Читать книгу Andre Norton Super Pack - Andre Norton - Страница 60

It had been on of those dull, weepy days when a sullen drizzle clouded sky and earth. In consequence, the walls and floors of Pirate’s Haven seemed to exude chill. Rupert built a fire in the hall fireplace, but none of the family could say that it was a successful one. It made a nice show of leaping flame accompanied by fancy lighting effects but gave forth absolutely no heat.

“Val?”

The boy started guiltily and thrust his note-book under the couch cushion as Charity came in. Tiny drops of rain were strung along the hairs which had blown free of her rain-cape hood like steel beads along a golden wire.

“Yes? Don’t come here expecting to get warm,” he warned her bitterly. “We are very willing but the fire is weak. Looks pretty, doesn’t it?” He kicked at a charred end on the hearth. “Well, that’s all it’s good for!”

“Val, what sort of a mess have you and Jeems jumped into?” she asked as she handed him her dripping cape.

“Oh, just a general sort of mess,” he answered lightly. “Jeems had callers who forgot their manners. So Ricky and I breezed in and brought the party to a sudden end—”

“As I can see by your black eye,” she commented. “But what has Jeems been up to?”

Val was suddenly very busy holding her cape before that mockery of a blaze.

“Why don’t you ask him that?”

“Because I’m asking you. Rupert came over last night and sat on my gallery making very roundabout inquiries concerning Jeems. I pried out of him the details of your swamp battle. But I want to know now just what Jeems has been doing. Your brother is so vague—”

“Rupert has the gift of being exasperatingly uncommunicative,” his brother told her. “The story, so far as I know, is short and simple. Jeems knows a secret way into this house. In addition, his grandfather told him that the fortune of the house of Jeems is concealed here—having been very hazy in his description of the nature of said fortune. Consequently, grandson has been playing haunt up and down our halls trying to find it.