THE HAUNTED HOUSE
A mud-splashed automobile runabout containing two men was turning
off Van Ness Avenue down a narrower and shadier side street in the
afternoon of the Sunday following the disappearance of Archie Winter.
One of the occupants seemed to be an invalid whom the brilliant March
sunshine had not tempted out of his heavy wrappings and cap; the
other was a short, thick-set, corduroy-jacketed chauffeur. One marked
the runabout at a glance as a hardly used livery motor-car; but a
moment’s inspection might have shown that it was running with admirable
smoothness and quiet. The chauffeur wore goggles, hence his eyes were
shielded, but he turned a broad smile upon the pallid cheeks and
sharpened profile beside him.
“Colonel, as a health-seeker who can’t keep warm enough, you’re great!”
he cried. “Lord, but you look the part!”
“If I can’t shed some of these confounded mufflers soon,” growled
the pale sufferer addressed, “I’ll get so red with heat it will come
through my beautiful powder. I hope those fellows won’t see us, for
they will be on to us, all right.”
“Our own mothers wouldn’t be on to us in these rigs,” the chauffeur
replied cheerily; he seemed to be in a hopeful mood; “and let us once
get into the house, and surprise ’em, and there’ll be something drop.
But I haven’t really had a chance to tell you the latest--having
to pick you up at a drug store this way. Now, let’s sum things up!
You think the boy got out through Keatcham’s apartment? Or Mrs.
Wigglesworth’s?”
“How else?” said the colonel, “he can’t fly, and if he could, he
couldn’t fly out and then lock the windows from the inside.”
“I see”--the chauffeur appeared thoughtful--“and the Wigglesworth door
was locked. You think that Keatcham is in it, someway?”
“Not Keatcham,” said the colonel. “There was another man in the
car--Atkins they called him, though he has disappeared. But Mercer
remains. His secretary and that valet of his; I think the secretary is
Cary Mercer. The boy might have slipped out in those few moments we
were hunting for him inside. Afterward, either Mrs. Melville Winter or
I was on guard until your man came. He might go to the Fireless Stove
man, slip out of his rooms, and round the corner to the elevator in a
couple of seconds. Then, of course, I might see their rooms--”
“Provided, that is, the Fireless Stove drummer is in the plot, too.”
“The Fireless Stove drummer who smokes _Villar y Villar_ cigars? He is
in it, I think, Birdsall.”
“Well, I’ll assume that. Next thing: you get the telephone call. And
you say the voice sounded chipper; didn’t look like he was being hurt
or bothered anyway, did it?”
“Not at all. Besides, you know the letter Miss Smith got this morning?”
“I think I’d like another peek at that; will you drive her a minute,
while I look at the letter again?” The instant his hands were free
Birdsall pulled out the envelope from his leather-rimmed pocket.
It was rectangular in shape and smaller than the ordinary business
envelope. The paper was linen of a common diamond pattern, having
no engraved heading. The detective ran his eyes down the few lines
written in an unformed boyish hand. There was neither date nor place;
only these words:
DEAR MISS JANET--Don’t you or auntie be woried about me because I am
well and safe and having a good time. I had the nose bleed that is
why I spoted the carpet. Tell Auntie to please pay for it out of my
next week’s allowance. Be sure and don’t wory.
Your aff. friend,
ARCHIBALD PAGE WINTER.
“You’re sure this is the boy’s writing?” was the detective’s comment.
“Sure. And his spelling, too.”
“Now,” said Birdsall, watching the colonel’s keen, aquiline profile
as he spoke, “now you notice there’s no heading or mark on the paper;
and the water-mark is only O. K. E., Mass., 1904. And that amounts to
nothing; those folks sell all over the country. But you notice that
it is not the ordinary business paper; it looks rather ladylike than
commercial, doesn’t it?”
The colonel admitted that it did look so.
“Now, assuming that this letter was sent with the connivance of the
kidnappers, it looks as if our young gentleman wasn’t in any particular
danger of having a hard time. To me, it looks pretty certain he must
have skipped himself; tolled along someway, maybe, but not making
any resistance. Now, is there anybody that you know who has enough
influence over him for that? How about the lady’s maid?”
“Randall has been a faithful servant for twenty years, a middle-aged,
serious-minded, decent woman. Out of the question.”
“This Miss Smith, your aunt’s companion, who is she? Do you know?”
“A South Carolinian; good family; she has lived with my aunt as
secretary and companion for a year; my aunt is very fond of her.”
“That all you know? Well _I_ have found out a little more; she used to
live with a Mrs. James S. Hastings, a rich Washington woman. The lady’s
only son fell in love with her; _somehow_ the marriage was broken off.”
“What was his name?”
“Lawrence. They call him Larry. He went to Manila. Maybe you’ve met him
there.”
“Yes, I knew him; I don’t believe he ever was accepted by her.”
“I don’t know. I have only had two days on her biography. Later, she
went to Johns Hopkins Hospital. One of the doctors was very attentive
to her--but it did not come to anything. She didn’t graduate. Don’t
know why. Then she went to live with Miss Angela Nelson, who died and
left her money, away from her own family. There was talk of breaking
the will; but it wasn’t done. Then she came to Mrs. Winter.”
The colonel was silent; there was nothing discreditable in these
details. He had known before that Janet Smith was poor; that she
had been thrown on the world early; that she must earn her own
livelihood; yet, somehow, as Birdsall marshaled the facts, there was
an insidious, malarious hint of the adventuress, bandied from place
to place, hawking her attractions about, wheedling, charming for
hire, entrapping imbecile young cubs--Larry Hastings wasn’t more than
twenty-two--somehow he felt a revolt against the picture and against
the man submitting it--and, confound Millicent!
The detective changed the manner of his questions a little. “I suppose
your aunt is pretty advanced in years, though she is as well preserved
an old lady as I have ever met, and as shrewd. Say, wouldn’t she be
likely to leave the boy a lot of money?”
“I dare say.” The colonel was conscious of an intemperate impulse to
kick Birdsall, who had been such a useful fellow in the Philippines.
“If anything was to happen to him, who would get the money?”
“Well, Mrs. Melville and I are next of kin,” returned the colonel
dryly. “Do you suspect _us_?”
“I did look up Mrs. Melville,” answered the unabashed detective, “but I
guess she’s straight goods all right. But say, how about Miss Smith?”
The colonel stared, then he laughed. “Birdsall,” said he, “there’s
somewhat too much mention of ladies’ names to suit my Virginian taste.
But if you mean to imply that Miss Smith is going to kill Archie to get
my aunt’s money, I can tell you you are _’way off!_ Your imagination
is too active for your profession. You ought to hire out to the yellow
journals.”
His employer’s satire did not even flick the dust off Birdsall’s
complacency; he grinned cheerfully. “Oh, I’m not so bad as _that_; I
don’t suppose she did kill the boy; I think he’s alive, all right.
But say, Colonel, I’ll give it to you straight; I do think the señora
coaxed the boy off. You admit, don’t you, he went off. Well, then he
was coaxed, somehow. Now, who’s got influence enough to coax him? You
cross out the maid; so do I. You cross out Mrs. Melville Winter; so do
I. I guess we both cross out the old lady. Well, there’s you and the
señora left. I don’t suspect _you_, General.”
“Really? I don’t see why. I stand to make more than anybody else, if
you are digging up motives. And how about the chambermaid?”
Birdsall flashed a glance of reproach on his companion. “Now, Colonel,
do you think I ain’t looked _her_ up? First thing. Nothing in it.
Decent Vermont girl, three years in the hotel. Came for her lungs. She
ain’t in it. But let’s get back to Miss Smith. Did you know she is Cary
Mercer’s sister-in-law?”
He delivered his shot in a casual way, and the colonel took it stonily;
nevertheless, it went to the mark. Birdsall continued. “Now, question
is, _was_ Mercer the secretary? You didn’t see the man in the elevator,
except his back. Had he two moles?”
“I couldn’t see. He had different clothes; but still there was
something like Mercer about the shoulders.”
“Burney didn’t get a chance to take a snapshot, but he did snap the
stove man. Here it is. Pull that book out of my pocket.”
Obeying, the colonel lifted a couple of small prints which he
scrutinized intently, at the end, admitting, “Yes, it is he all right.
Now do you know what _I_ think?”
Birdsall couldn’t form an idea.
“I think the Keatcham party is in it; and I think they are after
bigger game than Archie. Maybe the train robbers were a part of the
scheme--although I’m not so sure of that.”
“Oh, the robbers were in it all right. But now come to Miss Smith;
where does she come in? Or are you as sure of her as Mercer was in
Chicago?”
If he had expected to get a spark out of the Winter tinder by this
scraping stroke, he was mistaken; the soldier did not even move his
brooding gaze fixed on the hills beyond the house roofs; and he
answered in a level tone: “Did you get _that_ story from my aunt, or
was it Mrs. Melville? I’m pretty certain you got your biography from
that quarter. My aunt might have told her.”
“That would be betraying a lady’s confidence. I’m only a detective,
whose business is to pry, but I never go back on the ladies. And I
think, same’s you, that the lady in question is a real nice, high-toned
lady; but I can’t disregard the evidence. I never give out my system,
but I’ve got one, all the same. Look here, see this paper?”--he had
replaced the envelope in his pocket; he pulled it out again; or rather,
so the colonel fancied, until Birdsall turned the envelope over,
revealing it to be blank. “There’s a sheet of paper inside; take it
out. Look at the water-mark, look at the pattern; then compare it with
this letter”--handing the colonel the original envelope. “Same exactly,
ain’t they?”
The colonel, who had studied the two sheets of paper silently, nodded
as silently; and he had a premonition of Birdsall’s next sentence
before it came. “Well, Mrs. Melville Winter, this morning, took me to
Miss Smith’s desk, where we found this and a lot more like it.”
“You seem to be right in thinking the paper widely distributed,”
observed the colonel.
“And you don’t think that suspicious?”
“I should think it more suspicious if the paper were not out on her
desk. If she is such a deep one as you seem to think, she would hide
such an incriminating bit of evidence.”
“She didn’t know we suspected her. Of course, you haven’t shadowed her
a little bit?”
“There is a limit to detective duty in the case of a gentleman,”
returned the colonel haughtily. “I have not.”
Little Birdsall sighed; then in a propitiatory tone: “Well, of course,
we both think there are other people in the job; I don’t know exactly
what you mean by bigger game, but I can make a stagger at it. Now, say,
did you get any answer when you wrote to Keatcham himself?”
“Yes,” said the colonel grimly, “I heard. You know the sort of letter
I wrote; telling him of our dreadful anxiety and about the lad’s being
an orphan; don’t you think it was the sort of letter a decent man would
answer, no matter how busy he might be?”
“Sure. Didn’t you get an answer?”
“I did.” The colonel extricated himself from his wrappings enough to
find a pale blue envelope, which he handed to Birdsall, at the same
time taking the motor handle. “You see; type-written, very polite,
chilly sort of letter, kind to make a man hot under the collar and
swear at Keatcham’s heartlessness. Mr. Keatcham unable to answer,
having been ill since he left San Francisco. Did not see anything of
any boy. Probably boy ran away. Has no information of any kind to
afford. And the writer is very sincerely mine. The minute I read it I
was sure Mercer wrote it; and he wrote it to make me so disgusted with
Keatcham I wouldn’t pursue the subject with him. Just the same way he
snubbed my aunt; and, for that matter, just the way he tried to snub
me on the train. But he missed his mark; I wired every hotel in Santa
Barbara and every one in Los Angeles; and Keatcham isn’t there and
hasn’t been there. He has a big bunch of mail at Santa Barbara waiting
for him, forwarded from Los Angeles, but he hasn’t shown himself.”
Birdsall shot a glance of cordial admiration at the colonel. “You’re
all there, General,” he cried with unquenchable familiarity. “I’ve been
trying to call up the Keatcham outfit, and _I_ couldn’t get a line,
either. They haven’t used the tickets they bought--their reservations
went empty to Los Angeles. Now, what do you make out of that?”
“I make out that Archie is only part of their game,” replied the
soldier. “Now see, Birdsall, you are not going to get a couple of rich
young college fellows to do just plain kidnapping and scaring women out
of their money--”
“Lord, General,” interrupted Birdsall, “those college guys don’t turn a
hair at kidnapping; they regularly steal the president of the freshman
class, and the things they do at their hazing bees and initiations
would make an Apache Indian sit up and take notice. I tell you,
General, they’re the limit for deviltry.”
“Some kinds. Not that kind; it’s too dirty. Arnold was one of the
cleanest foot-ball players at Harvard. And I don’t know anything about
human nature if that other youngster isn’t decent. But Mercer--_es
un loco_; you can look out for anything from him. Now, see the
combination. Arnold was at Harvard! I have traced the motor-car they
used to him; and then, if you add that his father is away safe in
Europe and he has an empty house, off to one side, with a quantity of
space around it and the reputation of being haunted, why--”
“It looks good to me. And I understand my men have got around it on the
quiet all right. How’s your man Haley got on, hiring out to the Jap in
charge?”
“Well enough; the Jap took him on to mow, but either Mr. Caretaker
doesn’t know anything or he won’t tell. He’s bubbling over with
conversation about the flowers and the country and the Philippines,
where he used to be; but he only knows that the honorable family are
all away and he is to shun the house. Aren’t we almost there?”
“Just around the corner. I guess when you see it you’ll think it’s just
the _patio_ a spook of taste would freeze to.”
“_Why_ is it haunted?”
“Now you have me. I ain’t on to such dream stuff. Gimme five cards.
Mrs. Arnold died off in Europe, so ’tain’t her; and the house has
only been built two years; but the neighbors have seen lights and
heard groans and a pick chopping at the stones. Some folks say the
land belonged to an old miner and he died before he could tell where
he’d buried his _mazuma_; so he is taking a little _buscar_ after it.
There’s the house, General.”
The street climbed a gentle hill, and on its crest a large house, in
mission style, looked over a pleasant land. Its position on a corner
and the unusual size of the grounds about it gave the mansion an
effect of space. Of almost rawly recent erection though it was, the
kindly climate had so fostered the growth of the pines, acacias and
live-oaks, the eucalypti and the orange-trees, which made a rich blur
of color on the hillside, had so lavishly tended the creeping ivies
and Bougainvilleas which masked the rounded lantern arches of the
stern gray façade, and so sumptuously blazoned the flower-beds in the
garden on the one hand, yet, on the other, had so cunningly dulled the
greenish gray of the cobblestones from California arroyos in chimney
and foundation, and had so softly streaked the marble of the garden
statues and the plaster of walls and mansion with tiny filaments of
lichens or faint green moss, that the beholder might fancy the house
to be the ancient home of some Spanish hidalgo, handed down with an
hereditary curse, through generations, to the last of his race. One
was tempted to such a flutter of fancy because of the impression given
by the mansion. A sullen reticence hung about the place. The windows,
for the most part, were heavily shuttered. Not a pane of glass flashed
back at the sunlight; even those casements not shuttered turned blank
dark green shades, like bandaged eyes, on the court and the beautiful
terraces and the lovely sweep of hillsides where the wonderful shadows
swayed and melted.
The bent figure of a man raking, distorted by the perspective, was
visible just beyond the high pillars of the gateway. He paid no
attention to the motions of the motor-car, nor did he answer a hail
until it was repeated. Then he approached the car. Birdsall was in the
roadway trying to unlock the gate. The man, whose Japanese features
were quite distinguishable, bowed; he explained that the honorable
owners were not at home; his insignificant self was the only keeper of
the grounds. He spoke sufficiently good English with the accompaniment
of a deprecatory, amiable smile. Birdsall, in turn, told him that his
own companion was a very great gentleman from the East who belonged to
a society of vast power which was investigating spectral appearances,
and that he had come thousands of miles to see the ghost.
The Japanese extended both hands, while the appeal of his smile
deepened. “Too bad, velly,” he murmured, “but not leally any g’lost,
no, nev’.”
“Don’t you believe in the ghost?” asked Colonel Winter.
“No, me Clistian boy, no believe not’ing.”
“All the samee,” said the colonel, laboriously swinging himself from
his vantage-ground of the motor seat to the flat top of the wall,
thence dropping to the greensward below, “allee samee, like go in house
hunt ghost.” He crackled a bank-note in the palm of the slim brown
hand, smiling and nodding as if to break the force of his brusque
action. Meanwhile, Birdsall had safely shut off his engine before he
placed himself beside the others with an agility hardly to be expected
of his rotund build.
As for the caretaker, whether because he perceived himself outnumbered,
or because he was really void of suspicion, he accepted the money with
outward gratitude and proffered his guidance through the garden and
the orchards. He slipped into the rôle of cicerone with no atom of
resistance; he was voluble; he was gracious; he was artlessly delighted
with his señors. In spite of this flood of suavity, however, there
seemed to be no possibility of persuading him to admit them to the
house.
Assured of this, the two fell back for a second, time for the merest
eyeflash from the detective to the soldier, who at once limped briskly
up to the Jap, saying: “We are very much obliged to you; this is a
beautiful house, beautiful gardens; but we want to see the ghost; and
if you can give me young Mr. Arnold’s address I will see him--or write,
and we can come back.”
The gardener, with many apologies and smiles, did not know Mr. Arnold’s
honorable address, but he drew out a soiled card, explaining that it
bore the name of the gentleman in charge of the property. Birdsall,
peering over the Jap’s shoulders, added that it was the card of a
well-known legal firm.
“Then,” said the colonel with deliberation, “we will thank you again
for your courtesy, and--what’s that?”
The Jap turned; they all started at the barking detonation of some
explosion; while they gazed about them there came another booming
sound, and they could see smoke pouring from the chimney and leaking
through the window joints of a room in the rear of the house. Like a
hare, not breaking his wind by a single cry, the Jap sped toward the
court. The others were hard on his heels, though the colonel limped and
showed signs of distress by the time they reached the great iron door.
The Jap pulled out a key; he turned it and swung the door barely wide
enough to enter, calling on them to stay out; he would tell them if he
needed them.
“Augustly stay; maybe honolable t’ieves!” he cried.
But the detective had interposed a stalwart leg and shoulder.
Instantly the door swung open; he acted as if he had lost his wits with
excitement. “You’re burning up! Lord! you’re burning! _Fire!_ _Fire!_”
he bawled, and rushed boldly into the room.
Winter followed him, also calling aloud in a strident voice. And it was
to be observed, being such an unusual preparation for a conflagration,
that he had drawn a heavy revolver and ran with it in his hand. Before
he jumped out of the car he had discarded his thick top-coat and all
his wrappings.
An observer, also (had there been one near), would have taken note of a
robust Irishman, who had been weeding the flower-beds, and would have
seen him straighten at the first peal of the explosion, stare wildly at
the chimneys before any distinct smoke was to be seen, then run swiftly
and climb up to a low chimney on a wing of the house, watering-pot in
hand. He would have seen him empty his inadequate fire extinguisher
and rapidly descend the ladder, while the smoke volleyed forth, as if
defying his puny efforts; later, he would have seen the watering-pot
bearer pursue the others into the house, emitting noble yells of
“Fire!” and “Help!”
[Illustration: The detective had interposed a stalwart leg and
shoulder. Page 135]
Further, this same observer, had he been an intimate friend of Sergeant
Dennis Haley, certainly would have recognized that resourceful man of
war in the amateur fireman.