A BLOW-UP
'Phemie's heart beat quickly; but she was no more afraid than she had
been the moment before, when she found the green door unlocked. There was
somebody--the person who had found the lost key--still in the offices
of the east wing.
The wand of white light playing about her was from an electric torch. She
stooped, and literally crawled on all fours out of the range of the light
from the rear doorway.
Before she knew it she was right beside the case containing the skeleton.
Indeed, she hid in its shadow.
And her interest in that moving light--and the person behind it--made her
forget her original terror of what was in the box.
She heard a rustle--then a step on the boards. It was a heavy person
approaching. The door opened farther between the workshop and the room
in which she was hidden.
Then she recognized the tall figure entering. It was as she had expected.
It was Professor Spink.
The breakfast food magnate came directly toward the high, locked desk
belonging to the dead and gone physician, who had been a kind friend and
patron of this quack medicine man when he was a boy.
'Phemie had heard all the particulars of Spink's connection with Dr. Polly
Phelps. The good old doctor had been called to attend the boy in some
childish disease while he was an inmate of the county poorhouse. His
parents--who were gypsies, or like wanderers--had deserted the boy and he
had "gone on the town," as the saying was.
Dr. Polly had taken a fancy to the little fellow. He was then twelve years
old--or thereabout--smart and sharp. The old doctor brought him home to
Hillcrest, sent him to school, made him useful to him in a dozen ways,
and began even to train him as a doctor.
For five years Jud Spink had remained with the old physician. Then he had
run away with a medicine show. It was said, too, that he stole money from
Dr. Polly when he went; but the physician had never said so, nor taken
any means to punish the wayward boy if he returned.
And Jud Spink had never re-appeared in Bridleburg, or the vicinity, while
the old doctor was alive.
Then his visits had been few and far between until, at last, coming
back a few months before, a self-confessed rich man, he had declared
his intention of settling down in the community.
But 'Phemie Bray believed that the false professor had come here to
Hillcrest for a special object. He was money-mad--his avariciousness had
been already well displayed.
She believed that there was something on Hillcrest that Jud Spink
wanted--something he could make money out of.
She was not surprised, then, to see a short iron bar in the professor's
hand. It was flattened and sharpened at one end.
By the light of the hand-lamp the man went to work on the locked desk.
It was of heavy wood--no flimsy thing like that one which he had burst
open so easily the day of the Widow Harrison's vendue.
The man inserted the sharp end of the jimmy between the lid and the upper
shelf of the desk. 'Phemie heard the woodwork crack, and this time she
did _not_ suppress a gasp.
Why! this fellow was actually breaking open the old doctor's desk. Aunt
Jane had not even sent _them_ the keys of the desk and bookcases in this
suite of rooms.
Then 'Phemie had a sudden thought. She was really afraid of the big man.
She did not know what he might do to her if he found her here spying on
his actions. And--she didn't want the lock of the old desk smashed.
She reached up softly and turned with shaking fingers the old-fashioned
wooden button that held shut the door of the case beside which she
crouched.
She remembered very clearly that it had snapped open before when she was
investigating--and with a little click. The door of this case acted almost
as though the hinges had springs coiled in them.
At once, when she released the door, it swung open--and in yawning it
_did_ make a suspicious sound.
Professor Spink started--he had been about to bear down on the bar again.
He flashed a look back over his shoulder. But the corner was shrouded in
darkness.
'Phemie sighed--this time with intent. She remembered how she had been
frightened so herself at her former visit to this office--and she believed
the marauder now before her had been partially the cause of her fright.
The jimmy dropped from Spink's hand and clattered on the floor. He wheeled
and shot the white spot of his lamp into the corner.
By great good fortune the ray of the lantern missed the girl; but it
struck into the yawning case and intensified the horrid appearance of
the skeleton.
For half a minute Spink stood as if frozen in his tracks. If he had known
the old doctor had such a possession as the skeleton, he had forgotten
it. Nor did he see any part of the case that held it, but just the
dangling, grinning Thing itself, revealed by the brilliance of his
spotlight, but with a mass of deep shadow surrounding it.
Professor Spink had perhaps had many perilous experiences in his varied
life; but never anything just like _this_.
He might not have been afraid of a man--or a dozen men; no
emergency--which he could talk out of--would have feazed him; but a
man doesn't feel like trying to talk down a skeleton!
He didn't even stop to pick up the jimmy. He shut off the spotlight; and
he stumbled over his own feet in getting to the door.
_He was running away!_
'Phemie was up immediately and after him. She did not propose for him to
get away with that key.
"Stop! stop!" she shouted.
Perhaps Professor Spink verily believed that the skeleton in the box
called after him--that it was, indeed, in actual pursuit.
He didn't stop. He didn't reply. He went across the small anteroom and out
of the open green door.
But he had made a lot of noise. A big man with the fear of the
supernatural chilling his very soul does not tread lightly.
A frightened ox in the place could have made no more noise. He tumbled
over two chairs and finally went full length over an old hassock. He
brought up with an awful crash against the big davenport in the corridor,
where 'Phemie had tried to keep watch.
And there, when he tried to scramble up, he got entangled in 'Phemie's
quilt and went to the floor again just as a great light flashed into the
corridor.
The Colesworths' door stood open. Out dashed Harris in his pajamas and
a robe. He fell upon the big body of Spink as though he were making a
"tackle" in a football game.
"Hold him! hold him!" gasped 'Phemie.
"I've got him," declared Harris. "What's the matter, Miss 'Phemie?"
"He's got the key," explained 'Phemie. "Make him give it up."
"Sure!" said Harris, and dexterously twitched the entangled Spink over
on his back.
"By jove!" gasped the young man, standing up. "It's the professor!"
"But he's got the key!" the girl reiterated.
"What key?"
"The one to the green door."
"The door of the east wing?" demanded Harris, turning to stare at the open
door, on the threshold of which 'Phemie stood.
"Yes. I lost it. He found it. He's got it somewhere. I found him trying to
break into grandfather's desk."
"Bad, bad," muttered Harris, stepping back and allowing the professor room
to sit up. "Your interest in old desks seems to be phenomenal, Professor.
Did you expect to find Confederate notes in _this_ one?"
"Confound you--both!" snarled Spink, slowly rising.
"I don't mind it," said Harris, quietly. "But don't include Miss Bray in
your emphatic remarks. _Give me that key._"