Chapter 7

On the train travelling westward Mermaid and her aunt had some talk of events, recent and not so recent.

“But why did you take my jewels?” demanded Keturah.

“Because they worried you. They were like a piece of bone, a tiny fragment pressing on the brain,” responded the young woman. “I knew that if they disappeared in such a way as to make it seem that they had been stolen—and I suppose, strictly, they were stolen—the worrying would cease. What made you think of Captain Vanton as the thief?”

“Because it was impossible to think of any one else, I suppose,” said Mrs. Hand. “And while I never guessed that he was the man King, still he evidently knew more about King than any of us did; and King had known or seen Keturah Hawkins and knew of or had seen the stones. Any one might want to steal them who knew about them. And he did.”

Mermaid had a question in turn:

“I should have thought Uncle Ho would have recognized Captain Vanton as the Jacob King he had known in San Francisco.”

“Child, half a century had elapsed between his acquaintance with Jacob King and the appearance of Captain Vanton in Blue Port. Then, those sidewhiskers...”

“Dickie will come out next week,” Mermaid said, absently.

“Are you going to marry young Dick Hand?” Keturah inquired, with her natural abruptness.

“Aunt, you wouldn’t have me marry a man just because he asks me, would you?”