Ralestone Luck. Andre Norton

like that!"

      "The door was locked and bolted when I came down this morning," Val observed.

      Rupert nodded. "Yes, I distinctly remember doing that before I went up to bed last night. But when I was going around the house this morning I discovered that there are French doors opening from the old ball-room to the terrace, and I didn't inspect their fastening last night."

      "But who would want to come in here? There are no valuables left except furniture. And it would take three or four men and a truck to collect that. I don't see what he was after," puzzled Ricky.

      Rupert arose from the table. "We have, it seems, a mystery on our hands. If you want to amuse yourselves, my children, here's the first clue. I've got to get back to the carriage house and my labors there."

      He dropped the handkerchief on the table and left. Ricky reached for the "clue." "Awfully casual about it, isn't he?" she said. "Just the same, I believe that this is a clue and I know what our visitor was after, too," she finished triumphantly.

      "What?"

      "The treasure Richard Ralestone hid when the Yankee raiders came."

      "Well, if our unknown visitor has as little in the way of clues as we have, he'll be a long time finding it."

      "And we're going to beat him to it! It's somewhere in the Hall, and the secret—"

      "See here," Val interrupted her, "what were you about to tell me when Rupert came in?"

      She put the handkerchief in the breast pocket of her sport dress, buttoning the flap over it.

      "Rupert's got a secret."

      "What kind?"

      "It has to do with those two brief-cases of his. You know, the ones he was so particular about all the way down here?"

      Val nodded. Those bulging brief-cases had apparently contained the dearest of his roving brother's possessions, judging from the way Rupert had fussed if they were a second out of his sight.

      "This morning when I came downstairs," Ricky continued, "he was sneaking them into that little side room off the dining-room corridor, the one which used to be the old plantation office. And when he came out and saw me standing there, he deliberately turned around and locked the door!"