CHAPTER VIII THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE STAIRS
The Winnebagos woke bright and early the next morning, eager to begin thesearch for the secret passage again, but whatever plans they had formedwere driven entirely out of their minds by the appearance of thefootprints on the stairs. Nyoda discovered them first when she raised thecurtains on the stair landing on her way down to bring in the morningpaper.
The day before, in anticipation of the coming of the men from the secondhand store to remove the discarded furniture from Uncle Jasper's study,she had improvised a runner to cover the front stairs to keep them frombeing scratched. The stretch from the upstairs to the landing she hadcovered with a strip of rag carpet, and from the landing down she hadused a length of white canvas. The landing itself was still bare, as shehad not yet found the old rug she intended laying there.
Now, as she came downstairs, she noticed, on the strip of white canvasthat covered the bottom half of the stairs, three dark red footprints. Onthe white background they stood out with startling distinctness. Theybegan on the third step from the top and appeared on every other stepfrom then on to the bottom. All three were the prints of a right foot. Noheel marks were visible, only the upper half of the foot. From thedirection which they pointed they were made by a person descending thestairs, and from their size that person was a man.
Nyoda's first thought that Sherry had cut his foot and had gonedownstairs, leaving a bloody trail on her stair runner, and full ofconcern she immediately sought him. But her search revealed him down inthe basement, coaxing up the furnace, and there was nothing the matterwith his feet. The Captain was with him and he likewise disclaimed a cutfoot. The two of them had come down the back stairs. Nyoda hurried backupstairs. Justice and Slim were in the upper hall when she came up, justin the act of coming down.
"Good morning!" they both called out in cheery greeting.
"Which one of you has the cut foot?" she asked.
"Cut foot? Not I," said Justice.
"Nor I," said Slim. "Did somebody cut his foot?"
"Look," said Nyoda, pointing to the marks on the lower steps.
"It must have been your husband, or the Captain," said Justice. "Itwasn't either of us."
"It wasn't either of them," replied Nyoda. "I asked them. They're down inthe basement fussing with the furnace."
"It's the print of a foot with a shoe on," said Justice, examining themarks.
"Somebody must have gotten into the house last night!" exclaimed Nyoda ina startled tone. "Sherry," she called, "come up here!"
Sherry came up from the basement on the run, for he recognized somethingout of the ordinary in his wife's tone, and the Captain came hard on hisheels. The girls came running down from above to see what the commotionwas about, and the whole household stood staring at the mysteriousfootprints in startled bewilderment.
"Burglars!" cried Hinpoha with a little shriek.
"Oh, my silverware!" exclaimed Nyoda in a stricken tone, and raced intothe dining room. She pulled open the sideboard drawers with tremblinghands, expecting to find them ransacked, but nothing was amiss. Everypiece was still in its place. Neither had the sterling silvercandlesticks on top of the sideboard been disturbed. A thorough searchthrough the house revealed nothing missing. Various gold bracelets andwatches lay in plain sight on dressers, and Hinpoha's gold mesh bag hungon the back of a chair beside her bed. Sherry reported no money gone.
Nothing stolen! Who had entered the house then, if not a burglar? Thething had resolved itself into a mystery, and everyone looked at hisneighbor with puzzled eyes. Breakfast was completely forgotten.
"What gets me," said Sherry, "is where those footprints started from. Bythe way they point, the man was going downstairs, but they begin in themiddle of the stairway. Clearly he didn't start at the top. Do yousuppose he came in through the landing window?"
He examined the triple window on the landing closely, but soon lookedaround with a puzzled expression on his face.
"The windows are all fastened from the inside," he reported, "and there'sno sign of their having been tampered with. It doesn't look as thoughanyone could have come in this way." He examined all the rest of thewindows on the first floor, and found them all latched and their latchesundisturbed. The doors, too, were locked from the inside. The cellarwindows had a heavy screening over them on the outside which could not beremoved without being destroyed, and this screening was everywhereintact.
"He must have come in through one of the upstairs windows after all,"said Nyoda. "There were about a dozen open in the various bedrooms. Thewindow in the room Hinpoha and Gladys sleep in is directly over the frontporch."
Hinpoha and Gladys gave a simultaneous shriek at the thought of themysterious intruder coming through their room while they lay sleeping.
"But if he came down from upstairs, why aren't the footprints _all_ theway down, instead of beginning in the middle?" insisted Katherine. "He_couldn't_ have come down from upstairs; he _must_ have come in throughthis window on the landing," she said decidedly, going up to the windowand looking it over sharply for any sign of having been opened, and, byshaking the wooden framework of the little square panes vigorously, as ifshe would shake the truth out of it by force.
The window, however, still yielded no sign of having been opened, and thesill outside bore no marks of an instrument. The mystery grew deeper. Howcould those footprints have started under the landing window if the feetthat made them did not enter by that window?
"Maybe he did come from upstairs after all," said Sahwah, whose livelybrain had been working hard on the puzzle, "but his foot didn't begin tobleed until he was half way down. Maybe he hurt it on the landing."
"Sat down to trim his toe-nails and cut his toe off, probably," suggestedJustice, and the girls giggled hysterically.
Striking an attitude in imitation of a story book detective, Justicebegan to address the group. "Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "we havehere a mystery which has baffled the brightest minds in the country, butunraveling it has been the merest child's play to a great detective likemyself. Here are the facts in the case. A man goes down a stairway. Thefirst half of his descent is shrouded in oblivion; half way down hebegins to leave bloody footprints. There is only one answer, gentlemen;the one which occurred to me immediately. It is this: Upon reaching thelanding the mysterious descender suddenly remembers that it is the day onwhich he annually trims his toe-nails. Being a very methodical man, as Ican detect by the way his feet point when he goes downstairs, he sitsdown and does it then and there. But the knife slips and he cuts off histoe, after which he makes bloody footprints on the rest of the stairs."
"Justice Dalrymple, you awful boy!" exclaimed Katherine, and then shelaughed with the rest at his absurd explanation of the mystery.
"Well, can you think up any argument that disproves my theory?" heretorted calmly.
"I can," replied the Captain. "If your theory was correct we'd have foundthe toe lying on the stairs."
The girls shrieked and covered their ears with their hands. The Captainchuckled wickedly, but said no more.
"I can think up another argument," said Sahwah. "Your man went barefootafter he cut his toe off, but this one had his shoe on."
"So he did!" admitted Justice. "Now you've 'done upsot my whole theory!'"
"But how could his foot bleed through his shoe?" asked Katherineskeptically.
"The sole must have been cut through," said Justice. "He probably wore arubber-soled shoe, like a sneaker, and stepped on some broken glass thatwent right through the sole into his foot. I did the same thing myselfonce. It bled through, all right."
"But what did he step on?" asked Nyoda, puzzled. "There isn't any sign ofbroken glass around."
"I give it up," said Sherry, who could make nothing from the facts beforehim and had no imagination to help him supply missing details. "The manundoubtedly got in through the upstairs window and out the same way. Hewas a burglar, only he got scared away
before he could steal anything.Some noise in the house, probably."
"He must have heard Slim snoring, and thought it was a bombing planecoming after him," said Justice, and then dodged nimbly as Slim made apass at his head with a menacing hand.
"Whatever he did to his foot fixed him," said Sherry. "He called it a daywhen that happened and went off without making a haul. Probably had a paloutside in a machine."
"Nyoda," said Sahwah, struck with a sudden thought, "do you think itcould have been Hercules? He might have come in for something in thenight."
"Of course!" exclaimed Nyoda. "Why didn't I think of that before?Hercules has a key to the back door. How idiotic of me not to haveguessed before that it was Hercules. Here we stand looking at thesefootprints like Robinson Crusoe looking at Friday's, and talking aboutburglars, and wracking our brains wondering where he came in, and it musthave been Hercules all the while. He cut his foot and came in to getsomething for it, or he came in to get something more for his cold andcut his foot after he got in. Poor old Hercules! He wouldn't even wake usup to get help. I'll go right out and find out what happened to him."
She started for the back door, but before she had reached the kitchenthere was a stamping of feet on the back doorstep, a tapping on the door,and then Hercules opened it himself and came in, as was his custom.
"Mawnin', Mis' 'Lizbeth," he quavered genially, smiling a broad,toothless smile at the sight of her. "Mighty nippy dis mawnin'." Heshivered and stamped his feet on the floor, edging over toward the stove.
Nyoda looked down at his feet hastily and instantly realized that it wasnot he who had left the print on the stairs. The loose, flapping feltslippers which Hercules invariably wore, bursting out on all sides, wouldhave left a mark twice the size of the mysterious footprints. Nobody knewjust how big Hercules' feet were. He owned to wearing a size twelve, atwhich Sherry openly scoffed.
"I'll bet a size fifteen could hurt him," he declared.
The rest also saw at a glance that there was no possibility of Herculeshaving made the footprints.
Hercules, unconscious of the charged atmosphere of the house, lookedaround for the breakfast which should be set out for him on the end ofthe kitchen table at this hour.
"You-all overslep'?" he inquired good-temperedly of Nyoda.
"No, we didn't," replied Nyoda. "We've had a little excitement thismorning and forgot all about breakfast. Somebody got into the house lastnight."
"Burglars?" asked Hercules anxiously. "Did anything get stole?"
"No," replied Nyoda, "nothing was stolen, but the burglar left somebloody footprints on the stair runner. We thought at first it might havebeen you, coming to get something for your cold, but I see now that it isimpossible for you to have left the footprints. You didn't come into thehouse last night, did you?" she finished.
"No'm," answered Hercules with simple directness. "I done slep' like atop, Miss' 'Lizbeth. Took dat hot drink you-all gave me to take, an'never woke up till de sun starts shinin' dis mawnin'. Feelin' better now.Cold gittin' well. Feelin' mighty hungry." His eye traveled speculativelytoward the stove.
There was absolutely no doubt about his telling the truth. When Herculeswas trying to conceal something his language was much more eloquent andflowery.
"Your breakfast will be ready before long," said Nyoda kindly. Then, asHercules hobbled toward the stove she asked solicitously, "Have you asore foot, Hercules?"
"No'm," replied Hercules, "but the mizry in my knees is powerful bad dismawnin', Mis' 'Lizbeth. Seems like my old jints is gittin' plumb rusted."He launched into a detailed description of the various pains caused byhis "mizry," until Nyoda sought refuge in the front part of the house.She had heard the tale many times before.
Pretty soon Hercules hobbled in and took a look at the footprints on thestairs.
"Powerful sing'ler," he said, scratching his head in a puzzled way.
Sherry went on to explain all the details for the old man's benefit. "Wethought at first he must have come in through the window on the stairlanding, but that hadn't been touched, so we decided he must have come inthrough one of the upstairs windows. It seems queer, though, that thefootprints should have begun under the stair landing, doesn't it?"
"What's the matter, Hercules, are you sick?" asked Nyoda, looking at theold man in alarm. For Hercules' eyes were rolling wildly in his head andhis legs threatened to collapse under him. He sat heavily down on a chairand began to rock to and fro, muttering to himself in a terrified way.Straining their ears to catch his words, they heard him say:
"Debbil's a-comin', debbil's a-comin', debbil's a-comin' after oldHerc'les for takin' dat shutter down. Debbil done lef' his footprint fera warnin' fer old Herc'les."
He seemed beside himself with fright. Nyoda and Sherry looked at eachother in perplexity.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Nyoda, in a tone of concern.
"Superstitious," replied Sherry reassuringly. "Most negroes believe thedevil is walking around on two legs, waiting to grab them from behindevery fence. You remember Uncle Jasper mentioned in his diary that hetold Jasper if he ever took that shutter down the devil would come inthrough the window and get him. Now he thinks it's happened. Don't bealarmed at him. Get him his breakfast, and that'll give him somethingelse to think about."
The Winnebagos hastened to set out his breakfast on the table, but he atescarcely anything, and still trembled when he went back to his rooms inthe coach house.
"Funny old codger!" commented Sherry, looking after him. "He's chuck fullof superstition. If he throws many more such fits, I suppose I'll have tonail up the old shutter again to keep him from dying of fright."
"You'll do no such thing!" replied Nyoda. "I'll have no more holes inthat casement. Hercules will be all right again in a day or two. By thattime he'll have a new bogie.
"Now everybody come to breakfast, and forget all about this miserablebusiness."