<h2 id="c6"><span class="small">CHAPTER VI</span> <br/><i>More Suspects</i></h2>
<p>“I told Mother we girls would take every other
day at the housekeeping,” said Mary Louise as
she backed the car out of the garage and onto
the road behind the cottages. “That will give her
a chance to get some rest from cooking—some
vacation. You don’t mind, do you, Jane?”</p>
<p>“Course I don’t mind!” replied her chum.
“Maybe the family will, though!”</p>
<p>“Don’t you believe it! We’re swell cooks, if I
do say it myself.”</p>
<p>She drove the car along past the backs of the
cottages, turning at the road beyond Ditmars in
the direction of the little village of Four Corners—a
place not much bigger than its name implied.
It was a still, hot day; all the vegetation
looked parched and dried, and the road was
thick with dust.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_80">[80]</div>
<p>“I wish it would rain,” remarked Mary
Louise. “If we should have another fire, it might
spread so that it would wipe out all of Shady
Nook.”</p>
<p>“Oh, let’s forget fires for a while,” urged
Jane. “You’re getting positively morbid on the
subject!... Is this the grocery?” she asked as
her companion stopped in front of a big wooden
house. “It looks more like a dry-goods store to
me. All those aprons and overalls hanging
around.”</p>
<p>“It’s a country store,” explained the other
girl. “Wait till you see the inside! They have
everything—even shoes. And the storekeeper
looks over his glasses just the way they always do
in plays.”</p>
<p>The girls jumped out of the car and ran inside.
Jane found the place just as Mary Louise
had described it: a typical country store of the
old-fashioned variety.</p>
<p>“Hello, Mr. Eberhardt! How are you this
summer?” asked Mary Louise.</p>
<p>“Fine, Miss Gay—fine. You’re lookin’ well,
too. But I hear you had some excitement over to
Shady Nook. A bad fire, they tell me. Can you
figure out how it happened?”</p>
<p>“No, we can’t,” replied the girl. “You see,
everybody was away at the time—at a picnic on
the little island down the river.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_81">[81]</div>
<p>“Looks like spite to me,” observed the storekeeper.
“Bet Lemuel Adams or his good-fer-nuthin’
son done it!”</p>
<p>“Lemuel Adams?” repeated Mary Louise.
“Who is he? Any relation to Hattie Adams, who
always waited on the table at Flicks’ Inn?”</p>
<p>“Yep—he’s her father. You ought to know
him. He’s a farmer who lives up that hill, ’bout
a couple of miles from Shady Nook. Well, he
used to own all this ground around here, but he
sold it cheap to a man named Hunter. The one
who started the settlement at Shady Nook.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I knew him,” said Mary Louise. “He
was Clifford Hunter’s father. But he died not
long ago.”</p>
<p>“So I heard. Anyhow, this man Hunter got
fancy prices for his building lots, and naterally
old Lem Adams got sore. Always complainin’
how poor he is and how rich old Hunter got
on his land. Reckon it got under his skin, and
mebbe he decided to take revenge.”</p>
<p>“Oh!”</p>
<p>Mary Louise wanted to write the name of
Lemuel Adams into her notebook then and there,
but she didn’t like to. Should she add Hattie’s
name too? Had the girl taken any part in the
plot?</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_82">[82]</div>
<p>“What sort of looking man is Mr. Adams?”
she inquired, thinking of the “tramp” whom the
boys had mentioned seeing in the woods.</p>
<p>“Old man—with white hair. Has a bad leg—rheumatism,
I reckon. He walks with a limp,”
explained the storekeeper.</p>
<p>Mary Louise sighed: this couldn’t be the same
person, then, for the boys would surely have noticed
a limp.</p>
<p>“Here’s my list,” she said, handing her
mother’s paper to Mr. Eberhardt. “Do you
think you have all those things?”</p>
<p>“If I ain’t, I can get ’em fer you,” was the
cheerful reply.</p>
<p>The girls wandered idly about the store while
they waited for their order to be filled. Jane had
a wonderful time examining the queer articles
on display and laughing at the ready-made
dresses. At last, however, a boy carried their supplies
to the car, and Mary Louise asked for the
bill.</p>
<p>“Nine dollars and sixty-two cents,” announced
Mr. Eberhardt, with a grin. “You folks sure
must like to eat!”</p>
<p>“We do,” agreed Mary Louise. “I suppose
this will mean more business for you. Or did the
Flicks buy groceries from you anyhow?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_83">[83]</div>
<p>“No, they didn’t. They got most of their stuff
from the city.... Yes, in a way it’s a streak of
luck fer me. The old sayin’, you know—that it’s
an ill wind that brings nobody luck!... Yes,
I’ll have to be stockin’ up.”</p>
<p>Mary Louise and Jane followed the boy to the
car and drove away. As soon as they were safely
out of hearing, Mary Louise said significantly,
“Two more suspects for my notebook!”</p>
<p>“Two?” repeated Jane. “You mean Lemuel
Adams and his son?”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t thinking of the son,” replied Mary
Louise, “Though, of course, he’s a possibility.
No, I was thinking of Mr. Eberhardt, the storekeeper.”</p>
<p>“The storekeeper! Now, Mary Lou, your
ideas are running wild. Next thing you’ll be
suspecting me!”</p>
<p>“Maybe I do,” laughed her chum. “No, but
seriously—if Dad is working on a murder case,
he always finds out immediately who profited
by the victim’s death. That supplies a motive for
the crime. Well, it’s the same with a fire. Didn’t
this storekeeper profit—by getting extra business—because
Flicks’ burned down?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_84">[84]</div>
<p>“Yes, he did,” admitted the other girl. “But,
on the other hand, it didn’t do him a bit of good
for the Hunters’ bungalow to be destroyed.”</p>
<p>“No, of course not. But, then, that may have
been an accident.”</p>
<p>“Yet this Lemuel Adams might have been
responsible for both fires. He seems a lot
guiltier to me. If he hated Mr. Hunter particularly,
he’d naturally burn his cottage first.
Then he’d go about destroying all the rest of
Shady Nook.”</p>
<p>“Your reasoning sounds good to me, Jane,”
approved Mary Louise, her brown eyes sparkling
with excitement. “And we’ve got to make
a call on Mr. Adams right away. This very afternoon!”</p>
<p>“Not me,” said Jane. “I’m going canoeing
with Cliff Hunter.”</p>
<p>Mary Louise looked disappointed.</p>
<p>“Suppose Watson had told Sherlock Holmes
that he had a date with a girl and couldn’t go
on an investigation with him when he was
needed?”</p>
<p>“Watson was only a man in a book who didn’t
make dates. I’m a real girl who’s full of life. I
came up here for some fun, not just to be an old
character in a detective story! And besides, Mary
Lou, you have a date too. I heard you promise
David McCall you’d go canoeing with him today.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_85">[85]</div>
<p>“I’m mad at David,” objected Mary Louise.
“He certainly made me furious last night.”</p>
<p>“What did he do?”</p>
<p>Mary Louise frowned, but she did not tell
Jane what the young man had said about Cliff
Hunter. No use getting her chum all excited,
so she merely shrugged her shoulders.</p>
<p>“Oh, just some remarks he made,” she replied.
“But I really had forgotten all about the date.
When did I promise him?”</p>
<p>“Yesterday afternoon, before I went off with
Cliff. Oh, come on, Mary Lou! Go along with
us. Let’s pack a supper—it’ll be easy with all
that food we brought back from the store.
Maybe your mother and Freckles will go along.”</p>
<p>“No, I really can’t, Jane. I don’t want to be
rude to you—you are my guest, I know—but
honest, this is important. That I go see old Mr.
Adams, I mean. If he has made up his mind
to burn down the entire settlement at Shady
Nook, our cottage will be included. I’ve just
got to do something to save it—and everybody
else’s. You know—Dad’s counting on me!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_86">[86]</div>
<p>“Yes, I understand how you feel, Mary Lou.
But you may be all wrong—these two fires may
just have been accidents—and then you’ll be
wasting your perfectly good vacation for nothing.”</p>
<p>“Oh, but I’m having fun! There’s nothing I
love better than a mystery. Only this one does
scare me a little, because we may actually be involved
in it.”</p>
<p>“Well, you do whatever you want,” Jane told
her. “Just regard me as one of the family, and
I’ll go my own way. I know everybody here
now, and I’m having a grand time. Only don’t
forget you have David McCall to reckon with
about breaking that date!”</p>
<p>They drove up to the back door of the cottage,
and Freckles, who had returned home by
this time, helped carry in the boxes. Mary
Louise asked him how he had made out with the
Flicks.</p>
<p>“Not so good,” was the reply. “He’s sore as
anything. Still believes we had something to do
with starting the fire, though he admits he
doesn’t think we did it on purpose. They’re going
away today.”</p>
<p>“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Mary
Louise. “I was hoping they would build some
kind of shack and continue to serve meals.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_87">[87]</div>
<p>“Nope, they’re not going to. They’ve decided
to go right back to Albany, where they live in
the winter.”</p>
<p>“Where are they now?” demanded Mary
Louise. She realized that she must hurry if she
meant to interview them before they left Shady
Nook.</p>
<p>“Mr. Flick’s on his lot, and Mrs. Flick is
over at the Partridges’. They stayed there all
night, you know, Sis.”</p>
<p>As soon as the supplies from the store were
carefully stored away, the two girls walked over
to the spot where the Flicks’ Inn had stood. The
charred remains were pitiful to see; the fire had
been much harder on the Flicks than the Hunters’
disaster had been for them, because the innkeeper
and his wife were poor. And what they
made in the summer went a long way toward
supporting them all the year round. Mary
Louise felt sorry for them, but nevertheless she
resented their laying the blame upon her brother.</p>
<p>The girls found Mr. Flick standing under a
tree talking to some men in overalls—working
men, whom Mary Lou remembered seeing from
time to time around the hotel across the river.</p>
<p>“May I talk with you for a moment, Mr.
Flick?” inquired Mary Louise, as the former
turned around and spoke to her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_88">[88]</div>
<p>“Yes, of course, Mary Louise,” he replied.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.”</p>
<p>“You really don’t think the boys are responsible,
do you, Mr. Flick?” she asked directly,
when he joined the girls.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what to think,” replied the
man. “It may have been an accident. That one
servant girl we have is awfully careless.”</p>
<p>“Which one?”</p>
<p>“Hattie Adams. The one who waits on your
table and washes the dishes.”</p>
<p>“Hattie Adams!” repeated Mary Louise.
“Lemuel Adams’ daughter!”</p>
<p>“Yes. And Tom Adams’ sister.” He lowered
his voice. “That’s Tom over there—remember
him?—he does odd jobs for both me and Frazier
sometimes.”</p>
<p>Mary Louise nodded and glanced at the young
man. He was a big fellow with a somewhat sullen
expression. He looked something like Hattie.</p>
<p>“How do you know Lem Adams?” inquired
Mr. Flick.</p>
<p>“I don’t,” replied Mary Louise quietly. “But
the storekeeper over at Four Corners told me
about him. How he used to own all this land and
sold it cheap to Mr. Hunter. So he thinks maybe
Mr. Adams is burning the cottages to spite the
Hunters.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_89">[89]</div>
<p>“But Hunter is dead!” objected Mr. Flick.
“And it doesn’t spite the Hunters one bit, because
they are fully insured. That’s the worst of it for
me. My insurance only covers my mortgage—which
Cliff Hunter happens to hold. I’m as good
as wiped out.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Mary Louise sympathetically.</p>
<p>“Not half as sorry as I am.” He scowled.
“And when I get to Albany I’m going to hunt
up a lawyer. If those Smith kids did it, their
parents can pay for the damage!”</p>
<p>“Oh, but they didn’t!” protested Mary Louise.</p>
<p>“It’s too bad if your brother was in it too.
But if he was, he ought to be punished—though
I blame that Robby Smith as the ringleader.
Boys like those aren’t safe to have around. They
don’t have anybody to control them. They ought
to be locked behind the walls of a reform
school.”</p>
<p>There was nothing Mary Louise could say:
the man was far too wrought up to listen to
reason. So she and Jane merely nodded goodbye
and turned away.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_90">[90]</div>
<p>They stopped at the Partridges’ cottage to
see Mrs. Flick and found her much calmer.</p>
<p>“I blame the Adams girl,” she said. “Hattie’s
so careless! And she was the last one at the inn.
I never should have left her alone. But my other
waitresses wanted to get back to their hometown,
and they left early—before we did. So I
can’t lay the blame on them.”</p>
<p>“You really don’t think the boys did it, do
you, Mrs. Flick?” inquired Mary Louise anxiously.</p>
<p>“No, I don’t,” was the reassuring reply, “even
if my husband does!”</p>
<p>“Thank goodness for that!” exclaimed the
girl in relief. “Well, I’m going to call on the
Adams family this afternoon and find out all I
can. I’ll pump Hattie, and old Mr. Adams too.”</p>
<p>“Good luck to you, my dear!” concluded Mrs.
Flick.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_91">[91]</div>
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