When the children returned to the dock empty-handed, they got a terrible surprise. “Our boat is floating away!” Jessie pointed to their little yellow rowboat bobbing out on the lake about twenty feet away. “How did that happen? I know I tied it up.”
“Wait here,” Henry told Violet and Benny. “We’re going to swim after it.”
In a flash, Henry and Jessie stripped down to their bathing suits and plunged into the water. They were excellent swimmers and reached the boat in no time.
“Whew,” Henry said when he caught his breath — and the boat. “That was close. Thank goodness the wind wasn’t blowing any harder. The boat didn’t get out too far. You climb in, Jessie. I’ll swim along while you row back.”
“I wonder how the boat got loose,” Jessie said when she and Henry reached the dock.
Jessie got out of the boat and walked over to join Violet and Benny, who were talking to a fisherman on the dock. “Somebody let your boat go,” said the fisherman. “A fellow was trying to untie his motorboat, but he unlocked yours by mistake. Guess he forgot to lock yours back up again. I tried calling after him, but he just sped right off. Folks can be mighty careless sometimes.”
“Which way did he go?” asked Jessie. The fisherman pointed across the lake toward Skeleton Point.
Jessie reached for the binoculars to take a look. She spotted a motorboat heading out. “Look out there.” She handed Henry the binoculars. “Doesn’t that look like Mr. Mason from behind?”
Henry grabbed the glasses. “I think it is him. I recognize the red hat he had on yesterday. If he had a motorboat, why did Hilda tell us they didn’t have time to go to the hardware store?”
Jessie found the towel she’d packed and shared it with Henry. “The sun will have to dry off the rest of us,” she said. “If you ask me, those two are trying to keep us away from Cousin Charlotte’s property.”
“Well, they can’t,” Henry said. “Hop in, everybody. We’re going to follow Mr. Mason back to Skeleton Point.”
But Henry couldn’t follow the motorboat to Skeleton Point. It sped right past there without stopping.
“He must be docking someplace else,” Jessie said. “That gives me an idea. Instead of going back to Skeleton Point, let’s row to that cove we passed not too far from the general store. We’ll hike up from there. If Hilda and William don’t spot our boat coming in, we’ll have a chance to see what they’re up to before they expect us back.”
Henry didn’t need to think twice about Jessie’s good suggestion. He dipped one oar into the water and headed for the deserted cove.
After they pulled up, the children dragged the boat as far onto shore as they could.
The woods were still as the Aldens crept along. They soon came to a broken fence that surrounded Skeleton Point.
“Let’s go in this way,” Henry said when he and Jessie found an opening. “I think I see a trail on the other side.”
Once the children were on the property again, they followed the overgrown path that curved around the hillside. With Jessie leading the way, the children hiked single file, holding branches back for one another.
Violet bumped into Jessie when she suddenly stopped. “What’s the matter, Jessie?” Violet asked. “Are we at the end?”
Jessie pointed to a rock up ahead. “Come see this rock face. Doesn’t it look like a skull, especially with the way there’s some old paint where the eyes and mouth are?”
Henry examined the rock. He found a rusted metal door blocking a wide crack in the rock. The door didn’t budge. “This is getting weirder and weirder. It’s some kind of cave that somebody put a door on. By the looks of it, it’s been here a long time. Let’s see where this trail goes. I have a feeling it joins up with that other shortcut we took off the main path.”
When Violet and Benny stopped for a drink from their water bottles, Jessie pulled Henry aside. “I didn’t want to scare Violet and Benny, but I saw something moving up ahead. It could have been a deer, I suppose. Whatever it was, it ran off in the direction we’re going.”
“Uh-oh,” Henry said. “Here comes Benny. I wonder if he saw it, too.”
“There’s a big skull up there — a real one! See?” Benny pointed to a horse skull stuck in the notch of a tree right by the footpath.
“Somebody’s playing a trick,” Jessie said so the younger children wouldn’t get too scared. “Let’s leave it there so no one knows we saw it.”
Benny liked this idea. “Nobody can scare us away right, Jessie?”
“Right.”
Benny and Violet finished drinking their water. They stayed close to Henry and Jessie. Soon the trail crossed the main path between the beach and the house.
“Let’s pick it up on the other side,” Henry suggested. “Hilda and William won’t expect us from that direction.”
“This leads to the garden where the Clover Dodge statue is,” Violet said.
But Violet was mistaken. “The statue is gone!” she said when she came to the rock where it had been anchored. “Should we go tell Hilda and William?”
Jessie and Henry exchanged glances.
“Let’s see if they tell us first,” Jessie suggested. “Maybe they had a good reason to take it. And if they didn’t, I don’t want them to know right away that we know it’s missing. I’d also like to find out who made these fresh footprints.”
The children looked down at the ground where the statue had been.
“Whoever was here had on work boots or hiking boots with thick treads on the soles.” Henry checked his watch. “We’ve been gone a long time. Hilda and William will be looking for us. Let’s look for them first.”
The children hiked through the surrounding woods so they could watch the house without being seen. No one seemed to be around until they approached the empty reflecting pool.
Jessie put her finger to her lips. “Shhh. Stop here. Don’t breathe.”
They watched Hilda Stone go from statue to statue with a sketch pad and a measuring tape. At every statue, she stopped, measured parts of the statues, then marked something down. When she was done, she returned to the house.
The children backtracked to the steps. They’d gone partway up when Benny stopped suddenly.
There was a fall-sized seated skeleton in front of them on the steps. “The Walking Skeleton!” Benny said.
Henry chuckled. “No, I guess you’d have to call it the Sitting Skeleton. It’s just sitting there as if it stopped to take a rest.”
“I’m not afraid of Halloween tricks even when it’s not Halloween.” Benny scurried past the skeleton.
Henry looked very serious. “Now I know someone is trying to scare us away from Skeleton Point again,” he said.
“You’re probably right, Henry,” said Jessie. “But who could it be?”
“William Mason and Hilda Stone,” said Benny, almost immediately. “They’re mean to us, and they don’t want us around.”
“You’re right, Benny. Remember that man in town said William Mason wanted to buy Skeleton Point for himself? Maybe he’s mad at Charlotte for buying it first.”
Jessie looked thoughtful. “What about Greeny?” she asked. “We know he doesn’t want us around, either — and we know he’s taking things from the house. Maybe he wants to scare us away so we won’t figure out what he’s up to. We should still keep an eye on him.”
Henry agreed. “In fact, we should keep an eye on all of them.”
When they returned to the house, the Aldens found that William had joined Hilda outside.
Jessie waved. “Hi!” she called out, as if she had come straight from her errand across the lake. “Sorry we took so long. The hardware store was out of those light switches.”
Hilda and William kept working. It seemed neither of them wanted to say anything.
Finally Hilda spoke up. “Oh, it turns out we don’t need them after all.”
William pushed back the brim of his red hat and checked his watch. “Half the day’s gone. I don’t see much use for you kids sticking around here. Hilda and I are doing some technical work Charlotte asked us to do — not something suitable for children.”
“We know how to measure, too” Benny said. “I learned in kindergarten.”
Hilda hesitated. “What we’re doing is a little more complicated than what you do in school. Now, why don’t you children go for a bike ride. Or a swim,” she suggested before going into the house.
Henry turned to William. “We already went for a swim,” he said. “An unplanned one.”
William didn’t say anything about untying the Aldens’ boat, but he looked away and cleared his throat. “Well, then, go for a planned one this afternoon. Take tomorrow off, too. Everything’s under control here.”
Before William turned to go into the house, the Aldens looked down. Just as they suspected, William was wearing heavy work boots that left deep prints just like the ones near the statue. |