“How did that make trouble, Carleton?”
“She wanted to take it away.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not talking about taking it away,” Susan said. “I just thought we ought to look in it. Don’t you think we should?”
He said nothing, but clung to the box.
“You don’t know what’s in it, do you?”
“Treasure,” he said.
“What was in your treasure box, Carleton?”
“Lots of things.”
“I wonder if your daddy has as many treasures as you do. Do you think he does?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?” she said, her voice containing an invitation to adventure.
“It’s tied up,” Carleton said.
Susan smiled at him. “I’m awfully good at knots,” she said, and then frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps, though, those knots would be too much for us. Let’s take a look at them, just to see.”
Carleton let her inspect the twine around the box.
As soon as she saw the neat square knot she knew that this had not been tied by childish fingers. Whether or not his explanation of the exchange of treasure boxes was correct, there seemed to be no doubt that this was an adult treasure box.
“Let’s see how heavy,” she said.
He hesitated for a moment, then let her take the box. She moved it up and down in her two hands, estimating the weight, then handed it back to him. “My,” she said, “that’s heavy.”
He nodded.
The fact that she had returned the box to him without trying to open it did much to reassure him.
“I wonder what makes it so heavy,” Susan said. And then added, “If your daddy has business papers in there, Carleton, we’d have to keep them from getting lost.”
He nodded gravely, hanging on to the box. “I won’t lose it.”
“Do you know the difference between a square knot and a granny knot?” Susan asked.
“My granny is dead,” he said.
“No, no, not your grandmother, but the knot they call the granny. Look, this is tied with a square knot. See? Here, let me show you.”
Having engaged his attention with the box still on the child’s lap, Susan worked away at the knot until it was untied. “See how easy it is to untie that kind of a knot?” she said. “Now, a granny is the name of another knot. It’s the kind of a knot you would be very apt to tie if you didn’t know knots.”
Pretending to show Carleton the different methods of tying the string, Susan managed to get the knotted fish twine off the box. She left the box in Carleton’s lap but surreptitiously raised a corner of the cover as she got to her knees in order to readjust the string.
What Susan saw stopped her cold. The box was well filled with green currency and the bills Susan saw in that first peek into the box were in amounts of one hundred dollars.
Carleton seemed concerned that someone was going to try to take the box from him.
“Does Miss Dow know this is your daddy’s treasure box?” Sue asked.
“Of course. She tried to take that box. She wants my treasure. I don’t like her. She’s bad.”
“She was just trying to help,” Sue said. “She probably thought that your daddy didn’t want you to take his treasure.”
“Daddy said we could trade.”
“I wonder,” Sue said thoughtfully, “if your treasure is safe with your daddy. Do you suppose he might lose it?”
The boy’s face clouded with the idea.
“I think,” Sue said, “that we should find your daddy and tell him that if he takes your treasure he has to be very careful. Perhaps we could give him his back and take yours, and then yours wouldn’t get lost. A golf course is a very big place.”
“I don’t know where my daddy is. He went out in a car.”
“I think he was going to play golf this morning,” Sue said. “You don’t want to lose your treasure, do you?”
“I’m going to keep Daddy’s treasure,” the child said, his hands gripping the box tightly
Sue let her face light up with the inspiration of a sudden idea. “Wouldn’t it be fine,” she said, “to open the safe, the big safe, and put the treasure box in there?”
Carleton seemed dubious.
“Then we’d close the safe,” Sue said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial tone, “and Miss Dow couldn’t get in there. Nobody could get in. We’d lock it up and the treasure would be safe, and then we could get it again whenever we wanted it.”
Carleton’s eyes lit up. “Okay,” he said in almost an eager whisper, “let’s open the safe.”
Sue crossed over to the big safe, twisted the dials on the two combinations and finally flung the doors open. She unlocked the inner steel door and then rearranged some papers so as to make room for the box.
“All right,” she whispered, “let’s hurry. We’ll put it in there before Miss Dow gets back.”
Carleton was dancing with excitement. “We’ll close it and we won’t tell her where it is.”
“Oh, we can tell her where it is,” Sue said, “but it won’t do her any good. She can’t get the safe open. Nobody except your daddy and I can get this safe open.”
“Gee, that’s swell,” Carleton said.
Sue reached for the box. For a moment Carleton hesitated at parting company with it. But then he shoved it into her hands.
“Now we’ll get it fitted right in this compartment here,” Sue said.
She turned for a moment so that her body hid the box from Carleton, and during that moment lifted the cover.
There were literally thousands of dollars in that box — hundred-dollar bills which had been stacked neatly and snapped with rubber bands. Evidently, Sue thought in her hurried survey, in lots of five thousand dollars each.
Sue fumbled around getting the cover back on the box, said, “We’ll have to tie this string again,” and carefully tied the fish cord around the box, knotting it in a square knot as she had found it and then pushing the box into the safe.
She hurriedly closed the inner door, twisted the key, then closed the heavy outer doors, pulled the nickeled levers which shot the bolts into place, and spun the combinations.
“Now,” she said triumphantly, “we’ve got it where nobody can get it away from you.”
Carleton was enthusiastic with childish excitement. “We won’t even tell her where it is.”
“Oh, if she asks I think we’d better tell her,” Sue said. “But... you know, we have to keep an attitude of proper respect for Miss Dow, Carleton. She’s trying to help you.”
“She’s mean,” Carleton said, pushing out his lips in a pout. “She doesn’t like me.”
“Oh, yes, she likes you. She likes you a lot,” Sue said. “But, you know, she has work to do and she has to make you do things that you don’t like to do sometimes. But they’re the things that are good for you.”
Sue let her face become suddenly thoughtful. “You know,” she said, “I think we ought to try and find your daddy and see if he took your treasure box.”
“I don’t know where Daddy went,” Carleton said.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Susan said. “We’ll ring up the country club. I think we can find him there. I know he was intending to play golf this morning and he’s out on the links someplace.”
“Can we put my treasure in the safe too?” Carleton asked.
“I think so. I think your daddy will let us. Let’s see if we can find him.”
“He’s coming home tonight.”
“I know,” Sue said, “but he’s playing golf and you know he can’t carry a box with him while he’s playing golf. If he traded treasures, he’s probably left your box in the car or somewhere and you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your treasure, would you?”