Ransom

by Grace Livingston Hill

  They sat down and Maggie waited upon them, bearing the dishes with beaming face and much ceremony. She had been deeply impressed by the grandeur of the house. She waited upon them as if they were royalty.

  But when they had finished the delicious meal, Rannie was still absent and his father looked deeply troubled.

  “He has no business to do this way!” he declared.

  “Oh, he’ll have found some of his friends and be talkin’ to them and not knowin’ how the time passes,” excused the old nurse. “I’ll just put by some nice hot dinner for him and keep it warm till he comes home.”

  “He doesn’t deserve that,” said the father. “He knows better than to be so late.”

  Christobel went into the kitchen with Maggie to help in clearing away the dishes, and Mr. Kershaw went back to the library and his papers, being presently absorbed in a mass of figures, to the obliteration of all else.

  The dishes were assembled on their shelves at last amid many comments from Maggie about the slovenly way the kitchen had been kept, and Christobel was just about to go upstairs and show Maggie her lovely green room, for Maggie was greatly curious about this grand house. But suddenly Mr. Kershaw appeared in the kitchen doorway a look of deep anxiety on his face.

  “Hasn’t Rannie been back yet?” he asked, looking at his watch. “I declare he deserves a severe punishment for this. It is nearly ten o’clock. I wonder what he is thinking. Haven’t you heard the car at all, Chrissie?”

  “Why, yes, Father,” said Christobel, thinking back. “I was sure he drove into the garage right after he brought Maggie. I heard the car when we first came out into the kitchen, and then I’m sure he turned on the light in the garage. I saw it beam up on the back window. But then it went out again, and I forgot all about it. I supposed he would come in in a minute.”

  “That is strange!” said their father, now thoroughly alarmed. “I wish you had told me at once. I had better go out and look. There are so many cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in garages now. No, never mind my coat, Maggie. I won’t be a minute. I just want to make sure he’s all right. He just might have been overcome perhaps after he closed the doors and turned out the light. He probably didn’t remember the garage lights could be turned out from the kitchen.”

  Mr. Kershaw snapped the lights at the doorway and went out in a flood of brightness to find a most amazing thing. The garage door into the backyard was still closed and locked, but the light inside the garage showed that the back door into the alley was wide open and swinging in the wind.

  Wildly the father gripped the door and tried to shake it open; wildly he searched for the former chauffeur’s keys, for he had given Rannie his own bunch, but no keys could be found. And then he called for a hatchet, but there seemed to be no hatchet nor any other tool available. Everything about the place seemed cleared up and guiltless of anything that could be possibly used to smash in a door or break a lock, till the canny Maggie finally produced a hammer from the kitchen. Even then, it was some minutes before the strong lock on the door finally yielded to the frantic blows of the excited father. Mr. Kershaw, as he pounded away on that door, blow after blow, wasn’t sure whether he was most anxious or angry. A great apprehension was over him. He couldn’t help but remember the sullen, gloomy expression on his son’s face ever since he had told him that he was not to be allowed to go back to school.

  Was Rannie trying to get back at him by frightening him? Had he taken the car and gone off somewhere? Perhaps he would come back very late, drunk. Such things did happen. Perhaps he would become defiant.

  Still, of course it was possible that some terrible thing had happened to him. Yet of course, that wasn’t so. This was a sane world, a commonplace world after all. Tragedies did not happen to modern families. Oh, such stories got into the paper but were doubtless exaggerated or were mere fake cases. Rannie was likely running around right now having a good time and would come in late and be sullen again, and what was he going to do with him? Oh, he was reaping now what he had sown in neglect of his precious children. What would Mary have said to him if she could have known he would have allowed his own children, her babies, to get so far separated from him that he knew practically nothing of their heart life? How crazy he had been to let a featherheaded little thing like Charmian order their precious lives!

  He fairly groaned aloud as the door at last gave way under his continued blows, and he staggered into the brightly lighted garage.

  Maggie and Christobel were close behind him, with white anxious faces, and saw what the father was too excited to see, Rannie’s soft felt hat lying on the floor, crushed flat, as if a heavy foot had stepped on it. Indeed, Maggie, stooping close, could see the footprint of a shoe in a greasy outline, from a foot that had evidently stepped into a puddle of black grease on the floor of the garage.

  “Here’s the laddie’s hat,” she said in an awed tone. “I mind the dark blue ribbon. I noticed it when ye were stopping at me door. He can’t have meant ta go far missin’ it. That’s some big body’s fut print there on the brim. See the mark of the heel. Handle with care! That fut mark may tell something.”

  Kershaw remembered Rannie’s caution about the revolver, and cursed his own stupidity. Even Maggie was shrewder than he was. He stepped closer to look at the hat without touching it and something crunched beneath his feet. He stepped back sharply and saw a fountain pen, big and fat and arrogantly cheerful, in a bright handle, jazzy like Rannie. Yes, that was Rannie’s fountain pen, lying crushed there. He must have dropped it. And just a few inches away was his bunch of keys. What had happened?

  Rannie wouldn’t have dropped his keys and pen out of his pocket intentionally. He wouldn’t have dropped them if he had been in a car. He must have gotten out. Could there have been a scuffle, a struggle? The crushed hat, the pen, the keys all pointed that way. Had someone tried to steal the car and Rannie defended it? If so, why hadn’t he made an outcry? But perhaps he did and no one heard him.

  And then he saw something lying off to the side that made his blood run cold and stopped his breath for a moment with a dreadful thought. It was a sandbag, lying as if it had been cast aside. He strode to it and lifted it. Yes, that was heavy enough to knock anyone out. Suddenly he spoke. “Go in and telephone the police to come at once, Christobel. I don’t want to close these doors nor change anything until they see how things are here. I’m afraid this is the work of that bunch of crooks.”

  Christobel rushed in to the telephone, and Maggie, distressed in her mind whether to go or stay by the master and protect him, finished up by hovering between the two till Christobel returned with a coat for her father and sweaters for herself and Maggie.

  Kershaw, in the meantime, had been out in the alley looking up and down but found no further evidence. Shortly, two officers in a police car came riding up.

  Christobel and Maggie stood in the yard listening, watching, while the two policemen went about with flashlights, poking into every corner of the garage, even going up into the chauffeur’s rooms. They lifted the sandbag and looked significantly at one another. They picked up the crushed hat and made Rannie’s father identify the maker’s name. Yes, it was Rannie’s new hat all right, which had been bought for the funeral.

  Finally, the officers carefully closed and locked the garage.

  “Well, sir, we’ll send out word in every direction,” they said. “Of course they’ve got two hours’ start on us, but your car ought not to be hard to find. Of course, too, they might change the license, if they have time. But don’t you worry, Mr. Kershaw, we’ll likely find your boy. We’ll have it broadcast tonight, too. And if he should turn up, you’ll let us know at once, please.”

  Mr. Kershaw brightened at the thought.

  “Oh, certainly,” he said.

  “Meanwhile,” said the officer, “you all better keep pretty close to home tonight. They seem to have it in for you. I guess they’re aiming ta clean you out. We’ll have the house guarded at once, and you let us know if anyt
hing develops.”

  The three went into the house and looked at one another. Mr. Kershaw sat suddenly down in a big library chair.

  It seemed to the father that he no longer had power to stand upon his feet. A great weakness had suddenly come to him. He sat looking at them for a moment. Maggie, with her bare arms from dishwashing wrapped neatly in her gingham apron, Christobel, standing by the big chair, gripping its arms as if her life depended on holding on. He dropped his face into his hands and gave one groan.

  The tears were running down the girl’s face now as she stood holding tight to the chair, her head dropped like a delicate flower.

  Maggie turned herself about with her back to them. Her Scotch blue eyes were all drenched in tears like an April shower.

  “The puir wee mannie!” she blurted suddenly, as if they all were to blame, and then scuttled away to the kitchen to stare out the window into the dark yard.

  Meantime, down on Seneca Street, the messenger boy had reached the Harper house, discharged his duty, and gone on his way, weaving a cheerful pattern with his bicycle in and out between traffic, unaware of the importance of the note he had just carried.

  It was Hazel who answered the door. This was an exciting day in her little life—two knocks on the door in one afternoon, and now it was getting dark. She was just the least bit afraid of what might be coming. She had heard echoes of the talk that went on between Phil and her mother. She had come to dread something about a mortgage, though she wasn’t just sure what a mortgage was or what harm it could do one.

  But when she saw a real-live messenger boy with a bicycle carelessly thrown down on the step behind him, she drew in her breath in great excitement. People on Seneca Street did not usually get letters delivered by real messenger boys in livery, with brass buttons on their caps. The importance of this happening choked her throat all up, and her fingers trembled. Of course, though, it might even be that mortgages came by special messengers.

  She signed her name in the boy’s book, closed the door carefully, and stood an instant, studying the envelope to see who it was for, then she hurried into the sitting room where her mother was darning a pair of Phil’s trousers. Phil sat over by the window, using the last streak of daylight to study the want ads.

  “It’s a letter for you Phil,” she said quite quietly, managing to keep her voice steady, though she couldn’t keep the lilt of hope and excitement out of it entirely.

  “A letter for me!” said Phil, bringing his paper down from the daylight so suddenly that it fairly crackled at his little sister.

  “A letter?” said Mother, her hand going with a swift motion to her heart, and a look of wonder on her face.

  The two flashed one look at each other, and the son looked back at his letter, read the name of the firm on the envelope, tore open the end swiftly, and began to read. Then a great light came into his face, a kind of bewilderment, too, and he looked at his mother. “Listen, Mother! Isn’t this wonderful?”

  Mr. Philip Harper, Jr.

  871 Seneca Street

  New York

  Dear Sir,

  Your name has come before us as a young man unemployed. If you are interested in accepting a beginner’s position of rise as you show your ability, please call at our office on Monday morning at 10:30 that we may talk the matter over.

  Very sincerely,

  Carollton, Carew, and Kershaw

  “Blessed be His name!” said the mother softly.

  “Yes!” said Philip fervently. “Mother, I’m afraid I didn’t have much faith when I prayed. I’ve tried so long without success.”

  “Yes, but you prayed for more faith, dear,” said his mother. “Come, let us thank Him at once.”

  “But—we don’t know what it is yet, Mother. Perhaps—”

  “Whatever it is, it’s from the Lord,” said Mother. “Surely you’re not going to pick and choose, Philip.”

  “Not I!” said Philip with a ring in his voice. “I’ll take whatever He sends, no matter how humble it is, and be glad.” And he went down on his knees beside his mother, his own thanksgiving as fervent as hers.

  As they rose from their brief prayer, they heard June coming in the door. Hazel rushed out to tell her sister the good news.

  “Philip’s got a job!” she cried softly, not to disturb the father, who had had a bad day and was asleep just then.

  “A job? Oh, joy!” said June. “I’ve been praying about it all the way home. What is it?”

  “He doesn’t know yet,” said the little girl. “Come and see. There’s a wonderful letter all about it. He’s to go Monday morning to see about it.”

  June read the letter and looked up at her brother. “How did that happen, Phil?” she asked wonderingly. “That’s a big firm. Who do you suppose put your name in there?”

  “God,” said the mother reverently, with a tender smile.

  “Well,” said June, “that’s a famous bonding company. Everybody speaks of them with respect. I’m sure it would take nobody short of God to get an unknown name before them.”

  “Well, I’m glad we thanked Him before it came,” said the mother happily as she went about setting the supper table for the very meager supper that was already on the stove, a savory soup that only hands long skilled could have made out of the cheap ingredients to be had. The soup and bread would make up the meal. All the few luxuries that they could muster must go to the dear invalid who had little suspicion of the real state of things, so bravely had the family carried on when he was stricken down.

  But it might have been a turkey dinner with all the trimmings that night, so eager and happy were they all as they sat down, so good everything tasted when eaten with bright faces.

  “I noticed there’s a Kershaw in that firm,” said Mother as she passed Phil his second bowl of soup. “You don’t suppose it could be a relative of those people who used to live across the street do you, Phil?”

  “Not a chance,” said Phil. “Anyhow, Mother, that’s ages ago. They wouldn’t remember me. I was only a kid at the time.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Mother. “I heard those Kershaws got quite wealthy, but it might not have been true. They did move away a long time ago, of course. I didn’t realize. I was just thinking that if it was the same man, you might just say we remembered him or something like that. It would be a kind of recommendation.”

  “I’d rather let God work it out for me, Mother,” said the young man cheerily. “I think that’ll be good enough.”

  “Yes, perhaps that’s better,” said the mother and beamed upon her children.

  “Shall we tell Father?” asked Hazel with round eyes of eagerness. She did love to tell good news.

  “Not until we know all about it, dear,” said Mother. “He gets so excited over the least little thing, and if he knew, he might not eat or sleep until it was all settled.”

  “Will he get a big salary, Mother?” asked the little girl. “Enough to get the ’spensive new doctor for Father?”

  “Probably not a big salary,” said Mother with a wise smile. “He’s to begin at the beginning. But Hazel, dearie, suppose we don’t think about that part now. Let’s just be glad over Sunday at least that there is a hope of something and trust the Lord who sent this to send all the rest that we need in His own good time. Don’t let’s count our chickens before they are hatched. Let’s just praise God for letting us know He is thinking about us.”

  Hazel laughed.

  “That’s funny, counting chickens before they are hatched,” she said. “But, I’m glad, glad anyway.”

  “That’s right. Now, pass your dish and I’ll give you some more soup. There’s plenty of soup tonight, and that’s all we need just now.”

  Hazel handed her dish with a smile, and a deep content settled down on the little old shabby brick house.

  The three young people had a happy time washing the dishes all together as they often did, while their mother was upstairs giving the invalid his supper and fixing him comfortably for t
he night. Philip went around putting away dishes that Hazel had just wiped and whistling softly a hymn they all loved.

  “Fear not, little flock, He goeth ahead,

  Your shepherd selecteth the path you must tread;

  The waters of Marah He’ll sweeten for thee,

  He drank all the bitter in Gethsemane.

  Only believe, only believe;

  All things are possible, only believe.”

  It was weeks since Philip had done any whistling. It made them all glad to hear him. In a minute more the girls were tuning in with him, singing a sweet low accompaniment. The good cheer reached upstairs to the invalid, and he smiled.

  “The children must be happy tonight,” he said. “It sounds good!”

  When the dishes were done, Philip sauntered over to the homemade radio and tuned in. He knew his father enjoyed any good music, especially the Saturday night symphony orchestra concerts, so he turned the dials, and presently the shabby little house was filled with as good music as any mansion on Fifth Avenue could boast.

  They all sat listening, thinking pleasant thoughts, rejoicing at what had come to Phil. When suddenly, just as Mother came tiptoeing down the stairs, the music stopped, right in the prettiest part of the New World Symphony, and a voice snapped out into the silence.

  “This program is interrupted to make an announcement of the disappearance of Randall Robin Kershaw Jr., son of Mr. R. C. Kershaw of Carollton, Carew, and Kershaw, Wall Street.

  “Young Mr. Kershaw is five feet ten and a half inches tall, seventeen years old, dark hair, blue eyes, weighs one hundred forty-five pounds, was dressed in a dark blue serge suit, an overcoat, tan shoes, and blue-striped silk socks. He wore no hat. The circumstances point to his having been kidnapped about six thirty this evening just as he was about to shut his father’s car in the garage behind their Fifth Avenue residence. His hat was found on the floor of the garage.”

  There were more details and an address given where information should be sent if anyone knew of Randall’s whereabouts.