D'Artagnan, I was sure, would have fought them all, but I consoled
myself, as the cards rattled on the bare table, with the reflection
that, considering the fact that I had never in my life laid violent
hands on a fellow-being, I was conducting myself with admirable
assurance. My weight has always hung well within one hundred and
thirty, and physicians have told me that I was incapable of taking on
flesh or muscle. Any one of these men could easily toss me through the
window I had indicated as a means of their own exit.
Shallenberger caught my eye and indicated with a slight jerk of the
head that I had better run before it was too late. The painstaking
care with which Henderson had fallen upon the cards was disquieting, to
put it mildly. Dick nudged me in the ribs and offered to hold my coat.
"It will not be necessary," I replied carelessly. "Tender your
services to the other gentlemen."
I felt the cold sweat gathering on my brow. The three had begun to
draw cards, and I heard them slap the bits of pasteboard smartly upon
the table as they lifted them from the deck and, finding the jack of
clubs still undrawn, waited the next turn. I had no idea that a pack
of cards would dissolve so readily by the drawing process, and my
memory ceased trying to recall the adventures of D'Artagnan and hovered
with ominous persistence about the mad don of La Mancha. I cannot say
now whether I stood my ground out of sheer physical inability to run or
from an accession of courage due to the remembrance of my success in
detecting the Hopefield ghost. In any case I affected coolness as I
waited, even throwing out my arms to "shoot" my cuffs once or twice,
and yawning.
"Come, gentlemen, hurry: let us not waste time here," I exclaimed
impatiently.
"If Ormsby turns up the card you're a dead man," Dick was muttering
gloomily.
"They're all alike to me," I replied loudly. "Mr. Ormsby is very
beautiful; I shall hope not to disfigure him permanently;" but as I
spoke my tongue was a wobbly dry clapper in my mouth.
I was bending over now, watching the three men pick up the cards, and
once, when I misread the jack of spades for the jack of clubs, a
shudder passed over me. They were down to the last card, and Ormsby's
hand was on it. I recall that a group of steins on a shelf over
Henderson's head seemed to be dancing wildly. Then I looked at the
floor to steady myself, and hope leaped within me, for there, by
Ormsby's foot,--a large and heavy one,--lay an upturned card, the jack
of clubs, whose lone symbol magnified itself enormously in my amazed
eyes.
At this moment, I became conscious that something had occurred to
distract the attention of the other men, who were staring at some one
who had entered noiselessly.
"Gentlemen, you seem immensely interested in the turn of those cards.
I am glad to have arrived at the critical moment. Mr. Ormsby, will you
kindly lift the remaining card from the table?"
Miss Octavia stood beside me. She was dressed in a dark brown
riding-habit; the feather in her fedora hat emphasized her usual brisk
air. She swung her riding-crop lightly in her hand, and bent over the
table with the deepest interest.
Ormsby turned up the card. It was the ten of diamonds.
"Gentlemen," I cried, pointing to the card, "what trick is this? Can
it be possible that you have been trifling with me in a fashion for
which men have died the world over by sword and pistol!"
"Kindly explain, Arnold, the nature of this difficulty," Miss Octavia
commanded.
"Simply this, Miss Hollister, if I must answer; I had offered to fight
these three gentlemen in order. It was agreed that the man who drew
the jack of clubs from the pack with which they had been playing should
be my first victim. They have shuffled their own cards and have drawn
the whole pack and there is no jack of clubs in the pack! The only
possible explanation is one to which I hesitate to apply the obvious
plain Saxon terms."
"It dropped out, that's all! You don't dare pretend that we threw out
the jack to avoid drawing it!" protested Ormsby, though I saw from the
glances the trio exchanged that they suspected one another. Ormsby and
Gorse bent down to look for the missing card, but before they found it
I stepped forward and drove my fist upon the table with all the power I
could put into the blow.
"Stop!" I cried. "I gave you every opportunity to stand up and take a
trouncing, but I need hardly say that after this contemptible knavery I
refuse to soil my hands on you!"
"Do you insinuate"--began Henderson, jumping to his feet.
"Gentlemen," said Miss Hollister, lifting the riding-crop, "it is
perfectly clear to me that Mr. Ames has gone as far as any gentleman
need go in protecting his honor. I do not offer myself as an
arbitrator here, but I advise my young friend that nothing further is
required of him in this deplorable affair."
With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of
cards that lay on the table as they had been stacked when drawn.
[Illustration: With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the
three piles of cards.]
"Arnold," she said, with indescribable dignity, "will you kindly attend
me to my horse?"
XIX
THE GHOST OF ADONIRAM CALDWELL
A stable-boy held Miss Octavia's horse at the inn-door. Her face, her
figure, her voice expressed outraged dignity as she tested the
saddle-girth.
"You need never tell me what had happened to provoke your wrath, for
that is none of my affair; but I wish to say that your conduct and
bearing won my highest approval. They had undoubtedly hidden the jack
of clubs to avoid the drubbing you would have administered to the
unfortunate man who would have drawn that card if it had been in the
pack."
"I was not in the slightest danger at any time, Miss Hollister," I
protested. "By one of those tricks of fate to which you and I are
becoming so accustomed, the card had fallen to the floor unnoticed. If
you had not arrived so opportunely the lost jack would have been
discovered, the cards reshuffled, and very likely Mr. Ormsby would have
been dusting the inn-floor with me at this very minute."
"I refuse to believe any such thing," declared Miss Octavia, who had
mounted and continued speaking from the saddle. "Your perfect
confidence was admirable, and I shudder to think of the terrible
punishment you would have given them. I do not particularly dislike
Mr. Ormsby, though the possibility of Cecilia marrying him has troubled
me not a little as I have recalled the unromantic aspect of Utica as
seen from the car-windows; but it is much to your credit that you
defied them all and brought them to the fighting-point, and then, by a
stroke of cleverness it pleased me to witness, placed them
irretrievably in the wrong."
If Miss Octavia wished to view my performances in this flattering light
it seemed unnecessary and unkind to object. Now that I was in the open
again with a whole skin I was not averse to the victor's crown; I would
even wear it tilted slightly over one ear. Birds have been killed by
shots that missed the real target; bunker sands are rich in gutta
percha and good intentions. I was a fraud, but a cheerful one.
"It was only a pleasant incident of the day's work, Miss Hollister.
I'm going to engage a squire and take to the open road as soon as all
this is over."
"As soon as all what is over!" she demanded, eyeing me keenly.
"Oh, the work I've undertaken to do here. I flatter myself that I have
made some progress; but within twenty-four hours I dare say that we
shall have seen the end."
"Your words are not wholly luminous, Arnold."
"It is much better that it should be so. You have trusted me so far,
and I have no intention of failing you now. If I say that the crisis
is near at hand in a certain matter that interests you greatly, you
will understand that I am not striking ignorantly in the dark."
"If you know what I suspect you know, Arnold Ames, you are even
shrewder than I thought you, and you had already taken a high place in
my regard. The curtains of the windows just behind you have shown
considerable agitation since we have been speaking, not due, I think,
to the wind, as there is no air stirring. Those gentlemen you have
just vanquished are timidly watching you. Your daring and prowess have
greatly alarmed them. You may be sure they will think twice before
provoking your wrath again."
"I devoutly hope they will," I replied, glancing carelessly over my
shoulder, and catching a glimpse of Henderson as he drew hastily out of
sight. "But will you tell me just how you came to visit the inn at
this particular hour?"
"Nothing could be simpler. I had luncheon at the house of a friend on
whom I called. Cecilia had left me to continue her ride alone, and on
my way home I thought I would ride by the Prescott Arms to see how the
guests were faring. You see,"--she paused and gave a twitch to her hat
to prolong my suspense,--"you see, I own the Prescott Arms!"
With this she rode away, and not caring to risk a further meeting with
the angry suitors from whom Miss Octavia had rescued me by so narrow a
margin, I set off across the fields toward Hopefield. From the stile I
saw Miss Octavia in the highway half a mile distant, sending her horse
along at a spirited canter. I reached the house without further
adventures, was served with a cold luncheon in my room, and by the time
I had changed my clothes Miss Octavia sent me word that Pepperton had
arrived.
Miss Octavia and the architect were conversing earnestly when I reached
the library; and from the abruptness with which they ceased on my
entrance I imagined that I had been the subject of their talk.
Pepperton is not only one of the finest architects America has
produced, but one of the jolliest of fellows. He grasped my hand
cordially and pointed to the fireplace.
"So you've at last found one of my jobs to overhaul, have you! You
must n't let this get out on me, old man; it would shatter my
reputation!"
"Please observe that the flue is drawing splendidly now," I answered.
"A ghost had been strolling up and down the chimney, but now that I
have found his lair he will not trouble Miss Hollister's fireplaces
again."
"I have waited for your arrival, Mr. Pepperton, that we might have the
benefit of your knowledge of the house in following the trail of this
ghost which Arnold has discovered. But we must give Arnold credit for
effecting the discovery alone and unaided. I destroyed the plans I
obtained from your office so that Arnold might be fully tested as to
his capacity for managing the most difficult situations."
When Miss Octavia first referred to me as Arnold, Pepperton raised his
brows a trifle; the second time he glanced at me laughingly. He seemed
greatly amused by Miss Octavia's seriousness, but her amiable attitude
toward me clearly puzzled him.
"It takes a good man to uncover a thing I try to hide. I said nothing
to you, Miss Hollister, about the retention within the walls of this
house of parts of an old one that formerly occupied the site, for the
reason that I thought you might refuse to buy the estate. The
gentleman for whom I built Hopefield was superstitious, as many men of
advanced years are, as to the building of a new house, and as the site
he chose is one of the finest in the county he compelled me to
construct this house--which is the most satisfactory I have built--in
such manner enough of the old should be kept intact to soothe his
superstitious soul with the idea that he had merely altered an old
house, not built a new one. As it is the architect's business to yield
to such caprices I obeyed him strictly. So there are two rooms of an
old farmhouse hidden under the east wing, and it amused me, once I had
got into it, to preserve part of the old stairway, and connect the
retained chambers with the upper hall of this house. I had to patch
the original stair, which was only one flight, with discarded lumber
from the old house, but I flatter myself that I managed it neatly. I
even saved the old nails to avert the wrath of the evil spirits. When
the umbrella and dyspepsia-cure man died,--for he did die, as you
know,--I believed the secret had died with him, as he was very
sensitive about his superstitions. Most of the laborers on that part
of the job were brought from a long distance, and I supposed they never
really knew just what we were doing. I might have known, though, that
if a fellow as clever as Ames got to pecking at the house the trick
would be discovered. But the chimney, old man,--what on earth was the
matter with it?"
"It will never happen again, and I promised the ghost never to tell how
it was done."
"You were quite right in doing that, Arnold,--a ghost's secrets should
be sacred; but let us now proceed to the hidden chambers," said Miss
Hollister, rising without further ado.
She summoned Cecilia, to whom we explained matters briefly, and at
Pepperton's suggestion the four of us went directly to the fourth
floor, so that Miss Octavia might see the whole contrivance in the most
effective manner possible.
My awkward pen falters in the attempt to convey any idea of Miss
Octavia's delight in Pepperton's revelation; she kept repeating her
admiration of his genius, and her praise of my cleverness, which, to
protect Hezekiah, I was forced to accept meekly. When in broad
daylight Pepperton found and pressed the spring in the upper hall and
the hidden door opened, with a slowness that indicated a realization of
its own dramatic value, Miss Octavia cried out gleefully, like a child
that witnesses the manipulation of a new and wonderful toy.
"To think, Cecilia, that I should never have known of this if that
chimney had not smoked!"--a remark that caused Pepperton to glance at
me curiously. He knew as well as I did that with ordinary care every
flue in that house would have drawn splendidly. "Beyond any question,"
Miss Octavia kept asserting, "beneath the chambers of the old house
down there we shall find the bones of that British soldier who perished
here; or it is even possible that a chest of hidden treasure is
concealed beneath the floor. What do you yourself suspect, Mr.
Pepperton?"
We were lighting candles preparatory to stepping down into the dark
stairway, and Pepperton was plainly hard put to keep from laughing.
"I assure you, Miss Hollister, that I have told you all I know about
the rooms down there. I 'm not very strong in the ghost-faith; and our
friend the umbrella-man never dreamed of such a thing, I assure you,
not even after he had satisfied his fierce craving for pie."
Miss Octavia followed Pepperton slowly, pausing frequently to hold her
candle close to the stair-walls, whose rough surfaces confirmed all
that Pepperton had said of the preservation of the old timbers. I had
brought a handful of candles, and when we had reached the dark rooms
beneath, I lighted these and set them up in the black corners of the
old rooms, in which, Miss Octavia remarked, not even the wall paper had
been disturbed. The exit into the coal-cellar, and concealed openings
left for ventilation which had escaped me before, were now pointed out
by the architect, who kept laughing at the huge joke of it all.
Cecilia murmured her surprise repeatedly as we continued the
examination; nothing quite like this had ever happened in the world
before, but even as we walked through those hidden rooms my thoughts
reverted to the crisis so near at hand in her affairs. I had pledged
myself to her service, but I saw no way yet of assuring the proper
sequence of proposals. The ultimate seventh must be Wiggins; but how
could I manage the penultimate sixth! Cecilia's own apparent freedom
from care on this tour of inspection deepened my sense of
responsibility to all concerned. Dick might by now have persuaded some
one of the others at the inn to offer himself, thus closing the gap,
and I had determined that the Westerner should not outwit me. It was
some consolation to know that while Cecilia was in these lost rooms in
my company, she was safe from Dick's machinations.
My thoughts were, however, given a new direction by Miss Octavia. She
had been scrutinizing the floor closely, asking us all to bring our
candles to bear upon it, that she might search thoroughly for any signs
of a trapdoor beneath which the bones of the British soldier might
repose.
"You can't tell me," she averred in her own peculiar vein, "that a
house as old as this has been preserved merely to divert calamity from
a superstitious gentleman engaged in the manufacture of ribless
umbrellas and a dyspepsia cure."
Miss Octavia Hollister was a woman to be humored; we all knew this; but
I realized with a pang that she was about to be disappointed. I had
expected her to forget the British soldier in the perfectly tangible
joy of secret springs and ghostly chambers; and if I had foreseen her
persistence in clinging to the tradition of the ill-fated Briton I
should have taken the trouble to hide a few bones under the flooring.
Miss Octavia had brought a stick from the coal-room, and was thumping
the floor with it even while Pepperton tried to discourage her further
investigations. We were all ranged about her with our candles, and
these, with the others I had thrust into the corners, lighted the room
well.
"I'm afraid you've seen the whole of it, Miss Hollister," said
Pepperton. "The old house was built after the Revolution, I judge, but
your British soldier was probably left hanging to a tree and never
buried at all."
"Mr. Pepperton," she replied, holding the candle so close to the
architect that he blinked, "it would be far from me to question your
knowledge of history, but I should not be at all surprised if the
builder of this old house had fought on the seas with John Paul Jones,
and had buried beneath these walls the very sea-chest that had been his
companion on many eventful voyages."
Pepperton gasped at the absurdity of this, and then suppressed his
mirth with difficulty. Cecilia faintly expostulated; but I knew Miss
Octavia would not be dissuaded, and I thought it as well to facilitate
her search and be done with it. A sailor with rings in his ears and a
cutlass dangling at his side might have come home from the wars and
established himself on a farm in Westchester County and even buried his
sea-chest under the floor of his house, but in all likelihood he never
had. It was not my office, however, to advise Miss Octavia Hollister
in such matters. Pepperton had changed his tune and seemed anxious to
follow my lead. To him she was an eccentric old woman, whose wealth
alone gained her indulgence in such preposterous obsessions as this;
but my own feelings were those of regret that she must so quickly be
disillusioned. To me she had become an incarnation of the play-spirit
that never grows old, and there may have risen in me an honest belief
that what this unusual woman sought she would somehow find. Once or
twice when the uneven worn flooring had boomed hollowly under her stick
I had knelt promptly to examine the planks, and had thus disposed of
several false alarms. Pepperton feigned interest for a time, but was
becoming bored. Cecilia studied the quaint pattern of the wall paper,
which she said ought to be reproduced, as nothing in contemporaneous
designs equaled it.
Miss Octavia had been over the floors of the two rooms twice, and was
about to desist. Her less frequent appeals to the rest of us for
confirmation of some suspected change in the responses to her thumping
indicated disappointment. She made her last stand in the corner of the
smaller room, and as we all stood holding our lights, we were conscious
that the dull monotonous thump suddenly changed its tone. We all
noticed it at the same instant, and exchanged glances of surprise.
"Do you hear that, gentlemen?"
She subdued her gratification in the rebuking glance she gave us. Calm
and unhurried, she rested a moment on her stick, with the candle's soft
glow about her, a smile ineffably sweet on her face.
"The timbers may have rotted away underneath. We did n't raise these
floors," said Pepperton; but we both dropped to our knees and brought
all the candle-light to bear upon the flooring. Dust and mortar,
shaken loose in the destruction of the house, filled the cracks.
Pepperton, deeply absorbed, continued to sound the corner with his
knuckles.
"It really looks as though these boards had been cut for some purpose,"
he said, whipping out his knife.
I ran to the kindling-room and found a hatchet, and when I returned he
had dug the dirt out of the edges of the floor-planks. Silence held us
all as I set to prying up the boards.
"I beg of you to exercise the greatest care, gentlemen. If bones are
interred here we must do them no sacrilege," warned Miss Octavia.
By this time we all, I think, began to believe that the flooring might
really have been cut in this corner of the old room to permit the
hiding of something. The room had grown hot, and Cecilia opened the
cellar-windows outside to admit air. The old planks clung stubbornly
their joists, but after I had loosened one, the others came up quickly
and the smell of dry earth filled the room. Pepperton had, at Miss
Octavia's direction, brought a chisel and crowbar from the tool-room in
the cellar, and he stood ready with these when I tore up the last
board, disclosing an oblong space about five feet long and slightly
over three feet wide. It was possible that this was the whole story,
but Pepperton began driving the bar vigorously into the close-packed
soil. As he loosened the earth I scooped it out, and we soon had
penetrated about six inches beneath the surface.
We were all excited now. The edge of the bar struck repeatedly against
something that resisted sharply. It might have been a root, but when
Pepperton shifted the point of attack the same booming sound answered
to the prodding. Pepperton now thought it might be only an empty cask
or a box of no interest whatever; but Miss Octavia, hovering close with
a candle, encouraged us to go on, and was fertile in suggestions as to
the most expeditious manner of resurrecting whatever might be buried
there. We were pretty well satisfied from the soundings that the
hidden object was somewhat shorter and narrower than the hole itself.
"Quite naturally so," observed Miss Octavia, "for a man who buries a
treasure has to allow himself room for getting at it."
We worked on silently, Pepperton loosening the soil with the bar while
I shoveled it out. In half an hour we had revealed a long flat wooden
surface, which to our anxious imaginations was the lid of some sort of
box.
"It's sound red cedar," pronounced Pepperton, examining the wood where
the tools had splintered it.
"Of course it's cedar," replied Miss Octavia, bending down to it. "I
knew it would be cedar. It always is!"
We paused to laugh at her confident tone, and Cecilia suggested that as
there was still a good deal to do before we could free the box, we
should send for some of the servants to complete the work.
"I would n't take a thousand dollars for my chance at this," Pepperton
answered; and we fell to again.
It must have been nearly six o'clock when we dragged out into that
candle-lighted chamber a stout, well-fashioned box. The earth clung to
its sides jealously, and it was bound with strips of brass that shone
brightly where the scraping of our tools had burnished it. We pried
off the heavy lock with a good deal of difficulty, and when it was free
Miss Octavia asserted her right to the treasure-trove with much
calmness.
"I should never forgive myself if I allowed this opportunity to pass;
you must permit me to have the first look."
"Certainly, Miss Hollister; if it had n't been for you this chest would
have remained hidden to the end of all time," Pepperton replied.
We gathered close about her as she knelt beside the box. My hand shook
as I held my candle, and I think Miss Octavia was the only one in the
room who showed no nervousness. Cecilia sighed deeply several times,
and Pepperton mopped his face with his handkerchief. The lid did not
yield as readily as we had expected, and it was necessary to resort to
the hatchet and chisel again; but we were careful that it should be
Miss Octavia's hand that finally raised the lid.
We all exclaimed in various keys as the light fell upon the open chest.
The musty odor of old garments greeted us at once. The box was well
filled, and its contents were neatly arranged. Miss Octavia first
lifted out the remnants of a military uniform that lay on top.
[Illustration: Miss Octavia first lifted out the remnants of a military
uniform that lay on top.]
"It's his ragged regimentals!" cried Cecilia, as we unfolded an
officer's coat of blue and buff, sadly decrepit and faded; "and he was
not a British soldier at all, but an American patriot."