In the gray of the morning Billy came to himself and stared around in
the stuffy grimness everywhere. The gag was still in his mouth. He put
up his hand involuntarily and pulled it out, and then remembered that
his hands had been tied. Then he must have succeeded in breaking
the cord! The other hand was still encumbered and his feet were tied
together, but it happened that the well hand was the freed one, and so
after a hard struggle he succeeded in getting out of the tangle of knots
and upon his feet. He worked cautiously because he wasn't sure how much
of what he remembered was dream and how much was reality. The two men
might be in the house yet, very likely were, asleep somewhere. He must
steal down and get away before they awoke.
There was something warm and sticky on the floor and it had got on his
clothes, but he took no notice of it at first. He wondered what that
sick pain in his shoulder was, but he had not time to stop and see now
or even to think about it. He must call the Chief before the men were
awake. So he managed to get upon his feet land steady himself against
the wall, for he felt dizzy and faint when he tried to walk. But he
managed to get into the hall, and peer into each room, and more and more
as he went he felt he was alone in the house. Then he had failed and
the men were gone! Aw Gee! Pat too! What a fool he had been, thinking
he could manage the affair! He ought to have taken the Chief into his
confidence and let him come along, Aw Gee!
Down in the kitchen he found a pail of water and a cup. He drank
thirstily. His head felt hot and the veins in his neck throbbed. There
seemed to be a lump on his forehead. He bathed his face and head. How
good it felt! Then he found a whiskey bottle on the table half full.
This after carefully smelling he poured over his bruised wrists, sopping
it on his head and forehead, and finally pouring some down his shoulder
that pained so, and all that he did was done blindly, like one in a
dream; just an involuntary searching for means to go on and fulfill his
purpose.
After another drink of water he seemed to be able to think more clearly.
That tapping in the cellar yesterday! What had that been? He must look
and see. Yes, that was really what he had come about. Perhaps the men
were down there yet hidden away. He opened the cellar door and listened.
Doggone it where was that gun of his? But the flash light! Yes, the
flash light!
He shot the light ahead of him as he went down, moving as in a dream,
but keeping true to type, cautious, careful, stealthy. At last he was
down. No one there! He turned the little flash into every nook and
cranny, not excepting the ledges above the cellar wall whereon the floor
beams rested. Once he came on a tin box long and flat and new looking.
It seemed strange to meet it here. There was no dust upon it. He poked
it down with his torch and it sprawled open at his feet. Papers, long
folded papers printed with writing in between, like bonds or deeds or
something. He stooped and waved the flash above them and caught the name
Shafton in one. It was an insurance paper, house and furniture. He felt
too stupid to quite understand, but it grew into his consciousness that
these were the things he was looking for. He gathered them up, stuffing
them carefully inside his blouse. They would be safe there. Then he
turned to go upstairs, but stumbled over a pile of coal out in the floor
and fell. It gave him a sick sensation to fall. It almost seemed that
he couldn't get up again, but now he had found the papers he must. He,
crawled to his knees, and felt around, then turned his light on. This
was strange! A heap of coal out in the middle of the floor, almost a
foot from the rest! A rusty shovel lay beside it, a chisel and a big
stone. Ah! The tapping! He got up forgetting his pain and began to kick
away the coal, turning the flash light down. Yes, there was a crack in
the cement, a loose piece. He could almost lift it with his foot. He
pried at it with the toe of his shoe, and then lifted it with much
effort out of the way. It was quite a big piece, more than a foot in
diameter! The ground was soft underneath as if it had been recently
worked over. He stooped and plunged the fingers of his good hand in and
felt around, laying the light on the floor so it would shed a glare
over the spot where he worked. He could feel down several inches. There
seemed to be something soft like cloth or leather. He pulled at it and
finally brought it up. A leather bag girt about with a thong of leather.
He picked the knot and turned the flash in. It sent forth a million
green lights. There seemed also to be a rope of white glistening things
that reminded him of Saxy's tears. That brought a pang. Saxy would be
crying! He must remember that and do something about it. He must have
been away a long time and perhaps those men would be coming back. But
it wouldn't do to leave these things here. They were the Shafton jewels.
What anybody wanted of a lot of shiny little stones like that and a rope
of tears! But then if they did they did, and they were theirs and they
oughtta have 'em. This was the thing he had come to do. Get those jewels
and papers back! Make up as far as he could for what he had done! And he
must do it now quick before he got sick. He felt he was getting sick and
he mustn't think about it or he would turn into Aunt Saxon. That was the
queerest thing, back in his mind he felt this _was_ Aunt Saxon down here
in the haunted cellar playing with green stones and ropes of tears, and
he must hurry quick before she found him and told him he couldn't finish
what he had to do.
He did the work thoroughly, feeling down in the hole again, but found
nothing more. Then he stuffed the bag inside his blouse and buttoned up
his sweater with his well hand and somehow got up the stairs. That
arm pained him a lot, and he found his sweater was wet. So he took his
handkerchief and tied it tight around the place that hurt the most,
holding one end in his teeth to make the knot firm.
The sun blinded him as he stumbled down the back steps and went to get
his wheel, but somehow he managed it, plunging through the brakes and
tangles, and back to the road.
It ran in his brain where the Shaftons lived out in the country on the
Jersey shore. He had a mental picture in the back of his mind how to get
there. He knew that when he struck the Highroad there was nothing to do
but keep straight on till he crossed the State Line and then he would
find it somehow, although it was miles away. If he had been himself he
would have known it was an impossible journey in his present condition,
but he wasn't thinking of impossibilities. He had to do it, didn't
he? He, Billy, had set out to make reparation for the confusion he
had wrought in his small world, and he meant to do so, though all hell
should rise against him. Hell! That was it. He could see the flames in
hot little spots where the morning sun struck. He could hear the bells
striking the hour in the world he used to know that was not for him any
more. He zigzagged along the road in a crazy way, and strange to say he
met nobody he knew, for it was early. Ten minutes after he passed the
Crossroads Elder Harricutt went across the Highway toward Economy to his
day's work, and he would have loved to have seen Billy, and his rusty
old wheel, staggering along in that crazy way and smelling of whiskey
like a whole moonshiner, fairly reeking with whiskey as he joggled down
the road, and a queer little tinkle now and then just inside his blouse
as if he carried loaded dice. Oh, he would have loved to have caught
Billy shooting crap!
But he was too late, and Billy swam on, the sun growing hotter on his
aching head, the light more blinding to his blood shot eyes, the lump
bigger and bluer on his grimy forehead.
About ten o'clock a car came by, slowed down, the driver watching
Billy, though Billy took no note of him. Billy was looking on the ground
dreaming he was searching for the state line. He had a crazy notion it
oughtta be there somewhere.
The man in the car stopped and called to him:
“How about putting your wheel in the back seat and letting me give you a
lift? You look pretty tired.”
Billy lifted bleared eyes and stopped pedalling, almost falling off his
wheel, but recovering himself with a wrench of pain and sliding off.
“Awwright!” said Billy, “Thanks!”
“You look all in, son,” said the man kindly.
“Yep,” said Billy laconically, “'yam! Been up all night. Care f'I
sleep?”
“Help yourself,” said the man, giving a lift with the wheel, and putting
it in behind.
Billy curled down in the back seat without further ceremony.
“Where are you going son?”
Billy named the country seat of the Shaftons, having no idea how far
away it was. The man gave a whistle.
“What! On that wheel? Well, go to sleep son. I'm going there myself, so
don't worry. I'll wake you up when you get there.”
So Billy slept through the first long journey he had taken since he came
to live with Aunt Saxon, slept profoundly with an oblivion that almost
amounted to coma. Sometimes the man, looking back, was tempted to stop
and see if the boy was yet alive, but a light touch on the hot forehead
showed him that life was not extinct, and they whirled on.
Three hours later Billy was awakened by a sharp shake of his sore
shoulder and a stinging pain that shot through him like fire. Fire!
Fire! He was on fire! That was how he felt as he opened his eyes and
glared at the stranger:
“Aw, lookout there, whatterya doin'?” he blazed, “Whadda ya think I am?
A football? Don't touch me. I'll get out. This the place? Thanks fer tha
ride, I was all in. Say, d'ya know a guy by the name of Shafton?”
“Shafton?” asked the man astonished, “are you going to Shafton's?”
“Sure,” said Billy, “anything wrong about that? Where does he hang out?”
The look of Billy, and more than all the smell of him made it quite
apparent to the casual observer that he had been drinking, and the man
eyed him compassionately. “Poor little fool! He's beginning young. What
on earth does he want at Shaftons?”
“I'spose you've come down after the reward,” grinned the man, “I could
have saved you the trouble if you'd told me. The kidnapped son has got
home. They are not in need of further information.”
Billy gave him a superior leer with one eye closed:
“You may not know all there is to know about that,” he said impudently,
“where did you say he lived?”
The man shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“Suit yourself,” he said, “I doubt if they'll see you. They have had
nothing but a stream of vagrants for two days and they're about sick of
it. They live on the next estate and the gateway is right around that
corner.”
“I ain't no vagrant,” glared Billy, and limped away with old trusty
under his left arm.
No one molested him as he walked in the arched and ivied gateway, for
the gate keeper was off on a little private errand of his own at a place
where prohibition had not yet penetrated. Billy felt too heavy and dizzy
to mount his wheel, but he leaned on the saddle as he walked and tried
to get things straight in his head. He oughtn't to have gone to sleep,
that's what he oughtn't. But this job would soon be over and then he
would hike it for home. Gee! Wouldn't home feel good! And Aunt Saxon
would bathe his head with wych hazel and make cold things for him to
drink! Aw, Gee!
The pedigreed dogs of which the place boasted a number came suddenly
down upon him in a great flare of noise, but dogs were always his
friends, why should he worry? A pity he couldn't stop to make friends
with them just now. Some dogs! Here pup! Gee! What a dog to own! The
dogs whined and fawned upon him. Pedigree or no pedigree, rags and
whiskey and dirt notwithstanding, they knew a man when they saw one, and
Billy hadn't batted an eyelid when they tried their worst tramp barks
on him. They wagged their silky tails and tumbled over each other to get
first place to him, and so escorted proudly he dropped old trusty by a
clump of imported rhododendrons and limped up the marble steps to the
wide vistas of circular piazzas that stretched to seemingly infinite
distances, and wondered if he should ever find the front door.
An imposing butler appeared with a silver tray, and stood aghast.
“Shafton live here?” inquired Billy trying to look business like. “Like
to see him er the missus a minute,” he added as the frowning vision
bowed. The butler politely but firmly told him that the master and
mistress had other business and no desire to see him. The young
gentleman had come home, and the reward had been withdrawn. If it was
about the reward he had come he could go down to the village and find
the detective. The house people didn't want to interview any more
callers.
“Well, say,” said Billy disgusted, “after I've come all this way too!
You go tell 'er I've brought her jewels! You go tell 'er I've _gottum
here!_”
The butler opened the door a little wider: he suggested that seeing was
believing.
“Not on yer tin type!” snapped Billy, “I show 'em to nobody an' I give
'em to nobody but the owner! Where's the young fella? He knows me. Tell
'im I brang his ma's string o' beads an' things.”
Billy was weary. His head was spinning round. His temper was rising.
“Aw,--you make me tired! Get out of my way!” He lowered his head and
made a football dive with his head in the region of the dignified
butler's stomach, and before that dignitary had recovered his poise
Billy with two collies joyously escorting him, stood blinking in wonder
over the great beautiful living room, for all the world as pretty as the
church at home, only stranger, with things around that he couldn't make
out the use of.
“Where'ur they at? Where are the folks?” he shouted back to the butler
who was coming after him with menace in his eye.
“What is the matter, Morris? What is all this noise about?” came a
lady's voice in pettish tones from up above somewhere. “Didn't I tell
you that I wouldn't see another one of those dreadful people to-day?”
Billy located her smooth old childish face at once and strode to the
foot of the stairs peering up at the lady, white with pain from his
contact with the butler, but alert now to the task before him:
“Say, Miz Shaf't'n, I got yer jools, would ya mind takin' 'em right now?
'Cause I'm all in an' I wantta get home.”
His head was going around now like a merry-go-round, but he steadied
himself by the bannister:
“Why, what do you mean?” asked the lady descending a step or two, a
vision of marcelled white hair, violet and lace negligee, and well
preserved features, “You've got them _there_? Let me see them.”
“He's been drinking, Sarah, can't you smell it?” said a man's voice
higher up, “Come away and let Morris deal with him. Really Sarah, we'll
have to go away if this keeps up.”
“Say, you guy up there, just shut yer trap a minute won't ya! Here, Miz
Shaf't'n, are these here yours?”
Billy struggled with the neck of his blouse and brought forth the
leather bag, gripped the knot fiercely in his teeth, ran his fingers in
the bag as he held it in his mouth, his lamed arm hanging at his side,
and drew forth the magnificent pearls.
“William! My pearls!” shrieked the lady.
The gentleman came down incredulous, and looked over her shoulder.
“I believe they are, Sarah,” he said.
Billy leered feverishly up at him, and produced a sheaf of papers,
seemingly burrowing somewhere in his internal regions to bring them
forth.
“And here, d'these b'long?”
The master of the house gripped them.
“Sarah! The bonds! And the South American Shares!” They were too busy to
notice Billy who stood swaying by the newel post, his duty done now, the
dogs grouped about him.
“Say, c'n I get me a drink?” he asked of the butler, who hovered near
uncertain what to be doing now that the tide was turned.
The lady looked up.
“Morris!”
He scarcely heard the lady's words but almost immediately a tall slim
glass of frosty drink, that smelled of wild grapes, tasted of oranges,
and cooled him down to the soul again, was put into his hand and he
gulped it greedily.
“Where did you say you found these, young man?” The gentleman eyed him
sternly, and Billy's old spirit flamed up:
“I didn't say,” said Billy.
“But you know we've got to have all the evidence before we can give the
reward--!”
“Aw, cut it out! I don't want no reward. Wouldn't take it if you give it
to me! I just wantta get home. Say, you gotta telephone?”
“Why certainly.” This was the most astonishing burglar!
“Well, where is't? Lemme call long distance on it? I ain't got the tin
now, but I'll pay ya when I git back home!”
“Why, the idea! Take him to the telephone Morris. Right there! This
one--!”
But Billy had sighted one on a mahogany desk near at hand and he toppled
to the edge of the chair that stood before it. He took down the receiver
in a shaky hand, calling Long Distance.
“This Long Distance? Well, gimme Economy 13.”
The Shaftons for the instant were busy looking over the papers,
identifying each jewel, wondering if any were missing. They did not
notice Billy till a gruff young voice rang out with a pathetic tremble
in it: “That you Chief? This is Billy. Say, c'n I bother you to phone to
Miss Severn an' ast her to tell m'yant I'm aw'wright? Yes, tell her I'll
be home soon now, an' I'll explain. And Chief, I'm mighty sorry those
two guys got away, but I couldn't help it. We'll get 'em yet. Hope you
didn't wait long. Tell you more when I see ya, S'long--!”
The boyish voice trailed off into silence as the receiver fell with a
crash to the polished desk, and Billy slipped off the chair and lay in a
huddled heap on the costly rug.
“Oh, mercy!” cried the lady, “Is he drunk or what?”
“Come away Sarah, let Morris deal--”
“But he's sick, I believe, William. Look how white he is. I believe he
is dead! William, he may have come a long way in the heat! He may
have had a sunstroke! Morris, send for a doctor quick! And--call the
ambulance too! You better telephone the hospital. We can't have him
here! William, look here, what's this on his sleeve? Blood? Oh, William!
And we didn't give him any reward--!”
And so, while the days hastened on Billy lay between clean white sheets
on a bed of pain in a private ward of a wonderful Memorial Hospital put
up by the Shaftons in honor of a child that died. Tossing and moaning,
and dreaming of unquenchable fire, always trying to climb out of the hot
crater that held him, and never getting quite to the top, always knowing
there was something he must do, yet never quite finding out what it was.
And back in Sabbath Valley Aunt Saxon prayed and cried and waited and
took heart of cheer from the message the Chief had sent to Lynn. And
quietly the day approached for the trial of Mark Carter, but his mother
did not yet know.