Missing at Marshlands Part 28

The boat moved quickly through the quiet evening water.

"We did tell the chief of police about your brother," Arden admitted, "but you have nothing to fear from him. He's studying the case, as he says, and the last time we saw him he was working on his old car."

The young man smiled. "I am sure Dimitri will be found all right," he said. "And I'm very grateful to you for sending for me. It was indeed fortunate that you found the paper. From your description of it, I think it must have been from my sister Olga. She has been here, she tells me, to see Dimitri."

"Olga! Your sister!" Sim exclaimed unbelievingly.

"Yes," Serge Uzlov replied. "There are just the three of us, now. Olga, Dimitri, and I. We are a queer family, I suppose, each one living alone; each one having his own friends and always trying to make ends meet."

"I don't know just what we imagined about you and your sister," Arden said slyly, "but it never occurred to us, I'm sure, that you two were related."

"And you were too well mannered to ask," Serge suggested, smiling.

"Or perhaps we just didn't think about it," Sim said modestly.

The young man pulled vigorously, and the little rowboat plowed through the bay. To their right, as they approached it, lay the _Merry Jane_, looking as they had last seen it.

When they were close to the houseboat, Tania began to bark: sharp, staccato barks and deep growls in her throat.

"Tania must have heard us coming," Sim suggested.

"I think, Sim," Arden corrected her, "that Tania's barking at something else. She sounds pretty angry to me."

They listened again. Tania was snarling and barking furiously.

"Tania!" called Arden as they came alongside the houseboat. "Tania, we are your friends!"

As she called they all heard the sound of running footsteps on the part of the deck farthest away from them.

"There's somebody here!" Serge cried, and hurried to make fast the rowboat.

Leaving the girls still seated in the skiff, Serge leaped from it to the deck of the _Merry Jane_ just in time to see a man jump over the side into the deep marsh gra.s.s.

Serge looked after him, but the intruder was completely hidden by the tall growth.

"He got away!" Serge called to the girls. He was about to follow the runaway man when Arden stopped him.

"There's no use in following him, you could never catch him in that marsh," she said and Serge was forced to agree with her as he saw how dense were the tall cat-tails and sedge-gra.s.s in the swamp.

"What did he look like?" Terry asked.

"I couldn't see his face. He was just going over the side when I approached. But I saw black rubber boots."

"That might have been anyone," Arden said. "Half the natives in Oceanedge wear boots around the marsh."

"Let's go inside," suggested Sim, "and see what he was after."

"Yes," agreed Serge. "That's the only thing to do now."

He led the way and, not pausing for a moment in the outer room, parted the curtains and, as the girls could see, went straight to the shattered cupboard.

"It's gone!" Serge exclaimed. He turned to face the girls, his hands spread wide in a gesture of despair. "It's gone!"

CHAPTER XXVI Melissa Again

Sim smiled a little bitterly. "If you mean the snuffbox," she said, "we know it's gone. It has been for some time."

"Then you know about it?" Serge asked.

"We knew Dimitri _had_ it, if that's what you mean," Arden went on. "But we don't know where it is _now_."

"Of course," the young man breathed a sigh of relief, "Dimitri has it with him, wherever he is."

"He may have. We can't prove he hasn't," Terry said explaining. "But why should he have broken open his own cupboard?"

"You're right!" exclaimed Serge. "He would never have done that."

"I wonder what that man who jumped overboard was doing," Sim mused. "I don't see that he has touched anything in here."

After a look around, they all agreed that, whatever was his mysterious reason for coming, he apparently had left in a hurry. Several books that had been on the table now lay on the floor, but that was all in evidence.

"We're just as much in the dark as ever," Terry remarked sadly. "We'll have to start all over again."

"Tell us about Dimitri," Arden said to Serge. "You were, as far as we can tell, the last person who saw him a--" she started, she had almost said "alive." So she began again. "Was he all right when you saw him last? Did he say anything about going away?"

"We sat talking and eating all evening," Serge explained. "Russians are great eaters, you know. But Dimitri didn't mention going away, and I left him in the best of spirits. Then I rowed back, got into my car, and drove on to New York."

"That doesn't help at all," Sim wailed. "It only proves that Dimitri left very suddenly and probably against his will. He would have told you if he'd planned leaving, wouldn't he?" she asked the young man.

"I am sure he had no thought of going," Serge hastened to a.s.sure her. "He was too much interested in the portrait he was finis.h.i.+ng."

"You mean the one of me?" Arden asked simply.

"Yes; you've seen it?"

"We looked-after Dimitri--" Arden said sadly. "Do you think he would mind?"

Serge shrugged. "Don't worry about it. We have something more important to think about."

"But the worst of it is," Sim complained, "that we're so helpless."

"We can do nothing here, at any rate," agreed Serge.

"You will come to dinner with us, won't you?" Terry asked. "Mother expects you. There is no place in town where you can get anything worth eating."