CHAPTER VII A Noise in the Night

"Well, what do you think of that?" Terry exclaimed as Arden and she, still in the boat at the little dock, watched Melissa get into Olga's car and drive away.

"Suppose she kidnaps little Melissa?" Arden facetiously suggested. "We must tell Sim. I wonder where she is."

"Sim! We're back!" Terry called. "Where are you?"

"Here," Sim answered from inside the house. "I was writing a letter. Come on up to my room and tell me all about it."

Arden and Terry, each carrying an oar, almost ran from the dock to the house, and Sim, who could not wait for them to come up to her room, met them at the door.

"Tell me all about it! I'm sure something exciting happened. I can tell by your faces," Sim exclaimed quickly.

"First, we'll tell you about the lovers' quarrel," Terry joked. "And if _they_ are lovers--"

"They are not," flatly declared Arden. "More like partners in crime--"

"Hey, there!" warned Sim, "no crime in this. Go ahead, children. What happened?"

"Well, he was mad as hops when we got there," began Terry.

"And she was, too," Arden added.

"He practically said he hoped he'd never see her again," Terry resumed.

"She was positively _livid_ when she got in the boat, and then she calmed down and tried to be nice to us," Arden took up the tale.

"He called me 'comrade.' Wasn't that sweet?" Terry wanted to know.

"I can't figure it out at all," Sim confessed. "And from the window I saw Melissa Clayton get in the gay car-imagine that! Melissa's been hanging around here all the time you were away. She walked around the house once, and then I saw her peek in the kitchen window."

"What can she want, I wonder?" Arden mused. "She's a peculiar girl. Hope she isn't in any trouble with that sour old dad of hers."

"Looks to me as though we've dropped right into the middle of another mystery," Terry announced, nodding her head wisely. "Maybe there are always mysteries, but only _wise girls_ really discover them."

"Oh, Terry!" Sim exclaimed woefully. "I did so want to be lazy this summer. Mysteries are terribly wearing."

"Well, you can be as lazy as you want to be, but for my part I'm in this mystery up to my ears already, and I find it thrilling," Terry announced firmly.

Dinner that night was a somewhat hectic meal, for no one had a chance to finish a sentence about the mysterious Olga and the departure of Melissa before someone else would break in with the announcement of a new theory.

Ida, the maid, did her serving wide-eyed with amazement. She was not a girl to be easily frightened, but she possessed a great deal of natural curiosity. Despite Mrs. Landry's efforts to shift the conversation into other channels, the names Dimitri, Olga, and Melissa popped up constantly.

Eventually the little house was quiet, with its occupants settled down for the night. Sim and Arden in one room and Terry alone in her own.

Sim and Arden literally talked themselves to sleep, but Terry lay awake for a long time listening to the lap of the waves on the sh.o.r.e and the chirp of the crickets and gra.s.shoppers in the sedges.

It seemed as if Terry had just gone to sleep when she was awakened by a sound somewhere in the house. She listened. It was a barely perceptible squeak, as if a window were being pushed up very gently. She started, then sat upright. Yes, there it was again. Then, without waiting for robe or slippers, she jumped out of bed and ran down the short hall to Sim and Arden.

"Arden! Sim!" she called. "Wake up!"

"H-m-m?" grunted Sim sleepily.

"Someone's trying to get in!" Terry whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

Arden was awake instantly. "Where, Terry?" she murmured.

"Downstairs, I guess. Sh-h-h! Listen!" Terry put a warning finger to her lips.

Sim was sitting up now, and the three girls were as quiet as statues in the eerie moonlight streaming in the open window.

"There it is again! Did you hear it? Just a tiny squeak," Terry asked.

"It seems to be coming from the dining room. Had we better call your mother?" Arden asked in a low voice.

They listened again, with hearts pounding and eyes questioning. What could it be? Or rather who could it be? Down at Oceanedge it was customary not to lock doors, and windows were usually left wide open. But Mrs. Landry, being city-bred, could never get out of the habit of locking up for the night. Whoever it was, seemed deliberately trying to force up a window, and it sounded as if the hands were slipping on the gla.s.s.

"Can you light the downstairs lights from up here, Terry?" asked Arden.

"Don't you think it would be a good idea to show them we're awake?"

"Yes, of course, Arden," Terry quickly replied. "I should have thought of that before. I'll turn on the hall lights downstairs and give them an alarm!"

She slipped softly out into the hall and pushed a b.u.t.ton. With a little snap the lights flashed on. Then silently the alarmists waited with apprehension. What should the next move be?

The sound was not heard again, and the girls in Sim's room breathed a little easier.

"Do you think-they're gone?" Sim whispered.

"I don't hear anything; do you?" Arden asked.

"S-sh-h-h!" Terry hissed, and she went to the window.

The scene below was flooded with moonlight. The sandy stretch, so clear and unbroken, could not possibly hide a marauder. Terry was hoping to see the intruder make a dash for the safety of the garage shadow.

"Look!" she whispered to the girls. "It's a woman!"

Arden and Sim dashed to the window just in time to witness the flight of someone, who, they did not know, in the bright moonlight. The figure was oddly distorted both by the light and the height from which they were looking.

"Who?" Arden asked cryptically.

Terry shrugged in reply. The figure ran swiftly and was almost instantly lost to sight in the shadow of the garage.

"There's nothing we can do now," Terry remarked. "And there's no use waking Mother. She'd only worry."

"Perhaps we had better tell Chief Reilly in the morning," Arden suggested. "Isn't it something new, having burglars around here?"