Love Almost Lost

by Irene B. Brand

  “They’re all locked. I checked the other day.”

  He unfolded his long legs and stood up. “I might be able to do something about that.” He walked to the cabinet behind Ellen, opened the door, and pulled out a set of keys. He fitted a key into a trunk, and Ellen knelt beside him, feeling like a child opening a treasure box.

  The first trunk was full of small boxes. “My arrowhead collection! I figured Mother had given it away.”

  He picked up a mortar and pestle that Shawnee women used to grind grain. “Remember the day we found this? I believe it was in October, a beautiful sunshiny day.”

  “I don’t recall that day in particular, but we did find lots of treasures. This collection must be worth quite a fortune now. Perhaps you could sell it if you need the money.”

  He looked at her in surprise; then he laughed and said, “I don’t happen to own this collection anymore. I sold the property ‘lock, stock, and barrel.’ I’m sure your husband bought it the same way.”

  “The collection is yours. Do what you want to with it.”

  “Then I’ll leave it here for the time being.”

  He turned to another trunk filled with photograph albums. The top album contained photos of nineteenth-century Daltons. Names, birth and death dates were inscribed below each picture.

  “A good thing Mother labeled these photos.” They leaned their backs against the trunk as he chose another album. “These are pictures of my immediate family. Here’s a photo of my parents on their wedding day.”

  Ellen looked closely at the man standing beside Lane’s father.

  “Who’s that? He looks familiar.”

  “Mother’s brother, Adam Lowden. He lived with us for awhile and worked at the mine. He was a strong union man, and when he and Dad had trouble over that big strike in 1912, he moved out of the house. You probably saw him in Daltonville.”

  “But it seems I’ve seen him recently. Where is he now?”

  Lane shrugged his shoulders. “He went to Montana soon after I came home from the army. I heard he was killed in a mine accident out there.”

  Ellen scrutinized the picture closely. “Is that a bandage on his face?”

  “Looks like it. As I remember, he had a long scar along his right cheek.”

  Lane turned the pages to some baby pictures, and he laughed. “That’s how I looked when I was six months old.”

  As the pages of the album revealed Lane in every stage of his growing years, memories of the past overwhelmed Ellen. When they came to a picture of him in his army uniform, Ellen sobbed, and Lane put his arm around her and drew her head down on his shoulder. Ellen’s body shook as she cried out nine years of loneliness and frustration.

  “I know I was a rough-looking character, but you needn’t cry about it,” he tried to joke, yet his voice sounded raspy and full of emotion.

  “That’s the way you looked the last time I saw you. When you left for the army, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Even then, I couldn’t come forward and tell you good-bye. I stood in the shadows of the train station and cried my heart out with only Carol to stand by me. I thought I’d lost everything.”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking if my parents had accepted you, our children could have slept in that cradle, and we could have lived here. I wouldn’t have sold the house if I hadn’t lost you.”

  They looked through more of the pictures, but thoughts of the past had saddened them, and Lane started to replace the albums in the trunk. Ellen picked up the album containing his childhood pictures.

  “You can have the rest whenever you want to take them, but this one is mine.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, and the old spark that had smoldered for nine years exploded into a tingling flame throughout Ellen’s body.

  “I hate to interrupt.” Bruce’s sardonic voice broke the spell. He stood with head and shoulders through the trapdoor. Lane drew away reluctantly, and Ellen’s face reddened in anger.

  “Your friend Warren is below and wants a word with you. And before you accuse me of spying, Fannie forced this job upon me. She refused to climb the ladder.”

  Neither Ellen nor Lane answered him, but they hurried from the attic. Since Margaret and Henry were settled in the living room, Ellen beckoned Marshal Warren into the ballroom, and she and Lane followed him. Warren closed the door.

  “Pretty elegant place you’ve got here,” he said as he looked around and whistled tunelessly through his teeth. “Why don’t you throw a party?”

  “You didn’t come here to talk about a party?”

  “No, I want to talk to Dalton.”

  Ellen caught her breath, wondering if Warren had more evidence against Lane.

  “Dalton, who lived in this house after your parents died? Who did you sell it to? And who bought the Apple Creek Mine?”

  “Dad sold the mine to a syndicate in Chicago and let them negotiate with the union. And when both of my parents died while I was in the army, my uncle, Adam Lowden, moved in here until I returned from France. But there were too many unhappy memories around Daltonville with my parents gone and Ellen lost to me, so when I settled in California, I put the house up for sale. A man from Pittsburgh bought the house for a summer home. I hadn’t heard of the place again until I came here this summer.

  “A couple by the name of Belder lived here for a few years,” Warren said, “but Mrs. Belder was an invalid and she made no changes to the house. It deteriorated greatly. Hern bought the house from the Belder estate. Does that sound right, Ellen?”

  “I think so. Timothy said the house was in such bad shape that he didn’t want me to see it until the renovation was complete.”

  Warren nodded his head. “The Hendersons were caretakers for the Belders, and they continued to live in the gatehouse after Hern bought it.”

  “Why are you delving into all of this?” Lane asked.

  “I’m finding out everything I can about this house, for I believe it plays an important role in the problems around here. And I wasn’t joking, Ellen. Why don’t you have a party?”

  “I’m not in the mood for frivolity. Besides, Fannie has warned me that no one would come if I did have a party.”

  “They’ll come,” Warren assured her. “People in town are probably dying for a chance to get a peek inside this mansion. They might come for the wrong reasons, but they’ll be here.”

  “I assume you have some motive for asking me to do this.”

  He nodded. “I want an opportunity to look over the people—see how they treat you, see if any of them are drinking, notice how they size up the house. We could learn a lot by observing them collectively. You know how to go about it, I suppose.”

  “Timothy was a great one for entertainment, and I’ve had plenty of experience hostessing. I can rely on firms in Cleveland and Columbus for what I need.”

  After Lane and Warren left, Ellen went to her room and looked again at the photo album. She became thoughtful when she came to the wedding picture of Lane’s parents. Where had she seen that man? Was it someone she knew in Cleveland? Or here in Daltonville?

  She had enough mystery without wondering about a picture taken thirty years ago, so she opened a dresser drawer and put the album away. A splinter scratched Ellen’s finger, and she grimaced. That had happened before, and she removed the drawer. Perhaps she could find some sandpaper and smooth out the rough spot. She peeked underneath the drawer and noticed a drawing, a circular object with a set of numbers under it. The numbers were 45-83-72.

  This could easily be the combination to a safe, but she hadn’t seen a safe anyplace in this house. The drawing also looked like a furnace thermostat. Excitement growing, she committed the numbers to memory and replaced the drawer. The splinter would have to wait.

  Nonchalantly, she wandered around the house, surveying each wall for something that looked like a safe. She found a thermostat in the living room, and peering around to see if anyone watched her, she moved the needle to the numbers on the drawing.
Nothing happened. Upstairs she looked in the hallway and in her bedroom without seeing anything unusual. She walked into the room that Fannie occupied, and on the wall near the closet she saw a thermostat like the one downstairs. Her hands trembled as she lifted them to the control. She hesitated, tempted to call Thompson to her side before she proceeded further, but if she held the clue to some secret in her hands, perhaps she should find out what it was before she shared it with anyone else.

  Picking up the flashlight that Fannie kept by her bed, she moved the control right to 45, left to 83, then back to 72. She heard a sound in the closet, and she stepped inside. The floor moved under her feet, and Ellen realized she was on a turntable. It stopped and she was plunged into complete darkness, but not before she saw a narrow flight of stairs. She’d found the entrance into the tunnel!

  The flashlight dropped from her hand and rolled down the steps. Ellen stifled a scream and suppressed the desire to pound on the wall. Surely, there must be some way to get back into the bedroom, but when she thought of the effort on the part of the intruder to gain access to this entrance, she decided that wasn’t the case. Instinctively, she realized she was in danger. If someone was desperate enough to burn down a building to gain access to this tunnel, her life wouldn’t amount to much if she was caught. Ellen’s skin crawled at the thought that she might be the next victim discovered on Indian Island.

  Stop it! she mentally admonished herself. If she was threatened, she could pound on the walls until Fannie heard her, and she could tell her friend how to open the door. The door had seemed heavy, though, and it was probably soundproof. Trying to put thoughts of imminent danger out of her mind, she decided to investigate her findings.

  The first thing to do was find the flashlight, for she didn’t think it had rolled far. Ellen had to determine how many steps she must go down before she reached a level floor. If this tunnel went to the creek, it could be a mile long.

  Ellen dropped to her hands and knees and crawled carefully. She was on a narrow ledge, but she soon came to the first step. Moving slowly, she lowered herself inch by inch, feeling for the flashlight, which she found on the sixth step, clutching it as a drowning man would reach for a life jacket.

  Having the light meant the difference between panic and peace of mind. Now she could keep track of the time and light her path. Her knees stung from contact with the rough steps, and she paused to listen. Before she turned on the light, Ellen wanted to be sure she was alone in the passageway.

  She couldn’t hear anything except her own breathing and her heartbeat, pounding in her ears as boisterous as the ocean’s tide. She turned on the light and quickly looked around. At least twelve more steps stretched below her before there was a turn. Assured that there were no obstructions in the path, Ellen switched off the light, stood up, and step-by-step inched her way downward, counting each step and rubbing her hand along the wall so she would know when she came to the turn in the stairway.

  When she reached that spot, she paused and listened intently. Nothing but darkness and silence stretched before her, and she decided to go on. She turned on the flashlight briefly and saw another steep stairway, with a door facing the last step.

  Extinguishing the light, Ellen started eagerly down the stairs, but she missed one step and fell, stifling a shriek. Pain shot through her ankle, and she sat down to massage it. After a few minutes, the pain eased, and she walked more carefully.

  Would she be able to open the door? If it was locked, she would really be in a predicament—cut off from the main house and unable to use this exit. But the door opened at her touch.

  She slipped through the door to the scent of fresh air, but she was still in complete darkness. The air had been stale in the stairwell, but the fresh air here indicated some ventilation. All was quiet. Activating the light again, she saw that she stood at the top of a short flight of steps that led into a large underground room. A copper still stood to one side of the area, and the unmistakable smell of alcohol confirmed that the tunnel was currently in use. The room seemed unoccupied, but Ellen turned off the light and tried to remember what else she had seen.

  Barrels were stacked in one corner, and at the foot of the stairs were several bulky sacks that could hold corn. The tunnel continued, probably toward the creek, but she’d seen enough to know why the intruders had been desperate to enter her house.

  Without doubt, someone who knew the combination had gotten into the house on the night of the fire and opened the revolving door, and they were now using another entrance.

  But what good would this knowledge do if she couldn’t escape and tell Lane or Warren? Pondering her next move, Ellen heard a scuffling sound in the passage, and she backed through the swinging door and sat down on the floor, using the flashlight as a wedge to keep the door open a crack. Lanterns in the hands of the two men entering the room lighted the faces of Oscar Henderson and Clyde Thurman! No surprises there, but at least her suspicions were verified. Hanging their lanterns on nails, the two men removed the rubber waders they wore. Was the entrance to this room underneath the boathouse as Lane suspected? Henderson went to the still and adjusted the copper pipe; then he took a cup and drew a draught of the spirits. “Ah! Not bad,” he said. He passed the cup to his companion.

  “Ready to run in the barrels, ain’t it?” Thurman said. “And none too soon, since we have a shipment due out of here next week. That’ll give it time to mellow a bit.”

  When it appeared that Henderson and Thurman had settled themselves for a few hours, moving as quietly as she could, Ellen removed the flashlight from the door and started upstairs. Perhaps she could attract Fannie’s attention to open the secret door and let her into the house, but if the two men in the underground room heard her, she might be trapped.

  Ellen used the flashlight sparingly to grope her way upstairs. At the top, she splayed the light along the wall and gasped with relief when she saw an automatic control to open the door.

  Hoping the two men in the tunnel wouldn’t hear, she spun the dial, but the door didn’t budge. Did this take another combination, or had she forgotten the numbers? Calm down, she admonished herself. Slowly, she dialed to 45, 83, and with fingers hovering nervously, she stopped at 72. The door moved slowly, and she soon gained the freedom of the bedroom. Her knees were trembling, and she sat in a chair to calm her nerves. Looking at the clock on the dresser, Ellen realized she had only been gone thirty minutes, and apparently no one had missed her.

  Before Ellen decided what to do about her discovery, Fannie hustled up the stairs with the mail. Two letters were from her friends who had gone on the European tour that she should have taken. A third letter, in a plain white envelope, had no return address.

  She slit open the envelope, and a newspaper clipping of Timothy’s death fell into her lap. She unfolded a sheet of paper bearing the words, Do you want to join him? If not, follow forthcoming instructions and tell no one about this letter!

  The drawing of a cobra followed this terse message.

  Sweat popped out on Ellen’s face, and she tucked the letter into her dress when she heard Fannie reentering the room. Fannie took one look at her, and said, “What’s wrong? Did you receive bad news?”

  Ellen swallowed with effort, hoping her voice sounded normal. “These letters from my friends in Europe made me wish I’d gone with them.”

  Fannie looked at her sharply, and she left the room in a huff.

  In her anguish over the letter and its meaning, discovery of the tunnel seemed of little importance. When she encountered Thompson at lunchtime, she considered telling him about the letter, but she hesitated. He stared at her as if he knew something was wrong but, try as she might, she couldn’t relax her features into their normal lines.

  Ten

  When the telephone rang at nine o’clock that night, Ellen lifted the receiver thoughtlessly and nearly dropped it when a harsh voice said, “Your instructions will come tomorrow.” The line went dead immediately.

  “Who was
that?” Fannie asked without looking up from the list she was making.

  “He hung up before I found out,” Ellen replied quietly, replacing the receiver with a trembling hand.

  “I can’t come up with a guest list for that party,” Fannie continued. “Why not put an invitation in the paper and invite everybody? That’d be simpler than sending out invites.”

  Ellen’s throat was dry, and she had to swallow twice before she could answer. “All right, let’s do that. Will you take care of the newspaper ad for me? The party will be the first day of August from eight o’clock until eleven.”

  A knock sounded at the door, and Ellen clenched her hands as she heard Bentley’s ponderous steps in the hallway. When he ushered Lane into the living room, Ellen jumped up from her chair.

  “Lane, I’m glad to see you. Let’s go for a drive.”

  “Suits me,” he said.

  “Ellen, you might consider your reputation,” Fannie remarked. “You know people will talk if you keep running around with him at night.”

  “We won’t be gone long.” As they walked into the hallway, Ellen said quietly, “I shouldn’t have been so impulsive. Did you come for some special reason?”

  “I was lonely.”

  The husky tone of his voice completely unnerved her.

  “Let’s go in my car,” Ellen said, “but you’ll have to drive.” She handed him the key.

  Before they left the driveway, Ellen checked to be sure no one was hidden in the car. If she could trust any person, it would be Lane, but did she dare confide in anyone?

  They drove several miles in silence until Lane finally said, “What’s happened? You look like you’ve seen Deerslayer’s ghost.”

  She remained silent for several miles, then blurted out, “Does a cobra mean anything to you?”

  In the darkness, she sensed his probing glance in her direction. Through the half-lowered window, the chattering sounds of a katydid filtered into the car. Katydids were harbingers of autumn, and she shuddered. Would she be alive when autumn arrived?