The Yacht Club | Page 6

of her bright eyes.
"It isn't quite safe for him to do so. Unfortunately, such people don't know their own heads. I will come in again after tea," said the doctor, as he went out of the house, at the front door; for he had not left his hat in the library.
"I am so glad Michael is better!" continued Nellie. "When I saw him drop, I felt as cold as ice, and I was afraid I should drop too before I could get to the library."
"Did you see him fall, Nellie?" asked her father.
"Yes; he gave a kind of groan, and then fell; he was--"
"Gracious!" exclaimed Captain Patterdale, interrupting her all of a sudden.
He turned on his heel, and walked rapidly into the library. Nellie was startled, and was troubled with a suspicion that her father had a coup de soleil, or coup de something-else; for he did not often do anything by fits and starts. She followed him into the library. It was a fact that the captain had left his hat there; but it was not for this article, so necessary in a hot day, that he hastened thus abruptly into the room. Nellie found him flying around the apartment in a high state of excitement for him. He was looking anxiously about, and seemed to be very much disturbed.
"What in the world is the matter, father?" asked Nellie.
"Where is your mother?"
"She has gone over to Mrs. Rodman's."
"Hasn't she been back?"
"No, certainly not; I was just going over to tell her what had happened to Michael, when you came down."
"Who has been in here, Nellie?"
"I don't know that anybody has. I haven't seen any one. What's the matter, father? what in the world has happened?"
"I left my tin box here when I went out to see to Michael, and now it is gone," answered Captain Patterdale, anxiously. "I didn't know but that your mother had come in and taken care of it."
"The tin box gone?" exclaimed Nellie. "Why, what can have become of it?"
"That is just what I should like to know," added the captain, as he renewed his search in the room for the treasure chest.
It was not in the library, and then he looked in the great hall and in the little hall, in the drawing-room, the sitting-room, and the dining-room; but it was not in any of these. He knew he had left it on the chair near where he was sitting when he went out of the room. Then he examined the spring-lock on the door of the library which led into the side street. It was closed and securely fastened. The door shut itself with a patent invention, and when shut it locked itself, so that anybody could get out, but no one could get in unless admitted.
"Where were you when I was up stairs, Nellie?" asked Captain Patterdale, as he seated himself in his arm-chair, to take a cool view of the whole subject.
"I was in the hall most of the time," she replied.
"Who has been in the library?"
"Let me see; Laud Cavendish came down first, and went out through the library."
The captain rubbed his bald head, and seemed to be asking himself whether it was possible for Mr. Laud Cavendish to do so wicked a deed as stealing that tin box. He did not believe the young swell had the baseness or the daring to commit so great a crime. It might be, but he could not think so.
"Who else has been in here?" he inquired, when he had hastily considered all he knew about the moral character of Laud.
"That other man who was with you--I don't know his name--the one that was here when I came in with Don John."
"Mr. Hasbrook."
"He went out through the library. I thought he looked real ugly too," added Nellie. "He kept fidgeting about all the time I was here."
"And all the time he was here himself. He went out through the library--did he?"
"Yes, sir."
Captain Patterdale mentally overhauled the character of Mr. Hasbrook. It was unfortunate for his late debtor that his character was not first class, and between him and Laud Cavendish the probabilities were altogether against Hasbrook. He had evidently been vexed and angry because he failed to carry his point, and his cupidity might have been stimulated by revenge. But the captain was a fair and just man, and in a matter of this kind, involving the reputation of any person, he kept his suspicions to himself.
"Who else has been in the library, Nellie?" he asked.
"No one but Don John," replied she. And whatever Laud or Hasbrook might have done in wickedness, Nellie had too much regard for her friend and schoolmate to admit for one instant the possibility of his doing anything wrong, much less his committing so gross a crime as