Sheila had been studying down in the living room by the big table where her books were scattered, and it had grown late without her realizing it.
Grandmother was a little tired that evening and confessed to it for a wonder, and Sheila had sent her early to bed.
Janet also had gone to bed right after supper with a toothache, and Sheila had had a long uninterrupted evening. She had always enjoyed study, and this new opening up of scripture was to her an ever-increasing wonder.
But there was something else besides the study that made her glad tonight to have this evening to herself. She had inside her Bible a letter that afternoon received from the far West, and when she finished the study she had prescribed for her evening’s work, she meant to read it over again, slowly, and enjoy every word of it.
It was not the first time that Angus Galbraith had written to her since he had taken his first flight westward. He had written to Grandmother a good many times and often sent her messages, and several times he had written her concerning her mother’s grave and the progress he was making about the stone and the fixing of the cemetery lot, if lot it could be called on that bleak prairie.
But this letter was more like a pleasant chat than business. He told her, it is true, about the placing of the stone and the arrangement he had made for the perpetual care of the lot, but he entered more into detail about his journey, with descriptions of this and that. He had been to see Ma Higgins and her insignificant husband, and he gave her messages that brought the tears to Sheila’s eyes. She had never realized how Ma Higgins really had loved her and had missed her after she left.
He told of visiting the place where she had lived and how he had looked around and tried to think of her there getting ready for life, with that wonderful mother of hers. How he dignified her home in the shack with her mother! How he honored her beloved mother!
It seemed he had even been to the cabaret and seen where her mother sang. People had told him of her last wonderful song, of her clean, fine life and the strength of her character. He had been for miles around there meeting people she used to know. She wondered as she read on how he came to meet all those people. Yet she rejoiced that he had. It seemed so wonderful to have this new friend linked to her life with her mother in this way. And she did not anymore shrink from having him know her poverty and the squalor of her early home. He looked beyond the outside shell. He understood something deeper than appearances. He had seen the beauty with which her mother had surrounded her life, a beauty that could not be purchased with money nor gained by education or travel. A beauty of the heart-life.
She had read the letter over for the third time before suddenly she felt that there was someone in the room, and a cold chill of fear, a terrible premonition of evil, seemed to possess her.
She looked up to dispel this sense of an enemy at hand, and there stood Buck! Her strength seemed running from the ends of her fingers and seeping out from the toes of her slippers as she sat and looked at him in horror.
Yet even as this great fright seized her, something whispered, “God kept you on the rock in that terrible storm, and can He not keep you through this also? Remember the rainbow!”
Then something cool and quieting seemed to come to her, a strength not her own. Quite calmly she folded her letter with her cold fingers and laid it smoothly in her Bible, looking all the time into the evil eyes of the man who stood amusedly, contemptuously, looking at her.
Then she rose and reached out to the table where the telephone extension always stood.
He did not move but continued to watch her with that smile of amusement on his hateful face while she picked up the receiver and tried to call the operator. She was trying to think whether she had better call The Cliffs or the private officer who had charge of watching this section of the shore cottages when Buck’s voice broke harshly on her senses with a laugh.
“That won’t do any good,” he said. “You don’t suppose I’m a fool, do you? You can call as much as you like, and no one will answer.”
Instantly there came to her the thought, Ah, but the lines up are not cut. My God will hear when I call.
She hung up the receiver quietly and put the phone back on the table.
“I see,” she said quietly. “Well, won’t you be seated?”
He laughed. “No thanks,” he said, “and you won’t sit there long either. I’ve chased you good and far, and now you’re going to do what I told you you had to do before you sneaked away on me. You’re going to listen to me.”
“Excuse me a moment until I call my grandmother,” said Sheila, thinking to get away where she could call someone and then realizing how futile it was to suggest that. She saw by the man’s eyes that he knew he had her in his power.
“Not much I won’t. Your grandmother’s good and fast asleep, and she’s going to stay there till I get ready to wake her up. I made sure of that before I came in. The kitchen girl is asleep, too. I heard both their snores before I made a move. Now, you stand right still where you are till I tell you what I want from you. If you do just as I say, you won’t be harmed a hair, though I ought to pay you good for the trick you played on me running away, and I would, anyway, if it weren’t a matter of time with me. But if you don’t do what I say, I’ll pay you back good and pretty, and that’s a fact! See that gun? Well, maybe you don’t know I’m considered the neatest shot in the state of Idaho.”
Something seemed suddenly to come up in Sheila’s throat and choke her. Something like a veil kept dropping down before her eyes. A great dizziness swept over her, but she shut her lips firmly and kept her feet, steadying herself by the tips of the fingers of one hand resting on the table.
She had seen guns out in her Western life, and they had not seemed so awful to her as this one, here in Grandmother’s sweet, safe living room. It looked so large, so crude, so horrible!
Was this a dream perhaps? Maybe she had fallen asleep in her chair. Maybe she was having a nightmare. But she must be very careful not to make an outcry whether it were real or fancied, for Grandmother must not be wakened.
“What is it you want from me?”
She felt her stiff lips forming the words, her strange voice speaking them.
“All right. That’s sensible. You’re going to be reasonable and do what you’re told, are you? That’s right. Well then, we won’t waste time. You just keep your eye on my gun and do as I say and I’ll be through with you in a short time. You’ve got a paper I want, and you’re going to get it for me. That’s all!”
He saw by the startled look on her face that she knew what paper he meant, but in a moment she was able to answer him steadily again.
“I haven’t any paper that you could want, I am sure,” she said, looking at him with a clear eye.
“Oh, so you’ve learned to lie!” he sneered. “I thought they told me you was such an honest person!”
She did not answer that. She waited to be guided. Her throat seemed powerless to utter anything more; her words would not come.
“Now, we’ll begin again,” said the man. “You’ve got a paper that I want, and I mean to have it. In just three minutes you’re going to get it and bring it to me, or I’m going to shoot your ankles so you can’t walk anymore.”
“I couldn’t do anything for you, certainly, if you did that,” said Sheila and wondered why those words had come from her lips; they were so futile.
“Yes, you could. You could crawl, and I’d find a way to make you do it, don’t forget it! Now, that paper. You go get it right now. Get me?”
“What kind of paper is it you want?” asked Sheila to make time, though she wondered how that would do any good. She would have to make a whole night of time if she would hope to escape. She began to think she was so frightened that her good sense was leaving her.
“You know what paper it is that I want. Your dad gave it to your mother and told her never to part with it, or words to that effect. Your mother must have told you the same thing. Your dad had it put away good and safe
. He told me he had it in a pencil holder. Yes, I see you know. I’m used to watching the pupils of eyes. I can read ’em. Now, you go get that paper and make it snappy. I gotta catch a train.”
Sheila had been considering. There was no point in trying to deceive a man like this. She would tell the truth.
“Yes,” she said calmly, “I have heard of such a paper. My mother told me about it, but she did not tell me what was in it. She gave me directions about it, and I have carried them out. I had that penholder, but I do not have it anymore.”
“That may be a lie, too, but anyhow, you know where it is, and that amounts to the same thing.”
“No, I do not know where it is,” said Sheila. “I was to give it to someone else, and I did so. I do not know what they have done with it.”
“Well, I do. I can figure out pretty darn well who you were to give it to, and that’s your blooming grandmother; and I have had it all figured out clear across the continent what she did with it, and that is put it in her safe in her room. I know that safe. I was here when it was built in when I was a kid. That was where she always kept her money and where your father always could find it. We knew the combination, or we could figure it out. So that’s where it is. If I hadn’t known that, I wouldn’t have risked my skin coming here where there’s a price on my head. But I’ve got to have that paper, and I’m desperate. Now, do you want me to truss you up and tie you in a chair with a wad in yer mouth, or will you go up and help me get that paper out of the safe? Your job will be to get the paper while I keep the old lady asleep, see? If you won’t do that, I’ll tie you in that chair and make short work of the old lady, for I mean to have that paper, come what will. I only gave it to your father once when he got the upper hand of me for a little while, and I mean to have it back. If you go along nicely and do what I tell you, you’ll have your dad back again soon. He’s in the can now serving time fer me. That’s the price he paid, or thought he paid, for that paper, but if you don’t do as I say, your dad can rot in prison for all I care. See!”
Sheila felt things getting dark before her vision. Was she going to faint before she could decide what to do? In that case, he would have his way, and what might not happen to Grandmother? Oh, it was just like being on the rock with the last wave coming! She tried to reach out and remember the strong arm from God and the rainbow and get her thoughts steady.
Oh, God, I can’t hold out much longer. Show me what to do! Send help! Oh, send me help!
Chapter 21
Janet’s toothache had been soothed to quiet by the hot-water bag she took to bed with her, and she had fallen to sleep early. But the hot water had grown cold and the tooth had started to ache again, and Janet had wakened up to misery once more. The obvious thing was to go down to the kitchen and heat more water, for if she tried to fill the hot-water bag in the bathroom she would be sure to waken the old lady, and she would come trotting out to see what was the mater. She had the ears of a detective even in her sleep.
It seemed to Janet that it must be long past midnight and that all the house would be in bed.
So Janet arose and donned her dressing gown and heelless slippers and stepped cautiously into the back hall. Every step must be guarded, and she must wait between the steps to be sure she was not heard. It was not far from her door to the top of the back stairs. Once down the top step, she would be safe from sound. The top step always creaked a bit.
But as Janet reached the doorway that led into the front hall, she saw a light coming from downstairs. Had Miss Sheila forgotten to turn out the living room light, or were there burglars in the house? Janet was always thinking of burglars because her brother-in-law belonged to the state constabulary.
She paused and held her breath and heard a man’s voice. If Miss Jacqueline Lammorelle had been here it would not have been strange, for she sat up all hours of the night with callers and made the old lady very angry. But surely Miss Sheila would never do that. Yet in a moment more, she heard Sheila’s voice and was filled with consternation. What man could be down there with her? She came a little nearer to the stair head to peer down, with the idea of clearing Miss Sheila of anything wrong she might think about her, and to her horror she saw a man with a gun pointed straight at Miss Sheila and Miss Sheila standing white and calm there before him. She glanced backward down the hall where Grandmother’s door stood open, and she could see the dim outline of Grandmother’s form under the white counterpane, lying there. Miss Sheila was down there in the living room all alone with a burglar, and something must be done.
Janet was terribly weak and frightened, but she managed to be cautious and swing herself back to the stair head and down each step of the back stairs without a sound. She crossed the pantry and opened the swing door into the kitchen, thankful that only that day she had oiled the hinges where they squeaked. Could she get the back door open without a noise? Yes, the key turned quietly, and she held the knob like a vise, so that her fingers ached when she let it go after she had closed it behind her.
Then like a wraith, she flew through the night, holding her robe close around her, flying through the deep sand by miracle, wallowing up the bank to the road, and across more sand to her sister’s cottage, dark in every window now and still as the dead.
When she reached the door and began to pound on it, her hands were trembling so that she could scarcely knock, and then it was a long time before she could rouse her sister. And after she was roused, she couldn’t seem to get her to hurry.
Her brother-in-law was out on his beat, it seemed. There was nothing to do but try to reach him by telephone, though it was almost time for him to come in. Janet telephoned wildly and managed to tell a coherent story, but when it was finished and she hung up, she sat down suddenly in a chair and began to cry. Then she sprang from her chair and ran to the door.
“I must go back!” she cried. “Miss Sheila’s all alone with a burglar!” And with that she ran out into the night again.
Grandmother had dropped into a pleasant sleep early and was dreaming of Andrew when he was a little boy in a white dress with his hair curled in a lovely golden curl on the top of his head, bright blue shoes on his tiny feet, dimples in his laughing cheeks, and stars in his happy eyes.
But Grandmother was attuned to every feature of Rainbow Cottage. She knew every creak and groan of every bit of lumber in a storm, and she could always tell when anybody went up and down the back stairs, even if they went like cats.
When Janet stepped her softly slippered foot on the top step of that back stairs, although she couldn’t hear a bit of a creak, Grandmother was wide awake and sitting up. Grandmother was that way.
She sat still for an instant and listened, and then she became aware of low voices in the living room. What had happened? Had somebody come in to call, and wasn’t it as late as it seemed?
Softly she stole to the head of the stairs and listened. Grandmother could walk like a feather, and she knew the creaking boards in her floor as well as Janet.
She heard a word or two that Buck said, and she knew his voice at once. She did not need the second glance she took, leaning down cautiously at the side of the railing to get a good look and to see her precious Sheila facing that awful gun.
Like a feather, she stole back to her pillow and took from beneath it her trusty weapon, a heavy metal flashlight. It was the biggest and brightest flashlight she had been able to find in the city of Boston, and its light would travel far. She had seldom used it, for there had not been need, but she had put it to test once or twice, and it worked well.
Like a feather, she floated over to her window and sent her light flashing far up the back to where she knew a state policeman lived. Several times she flashed it into the windows of the little house, and it traveled like a great yellow pencil across the beach and lit up the windows of that little cottage by the road. She flashed till she saw a light appear in the cottage and someone at the window moving around. Someone was looking out the window, and then she turned the light on and wave
d it around in circles. Would they know that that was a cry for help? Oh God, make them understand! her heart cried out as she tiptoed lightly across the hall to the yellow room and flashed her signals again toward the north, straight into window after window up at The Cliffs. Yes, a light appeared there, to her joy. She knew that in one window at least it must have traveled into the face of some sleeper, for the bed in that room was directly opposite the window. She waved her silent signals violently again and then floated back to her own room and, going to her closet, took out a great pair of Indian clubs that had belonged to Andrew in his college days. She had kept them there ever since he left, hidden way back behind her garments, and these now she grasped in her left hand. But it took all her courage to open her bedside table drawer and take from there her last resort—a tiny revolver that her son Maxwell had insisted upon her possessing if she was going to stay alone in the cottage by the sea.
Grandmother was terribly, terribly afraid of that gun, even though it contained only blank cartridges and there wasn’t a single bullet in the house. But she now stealthily tiptoed to a spot of the bare floor by the window that was directly over where Buck Hasbrouck stood. She raised her left arm high. Letting the clubs fall and roll around with tremendous uproar. At the same instant, she shot off the revolver out the window, all six cartridges. She slid her feet into shoes, and with the heaviest tread she could muster, she marched toward the stairs.
The Israelites conquered Jericho with lamps, pitchers, and trumpets, marching around the city seven days. Grandmother fought for her dear girl with flashlight, revolver, and Indian clubs, tramping her hardwood floor valiantly. Just as she felt her strength was at an end and she was going to fall all the way down the stairs, she heard the sound of motorcycles coming like great comets through the night, and up from the road there came the sound of horses’ hoofs, beating on the asphalt—the state constabulary! And behind them a car shot down the road from The Cliffs.