SOME BIRDS IN A CHIMNEY
It might be truthfully said that the tableau lasted as long as she
willed it to last. Perhaps she read in the three masculine faces
turned toward her a triangular admiration, since it emanated from three
given points, and took from it a modest pinch for her vanity. Vain she
never was; still, she was not without a share of vanity, that vanity of
the artless, needing no sacrifices, which is gratified and appeased by
a smile. It pleased her to know that she was lovely; and it doubled
her pleasure to realize that her loveliness pleased others. She
demanded no hearts; she craved no jewels, no flattery. She warmed when
eyes told her she was beautiful; but she chilled whenever the lips took
up the speech, and voiced it. She was one of those happy beings in
either sex who can amuse themselves, who can hold pleasant communion
with the inner self, who can find romance in old houses, and yet love
books, who prefer sunrises and sunsets at first hand, still loving a
good painting.
Perhaps this trend of character was the result of her inherited love of
the open. With almost unlimited funds under her own hand, she lived
simply. She was never happy in smart society, though it was always
making demands upon her. When abroad, she was generally prowling
through queer little shops instead of mingling with the dress parades
on the grand-hotel terraces. There was no great battle-field in Europe
she had not trod upon. She knew them so well that she could people
each field with the familiar bright regiments, bayonets and sabers,
pikes and broadswords, axes and crossbowmen, matchlock and catapult,
rifles and cannon.
And what she did not know of naval warfare her father did. They were
very companionable. There was never any jealousy on the part of the
admiral. Indeed, he was always grateful when some young man evinced a
deep regard for his daughter. He would have her always, married or
unmarried. He was rich enough, and the son-in-law should live with
him. He was so assured of her good judgment, he knew that whenever
this son-in-law came along, there would be another man in the family.
He had long ceased to bother his head about the flylike buzzing of
fortune hunters. He had been father and mother and brother to the
child, and with wisdom.
She smiled at her father, gave her hand to Fitzgerald, who found it
warm and moist from the ride, and glanced inquiringly at Breitmann.
"My dear," said her father, "this is Mr. Breitmann, my new secretary."
That gentleman bowed stiffly, and the scars faded somewhat when he
observed that her hand was extended in welcome. This unconventionality
rather confused him, and as he took the hand he almost kissed it. She
understood the innocence of the gesture, and saved him from
embarrassment by withdrawing the hand casually.
"I hope you will like it here," was the pleasant wish.
"Thank you, I shall."
"You are German?" quickly.
"I was born in Bavaria, Miss Killigrew."
"The name should have told me." She excused herself.
"Oho!" thought Fitzgerald, with malicious exultancy. "If she doesn't
interfere with your work!"
But with introspection, this exultancy grew suddenly dim. How about
himself? Yes. Here was a question that would bear some close
inspection. Was it really the wish to capture a supposable burglar?
He made short work of this analysis. He never lied to others--not even
in his work, which every one knows is endowed with special licenses in
regard to truth--nor did he ever play the futile, if soothing, game of
lying to himself. This girl was different from the ordinary run of
girls; she might become dangerous. He determined then and there not to
prolong his visit more than three or four days; just to satisfy her
that there was no ghost in the chimney. Then he would return to New
York. He had no more right than Breitmann to fall in love with the
daughter of a millionaire. Loving her was not impossible, but leaving
at an early day would go toward lessening the probability. He was not
afraid of Breitmann; he was foreigner enough to accept at once his
place, and to appreciate that he and this girl stood at the two ends of
the world.
And Breitmann's mind, which had, up to this time, been deep and
unruffled as a pool, became strangely disturbed.
The time moved on to luncheon. Breitmann took the part of listener,
and spoke only when addressed.
"I must tell you, Mr. Breitmann," said Laura, "that a ghost has
returned to us."
"A ghost?" interestedly.
"Yes. My daughter," said the admiral tolerantly, "believes that she
hears strange noises at night, tapping, and such like."
"Oh!" politely. Breitmann broke his bread idly. It was too bad. She
had not produced upon him the impression that she was the sort of woman
whose imagination embraced the belief in spirits. "Where does this
ghost do its tapping?"
"In the big chimney in the library," she answered.
No one observed Breitmann's hand as it slid from the bread, some of
which was scattered upon the floor. The scars, betraying emotion such
as no mental effort could control, deepened, which is to say that the
skin above and below them had paled.
"Might it not be some trial visit of your patron saint, Santa Claus?"
he inquired, his voice well under control.
"Really, it is no jest," she affirmed. "For several nights I have
heard the noise distinctly; a muffled tapping inside the chimney."
"Suppose we inspect it after luncheon?" suggested Fitzgerald.
"It has been done," said the admiral. Outwardly he was still
skeptical, but a doubt was forming in his mind.
"It will do no harm to try it again," said Breitmann.
If Fitzgerald noted the subdued excitement in the man's voice, he
charged it to the moment.
"Take my word for it," avowed the admiral, "you will find nothing.
Bring the coffee into the library," he added to the butler.
The logs were taken out of the fireplace, and as soon as the smoke
cleared the young men gave the inside of the chimney a thorough going
over. They could see the blue sky away up above. The opening was
large, but far too small for any human being to enter down it. The
mortar between the bricks seemed for the most part undisturbed.
Breitmann made the first discovery of any importance. Just above his
height, standing in the chimney itself, he saw a single brick
projecting beyond its mates. He reached up, and shook it. It was
loose. He wrenched it out, and came back into the light.
"See! Nothing less than a chisel could have cut the mortar that way.
Miss Killigrew is right." He went back, and with the aid of the tongs
poked into the cavity. The wall of bricks was four deep, yet the tongs
went through. This business had been done from the other side.
"Well!" exclaimed the admiral, for once at loss for a proper phrase.
"You see, father? I was right. Now, what can it mean? Who is digging
out the bricks, and for what purpose? And how, with the alarms all
over the house, to account for the footprints in the flour?"
"It is quite likely that something is hidden in the chimney, and some
one knows that it is worth hunting for. This chimney is the original,
I should judge." Fitzgerald addressed this observation to the admiral.
"Never been touched during my time or my father's. But we can soon
find out. I'll have a man up here. If there is anything in the
chimney that ought not to be there, he'll dig it out, and save our
midnight visitor any further trouble."
"Why not wait a little while?" Fitzgerald ventured. "With Breitmann
and me in the house, we might trap the man."
"A good scheme!"
"He comes from the outside, somewhere; from the cellar, probably. Let
us try the cellar." Breitmann urged this with a gesture of his hands.
"There'll be sport," said Fitzgerald.
The coffee was cold in the little cups when they returned to it. The
cellar, as far as any one could learn, was free from any signs of
recent invasion. It was puzzling.
"And the servants?" Breitmann intimated.
"They have been in the family for years." The admiral shook his head
convincedly. "I ask your pardon, my dear. My ears are not so keen as
might be. I'm an old blockhead to think that you were having an attack
of ghosts. But we'll solve the riddle shortly, and then we shan't have
any trouble with our alarm bells," with a significant glance at
Fitzgerald. "Well, Mr. Breitmann, suppose we take a look at the work?
Laura, you show Mr. Fitzgerald the gardens. The view from the terrace
is excellent."
Fine weather. The orchard was pink with apple blossoms, giving the far
end of the park a tint not unlike Sicilian almonds in bloom. And the
intermittent breeze, as it waned or strengthened, carried delicate
perfumes to and fro. Yon was the sea, with well-defined horizon, and
down below were the few smacks and the white yacht _Laura_, formally
bowing to one another, or tossing their noses impudently; and, far
away, was the following trail of brown smoke from some ship which had
dropped down the horizon.
Fitzgerald, stood silent, musing, at the girl's side. He was fond of
vistas. There was rest in them, a peace not to be found even in the
twilight caverns of cathedrals; wind blowing over waters, the flutter
of leaves, the bend in the grasses. To dwell in a haven like this. No
care, no worry, no bother of grubbing about in one's pockets for
overlooked coins, no flush of excitement! It is, after all, the
homeless man who answers quickest the beckon of wanderlust. It is only
when he comes into the shelter of such a roof that he draws into his
heart the bitter truth of his loneliness.
"You must think me an odd girl."
"Pray why?"
"By the manner in which I brought you here."
"On the contrary, you are one of the few women I ever met who know
something about scoring a good joke. Didn't your friend, Mrs.
Coldfield, know my mother; and wasn't your father a great friend of my
father's? As for being odd, what about me? I believe I stood on the
corner, and tried to sell plaster casts, just to win a foolish club
wager."
"Men can jest that way with impunity, but a woman may not. Still, I
really couldn't help acting the way I did," with a tinkle in her voice
and a twinkle in her eyes.
"Convention is made up of many idiotic laws. Why we feel obliged to
obey is beyond offhand study. Of course, the main block is sensible;
it holds humanity together. It's the irritating, burr-like amendments
that one rages against. It's the same in politics. Some clear-headed
fellow gets up and makes a just law. His enemies and his friends alike
realize that if the law isn't passed there will be a roar from the
public. So they pass the bill with amendments. In other words, they
kill its usefulness. I suppose that's why I am always happy to leave
convention behind, to be sent to the middle of Africa, to Patagonia, or
sign an agreement to go to the North Pole."
"The North Pole? Have you been to the Arctic?"
"No; but I expect to go up in June with an Italian explorer."
"Isn't it terribly lonely up there?"
"It can't be worse than the Sahara or our own Death Valley. One
extreme is as bad as the other. Some time I hope your father will take
me along on one of those treasure hunts. I should like to be in at the
finding of a pirate ship. It would make a boy out of me again."
His eyes were very handsome when he smiled. Boy? she thought. He was
scarce more than that now.
"Pirates' gold! What a lure it has been, is, and will be! Blood
money, brrr! I can see no pleasure in touching it. And the poor,
pathetic trinkets, which once adorned some fair neck! It takes a man's
mind to pass over that side of the picture, and see only the fighting.
But humanity has gone on. The pirate is no more, and the highwayman is
a thing to laugh at."
"Thanks to railways and steamships. It is beautiful here."
"We are nearly always here in the summer. In the winter we cruise.
But this winter we remained at home. It was splendid. The snow was
deep, and often I joined the village children on their bobsleds. I
made father ride down once. He grumbled about making a fool of
himself. After the first slide, I couldn't keep him off the hill. He
wants to go to St. Moritz next winter." She laughed joyously.
"I shall take the Arctic trip," he said to himself irrelevantly.
"Let us go and pick some apple blossoms. They last such a little
while, and they are so pretty on the table. So you were in Napoleon's
tomb that day? I have cried over the king of Rome's toys. Did Mr.
Breitmann receive those scars in battle?"
"Oh, no. It was a phase of his student life in Munich. But he has
been under fire. He has had some hard luck." He wanted to add: "Poor
devil!"
She did not reply, but walked down the terrace steps to the path
leading to the orchard. The sturdy, warty old trees leaned toward the
west, the single evidence of the years of punishment received at the
hands of the winter sea tempests. It was a real orchard, composed of
several hundred trees, well kept, as evenly matched as might be, out of
weedless ground. From some hidden bough, a robin voiced his happiness,
and yellowbirds flew hither and thither, and there was billing and
cooing and nesting. Along the low stone wall a wee chipmunk scampered.
"What place do you like best in this beautiful old world?" she asked,
drawing down a snowy bough. Some of the blossoms fell and lay
entrapped in her hair.
"This," he answered frankly. She met his gaze quickly, and with
suspicion. His face was smiling, but not so his eyes. "Wherever I am,
if content, I like that place best. And I am content here."
"You fought with Greece?"
"Yes."
"How that country always rouses our sympathies! Isn't there a little
too much poetry and not enough truth about it?"
"There is. I fought with the Greeks because I disliked them less than
the Turks."
"And Mr. Breitmann?"
He smiled. "He fought with the Turks to chastise Greece, which he
loves."
"What adventures you two must have had! To be on opposing sides, like
that!"
"Opposing newspapers. The two angles of vision made our copy
interesting. There was really no romance about it. It was purely a
business transaction. We offered our lives and our pencils for a
hundred a week and our expenses. Rather sordid side to it, eh? And a
fourth-rate order or two--"
"You were decorated?" excitedly. "I am sure it was for bravery."
"Don't you believe it. The king of Greece and the sultan both
considered the honor conferred upon us as good advertising."
"You are laughing."
"Well, war in the Balkans is generally a laughing matter. Sounds
brutal, I know, but it is true."
"I know," gaily. "You are conceited, and are trying to make me believe
that you are modest."
"A bull's-eye!"
"And this Mr. Breitmann has been decorated for valor? And yet to-day
he becomes my father's private secretary. The two do not connect."
"May I ask you to mention nothing of this to him? It would embarrass
him. I had no business to bring him into it."
She grew meditative, brushing her lips with the blossoms. "He will be
something of a mystery. I am not overfond of mysteries outside of book
covers."
"There is really no mystery; but it is human for a man in his position
to wish to bury his past greatness."
By and by the sun touched the southwest shoulder of the hill, and the
two strolled back to the house.
From his window, Breitmann could see them plainly.
"Damn those scars!" he murmured, striking with his fist the disfigured
cheek, which upon a time had been a source of pride and honor. "Damn
them!"