The House Of A Thousand Candles/Chapter 23

We had established the practice of barring all the gates and doors at nightfall. There was no way of guarding against an attack from the lake, whose frozen surface increased the danger from without; but we counted on our night patrol to prevent a surprise from that quarter. I was well aware that I must prepare to resist the militant arm of the law, which Pickering would no doubt invoke to aid him, but I intended to exhaust the possibilities in searching for the lost treasure before I yielded. Pickering might, if he would, transfer the estate of John Marshall Glenarm to Marian Devereux and make the most he could of that service, but he should not drive me forth until I had satisfied myself of the exact character of my grandfather’s fortune. If it had vanished, if Pickering had stolen it and outwitted me in making off with it, that was another matter.

The phrase, “The Door of Bewilderment,” had never ceased to reiterate itself in my mind. We discussed a thousand explanations of it as we pondered over the scrap of paper I had found in the library, and every book in the house was examined in the search for further clues.

The passage between the house and the chapel seemed to fascinate Larry. He held that it must have some particular use and he devoted his time to exploring it.

He came up at noon—it was the twenty-ninth of December—with grimy face and hands and a grin on his face. I had spent my morning in the towers, where it was beastly cold, to no purpose and was not in a mood for the ready acceptance of new theories.

“I’ve found something,” he said, filling his pipe.

“Not soap, evidently!”

“No, but I’m going to say the last word on the tunnel, and within an hour. Give me a glass of beer and a piece of bread, and we’ll go back and see whether we’re sold again or not.”

“Let us explore the idea and be done with it. Wait till I tell Stoddard where we’re going.”

The chaplain was trying the second-floor walls, and I asked him to eat some luncheon and stand guard while Larry and I went to the tunnel.

We took with us an iron bar, an ax and a couple of hammers. Larry went ahead with a lantern.

“You see,” he explained, as we dropped through the trap into the passage, “I’ve tried a compass on this tunnel and find that we’ve been working on the wrong theory. The passage itself runs a straight line from the house under the gate to the crypt; the ravine is a rough crescent-shape and for a short distance the tunnel touches it. How deep does that ravine average—about thirty feet?”

“Yes; it’s shallowest where the house stands. it drops sharply from there on to the lake.”

“Very good; but the ravine is all on the Glenarm side of the wall, isn’t it? Now when we get under the wall I’ll show you something.”

“Here we are,” said Larry, as the cold air blew in through the hollow posts. “Now we’re pretty near that sharp curve of the ravine that dips away from the wall. Take the lantern while I get out the compass. What do you think that C on the piece of paper means? Why, chapel, of course. I have measured the distance from the house, the point of departure, we may assume, to the chapel, and three-fourths of it brings us under those beautiful posts. The directions are as plain as daylight. The passage itself is your N. W., as the compass proves, and the ravine cuts close in here; therefore, our business is to explore the wall on the ravine side.”

“Good! but this is just wall here—earth with a layer of brick and a thin coat of cement. A nice job it must have been to do the work,—and it cost the price of a tiger hunt,” I grumbled.

“Take heart, lad, and listen,”—and Larry began pounding the wall with a hammer, exactly under the north gate-post. We had sounded everything in and about the house until the process bored me.

“Hurry up and get through with it,” I jerked impatiently, holding the lantern at the level of his head. It was sharply cold under the posts and I was anxious to prove the worthlessness of his idea and be done.

Thump! thump!

“There’s a place here that sounds a trifle off the key. You try it.”

I snatched the hammer and repeated his soundings.

Thump! thump!

There was a space about four feet square in the wall that certainly gave forth a hollow sound.

“Stand back!” exclaimed Larry eagerly. “Here goes with the ax.”

He struck into the wall sharply and the cement chipped off in rough pieces, disclosing the brick beneath. Larry paused when he had uncovered a foot of the inner layer, and examined the surface.

“They’re loose—these bricks are loose, and there’s something besides earth behind them!”

I snatched the hammer and drove hard at the wall. The bricks were set up without mortar, and I plucked them out and rapped with my knuckles on a wooden surface.

Even Larry grew excited as we flung out the bricks.

“Ah, lad,” he said, “the old gentleman had a way with him—he had a way with him!” A brick dropped on his foot and he howled in pain.

“Bless the old gentleman’s heart! He made it as easy for us as he could. Now, for the Glenarm millions, —red money all piled up for the ease of counting it,— a thousand pounds in every pile.”

“Don’t be a fool, Larry,” I coughed at him, for the brick dust and the smoke of Larry’s pipe made breathing difficult.

“That’s all the loose brick,—bring the lantern closer,” —and we peered through the aperture upon a wooden door, in which strips of iron were deep-set. It was fastened with a padlock and Larry reached down for the ax.

“Wait!” I called, drawing closer with the lantern. “What’s this?”

The wood of the door was fresh and white, but burned deep on the surface, in this order, were the words:

“There are dead men inside, I dare say! Here, my lad, it’s not for me to turn loose the family skeletons,”—and Larry stood aside while I swung the ax and brought it down with a crash on the padlock. It was of no flimsy stuff and the remaining bricks cramped me, but half a dozen blows broke it off.

“The house of a thousand ghosts,” chanted the irrepressible Larry, as I pushed the door open and crawled through.

Whatever the place was it had a floor and I set my feet firmly upon it and turned to take the lantern.

“Hold a bit,” he exclaimed. “Some one’s coming,”—and bending toward the opening I heard the sound of steps down the corridor. In a moment Bates ran up, calling my name with more spirit than I imagined possible in him.

“What is it?” I demanded, crawling out into the tunnel.

“It’s Mr. Pickering. The sheriff has come with him, sir.”

As he spoke his glance fell upon the broken wall and open door. The light of Larry’s lantern struck full upon him. Amazement, and, I thought, a certain satisfaction, were marked upon his countenance.

“Run along, Jack,—I’ll be up a little later,” said Larry. “If the fellow has come in daylight with the sheriff, he isn’t dangerous. It’s his friends that shoot in the dark that give us the trouble.”

I crawled out and stood upright. Bates, staring at the opening, seemed reluctant to leave the spot.

“You seem to have found it, sir,” he said,—I thought a little chokingly. His interest in the matter nettled me; for my first business was to go above for an interview with the executor, and the value of our discovery was secondary.

“Of course we have found it!” I ejaculated, brushing the dust from my clothes. “Is Mr. Stoddard in the library?”

“Oh, yes, sir; I left him entertaining the gentlemen.”

“Their visit is certainly most inopportune,” said Larry. “Give them my compliments and tell them I’ll be up as soon as I’ve articulated the bones of my friend’s ancestors.”

Bates strode on ahead of me with his lantern, and I left Larry crawling through the new-found door as I hurried toward the house. I knew him well enough to be sure he would not leave the spot until he had found what lay behind the Door of Bewilderment.

“You didn’t tell the callers where you expected to find me, did you?” I asked Bates, as he brushed me off in the kitchen.

“No, sir. Mr. Stoddard received the gentlemen. He rang the bell for me and when I went into the library he was saying, ‘Mr. Glenarm is at his studies. Bates,’—he says—‘kindly tell Mr. Glenarm that I’m sorry to interrupt him, but won’t he please come down?’ I thought it rather neat, sir, considering his clerical office. I knew you were below somewhere, sir; the trap-door was open and I found you easily enough.”

Bates’ eyes were brighter than I had ever seen them. A certain buoyant note gave an entirely new tone to his voice. He walked ahead of me to the library door, threw it open and stood aside.

“Here you are, Glenarm,” said Stoddard. Pickering and a stranger stood near the fireplace in their overcoats.

Pickering advanced and offered his hand, but I turned away from him without taking it. His companion, a burly countryman, stood staring, a paper in his hand.

“The sheriff,” Pickering explained, “and our business is rather personal—”

He glanced at Stoddard, who looked at me.

“Mr. Stoddard will do me the kindness to remain,” I said and took my stand beside the chaplain.

“Oh!” Pickering ejaculated scornfully. “I didn’t understand that you had established relations with the neighboring clergy. Your taste is improving, Glenarm.”

“Mr. Glenarm is a friend of mine,” remarked Stoddard quietly. “A very particular friend,” he added.

“I congratulate you—both.”

I laughed. Pickering was surveying the room as he spoke,—and Stoddard suddenly stepped toward him, merely, I think, to draw up a chair for the sheriff; but Pickering, not hearing Stoddard’s step on the soft rug until the clergyman was close beside him, started perceptibly and reddened.

It was certainly ludicrous, and when Stoddard faced me again he was biting his lip.

“Pardon me!” he murmured.

“Now, gentlemen, will you kindly state your business? My own affairs press me.”

Pickering was studying the cartridge boxes on the library table. The sheriff, too, was viewing these effects with interest not, I think, unmixed with awe.

“Glenarm, I don’t like to invoke the law to eject you from this property, but I am left with no alternative. I can’t stay out here indefinitely, and I want to know what I’m to expect.”

“That is a fair question,” I replied. “If it were merely a matter of following the terms of the will I should not hesitate or be here now. But it isn’t the will, or my grandfather, that keeps me, it’s the determination to give you all the annoyance possible,—to make it hard and mighty hard for you to get hold of this house until I have found why you are so much interested in it.”

“You always had a grand way in money matters. As I told you before you came out here, it’s a poor stake. The assets consist wholly of this land and this house, whose quality you have had an excellent opportunity to test. You have doubtless heard that the country people believe there is money concealed here,—but I dare say you have exhausted the possibilities. This is not the first time a rich man has died leaving precious little behind him.”

“You seem very anxious to get possession of a property that you call a poor stake,” I said. “A few acres of land, a half-finished house and an uncertain claim upon a school-teacher!”

“I had no idea you would understand it,” he replied. “The fact that a man may be under oath to perform the solemn duties imposed upon him by the law would hardly appeal to you. But I haven’t come here to debate this question. When are you going to leave?”

“Not till I’m ready,—thanks!”

“Mr. Sheriff, will you serve your writ?” he said, and I looked to Stoddard for any hint from him as to what I should do.

“I believe Mr. Glenarm is quite willing to hear whatever the sheriff has to say to him,” said Stoddard. He stepped nearer to me, as though to emphasize the fact that he belonged to my side of the controversy, and the sheriff read an order of the Wabana County Circuit Court directing me, immediately, to deliver the house and grounds into the keeping of the executor of the will of the estate of John Marshall Glenarm.

The sheriff rather enjoyed holding the center of the stage, and I listened quietly to the unfamiliar phraseology. Before he had quite finished I heard a step in the hall and Larry appeared at the door, pipe in mouth. Pickering turned toward him frowning, but Larry paid not the slightest attention to the executor, leaning against the door with his usual tranquil unconcern.

“I advise you not to trifle with the law, Glenarm,” said Pickering angrily. “You have absolutely no right whatever to be here. And these other gentlemen—your guests, I suppose—are equally trespassers under the law.”

He stared at Larry, who crossed his legs for greater ease in adjusting his lean frame to the door.

“Well, Mr. Pickering, what is the next step?” asked the sheriff, with an importance that had been increased by the legal phrases he had been reading.

“Mr. Pickering,” said Larry, straightening up and taking the pipe from his mouth, “I’m Mr. Glenarm’s counsel. If you will do me the kindness to ask the sheriff to retire for a moment I should like to say a few words to you that you might prefer to keep between ourselves.”

I had usually found it wise to take any cue Larry threw me, and I said:

“Pickering, this is Mr. Donovan, who has every authority to act for me in the matter.”

Pickering looked impatiently from one to the other of us.

“You seem to have the guns, the ammunition and the numbers on your side,” he observed dryly.

“The sheriff may wait within call,” said Larry, and at a word from Pickering the man left the room.

“Now, Mr. Pickering,”—Larry spoke slowly,—“as my friend has explained the case to me, the assets of his grandfather’s estate are all accounted for,—the land hereabouts, this house, the ten thousand dollars in securities and a somewhat vague claim against a lady known as Sister Theresa, who conducts St. Agatha’s School. Is that correct?”

“I don’t ask you to take my word for it, sir,” rejoined Pickering hotly. “I have filed an inventory of the estate, so far as found, with the proper authorities.”

“Certainly. But I merely wish to be sure of my facts for the purpose of this interview, to save me the trouble of going to the records. And, moreover, I am somewhat unfamiliar with your procedure in this country. I am a member, sir, of the Irish Bar. Pardon me, but I repeat my question.”

“I have made oath—that, I trust, is sufficient even for a member of the Irish Bar.”

“Quite so, Mr. Pickering,” said Larry, nodding his head gravely.

He was not, to be sure, a presentable member of any bar, for a smudge detracted considerably from the appearance of one side of his face, his clothes were rumpled and covered with black dust, and his hands were black. But I had rarely seen him so calm. He recrossed his legs, peered into the bowl of his pipe for a moment, then asked, as quietly as though he were soliciting an opinion of the weather:

“Will you tell me, Mr. Pickering, whether you yourself are a debtor of John Marshall Glenarm’s estate?”

Pickering’s face grew white and his eyes stared, and when he tried suddenly to speak his jaw twitched. The room was so still that the breaking of a blazing log on the andirons was a pleasant relief. We stood, the three of us, with our eyes on Pickering, and in my own case I must say that my heart was pounding my ribs at an uncomfortable speed, for I knew Larry was not sparring for time.

The blood rushed into Pickering’s face and he turned toward Larry stormily.

“This is unwarrantable and infamous! My relations with Mr. Glenarm are none of your business. When you remember that after being deserted by his own flesh and blood he appealed to me, going so far as to intrust all his affairs to my care at his death, your reflection is an outrageous insult. I am not accountable to you or any one else!”

“Really, there’s a good deal in all that,” said Larry. “We don’t pretend to any judicial functions. We are perfectly willing to submit the whole business and all my client’s acts to the authorities.”

(I would give much if I could reproduce some hint of the beauty of that word authorities as it rolled from Larry’s tongue!)

“Then, in God’s name, do it, you blackguards!” roared Pickering.

Stoddard, sitting on a table, knocked his heels together gently. Larry recrossed his legs and blew a cloud of smoke. Then, after a quarter of a minute in which he gazed at the ceiling with his quiet blue eyes, he said:

“Yes; certainly, there are always the authorities. And as I have a tremendous respect for your American institutions I shall at once act on your suggestion. Mr. Pickering, the estate is richer than you thought it was. It holds, or will hold, your notes given to the decedent for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

He drew from his pocket a brown envelope, walked to where I stood and placed it in my hands.

At the same time Stoddard’s big figure grew active, and before I realized that Pickering had leaped toward the packet, the executor was sitting in a chair, where the chaplain had thrown him. He rallied promptly, stuffing his necktie into his waistcoat; he even laughed a little.

“So much old paper! You gentlemen are perfectly welcome to it.”

“Thank you!” jerked Larry.

“Mr. Glenarm and I had many transactions together, and he must have forgotten to destroy those papers.”

“Quite likely,” I remarked. “It is interesting to know that Sister Theresa wasn’t his only debtor.”

Pickering stepped to the door and called the sheriff.

“I shall give you until to-morrow morning at nine o’clock to vacate the premises. The court understands this situation perfectly. These claims are utterly worthless, as I am ready to prove.”

“Perfectly, perfectly,” repeated the sheriff.

“I believe that is all,” said Larry, pointing to the door with his pipe.

The sheriff was regarding him with particular attention.

“What did I understand your name to be?” he demanded.

“Laurance Donovan,” Larry replied coolly.

Pickering seemed to notice the name now and his eyes lighted disagreeably.

“I think I have heard of your friend before,” he said, turning to me. “I congratulate you on the international reputation of your counsel. He’s esteemed so highly in Ireland that they offer a large reward for his return. Sheriff, I think we have finished our business for to-day.”

He seemed anxious to get the man away, and we gave them escort to the outer gate where a horse and buggy were waiting.

“Now, I’m in for it,” said Larry, as I locked the gate. “We’ve spiked one of his guns, but I’ve given him a new one to use against myself. But come, and I will show you the Door of Bewilderment before I skip.”