The Secret of Saturday Cove Read online

  But Mrs. Blake had other plans for them.

  She placed before the boys a platter of hot flapjacks, puddled and streaming with honey-butter. Then she reminded David that the lawn could not wait another day and that the garden must be attended to. “Maybe Poke will help,” she suggested, as she brought them crisp bacon from the stove.

  Gratefully, Poke started heaping his plate. “Mrs. Blake, I am at your service,” he assured her. “Anything you want done today I’ll do.” Then, sighing with pleasure, he attacked his breakfast.

  But David protested. “Poke and I had business downtown this morning, Mom. Can’t the lawn wait?”

  “Dad is tutoring,” his mother reminded him, “so it’s up to us to keep ahead of things here at home. I’ve already seen to the chickens,” she added, “so you will be free to go hauling after lunch.” Her voice was pleasant but firm, and David knew better than to argue.

  That does it, thought David. The Historical Society would have to wait. He shrugged and fell to eating.

  “Where are Dad and Sally?” he asked after a moment. He was eager to show Sally that he had forgiven her.

  “Dad is already at school, and Sally is sleeping off her late hours,” smiled his mother. “I’m glad she decided to follow you last night, David. She was so upset about losing the old chart.”

  David and Poke exchanged a swift glance. David’s, puzzled, said, But she wasn’t with me. So where did she go? And Poke’s warned, Careful. Don’t worry your mother until we find out.

  A merry staccato sounded on the stairs as Sally came clattering down to breakfast. “Good morning, everybody,” she sang. Ignoring the empty chair beside Poke, she took her father’s place.

  “Did you sleep well, Poke?” she asked, in a voice as sweet as the honey-butter.

  Poke choked a little on a piece of bacon. “Fine, thanks,” he answered hoarsely. Sally was not in the least surprised to see him. But how did she know he had spent the night here, unless . . . .

  David’s expression finished the thought. Unless she had seen them coming in together. Unless it was Sally who had spied on them at the wharf.

  “We had a telephone call last night,” Mrs. Blake was saying, “from Mr. McNeill.”

  David stopped eating. “About Blake’s Island?” he asked.

  David’s mother smiled at his anxiety. “Your father said that it’s no longer for sale. But he told Mr. McNeill that one of the other islands might be bought from Uncle Charlie. Dad plans to have the deed to Blake’s made over to you today, David,” she added.

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said simply, and a world of gratitude lay behind the words.

  Sally’s face was remote and closed. She’s all riled up, thought David. Yet, as the boys went outside to work, Sally was humming over the dishes.

  “Nobody could look that mysterious without knowing something,” David grumbled. Frowning, he pushed the lawn mower into position on the sun-dappled lawn. “She skipped out last night, Poke. She’s never done that before.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about it.” Poke clipped around the tulip tree. “Sally’s just jealous. First, you told her that she could help you with the treasure hunt. Then she lost the chart and you probably gave her what-for.”

  “I did,” David admitted.

  “Then you let me in on the hunt, not Sally, and it’s easy to see what happened next. She felt left out so she followed you to the wharf, she listened to us, she ran. Therefore, Sally is the fox. How’s that for reasoning?”

  David leaned against the handle of the lawn mower. “Pretty good.” Then he remembered something. “Wait a minute, Poke. She got her sneakers soaked, out hauling with me yesterday, so she wore her sandals last night. I remember seeing them at supper.”

  “So?” Then Poke whistled. “Aha! I see what you mean. Whoever went pounding across the wharf last night was wearing sneakers. You could tell by the sound. So, question one, If it wasn’t Sally, who was our fox? And question two, Where was Sally last night?”

  “Well, she knows one of those answers, anyway.”

  “Probably both,” said Poke. “She looks as pleased with herself as a cat.”

  “We could ask her,” David said moodily. “But that wouldn’t do any good.”

  “Leave her to me,” said the older boy suddenly. “I’ll find out.”

  David looked doubtful. He would hate to see Poke’s feelings hurt, and Sally had a tongue like a gaff when she chose to use it.

  “I have a way with kid sisters,” Poke added, “even the jealous ones.”

  “Okay, go ahead,” said David. “Only how will you get her alone?”

  “I’ll think of something.” Poke returned to his clipping and David, with an eye on the door, tackled the lawn.

  But Sally stayed inside all morning to help her mother make preserves. Then, at noon, Mrs. Blake brought the boys a basket of lobster sandwiches and bottles of cold, homemade root beer.

  “It’s hot in the house,” she told them. “How about taking this up to Lookout Rock?”

  It was a splendid idea. But there was no sign of Sally.

  “You’ll be leaving to haul before long, so you had better not wait for Sally.” Then his mother said wryly, “She may catch up with you. You never can tell about her.”

  Lookout Rock was the ledge that crowned the steep rise at Goose Creek. Here David could see across the broad, bright bay to where Dark Harbor lay low on the sea line. On one side he could look down upon his own house and barn and garden, and on the other, the town, with its long inlet white-dotted with lobster boats. It was the top of the little world of Saturday Cove.

  Today, Lookout Rock lay drenched in sunlight. High overhead a few sea gulls drifted on an offshore breeze. Tied up at the yacht club float lay a sleek mahogany inboard.

  “Look, Poke.” David pointed to a lobster boat that had come alongside one of the many little ledges outside the cove. Its motor could be heard quite clearly from where they sat. “That’s Foggy Dennett, hauling outside The Graves.”

  Poke’s interest sharpened. “Funny. He seems to be spending a long time on just one trap.”

  “He probably has a good catch. The lobsters are really starting to crawl these days,” said David with satisfaction. “And out there, just coming in by the point, that’s Willis Greenlaw.”

  “You like the men, don’t you, Dave?” Poke asked him.

  “Sure. They’re mighty nice to me. Foggy’s brother didn’t even want to charge me full price for my bait. But I’m hauling and making a profit, too. I’m one of them.”

  Poke nodded. “When are you going to set your new traps?”

  “I’ll get most of them set today if I start early enough.” David turned briskly to the lunch basket. “Let’s eat.”

  Up here there were no problems. They finished their meal in contented silence. Sally still had not come. Finally, they started down.

  “You coming back to town with me?” David asked.

  Poke shook his head. “I’ll stay here for a while in case your mother wants anything done. I may have a word with Sally yet,” he said artfully.

  “I wish you luck,” David grinned. “See you at the Supply.” With a quick wave he was off on his bicycle for Saturday Cove.

  And luck was with Poke. For not long after he had returned to his clipping on the lawn, Sally joined him.

  “I have to run an old errand for Mother,” she stated stiffly, “and I’m supposed to go along with you, Elijah.”

  “Charmed,” said Poke, wincing. “I was hanging around, hoping you’d come out.”

  “Really?” said Sally doubtfully.

  “Really. Wait till I put the clippers away and thank your mother.”

  Sally waited for him, swinging back and forth on the gate. For a time the two walked in silence along the sunny road. Then Poke glanced at Sally. “I certainly admire a girl with spunk enough to do what you did last night.”

  Sally stared. “How did you know?”

  Poke winked at her in answer. He tr
ied to look as if he knew exactly what Sally had done.

  “I just wanted to hear what David would tell you about the chart,” she said defensively. “And what you’d say about it.”

  So it was Sally who had spied on them after all. “I don’t blame you a bit,” Poke assured her. “You were in on the hunt at the beginning. When you lost the chart, you wanted to make up for it, possibly by finding the treasure all by yourself.” A glance at her face showed him that he had guessed right. “You needed more facts, so you went after them. Exactly the way a good detective would have done it.”

  Sally was relieved. “Honest?”

  “Honest,” said Poke stoutly. “That took nerve.”

  “I like doing things that take nerve,” Sally confided. “Especially when they’re all over.”

  They were deep along the old wood road where it was cool and quiet. Sally shuddered, remembering. It was about here that she had heard the owl hoot. But now, with Poke, she felt safe.

  “Poke,” she said after a moment. “You know what?”

  “Nothing would surprise me,” Poke said solemnly.

  “When you thought you were chasing me last night, you weren’t. Because I scooted through the Supply and went home.”

  Poke stared at her.

  “Roddie McNeill was there, too, hiding behind the gas pumps. He heard every word you said — all about the treasure and the islands, and trying to find out how long Jonathan was gone that night, and everything.”

  Poke’s long face darkened. And everything! As if it were not bad enough that Roddie now knew as much about the treasure as they did, he had also overheard their low opinion of him. And he knew of David’s pleasure at keeping Blake’s Island out of McNeill hands. Perhaps David was right. Perhaps Roddie was the kind to cause trouble.

  Sally looked miserable. “I wasn’t even going to tell,” she said in a low voice. “I thought if Roddie found the treasure first, it would serve David right for the things he said at the table last night.”

  The silence lengthened until they reached town. Then she touched Poke’s arm a little timidly. “You know what I think?”

  “I can’t imagine,” he said dryly.

  “I think Roddie found our chart. And I think he hung around last night to see what it was all about. And I think we ought to see Uncle Charlie about not selling Mr. McNeill one of his islands. Because if the treasure isn’t on Blake’s, it might be on Little Fox or Blueberry.”

  “Sally,” said Poke, who had already come to the same conclusion, “what would we do without you?”

  Sally’s world was right side up again. Peacefully, she trotted along Main Street at Poke’s side.

  “How about David?” asked Poke. “We don’t want to pay a visit to Uncle Charlie without him.”

  “David’ll never forgive us if we let Uncle Charlie sell his islands,” Sally told him earnestly.

  “Maybe Uncle Charlie will have something to say about that,” Poke said.

  The antique shop was a converted boat house, built on the piling above the tide near Fishermen’s Dock. A large sign swung lightly overhead, The Lobster Pot — Antiques.

  Uncle Charlie sat by the open window overlooking the cove, threading old buttons onto squares of cardboard by means of pipe cleaners.

  “Come on in out of the sun,” he roared cheerfully. “What you young’uns got on your mind?”

  Sally edged carefully around a table laden with old glass. “We came to ask what you’re going to do about your islands.”

  “Islands?” Uncle Charlie boomed. “Going to sell ’em, I hope. T. J. McNeill called me up last night. He’s coming in to talk business ’most any minute now.” Then he added, “Why?”

  Sally glanced unhappily at Poke and took a deep breath. “Uncle Charlie, we found an old chart of Saturday Cove, and one of the islands had a cross marked on it.”

  “That so? Well, what do you know? Which one?”

  “We don’t know, sir,” put in Poke. “The chart was not accurate. But we think it could have been either Little Fox or Blueberry. If so, that’s where the Blake treasure may be hidden.”

  Uncle Charlie was disappointed and returned to his buttons. “Oh, shooty, that confounded treasure again! Never did put any stock in all that foolishness. Anyway, I’d git a sight more for an island than I’d git for them pewter spoons. If they ever was any in the first place, which I doubt.”

  “But Uncle Charlie,” Sally wailed just as the shop door opened and a man and woman entered. The woman seemed to fade colorlessly away into the background.

  It was the man, also a stranger, who claimed their attention. Very large, very well-dressed, he appeared to fill the shop. He ignored Sally and Poke and addressed himself directly to Uncle Charlie.

  “T. J. McNeill,” he stated, introducing himself. “You Charles Blake?”

  Uncle Charlie could not rise, his lap being filled with buttons and pipe cleaners. But he pushed the ancient lobsterman’s cap well back on his shaggy old head and considered the question. Finally he nodded, “Ayuh.”

  Sally nudged Poke. T. J. McNeill was about to get the “old salt” treatment that worked so well in the antique business.

  Seeing only a rather small old man with a mild voice and a lap full of buttons, Mr. McNeill promptly dropped the “Mr.” “Well, Blake,” said he in a no-nonsense manner, “as I told you last evening on the phone, I am interested in buying your islands, both of them. I am prepared to offer you a fair price — three thousand dollars apiece. And I might add that I am not interested in dickering. I have no time for that sort of thing.” He waited, tapping his fingers on the table.

  “Come again?” piped Uncle Charlie. “I’m deafer’n a haddock.”

  Sally gasped. In the shop Uncle Charlie always kept his hearing aid tuned up so that he could hear a foghorn ten miles away.

  In a huge bellow, Mr. McNeill repeated the entire speech. When he had finished he was panting. He looked a little less important now than when he had come in.

  Uncle Charlie hissed thoughtfully through his teeth and Sally’s shoulders began to shake with merriment. Why, Uncle Charlie isn’t going to sell the islands at all, she thought. He is just having a little fun with Mr. McNeill.

  “Well, now,” Uncle Charlie said peevishly. “I don’t know as I want to sell them islands, come right down to it. They been in the family since Jonah was a boy.”

  Mr. McNeill drew breath for another attack. “Come, Blake,” he argued, tapping the table until the Sandwich glass jingled. “Land is bringing a good price now. This is the time to unload it, you know.”

  “I heard ye, McNeill,” complained Uncle Charlie, rubbing his ear. “Forty-five hundred dollars each, take it or leave it. Never dicker, myself.”

  Mr. McNeill’s face turned a dark red. “Four thousand each, and not a penny more,” he roared.

  “Sold, by gosh!” bawled Uncle Charlie happily.

  Stunned, Sally stared at Uncle Charlie. He had sold the islands to Mr. McNeill. Both of them. Both Little Fox and Blueberry.

  Then her low spirits lifted a little as the old man added, “I’ll have them deeds drawn up in a week or two, soon’s I git to it.”

  “A week or two? Have them deeds, I mean, have those deeds drawn up immediately,” ordered Mr. McNeill. “I’m a very busy man.” He glanced irritably toward the woman who was standing in front of the case of antique buttons. “Come on, Evelyn,” he snapped.

  “Thomas,” the woman began timidly, “couldn’t we buy one of these pewter buttons? I’ve wanted one for my collection for a long time.”

  But her husband did not appear to hear her, and Mrs. McNeill turned wistfully away from the antique buttons and followed him through the shop. Poor woman, thought Sally with pity.

  Roddie McNeill was leaning against the door.

  “I thought I told you to wait in the car, Rod,” said Mr. McNeill, but there was only affection in his voice.

  Roddie shrugged. “I got bored.”

  “I hear you’re
trying your hand at lobstering, son,” called Uncle Charlie, kindly enough. “How they crawling?”

  Roddie glanced at Uncle Charlie. “They weren’t,” he said shortly. “But they are now.”

  Mr. McNeill said smoothly, “Roddie’s new at this business and he had poor results at first, of course. But with that boat I bought him and all that fancy equipment, he’s beginning to haul them up. He’ll be top man in no time, no question about it.”

  “Ayuh,” said Uncle Charlie. “Only they’s a sight more to haulin’ besides buyin’ boats and gear. You git Dave Blake to show you the ropes, son. He’s a young-’un, too, but he’s haulin’ right along with the best of ’em. You’ll do good, with Dave around.”

  Roddie’s glance shot toward Poke. Dislike, and something else, glittered in the look. “I’ll do better without David Blake, thanks.”

  “Makes no never-mind to me,” declared Uncle Charlie loudly. “Only, takes a while to catch on, alone.”

  “For some, I expect, but not for this one.” His good humor restored, Mr. McNeill clapped his son confidently on the shoulder and opened the door. “I tell Rod it’s every man for himself in this world. It’s a race to the finish, and the smart operator makes his own short cuts or he gets left.”

  Roddie shrugged his father’s heavy hand away. “Don’t worry. I’m on to a trick or two.” Then, defiantly, he asked, “Aren’t you going to get Mother that button she wants?”

  “Button?” His father’s voice was short. “She’s too busy to fool around with buttons.”

  The door closed sharply behind the McNeills.

  Uncle Charlie shook his head. “That young’un’s having hard haulin’, pleasin’ that father of his. And it looks to me like the wife give up trying.”

  But Sally was no longer interested in Roddie’s parents. “I’m glad you got a nice price for your islands, Uncle Charlie,” she told him politely. “But if the treasure is on Little Fox or Blueberry, we’ll never be able to get it now.” Her voice wavered alarmingly.

  Uncle Charlie snorted. “Fiddlesticks! You kids go right ahead an do your diggin’. It’ll be three, four days before the McNeills own them islands because I’ll clean put off seeing the lawyer.” He grinned and waved off their thanks.