"We have, it seems, a mystery on our hands.
If you want to amuse yourselves, my children, here's the first clue.
I've got to get back to the carriage house and my labors there."
He dropped the handkerchief on the table and left. Ricky reached for the
"clue." "Awfully casual about it, isn't he?" she said. "Just the same, I
believe that this is a clue and I know what our visitor was after, too,"
she finished triumphantly.
"What?"
"The treasure Richard Ralestone hid when the Yankee raiders came."
"Well, if our unknown visitor has as little in the way of clues as we
have, he'll be a long time finding it."
"And we're going to beat him to it! It's somewhere in the Hall, and the
secret--"
"See here," Val interrupted her, "what were you about to tell me when
Rupert came in?"
She put the handkerchief in the breast pocket of her sport dress,
buttoning the flap over it.
"Rupert's got a secret."
"What kind?"
"It has to do with those two brief-cases of his. You know, the ones he
was so particular about all the way down here?"
Val nodded. Those bulging brief-cases had apparently contained the
dearest of his roving brother's possessions, judging from the way Rupert
had fussed if they were a second out of his sight.
"This morning when I came downstairs," Ricky continued, "he was sneaking
them into that little side room off the dining-room corridor, the one
which used to be the old plantation office.
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