The Shadow in the Orchard
SO I had aided the enemy! I had thought myself clever enough to match
my wits against his, and I had lost! It was a bitter reflection!
I had underestimated his strength, had dared to face him when I should
have run away, and he had defeated me ignominiously. He had learned
from me exactly what he wished to learn, and now he could rest secure
until the month was up. I could guess how the thought that we might,
after all, carry the matter to the courts had worried him--his very
anxiety went far to prove that we might really be able to set aside the
will.
One thing was clear enough. Silas Tunstall was not at all the ignorant
boor that I had thought him. His ungainliness, his drawl, his slip-shod
utterance were all assumed--for what? The answer seemed evident
enough. They had been assumed to aid him in practising the deceptions
of his business as a spiritualistic medium. What a belief-compelling
thing it was for him to be able to cast aside, whenever he wished,
the uncouth husk in which he was usually enveloped. In the gloom of
the seance, what sitter would suspect that that clear voice could be
Silas Tunstall’s, or that crisp and perfect enunciation his? Oh, it was
evident enough; and I had walked straight into the trap he had set for
me!
These were the pleasing reflections with which I had to comfort myself
as we walked back toward the house together. I had played the fool--the
boys were not to blame; it was I alone! If I had only had sense enough
to hold my tongue!
The sound of wheels on the drive brought me out of my thoughts, and we
reached the front door just as a buggy drew up before it.
“Good gracious! I hadn’t any idea we should be so late!” cried mother,
as Mr. Chester helped her to alight. “But there were so many things to
do, and on the way back we had a little accident--our horse slipped and
broke one of the traces, and it took us half an hour to mend it. Won’t
you come in, Mr. Chester?”
“Just for a moment,” he answered. “Tom, you go on home and tell your
mother I’ll be there in ten minutes,” and he followed mother into the
house.
Tom paused only long enough for a swift whisper in my ear.
“You’ve forgiven me?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“I felt awfully bad when I looked over the wall and saw you digging. I
knew what you’d think of me. But it’ll never happen again!”
“It _did_ hurt,” I said.
“And don’t you give up, Biffkins,” he added; “and don’t you go to
blaming yourself. We’ll win out yet,” and he gripped my hand for an
instant and was gone. And my heart was at peace again, for I knew that
my ally was true to me.
What Mr. Chester said to mother we never knew, but he must have put the
adventure in a decidedly milder light than he had used with the boys,
for he and mother were laughing as they came out into the hall a few
minutes later. And a great load was lifted from me, for I had feared
that mother might really take a dislike to the place, if Dick got into
serious trouble about it.
The episode was not entirely ended, however, for next morning a note
came from Mr. Chester for Dick, and the two boys were sent off together
to apologize to Mr. Tunstall, who, they reported, had received their
apology as gracefully as could be expected.
“Only he looked at us out of those little black eyes of his,” Dick
confided to me privately, afterwards, “as though he would like to kill
us on the spot. I’m afraid the whole thing was a mistake, Biffkins. If
he hadn’t had that attack of heart disease, I believe we’d have got the
whole story out of him--if he knows it; but we really only succeeded in
converting an adversary into a bitter enemy. Whatever he may pretend,
I’m sure he’s our bitter enemy now.”
These were large words for Dick to use in conversation, and they showed
how serious he thought the matter was. But I made light of it.
“I don’t suppose he was any too friendly before,” I said, “in spite of
all his protests about playing fair. Certainly we didn’t expect any
help from him. And I don’t see how he can do us any harm.”
“Well, maybe not,” agreed Dick, slowly. “But just the same, it was a
mighty foolish thing to do.”
Indeed, as I thought it over afterwards, Mr. Tunstall had considerable
cause to congratulate himself on the outcome of the adventure, and on
his opportune fainting-fit. But for that, his secret, if he possessed
one, might really have been frightened out of him; though now I think
of it, it seems improbable that even the most ghostly of apparitions
would have impressed him as supernatural. He had played that game too
often himself.
“And oh, Biffkins,” added Dick, “you should have seen the place where
he lives. It’s a little gray house, so shut in by trees and shrubbery
that you can’t see it from the road at all, even in winter. In fact, a
good many of the trees are evergreens, so that winter doesn’t make any
difference. A funny little old woman let us in, and we had to sit in a
little stuffy hall for ever so long before Mr. Tunstall came out to us.
And he didn’t ask us in--just stood and listened and glowered, with his
hands under his coat-tails, and then sent us about our business. I tell
you, I felt mighty small.”
“Well, I felt pretty small last night,” I said, “when I found out how
he’d fooled me.”
“He’s a slick one,” was Dick’s final comment, and I echoed the verdict.
* * * * *
Dick started for Riverdale, right after lunch, with the list of things
which we would need before the month was up, and I took advantage of
his absence to put into effect the plan which had flashed into my head
the day before, when mother was talking about our studies. I went over
to Mrs. Chester’s and told her all about it, and the result was that
Mr. Chester called upon mother that very evening, and suggested that
Dick and Tom study together under the same tutor.
I saw how mother’s face flushed with pleasure at the suggestion, but
she hesitated.
“Perhaps Dick may be in the way,” she said. “Cecil tells me that Tom is
preparing to enter Princeton, and much as I would like my boy to study
with him--”
“My dear Mrs. Truman,” broke in our visitor, “it will have quite the
opposite effect. Tom will study all the better for having a companion.
Please say yes. It’s for my boy’s good, as well as yours.”
So it was settled; and when Mr. Chester left, he gave my hand a little
extra pressure, and whispered a word in my ear which made me very
happy. And how pleased Dick was! Every day, from ten o’clock till
one, the boys were closeted with the tutor, while I got my lessons by
myself. I can’t pretend that I enjoyed it, or that I always spent all
that time in study. I’m afraid that a good part of it was spent in
trying to puzzle out the mystery of the rose of Sharon, and that the
rule of four to the right and three diagonally interested me more than
did any relating to planes and lines and angles. But, at least, the
time was not wholly wasted.
* * * * *
How the days flew by! I was afraid to count them; afraid to consult
the calendar. The disaster which was set to happen on the seventeenth
of May loomed steadily larger and larger as the march of time brought
it inexorably nearer. The stately ticking of the old clock in the hall
became a thing to lie awake at night and listen to with dread.
Not that we were idle, for the two boys and I spent every afternoon and
almost every evening striving to solve the mystery. Dick was thoroughly
in earnest, now, and Tom proved himself the most delightful and helpful
of comrades. Dear mother did not actively aid us much--indeed, I think
she had never permitted herself to believe that this beautiful place
could be hers permanently; but we three young people kept at work with
the energy of desperation.
We rooted up a good portion of the orchard, taking all sorts of
measurements from the old apple tree which leaned, ragged and solitary,
above the pasture fence. We sounded the trees for possible hollows,
but found most of them dishearteningly sound. We dug up the earth for
many yards around the tall althea bush, and around as many others as
seemed in any way distinctive. As the spring advanced, a clump of
lilies sprang up among the trees near the house, and formed the centre
of another extensive circle of operations--all of which were absolutely
fruitless of result, except the enlargement of already healthy
appetites.
“I tell you what,” remarked Dick wearily, one evening, “I’m beginning
to believe that grandaunt is playing a joke on us. You remember the
story of the old fellow who left a big field to his heirs, saying in
his will that a great treasure was concealed there--”
“Yes,” I interrupted; “Mr. Tunstall spoke of it, too; only he added
that grandaunt could scarcely have meant that, since we wouldn’t be
here to reap the harvest.”
Dick winced at the words.
“Confound old Tunstall,” he said. “What’s become of him?”
“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “I haven’t seen him for quite a while.”
“Maybe he’s gone away,” I suggested. “Don’t let’s think of him. Well,
what shall we do next?”
We had just completed the exploration of the vicinity of the clump of
lilies, and Tom was standing with his eyes fixed upon them.
“But see here,” he cried, “we’ve just been wasting our time grubbing
around here.”
“That’s evident enough,” growled Dick, with a glance at the piles of
earth we had thrown up. “You’d suppose this was the Panama canal.”
“But why didn’t we think? Don’t you remember, Biffkins, we were going
to look in your grandaunt’s Bible--it wasn’t really any use to look in
father’s.”
“Why, of course!” I cried. “How silly of us! Come on, let’s look at it
now.”
“You run on,” said Dick, “and find it. I’m dead tired--I’m also
somewhat discouraged,” and he threw himself down on the grass.
“Shame!” I cried; but he only wiggled a little, and turned over on his
face. Tom sat down beside him, and I saw that he was discouraged, too,
though he wouldn’t admit it. “Very well,” I said. “I’ll get it. You two
stay here.”
I remembered having seen a shabby little leather-bound book lying on
the stand at the head of grandaunt’s bed, and I did not doubt that
this was the Bible which she habitually used. So I flew away toward
the house, and up the stair to grandaunt’s room. It was evident enough
that I had guessed correctly, as soon as I opened the volume, it was so
marked and underlined. With a little tremor, I turned to the Song of
Solomon, and ran down the narrow column until I came to the first verse
of the second chapter.
The words, “I am the rose of Sharon,” formed the first line. Just to
the right of it, across the line dividing the columns, was the second
line of the fourteenth verse, “in the clefts of,” then, diagonally
three to the left were the words, “the” “rock,” “stairs!”
With a shriek of victory, and hugging the little volume to me, I flew
down the stairs and out upon the lawn.
The boys looked up as they heard me coming, and when they saw my face,
both of them sprang to their feet.
“I’ve found it!” I cried. “I really believe I’ve found it this time,”
and I showed them the mystic words.
“Well,” said Tom, at last, “it _does_ seem that that’s too big a
coincidence not to mean something. ‘In the clefts of the rock stairs.’
What do you think of it, Dick?”
“The cry of ‘wolf!’ doesn’t awaken any especial interest, any more,”
answered Dick languidly. “I’ve become too used to it. But I suppose we
might as well look up the rock stairs, wherever they are--”
“But perhaps there aren’t any,” I objected.
“Oh, yes,” said Dick, wearily, “you’ll find there’s some rock steps
around the place somewhere, and we might as well proceed to tear them
down, I suppose.”
But I would not permit him to discourage me. I hunted up Abner and
asked him if there were any rock steps or a rock stairway about the
place anywhere. Dick’s prediction came true.
“Why, yes, miss,” he answered, slowly, “they’s a short flight leads
down into the milk-house, an’ another flight into the cellar. Then
there’s the flight up to the front porch, an’ the other up to the side
porch.”
“And is that all, Abner?” I questioned. “Be sure, now, that you tell me
all of them.”
He stood for a minute with his eyes all squinted up, and I suppose he
made a sort of mental review of the whole place, for he nodded his head
at last and assured me that these were all.
Armed with this information, I rejoined the boys and--but why should
I give the details of the search? It was the same old story, infinite
labour and nothing at the end. Really it was disheartening.
“Well,” remarked Tom, philosophically, when we had finished putting
the last step back into place, “they needed straightening, anyway. And
the garden would have had to be dug up about this time, too; and I’ve
always heard that it’s a good thing to loosen up the ground around
trees.”
“I’m getting tired of improving the place for Tunstall’s benefit,”
objected Dick. “I move we give it up.”
“Oh, no!” I cried. “We can’t give it up! That would be cowardly. Do
you remember Commodore Perry, when he fought the British on Lake Erie?
He had a banner painted with the words, ‘Don’t Give up the Ship,’ and
he nailed it to his mast; and when his ship was sinking, he took the
banner down, and carried it to another ship, and nailed it up there.
Let’s nail our banner up, too.”
“But we’ve done everything we could think of doing,” objected Dick.
“What can we do now, Biffkins?”
“We haven’t gone in pursuit of the early potato,” suggested Tom,
demurely.
“We can begin in the house,” I said; “begin at the farthest corner of
the garret, and work right down to the cellar.”
“That’s a big job,” said Dick, and sighed.
“I know it is; but I’m beginning to believe more and more that Mr.
Chester was right, and that the treasure is somewhere in the house.
We’ll begin to-morrow.”
“Oh, we can’t begin to-morrow,” said Tom.
“Why not?” I questioned, sharply, impatient of the least delay.
“Why, to-morrow’s May-Day,” he explained, “and the children at the
Fanwood school are going to have a big time. We’ll all have to go--as
distinguished guests, you know. Father and mother are going, and so is
your mother. It’s to be a kind of picnic--a May-pole and all that sort
of thing.”
“Very well,” I said, seeing that their hearts were set upon it; “we’ll
go, then;” but I must confess that I did not enjoy the day, which,
under other circumstances, would have been delightful. But in the midst
of the gayety, clouding it, rising above the laughter, the thought kept
repeating itself over and over in my brain that only fifteen days
of grace remained. “Only fifteen days, only fifteen days,” over and
over and over. It was with absolute joy that I climbed, at last, into
the buggy to start homewards, and I could scarcely repress a shout of
happiness as we turned in at the gate and rolled up to the dear old
house.
As soon as lessons were over next day, the search of the house began.
The refrain had changed a little: “Only fourteen days--only fourteen
days!” it ran now. Fourteen days! Thirteen days! Twelve days! How I
tried to lengthen every one of them; to make every minute count! And
how useless it seemed. For we made no progress; we were apparently not
one step nearer the solution of the puzzle than we had been at first.
We opened boxes, ransacked cupboards, explored dim crannies under the
eaves, turned drawers upside down--disclosing treasures, indeed, which
at another time would have filled me with delight, but, alas! they were
not the treasures we were seeking! From the garret to the second floor,
then to the first floor, then to the cellar--we turned the house inside
out, did everything we could think of doing, short of tearing it down,
and utterly without result! At last, mother interfered.
“You children must sit down and rest,” she said. “You will make
yourselves ill. Cecil is getting nervous and positively haggard.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I said; “I wouldn’t mind anything, if we could only
find the treasure.”
“You don’t sleep well at night,” pursued mother remorselessly. “You
twitch about--”
“Yes,” I admitted; “and lie awake listening to the old clock in the
hall, and thinking that every second it ticks off is one second less.”
“Well,” said mother, more sternly, “it must stop. It isn’t worth it.
Why not be satisfied with thinking that we’re merely on a visit here--a
month’s vacation--and plan to make the last days of the visit as
pleasant as you can? Then, when we go away, we can at least look back
upon having had a nice time.”
“But we don’t want you to go away, Mrs. Truman,” spoke up Tom. “Mother
was saying again last night how dreadfully she would feel if you would
have to go. As for me, I--I don’t know what I’d do.”
I looked up and met his eyes, and there was something in them that
made me feel like laughing and crying too.
“You’ve all been very kind to us,” said mother, flushing with pleasure,
“and you must come over to Riverdale and see us often. I want you all
to be sure to come over and spend the last evening with us here--a kind
of farewell, you know.”
She tried to smile, though it ended a little miserably, and I could
see that she was deeply disappointed, too, but was being brave for our
sake. I never knew until long afterward how she herself had worked to
solve the mystery.
We obeyed her by abandoning the search--indeed, we must soon have
stopped from sheer inability to find anything more to do. We had
exhausted our ingenuity and our resources--we were at the end. But all
that could not prevent me worrying--it had rather the opposite effect;
and night after night I lay awake, wondering where the treasure could
be. And though I was careful to lie still and breathe regularly, so
that mother might not suspect my wakefulness, it was often all I could
do to keep myself from crying out under the torture.
In the afternoons, we rambled about the place, or visited each other;
but there was a shadow over us which nothing could lift. One day we
even made a little excursion to the range of hills which shut us in
upon the west. It was from them, so Mr. Chester said, that we might
see the sea over the wide plain which sloped away eastward to it; but
we didn’t see it. Perhaps the day was not clear enough, or perhaps the
sun was too far west to throw back to us the glint of the water; but I
fancy I should not have seen it, however favourable the conditions, for
I had eyes for little else than the old house nestling among the trees,
two miles away. About it, the broad fields looked like the squares of
a great chess-board, dark with new-turned earth, or green with the
growing wheat.
Dusk was falling as we started toward home. We were all a little tired
and very hungry, and we cut across lots, instead of going around by the
road. We skirted a field of wheat, and finally came to the back of the
orchard, and silently climbed the fence.
“That’s the rose of Sharon,” I said, pausing for a look at the old
gnarled apple-tree. “I wonder if it really could have anything to do
with the treasure?”
“Oh, come on, Biffkins,” said Dick, a little crossly. “Don’t you ever
get that off your mind?”
“No, I don’t,” I retorted, sharply. “And I don’t see--”
I stopped abruptly, for I fancied I saw a shadow skulking away from us
under the trees.
“What is it?” asked Tom, following the direction of my startled gaze.
“I thought I saw somebody,” I said; and in that instant, a terrible
conviction flashed through my mind. “It was Silas Tunstall. Quick--this
way.”
I was off under the trees, without stopping to think what we should do
if it really proved to be that worthy, and I heard the boys pattering
after me. We raced on, and in a moment, sure enough, there was the
figure, just swinging itself over the orchard fence.
“There; there!” I cried, and the boys saw it, too. In a moment more we
were at the fence, and tumbled over it.
But the figure had disappeared. We raced this way and that, but could
find no trace of it; and at last we gave it up in disgust, and started
back through the orchard.
But the memory of the figure I had seen for an instant silhouetted
against the sky, as it mounted the fence, burnt and burnt in my
brain--for I was sure that it carried under its arm a square parcel
of some sort--and I told myself frantically that it could be only one
thing--the treasure.