WHAT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT
When Rex and Eva had gone up stairs, and Jess and Roy were left to
themselves in the parlor, the brother and sister looked at each other
rather soberly for the first few minutes.
“Are you very sleepy, Roy?” asked Jess presently.
She sat by the table still, with that book about criminals open before
her, but she had not looked at it for some time now.
“No, not a bit. Shall I read you something? There’s that book of Mark
Twain’s we haven’t finished yet.”
“I couldn’t put my mind to listen to anything. I never was so nervous
in my life. And I’m getting worse.”
“There’s really nothing to be nervous about, Jess. I have no doubt that
Mr. Keeler is in bed sound asleep by this time, with no thought of
burglarizing the house.”
“I wish I could think so, but I can’t.”
“Think of something else then. When are we going to leave Marley?”
“The first of September. The new house is a beauty. You haven’t seen it
yet, have you?”
“No, and I don’t know as I ever want to.”
“Oh come, Roy, it is ridiculous your being so set or staying in Marley.
We can come out here in the summer perhaps, although I’d prefer to go
abroad.”
“It must have been nice to live in Europe for a while as Mr. Keeler
did, you get so well acquainted with the people.”
“I wonder if they got well acquainted with him,” remarked Jess
significantly.
“Oh, I forgot,” returned Roy, and then he remembered what Mr. Keeler
had said to him down by the creek about trying to make himself
contented with whatever was for the good of the greatest number.
It could not be possible that a man who could give such excellent
advice had a record behind him like Martin Blakesley.
“Then you don’t want me to read to you,” Roy added. “What shall we do
then? What do you say to a game of Authors?”
“All right. Mr. Keeler isn’t represented, so I guess I can stand it.”
Roy took the cards from the drawer of the bookcase and they began to
play. But Jess’s thoughts wandered and Roy was obliged to remind her to
take her turn many times.
Suddenly she held up a finger hushing him to silence.
“Don’t you hear something?” she asked in a tremulous whisper.
“Nothing but the crickets outside and the splash of the water over the
dam,” he replied.
“No, it’s something in the house up stairs. Hear it now; like the
creaking of a board.”
Roy did hear it this time plainly.
“It’s Rex or Eva,” he said reassuringly.
“No, it isn’t. See, it’s nearly midnight. They were asleep long ago.
Oh, Roy, that man may stop on the way down and murder them both.”
Jess had risen and stood there, staring toward the doorway into the
hall, her eyes filled with terror.
Roy rose, too. He realized that the noise was not likely to be made by
his brother or sister, and the servant slept in the rear of the house
and always used the back stairs. He had often wondered whether he would
be brave in a time of real danger as fellows in the books he read were.
He did not feel by any means comfortable now. But he was not actually
terrified.
“I’ll go up and see what it is, Jess,” he said, and started toward the
door.
But his sister flung herself upon him, the tears starting from her
eyes.
“Don’t leave me or I shall die,” she moaned.
She drew him back toward a sofa in the far corner of the room, and held
him tightly by the wrist.
The noise from above drew nearer. They made it out to be the creaking
of the stairs.
Jess was trembling frightfully. Roy could almost hear her teeth
chatter. He wished that he could think of something to say to make her
feel less terrified. He was sure if he had been a boy in a book he
could have thought of something.
He determined to ask Mr. Keeler in the morning what would be the proper
thing under the circumstances. Then he laughed out half hysterically as
he realized that it would hardly be the thing to mention the matter to
Mr. Keeler.
Jess heard the laugh and it frightened her more than ever. She thought
Roy was more terrified even than she and was losing control of himself.
Nearer and nearer came the creak of descending footsteps. Roy started
to go to the door. He felt that he could not remain in suspense an
instant longer.
But Jess held him back.
“Don’t, Roy,” she whispered. “He will kill you.”
And at that instant a man’s form passed the doorway.
It was Mr. Keeler. He had on his trousers, shirt and shoes, but nothing
else. His hair was all rumpled and one hand was stretched out in front
of him as though he had been feeling his way.
He halted for an instant at the foot of the stairs and turned his face
toward the library. Then Roy saw that his eyes were closed.
“He’s walking in his sleep,” he whispered to Jess. “I must go and wake
him or he may do himself some damage.”
“Let him alone. He may go out and then we can lock the door against
him.”
“Jess, would you be as cruel as that?”
“Perhaps he isn’t asleep. He may be only shamming.”
“I’m going to find out at any rate. There, he’s fumbling with the lock.
You’d better take the opportunity to go up stairs.”
Jess still held on to her brother’s wrist, but now she suffered herself
to be led across the floor to the hall, reaching which, she let go and
sped up stairs. Roy turned at once and laid his hand on the shoulder of
their guest.
Some way his fears and suspicions of the man had all departed.
“Mr. Keeler,” he said, in a firm tone.
The other left off his working with the lock and a tremor ran through
him.
Roy slipped his hand down till it rested under the other’s elbow.
“Come into the library and sit down a moment,” he said gently.
“Where am I? What have I been doing?”
Roy knew that the man was awake now.
“You have been walking in your sleep,” he replied.
“I beg your pardon. Did you dress and come down after me?”
“Oh, no, I haven’t been to bed yet.”
Roy flushed as he made this answer, and at this moment the clock on the
mantel chimed out twelve strokes.
“Are you in the habit of sitting up till midnight?” asked Mr. Keeler.
“I suppose—”
He paused suddenly. His gaze had fallen on that book of criminals Jess
had left lying open on the table. What appeared to be his own portrait
stared back at him from the corner of the right hand page.
Roy’s heart almost stood still for a second as he saw that the whole
thing was out. Mr. Keeler dropped into a chair by the table still
keeping his eyes fixed on that picture.
Finally he raised them and looked at Roy.
“You have discovered the likeness then?” he said.
There was a depth of misery in his tone that went straight to the boy’s
heart.
“Yes,” he said. “My oldest brother is a lawyer, you know. He brought
this book home yesterday.”
“And you thought I was this man?” went on Mr. Keeler.
“We didn’t know what else to think,” answered Roy in a low voice.
“And you were going to sit up all night to make sure that I didn’t run
off with the silver?”
The smile that accompanied these words was a very sad one. Then the
face grew suddenly grave again and without waiting for Roy to make a
response to his awkward question, Mr. Keeler continued:
“I don’t blame you for thinking that brother Martin and I were one and
the same person. He is only a year younger than I and people could
never tell us apart when we were boys. I remember we used to help them
out by wearing sleeve buttons, an M on his and a C on mine.
“We were left orphans when very young, and Mart began to go to the bad
at once. It commenced with robbing birds’ nests and orchards, and ended
with the confidence game for which he was last sent to jail. That is
the reason I use my pen name always. I wonder if you believe what I am
telling you.”
“Yes, Mr. Keeler, I do,” responded Roy heartily.
“I am sorry I stayed,” went on the author. “I should not have run the
risk. I had had nobody to vouch for me here, you see. I will go away
now if you say so.”
“Oh, no, no! I am so sorry it happened. It was only the merest chance
we found out anything about it. It’s all right now.”
Involuntarily Roy put out his hand. The other took it with a glad light
in his eyes. Then Roy turned out the lamp and they both went up stairs.
It was many a week before the young people of the Pell family ceased to
talk among themselves over their singular experience with Mr. Charles
Keeler. He left on the nine o’clock express the next morning, and
everybody had been pleasant to him at the breakfast table except Jess,
who did not come down.
Roy told the true state of the case before he went to bed that night,
and the explanation was very gladly received by both Rex and Eva.
“It may be so,” Jess replied; “but I’ll take my breakfast after he is
gone.”
Roy told Sydney about the occurrence, and thought at first, from his
brother’s looks, that he was going to give him a severe rating for what
he had done. A sort of convulsive tremor shook his frame, and he
hastily took out his handkerchief to wipe away the beads of
perspiration that had gathered on his forehead.
But he uttered no word of reproof; merely said that the boys should be
careful about the friends they made.
“Don’t you think Mr. Keeler is all right, Syd?” asked Roy.
“Yes, as it turned out, certainly I do,” was the reply. “But it might
have been otherwise.”
For his part, Roy was very glad of the meeting. Since he had had that
interview down by the creek he had been much more reconciled to leaving
Marley.
“What if I had the burden to carry about with me that Mr. Keeler has!”
he often told himself. “The consciousness that my brother was a
scoundrel, a jailbird!”