Tania was extremely grateful for the food Terry put before her and ate ravenously, while the girls murmured soothingly to the grateful dog.

"But how strange that she should get like this," Terry reminded them.

"Dimitri always takes such good care of her."

"And that old rope, the end looks frayed off. Do you suppose--" Arden looked at her chums with terror in her eyes. This, coming directly after their talk, joking as it was, about murders, gave them all a shocked, sudden pause. It seemed horrible even to imagine that Dimitri--

"Oh, Arden! How awful! We haven't seen Dimitri for a week. Do you think--" Terry was too frightened to put intelligible questions.

Arden nodded her head solemnly. "I'm afraid so," she said in a quiet voice. "Something must have happened on board the _Merry Jane_."

For the first time the girls realized how interested they had become in Dimitri. His charming manners, his accent, his appearance, and the almost mysterious aloofness he maintained, all went to make him most attractive.

Now that they feared foul play might have overtaken him, it was dismaying even to guess what had happened on the lonely houseboat.

But poor mute Tania could not tell them her story.

CHAPTER XIV Missing at Marshlands

"Oh, Tania!" Sim exclaimed, taking the intelligent head in her hands.

"What happened?"

But the dog only wagged a bedraggled tail and blinked her eyes with pleasure.

"We must go over at once and see," Arden decided. "We'll have to walk, too. We couldn't row in this wind."

Quickly they got into old coats and heavy shoes, pulled soft hats well down, and started for the _Merry Jane_.

Outside the little cottage the wind tore at them fiercely, and the blown sand mingled with rain stung their legs and faces. Carried through the air by the gale, flakes of foam from the ocean were borne far up the beach like a strange summer snowstorm.

Tania slunk along behind them as they bent to the wind, clearly hating to be out in such nasty weather when she apparently had hoped to remain in the warm dryness of "Buckingham Palace."

"Isn't this wild?" Sim said holding her coat close to her. "I do hope nothing serious has happened."

"We all do," Arden answered. "Terry, can you find your way through the marsh?"

"I think we'd better follow the sh.o.r.e line of the bay. It will be safer,"

Terry decided. "There isn't much sh.o.r.e left now the water has blown in so far, we'll have to walk single file."

Terry took the lead, followed by Arden and Sim, with Tania picking her way along daintily after them.

They made good time, for the wind was at their backs and served to push them forward. Just ahead, its sides slapped by the lapping waves, they could see the old houseboat looming up darkly in the rain.

Silently they went around to the land side, where the wooden steps led to the narrow promenade that ran completely around the boat.

There on the rain-swept deck they hesitated. Not a sound, except the noise of the storm, reached them. They were a little afraid, yet they knew they must go in.

Arden went forward, found the door unlocked, and pushed it open. Her companions followed her, and cautiously they entered the picturesque main room. It was just as they had last seen it. The mysterious painting covered on the easel, the jars of paint brushes on the table, and the odds and ends Dimitri had left lying about, were all, apparently, untouched. But the artist himself was not there.

Terry pushed aside the faded curtains that kept the little kitchen separate from the rest of the boat.

"He's not here," she said simply.

"From the looks of this place he hasn't been here for quite a while," Sim amended. "See the grease on that pan."

Arden, however, made a more important discovery. She pointed to a little wall cupboard. The door hung crazily on its hinges, disclosing the empty s.p.a.ce within.

"Look," she exclaimed. "That door has been broken open. I'll bet that's where Dimitri kept the snuffbox!" The words came so suddenly, the girls gasped involuntarily.

"I believe you're right, Arden," Terry said quickly. "Then either Dimitri left and took the box with him, or somebody broke in and stole it. But if Dimitri took the box he wouldn't have had to break the cupboard open. He had a key. Some thief has been here."

"If that happened-where is Dimitri?" Sim asked excitedly.

"That's what we've got to find out," Arden declared. "We'll have to look very carefully in case there are any clues about. Come on."

Systematically they went over the old boat, but after a careful search they had learned no more. When they completed their tour, they a.s.sembled again in the main room.

There the covered canvas loomed up as large, in their disturbed imaginings, as a forbidding specter. Sim touched a corner of the cloth.

"Don't, Sim," Arden stopped her.

"Perhaps we ought to," Sim suggested. But Arden shook her head. They should not raise the cloth.

In their search they had found nothing significant except the place where Tania had been tied up; it was outside, near the stern of the boat. There was no dust, of course, to tell them how long the place had been unoccupied, but an open window through which the rain had come, soaking cushions and the floor, gave evidence that at least no one had been there since the storm had begun. Or, if they had, they had not troubled to close the window.

"These brushes are stiff with paint," Terry remarked, picking up a long-handled one that lay near a color-filled palette. "And the paint on the palette is hard too," she continued. "That's unusual; all the other brushes are soaking in turpentine, and when we were here before, Dimitri had just cleaned his palette."

"He must have left suddenly, then," Arden guessed. "He was very neat in his painting. It looks pretty serious to me," she concluded.

Terry shook out her damp coat. They were all quite wet, but the day, despite the storm, was warm, and they had given no thought to themselves since they left home. Following Terry's example, the others now shook their coats.

Tania curled up in a dry corner and prepared to sleep. The adventure was not to her liking; besides, though the girls did not know it, she had been over the boat countless numbers of times looking for her master. It was not until hunger had driven her that she left her home and sought out her friends. Instinctively she went to them-trusted them.

Sim, still standing by the covered picture, took hold again of the cloth.

Some power she could not resist made her pull it off before Arden had time to stop her.

"Oh, Sim!" Arden exclaimed reproachfully. "I asked--"

A change came over Arden's expressive face. Her blue eyes clouded with tears. Surprised and startled, the three girls stood looking at the canvas, almost unable to believe their own eyes at what was revealed to them.

CHAPTER XV Downhearted; Not Discouraged