Mystery in the Sand by Gertrude Warner Page B

that?”
    “I’ll ask him,” Benny replied simply. “That’s the way to find out what you want to know. Go to headquarters. That’s what Grandfather does.”
    Henry laughed. He said, “You are more like Grandfather Alden every day, Ben. I only hope Mr. Lee will answer your question, because we all want to know.”

CHAPTER 2
    Benny Hunts for Treasure
    A t last Jessie said, “Let’s do the dishes and go for a swim.”
    Violet stood up on the sand and took her tray. She said, “You know, I can’t seem to forget Mr. Lee. He seems so interesting. And he comes past here every day with his dog, he says. We’ll see a lot of him. Henry, what do you think he had in his hand? I saw a dial with a pointer. It was part of the box fastened near the top of the handle.”
    Benny had an idea. “Is it some sort of Geiger counter?” he asked.
    “No,” said Henry decidedly. “Don’t you remember the man at the uranium mine out at Aunt Jane’s ranch? He was looking for uranium with a Geiger counter. There isn’t any uranium on the beach, that’s sure. This was something quite different.”
    Benny said, “I’ll just have to ask Mr. Lee.”
    The Aldens all went in with their trays.
    “Don’t we have to go grocery shopping, Jessie?” Violet asked as she dried the spoons.
    “Yes, we do,” agreed Jessie. “I have looked through the refrigerator and shelves. There are one or two things we need. Milk for one thing. Ours is almost gone.”
    “We can’t go swimming too soon after eating, anyway,” Benny said. “We can do our shopping in town and then swim when we get back. It’s only a quarter of a mile to town.”
    “It’s early for an adventure in town,” Henry said. But he was ready to go, too.
    The Aldens put on sandals and locked the door. There stood Henry’s blue car. They all climbed in, and off they went.
    They did not really need the car. Beachwood was very small, and there was just one long street. Henry drove slowly along Main Street. First came the stores, then houses began to appear on both sides. There was one big brick house with three stories and a few new houses, each with only one story.
    Nothing seemed unusual until Benny said, “Oh, look at that house. It is almost a castle.”
    “Isn’t it huge!” said Jessie. “It looks empty to me. There are no curtains in the windows at the front, even in the towers.”
    Henry slowed down. He said, “I wonder who built a house like that in this small town? It must have looked old-fashioned even when it was new.”
    Benny said, “It must have been somebody with a lot of money. Look at those towers! One, two, three, four, five towers. Nobody would buy a house like that nowadays.”
    “It has a sad look,” Violet said. “All the new little houses look so different—like any village houses.”
    Henry drove very slowly down the whole of Main Street and back again. The Tower House, as all the Aldens called it, was the only house of its kind in town. There was the library, the schoolhouse, the drugstore, the fire station, and the town hall. But even the town hall was smaller than the house with the towers.
    “I wonder if there are stories about that house?” Benny said as he looked back at it. “I should think the people of Beachwood would make up stories about it. I could myself. Couldn’t you, Violet?”
    “Yes, I could,” agreed Violet, smiling. “It would be about a fairy princess held prisoner in one of the towers until she grew to be an old woman.”
    “We’d better keep our ears open, anyway,” Benny said. “I’m sure there is something mysterious about that place.”
    “Let’s do our shopping,” Jessie suggested.
    “I’m ready for a swim,” Henry added.
    At the supermarket, the girls bought bread, milk, bacon, hamburger, frankfurters, and a big box of dry mashed potatoes. When Henry started to pay for the groceries, he was surprised to find a small box of tea and a jar of dry coffee.
    Jessie explained, “I thought we might have