Read Online The Boarded-Up House by C. Clyde Squires - Free Book Online

was none of my affairs!”
    â€œThen perhaps you could tell us—” Joyce was persisting, when the agent suddenly interrupted, turning on her suspiciously:
    â€œSay, what do you want to know all this for? What’s the old place to you, anyhow?”
    â€œOh, nothing—nothing at all!” protested Joyce, alarmed lest their precious secret was about to be discovered. “We only asked out of curiosity. Good day, sir!” And the two girls fled precipitately from the office.
    â€œI was going to ask him the name of the lawyers,” Joyce explained as they hurried away. “But it wouldn’t do any good, I guess, if we knew. We couldn’t go and question them, for it’s plain from what the agent said that they don’t want to talk about it. My, but that man was cranky, wasn’t he!”
    â€œI think he was sick,” said Cynthia. “He looked it. Well, I suppose we will have to give it all up! We’ve tried just about everything.” Suddenly she stopped and stood perfectly still, staring blankly at nothing.
    â€œCome on!” urged Joyce. “Whatever is the matter with you, standing here like that?”
    â€œI was just thinking—seems to me I remember something about the first day we got into the B. U. H. Didn’t you tell me that you knew the house was left furnished, that somebody had told your father so?”
    â€œWhy, of courser cried Joyce, excited at once. “I certainly did, and what a stupid I am not to have thought of it since!” And she herself stopped short and stood thinking.
    â€œWell, what is it?” demanded Cynthia, impatiently. “Who’s stopping and staring now?”
    â€œThe trouble is,” said Joyce, slowly, “that the whole thing’s not very clear in my mind. It was several years ago that I heard Father mention it. Somebody was visiting us when we first moved here, and asked him at the table about the old house next door. And Father said, I think, that he didn’t know anything much about it only that it was a queer old place, and once he had met an elderly lady who happened to mention to him that she knew the house was left furnished, just as it was, and she didn’t think the owners would ever live in it again, I don’t know why I happened to remember this. It must have made quite an impression on me, because I was a good deal younger and didn’t generally listen much to what they were saying at table.”
    â€œWell,” announced Cynthia, still standing where she had stopped, and speaking with great positiveness, “there’s only one thing to do now, and that is, find out who the old lady is and hunt her up!”
    â€œI suppose I can find out her name from Father—if he remembers it—but what then? I can’t go and scrape up an acquaintance with a perfectly strange person, and she may live in Timbuctoo!” objected Joyce.
    â€œIt’s the only thing left, the last resort’ as they say in stories,” said Cynthia. “But, of course, you can do as you like. You’re engineering this business!”
    â€œWell, I will,” conceded Joyce, not very hopefully, however. “I’ll lead Father round to talking of her this evening, if I can, and see what comes of it.”

    â€œDo you know any real elderly people, Father?”
    Joyce was as good as her word. That evening when she and her father were seated cozily in the library, she studying, her father smoking and reading his paper, while her mother was temporarily out of the room, she began diplomatically:
    â€œDo you know any real elderly people, Father?” He looked up with a quizzical expression.
    â€œWell, a few. Most people do, don’t they? What do you inquire for, Duckie? Thinking of founding an old people’s home?” he asked teasingly.
    â€œOh, no! But who are they, Father? Do you mind telling me?”
    â€œMercy, Joyce! I can’t think just now