IN THE OLD DOCTOR'S OFFICE

The two girls, almost at once, began to shrink away through the bushes again--and this without a word or look having pa.s.sed between them. Both Lyddy and 'Phemie were unwilling to meet the professor under these conditions.

They were back at the strawberry patch before either of them spoke aloud.

"What _do_ you suppose he was about?" whispered 'Phemie.

"How do I know? And those bottles!"

"What do you think was in them?"

"Looked like water--nothing but water," said Lyddy. "It certainly _is_ a puzzle."

"I should say so!"

"And there doesn't seem to be any sense in it," cried Lyddy. "Let's go home, 'Phemie. We've got enough berries for supper."

As they went along the pasture trail, the younger girl suggested:

"Do you suppose he could be making up another of his fake medicines?

Like those 'Stonehedge Bitters?' Lucas says they ought to be called '_Stonefence_ Bitters,' for they are just hard cider and bad whiskey--and that's what the folks hereabout call 'stonefence.'"

"It looked like only water in those bottles," Lyddy said, slowly.

"And he's so afraid old Mr. Colesworth--or Harris--will come up here and find him at work--or come across his water-bottles," continued 'Phemie.

"Lucky this new boarder--Mr. Chadwick--isn't much for long walks. It would keep old Spink busier than a hen on a hot griddle, as Lucas says, to watch all of them."

"Well, I wish I knew what it meant. It puzzles me," remarked Lyddy. "And I never yet asked Mr. Pritchett about the evening we saw him and a man whom I now think must have been Professor Spink at the farmhouse."

"Ask him--do," urged 'Phemie, at last curious enough to have Lyddy share all the mystery that had been troubling her own mind since they first came to Hillcrest.

"I'll do so the very first time I see him," declared Lyddy.

But something else happened first--and something that brought the mystery regarding Professor Lemuel Judson Spink to a head for the time being, at least.

'Phemie lost the key to the green door!

Now, off and on, that missing key had troubled Lyddy. She had seldom spoken of it, for she had never even known it had been in the door when the girls came to Hillcrest. Only 'Phemie, it will be remembered, had the midnight adventure in the old doctor's suite of offices in the east wing.

Lyddy only said, occasionally, that it was odd Aunt Jane had not sent the key to the green door when she expressed all the other keys to her nieces when the project of keeping boarders at Hillcrest was first broached.

At these times 'Phemie had kept as still as a mouse. Sometimes the key was worn on a string around her neck; sometimes it was concealed in a cunning little pocket she had sewn into her skirt. But wherever it was, it always seemed--to 'Phemie--to be burning a hole in her garments and trying to make its appearance.

After finding Professor Spink filling the bottles with water up by Pounder's Brook, the girl was more than usually troubled about the east wing and the mystery.

She moved the key about from place to place. One day she wore it; another she hid it in some corner. And finally, one night when she came to go to bed, she found that the cord on which she had worn the key that day was broken and the key was gone.

She screamed so loud at this discovery that her sister was sure she had seen a mouse, and she bounded into bed, half dressed as she was.

"Where--where is it, 'Phemie?" she gasped, for Lyddy was as afraid of mice as she was of rats.

"Oh, mercy me!" wailed 'Phemie, "that's what I'd like to know."

"Didn't you see it?" cried her trembling sister.

"It's gone!" returned 'Phemie.

Lyddy got gingerly down from the bed.

"Then I'd like to know what you yelled so for--if the mouse has disappeared?" she demanded, quite sternly.

And then 'Phemie, understanding her, and realizing that she had almost given her secret away, burst into a hysterical giggle, which nothing but Lyddy's shaking finally relieved.

"You're just as twittery as a sparrow," declared Lyddy. "I never _did_ see such a girl. First you're squealing as though you were hurt, and then you laugh in a most idiotic way. Come! do behave yourself and go to bed!"

But even after 'Phemie obeyed she could not go to sleep.

Suppose somebody picked up that key? She had no idea, of course, where it had been dropped. Certainly not on the floor of her bedroom. Some time during the day, inside, or outside of the house, the key, with its little bra.s.s tag stamped with the words "East Wing," had slipped to the ground.

Now--suppose it was found?

'Phemie got out of bed quietly, slipped on her slippers and shrugged herself into her robe. Somebody might be down there in old Dr. Phelps's offices right now.

And that somebody, of course, in 'Phemie's mind, meant just one person--Professor Lemuel Judson Spink.

Why had he come to Hillcrest to board, anyway? And why hadn't he gone away when he had been made the topic of many a joke about old Bob Harrison's treasure trove?

For nearly a fortnight now the professor had stood grimly the jokes and laughing comments aimed at him by the other boarders. The presence of Mrs.

Harrison, too, in the house, was a constant reminder to the breakfast food magnate of how his own acquisitiveness had made him over-reach himself.

'Phemie went downstairs, taking a comforter with her, and went into the long corridor leading from the west wing entry to the green door.

The girls had never taken the old davenport out of this wide hall, and 'Phemie curled up on this--with its hard, hair-cloth-covered arm for a pillow--spread the quilt over her, and tried to compose her nerves here within sight and sound of the east wing entrance.

Suppose somebody was already in the offices?

The thought became so insistent that, after ten minutes, she was forced to creep along to the green door and try the latch.

With her hand on it, she heard a sudden sound from the room nearby. Was somebody astir in the Colesworth quarters?

This was late Sat.u.r.day night--almost midnight, in fact; and of course Harris Colesworth was in the house. Sometimes he read until very late.

So 'Phemie turned again, after a moment, and lifted the latch. Then she pushed tentatively on the door, and----

_It swung open!_

'Phemie gasped--an appalling sound it seemed in the stillness of the corridor and at that hour of the night.