CHAPTER XXVI
THE FIGHT IN THE LIBRARY
“They’re coming faster this time,” remarked Stoddard.
“Certainly. Their general has been cursing themright heartily for retreating without the loot. He wantshis three-hundred-thousand-dollar autograph collection,”observed Larry.
“Why doesn’t he come for it himself, like a man?” Idemanded.
“Like a man, do you say!” ejaculated Larry. “Faithand you flatter that fat-head!”
It was nearly eleven o’clock when the attacking partyreturned after a parley on the ice beyond the boat-house.The four of us were on the terrace ready for them.They came smartly through the wood, the sheriff andMorgan slightly in advance of the others. I expectedthem to slacken their pace when they came to the openmeadow, but they broke into a quick trot at the water-towerand came toward the house as steady as veterancampaigners.
“Shall we try gunpowder?” asked Larry.
“We’ll let them fire the first volley,” I said.
“They’ve already tried to murder you and Stoddard,—I’m in for letting loose with the elephant guns,” protestedthe Irishman.
“Stand to your clubs,” admonished Stoddard, whoseown weapon was comparable to the Scriptural weaver’sbeam. “Possession is nine points of the fight, and we’vegot the house.”
“Also a prisoner of war,” said Larry, grinning.
The English detective had smashed the glass in thebarred window of the potato cellar and we could hearhim howling and cursing below.
“Looks like business this time!” exclaimed Larry.“Spread out now and the first head that sticks over thebalustrade gets a dose of hickory.”
When twenty-five yards from the terrace the advancingparty divided, half halting between us and thewater-tower and the remainder swinging around thehouse toward the front entrance.
“Ah, look at that!” yelled Larry. “It’s a battering-ramthey have. O man of peace! have I your Majesty’sconsent to try the elephant guns now?”
Morgan and the sheriff carried between them a stickof timber from which the branches had been cut, and,with a third man to help, they ran it up the steps andagainst the door with a crash that came booming backthrough the house.
Bates was already bounding up the front stairway, arevolver in his hand and a look of supreme rage on hisface. Leaving Stoddard and Larry to watch the librarywindows, I was after him, and we clattered over the looseboards in the upper hall and into a great unfinishedchamber immediately over the entrance. Bates had thewindow up when I reached him and was well out uponthe coping, yelling a warning to the men below.
He had his revolver up to shoot, and when I caughthis arm he turned to me with a look of anger and indignationI had never expected to see on his colorless, mask-likeface.
“My God, sir! That door was his pride, sir,—it camefrom a famous house in England, and they’re wreckingit, sir, as though it were common pine.”
He tore himself free of my grasp as the besiegersagain launched their battering-ram against the doorwith a frightful crash, and his revolver cracked smartlythrice, as he bent far out with one hand clinging tothe window frame.
His shots were a signal for a sharp reply from one ofthe men below, and I felt Bates start, and pulled himin, the blood streaming from his face.
“It’s all right, sir,—all right,—only a cut across mycheek, sir,”—and another bullet smashed through theglass, spurting plaster dust from the wall. A fierceonslaught below caused a tremendous crash to echothrough the house, and I heard firing on the oppositeside, where the enemy’s reserve was waiting.
Bates, with a handkerchief to his face, protested thathe was unhurt.
“Come below; there’s nothing to be gained here,”—.and I ran down to the hall, where Stoddard stood, leaningupon his club like a Hercules and coolly watchingthe door as it leaped and shook under the repeated blowsof the besiegers.
A gun roared again at the side of the house, and I ranto the library, where Larry had pushed furniture againstall the long windows save one, which he held open. Hestepped out upon the terrace and emptied a revolver atthe men who were now creeping along the edge of theravine beneath us. One of them stopped and dischargeda rifle at us with deliberate aim. The ball snapped snowfrom the balustrade and screamed away harmlessly.
“Bah, such monkeys!” he muttered. “I believe I’vehit that chap!” One man had fallen and lay howlingin the ravine, his hand to his thigh, while his comradespaused, demoralized.
“Serves you right, you blackguard!” Larry muttered.
I pulled him in and we jammed a cabinet against thedoor.
Meanwhile the blows at the front continued with increasingviolence. Stoddard still stood where I had lefthim. Bates was not in sight, but the barking of a revolverabove showed that he had returned to the windowto take vengeance on his enemies.
Stoddard shook his head in deprecation.
“They fired first,—we can’t do less than get back atthem,” I said, between the blows of the battering-ram.
A panel of the great oak door now splintered in, butin their fear that we might use the opening as aloophole, they scampered out into range of Bates’ revolver.In return we heard a rain of small shot on theupper windows, and a few seconds later Larry shoutedthat the flanking party was again at the terrace.
This movement evidently heartened the sheriff, for,under a fire from Bates, his men rushed up and the logcrashed again into the door, shaking it free of the upperhinges. The lower fastenings were wrenched loose aninstant later, and the men came tumbling into the hall,—the sheriff, Morgan and four others I had never seenbefore. Simultaneously the flanking party reached theterrace and were smashing the small panes of the Frenchwindows. We could hear the glass crack and tinkleabove the confusion at the door.
In the hall he was certainly a lucky man who held tohis weapon a moment after the door tumbled in. Iblazed at the sheriff with my revolver as he stumbledand half-fell at the threshold, so that the ball passedover him, but he gripped me by the legs and had meprone and half-dazed by the rap of my head on the floor.
I suppose I was two or three minutes, at least, gettingmy wits. I was first conscious of Bates grappling thesheriff, who sat upon me, and as they struggled with eachother I got the full benefit of their combined, swerving,tossing weight. Morgan and Larry were trying for achance at each other with revolvers, while Morganbacked the Irishman slowly toward the library. Stoddardhad seized one of the unknown deputies with bothhands by the collar and gave his captive a tremendousswing, jerking him high in the air and driving himagainst another invader with a blow that knocked bothfellows spinning into a corner.
“Come on to the library!” shouted Larry, and Bates,who had got me to my feet, dragged me down the halltoward the open library-door.
Bates presented at this moment an extraordinary appearance,with the blood from the scratch on his facecoursing down his cheek and upon his shoulder. Hiscoat and shirt had been torn away and the blood wassmeared over his breast. The fury and indignation inhis face was something I hope not to see again in a humancountenance.
“My God, this room—this beautiful room!” I heardhim cry, as he pushed me before him into the library.“It was Mr. Glenarm’s pride,” he muttered, and sprangupon a burly fellow who had came in through one ofthe library doors and was climbing over the long tablewe had set up as a barricade.
We were now between two fires. The sheriff’s partyhad fought valiantly to keep us out of the library, andnow that we were within, Stoddard’s big shoulders heldthe door half-closed against the combined strength ofthe men in the ball. This pause was fortunate, for itgave us an opportunity to deal singly with the fellowswho were climbing in from the terrace. Bates had laidone of them low with a club and Larry disposed of another,who had made a murderous effort to stick a knifeinto him. I was with Stoddard against the door, wherethe sheriff’s men were slowly gaining upon us.
“Let go on the jump when I say three,” saidStoddard, and at his word we sprang a
way from thedoor and into the room. Larry yelled with joy as thesheriff and his men pitched forward and sprawled uponthe floor, and we were at it again in a hand-to-hand conflictto clear the room.
“Hold that position, sir,” yelled Bates.
Morgan had directed the attack against me and I wasdriven upon the hearth before the great fireplace. Thesheriff, Morgan and Ferguson hemmed me in. It wasevident that I was the chief culprit, and they wished toeliminate me from the contest. Across the room, Larry,Stoddard and Bates were engaged in a lively rough andtumble with the rest of the besiegers, and Stoddard, seeingmy plight, leaped the overturned table, broke pastthe trio and stood at my side, swinging a chair.
At that moment my eyes, sweeping the outer doors,saw the face of Pickering. He had come to see that hisorders were obeyed, and I remember yet my satisfaction,as, hemmed in by the men he had hired to kill meor drive me out, I felt, rather than saw, the cowardlyhorror depicted upon his face.
Then the trio pressed in upon me. As I threw downmy club and drew my revolver, some one across theroom fired several shots, whose roar through the roomseemed to arrest the fight for an instant, and then, whileStoddard stood at my side swinging his chair defensively,the great chandelier, loosened or broken by the shots,fell with a mighty crash of its crystal pendants. Thesheriff, leaping away from Stoddard’s club, was struckon the head and borne down by the heavy glass.
Smoke from the firing floated in clouds across theroom, and there was a moment’s silence save for thesheriff, who was groaning and cursing under the debrisof the chandelier. At the door Pickering’s face appearedagain anxious and frightened. I think the scenein the room and the slow progress his men were makingagainst us had half-paralyzed him.
We were all getting our second wind for a renewalof the fight, with Morgan in command of the enemy.One or two of his men, who had gone down early in thestruggle, were now crawling back for revenge. I thinkI must have raised my hand and pointed at Pickering,for Bates wheeled like a flash and before I realized whathappened he had dragged the executor into the room.
“You scoundrel—you ingrate!” howled the servant.
The blood on his face and bare chest and the hatredin his eves made him a hideous object; but in that lullof the storm while we waited, watching for an advantage,I heard off somewhere, above or below, that samesound of footsteps that I had remarked before. Larryand Stoddard heard it; Bates heard it, and his eyes fixedupon Pickering with a glare of malicious delight.
“There comes our old friend, the ghost,” yelled Larry.
“I think you are quite right, sir,” said Bates. Hethrew down the revolver he held in his hand and leanedupon the edge of the long table that lay on its side, hisgaze still bent on Pickering, who stood with his overcoatbuttoned close, his derby hat on the floor beside him,where it had fallen as Bates hauled him into the room.
The sound of a measured step, of some one walking,of a careful foot on a stairway, was quite distinct. I evenremarked the slight stumble that I had noticed before.
We were all so intent on those steps in the wall thatwe were off guard. I heard Bates yell at me, and Larryand Stoddard rushed for Pickering. He had drawn arevolver from his overcoat pocket and thrown it up tofire at me when Stoddard sent the weapon flying throughthe air.
“Only a moment now, gentlemen,” said Bates, an oddsmile on his face. He was looking past me toward theright end of the fireplace. There seemed to be in theair a feeling of something impending. Even Morganand his men, half-crouching ready for a rush at me, hesitated;and Pickering glanced nervously from one to theother of us. It was the calm before the storm; in a momentwe should be at each other’s throats for the finalstruggle, and yet we waited. In the wall I heard stillthe sound of steps. They were clear to all of us now.We stood there for what seemed an eternity—I supposethe time was really not more than thirty seconds—inert,waiting, while I felt that something must happen; thesilence, the waiting, were intolerable. I grasped my pistoland bent low for a spring at Morgan, with the overturnedtable and wreckage of the chandelier between meand Pickering; and every man in the room was instantlyon the alert.
All but Bates. He remained rigid—that curioussmile on his blood-smeared face, his eyes bent toward theend of the great fireplace back of me.
That look on his face held, arrested, numbed me; Ifollowed it. I forgot Morgan; a tacit truce held us allagain. I stepped back till my eyes fastened on thebroad paneled chimney-breast at the right of the hearth,and it was there now that the sound of footsteps in thewall was heard again; then it ceased utterly, the longpanel opened slowly, creaking slightly upon its hinges,then down into the room stepped Marian Devereux.She wore the dark gown in which I had seen her last,and a cloak was drawn over her shoulders.
She laughed as her eyes swept the room.
“Ah, gentlemen,” she said, shaking her head, as sheviewed our disorder, “what wretched housekeepers youare!”
Steps were again heard in the wall, and she turned tothe panel, held it open with one hand and put out theother, waiting for some one who followed her.
Then down into the room stepped my grandfather,John Marshall Glenarm! His staff, his cloak, the silkhat above his shrewd face, and his sharp black eyes wereunmistakable. He drew a silk handkerchief from theskirts of his frock coat, with a characteristic flourishthat I remembered well, and brushed a bit of dust fromhis cloak before looking at any of us. Then his eyesfell upon me.
“Good morning, Jack,” he said; and his gaze sweptthe room.
“God help us!”
It was Morgan, I think, who screamed these words ashe bolted for the broken door, but Stoddard caught andheld him.
“Thank God, you’re here, sir!” boomed forth in Bates’sepulchral voice.
It seemed to me that I saw all that happened with aweird, unnatural distinctness, as one sees, before astorm, vivid outlines of far headlands that the usuallight of day scarce discloses.
I was myself dazed and spellbound; but I do not liketo think, even now, of the effect of my grandfather’sappearance on Arthur Pickering; of the shock thatseemed verily to break him in two, so that he staggered,then collapsed, his head falling as though to strike hisknees. Larry caught him by the collar and dragged himto a seat, where he huddled, his twitching hands at histhroat.
“Gentlemen,” said my grandfather, “you seem to havebeen enjoying yourselves. Who is this person?”
He pointed with his stick to the sheriff, who was endeavoringto crawl out from under the mass of brokencrystals.
“That, sir, is the sheriff,” answered Bates.
“A very disorderly man, I must say. Jack, whathave you been doing to cause the sheriff so much inconvenience?Didn’t you know that that chandelier waslikely to kill him? That thing cost a thousand dollars,gentlemen. You are expensive visitors. Ah, Morgan,—and Ferguson, too! Well, well! I thought better of bothof you. Good morning, Stoddard! A little work forthe Church militant! And this gentleman?”—he indicatedLarry, who was, for once in his life, without anythingto say.
“Mr. Donovan,—a friend of the house,” explainedBates.
“Pleased, I’m sure,” said the old gentleman. “Gladthe house had a friend. It seems to have had enemiesenough,” he added dolefully; and he eyed the wreck ofthe room ruefully. The good humor in his face reassuredme; but still I stood in tongue-tied wonder, staringat him.
“And Pickering!” John Marshall Glenarm’s voicebroke with a quiet mirth that I remembered as the prefaceusually of something unpleasant. “Well, Arthur,I’m glad to find you on guard, defending the interestsof my estate. At the risk of your life, too! Bates!”
“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”
“You ought to have called me earlier. I really prizedthat chandelier immensely. And this furniture wasn’tso bad!”
His tone changed abruptly. He pointed to thesheriff’s deputies one after the other with his stick.There was, I remembered, always something insinuating,disagreeable and final about my grandfather’s staff.
“Clear out!” he comm
anded. “Bates, see these fellowsthrough the wall. Mr. Sheriff, if I were you I’dbe very careful, indeed, what I said of this affair. I’ma dead man come to life again, and I know a great dealthat I didn’t know before I died. Nothing, gentlemen,fits a man for life like a temporary absence from thischeerful and pleasant world. I recommend you to tryit.”
He walked about the room with the quick eager stepthat was peculiarly his own, while Stoddard, Larry andI stared at him. Bates was helping the dazed sheriffto his feet. Morgan and the rest of the foe were crawlingand staggering away, muttering, as though imploringthe air of heaven against an evil spirit.
Pickering sat silent, not sure whether he saw a ghostor real flesh and blood, and Larry kept close to him, cuttingoff his retreat. I think we all experienced that bewilderedfeeling of children who are caught in mischiefby a sudden parental visitation. My grandfather wentabout peering at the books, with a tranquil air that wasdisquieting.
He paused suddenly before the design for the memorialtablet, which I had made early in my stay atGlenarm House. I had sketched the lettering with somecare, and pinned it against a shelf for my more leisurelystudy of its phrases. The old gentlemen pulled out hisglasses and stood with his hands behind his back, reading.When he finished he walked to where I stood.
“Jack!” he said, “Jack, my boy!” His voice shookand his hands trembled as he laid them on my shoulders.“Marian,”—he turned, seeking her, but the girl hadvanished. “Just as well,” he said. “This room is hardlyan edifying sight for a woman.” I heard, for an instant,a light hurried step in the wall.
Pickering, too, heard that faint, fugitive sound, andour eyes met at the instant it ceased. The thought ofher tore my heart, and I felt that Pickering saw andknew and was glad.
“They have all gone, sir,” reported Bates, returningto the room.
“Now, gentlemen,” began my grandfather, seatinghimself, “I owe you an apology; this little secret of minewas shared by only two persons. One of these was Bates,”—he paused as an exclamation broke from all of us; andhe went on, enjoying our amazement,—“and the otherwas Marian Devereux. I had often observed that at aman’s death his property gets into the wrong hands, orbecomes a bone of contention among lawyers. Sometimes,”and the old gentleman laughed, “an executorproves incompetent or dishonest. I was thoroughlyfooled in you, Pickering. The money you owe me is alarge sum; and you were so delighted to hear of mydeath that you didn’t even make sure I was really out ofthe way. You were perfectly willing to accept Bates’word for it; and I must say that Bates carried it offsplendidly.”
Pickering rose, the blood surging again in his face,and screamed at Bates, pointing a shaking finger at theman.
“You impostor,—you perjurer! The law will dealwith your case.”
“To be sure,” resumed my grandfather calmly;“Bates did make false affidavits about my death; butpossibly—”
“It was in a Pickwickian sense, sir,” said Batesgravely.
“And in a righteous cause,” declared my grandfather.“I assure you, Pickering, that I have every intention oftaking care of Bates. His weekly letters giving an accountof the curious manifestations of your devotion toJack’s security and peace were alone worth a goodlysum. But, Bates—”
The old gentleman was enjoying himself hugely. Hechuckled now, and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Bates, it was too bad I got those missives of yoursall in a bunch. I was in a dahabiyeh on the Nile andthey don’t have rural free delivery in Egypt. Yourcablegram called me home before I got the letters. Butthank God, Jack, you’re alive!”
There was real feeling in these last words, and Ithink we were all touched by them.
“Amen to that!” cried Bates.
“And now, Pickering, before you go I want to showyou something. It’s about this mysterious treasure, thathas given you—and I hear, the whole countryside—somuch concern. I’m disappointed in you, Jack, that youcouldn’t find the hiding-place. I designed that as a partof your architectural education. Bates, give me achair.”
The man gravely drew a chair out of the wreckageand placed it upon the hearth. My grandfather steppedupon it, seized one of the bronze sconces above the manteland gave it a sharp turn. At the same moment,Bates, upon another chair, grasped the companionbronze and wrenched it sharply. Instantly some mechanismcreaked in the great oak chimney-breast and thelong oak panels swung open, disclosing a steel door witha combination knob.
“Gentlemen,”—and my grandfather turned with aquaint touch of humor, and a merry twinkle in hisbright old eyes—“gentlemen, behold the treasury! Ithas proved a better hiding-place than I ever imaginedit would. There’s not much here, Jack, but enough tokeep you going for a while.”
We were all staring, and the old gentleman was unfeignedlyenjoying our mystification. It was an houron which he had evidently counted much; it was thetriumph of his resurrection and home-coming, and hechuckled as he twirled the knob in the steel door. ThenBates stepped forward and helped him pull the dooropen, disclosing a narrow steel chest, upright and heldin place by heavy bolts clamped in the stone of the chimney.It was filled with packets of papers placed onshelves, and tied neatly with tape.
“Jack,” said my grandfather, shaking his head, “youwouldn’t be an architect, and you’re not much of anengineer either, or you’d have seen that that panelingwas heavier than was necessary. There’s two hundredthousand dollars in first-rate securities—I vouch forthem! Bates and I put them there just before I wentto Vermont to die.”
“I’ve sounded those panels a dozen times,” I protested.
“Of course you have,” said my grandfather, “butsolid steel behind wood is safe. I tested it carefully beforeI left.”
He laughed and clapped his knees, and I laughed withhim.
“But you found the Door of Bewilderment and Pickering’snotes, and that’s something.”
“No; I didn’t even find that. Donovan deserves thecredit. But how did you ever come to build that tunnel,if you don’t mind telling me?”
He laughed gleefully.
“That was originally a trench for natural-gas pipes.There was once a large pumping-station on the site ofthis house, with a big trunk main running off acrosscountry to supply the towns west of here. The gas wasexhausted, and the pipes were taken up before I beganto build. I should never have thought of that tunnel inthe world if the trench hadn’t suggested it. I merelydeepened and widened it a little and plastered it withcheap cement as far as the chapel, and that little roomthere where I put Pickering’s notes had once been thecellar of a house built for the superintendent of the gasplant. I had never any idea that I should use that passageas a means of getting into my own house, but Marianmet me at the station, told me that there was troublehere, and came with me through the chapel into thecellar, and through the hidden stairway that windsaround the chimney from that room where we keep thecandlesticks.”
“But who was the ghost?” I demanded, “if you werereally alive and in Egypt?”
Bates laughed now.
“Oh, I was the ghost! I went through there occasionallyto stimulate your curiosity about the house.And you nearly caught me once!”
“One thing more, if we’re not wearing you out—I’dlike to know whether Sister Theresa owes you anymoney.”
My grandfather turned upon Pickering with blazingeyes.
“You scoundrel, you infernal scoundrel, SisterTheresa never borrowed a cent of me in her life! Andyou have made war on that woman—”
His rage choked him.
He told Bates to close the door of the steel chest, andthen turned to me.
“Where are those notes of Pickering’s?” he demanded;and I brought the packet.
“Gentlemen, Mr. Pickering has gone to ugly lengthsin this affair. How many murders have you gentlemencommitted?”
“We were about to begin actual killing when you arrived,”replied Larry, grinning.
“The sheriff got all his men off the premises more orless alive, sir,” said Bates.
r /> “That is good. It was all a great mistake,—a verygreat mistake,”—and my grandfather turned to Pickering.
“Pickering, what a contemptible scoundrel you are!I lent you that three hundred thousand dollars to buysecurities to give you better standing in your railroadenterprises, and the last time I saw you, you got me torelease the collateral so you could raise money to buymore shares. Then, after I died”—he chuckled—“youthought you’d find and destroy the notes and that wouldend the transaction; and if you had been smart enoughto find them you might have had them and welcome.But as it is, they go to Jack. If he shows any mercyon you in collecting them he’s not the boy I think he is.”
Pickering rose, seized his hat and turned toward theshattered library-door. He paused for one moment, hisface livid with rage.
“You old fool!” he screamed at my grandfather.“You old lunatic, I wish to God I had never seen you!No wonder you came back to life! You’re a tricky olddevil and too mean to die!”
He turned toward me with some similar complaintready at his tongue’s end; but Stoddard caught him bythe shoulders and thrust him out upon the terrace.
A moment later we saw him cross the meadow andhurry toward St. Agatha’s.