The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

would. But then you’ve given us Rod in return. I am not,” Val told his cousin, “going to call you Rick even though there is a tradition for it. There are too many ‘Ricks’ complicating the family history now. I think you had better be ‘Rod’.”
    “Anythin’ yo’ say,” he grinned.
    For the third time that afternoon Val heard a car coming up the drive.
    “If this should turn out to be the Grand Chan of Tartary or the Lama of Peru I shall not be one iota surprised,” he announced. “After what I’ve been through this afternoon, nothing, absolutely nothing, would surprise me. Oh, it’s only the family.”
    With the impatience of one who has a good earth-shaking shock ready to administer, he watched his wandering relatives disembark. Charity and Holmes were still with them and a sort of aura of disappointment hung over the group. Then Ricky looked up and with a cry of joy came up the terrace steps in what seemed like a single leap.
    “Oh, Mr. Creighton,” she began when Val lifted his hand. “Let me tell it,” he begged, “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for years.” Ricky was obediently silent, thinking that he wished to break the mystery of the author. But Jeems and LeFleur understood that it was to them Val appealed.
    “Val, what are you doing out of bed?” was Rupert’s first question.
    “Saving the old homestead while you went joy-riding. We had visitors this afternoon.”
    “Visitors? Who?” he began when his brother silenced him with a frown.
    “Oh, let’s not go into that now,” Val said hurriedly. “There is something more important to be discussed. Since you left this afternoon we have had an addition to the family.”
    “An addition to the family,” puzzled Ricky. “What do you mean?”
    “Rick Ralestone has come back,” Val announced.
    “Val, hadn’t you better go back to bed?” suggested his sister.
    “Not now,” he grinned at her. “I haven’t lost my mind yet, nor am I raving. Ladies and gentlemen,” Val prepared to echo Creighton’s speech of an hour before, “permit me to introduce Roderick St. Jean de Roche Ralestone, the missing heir!”
    With an impish grin Val had never seen on his face before, Jeems clicked his heels in a creditable imitation of a court bow.
    CHAPTER XVIII
    Rupert Brings Home His Marchioness
    “Such a nice domestic scene,” Val observed.
    Ricky looked up from the bowl into which she was shelling peas. “Now just what do you mean by that?” she asked suspiciously.
    “Nothing, nothing at all. It’s getting so I can’t say a word around here without you suspecting some sort of a catch in it,” her brother complained. He shifted the drawing-board Rod had fixed up for him an inch or two. Although Val’s arm was at last out of the sling, he was not supposed to use it unless absolutely necessary.
    “Well, after that afternoon when you made the missing heir appear like a rabbit out of a hat—” began his sister.
    “Rod,” Val called down to where their cousin was busied over the stretching of the new badminton net, “did you hear that? She referred to you as a rabbit—deliberately.”
    “Hm-m,” Rod answered in absent-minded fashion. “That cat of Miss Charity’s just walked away with one of those feathered things yo’ bat ’round.”
    “Let us hope that he returns it in time,” Val said; “otherwise I can prophesy that you are going to spend the rest of the morning crawling around under hedges and things hunting for him and it. Ricky will not be balked. If she says that we are going to play badminton—well, we are going to play badminton.”
    “I think that you might help too.” Ricky attacked a fresh pod viciously as their cousin came up on the terrace. He stopped for a moment by Ricky’s chair, long enough to gather the pods together on the paper she had put down for them, piling them up in a more orderly fashion than she was capable of.
    “Doing what?” Val inquired. “You know that Lucy has chased everyone out of the house. And now that Rod has finished setting out the lawn sports, what is there left to do? By the way, did Sam mend that croquet mallet, the one with the loose head?”
    “The one that you broke hitting the stone with when you aimed at your ball yesterday?” she asked sweetly. “Yes, I saw to that this morning.”
    “Then what more is there to worry about? Let the party begin.” Val reached for his box of pencils.
    That afternoon promptly at three-thirty the Ralestones of