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Augusta Huiell Seaman. The Shadow on the Dial
The Shadow on the Dial
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. PETTIGREW’S FOLLY
COME, Enid! It’s time we were going home.”
CHAPTER II. LEILA’S POINT OF VIEW
MISS Leila Speer, the Shoe King’s daughter, sat in her bedroom at Grandma Fletcher’s house in Burton and indignantly reviewed the prospect. The rest of her family—indeed, the entire household—had long since gone to bed, but there was no sleep yet in prospect for the disgruntled daughter of the shoe millionaire
CHAPTER III. THE SUN-DIAL
IN the few days that had passed since the coming of the Speers, many things had happened. Naomi and Enid discussed them as they leaned over the rail of the narrow little foot-bridge across Fletcher’s Cove, the following Saturday morning. They were on their way to the village to get the morning mail and do the week-end errands for the household, and they had stopped to stare down into the swirling brown water of the incoming tide while they reviewed the unusual events of the week
CHAPTER IV. A RECORD OF THE PAST
WHEN Ronny had tiptoed over to the chest and glanced into it, he turned to the girls with a look of disgust and disappointment on his pale, expressive little face
CHAPTER V. LEILA PRESENTS SOME DIFFICULTIES
IT was obvious, that evening, that Miss Leila Speer, the Shoe King’s daughter, was still in anything but an amiable humor, and that not a little envy and suspicion was added to her other dissatisfactions. She was still on the veranda when the trio returned from their expedition and was gloomily regarding a letter lying in her lap
CHAPTER VI. LEILA IMPROVES AN AFTERNOON
WHEN the trio had departed that afternoon on their ponies and Hannah, they left Miss Leila Speer in bed in a darkened room, and ministered to at intervals by a concerned Grandma Fletcher, with aromatic spirits of ammonia and smelling-salts. Inactivity and a prolonged diet of chocolates had done their work, and the afflicted young lady found herself suffering with a violent sick headache of the most humiliating type
CHAPTER VII. RONNY GETS DOWN TO BRASS TACKS
IT was late that afternoon when the three left Pettigrew’s Folly. It had not been a particularly profitable afternoon as far as their researches had gone. Apart from the disclosure of Grandma Fletcher’s relationship to Judge Cotesworth, Ronny had learned nothing new, though they had spent several hours in the secret room and had gone over the old paper very carefully
CHAPTER VIII. LEILA PROVIDES SOME SURPRISES
THE afternoon waned and shadows began to creep into that upper room of Pettigrew’s Folly, finding the three still bent, each over a dusty law-book or ancient ledger once belonging to old Judge Cotesworth. Finally Naomi glanced up
CHAPTER IX. EVENTS MOVE ON
BUT as it turned out later, Leila and Ronny did not ride over to Pettigrew’s Folly the next morning. Instead, Leila made another expedition, quite on her own responsibility and unknown to the others until it was over. It happened that that morning Grandma Fletcher suddenly found her kitchen supplies lacking in baking-powder, at a critical moment when Hagar was otherwise occupied. Leila, who was idling on the porch, saw Grandma Fletcher preparing to hurry away in the direction of the village and was prompted to ask the reason. And hearing it, she herself volunteered to go on the errand, as she knew Grandma Fletcher begrudged the time it would take from her morning’s work
CHAPTER X. COUSIN FRANCES ENTERTAINS
MISS Frances Marvin was not expecting company that afternoon. Her front hair was still in kid curlers and she sat at ease, in a wrapper and comfortable old slippers, on her back piazza, fixing the greens for supper. (Every one in Burton dined at noon and had supper as the evening meal.) The only other member of her family, her rheumatic elder brother, sat hunched up in a chair in the kitchen and fretfully complained at intervals or asked the same question over and over again
CHAPTER XI. RONNY FINDS HIMSELF UP A TREE
ON the afternoon of the same day on which Leila had made her visit to Miss Frances Marvin, Ronny had planned an expedition of his own. Naomi and Enid were to play in a school basket-ball team match that afternoon, and Leila had confided to him that she was off in the direction of the redoubtable Cousin Frances, on a quest for information, so Ronny was left with time hanging heavy on his hands and he determined to put it to a good use. He had not yet been able to make much progress with Coosaw, and here was a chance to cultivate the amiable old darky’s acquaintance—perhaps to some profit. Ronny went out and saddled the pony Spot, and cantered away in the direction of Pettigrew’s Folly
CHAPTER XII. ONE DRAMATIC DAY
THE lure of a perfect early-spring morning on the South Carolina coast! Ronny couldn’t resist it. He stood on the edge of the bluff after breakfast and sniffed the fragrant salt breeze blowing in from the ocean, over the marsh islands. The river was an intense blue. The tide was high and every indented cove or “skid,” as it was called, was filled to the brim. A mocking-bird trilled a complicated melody in a near-by clump of palmettos
CHAPTER XIII. A CONFERENCE WITH COOSAW
IT was the following morning, Sunday, and Grandma Fletcher and Naomi had just returned from a call on Cousin Frances, who was confined to her bed with the sprained ankle which had resulted from her tumble over the bluff, the day before. When Grandma Fletcher had disappeared into the kitchen to superintend Hagar with the Sunday dinner, Naomi was captured and led away by the three other young people and guided down to a secluded nook below the bluff where they could be well out of sight of the house. There they seated her on an old overturned boat, and Ronny pulled something out from beneath it and laid it in her lap
CHAPTER XIV. THE BEGINNING OF THE END
WHEN Ronny turned in at Grandma Fletcher’s gate, he was met by Enid, who came flying out at his approach
CHAPTER XV. GRANDMA FLETCHER COMPLETES THE RECORD
IT’S a part of the story,” went on Grandma Fletcher, gazing once more into the fire, “that I know very little about; I can only surmise the details. Harriet Stepney Cotesworth, of course, I never knew, personally,—she died before I was born,—but from what I’ve heard of her, she must have been a rather selfish, self-centered, scheming woman. People said she had the old judge wound round her little finger, although he was a very forceful personality. It was common talk that she tried in every way to influence him against his son, and I’m pretty certain now that she succeeded beyond what any one surmised
CHAPTER XVI. THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL
THE hours are never so long as when one is waiting for them to pass in order that a mystery may be solved. The four young people found this to be the case on the morning after they had taken Grandma Fletcher and Alan Carter into their secret. To tell the truth, Grandma was nearly as impatient as the others. Mr. Speer had much business on his mind that morning, before he left for Florida, and Alan was kept closely shut in with him while he went over his affairs. But at last the Shoe King was driven to Hardeeville, where he was to catch the Florida express, and Alan returned to give his whole attention to the problem of the sun-dial
