SATAN GOES A-HUNTING AND FINDS WORK FOR IDLE HANDS
"Val, did that cat go upstairs?" Ricky stood at the foot of the hall
staircase frowning crossly. "If he did, you'll just have to go up and
get him. I will not have him walking on the beds with muddy feet.
There's enough to do here without cleaning up after a lazy cat. Where's
Rupert?"
Her brother put aside his note-book and got up from the couch with a
lazy stretch. Ricky's early-morning energy was apt to be a little
irksome and Val had not had a good night. When one lies and stares up at
a ceiling, one sometimes hears strange noises which cannot be accounted
for by wind or creaking boards.
"He retired into Bluebeard's den right after breakfast and he hasn't
appeared since."
"I should think that after what he heard yesterday he'd be doing
something," she protested.
"And what is there for him to do? You know just how far we got with our
investigations yesterday. Go rap on his door if you like and stir him
up. But I don't think his welcome will be a cordial one."
Ricky sat down on the bottom step and pushed the hair back from her
forehead. Suddenly she looked very small and faintly forlorn with all
that expanse of age-blackened wood behind her.
"I can't understand you two at all. One would think you would be just as
well pleased if that Beezel the rival walked off with this place. You
aren't even trying to fight!"
"Listen, Ricky, how can we fight when we have nothing solid to fight
with? LeFleur is doing all he can, we have explored every possibility
here--"
"Val, don't you _want_ to stay here?" she interrupted him.
He looked around at stone and wood. Did he really want to? His instant
hot anger at the thought of another owner there was his answer. Why,
this house was a part of them, as much as if they had laid its
foundation stones with their own hands. They had been brought up on its
blood-stained legends, and on the one or two happier tales which had
been lived within its walls. If they had to leave, they would regret it
all their lives. And yet--Rupert seemed to take no interest in the
claims of the rival, and only Ricky wanted to fight.
Ricky got up from the stairs.
"We might as well go up and catch that cat," she said.
At the top of the stairs Satan sat, his eyes upon the landing windows.
Val reached out his hands for him, but in that single instant Satan was
gone. A black tail disappeared around the door of the Jackson room.
"Oh, dear, I hope he isn't going to get on that bed." Ricky opened the
door wider. "No, there he goes under instead of on it. Can you see him,
Val?"
Her brother crouched and lifted the edge of the brocaded cover which
swept to the floor. To Val's surprise a thin line of light showed along
the wall at the head of the bed.
"Ricky, look behind the head of the bed! Is it fast against the wall?"
She started to the tall canopied head and pulled the faded fabrics away
from the paneling. "No, there's about two feet here at the bottom. It
doesn't show because the canopy covers it. And, Val, there's an opening
here! Satan's trying to get through!"
"We need a flashlight."
"I'll get Rupert's. Val, promise not to go in--if it _is_ a door--until
I come back!"
"Of course; but hurry."
The flashlight revealed a wide panel which slid upward. Time and damp
had warped the wood so that it no longer fitted snugly to the floor as
the builder had intended. But the same warping made the door defy their
efforts to raise it any higher. At last, by prying and pounding, they
got it up perhaps a yard from the floor. Satan slipped through and they
followed on hands and knees.
They crawled into a small room lighted by two round windows set like
eyes in the side wall. More than three-quarters of the space was filled
with furniture and boxes wrapped in tarred canvas. The choking dust and
general mustiness of the long-closed apartment drove Val to investigate
the window fastenings and throw them open to the morning air.
"There must be another door somewhere," he said, calling Ricky away from
a box where she was picking at the knotted rope which bound it. "All
these things couldn't have been brought through that hole behind the
bed."
"Here it is," she said a moment later, pointing to an oblong set flush
with the wall. "It's bolted on this side."
"Let me open it and see where we are." Val fumbled at the rusty latch,
but he had to use an iron poker from a discarded fire stand in the
corner before he could hammer it back. Again the door resisted their
efforts to push it open until Val flung his full weight against it. With
a snapping report it swung open and he sprawled forward into the short
hall which had once led into the garden wing, an ell of the house
destroyed by roving British raiders during the days of 1815. The only
wholly wooden portion of the house, it had been burnt and never rebuilt.
"Come on," Ricky pulled at Val's sleeve, "let's explore."
He looked at his black hands. "I would suggest some soap and water,
several brooms, and some dusting cloths if we're going to do it right.
Better make a regular house-cleaning party of it."
"Goodness, what have I strayed into?" Charity Biglow stood in the lower
hall staring at the younger Ralestones as they came through from the
kitchen. They had both changed into their oldest and least respectable
clothes. Ricky, in fact, was wearing a pair of Val's slacks and one of
Rupert's shirts, and they were burdened with a broom which was long past
its youth, several smaller brushes, and a great bundle of floor-cloths.
"We've found a secret room--" began Ricky.
"As one door has been in plain sight since the building of this house,
it could hardly be called a secret room," Val objected.
"Well, we didn't know it was there until Satan found the back entrance
for us. And now we're going to clean it out. It's full of furniture and
boxes and things."
"Don't!" Charity held up a paint-streaked hand. "You will have me
drooling in a moment. I don't suppose you could use another assistant?
After all, it was my cat who found it for you. If you can provide me
with a set of those weird coverings which seem to be your house-cleaning
uniforms, I would just love to wield a broom in your company."
"The more the merrier," laughed Ricky. "I think Val has another pair of
slacks--"
"That's right, dispose of my wardrobe before my face," he commented,
balancing his load more carefully in preparation for climbing the
stairs. "Only spare my white flannels, please. I'm saving those for the
occasion when I can play the country gentleman in style."
Upstairs he braced open the hall door of the storage-room. The open
windows had cleared the air within but they were too high and too small
to admit enough light to reach the far corners. It would be best, they
decided, to carry each box and piece of furniture to the hall for
examination. With the zeal of treasure hunters they set to work.
Some time later, when Val was coaxing the second box through the door,
they were interrupted.
"And just what is going on here?" Rupert stood at the end of the hall.
"Oh," Ricky smiled sweetly, "did we really disturb you?"
"Well, I did think that there was a troop of elephants doing tap dancing
up here. But that isn't the point--just _what_ are you doing?"
"Cleaning house." Ricky flicked a gray rag in his direction freeing a
cloud of dust. "Don't you think it needs it?"
Rupert sneezed. "It seems so. But why--? Miss Biglow!"
Charity, extremely dirty--she had apparently run dusty hands across her
forehead several times--had come to the door of the storage-room. At the
sight of Rupert she flushed and made a hurried attempt at smoothing her
hair.
"I--" she began, when Ricky interrupted her.
"Charity is helping us, which is more than we can say of you. Go back to
your old den and hibernate. And then you can't look down that long nose
of yours when we turn up the papers that'll save us from the poorhouse."
"That's telling him," Val murmured approvingly as he fanned himself with
one of the cleaner cloths. "But perhaps we had better explain. You see,
Satan went hunting and found work for idle hands," and he told the tale
of the sliding panel behind the bed.
When he had finished, Rupert laughed. "So you are still determined on
treasure hunting, are you? Well, if it will keep you out of mischief, go
to it."
"Rupert," Ricky faced him squarely, "don't be utterly insufferable.
If you had one drop of hot blood in you, you'd be just as thrilled
as we are. Just because you've been around and around the world until
you got dizzy or something, you needn't stand there with that
'See-the-little-children-play' smirk on your face. You don't really care
whether we lose Pirate's Haven or not, do you?"
Rupert straightened and the color crept up across his high cheek-bones.
His mouth opened and then he closed it again without speaking the words
he had intended, closed with a firmness which tightened his lips into a
straight line.
"Don't stand there and glower at me," Ricky went on. "Why don't you say
what you were going to? I'm just about tired of this world-weary
attitude--"
"Ricky!" Val clapped his black hand over her mouth and turned to
Charity. "Please excuse the fireworks. They are not usual, I assure
you."
"Let me go!" Ricky twisted out of his grip. "I don't care if Charity
does hear. She ought to know what we're really like!"
"Speak for yourself, my pet." The red had faded from Rupert's face. "You
do have a nice little habit of speaking your mind, don't you? But on
this occasion I believe you're at least eight-tenths right. I have been
neglecting my opportunities. Suppose you let me get at that box, Val.
And look here, if you are going to unpack these, why not move them down
to the end of the hall and turn them out on a sheet?"
Charity and Ricky suddenly disappeared back into the room and were very
busy whenever Rupert crossed their line of vision, but Val was heartily
glad of his brother's help in lifting and pulling.
"Better not try to take this bedstead and stuff out," Rupert advised
when they had the three boxes out in the hall. "We have no need for it
now, anyway."
"I believe--yes, it is! A real Sergnoret piece!" Charity was
industriously rubbing away at the head of the bed. Rupert knelt down
beside her.
"And just what is a Sergnoret piece?"
"A collector's item nowadays. François Sergnoret was one of the greatest
cabinet-makers of New Orleans. See that 'S'--that's the way he always
signed his work."
"Treasure trove!" cried Ricky. "I wonder how much it's worth?"
"Exactly nothing to us." Rupert was running his hands across the
mahogany. "We couldn't sell anything from this house until the title is
cleared."
As Val moved around to the opposite side to see better, his foot struck
against something on the floor. He stooped and picked up a box with a
slanting cover, the whole black and smooth with age and the rubbing of
countless hands.
"What's this?" He had crossed to the door and was examining his find in
the light.
Rupert's hand fell upon his shoulder. "Val, be careful of that. Charity,
he's got something here!" He pulled her up beside him, not noting in his
excitement that he had broken out of the formal shell which seemed to
wall him in whenever she was around.
"A Bible box! And an authentic one, too!" She drew her fingers down the
slope of the lid.
"And just what is it?" Val asked for the second time.
"These boxes were used in the seventeenth century for writing-desks and
later to keep the large family Bibles in. But this is the first one I've
ever seen outside of a museum. What's this on the lid?" She traced a
worn outline. Val studied the design.
"Why, it's Joe! You know, that grinning skull we have stuck up all over
the place to bolster up our superiority complex. That proves that this
is ours, all right."
"Perhaps--" Ricky's eyes were round with excitement, "perhaps it
belonged to Pirate Dick himself!"
"Perhaps it did," her younger brother agreed.
"Lift the lid." She was almost hopping on one foot in her impatience.
"Let's see what's inside."
"No gold or jewels, I'll wager. How do you get the thing undone?"
"Here, let me try." Rupert took it from Val's hands and put it down on
one of the chests, squatting on the floor before it. With the smallest
blade of his penknife he delicately probed the fastening sunken in the
wood.
"I could do a faster job," he remarked, "if you didn't all breathe down
the back of my neck." They retreated two inches or so and waited
impatiently. With a satisfied grunt he dropped his knife and pulled the
lid up.
"Why, there's nothing in it!" Ricky's cry of disappointment was almost a
wail.
"Nothing but that old torn lining." Val was as disgusted as she.
Rupert closed it again. "I'll rub this up some and put in another
lining. This is too good a piece to hide away up here," and he put it
carefully aside at the end of the hall.
Their investigations yielded nothing more except great quantities of
dust, a mummified rat which even Satan refused to sniff at, and a large
collection of spider webs. Having swept out the room, they went to wash
their hands before unpacking the well-wrapped boxes.
When their swathing canvas and sacking was thrown aside, the boxes stood
revealed as stout chests banded with iron. Charity paused before one.
"This is a marriage chest, late seventeenth century, I would judge. Look
there, under that carved leaf--isn't that a date?"
"Sixteen hundred ninety-three," Rupert deciphered. "That crest above it
looks familiar. I know, it belonged to that French lady who married our
pirate ancestor."
"The first Lady Richanda!" Ricky touched the chest lovingly. "Then this
is mine, Rupert. Can't it be mine?" she coaxed.
"Of course. But it's locked, and as we don't have any keys which would
fit the lock, you'll have to wait until we can get a locksmith out to
work on it before you will know what's inside."
"I don't care. No," she corrected herself, "that's wrong; I do care. But
anyway its mine!" She caressed the stiff carving with her fingers.
"What's this one?" Val turned to the second box. It, too, was fashioned
of wood, but it was plain where the other was carved, and the iron bands
across it were pitted with rust.
"A sea chest, I would say." Rupert touched the top gingerly. "By the
feel, it's locked too. And I don't care to play around with it. The men
who made things like these were too fond of having little poisoned fangs
run into your hand when you tried to force the chest without knowing the
trick. We'll have to leave this for an expert, too."
"What about the third?"
Charity laughed. "After your two treasures I'm afraid that this will be
a disappointment." She indicated a small humpbacked trunk covered with
moth-eaten horsehair. "No romance here. But the key is tied to the clasp
beside the lock."
"Then open it before I expire of pure unsatisfied curiosity," Ricky
begged. "Go on, Rupert. Hurry."
"Oh," she said a moment later, "it's full of nothing but a lot of
books."
"What did you expect," Val asked her, "a skeleton? Do you know, I think
that Rick's ghost, or whatever influence presides over this house, has a
sense of humor. You find a room, or a trunk, or something which makes
you feel that you are on the verge of getting what you want, and then it
all fades into just nothing again. Now, by rights, that writing-desk
should have contained the secret message which would have told us where
to find a hidden passage or something. But what is in it? A couple of
pieces of lining almost completely torn from the bottom. I'll wager that
when you open those chests you'll find nothing but a brick or 'April
Fool' scrawled across the inside. This isn't true to any fiction I ever
read," he ended plaintively.
"Good Heavens!" Charity was staring down at what lay within a portfolio
she had opened.
"Don't tell me you have really found something!" Val exclaimed.
"It can't be true!" She still stared at what she held.
Ricky looked over her shoulder. "Why, it's nothing but a picture of a
bird," she observed.
"It's a genuine Audubon," Charity corrected her.
[Illustration: _"It's a genuine Audubon," Charity said._]
"What!" With little regard for manners, Rupert snatched the portfolio
from her hands. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. But you must take it in to the museum and get an expert opinion.
It's wonderful!"
"Here's another." Reverently Rupert raised the first sketch and then the
second. "Three, four, five, six," he counted.
"Was Audubon ever here?" Charity looked about the hall, a sort of awe
coloring her voice.
"He might easily have been when he lived in New Orleans. Though we have
no record of it," answered Rupert. "But these," he closed the portfolio
carefully and knotted its strings, "speak for themselves. I'll take them
to LeFleur tomorrow. We can't allow them to lie about here."
"I should hope not!" Charity eyed the portfolio wistfully. "Imagine
actually owning six of those--"
"They won't pay our bills," said Ricky, practical for once in her life.
Treasure to Ricky was not half a dozen sketches on yellowed paper but
good old-fashioned gold with a few jewels thrown in for her own private
satisfaction. The portfolio and its contents left her unmoved. Val
admitted to himself that he, too, was disappointed. After all--well,
treasure should be treasure.
Rupert carried the portfolio into his bedroom and locked it in one of
his mysterious brief-cases which had somehow found its way upstairs.
The two chests they moved out farther into the hall and the trunk was
placed back against the wall, ready for further investigation.
"Mistuh Ralestone, suh," Letty-Lou, standing half-way up the back
stairs, addressed Rupert, "lunch am on de table. Effen yo'all doan come
now, de eatments will be spiled."
"All right," he answered.
"Letty-Lou," called Ricky, "put on another plate. Miss Charity is
staying to lunch."
"Dat's all ri', Miss 'Chanda. I'se done done dat. Yo'all comin' now?"
"You see how we are bullied," Ricky appealed to Charity. "Of course
you're going to stay," she swept aside the other's protests. "What's
food for, if not to feed your friends? Val, go wash up; your hands are
frightful. I don't care if you did wash once; go and--"
"This is her little-mother-of-the-family mood," her younger brother
explained to Charity. "It wears off after a while if you just don't
notice it. But I will wash though," he looked at his hands, "I seem to
need it."
"And don't use the guest towels," Ricky called after him. "You know that
they're only to look at."
When Val emerged from the bathroom he found the hall deserted. Sounds
from below suggested that his family had basely left him for food. He
started along the passage. Not far from the stairs was the writing-desk
where Rupert had left it. Val picked it up, thinking that he might as
well take it along down with him.