THE STOLEN TRUNK
The three days’ rain became a reality. A steady downpour, that set the
forest mourning in earnest and turned the lake into a blanket of gray,
settled down over all.
Petite Jeanne did not care. She had been sent north to rest. There was
still a pile of unread romances in the corner cupboard. The shed at the
back of the cabin was piled high with dry wood. The fire burned ever
brightly. What more could she wish?
When she tired of reading she called to Tico, who lay sleeping by the
fire hours on end, and together they went through some difficult step of
the gypsy dance.
To Florence, save for one condition, this prolonged downpour would have
seemed nothing short of a catastrophe. She was shut away from her beloved
out-of-doors, but this only gave her more time to spend with that
fascinating person, the lady cop.
The lady cop had become all but a pal to Florence and Tillie. Every
evening, after the day’s work was done and darkness had blanketed the
water, Tillie came stealing over to the mystery cabin.
And she never lacked a welcome. She gave the lady cop many a needed bit
of information. With her aid, the lady cop had so far progressed in her
investigation that she whispered to them on the second day of the rain
that soon she would be ready to wire for reënforcements. When these
arrived she would spring the trap.
“And then?” Florence breathed.
“Then the three rubies will be in my hands. And someone will go to jail.
“But let’s not talk too much,” she added. “The best laid plans fail often
enough.”
The hour of the day that Florence and Tillie loved best was the one which
preceded the lady cop’s shooing them out for the night. At that hour,
after brewing herself a cup of coffee and drinking it steaming hot, she
spun weird tales of her adventures as a lady detective.
An only child of a police captain, at the age of eighteen she had seen
her father brought home dead, shot in the back while assisting in a raid
on a notorious gambling house. Over her father’s dead body she had vowed
that she would take his place.
When the time came, when she was of age, her mother, having no boys to
give to the great service of protecting humanity, had smilingly,
tearfully, given that which she had, a girl. And to the city she had
already proved herself a priceless gift.
Working her way secretly into places where no man could ever have
entered, she had brought to light places of vice and crime which for long
years had remained hidden in the dark.
Time and again she had succeeded in attaching herself to some wild young
set, and in so doing had not alone shown them their folly, but had also
brought those who preyed upon them to justice.
“It’s not always easy to place money on the board,” she said one night,
“on the gaming board, with a hand that does not tremble, when you realize
that there are those watching who would gladly kill you, did they but
know who you were.
“Twice I was discovered and locked up. One of these times I let myself
out of the window to the street two floors below on a rope made of my own
skirt. The other time a squad wagon came in time to release me.
“Listen to this!” Her eyes burned brightly. “Never believe the stories
you read in cheap magazines. These stories tell you that crooks are
really good sports, generous, chivalrous and all that. They are not—not
one in a thousand. They are hard as flint; cruel, heartless, ready for
any savage deed that will give them liberty and the wild life they
crave.”
After this outburst on that second rainy night, she lapsed into silence.
In time she sprang to her feet and drew on her raincoat. “I am going out
for a row alone in the dark,” she said. “Stay here and keep the fire
burning. It’s not late. I’ll be back in an hour.”
She left the cabin. Tillie and Florence sat by the fire.
“Ever hear how this cabin came here?” Tillie asked.
“No,” Florence replied quickly.
“It’s sort of interesting. I’ll tell you.”
“Oh! Please do!”
“This,” Tillie began, “was once the cabin of a ship.”
“It looks the part,” replied Florence. “But where are the portholes?”
“Someone has covered them.” Tillie stepped to the wall, fumbled for a
short time with a fastening, then swung back a section of the paneling
which was, in reality, a small door, revealing a circle of brass framing
a glass.
“But why a ship’s cabin on land?” Florence’s face took on a puzzled
frown.
“It was all on account of old Captain Abner Jones. His ship was wrecked
on the shoals near Goose Island. She was the ‘Mary C,’ just a freighter,
but a good strong one.
“Captain Abner Jones had her for his first command. She was his last,
too. He lived in this cabin and sailed the Great Lakes for thirty-five
years.
“Then, when she struck one stormy night, through no fault of his, he
refused to leave her. All through the storm he stuck there, though she
was half torn to pieces. When the storm was over, his men went out to get
him.
“Still he wouldn’t come. ‘No, men. Much obliged all the same,’ he told
them. ‘You’ve been a good crew. You’ll find other berths. But mine’s
here. I’ll never leave this cabin.’
“The men went aside. I’ve heard my father tell it lots of times. They
talked it over. They loved their old skipper. They knew the next storm
would do for the ship, and him, too, if he stayed. So they made a plan.
“‘All right, Cap,’ the first mate said, when they had come back to him,
‘you have your way. And we’ll have ours, too. Give us a day, mebby two,
and we’ll put this cabin in a safe place.’
“‘Meanin’ what?’ the captain asked.
“‘That we’ll set the cabin ashore, and you in her.’
“I guess the captain saw they were too strong for him, so he let them
have their way.
“They took a lot more than two days. You see what a neat job they did.
Why, there’s even a hold to the place! They built it of ship’s timbers.”
“A hold!” Florence stared at her.
By way of answer, Tillie began rolling up the canvas that covered the
floor. When she had done this, she pried up a plank, then another. Next
she sent the gleam of a flashlight into the dark depths below.
“Sure enough, a real hold!” exclaimed Florence.
“And there’s a trunk!” Tillie, too, was surprised. “How long do you
suppose it’s been there?”
“Not long. See! The copper is not tarnished. It’s her trunk.” She spoke
of the lady cop.
“It must be. But such a queer trunk!”
It was indeed an unusual bit of baggage. Made of some very hard tropical
wood, it was bound by broad bands of copper. Strangest of all were its
straps. They were four inches wide and fully three quarters of an inch
thick.
“What monster has a hide like that?” Tillie asked in amazement.
“A walrus or an elephant.”
“It’s empty.”
“Quite naturally. One does not leave one’s things in a trunk in a cellar
like this.”
“But it’s wide open.”
“That’s a bit strange.”
“It’s all strange. A woman with a trunk like that!”
For a moment they stood there, staring down into that dark chasm.
“Tell you what!” exclaimed Tillie at last. “I’ve got an idea!”
Tillie was given to having ideas. Some of them were quite wild, for
Tillie was more than half wild herself.
“Let’s steal her trunk!” she cried, clapping her hands.
“That,” said Florence in some disgust, “seems a dumb idea.”
“Not so dumb as you think. Listen. Day before yesterday I brought the
lady cop a small bag of balsam tips; you know, the green end of twigs
that smell so swell.”
“Yes?”
“She took one sniff of them, then threw up her hands and said, ‘I’d like
a trunk full, a whole trunk full to take home to my friends, for making
pillows.’
“We’ll steal her trunk and hide it in the woods. We’ll fill it with
balsam tips. Turkey Trot and I will bring it back. She’ll drop dead when
she sees it. She’ll never know it’s been gone until she sees the balsam
tips. Come on. Give me a hand. She’ll be back pretty soon. We’ll just
hide it in the brush until we go home. Then we’ll carry it over to your
point.”
Florence, though not fully convinced of the wisdom of such high-handed
proceedings, was quite carried away by Tillie’s bubbling enthusiasm. In
less time than it takes to tell it, the trunk was up from the dark hole
and away to the brush, the planks down again, the canvas spread smoothly
in place.
They were not a moment too soon. Shaking the rain from her coat, the lady
cop came breezing in.
“It’s glorious!” she enthused. “Even in the night and the rain. I hate to
leave it all. But I fear I must. Very soon.”
This last remark sent a chill running up Florence’s spine. But she said
never a word.