The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

Trixie insisted. Then, when her uncle said no more, she followed her brothers and Jim upstairs.
    The gray-haired man pulled himself up, threw off the blankets, and announced, “Everything is all right. How does a man even attempt to thank someone for saving his life?”
    “What happened?” Uncle Andrew asked the man quietly.
    “My name is Glendenning. I’m a visitor in this area. My home is in London. I have a variety of interests. I suppose you would call me an archaeologist or a geologist. Whatever the designation, there’s one thing certain: I’ll never be able to master a simple Ozark rowboat. It’s as balky as the mules around here. I thought I was doing very well, when all at once I was catapulted into the water. I think one of my own oars saved me. I suppose, really, I’d be in Davy Jones’s locker now if it hadn’t been for the young people. It’s always a question of whether a man’s life is worth saving, but I’ve a wife and daughter back in England who may think I’m of some value. I say, how do I go about it now to row back to where I started?”
    As the man and Uncle Andrew talked and Mrs. Moore, Linnie, and Honey bustled about preparing lunch, the Bob-Whites trooped down the stairs, no worse for their experience. Honey hurried to tell the others what Mr. Glendenning had told Uncle Andrew.
    “It’s wonderful to see you looking so well—” Trixie began but was stopped quickly by the man’s rushing words of gratitude.
    “You’re no bigger than my daughter Gwen back in England,” he said, then rubbed his chin, “but you pack a better punch! You’re certainly a fine brave lass, and I thank you.”
    He took Trixie’s hands in his and bowed. Then he shook hands with Honey, Jim, Brian, and Mart and warmly thanked them. “I owe you all a real debt. I hope I haven’t spoiled your whole day.”
    The Bob-Whites, not at all at ease when they were being thanked for anything they did, quickly assured him that the best part of the day was still ahead of them.
    This promised to be true, too, for Slim rode into the yard just as they finished their lunch.
    In spite of the Englishman’s protest that he could find his way on foot to the cabin or row his own boat back, Mrs. Moore had persuaded him to let Linnie drive him. “I’m going up the road with her to take something to a neighbor who’s ailing,” she insisted. “It’ll be easier for you to ride with us.”
    The Bob-Whites, sure that Mr. Glendenning was in good hands, again followed Slim down the path to the lakeshore.
    Though their guide’s code differed radically from theirs, and though they found it hard to understand his role in the morning’s episode, by tacit agreement they accepted him for what he was—their guide but not necessarily their friend.
    “Now, I wonder,” Jim said as the boat was headed across the inlet, “just what that Englishman, clearly a cultured Englishman, is doing in this part of the world.”
    “You’ll wonder no more,” Trixie said sadly, “when I tell you something I saw. In the excitement of getting him to the lodge, I forgot to tell you. I saw it again just now. Do you know what Mr. Glendenning has lashed to the seat in that boat?”
    “Out with it!” Mart said. “What did you see?”
    “A dip net and a carbide lamp, that’s what I saw,” Trixie told him. “That Englishman is after exactly the same thing as we are.”
     

Five-Hundred-Dollar Poison • 7
     
    THE BOB-WHITES beached the boat at the foot of a limestone cliff that towered forty or fifty feet above, making a sharp, protruding ledge. \
    Impatiently, Trixie ran ahead up the shore. “Jeepers, did you feel that?” she shouted as a blast of cool air rushed out from under the center of the rock roof. “It’s the entrance to the cave!” She pushed aside a curtain of vines and climbed over a pile of crushed stone that half filled the entrance.
    “Just a minute, miss,” Slim called. “Just a minute. There’s things to be done. Jim, put that board up outside the cave and mark just what time we’re goin’ in and when we’ll be out. It’s downright foolish, but it’s one of the things your uncle said to do.”
    Jim made a marker and set it up outside the cave. “It’s about two o’clock now, and we’d better make it... well, say about four?”
    “That’s only two hours,” Trixie protested. “What could we find in two hours?”
    “All right,” Jim said patiently, “let’s make it five o’clock then.”
    “If