CHAPTER XV
TESS AND DOT INVESTIGATE
Mr. Howbridge chuckled in silent amusement when Ruth and Agnes paid him a visit at his office the next day and told what had happened.
“What do you think of it?” asked Ruth.
“Not much, my dear. If you want my private and unofficial opinion, I’ll say I think very little of it.”
“But, Guardy,” broke in Agnes, “perhaps we’d better have your official opinion.”
“Yes,” agreed Ruth, “that’s what we came for.”
“I can’t give you an official opinion until I look further into the matter,” he said, growing a bit grave as he saw how much these two Corner House girls were affected by what had taken place. “Let me have the documents in the case,” he begged.
“Meaning these laundry checks, as Luke calls them?” asked Ruth.
“Yes. You know we lawyer fellows depend a great deal on documentary evidence. Not that I think I can get much from these, however,” he went on, as he looked over Hop Wong’s notes.
“What shall we do?” Ruth wanted to know.
“Just nothing for the present,” was the lawyer’s advice. “Leave it to me. I’ll see the official court interpreter whom we always have whenever there is a Chinese case in court, and I’ll get him to have a talk with Hop Wong. It is just possible that he may be misunderstood, both in his writings and talk.”
“Yes, that’s possible,” admitted Ruth. “I wouldn’t want to do the poor fellow an injustice.”
“He seemed to have a guilty conscience,” remarked Agnes, with a giggle, as she remembered how Hop Wong had run at the mention of the word guardian.
“Perhaps he isn’t the only one,” replied Mr. Howbridge, with a smile, looking at several documents on his desk. “We lawyers run across some queer cases. Not to raise your hopes too high, however, I think I wouldn’t anticipate too much from what Hop Wong said,” he went on. “I mean about a great sum of money coming to you. I handled all of your Uncle Peter’s affairs and, as far as I know, his estate is all settled and you have the most of it.”
“For which we are duly grateful,” said Ruth.
“And we don’t hope for nor really want any more,” remarked Agnes. “Though if you could see your way clear to letting us have a new car, of course we’d——”
“There you go again!” chuckled the guardian. “Isn’t that a perfectly good car you have now?”
“Oh, it’s good enough, if you mean it that way,” sighed Agnes. “But if you could see the look, sometimes, on Nally Hastings’ face when she gets in it!”
“Oh, ho! Sets the wind in that quarter?” exclaimed Mr. Howbridge, using one of his favorite expressions. “And don’t tell me I should say ‘sit,’ either!” he hastened to remark, thus forestalling an objection on the part of Ruth, who held that the old adage should be “sits the wind,” and not “sets.” However, this time she was too anxious over the matter of Hop Wong and the mystery with which he was connected to “start anything,” as Neale would have said.
“Well, you go home and be good girls—No, I won’t say that for you’re always good,” joked Mr. Howbridge. “But I’ll see about letting you have a new car. I’m going over some of your accounts now, and if I find the balance on the right side——”
“If you don’t, perhaps we can get Hop Wong’s money,” laughed Agnes.
“Don’t count your chickens until you hear them coming over the bridge, as Uncle Rufus would say,” remarked Ruth. “Well, Mr. Howbridge, we’ll leave it to you,” and she and Agnes went back to the Corner House.
“Has Hop Wong been around again?” asked Ruth of Mrs. MacCall.
“Not a glint of him, and small pleasure do I have at a sight of the yellow-faced heathen!” exclaimed the Scotch housekeeper.
“Oh, well, don’t be too harsh on him,” laughed Agnes. “He may be the means of our getting a new car. We certainly need one,” and she looked toward the old one which Neale was bringing out of the garage, for they were to take a ride that afternoon.
After lunch there was a merry party on the cool porch of the Corner House. Luke was there, bringing word that he had had a telegram and that his sister and her intended would be unable to get to Milton, as had been planned, in order to accompany them on the little outing.
“And what is the opinion of the learned Mr. Howbridge concerning the collar-cleansing representative of the Celestial Empire?” asked Luke of Ruth.
“Meaning Hop Wong?” asked Neale.
“Yes, my son,” replied Luke, with a patronizing air.
“He doesn’t attach much importance to it,” Ruth answered.
“Same here,” voiced Neale.
“I think he’s a faker!” exclaimed Hal.
“Well, I don’t know but what I shall have to agree with you,” said Luke slowly. “I’ve thought it all over, and I can’t see but what it doesn’t amount to anything. Hop Wong must have been dreaming.”
“Call it a pipe dream,” suggested Neale, with a laugh.
“Oh, do you think he smokes opium?” asked Nalbro, shocked.
“Oh, I guess not. Don’t saddle that on him,” said Luke. “But I didn’t mean that way. I think Hop Wong has been day-dreaming, perhaps, and he may have heard some story about fabulous wealth in the Corner House. You know, before you girls succeeded to Mr. Stower’s estate,” Luke went on, “there was a rumor, so I’ve heard, that he was a sort of miser.”
“We never heard that!” declared Ruth.
“Well, probably it wasn’t spread broadcast,” proceeded Luke. “But I understand there was some talk of it, and I think this is what Hop Wong has gotten hold of and he thinks maybe there is a treasure buried somewhere.”
“Just like that treasure that was found in the album in the attic—the fortune that went to Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill,” said Agnes.
“But where, Luke, could this present fortune be buried?” asked Ruth.
“Just nowhere!” chuckled Luke. “It’s all bosh, of course, and that’s why I think Hop Wong is a faker.”
“But what about what was said by those men on the train?” asked Agnes. “I mean about the ten thousand dollars.”
“Oh,” murmured Luke. “You mean those men I overheard talking?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe there’s any connection between them and Hop Wong. It’s all just bunk, if you will excuse my use of a slang term,” laughed Luke. “Now let’s forget all about it and go riding. It’s a glorious day.”
Neale and Hal brought around the automobile, and as Nalbro was getting in Agnes could not help saying:
“We were down this morning to see Mr. Howbridge, and he said we could get a new car. I hope it comes before you go home, Nally.”
“A new car!” whooped out Neale. “Glory be! Then I won’t have to tease this one along much more.”
“Oh, Agnes, Mr. Howbridge didn’t say for sure we could have one,” expostulated Ruth.
“No. But he didn’t say we couldn’t,” countered Agnes. “And when he doesn’t do that it almost always happens. Anyhow, I’m going to look at some of the new models.”
“There’s certainly no harm in looking,” chuckled Neale. “But I do hope Mr. Howbridge loosens up. If he doesn’t we may get stalled out in the country some day and have to be towed in.”
“Is this machine as risky as that?” asked Nalbro.
“Nothing of the sort!” declared Luke. “It’s perfectly reliable.”
With merry quips and laughter the party of young folks started off, leaving Dot and Tess at home to play with Sammy Pinkney.
Now, as it happened, Tess and Dot had overheard more of the talk of their older sisters than Ruth and Agnes were aware of. It was distinctly a case of “little pitchers with big ears,” and when the automobile party was well out of the way, Tess with a queer, secretive air about her, led her sister and Sammy to a secluded place around the corner of the house.
“Don’t you tell a soul,” whispered Tess.
“What’s a soul?” asked Sammy.
“It’s a person,” Tess informed him. “Don’t you dare tell anybody, will you?”
“Tell ’em what?” Sammy wanted to know.
“What I’m going to tell you and Dot now.”
“All right, I won’t tell,” promised Sammy.
“Cross your heart!”
This rite was performed rapidly.
“You, too, Dot!”
“Can’t I tell even my Alice-doll?”
“Oh, her! Yes. But nobody else! Cross your heart!”
Dot did it for herself and for her doll.
“Now listen,” went on Tess, and her voice sank to a lower whisper. “It’s in our cellar!”
She brought out the last two words with such force that Dot dropped her Alice-doll.
“What’s in your cellar?” asked Sammy. “My alligator?”
“No. The ten thousand dollars!” went on Tess, eagerly.
“What ten thousand dollars?” Sammy questioned excitedly.
“The money those men told Luke about on the train and——”
“They didn’t tell him about any money,” objected Sammy. “It was just that he heard them say it.”
“It’s the same thing,” declared Tess, with a fine disregard for trifles. “The men know about ten thousand dollars in our cellar and so does Hop Wong!”
“He does?” cried Sammy, with wide-open eyes.
“Yes!” went on Tess, with a wise shake of her head. “Now you listen to me, both of you, and don’t you breathe it to a soul!”
This was more exciting than any imaginary happening Sammy had ever brought up, not excepting his dramatic one about the Russian wolves.
“There’s ten thousand dollars in our cellar,” declared Tess. “Those funny men who came pretending to fix a water pipe were after it, but Uncle Rufus scared them away. Hop Wong knows where it is, but he’s scared, too.”
“Where ’bouts you s’pose it is?” asked Sammy in a whisper.
“I don’t know exactly,” answered Tess. “But it’s in our cellar and we’re going to find it. Come on! We’ll go get it now!”
She started toward the slanting, open cellar door. For a moment Sammy and Dot watched her and then, fired by the spirit of what they had heard, the other two children started down into the dark depths, intent on making some explorations.