Chapter XVIII: Questions and Answers

“No,” Danny said, pulling back. “I don’t want to. If he’s the man I’ve been following around, I don’t like him.”

“Danny, give him a chance,” Judy pleaded. “Maybe he can explain everything.”

“Not if he’s the man in the ghost picture. I know what _he_ was up to. I heard him swearing and muttering to himself when his back was turned. I’d rather not see his face.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to see him.” Peter was firm at first, but at the heartsick look Danny gave him, he relented. “Very well,” he agreed with a meaning glance at Judy, “we’ll tell him you’re all right. He had reason to be worried. For all he knew, you could have been trapped upstairs when the boys started the fire.”

“How do you know it was started by boys?” Judy asked.

“Well, I’m not sure,” Peter replied, “but Danny’s two friends over there admitted that they were playing rocket with matches just before they came down for lunch. It’s a dangerous game, and they won’t ever play it again. This fire has taught them a lesson they won’t soon forget.”

“It’s taught me a lesson, too,” Danny put in. “I shouldn’t have gone off by myself all the time. I should have taken my friends with me. Next time I will.”

He smiled at the two shamefaced boys Peter had been questioning. They didn’t smile back. They were too close to tears.

“It’s all right, fellows,” Danny told them. “Ma will see that we have another place to live.”

The barn had been saved, and the fire had not spread to the woods. Firemen were still busy wetting down the brick skeleton of what used to be the orphanage when the Jewell sisters drove up in an ancient car. Dorcas was at the wheel.

“We’ll take six boys home with us, these three and these three younger ones,” she began in the commanding voice she often used when speaking to her sister. “Tell Meta, will you, Judy?”

“Poor Meta!” Violetta put in. “She has so much on her mind, we won’t wait to ask. She’s sure to appreciate anything we can do to help. We saw the smoke from our house and came right over. All the children are safe? Thank heaven!”

“All right, boys, get in the back seat,” Dorcas ordered, and the six children scrambled in.

“Good-bye! Tell Ma where we went!” they shouted from the car, as Dorcas started off with a jerk.

Judy turned to Peter, laughing. “My, that was fast! I didn’t want Danny to leave until he’d seen his father. But they do have a big house with all those unused bedrooms upstairs and that wonderful telescope in the cupola. The boys may not want to leave.”

“They may not have to,” Peter replied. “The Jewell sisters could keep a couple of them. Foster homes may be the answer to this emergency.”

“Yes,” Judy agreed. “Of course, they are a little old—”

“The orphans?”

Judy laughed. “You know I mean the Jewell sisters, but they do seem to be getting younger since we solved their problems, don’t they?”

“One less haunted house,” agreed Peter. “Between us we’ve dehaunted quite a few.”

“And yet there is an air of mystery about all those houses—theirs, ours, and especially the house in Farringdon. I keep thinking how pleased Dad would be to have some of the furniture we thought we lost in the Roulsville flood. Even the table leg would be a souvenir of our old home,” Judy finished wistfully.

“We’ll find it,” Peter promised. “Your picture proves it was there in the beaver dam, and it couldn’t have walked away by itself.”

Judy shivered at the thought.

“There is something lifelike about it.”

“There certainly is,” agreed Peter. “It’s a puzzle all right, but right now we have a more urgent problem.”

“I know. Homes for the homeless. What about our house?” asked Judy. “We have a lot of room. We could take in Miss Hanley and quite a number of small children—” She broke off as she caught sight of the matron and the man Judy supposed she had photographed behind the lady’s face. They were standing together with quite a crowd around them.

“I dread telling him Danny went off with the Jewell sisters,” Judy said. “He’s calmed down, but he still looks worried. No matter what he’s done, I feel sorry for him. A father has a right to see his son.”

“He’ll want an explanation. I won’t question him just yet,” Peter decided. “This isn’t the right time or place. Of course there is a lot still to be explained.”

“The lady table leg, for instance?”

“Yes, and whatever it was that Danny overheard. If his father _is_ that man in the ghost picture—”

“Do you mean there’s a chance he isn’t?” Judy interrupted excitedly. “Oh, I hope none of the things we suspect are true!”