Adventure Tales, Volume 4

by Seabury Quinn

  Weston shivered a little. The chill night air was penetrating his thin shirt and ruffling his thin hair. “But what is it all about? What did you come to warn us about, if the village is as peace­able as you say?”

  The bewhiskered man coughed. “That’s what I was coming to, mister. As I was saying, I got this telephone message from the sheriff over to Allsworth. That’s the county seat. Some­thing terrible has happened at the Bronsons’, ten miles away on the Cranberry Beach road. A man—don’t know who, because he wore a mask—near killed Mrs. Bronson. This was along about sundown; she only managed to get word through to Allworth half an hour ago. Her husband, Elmer Bronson, was down at the beach, a mile away, floating off that big sloop of his. High tide to­night, and he’s been putting in some new strakes and paint­ing her up. So the Bronson woman was all alone. Well, this stranger, he knocked on her door and asked for a drink of water. Soon as she opened the door and see he was masked, she tried to shut it in his face, but he was too quick for her. Set his foot in the opening and pushed on through. Then seems as if he struck her with something heavy; she was too upset to remember much of anything about it. Next thing she knew, she was trussed up hand and foot, and gagged with an old towel, and laying in her bathtub.

  “The Bronsons had new plumbing put in only last summer. Mighty proud of their bathroom; there’s only two others in Fast Harbor! Well, that devil wasn’t satisfied with knockin’ her senseless, and then going through all her closets and bureaus and stealing what little money and jewelry he could find, but he’d left her helpless in the tub, flat on her back, and turned on the cold water faucet. He’d put in the plug, and when she come to the water had already riz high enough to reach her shoulders. It was only a matter of minutes when it’d reach her mouth and nose and drowned her! Somehow, she herself don’t know how she done it, she managed to work herself loose, just in time, and set up. Then she fainted; and when she came to again, the tub was full and runnin’ over. She says it’s gone through the floor and spoiled the kitchen ceiling,” finished Neighbor Hodge, with an anti­climax of which he was unconscious.

  “Haven’t they any idea who did it?” asked Wes­ton, his teeth chattering a little. “Seems as if she’d recognize something familiar about the assailant. You all must know one another pretty well around here!”

  “She’s sure he don’t belong in these parts,” Hodge said. “And so far he hasn’t been caught up with. Of course, they’re out looking for him. Tomor­row soon as it gits light enough, they’ll try to track him. But anyhow, he’s got clear away. Bronson come home about an hour after his wife got herself free, and he telephoned right to the sheriff in Allsworth, and it was him notified me. And I dressed myself and come right on over to warn ye folks. It ain’t likely he’ll trouble you none; but you never can tell. Crazy, I says. No profes­sional burglar would bother to do such a thing, when the woman was already helpless and he’d got all there was lying loose. Took about eleven dollars, and Mrs. Bronson’s best silver spoons and forks, and a string of gold beads that belonged to her grandmother. That’s all they’ve missed, so far.”

  Jason Hodge turned aside, as if to go. Weston recollected himself, and stepped to one side. “Won’t you come in, and let my wife make you a cup of tea or something? I’m sure we are very grateful to you, and sorry for your trouble!”

  Hodge shook his head. “Nope. Never drink tea late at night, much obliged. And as for the trouble, we folks out in the country always aim to be neighborly. Not like the city, where I’ve heard it said the dwellers in the same tenements live on for years with­out even having a bowing acquaintance, nor ’tending one another’s funerals! We ain’t like that, down here. Only a few of us, and we try to act human.”

  Weston laughed. “That slam was de­served, I guess, Mr. Hodge! We do get sort of inhuman in the big cities. But that’s partly because families are al­ways coming and going; and in emergencies there are always policemen and doctors to be had at a moment’s notice. But I certainly do thank you, and I’ll sleep with one eye open. If I can help track down the robber to­morrow, call on me! I want to do my share, too.”

  Hodge was already moving down the path toward the gate. He turned and spoke over his shoulder. “Guess it’ll take somebody who can read signs to do that, mister! Somebody that knows the woods. A man could hide out for weeks in these deep cedar swamps. Pretty thinly settled! But we’ll root the varmint out, if he’s anywheres about. And when we ketch him, he’ll be lucky if he ever lives to be tried!”

  A moment later the gate clicked in the darkness, and Weston rebolted his door. He also went over the rooms on the lower floor, closed and locked each window. He had bolted his door through sheer habit; all the windows had been left open, for the fresh air. They were screened against mosquitoes, but otherwise unprotected. He turned and mounted the stairs, to find Annie standing shivering on the top landing.

  “How perfectly awful!” she ex­claimed, “I heard all he said. And we supposed that up here we’d get away from all the lawlessness and assaults and murders and things our city papers are full of! I didn’t dream any worse crime was ever heard of up here in this lovely country than the theft of a water­melon, or the bootlegging of a little hard cider by some thrifty farmer! Oh, Frank, I don’t believe I’m going to like it here. Let’s go to some civilized re­sort, and give up our rental here!”

  Weston put a reassuring arm across her shoulder and gently urged her back to her room.

  “Shucks! Wait till tomorrow, and see how different you feel in the bright sunshine. I don’t believe there are any dangerous people living within twenty miles of us. This was the act of some tramp crazy with hooch, or dope. They’ll catch him; and nothing exciting will happen here again for fifty years more. But isn’t it queer that this should occur the very night we arrived to enjoy the simple life!”

  Contrary to their expectations, both fell asleep within fifteen minutes, nor were they troubled with bad dreams. They were roused only when Romeo, the bobtailed cat, scandalized at the idea of lying abed after the sun was up, perched on Weston’s pillow and patted his face with imperative paws. He opened his eyes, grinned, and called out to Annie that it was a grand morning, and that he could do with a bit of break­fast!

  *****

  As Weston had prophesied, his wife felt differently about their new home in the bright morn­ing sunshine. Robins and bluebirds were singing, and select­ing home sites. Down on the shore, crows were strutting up and down, their sharp beaks at­tacking periwinkles and mussels. The island of Mt. Desert stood out so clearly that one could make out automobiles crawling up its steep mountain roads. In the lilac bush at the corner of the kitchen, a peabody bird lighted and uttered its joyous song, which our northern cousins insist is a repetition of the word: “Canada.”

  Annie sang too, as she wrestled with coffee, ham and eggs and toast, all at one time on her stove aflame with sea­soned kindling. Frank surveyed his bristly chin in the mirror of his bureau, grinned, and decided not to shave that day. That was one of the petty tyrannies he had come up here to es­cape! No, and he wouldn’t wear any necktie, either. Just a flannel shirt open at the neck, the new corduroy trousers, and on his feet a pair of easy buckskin shoes. Bareheaded, he would wander about and get the lay of the land after breakfast. He too sang, discordantly, but none the less happily.

  But before breakfast was fairly over, they had a caller, two of them, in fact; one remained outside, at the wheel of the stanch old touring car. The other, a determined-looking man with a square chin and sea-blue eyes, a man in his vigorous fifties and wear­ing loose blue serge and a slouch hat, knocked at the door. By daylight, there was nothing ominous about this knocking; it didn’t seem nearly as loud as the summons of Jason Hodge in the blackness of night.

  He nodded at Frank as he answered the door, a piece of buttered toast in one hand and toast crumbs sprinkling his flannel shirt.

  “Mr. Weston? From New York? Thought so. I’m Thomas, Joe Thomas from Allsworth—sheriff. Suppose you�
�ve heard about what happened last night?”

  “Hodge came over to tell me,” Wes­ton said. “He knew we have no tele­phone. Won’t you come in, Mr. Thomas? We can rustle up a cup of hot coffee—”

  The sheriff interrupted him with a gesture of one hand.

  “Much obliged; but this is my busy day. What time did Jason tell you about what happened at Bronson’s place?”

  “Why—I don’t know exactly; I think I’d just fal­len asleep, and we retired about ten o’clock. Couldn’t have been much later than ten thirty.”

  “Then you really don’t know what all could have taken place after­ward.”

  “Why, no. We locked up tight, and then went to sleep again; and you’re the first one I’ve seen since I talked with Hodge.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Just so. Well, there was another outrage along toward three o’clock. Same fel­low, apparently; anyhow he was masked, and he had plenty of time to walk over to old man Tucker’s cabin. That’s beyond Cran­berry Beach a few miles; nearest neigh­bor is a mile away. Tucker has always had the reputation of being a miser. I don’t know why; I doubt if he’s got ten dollars to his name. But anyhow, this bandit—whoever it was—broke into his shack, woke up the old man and tried to make him tell where his money was hid. Didn’t get nothing out of him. Not even when he tied him up and held lighted matches to the soles of his feet and did other devilish things I haven’t time to go into now. He left along about half past four, as well as Tucker can figure out. The poor old codger is in a bad way. They took him over to Allsworth, to the hospital. He’s hurt, some; but the shock to his nerves is worse, the doctors say. So, you see Hodge’s warning isn’t one to be taken lightly.”

  Weston was genuinely shocked. Com­ing as he had from a city where atro­cious crimes were the familiar head­lines of his breakfast paper, he had ex­pected to forget such things in the peaceful country of scattered farms, deep woods, and majestic ocean. They seemed worse, somehow, these brutal as­saults, than they had back home. They seemed to desecrate the loveliness of na­ture; to make the bird songs and the fleecy clouds and warm sunshine a mockery.

  He was seeking to find some expres­sion of his feelings when Thomas spoke again.

  “Just you and your wife here? So I understood. And you got in—when?”

  “Yesterday, about four o’clock. Jed Hooper drove us over from Cherryville Junction in his car. We came up on the Down-Easter through train from New York.”

  “Strangers here, I take it? How’d you come to learn about the place?”

  Weston smiled. “I picked out about the location we desired, on a road map. Then I wrote the postmaster at Cherryville, and he sent me a number of names; Hooper’s was among them. So then I wrote him, and from his descrip­tion I engaged the Jarvis house.”

  He looked the sheriff steadily and a trifle quizzically in the eyes. “I guess you’re asking me to establish a sort of alibi, Mr. Thomas?”

  The sheriff reddened slightly, then laughed. “There isn’t a chance in the world that you had anything to do with these two affairs, Weston. But one of the things I have to do is check up on every man, woman and grown child who lives hereabout and could by any chance, however remote, have been to the Bronson and Tucker places last night. That’s dry detail; but it has to be attended to, or I’ll get what-for from the district at­torney!”

  He turned to go; then paused for a final word.

  “Don’t let this fret you and the miss­us too much. We’re bound to get that murdering dog. I’ve got men that know every mile of this district like it was their own woodpile. Besides which, the roads will be patrolled. I’m swear­ing in deputies today. You’ll see some of ’em before sundown. And if you hear or see anything suspicious, no mat­ter how trivial it seems to you, be sure to notify one of my men right off. G’bye!”

  Weston watched until he swung him­self into the waiting car, and was driven rapidly down the sandy road towards Hooper’s place.

  “That was the sheriff,” he explained to Annie when he returned to the kitchen for a final cup of coffee. “There was another holdup last night—an old man miles away up the beach some­where. No­body was killed or seriously hurt. And before night there’ll be someone on guard along the highway. If they don’t catch the fellow, they’ll at least make it too dangerous for him to attempt anything further around here.”

  Annie tried to believe him; her com­mon sense argued that he was right. But somehow, the warmth seemed to have gone from the sunshine. And the birds seemed to have stopped their song, this was natural enough, as their early chorus was over, and they were busy about their affairs. Only Romeo, the bobtailed cat, seemed oblivions of the dark cloud that had descended over the peaceful little hamlet of Fast Harbor. Promptly after he had lapped up his saucer of warm milk, he wandered forth to investigate the life and habits of the field mouse, as found in his dooryard.

  When Weston would have imitated his cat to the extent of strolling away from the house, Annie entered a ter­rified protest.

  “Where are you going with that pail, Frank?” she cried. To his reply that he was thinking of going down to the beach which lay just beyond a clump of cedars, to see if he could dig some clams, she objected: “But there’s nearly a peck of clams from those Mr. Hooper left here for us!”

  He hesitated, glancing longingly at the short iron clam hook in his hand, “Well, I thought it would be rather good fun. And they will keep indefi­nitely, if I leave a little water in the pail and sprinkle some corn meal over them. I read that in a newspaper.”

  Annie’s voice was a little sharp with terror as she answered him. “Yes, and first thing you know, you’ll be reading in a newspaper that Mrs. Frank Weston was found murdered in her summer camp, while her husband was amusing himself on the shore!”

  Half vexed and half amused, he yielded. “If I’ve got to stick around the dooryard all the time, we might as well pull stakes and go to a hotel. One reason for coming up here was to get a lot of exercise and fresh air! If you’re worried, and I don’t wonder, why not put on your old shoes and come along with me?”

  She shook her head, “No; I’ve got my housework to attend to. Beds to make, dinner to get started. Of course we’ll take walks all about the country together; but not right after break­fast. You said there’d be some guards posted nearby, didn’t you?”

  “So the sheriff promised. All right, then. I’ll wait till they show up before I go out of sight of the house.”

  He reluctantly set down his pail and clam hook, and pottered about the rough dooryard, pulling clumps of weeds, re­moving loose stones from the driveway, working up an appetite by splitting some kindling, although Jed Hooper had pre­pared a generous supply of fuel in ad­vance of their coming.

  The day dragged monotonously. Weston missed his daily papers and the mail he always looked over before going to his office. He hated to admit it, but he even missed the noise and bustle of the city, the throbbing of industry and pleasure and all that went to make up the ordered confusion of a metropolis. Nobody passed the house; lacking a telephone, he could not call up to inquire what progress, if any, had been made toward capturing the murderous un­known.

  But directly after dinner, which they ate in an abstracted silence, big Jason Hodge appeared. He was leading a miserable-looking cur, whose pedigree would have puzzled a dog fancier. He hailed Weston with rough cordiality.

  “Brought ye a watchdog! He ain’t much to look at, but he sure does make a row if he hears anybody prowling about the house. Thought the missus would feel easier at night with him tied up outside. If you don’t hear Tige yellin’, you can rest easy there’s nobody sneaking up on ye in the dark. Keep him till we’ve caught the mis­creant.”

  “Mighty good of you,” Weston thanked him, eye­ing the dog dubiously. “Then I take it nothing has been found yet? No clues?”

  “There’s a posse out now beating up the woods and swamps. Soon as I learn anything I’ll come right over and tell you.”

  He looked about,
selected a juniper bush whose scrubby boughs formed a shelter close to the ground, dragged the slinking mongrel to it and made fast his rope. “He don’t need no kennel this warm weather,” he explained. “Just feed him twice a day; any scraps left over from the table. Tige ain’t par­ticular. And see that he has plenty of water. Soon as we catch our man, I’ll come over and fetch him home.”

  Weston thanked him as cordially as he was able, the dog circled his tree two or three times, winding himself up in his rope, then sniffed resignedly and laid himself down on the sunny side and went to sleep. Hodge strode with long-legged steps back to­ward his farm, and life at the old Jarvis place went on as before.

  The westering sun was sending the long, thin shadows of the cedars and spruces across the yard when two strange men heaved in sight from up the road. There was something grim and businesslike about their look, dressed as they were in rough shoot­ing coats, with breeches tucked into their boots, and rifles under their arms. One of them turned in through the gate and approached Weston, who was feeding the guardian dog.

  “Seen any strangers about?” he asked.

  Weston shook his head. “You are all strangers to me; all but the sheriff, Hodge and Hooper. But no­body else has been near us; or at least, I have seen no one. You one of the guards Thomas spoke of?”

  “That’s me. Name of Larkin. I trap, winters, and do a little lobstering summers. Got a string of pots out in the cove now. Thomas told me to take over a mile or two of the road about here. Nights, that means. Don’t allow there’ll be any daylight assaults.”

  “Well, that’s certainly fine! And if you want anything, don’t hesitate to call on us. My wife will be glad to get up in the middle of the night and make you a cup of coffee, or rustle a lunch.”