Missing at Marshlands Part 35

"That picture," she added. "We looked at it."

The whiteness of Dimitri's face, blanched by many days of confinement in a dark cellar, was changed to a deep red as he murmured:

"I hope you do not think me too presumptuous."

"It is lovely!" declared Sim.

"A beautiful picture," said Terry.

"And you-have you nothing to say in forgiveness?" He was looking straight at Arden.

"Oh, I think it is wonderful," she said. "There is no need of pardon. But it is too beautiful! I never--"

"It is not half good enough!" he interrupted. "It was only from memory.

Perhaps you will do me the honor to sit for me that I may properly complete it."

"If Daddy and Mother consent," she said.

"As if they wouldn't!" said Sim.

They were at the houseboat now. It seemed silent and deserted, but the chief said:

"Might as well take precautions. n.o.body ever yet died of a broken neck by drinking milk. I'll go aboard first."

"And if he utters another of his famous sayings I'll choke him with my handkerchief!" hissed Sim.

The silence of Tania as they approached close to the _Merry Jane_ was fairly conclusive evidence that no strangers were aboard. They walked confidently up the little gangplank and, allowing Dimitri to take the lead, followed him into the living room.

He went through the curtains to the broken cupboard, and as they all stood grouped behind him they saw him, after a moment of hesitation, put his hand in and take out an object. Then they heard his delighted cry:

"Here it is! My box! And not harmed in the least. Wait!"

Quickly he pressed the spring, took out the key, and wound up the mechanism. Suddenly the jeweled bird began to sing. A fairy hymn of victory.

"But how did it get here?" asked Arden.

"The mystery is solved-but how?" questioned Terry.

"This has got my goat," admitted the chief. "There's no fool like a spring chicken," he added, showing his gold tooth in a wide grin.

"I think this may explain matters," remarked Dimitri as he again put his hand into the shattered cupboard and brought out several sheets of paper.

He glanced over them and said: "It is a confession from this George Clayton-he who caught me and held me prisoner. It perhaps tells everything, my friends."

It did. George Clayton, crabber, lobsterman, and fisher, proved to be more of a scholar than anyone had ever suspected. He wrote a good hand, though some of the words were rather shaky.

_"'First of all,'"_ the written sheets revealed, _"'I want to let the girls, who were kind to my Melissa, know that she is in good hands.

Melissa had nothing to do with me catching Mr. Uzlov. After I got him she wanted me to let him go, but I wouldn't. Melissa is a good girl. I'm going to let her aunt have her and bring her up right. A woman named Emma Tash came to my place the other day, though I told her to get out, but she didn't.'"_

"Emma Tash just wouldn't do that a second time," said Terry, recalling the crabbing party.

_"'So I had a talk with her,'"_ Dimitri read on from the letter, _"'and I decided it wasn't right to Melissa to keep her here with me. Not that I'm going to be here any more. I'm leaving. But before I left I told this Emma Tash she could take Melissa and bring her up the way her aunt wants her brought up. So that woman took her off.'"_

"Then the poor child will have something in life after all," murmured Arden. "I'm so glad!"

"She may even become a champion swimmer," suggested Sim.

"Oh, you and your swimming," laughed Terry. "Let's find out about the snuffbox."

"That's right here," said Mr. Uzlov. He read on:

_"'Melissa has always been different from other girls. Mrs. Landry and the three young ladies know that. One day Melissa came home to me with this gold box that I'm leaving back in your cupboard. She told me she had broken open your cupboard and taken it from your houseboat, Mr. Uzlov.

Melissa always loved bright things. Well, I was struck all of a heap when I saw she had it. I didn't know what to do. In a way it was stealing, but not for Melissa. She didn't mean to steal it. She just couldn't help taking it once she saw it. I love my daughter. n.o.body shall ever say I don't. Anyhow, here's your gold box back and I'm going to clear out and Melissa has gone with that good detective woman. That's all. From George Clayton.'"_

There was a little silence following the reading of the strange letter.

"But it isn't all," said Arden, looking at Dimitri. "How did he get you and hold you a prisoner?"

"I suppose that is my part to explain," said Dimitri. "Well, it shall not take me long. First we shall begin with Olga."

"Who is she?" burst out Sim impulsively.

"She is my talented but spendthrift sister," said Dimitri with a little embarra.s.sed laugh. "She always claimed to have an interest, and right, in the snuffbox, which once belonged to the late lamented Czar, but that was not so. I mean she had no interest in it. That box was mine alone. That is what we often quarreled about. My brother Serge, with whom you say you got in touch, can bear me out in this. I sent for him when Olga became-well, rather troublesome," he said with a smile.

"So," he resumed, "one day I came back here, after having been out in the marsh sketching, to find my cupboard broken open and my box gone. I was thunderstruck. Of course I suspected my sister. But before I had time to do anything, this Clayton man came on board with the box. He said his daughter had taken my treasure, as she often did with bright things, not knowing their value, and he had come to restore it. He asked me not to have her arrested or to prosecute her as he would give me the box back.

"But there I made a mistake." Again Dimitri shrugged his expressive shoulders. "I was naturally resentful at being robbed, even by poor Melissa, who, I understand, is not wholly responsible. So I flared up and said the guilty must be punished; that the law must take its course. Yes, we Russians are too temperamental-I admit that. I said I would see that no real harm came to the girl but that she must be sent away and taught to do the right."

"He didn't like that, not for a cent, and it takes ten s.h.i.+llings to make a pound," interpolated Mr. Reilly.

"You are right," agreed Dimitri, evidently not bored by this cross quotation. "At once Mr. Clayton, what you call, flared up. Before I could avoid him, he had attacked me. He is a big man. He had me at a disadvantage, and before I could do anything he had put part of a fish net over my head, for all the world like the old Roman gladiators." He laughed a little, for he had brewed some tea in his samovar, and the sipping of it appeared to revive him more than anything else. "So he had me helpless."

"But Tania," interrupted Sim. "Where was she?"

"He must have suddenly planned his attack," resumed Dimitri, "for when he carried me away, half unconscious as I was, I dimly saw Tania tied and lying on the deck. He must, a little while before, have given her some drugged meat. He didn't take time to make friends with her and entice her away."

"But just what did Clayton do to you?" asked Terry.

"He threatened after the net was over me, to take me away and keep me away if I did not promise to let Melissa go unharmed. I would not promise. I felt it was for the girl's own good that I be instrumental in sending her to some inst.i.tution. I was stubborn. He grew very angry. I tried to hit him. He hit me. It all went black before my eyes, and when I awoke, I was bound and my mouth was tied, in the place where you found me."

"Oh, how terrible," said Arden.

"Such a brute!" declared Terry.

"You should have shouted for help," argued Sim.

"I tried to, dear young lady, but one cannot shout with one's mouth bundled up like a m.u.f.f. So I remained a prisoner. At times the man came down to me and opened my mouth that I might eat, but he stood over me with a gun so I dared not shout. But his place is so isolated that it would have done no good if I had. Each time he said he would let me go if I would promise. But I would not promise. I a.s.sure you we Russians are very stubborn." Even now he seemed proud of it, and the girls rather liked him for it.

"You couldn't trick him out of it?" asked Mr. Reilly.