PICKERING SERVES NOTICE
The next morning Bates placed a letter postmarked
Cincinnati at my plate. I opened and read it aloud to
Larry:
On Board the Heloise
December 25, 1901.
John Glenarm, Esq.,
Glenarm House,
Annandale, Wabana Co., Indiana:
DEAR SIR—I have just learned from what I believe to
be a trustworthy source that you have already violated
the terms of the agreement under which you entered into
residence on the property near Annandale, known as
Glenarm House. The provisions of the will of John Marshall
Glenarm are plain and unequivocal, as you undoubtedly
understood when you accepted them, and your absence,
not only from the estate itself, but from Wabana
County, violates beyond question your right to inherit.
I, as executor, therefore demand that you at once vacate
said property, leaving it in as good condition as when
received by you. Very truly yours,
Arthur Pickering,
Executor of the Estate of John Marshall Glenarm.
“Very truly the devil’s,” growled Larry, snapping
his cigarette case viciously.
“How did he find out?” I asked lamely, but my heart
sank like lead. Had Marian Devereux told him! How
else could he know?
“Probably from the stars,—the whole universe undoubtedly
saw you skipping off to meet your lady-love.
Bah, these women!”
“Tut! They don’t all marry the sons of brewers,”
I retorted. “You assured me once, while your affair
with that Irish girl was on, that the short upper lip
made Heaven seem possible, but unnecessary; then the
next thing I knew she had shaken you for the bloated
masher. Take that for your impertinence. But perhaps
it was Bates?”
I did not wait for an answer. I was not in a mood
for reflection or nice distinctions. The man came in
just then with a fresh plate of toast.
“Bates, Mr. Pickering has learned that I was away
from the house on the night of the attack, and I’m ordered
off for having broken my agreement to stay here.
How do you suppose he heard of it so promptly?”
“From Morgan, quite possibly. I have a letter from
Mr. Pickering myself this morning. Just a moment,
sir.”
He placed before me a note bearing the same date as
my own. It was a sharp rebuke of Bates for his failure
to report my absence, and he was ordered to prepare to
leave on the first of February. “Close your accounts at
the shopkeepers’ and I will audit your bills on my arrival.”
The tone was peremptory and contemptuous. Bates
had failed to satisfy Pickering and was flung off like a
smoked-out cigar.
“How much had he allowed you for expenses, Bates?”
He met my gaze imperturbably.
“He paid me fifty dollars a month as wages, sir, and
I was allowed seventy-five for other expenses.”
“But you didn’t buy English pheasants and champagne
on that allowance!”
He was carrying away the coffee tray and his eyes
wandered to the windows.
“Not quite, sir. You see—”
“But I don’t see!”
“It had occurred to me that as Mr. Pickering’s allowance
wasn’t what you might call generous it was better
to augment it—Well, sir, I took the liberty of advancing
a trifle, as you might say, to the estate. Your
grandfather would not have had you starve, sir.”
He left hurriedly, as though to escape from the consequences
of his words, and when I came to myself
Larry was gloomily invoking his strange Irish gods.
“Larry Donovan, I’ve been tempted to kill that fellow
a dozen times! This thing is too damned complicated
for me. I wish my lamented grandfather had left
me something easy. To think of it—that fellow, after
my treatment of him—my cursing and abusing him
since I came here! Great Scott, man, I’ve been enjoying
his bounty, I’ve been living on his money! And
all the time he’s been trusting in me, just because of
his dog-like devotion to my grandfather’s memory.
Lord, I can’t face the fellow again!”
“As I have said before, you’re rather lacking at times
in perspicacity. Your intelligence is marred by large
opaque spots. Now that there’s a woman in the case
you’re less sane than ever. Bah, these women! And
now we’ve got to go to work.”
Bah, these women! My own heart caught the words.
I was enraged and bitter. No wonder she had been
anxious for me to avoid Pickering after daring me to
follow her!
We called a council of war for that night that we
might view matters in the light of Pickering’s letter.
His assuredness in ordering me to leave made prompt
and decisive action necessary on my part. I summoned
Stoddard to our conference, feeling confident of his
friendliness.
“Of course,” said the broad-shouldered chaplain, “if
you could show that your absence was on business of
very grave importance, the courts might construe in
that you had not really violated the will.”
Larry looked at the ceiling and blew rings of smoke
languidly. I had not disclosed to either of them the
cause of my absence. On such a matter I knew I should
get precious little sympathy from Larry, and I had,
moreover, a feeling that I could not discuss Marian
Devereux with any one; I even shrank from mentioning
her name, though it rang like the call of bugles in
my blood.
She was always before me,—the charmed spirit of
youth, linked to every foot of the earth, every gleam of
the sun upon the ice-bound lake, every glory of the winter
sunset. All the good impulses I had ever stifled
were quickened to life by the thought of her. Amid the
day’s perplexities I started sometimes, thinking I heard
her voice, her girlish laughter, or saw her again coming
toward me down the stairs, or holding against the light
her fan with its golden butterflies. I really knew so
little of her; I could associate her with no home, only
with that last fling of the autumn upon the lake, the
snow-driven woodland, that twilight hour at the organ
in the chapel, those stolen moments at the Armstrongs’.
I resented the pressure of the hour’s affairs, and chafed
at the necessity for talking of my perplexities with the
good friends who were there to help. I wished to be
alone, to yield to the sweet mood that the thought of her
brought me. The doubt that crept through my mind
as to any possibility of connivance between her and
Pickering was as vague and fleeting as the shadow of a
swallow’s wing on a sunny meadow.
“You don’t intend fighting the fact of your absence,
do you?” demanded Larry, after a long silence.
“Of course not!” I replied quietly. “Pickering was
right on my heels, and my absence was known to his
men here. And it would not be square to my grandfather,
—who never harmed a flea, may his soul rest in
blessed peace!—to lie about it. They might nail me for
perjury besides.”
“Then the quicker we get ready for a siege the better.
As I understand your attitude, you don’t propose to
move out until you’ve found where the siller’s hidden.
Being a gallant gentleman and of a forgiving nature,
you want to be sure that the lady who is now entitled to
it gets all there is coming to her, and as you don’t trust
the executor, any further than a true Irishman trusts a
British prime minister’s promise, you’re going to stand
by to watch the boodle counted. Is that a correct analysis
of your intentions?”
“That’s as near one of my ideas as you’re likely to
get, Larry Donovan!”
“And if he comes with the authorities,—the sheriff
and that sort of thing,—we must prepare for such an
emergency,” interposed the chaplain.
“So much the worse for the sheriff and the rest of
them!” I declared.
“Spoken like a man of spirit. And now we’d better
stock up at once, in case we should be shut off from our
source of supplies. This is a lonely place here; even
the school is a remote neighbor. Better let Bates raid
the village shops to-morrow. I’ve tried being hungry,
and I don’t care to repeat the experience.”
And Larry reached for the tobacco jar.
“I can’t imagine, I really can’t believe,” began the
chaplain, “that Miss Devereux will want to be brought
into this estate matter in any way. In fact, I have heard
Sister Theresa say as much. I suppose there’s no way
of preventing a man from leaving his property to a
young woman, who has no claim on him,—who doesn’t
want anything from him.”
“Bah, these women! People don’t throw legacies to
the birds these days. Of course she’ll take it.”
Then his eyes widened and met mine in a gaze that
reflected the mystification and wonder that struck both
of us. Stoddard turned from the fire suddenly:
“What’s that? There’s some one up stairs!”
Larry was already running toward the hall, and I
heard him springing up the steps like a cat, while Stoddard
and I followed.
“Where’s Bates?” demanded the chaplain.
“I’ll thank you for the answer,” I replied.
Larry stood at the top of the staircase, holding a
candle at arm’s length in front of him, staring about.
We could hear quite distinctly some one walking
on a stairway; the sounds were unmistakable, just as
I had heard them on several previous occasions, without
ever being able to trace their source.
The noise ceased suddenly, leaving us with no hint of
its whereabouts.
I went directly to the rear of the house and found
Bates putting the dishes away in the pantry.
“Where have you been?” I demanded.
“Here, sir; I have been clearing up the dinner things,
Mr. Glenarm. Is there anything the matter, sir?”
“Nothing.”
I joined the others in the library.
“Why didn’t you tell me this feudal imitation was
haunted?” asked Larry, in a grieved tone. “All it needed
was a cheerful ghost, and now I believe it lacks absolutely
nothing. I’m increasingly glad I came. How
often does it walk?”
“It’s not on a schedule. Just now it’s the wind in
the tower probably; the wind plays queer pranks up
there sometimes.”
“You’ll have to do better than that, Glenarm,” said
Stoddard. “It’s as still outside as a country graveyard.”
“Only the slaugh sidhe, the people of the faery hills,
the cheerfulest ghosts in the world,” said Larry. “You
literal Saxons can’t grasp the idea, of course.”
But there was substance enough in our dangers without
pursuing shadows. Certain things were planned
that night. We determined to exercise every precaution
to prevent a surprise from without, and we resolved
upon a new and systematic sounding of walls and floors,
taking our clue from the efforts made by Morgan and
his ally to find hiding-places by this process. Pickering
would undoubtedly arrive shortly, and we wished to
anticipate his movements as far as possible.
We resolved, too, upon a day patrol of the grounds
and a night guard. The suggestion came, I believe,
from Stoddard, whose interest in my affairs was only
equaled by the fertility of his suggestions. One of us
should remain abroad at night, ready to sound the alarm
in case of attack. Bates should take his turn with the
rest—Stoddard insisted on it.
Within two days we were, as Larry expressed it, on a
war footing. We added a couple of shot-guns and several
revolvers to my own arsenal, and piled the library
table with cartridge boxes. Bates, acting as quarter-master,
brought a couple of wagon-loads of provisions.
Stoddard assembled a remarkable collection of heavy
sticks; he had more confidence in them, he said, than in
gunpowder, and, moreover, he explained, a priest might
not with propriety bear arms.
It was a cheerful company of conspirators that now
gathered around the big hearth. Larry, always restless,
preferred to stand at one side, an elbow on the
mantel-shelf, pipe in mouth; and Stoddard sought the
biggest chair,—and filled it. He and Larry understood
each other at once, and Larry’s stories, ranging in subject
from undergraduate experiences at Dublin to adventures
in Africa and always including endless conflicts
with the Irish constabulary, delighted the big boyish
clergyman.
Often, at some one’s suggestion of a new idea, we ran
off to explore the house again in search of the key to the
Glenarm riddle, and always we came back to the library
with that riddle still unsolved.