Arden shrugged her shoulders in a hopeless negative.
Time hanging heavy on their hands, the girls paid another visit to the houseboat but did not go on board. There was no sign of life about the _Merry Jane_ save for Tania. She was shut up in what amounted to a kennel on the outside narrow deck, where the girls had put her on their last visit. There was plenty of food and water.
Poor Tania whined pitifully when she found that her friends were not coming to see her and departed without taking her with them.
"She misses Dimitri terribly," said Arden.
"Yes," agreed Sim.
The day pa.s.sed and no word came from Serge. Later it developed that he was so frantically going from one to another of the friends of his brother in New York, a fruitless search, that he forgot all about his promise to communicate with the girls.
"Well, this settles it!" declared Arden as they were at breakfast the second day after the visit of Serge. The morning mail had come but brought no news. "I"m going to get the chief and visit Melissa and her father again."
"Do you mean you"re going with him?" asked Terry.
"Yes. I think we should all go, I mean we three, don"t you, Mrs. Landry?"
"Well, if there"s danger-but then I hardly believe there will be if you have the chief with you. Yes, go, by all means."
"This is going to be a real expedition!" declared Terry as she drove her chums over to the village, parked their car near the chief"s garage, and walked to where they found the officer still tinkering with his old auto.
"Good-morning, girls," he greeted them, wiping a smudge of oil off his face. "You see I"m busy as usual, time and tide in a long race, you know," and the gold tooth grinned at them cheerfully.
"Mr. Reilly, can you come with us at once?" asked Arden in businesslike tones. "There may be an arrest to make."
"An arrest?" The chief showed new interest.
"Yes. Over at the Clayton shack. It"s quite a story."
The chief, when he heard it, could not but admit it was. There was a new air about him now. He seemed much more in earnest than at any time since Dimitri Uzlov had been missing at Marshlands.
"I"ll be with you in a few minutes, girls," the chief said. "Just as soon as I can wash up and pin my badge on. Then we"ll get in my motorboat and ride over to see this Mr. Clayton."
"How would it be," suggested Terry, "if you took us back to our dock in your boat and then we picked up our rowboat? You could tow us in that to the Clayton shack."
"Yes, I could do that," the chief agreed. "It"s a little ways from here to where my motorboat is docked, and my car isn"t running yet, but a walk won"t hurt none of us."
"We can all go to your dock in our car," Terry said.
"Sure enough. Didn"t think of that. Well, we"ll go see this Clayton. So he was going for his gun, was he? I"ll see about that! Don"t give up the ship and keep your powder dry. Be with you in two shakes of a lamb"s tail." He was as good as his word, soon coming out of his garage office with a clean face and a badge on his coat. It did not take long to drive to the dock where the chief kept his motorboat tied. The girls got in and were soon chugging on their way to "Buckingham Palace." Mrs. Landry was rather surprised to see them back so soon, but agreed, after an explanation had been made, that it would be wise to take two boats.
"You never can tell what may happen," she said.
"True enough, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow," chuckled the chief. "My boat isn"t very good to look at, and we might get stalled. In which case a rowboat would be as handy as a pocket on the end of a dog"s tail."
His craft, if not very presentable, had speed, and they went along rapidly. As they pa.s.sed close to the _Merry Jane_, Tania either saw, heard, or scented them, for she began to bark in a friendly way.
"Oh, that poor dog!" exclaimed Arden. "Let"s take her with us!"
"We could," agreed Sim.
"It might be a good thing," said Terry. "She"s a sort of hound, you know."
"And you think maybe she can smell out where Melissa has hid the snuffbox!" chuckled the chief. "But a dog is always a good thing to have on a case like this. Two strings to your rubber boot, you know. We"ll get her."
Tania was frantic with joy to be among her friends again and curled up on the stern seat with Arden as the chief again started his boat across the bay.
They were not long in coming in sight of the Clayton shack. The chief wasted no time in preliminaries but steered at once for the ramshackle old dock where he made his craft fast. Then he a.s.sisted the girls to tie theirs, and they got out, Tania following them and sniffing with her pointed nose in the direction of the gloomy house.
"Perhaps we had better be a bit cautious," suggested Terry somewhat timidly. "This man may rush out at us."
"What puzzles me," said the chief, "is why he hasn"t hailed us before this. Accordin" to what you told me, he ordered you off before, without you havin" a chance to set foot on his land."
"Yes, he did," said Terry. "It is rather strange no one appears."
The shack showed no sign of life in or about it.
"I"ll give him a hail," suggested the chief. And he roared out: "Clayton, where are you? Here"s company! Come out, but if you bring a gun it won"t be healthy for you!"
There was no answer to this challenge.
Tania barked. Still all was silent about the place.
"I"m going in," the chief suddenly decided. "You girls wait for me here."
He looked to make sure that his badge of office was conspicuous and pushed open the door. It was not locked.
The girls were a little nervous as the chief disappeared inside. But still there was no sound. The silence was almost terrifying. The chief came out in a few minutes to say:
"I can"t seem to find anybody."
"I think you had better look again and go in every room," said Arden. Her voice was firm. "There must be someone."
"All right, I"ll take another look," a.s.sented the chief. "No trouble to show goods and some pitchers go to the well too often."
Again he disappeared inside the place.
Again portentous silence held them all in its grip.
CHAPTER XXIX The Barking of Tania
Chief Reilly came out of the poor little house, a veritable shack it was, shaking his head.
"I suppose," remarked Sim in an aside to Arden, "he is going to say "it"s a long road without a cat in the attic," or something equally brilliant."
"He might," remarked Terry, "propose that the race is not always to the swift but there are none so blind as those who won"t eat."