THE PARSONS JEWELS
Up the inclined bank went the two boys, determined now to get to the
Parsons house, whence the cries came.
Dodging through the shrubbery, which whipped their faces in the inky
darkness, tripping and stumbling over the gnarled roots of some of
the older vines, as they missed their steps, they came to the broad
expanse of lawn in front of the estate which faced the river.
Once more came that cry of a frightened woman!
It seemed to come from the rear of the house. Dashing up the steps to
the front porch, Frank tried the door. It was locked. Still another
cry from the woman!
“Around to the rear!” cried Frank, as Lanky and he turned back from
the resisting front door.
They dashed as fast as their legs could carry them around the large
building, coming to the rear porch, or gallery, which faced toward
the river road, and up to which a broad driveway led.
Swish! The starting of a motor! Then a light flashed and an
automobile moved out from the drive at the garage a hundred feet away!
“There they go!” both boys cried in the same breath, just as a loud
cry came from within:
“Help! Let me out!”
It was just over their heads. Frank looked up, but could see nothing.
The night was as black as ink.
Rushing up the steps to the wide back porch, the two boys tried the
door. It gave to their touch. Both tried to get in at the same time,
and for a second wedged each other.
Again Mrs. Parsons, for in all probability it was she, screamed, and
Frank dived through the dark for the direction indicated by her voice.
“Find a light, Lanky, quick!” he cried, feeling about for the door.
While Frank fumbled along the wall, trying to find the door or closet
wherein Mrs. Parsons was imprisoned, Lanky was in turn fumbling in
his pockets for a match, which, finding at last, he scratched. The
feeble light flared up, and the quick eyes of both boys located the
push button. Each made a dive to get it, but Lanky being nearest
reached it and flooded the room with the necessary light.
In another moment Frank was smashing against the door behind
and beyond which the woman was screaming even more lustily, more
excitedly, than before.
As it gave before his second onslaught, he saw she was lying on the
floor, her arms and feet pinioned, a rag which had been used as a
hurriedly made gag lying alongside her head.
Loosening her arms quickly and lifting her bodily to her feet, Frank
and Lanky both supported her to a chair.
It was Mrs. Parsons, the wealthy recluse of the county. She was
thoroughly hysterical.
“My jewels! My silver! They’ve stolen it all and got away! What shall
I do? What shall I do?”
Frank tried to quiet her, but for a few minutes it was of no avail.
She was thoroughly excited over her experience and her loss, wildly
hysterical about it, crying one moment and screaming the next.
What seemed to the boys a very long time was only a few minutes, and
then she quieted enough to tell, between gasps and moans, something
of what had happened.
Mrs. Parsons said that she had returned to her house from a trip to
Columbia just after dark and that her automobile had been put up. She
came into the house, and her maid being out for her regular weekly
day off, she had prepared a little supper for herself. In doing this
she had not gone any further than the kitchen, the pantry, and the
small room off the kitchen which she used as a breakfast room and
which, under circumstances such as these, she used also as a dining
room.
Having finished her supper she sat in the same small room checking
over her balance in bank as shown by her bankbook as against her own
check stubs.
“How long were you engaged at this?” asked Frank.
He was decidedly anxious to get to the heart of the story, yet
realized that she must tell the tale in her own way, even though the
miscreants were putting more and more distance between themselves and
this place at every minute that she detailed the story.
“Oh, I suppose it was fully an hour that I sat here checking and
thinking idly about different things, then——”
She proceeded with her story, about as follows:
She had heard a noise of a peculiar kind several times, but had
paid no heed to it, thinking the noises were caused by the wind,
coupled with the queer noises that one always hears at night. Living
alone in this house for so long she had become quite accustomed to
extraordinary noises, and had enjoyed herself on many occasions
concentrating on some of them and guessing what they were.
“Suddenly I felt as if some one were behind me,” and she turned
quickly, apprehensively, around, expecting to see some one.
“As I twisted around to see what could be behind me,” she gasped,
“a man seized me by my shoulders and another placed a hand over my
mouth. I screamed as I jerked and for a moment freed myself from his
grasp over my mouth. But in a second he again placed his hand over my
mouth, the other hand going around my throat, and I could not even
breathe.”
“Then they placed you in the pantry?” asked Frank.
“Yes, they dragged me over there, one of them tied a rag around my
face, to gag me, and then they bound my hands and feet.”
“How did you get the gag off so that you could scream so loudly—for
we were attracted by your screams?”
“I guess it was because I twisted and squirmed so much. Anyway,
finally, while I was almost frantic over the noises I could hear of
their packing up my silver and loading it into a box and carrying
it out, I managed to free myself from the gag, and then I started
screaming as hard as I could.”
“But why scream, when you knew you were so far from neighbors?”
“You heard me, didn’t you? You heard me from the road and came.
That’s why I screamed.”
“Yes, we heard you from out on the river. That’s how far your screams
carried,” replied Frank, speaking softly so as to reassure her. “Now,
let’s call the police and get them out here.”
“Yes, yes, call the police!” she cried, gaining strength and with it
her composure. “Let’s look around and see what is gone, too.”
Lanky hurried to the telephone, being directed to its location by
Mrs. Parsons, and sent in a call for the police headquarters in
Columbia, reporting the robbery and asking for men to be sent at
once. The night lieutenant replied that he would send two special
men immediately. It may be added here that Frank’s old friend, Chief
Hogg, was no longer at headquarters in Columbia. His health had given
out and he was away on a long vacation and another man the boys did
not know was now at the head of the police department.
In the meanwhile Mrs. Parsons and Frank started through the house. In
the dining room they saw the sideboard drawers all pulled out, and
linens strewn on the floor.
“All my silverware—gone!” she moaned, her hands to her face.
“Thousands of dollars’ worth of the very finest sterling silver
dishes and all my flat silver, too! There’s the plated ware on the
sideboard—they did not want that. Oh, what shall I do. All my silver
gone, gone!”
Frank surveyed the scene quietly, not knowing how much of the ware
there might have been. Nor had he any idea of what amount it would
take to make “thousands of dollars’ worth.”
“Let us not touch anything here, Mrs. Parsons,” Frank suggested, as
Mrs. Parsons stooped to put one of the drawers in its place in the
sideboard. “Let us leave things just as they are until the police get
here.”
She stood quietly and looked at the disturbed condition of things for
a while. Then she said:
“I wonder if they could have gotten my jewels upstairs. Let’s see!”
She started off with the sudden recollection that these same men
could have gotten more than the silverware.
Up the steps to the second floor they went, into her own apartment.
There the dresser drawers were scattered about the floor, everything
in the closets was down, showing that a search had been made for
valuables.
Over in one corner of the room, in a place that was rather out of
sight, a small safe was standing, its door wide open.
“The safe! My jewelry!”
The safe was empty. Papers and large legal envelopes lay on the
floor, but otherwise the safe was absolutely, completely, hopelessly
empty.
Mrs. Parsons sat stiffly down on the bed and cried, moaning the while
about the loss of her jewels.
“How much was there, Mrs. Parsons?” asked Frank, after taking in the
whole scene and waiting for the first shock to pass.
“Literally thousands upon thousands of dollars. There were jewels
there which my grandfather and my own father and mother had left to
me, and much that Mr. Parsons had bought for me at different times.
Oh, there were rings and necklaces and bracelets and pins and scores,
scores of small pieces of all kinds! And there were four large
diamonds which were unmounted, all in a small iron box.”
The robbers had made a good haul while they were at it. Evidently
they had known something of the lie of the land, had figured where
everything was, or had been told where things were. And, thought
Frank, they had not done all this after they had bound and gagged the
wealthy widow. There was so much to be done that they had probably
been in the house while she was away, and the small noises they made
upstairs were those which she had heard and had permitted to pass
unheeded.
Having looked carefully about the room, having seen how thoroughly
these fellows had worked, Frank proposed they go downstairs to await
the police.
They had not long to wait. They had barely gained the landing below
when the police knocked at the front door, having come around from
the broad front of the house.
Frank admitted them while Mrs. Parsons, still almost overcome at the
fright and also at the realization of her loss, sat in a large chair,
sobbing, patting her eyes with her handkerchief the while.
The whole story was told again, this time a few little details being
added which explained to Frank the very things he had thought were
true that these fellows had been in the house all the time, and that
they had caught and bound her when they had finished upstairs and had
come down to rifle the lower part of the house.
“Have you any idea who did this, Mrs. Parsons?” asked one of the men
from the police department.
“If I had, would I have you out here? Wouldn’t I have you chasing
them right now?”
“I mean, madam, would you recognize them if you saw them again?”
“No, because they wore handkerchiefs over their faces, and that is
all I saw as I turned to see what was behind me.”
“Did you notice their clothes or anything?”
“No—oh, yes! I’ll tell you something,” and she smiled for the first
time. “When that fellow put his hand roughly over my face the second
time, one of his fingers got between my lips and I bit down hard on
him, so hard that he jerked it away, but he had it back again before
I could draw my breath and scream. I know I bit him so hard that it
will show.”
The policeman smiled.
“Pretty hard work to find one fellow out of thousands whose finger
was bitten.”
“And, besides,” broke in Frank Allen, “they are a long distance from
here right now. That car started away mighty fast.”
“What car? Did you see them? Did you get here in time to see them get
off in a car?”
The man from police headquarters swung on Frank.
“Yes, we heard the screams and came running here. Just as we came to
the rear of the house we heard a car door slam, saw the lights flash
on, and the car pulled out from the garage.”
“Where were you when you heard Mrs. Parsons?”
“Out on the river,” answered Frank.
“And you heard her scream from here away out in the river, from the
rear of this house to that broad lawn and out there?” questioned the
man.
“Sure. How would we have come here if we hadn’t heard the noise?”
asked Frank in turn.
The two men from police headquarters drew aside and held a whispered
consultation. Then the chief of the two came back.
“Mrs. Parsons, how long after the two men left did these young
fellows come in here to turn you loose? How did they get in?”
“How would she know the answer to the last question?” asked Frank.
“We found the rear door open, and we broke down the pantry door, as
you can see by looking at it.”
“You have been in this house several times as the guest of Mrs.
Parsons, have you not?” asked the policeman. “When she entertained
you while you were at high school?”
“Oh, officer,” cried the widow. “What do you mean? Frank Allen could
have had nothing to do with this!”