Jeconiah forthwith gave his mind, such as it was, to the subject of caves. Diffidence was not his failing, and he cross-examined every person he could find, concealing, of course, his real object. He collected a splendid amount of rubbish; but he was acute enough where his pocket was concerned, and out of the rubbish he presently dragged forth the fact of the haunted cave which no one would enter. Whereon Jeconiah went over to Scargill to fish, and had a look at the lie of the island; settled with himself that it seemed a good enough place for a wreck, and told the keeper to row him into the west cave. But the keeper, who had no particular liking for Jeconiah, refused point-blank, and told him he would not find a man in the island who would do it; and Jeconiah, who had suddenly lost interest in the fishing, went home in a bad temper. This happened the day after the two children were in the cave; and the day after that the Urchin's father received an excited cablegram from Brazil on the subject of his beloved beetles. He rushed down at once to see the Student.
"I am going to Brazil, I don't know for how long," he said. "And my boy can't go back to school for a month or more, as they have scarlet fever in the village there. And I don't like to leave him with the housekeeper, and I start in two hours. Will you take him?"
"Delighted," said the Student. "Fiona will look after him."
So the Urchin came, and with him came to Fiona a sense of responsibility for him. She couldn't help it.
But Jeconiah showed no intention of moving. On the contrary, the after-effects of influenza were still troubling him sorely, it seemed. At last the Urchin's father had to tell him to stay a week or two longer, if he wanted to; the servants would be there anyhow. And Jeconiah thanked him and settled down to stay, as he had meant to do all along. But as soon as his brother-in-law was gone he took the car and went off for the day. The chauffeur said that he went to a lot of places and talked to a lot of people; and a couple of days later two strange men in a boat entered the bay and proceeded to camp out on a part of the shore which was not the Student's property. Jeconiah had, in fact, hired the boat, and found a couple of ne'er-do-wells from the mainland who knew nothing of him and were ready to row him anywhere in pursuit of his business, which was understood to be photographing wild birds for an illustrated paper.