The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

warning to find things very messy. I was in the hospital when I should have been in some corrective institution, as Aunt Rogers so often told me during those days. Ricky was also in disgrace for speaking her mind, as she does now and then. To make it even more interesting, our guardian had been amusing himself by buying oil stock with our capital. Unfortunately, oil did not exist in the wells we owned. Yes, Rupert had every right to be anything but pleased with the affairs of the Ralestones.
    “He swept us off here where we are still under observation, I believe.”
    “Then you don’t like it here?”
    “Like it? Madam, ‘like’ is a very pallid word. What if you were offered everything you ever wished for, all tied up in pink ribbons and laid on your door-step? What would your reaction be?”
    “So,” she was staring into the fire, “that’s the way of it?”
    “Yes. Or it would be if—” He stooped to reach for another piece of wood. The fire was threatening to die again.
    “What is the flaw in the masterpiece?” she asked quietly.
    “Rupert. He’s changed. In the old days he was one of us; now he’s a stranger. We’re amusing to have around, someone to look after, but I have a feeling that to him we don’t really exist. We aren’t real—” Val floundered trying to express that strange, walled-off emotion which so often held him in this grown-up brother’s presence. “Things like this ‘Bluebeard’s Chamber’ of his—that isn’t like the Rupert we knew.”
    “Did you ever think that he might be shy, too?” she asked. “He left two children and came home to find two distrustful adults. Give him his chance—”
    “Charity!” Ricky ran lightly downstairs. “Why didn’t Val tell me you had come?”
    “I just dropped in to inquire concerning your patient.”
    “He’s better-tempered than Val,” declared Ricky shamelessly. “You’ll stay to dinner of course. We’re having some sort of crab dish that Lucy seems to think her best effort. Rupert will be back by then, I’m sure; he’s out somewhere with Sam. There’s been some trouble about trespassers on the swamp lands. Goodness, won’t this rain ever stop?”
    As if in answer to her question, there came a great gust of wind and rain against the door, a blast which shook the oak, thick and solid as it was. And then came the thunder of the knocker which Letty-Lou had polished into shining life only the day before.
    Val opened the door to find Mr. Creighton and Mr. Holmes huddled on the mat. They came in with an eagerness which was only surpassed by Satan, wet and displaying cold anger towards his mistress, whom he passed with a disdainful flirt of his tail as he headed for that deceptive fire.
    “You, again,” observed Charity resignedly as Sam Two was summoned and sent away again draped with wet coats and drenched hats.
    “Man”—Holmes argued with Satan for the possession of the hearth-stone—“when it rains in this country, it rains. A branch of your creek down there is almost over the road—”
    “Bayou, not creek,” corrected Charity acidly. Lately she had shown a marked preference for Holmes’ absence rather than his company.
    “I stand corrected,” he laughed; “a branch of your bayou.”
    “If you found it so unpleasant, why did you—” began Charity, and then she flushed as if she had suddenly realized that that speech was too rude even for her recent attitude.
    “Why did we come?” Holmes’ crooked eyebrow slid upward as his face registered mock reproof. “My, my, what a warm welcome, my dear.” He shook his head and Charity laughed in spite of herself.
    “Don’t mind my bearishness,” she made half apology. “You know what pleasant moods I fall into while working. And this rain is depressing.”
    “But Miss Biglow is right.” Creighton smiled his rare, shy smile. Brusque and impatient as he was when on business bent, he was awkwardly uncomfortable in ordinary company. The man, Val sometimes thought privately, lived, ate, slept books. Save when they were the subject of conversation, he was as out of his element as a coal-miner at the ballet. “We should explain the reason for this—this rather abrupt call.” He fingered his brief-case, which he still clutched, nervously.
    “Down to business already.” Holmes seated himself on the arm of Ricky’s chair. “Very well, out with it.”
    Creighton smiled again, laid the case across his knees, and looked straight at Ricky. For some reason