“I’ve got a queer thing here,” he said. “An old old document, I should think. Do you suppose Mr. Eppy would be kind enough to look at it for me, Aunt Allie?”
“Well, ask him!” said Mrs. Mannering. “He’s here.”
Chapter 10
HIDING-PLACES
PHILIP and Dinah were sitting on the edge of the same deck-chair together, next to Mrs. Mannering’s. Jack was on the foot-end of her chair, with his bit of paper. They all looked very innocent and unconcerned.
“I don’t really like to bother Mr. Eppy now,” said Jack. “He’s reading.”
Mrs. Eppy heard. She tapped her husband on the arm. “Paul,” she said. “Jack wants to ask you something.”
Mr. Eppy knew that perfectly well, but he had pretended not to hear. He looked up.
“Very well,” he said grudgingly. “What is it?”
“Just some old bit of paper we found,” said Philip, joining in. “Probably quite uninteresting. We can’t understand anything on it, of course.”
“It mayn’t be old at all,” said Jack, flipping his bit with his thumb.
“It looks old,” said Mrs. Mannering, getting interested. “Where did you get it?”
“I don’t really know — picked it up somewhere on one of the islands we visited,” said Jack. “Do you know exactly where, Dinah?”
“No,” said Dinah truthfully. “I’ve no idea.”
“Nor have I,” said Philip.
“Pass it over,” said Mr. Eppy, sounding rather bored. His wife passed him the piece of parchment. He took it and glanced at it, meaning to pass it back with a scornful remark. What did these children know about old things? Nothing! It was probably a bit of an old letter blown about by the wind, that they had picked up in the street. Or maybe they had bought something and this was part of the paper it was wrapped in. Mr. Eppy looked at it and opened his mouth to say something contemptuous.
But he didn’t say a word. He went on looking and looking at the paper. Finally he took his dark glasses off and looked at it without them.
“Er — is it genuinely old, sir?” asked Jack, at last, not able to wait any longer.
Mr. Eppy didn’t answer. He was feeling in his pocket for something. He took out a little black case and undid it, Inside was a strong magnifying-glass set in an eye-piece that could be screwed into the eye — something like watch-repairers wear sometimes when repairing tiny watches. Mr. Eppy screwed the glass into his eye, like an enormous monocle, and once more bent over Jack’s piece of parchment.
He looked for a very long time. The children waited, almost breathless. Why didn’t he speak? Why was he such ages? It was mean of him!
At last Mr. Eppy took the eye-piece out of his eye and looked at the children. They got a shock, because they had never seen his eyes without dark glasses before. He hadn’t nice eyes at all! They were decidedly queer. One was blue and the other was dark brown. Dinah felt a little shiver down her back. How very very queer! She couldn’t help staring at him, looking first at one dark-blue eye and then at the other dark-brown one. Was one false? No — how silly! — he would have eyes that matched if one was false.
“Well,” said Mr. Eppy, and paused as if he was thinking what was best to say. “It’s — er — quite interesting. Er . . .”
“But is it genuinely old, Mr. Eppy?” insisted Jack. “That’s what we want to know.”
“The paper isn’t all here,” said Mr. Eppy, and his eyes glanced from one to the other of the children. “This is only a piece of it. And judging by the edges of the paper it has been recently cut. Rather queer that, don’t you think so?”
This was most unexpected. Jack answered at once, feeling that there must be no pause which might give them away.
“Gosh — how very queer! Well, I suppose we’ve just got hold of one bit, sir. Er — I wonder who’s got the rest of it.”
“So do I,” said Mr. Eppy, looking at Jack and swinging his eye-piece to and fro on his finger. “I should be very — very — interested to know.”
“Why, sir?” asked Philip, looking perfectly innocent, much to Dinah’s admiration.
“Well — I can’t tell much from this one piece,” said Mr. Eppy. “It would be a help to have the rest.”
“What can you tell, Mr. Eppy?” asked Dinah.
He looked at her with his odd eyes. “I can tell that it shows part of an island,” he said. “An interesting island — with some secret on it. I could perhaps tell what the whole secret is, if I had the other bit of the parchment.”
“What a pity you haven’t got it, sir,” said Jack, holding out his hand for his piece.
“Where did you say you found this?” said Mr. Eppy, snapping out the question so suddenly that the children jumped.
“We didn’t say — because we don’t know,” said Jack, at once.
Mr. Eppy frowned. He put his dark glasses on again, and became the familiar, rather puzzling man they knew, with his queer eyes completely hidden.
“I’ll keep this paper for a while,” he said, and actually took out a wallet to place it there.
“I’d rather you didn’t, sir, if you don’t mind,” said Jack. I’m going to take it home — er — for the school museum — if it’s genuinely old and all that.”
“Yes, it’s genuine,” said Mr. Eppy dryly. “I’ll buy it off you. I’m interested in old things, as you know.”
“We don’t want to sell it, Mr. Eppy,” said Jack, getting alarmed. “It can’t be worth anything, anyway. We want it as a curio.”
“Very well. But I should like to borrow it for a while,” said Mr. Eppy, and he calmly slipped the parchment into his wallet, and put the wallet into his pocket. Then he picked up his book and began to read.
Jack looked at the others in dismay. He was angry and crestfallen — but what was he to do? He couldn’t snatch Mr. Eppy’s wallet and grab his piece of paper from it. And if he kicked up a terrific fuss Mrs. Mannering would be angry, and Mr. Eppy would get suspicious — if he wasn’t suspicious already!
Philip and Dinah were dumbfounded. The cheek of it — taking their parchment like that! Would he give it back? They wished they had taken a tracing of it. If only they had! Now they might never get back their treasured bit of paper.
They got up and went, feeling that they must talk about it. Mr. Eppy took no notice of their going. Jack did not dare to say anything more to him, but he glowered at Lucian’s uncle as if he could tear his wallet out of him.
They went to their cabin. “Beast!” said Jack. “Surly fellow! What sauce to pocket our paper like that!”
“Hope we get it back,” said Dinah gloomily.
“There’s one thing — we jolly well know it’s old — and genuine — and holds something most interesting to Mr. Eppy,” said Philip, cheering up a little. “We do know that. He was quite knocked out when he first looked at it — even had to get out that eye-piece arrangement. I bet he knows it may be part of a treasure-plan.”
“I don’t think somehow it was a very good idea to take it to Mr. Eppy,” said Dinah. “There may be markings on it that tell a man like that — who knows about old things — far more than they would tell anyone else.”
“I hope he doesn’t guess we’ve got the other bits,” said Jack.
“He does,” said Philip. “I bet he does.”
Lucy-Ann came bursting into the cabin. “Hallo!” she said. “How did you get on? I had to stop playing with Lucian because that uncle of his came up and called him. He took him off somewhere.”
“He did, did he?” said Jack. “I suppose he’s going to ask him what he knows, then. Good thing he knows nothing!”
“What happened?” said Lucy-Ann. “You all look rather down-in-the-mouth. Wasn’t it genuinely old?”
“Yes. But Mr. Eppy has taken it and put it into his wallet,” said Jack. “And I bet we don’t get it back!”
Lucy-Ann was horrified. “But why did you let him take it, you idiot!”
“Well, what would you have done? Knocked him off his deck-chair, grabbed his wallet and run off with it?” demanded Jack, going through a performance of knocking somebody down and grabbing something. Kiki was astonished and rose into the air in fright, squawking. She settled on top of the cupboard in alarm. Jack took no notice of her. He was really crestfallen at what had happened — after all their wonderful, careful, clever plans too!
“We’ll just have to hope he gives it back, that’s all,” said Philip. “And if he does — it will probably mean he’s got a very nice copy of it!”