The Secret of the Sand Castle (15 page)

“I’m done with thinking. I just know what I know,” Paul Purdy silenced him.

Just what did he know? Judy ventured the question, but it brought only a short laugh from Paul Purdy.

“I don’t know about any buried jewels,” he said.

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“Probably that was just another one of Walter Brand’s fairy tales. The stolen money was what they were looking for. They knew I had it with me when the hurricane smashed my little cottage—”

“
Your
cottage!” Judy exclaimed. “Flo said it was yours, but I thought that cottage nearest the ocean belonged to the Bartons. I even found part of their nameplate.”

“May I see it?” As Hazel Barton stretched forth her hand to take the piece of tarnished metal, there were tears in her eyes. She recognized it instantly.

“That was the nameplate from Henry’s identifica-tion bracelet. He must have dropped it in Paul’s cottage. Thank you for finding it, my dear,” she said gratefully. “I’ve become quite a squirrel about things like this since I’ve been living alone.”

“Is Henry gone, too?” asked the old man they were all addressing as Uncle Paul.

“Yes, and so is Edith, the mother of this girl.” As Mrs. Garner spoke, Judy came forward. It was becoming harder and harder for her to pretend to be Roxy.

“The stepmother, really,” she explained, “but she was just like a mother. For years I never knew the difference.”

“She shares equally with the others,” Walter Brand put in, no doubt reminding himself that he was supposed to be representing the family.

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“What is all this?” snapped Bert Terry, the oldest uncle. “How many ways is this property supposed to be divided?”

“Twenty-four, isn’t it?” asked Flo. “It’s hardly worth all this bother if there are no jewels—”

“I said no buried jewels,” Paul Purdy corrected her quietly.

“Then there were jewels!” exclaimed Judy. “Are they hidden somewhere?”

“Well hidden,” was the reply. “Nobody in the family has ever been able to find them.”

“We looked in all the cubbyholes,” little Judy spoke up. “Can’t we look some more, Judy?”

“What was that she called you?” Walter Brand asked suspiciously.

“Everybody is Judy to her,” Irene explained quickly. “She always calls people by her own name when she can’t remember.”

“But I do ’member,” little Judy protested.

“Mommy, are you still playing? I don’t like that game. I don’t want to play it any more.” 161

“IT’S time we all stopped playing games,” declared Judy, facing the roomful of people with fearless determination. If the old adage proved true and there was safety in numbers . . . but there her reasoning stopped for there were only three on Captain Ottwell’s boat and one of them was a helpless child with a broken leg. Somehow, she must tell them.

She had promised Aggie she would let her grandfather know she was safe, but all Judy could tell her listeners now was that she had seen the helicopter searching for Aggie.

“You weren’t, by any chance, doing some searching yourself?” Walter Brand asked suspiciously.

“Why not?” retorted Judy. “It’s about time somebody did some searching and I’m not talking about hidden jewels. Uncle Paul, I hope I may still call you that—”

“Why not? Why not? Get on with it, girl,” he 162

urged her impatiently. “I can tell you have something to say.”

“Yes, I do,” Judy continued earnestly. “I have a message for you from Aggie. She said, ‘If you see my grandfather please tell him I’m all right.’ Those were her very words.”

Paul Purdy shook his head, unable to believe it.

“It’s true,” Judy insisted. “I was on board that boat. Captain Ottwell has Agnes locked in the cabin, but Pauline Faulkner is on board. She will see that no harm comes to her. Aggie’s leg is broken. She will need hospital care.”

Judy took a deep breath. Now they all knew where she had been and what she had discovered.

Hazel Barton was the first to kiss her and exclaim,

“Bless you, my dear, for what you have done to help an unhappy family.”

“Your disguise is wonderful,” Mrs. Garner put in.

“How did you manage it? I’ve seen color pictures of Roxy and her hair is exactly the same shade as yours.”

“I know. Only our eyes are different. You see, we’re cousins. My real name is Judy and little Judy is my namesake. I came here because Roxy asked me to find out if the property was worth anything.

She only wants her share—”

“That’s what they all want,” declared Flo. “That is, all of them except Pauline. Is she really in danger, 163

Judy? Why did you let her get on that boat?”

“Pauline is a very brave girl. I don’t think I could have stopped her,” Judy said.

“You’re pretty brave yourself. I haven’t any idea what’s threatening the family, but something is. If Roxy knew it,” Flo continued in a burst of feeling,

“she had no right to send you that letter.”

“What letter was this? As your attorney—” A snort from Paul Purdy interrupted Walter Brand.

“A fine attorney you are! Serves you right if Ottwell doublecrossed you. He’d better be good to my Aggie, though. What do you think, Hazel? Is there any hope?”

“There’s hope for all of us. You know,” she continued with a fond look toward Judy, “the one most precious gift one person can give another is hope.

Sometimes it’s needed even more than love. Do you agree?”

Several people said they did, but there was some disagreement, as always, among the assembled relatives. Time, Mr. Garner said, was important, too.

“The years have been good to you, Bert,” he added, turning to the older of the two uncles. “I suppose you’re here representing your branch of the family.”

“That’s right,” Bert Terry said, a certain reticence in his voice. “They want no part of the Sand Castle.

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All we ever had in it was trouble.”

“They were jealous of you, Bert. They always called you Mother’s favorite,” Mrs. Garner said.

“No, as the baby of the family, you were—”

“But you lived in the Sand Castle, didn’t you, Uncle Bert?” Flo interrupted.

“Yes, with my parents. I felt responsible for them because I was their oldest son, but it was a mistake to move in with them. Your aunt Hazel and her husband built a little cottage beside the Sand Castle and then, when Agnes and Paul were married, they built on the side nearest the ocean. That was years ago, before the hurricane.”

“Tell us about it,” begged Judy, hoping to hear a different version of the story. Her eyes met Hazel Barton’s as she added, “I’m told they didn’t name hurricanes then.”

“We named this one, all right, didn’t we, Paul?” asked Bert Terry.

“We sure did,” he agreed, warming to the subject as he continued speaking. “We called it every name in the book. All of us were huddled together up in that little tower expecting to be washed out to sea at any moment. We saw my little cottage go first, and then Hazel’s. But, by gum, this old Sand Castle went through that hurricane without moving an inch. The water poured into the entryway and out the other side. I always said that was what kept her from 165

sailing off like the others. She was built for bad weather and those four posts at the corners held her fast. The wind smashed those other two cottages before the water hit them and when the storm was all over there was nothing left of them, and the Sand Castle was sitting, just as it is now, on a big sand dune. That’s when Agnes named her . . .” He paused, out of breath from his long speech, and Irene said softly, “It’s a perfect name. Now won’t you have some coffee, all of you? My little girl thinks it’s a party. There is chocolate cake, and I’ve made a few sandwiches.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Meredith. Well, as I was saying,” Paul continued after taking a hearty bite out of his sandwich, “the Sand Castle weathered that hurricane, but not those flimsy little cottages of ours.

There were no jewels in ’em, though, except what few trinkets Hazel had. Agnes had nothing but her two engagement rings and the wedding ring I gave her.”

“Why did she have two, Uncle Paul?” Flo asked in a puzzled voice.

“She wouldn’t give up the one Henry gave her, that’s why. Once Agnes got hold of something pretty she’d never give it up. Started a big fight between the girls, that ring did. To my way of thinking, Henry had a right to change his mind if he thought Hazel would make a better wife.” 166

“Thank you, Paul. It’s been hard,” Hazel Barton admitted, “having the family all against me, but I did make Henry happy while he lived. We raised three fine children, all of them married now and living in homes of their own. As I was telling Judy on the bus, there’s nobody left except my old cat, Minnie.

We
don’t want the Sand Castle. We have more house than we know what to do with now.”

“Where do you live?” Judy asked curiously. “I would like to visit you some time.”

“It’s on the main road as you come into Emporium. Will you come, all of you? I’ve been so lonely.”

“Of course we’ll come, Aunt Hazel.” Judy, Flo, and even Irene were calling her Aunt Hazel now.

Little Judy was too overwhelmed by the conversation to say anything except “Thank you” when food was passed to her. The lawyer refused anything except coffee, saying he’d lost his appetite.

“I don’t know what you’re keeping me here for, anyway,” he grumbled. “If nobody wants the Sand Castle enough to pay up the back taxes, why don’t you let Mrs. Hatch go ahead—”

“Ah, Mrs. Hatch!” Irene exclaimed. “I’d almost forgotten her. She’s the real estate woman who refused our offer last summer when we wanted to buy the Sand Castle. We have her to thank for all the food that was left here. She must have expected 167

somebody . . .”

Irene’s voice trailed off into a long silence.

Nobody said it, but there couldn’t have been more than two or three people in the room who weren’t thinking, “The woman in black!”

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“WHO was she?” Flo finally asked.

Irene passed the picture she had taken around the table while Judy concentrated on the facial expres-sions of those who viewed it. Paul Purdy was the first to explode with anger.

“So
that’s
the consarned rascal who disguised himself as my dead wife! That was no woman at all, but the captain of that stolen Coast Guard boat where my poor Aggie is imprisoned. If I ever get my hands on him . . .”

Words failed him at this point and he silently clenched his fists. The younger uncle put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Take it easy, Paul.

Captain Ottwell will pay for his crimes and so will those other two who conspired with him.”

“But I still don’t understand,” objected Flo. “That key I found certainly looked as if it opened a jewel box, and someone was digging for something under 169

the Sand Castle.”

“You’re right, but it wasn’t what you thought,” her uncle replied. “Those rascals were after this money I’d borrowed—”

“Now wait a minute!” Bert Terry stopped him. “If you just borrowed the money, as you say, how does it happen you pleaded guilty at the trial?”

“That was thirty years ago,” Hazel Barton reminded her brother.

“Let him ask, Hazel. Let them all ask. I was guilty, but not of armed robbery. That was done by Jim Ottman. Well,” he announced, “I might as well tell you. He and Captain Ottwell are one and the same. Who knows how many names and faces the rascal has? I thought he was my friend then. I trusted him just as I did Walter Brand. I was a teller, handling thousands of dollars every day. They were interested m that money, not in me, but they made me think they were my friends in order to get it.” Still his brother-in-law was unconvinced.

“Isn’t that about what you said at the trial? Do you remember the words of the other lawyer?

‘That’s the criminal mind for you, always looking for somebody else to blame.’ ”

“Bert, you’re not being fair,” both his sisters protested.

“He has a point, though,” Paul Purdy admitted.

“As I was saying, there were no buried jewels, just 170

this money I’d borrowed from the bank thinking to invest it and return it before the books were examined. I didn’t spend any of it except to pay my lawyer, and you know who he was, don’t you?” He paused a moment after this question and everyone looked in one direction. The accusing eyes turned toward Walter Brand were too much for him.

He jumped up from the table, upsetting his chair and frightening little Judy until she set up a wail of protest. In the commotion that followed he bolted for the door.

“Let him go,” Judy said calmly.

She was standing by the window where she had a good view of the beach. A police helicopter was just landing. “Walter Brand doesn’t know it,” she added with satisfaction, “but he’s walking right into the arms of the law. I hope they have as little trouble catching Captain Ottwell.”

“How did you know he was the woman in black, Uncle Paul?” Flo asked when things had quieted down a little and she felt free to talk without the lawyer there to hear every word. “That picture looks like Aunt Agnes, I mean the way I remember her.” Judy could tell Flo was having a hard time explaining exactly what she did mean, but finally she blurted out, “It looked like a dead woman, but you knew right away it was Captain Ottwell. How could you tell?”