Chapter XX: Was It All a Mistake?

“Peter,” asked Judy when they were in their own car following the lighter car driven by Danny’s father, “do you think it was all a mistake? I mean about the meeting place?”

“‘Beaver dam’ and ‘Beverly’ don’t sound much alike,” Peter replied. “But it does look as if one of them waited in one place and one in another. It’s this business of his that worries me. Well, here we are.”

Danny’s father was out of his car first. He parked it under a tree and waited for Judy and Peter a little impatiently.

“You see,” he pointed out, indicating the boarded-up windows and the unkept yard, “the house is just as I expected to find it. There’s plenty to do. It’s been closed for six years, but with the kids to help, it shouldn’t take us long to put it in shape.”

“Six years, did you say? That would be about the time of the Roulsville flood, wouldn’t it?” questioned Peter.

“About,” George Anderson replied without a change of expression. “It was right after the flood, as I recollect it. I lost my wife a short time before.”

He went on talking about his wife as they walked toward the house. She used to live in Roulsville and when he said her maiden name was Mary Turner, Judy thought she remembered her.

“She used to help Miss Pringle in the library, didn’t she? I must have been about eight years old when I got my first library card. A girl named Mary made it out. I remember how nicely she printed my name.”

“That was Mary all right.”

He spoke tenderly as if he had really loved her. But he claimed he loved Meta, too. Judy supposed it was possible to love two people at the same time although she couldn’t imagine herself being really in love with anyone but Peter. Still, before their marriage, she hadn’t been so sure. She tried to listen sympathetically but all the time there was that doubt in her mind.

“Sure I planned to marry Meta, but when she didn’t keep our date and managed to be out every time I telephoned, what could I think? I turned to Mary for sympathy, and it soon ripened into love. It often happens,” Danny’s father declared. “We had some good years together. Now, after six more years, I’m back home again, and trying to pick up the pieces.”

It was an unfortunate sentence. Just then Judy noticed the pieces, not of a shattered romance, but pieces of broken furniture. They were scattered here and there about the yard.

“Beavers,” Peter commented. “You can see their trails through the tall grass.”

“They didn’t get any of that stuff from my house. It is a mess, though,” George Anderson admitted. “But the boys can help me clean up the yard.”

His step was almost jaunty as he walked up on the front porch and inserted his key in the lock of the front door. It opened so easily that he gave a start backwards.

“That’s odd!” he exclaimed. “I thought the lock would be rusty after all these years.”

Was this an act, or did he really think the house had been closed that long? He went in first and just stood there sniffing the strong scent of varnish and glue that filled all the rooms. Judy was the first to speak.

“It’s dark in here,” she observed. “Those boarded-up windows keep out the daylight, but we can use my flash—”

“We won’t need it,” Peter said, flicking on the light switch and flooding the rooms with light. The dazed owner of the house stood blinking in their bright glare.

“Wh-what’s going on here?” he finally managed to stutter.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” replied Peter. “Danny showed me your note. Is this the business you mentioned?”

“You mean my boy thinks—” He broke off there, apparently too stunned to finish the sentence.

Judy was a little stunned herself. The house was not a home at all. It was a shop, complete with carpenter’s bench and sanding tools. To the left, as she came in, she noticed a small office. And there on the desk, in plain sight, sat a typewriter exactly like the one she had given Holly.

“Is this—your typewriter?” she asked when she could find her voice.

George Anderson glared at her. “You knew this stuff was here, didn’t you? I’ve read about you, always snooping around in empty houses and giving that brother of yours ghost stories for the Farringdon paper. You’re Dr. Bolton’s daughter, aren’t you?”

Judy nodded. She couldn’t speak because she had seen what was in the corner. Either she was dreaming or one of her ghost stories was about to come true. For there, on top of a neat pile of chair rungs and old rockers, was a familiar face. In fact, there were three of them. Only one leg from the lady table was missing.

“Look!” Judy finally exclaimed, pointing to the pile. “They’re like new, and yet I know they must be the other three legs from our table.”

“They’ve been refinished. The fourth leg must be around here somewhere,” declared Peter.

The marble table top was there. It was leaning against the wall waiting for the whole table to be assembled. Judy went over and touched it to make sure it was real.

“Now I’m like Meta Hanley. I think I’m dreaming,” she said.

“This stuff is solid enough!” Danny’s father picked up one of the table legs. “But how in thunder did it get in my house?” he demanded. “And what are all these tools doing on the shelves where Mary used to keep her books?”

“We’ll find out,” Peter promised. “We’ll find your wife’s books, too. Were they rare books?”

“They were old books, if that’s what you mean. She had quite a collection.”

“Peter?” Judy touched his arm. “There’s a collection of rare books in the Roulsville library. Mrs. Wheatley bought them just recently. She could tell you the name of the book dealer.”

“Books aren’t all that’s missing,” Danny’s father observed as he walked through the rooms. “There’s enough furniture in here to fill a warehouse, but very little of it is mine. We’ll go upstairs later. Right now let’s see what’s in the kitchen.”

He opened the door but could not enter. The way was blocked by piles of furniture, most of it broken and warped.

“What’s all this?” he questioned, pushing tables and chairs out of his way to make a path and growing more furious by the minute. “Someone has turned my house into a shop for rebuilding old furniture. Most of this stuff looks as if it had been through a flood!”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Peter replied evenly.

“And you’re accusing me of stealing it?”

“I didn’t say that. I did have an idea we might find something like this in your house,” Peter admitted. “One of those carved table legs in the other room was stolen by beavers—”

“Now I’ve heard everything!” George Anderson exploded. “Next thing you’ll be telling me beavers walked off with my wife’s books because they were a little short of reading matter. You said there was a cat in this house, too, didn’t you? Did the cat turn on the electricity?”

“No, but he was here,” Judy began, smiling in spite of herself. She had almost forgotten poor Blackberry in the excitement, but he was sure to be around somewhere. “Your son trapped him,” she started to explain to Danny’s father, but he wouldn’t let her finish.

“Well, I’m no cat, and you can’t trap me,” he broke in furiously as he started toward the door.