THE OLD STONE HOUSE
IT is doubtful if any sensation had ever stirred the staid little town
of Wadsworth from centre to circumference as did the news to which it
awoke next morning. The story of the missing train crew, of the
mysteriously abandoned train, flew from mouth to mouth, gaining always
in the telling some thrilling detail, the generally accepted version
being that the strikers had wrecked the train and butchered the crew,
the conductor and brakeman perishing in trying to protect the “scab”
engineer and fireman. There was no one to worry especially about the
latter, for they were strangers whose names were not even known, but the
conductor and the two brakemen all had families, to say nothing of
relatives and friends, and all of these were very properly exercised.
Allan, foreseeing this excitement, reached his office almost at
daybreak, but early as it was, he found three excited women awaiting
him, demanding information, hope, encouragement. Of information he had
little to give, but of hope and encouragement a-plenty.
“There’s absolutely no reason why you should be so worried,” he told
them, when he got them into his office and the door closed. “Your
husbands haven’t been injured in any way—I’m sure of it. They’ll be back
safe and sound in a day or two.”
“What makes you think they haven’t been hurt?” demanded one of the
women. “You don’t really know, do you?”
“No, I don’t really know. But it’s absurd to believe anything else.”
“But who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect! Oh, if I thought it was the strikers, I’d—I’d tear
their eyes out!”
And the other two women added that they would be glad to help.
“Now, see here,” broke in Allan, realizing that forceful measures were
necessary, “we mustn’t have any nonsense of that sort. I don’t know
whether it was the strikers or not—there’s nothing to show it was. If it
was, they’ll be punished—trust me for that. If it wasn’t, let’s not
accuse them. I want you to promise to leave this thing in my hands.
We’re going to do everything possible to clear it up. I want you to
promise me to go home and stay there and not do any talking for
forty-eight hours.”
“And if we do, what will you promise?”
Allan hesitated an instant.
“I’ll promise,” he said, drawing a deep breath, “that in forty-eight
hours the men will be back again.”
They gazed at him a moment—at the clear eyes, the firm lips, the
determined jaw—and something of his self-confidence communicated itself
to them. And they promised and left the office in much better spirits
than when they had entered it.
Almost before the door closed after them, Allan had summoned Stanley,
and while waiting for that worthy to appear, gave orders that no
information concerning the mystery, or concerning anything else
connected with the strike should be given out by anyone but himself. He
wanted to be left free, for a few hours, at least, to work on the case
in his own way.
Stanley, evidently knowing what was in the wind, lost no time in obeying
the summons. Allan told him, briefly, the story of the mystery, and laid
before him the theory which he had mentioned to Mamie the night
before—that this was only a preliminary move on the part of the
strikers. Stanley listened in silence, and sat for a moment thinking it
over when Allan had finished.
“I don’t know,” he said, at last. “I can’t say I think much of your
theory. It looks to me like a mighty bold thing for the strikers to
do—an’ what’s worse, a mighty foolish one. They can’t hope to capture
enough men to really cripple us. Where would they keep them?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. But what other explanation can there be?”
“Well,” said Stanley, “I’m always in favour of the simplest explanation.
Maybe the whole thing was just a plain robbery. Were the car seals
examined after the train got in?”
“Yes—I’d thought of that. None of the seals were broken.”
“It ain’t so much of a trick t’ doctor a seal, if a feller’s fixed for
it,” Stanley observed.
“But suppose it was a robbery—where is the crew? Nobody would want to
steal them?”
“I’d like to look over the ground before I do any more guessing,” said
Stanley. “Why can’t I run out there? Everything’s quiet here and I can
be back by night.”
“Just what I was thinking of,” agreed Allan. “And I’m going with you. We
can take the accommodation—I’ll get the conductor to drop us off at the
place we found the train.”
“All right,” said Stanley, rising. “I’ll just run over to the
freight-house an’ give my men a few orders. I’ll be back in five
minutes.”
“We’ve got fifteen,” said Allan, glancing at his watch. “I’ll meet you
down on the platform.” Then he called the office-boy from the outer
room. “Jim,” he said, “I’m going to be busy for a while and don’t want
to be disturbed. See that I’m not.”
“All right, sir,” said Jim, and retired to take his stand before the
door, like Cerberus before the gate of Hades.
For the next ten minutes, Allan devoted his whole mind to clearing away
the accumulated work which piled his desk. Fortunately, he had an
intelligent and efficient stenographer, and tossed the last letter to
him just as the accommodation pulled in.
“That’s all,” he said. “I’m going out to Schooley’s. You can catch me
there, if you need me, but I’ll probably be back by the middle of the
afternoon. Hello!” he added, as he reached for coat and hat, “what’s all
that noise?”
And, indeed, from the sounds, it seemed that a riot of some sort was
taking place in the outer office.
Allan flung open the door, and paused, amazed, on the threshold. For a
dozen men rushed at him with a violence which almost carried him off his
feet.
“Here; hold on!” he shouted. “What’s the matter with you fellows,
anyway?”
“We want to know—”
“Everybody says see you—”
“We must have the story—”
“Oh, reporters!” cried Allan, suddenly understanding. “I can’t give you
anything now, boys; I’ve got to catch a train. I’ll give you the whole
story as soon as I get back.”
“When will that be?”
“Sometime this afternoon.”
“But, look here,” began one of the men desperately; but Allan tore his
way through and sprang down the steps two at a time.
At the foot, another man was waiting for him, and Allan recognized the
special delegate.
“See here, Mr. West,” he began, excitedly, “I understand the
Brotherhood’s accused of having a hand in this thing, and I just want to
say to you that it didn’t—”
“All right,” said Allan, and swung himself on to the rear platform of
the train. “I’ll be back this afternoon. Drop in and talk it over.”
“I will. There isn’t a bit of truth in the—”
But the delegate’s voice was drowned by the rumble of the train as it
started.
Allan, entering the coach, found Stanley awaiting him. They dropped into
a seat together.
“Well, did they get you?” asked the detective, grinning.
“I managed to break away. But I nearly missed the train. Then that
fellow in charge of the strike held me up to say the Brotherhood hadn’t
anything to do with this thing.”
“Oh, no,” said Stanley, “of course the Brotherhood didn’t. But that
isn’t saying that none of its members did.”
The conductor came up at that moment and stopped for a moment’s chat.
“We want to drop off about a mile and a half this side of Schooley’s,”
said Allan. “I’ll show you the place.”
“All right. Going out to look over the ground?”
“Yes; and to solve the riddle if we can. By the way, I’m glad to see the
conductors and brakemen still at work. I hope you’re going to stick.”
“Well,” answered the other, “we had a meeting last night, but of course
I can’t tell you what happened there. I can say this, though—you don’t
need to lose any sleep over it yet awhile.”
“That’s good,” said Allan, his cheeks flushing with pleasure. “Here we
are!” he added, as he glanced out the window.
The conductor pulled the signal cord sharply and Allan and Stanley
dropped off as the train’s speed slackened. Then the conductor gave the
go-ahead signal, and the train sped eastward on its way.
They had been carried a little past the place where the derelict had
been discovered. Allan led the way back, pointed out the spot, as nearly
as he could—very nearly, however, for he found the fusee which the
fireman had burnt—and then sat down on the bank beside the roadway,
while Stanley prowled up and down like some sort of wild beast. His
great hooked nose seemed to grow longer and more hooked, and his little
close-set eyes sparkled with a strange brilliancy. For Stanley was
really a man of considerable ability and had been successful in clearing
up more than one abstruse problem. Allan watched him with a good deal of
curiosity, and the thought came to him that he would not care to have
this fellow on his trail.
“I can’t make much out of it,” Stanley said at last, stopping before
Allan. “Let’s look around the neighbourhood a little.”
The track, at this point, ran along a shallow cut, the bank on either
side rising to a height of two or three feet. The right of way, about
twenty-five feet in width, was bordered by rail fences, and back of them
was a stretch of scrubby woodland. Stanley, walking slowly along the
bank on the left, stopped suddenly and pointed to the ground.
“Look at that,” he said. “There’s been a wagon here. Two wagons,” he
added, a moment later, pointing to other traces.
“To take the prisoners away in,” ventured Allan.
“Maybe, maybe,” muttered his companion. “And maybe to take something
else away in. Let’s see where they went.”
The tracks could be followed without difficulty in the soft earth. They
led to a break in one of the fences and on through the strip of woodland
to a road on the farther side. There they turned westward and were lost
amid the ruts of the road.
“Well,” said Stanley, stopping and looking along it, “I think, if you
don’t mind, that I’d like to spend a day or two trying to run those
fellows down. I don’t see that I’m needed back at Wadsworth—everything’s
quiet there, and my men know their business. Besides, you can keep an
eye on them. This affair kind of worries me. There’s more in it than
appears on the surface. What do you say?”
“All right,” Allan agreed. “I’d like to have this thing cleared up. Do
you think you can do it?”
“I can try, anyway,” said Stanley. “And I’ll start right away. I don’t
want the trail to get any colder. Good by.”
“Good by,” said Allan; “and good luck.”
He stood watching Stanley’s gaunt figure until it disappeared around a
turn in the road, wishing absurdly that he could go along; then he
turned eastward toward the little station of Schooley’s, a mile or more
away. The road was one evidently not much used, for it was rutted and
uneven and in poor repair. The fall and winter rains had washed it
badly, and evidently no effort had been made to repair it. In fact, it
soon grew so bad that Allan began to doubt whether it was anything more
than a private road. The trees on either side grew closer and closer to
it, there was no vestige of a fence, and after a time it became apparent
that its direction had changed so that it was not leading him toward
Schooley’s at all. A glance at the sun showed him that it was past
midday, and his stomach began to warn him that he had eaten nothing
since breakfast early that morning.
He stopped for a moment in perplexity and considered what he would
better do. He might strike off into the woods in the direction in which
he thought Schooley’s to be, but he was by no means certain of the
direction, and the most probable result of such a course would be to get
lost and miss his way entirely. The road he was following must certainly
lead to a house; there were wagon tracks and hoof-prints on it which
seemed fresh, so he concluded that the best thing he could do was to
push forward as rapidly as possible, find the house to which the road
led, and then, if he was any considerable distance from Schooley’s, hire
a vehicle of some sort to take him on to his destination.
He walked on more rapidly, after that, following the road as it turned
and twisted among the trees. The ground grew uneven and at last actually
hilly, and the road grew worse and worse. Allan began to fear that it
led only to a wood-lot or outlying field, and was more than once tempted
to turn back, seek the railroad track and follow it into Schooley’s. But
always he resolved to go around the next corner and the next, and
finally his perseverance was rewarded.
For there, almost hidden behind a screen of trees, with hills protecting
it on either side, stood an old stone house.
Heartened by this discovery, Allan hurried forward, and yet, as he drew
near, he hesitated, for there was about the place something
indescribably desolate and dreary—something almost threatening. The
windows across the front of the house were all closed by heavy shutters.
There were five of them, one on either side of the door in the lower
story, and three in the story above. The house was square and solidly
built, but had fallen into neglect and decay. The roof was covered with
moss, and the path to the front door broken and uneven. There was a
tumble-down barn some distance back of it and one or two other decrepit
outbuildings, from which, however, came no sign of life.
Allan, for a moment, thought the house deserted, too; then his eyes
caught a faint streamer of smoke which drifted sluggishly upward from
one of the chimneys, and, encouraged by this sign of human occupancy, he
hastened forward and knocked at the front door.
There was no response, and he knocked again more loudly. Still there was
no response, though he fancied that he detected a sort of uneasy
movement inside the house, as though some one were moving cautiously
along the hall, and he had a sensation as though some one was staring
out at him. It was a sensation anything but pleasant, as every one who
has experienced it knows, and it required no little resolution for him
to carry his quest further. But he resolutely shook away the feeling of
uneasiness, and, leaving the front door, he proceeded around the house,
determined to try a door at the back. He knew that there was some one in
the house and he determined to have him out.
He found the rear of the house even more dilapidated and forbidding than
the front. A ramshackle porch ran across the back, in the last stages of
decay, its floor rotted through and its roof falling in. Near by was an
old pump which had evidently yielded no water for many years. This did
not seem to indicate that the house was occupied, but Allan picked his
way carefully across the porch, and knocked at the back door. Again
there was silence. He banged with his closed fist, and when there was no
response, he tried the door, rattling the knob fiercely. But the door
was locked. And then, suddenly, it seemed to him that he could hear a
confused sound of voices, faint and far-away. He listened intently, and
banged the door again, and again there came that confused murmur. After
all it might be only an echo, Allan told himself; no doubt the house was
cavernous and empty, and would re-echo strangely to any sound. Or the
house might be full of bats—or some strange creature might have its
dwelling place there.
He crossed the porch again and breathed a little easier as he stood once
more in the open air. Plainly, there was nothing for him to do but
retrace his steps to the railroad and follow it in to Schooley’s. He
sighed at thought of the weary way he had to go.
“I’ll have a look at the barn, first,” he murmured to himself, and
started toward it.
It was perhaps a hundred feet back of the house, and leaned so
dangerously to one side that it seemed in danger of falling at any
moment. There were two doors, a large one running upon an overhead rail,
and a smaller one swinging upon hinges. He tried the smaller one first,
and found that it yielded to his touch. Swinging it open, he stepped
inside the barn.
“Hello!” he called. “Is there any one here?”
There was no response, but he fancied that he heard a faint rustling at
the farther end of the structure. For a moment, in the semi-darkness, he
could see nothing, then, as his eyes grew more accustomed to it, he saw
that the place was empty. The stalls on either side had fallen to decay,
the roof had rotted away in places and the floor was wet and mucky and
covered with an ill-smelling litter. There had at one time been a loft,
but the planks which had composed the flooring had disappeared, stolen
no doubt by some one in the neighbourhood. Only at the farther end did
he find any indication of recent occupancy. Here in the mangers were
some fresh cobs from which the corn had evidently been eaten only a
short time before, and the floor was covered with a litter of straw,
which was tramped and soiled, indeed, but which was still comparatively
clean. Farther on, two boards had been laid across a manger and piled
with straw, which was pressed down as though it had been used for a bed.
It was from this, Allan concluded, that the rustling had proceeded,
doubtless from some rats running through it.
Satisfied that it was useless to look further, Allan turned back toward
the door. He was tired and discouraged. He felt that the day had been
wasted. The mystery of the abandoned train was no nearer solution than
it had been, unless Stanley—
What was it sent a sudden chill through him? What was it brought him
with a start out of this reverie?
He turned his head with a jerk and threw up his arm instinctively, as a
dark shadow seemed to loom over him; then a great blow fell upon his
head, the world reeled and turned black before him, and he fell forward
limply upon his face.
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