not afraid.

What about you, Irene?”

“She seemed harmless enough. How about it, Flo? Are you all right now? Can you walk?”

“I can run if necessary.
You
aren’t playing tricks on me, are you, Irene? You wouldn’t—”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Judy broke in. “There are family resemblances, you know. This could be some other relative.”

Flo brightened at this. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.

I can face her with what I know and ask her, point blank, who she is. The boat will wait for us—I hope.

Judy is right. We’ll all go back to the Sand Castle.”

“Oh,

goody!”

exclaimed

little

Judy,

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understanding at last something they were talking about.

They turned the wagon around, not an easy thing to do on the narrow walk, and started back the way they had come. Flo, still trembling, shared Judy’s coat. A person coming out of shock had to be kept warm. Judy had learned this from her father. She glanced at Flo and saw that the color had returned to her cheeks.

“You’ll be all right now, won’t you?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes, if she’s a relative. The resemblance to Aunt Agnes is startling. She may be taking advantage of it to grab her share.”

“Everybody wants the Sand Castle. I told you we made an offer ourselves,” Irene continued, “but the real estate people wanted more money than the cottage is worth even after the title is clear.”

“That means after all the heirs have been notified of the foreclosure, doesn’t it?” asked Pauline. “You see, Flo, it does make sense. This woman in black just has to be a living relative—”

“Pretending to be a dead one,” Flo added bitterly.

“She’d better own up to it fast or we’ll miss that boat.”

“If we do, we’ll find another one. We’ll walk to Ocean Beach the way we planned and rent a boat if necessary. First,” Judy declared, “we have to see this 117

woman and find out who she really is.” It sounded easy, the way Judy put it. The Sand Castle looked the same as they approached it. Irene knocked and when nobody answered she turned the key in the lock of the big barn-like doors and they all went in. It was strangely quiet. Nothing had been disturbed.

“Where is she?” asked Flo, beginning to search in all the little cubbyholes as if the woman could make herself small at will.

“I expected she’d be right here where I left her.” Irene’s voice was edged with panic. “She was real. I mean, in spite of what she said—”

“What did she say?” Flo interrupted.

“A lot of nonsense, really—about dying and coming back for her jewels. She said she had to keep digging until she found them. Are the jewels real, Flo, or was she just talking?” Irene asked.

“They’re real,” she admitted. “I’ve heard Mother mention them.”

“They must have been kept in one of those two buried houses,” Judy concluded. “If someone really is looking for them I’d like to call Peter and ask his advice. I’ll tell him about the picture, too. Irene, are you sure someone didn’t insert it in your camera on purpose to frighten you?”

“Why me?” Irene asked. “It was Flo who was frightened. Besides, you can’t do that with a 118

Polaroid. No, Judy, I saw the woman and took the picture myself. She must have left in a hurry unless she’s hiding somewhere. Did you look on the bed in the dormitory? She might have decided to take a nap there.”

“We looked on it and under it. What about the tower room?” asked Pauline.

“Judy looked there right away. She—she vanished,” declared Flo. “If you aren’t playing some kind of a trick, Irene, she
must
have been an apparition. I don’t know how you managed to take a picture of her.”

“I just took it. She seemed real enough to me,” Irene insisted. “She even admitted that she’d been digging. I told you she kept muttering something about her jewels.”

“Could it have been an act?” asked Judy.

“Well, if it was, she ought to be on television,” declared Irene. “With her face she’d make a perfect monster. Even without the black clothes she’d be sort of horrible. Dale could write a whole show around a character like that.”

“Yeah,” Flo said, her sarcastic self again. “I’d make a perfect victim, too. I’m sure it would be a murder mystery. What else? The FBI ought to come in, too, for a dramatic finish. You know, the girl is rescued just as the monster is about to grab her by the throat. The thing is, in real life it doesn’t always 119

turn out that way.”

“We may be in danger.” Judy had to admit it. “Is it my imagination, or do I hear someone digging under the house? I heard the same sound last night, but I was counting myself to sleep and it seemed like part of my dream.”

“This is no dream,” Irene began. “We haven’t looked—”

Suddenly little Judy gave a scream of delight.

“I found a ring!”

“Where?” several voices asked.

The child pointed to the floor of the dormitory right beside the bed where someone had been sleeping. The ring looked as if it might fit a giant.

When Judy bent to pick it up, she discovered that the ring was attached to one of the floor boards.

“A trap door!” she exclaimed, opening it wide.

“So this is how she got in and out. It leads to that tunnel under the house, and I do believe she’s still down there digging.”

There were no stairs, but Judy was able to let herself down easily. As her feet touched the freshly overturned soil she could see that a great hole had been dug and that it led to the tunnel she and Flo had been digging from the outside. A little light came through, but not enough for Judy to see very well.

Was that a woman crouching by the entrance? She seemed to be bending over some kind of a long box.

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It banged shut just as Judy called out, “Who are you?”

“She
is
Aunt Agnes,” Flo whispered.

“Why doesn’t she answer?” Pauline quavered.

Both girls were beside Judy now. They stood as if paralyzed, unable to believe what they saw. Judy was the first to dart after the figure, but it was dark now, and the way was suddenly blocked.

“Irene,” Judy called. “Pass down that flashlight we brought. It’s on the kitchen shelf. We can’t see a thing down here.”

“Is she still there?” Flo asked a moment later as she stood beside Judy, holding the flashlight.

“No, and neither is the box we saw. I wonder what was in it,” Judy mused.

“The jewels probably,” Pauline ventured.

Flo shuddered. “No, it was her coffin—”

“Nonsense!” Pauline interrupted. “We may as well go up now. Your apparition is gone—if it was ever there.”

“Of course it was there. Maybe we can catch the woman,” Judy suggested as, one by one, the girls pulled themselves up through the trap door. “She’s probably heading for that boat. If she found the jewels—”

“That key Flo found!” Irene exclaimed. “It probably opens the box she was carrying.”

“What if it does?” Flo retorted. “Do you think 121

I’m going to run after her and try to recover the family jewels?”

“I’m afraid there’s more to it than stolen jewels,” Judy said gravely. “A plane has been wrecked and we have been asked to forget it—”

“By Walter Brand, the lawyer
you
hired, Irene.

You said everything was arranged for the trip,” Flo accused her. “I suppose you arranged that spooky picture, too!”

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FLO’S sudden accusation left Irene speechless. Judy tried, but could not persuade Flo that she hadn’t been tricked.

“You’re good at that sort of thing, too,” she accused Judy. “You were the first one to go down through the trap door and tell the rest of us what you saw.”

“But you saw it, too,” Judy objected. “I mean, you did see that figure bending over the hinged box, didn’t you?”

“The hinged coffin,” Flo corrected her. “That was what you wanted us to think, wasn’t it? Well, I’m not going to be frightened out of my wits again. I’m going to stay right here until I find out what is happening—and why.”

“I’d like to find out, too,” Irene began.

“Oh, yes,” scoffed Flo. “You and Judy are always finding out things. I saw how well she played the 123

part of her cousin Roxy. Walter Brand still thinks he was talking to Roxy.”

“That’s right,” Pauline agreed, suddenly siding with Flo against Judy.

“But can’t you see what’s happening?” Irene pleaded. “It was ‘Roxy’ and Flo, the two heirs, he seemed so eager to take across in that boat. You and I were unimportant, Pauline. As for little Judy, she was in no danger. She isn’t about to inherit any part of the Terry estate.”

“But you made an offer to buy it,” Pauline objected. “I’m the only one who has no interest in it.

That being the case, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t accept Mr. Brand’s offer of a ride.”

“When you put it that way, I don’t see any reason, either. What about you, Irene?” Judy asked.