Part 35 (2/2)
_”'So I had a talk with her,'”_ Dimitri read on from the letter, _”'and I decided it wasn't right to Melissa to keep her here with me. Not that I'm going to be here any more. I'm leaving. But before I left I told this Emma Tash she could take Melissa and bring her up the way her aunt wants her brought up. So that woman took her off.'”_
”Then the poor child will have something in life after all,” murmured Arden. ”I'm so glad!”
”She may even become a champion swimmer,” suggested Sim.
”Oh, you and your swimming,” laughed Terry. ”Let's find out about the snuffbox.”
”That's right here,” said Mr. Uzlov. He read on:
_”'Melissa has always been different from other girls. Mrs. Landry and the three young ladies know that. One day Melissa came home to me with this gold box that I'm leaving back in your cupboard. She told me she had broken open your cupboard and taken it from your houseboat, Mr. Uzlov.
Melissa always loved bright things. Well, I was struck all of a heap when I saw she had it. I didn't know what to do. In a way it was stealing, but not for Melissa. She didn't mean to steal it. She just couldn't help taking it once she saw it. I love my daughter. n.o.body shall ever say I don't. Anyhow, here's your gold box back and I'm going to clear out and Melissa has gone with that good detective woman. That's all. From George Clayton.'”_
There was a little silence following the reading of the strange letter.
”But it isn't all,” said Arden, looking at Dimitri. ”How did he get you and hold you a prisoner?”
”I suppose that is my part to explain,” said Dimitri. ”Well, it shall not take me long. First we shall begin with Olga.”
”Who is she?” burst out Sim impulsively.
”She is my talented but spendthrift sister,” said Dimitri with a little embarra.s.sed laugh. ”She always claimed to have an interest, and right, in the snuffbox, which once belonged to the late lamented Czar, but that was not so. I mean she had no interest in it. That box was mine alone. That is what we often quarreled about. My brother Serge, with whom you say you got in touch, can bear me out in this. I sent for him when Olga became-well, rather troublesome,” he said with a smile.
”So,” he resumed, ”one day I came back here, after having been out in the marsh sketching, to find my cupboard broken open and my box gone. I was thunderstruck. Of course I suspected my sister. But before I had time to do anything, this Clayton man came on board with the box. He said his daughter had taken my treasure, as she often did with bright things, not knowing their value, and he had come to restore it. He asked me not to have her arrested or to prosecute her as he would give me the box back.
”But there I made a mistake.” Again Dimitri shrugged his expressive shoulders. ”I was naturally resentful at being robbed, even by poor Melissa, who, I understand, is not wholly responsible. So I flared up and said the guilty must be punished; that the law must take its course. Yes, we Russians are too temperamental-I admit that. I said I would see that no real harm came to the girl but that she must be sent away and taught to do the right.”
”He didn't like that, not for a cent, and it takes ten s.h.i.+llings to make a pound,” interpolated Mr. Reilly.
”You are right,” agreed Dimitri, evidently not bored by this cross quotation. ”At once Mr. Clayton, what you call, flared up. Before I could avoid him, he had attacked me. He is a big man. He had me at a disadvantage, and before I could do anything he had put part of a fish net over my head, for all the world like the old Roman gladiators.” He laughed a little, for he had brewed some tea in his samovar, and the sipping of it appeared to revive him more than anything else. ”So he had me helpless.”
”But Tania,” interrupted Sim. ”Where was she?”
”He must have suddenly planned his attack,” resumed Dimitri, ”for when he carried me away, half unconscious as I was, I dimly saw Tania tied and lying on the deck. He must, a little while before, have given her some drugged meat. He didn't take time to make friends with her and entice her away.”
”But just what did Clayton do to you?” asked Terry.
”He threatened after the net was over me, to take me away and keep me away if I did not promise to let Melissa go unharmed. I would not promise. I felt it was for the girl's own good that I be instrumental in sending her to some inst.i.tution. I was stubborn. He grew very angry. I tried to hit him. He hit me. It all went black before my eyes, and when I awoke, I was bound and my mouth was tied, in the place where you found me.”
”Oh, how terrible,” said Arden.
”Such a brute!” declared Terry.
”You should have shouted for help,” argued Sim.
”I tried to, dear young lady, but one cannot shout with one's mouth bundled up like a m.u.f.f. So I remained a prisoner. At times the man came down to me and opened my mouth that I might eat, but he stood over me with a gun so I dared not shout. But his place is so isolated that it would have done no good if I had. Each time he said he would let me go if I would promise. But I would not promise. I a.s.sure you we Russians are very stubborn.” Even now he seemed proud of it, and the girls rather liked him for it.
”You couldn't trick him out of it?” asked Mr. Reilly.
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