“Something peculiar here, Shaw,” Mr. Sweeney muttered.
“There certainly is. They wouldn’t be having visitors at this time of night, would they? What time is it, anyway?”
Mr. Sweeney’s repeater tinkled. “Almost twelve!” he exclaimed. “Look here, Shaw, you didn’t arrange to have someone drop in on us, did you?”
“Oh, don’t be an idiot!”
Mr. Sweeney breathed hard for a few minutes, then said, “I want to know what’s going on.”
“So do I. What do you suggest we do?”
“I believe we’d better go to the house and investigate. This could seriously affect our plans, Shaw.”
“I know.”
They stood up. Mr. Shaw bit his lip. What was happening at the house, anyway? His heart hammered against his ribs as he reflected that any kind of disturbance could upset the plan completely. They stepped out of the stable. Good lord, how bright the moon was! Mr. Sweeney nodded toward some ghostly white bushes, and they headed for the nearest one.
“Stop, thieves!”
They froze.
“Oh, good night!” Mr. Shaw muttered. “It’s that flaming fool, Hollister!”
“Horse thieves! Cutthroats!” Mr. Hollister bawled from the second floor of his house. “Don’t move — I’ve got you in my sights, you Republican sneaks!”
Mr. Sweeney soundlessly melted behind a bush. “Down!” he whispered.
“Oh, you will, will you?” Mr. Hollister brayed.
Mr. Shaw, still immobile in his tracks, staring at Hollisters’ house, saw a bright orange flash erupt in an upstairs window. There was a terrific blast. Mr. Shaw felt an urgent desire to be on the other side of something solid. He jumped for the nearest bush. Too small, too thin! A hedge loomed nearby. He hurled himself into it, through it. Something glimmered in front of him. His foot caught on a low stone parapet, and he fell, clawing the air for support. Then he struck — but not moonlit turf as he had expected. Down he went, with an involuntary gasp that half filled his lungs with water. He was drowning! He touched mud, gave a mighty kick, shot up into the air, and found himself standing waist deep in a pond. He gagged and spat out a stream of stagnant-tasting water.
Mr. Sweeney hissed “Imbecile!” and seized his hands and hauled him out. They crouched behind the hedge that bordered the pond, and listened. Silence had returned to the world.
It was broken by a door banging open at Hollisters’. In a moment they heard a faint braying in front of the Walker house; then another interval of silence; then Hollisters’ door again.
“Hail, the conquering hero,” Mr. Sweeney sneered. “I expect they’re all going to be up now, appreciating his heroism. Awkward … I know your daughter will be keeping cool during the uproar, however.”
“Oh, I’m sure she, ah—”
“She’s such an artist, she could even turn it into an advantage. No opportunity like a moment or two of confusion for dipping into the jewel box, eh? Well, let’s give them a little time to settle down, and then carry on with our investigating.”
“Ah, all right.”
“I detect a certain lack of conviction in your tone, Shaw. One might even say, an outright reluctance.”
“Oh — oh, no. It’s just that I, ah — all this noise and so forth has — shaken me up a bit.”
“Perhaps your little aquatic excursion has had, shall we say, a dampening effect? Well, these things will happen. One must exercise one’s philosophy, Shaw.”
‘Oh, go this, that, and the other, you weasel!’ Mr. Shaw raged to himself. ‘What the devil am I going to do now?’
The plan just couldn’t work now that everyone in the house was aroused and on edge. Oh, blast that idiot Hollister! Of course he had told them what he had seen in their back yard; and even if they went back to bed immediately, their nerves would be stretched tight. The slightest sound in the house would have them all up and about instantly … Maybe he should call off the whole thing until tomorrow night.
“Come along, Shaw,” Mr. Sweeney murmured, standing up. “Once more into the breach.”
“Look,” Mr. Shaw began, “how about —?”
There was a crash in the shrubbery beside the house. Cats began to yowl and thrash about in combat. A window was thrown open. Maggie’s voice could be heard shouting in reproof. Water spattered down on leaves. The cats disengaged.
Mr. Sweeney sat down again. “More alarums and excursions. You know, Shaw, it all begins to take on a faintly comic aspect, don’t you think?”
“I don’t see the humor of it,” Mr. Shaw muttered. Blast the man, anyway! He actually seemed to be enjoying all this! “Look,” he began again. “It occurs to me that Susan may not have gotten the chance to, ah, do it, what with all these interruptions. Don’t you think we—?”
“Oh, I have complete faith in that daughter of yours, Shaw.”
“Well, ah, I do too, of course. It’s just that everybody will be so nervous and jumpy in there that — And if we don’t show up, she’ll know just what to do. Then tomorrow night we can —”
Mr. Sweeney laughed quietly. “Shaw,” he said, “the trouble with you is that you are so childishly transparent. I’ve been in this profession a long time, my dear fellow, and no one can catch me twice with the same tricks.”
“What?”
“I will admit that these disturbances have been very competently staged. Of course, while you were in town today you might have made arrangements for a brass band and a fire brigade, too — or did you? Perhaps they’re in the wings now, waiting for their cue. And I must say that your own acting is first-rate — all this pretense of reluctance and nervousness.”
Mr. Shaw was having difficulty catching up. “Now wait a minute,” he said. “Staged? Do you actually think that I —?”
“Come off it, Shaw,” Mr. Sweeney sighed. “You and Susan frightened me away once with a rigged-up scene. Now that I know how you operate, it’s not going to work a second time. I am not coming back tomorrow night only to find that you two have flown the coop — with the jewels, of course. And since you are so reluctant to share, I might as well confess that I don’t enjoy sharing, either. I want those jewels myself, Shaw. All of them.”
Mr. Sweeney took his hand out of his pocket. There was a chilling click. Mr. Shaw found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver.
“Forward march, Shaw! No use tempting Hollister into any more acts of heroism, so we’ll just take a roundabout route until the house covers us, and then double back. Now please don’t oblige me to shoot you, my dear fellow — it’s so unprofessional and unphilosophical.”
22. The Battle of Elevator Hall
… turned into a terrific struggle after Bobbie tipped the scales. I guess all that water saved us, really, because it made everybody skid and fall so much. Otherwise Mr. Sweeney might have gotten away and Cousin Jane wouldn’t have “sealed her own fate,” as Vicky puts it …
“Mer-r-cy on us!” Maggie quavered. Her candle performed wild figures in the air. “It’s them Shaws! And that Mr. Sweeney!”
“Steady, Maggie,” Mrs. Walker said in a quiet voice. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Sure and I’m stiddy as I can be, Mum, with me second sight tellin’ me them Shaws are a sign.”
Mr. Shaw looked at Susan and lifted his shoulders in a gesture of despair. “I’m sorry, chick,” he muttered. “Everything went to pieces out there. Mrs. Walker, I hope I’ll have an opportunity to explain, or try to expl —”
“Your explanations are not wanted,” Cousin Jane snapped. “You are a scoundrel, and that is all we need to know. I thought I had made my prohibition clear. And yet I find your daughter creeping about in the dark like a thief, and subverting the Walker children; and I find you up to who knows what villainies, prating meanwhile of ‘explanations.’ There can be no explanations under these circumstances. You are to leave this house instantly. And your daughter. And you too, whoever you are!”
Mr. Sweeney raised his derby and said, “
I have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Madame.”
“And I have no wish to make yours, sir! You are an impertinent scalawag! Leave this house at once, all of you! And be assured that I intend to notify the police about your actions immediately.”
“I am trembling in my boots, Madame,” Mr. Sweeney said in his smoothest voice. His lips twitched as though he were suppressing a smile. He turned his eyes to the others. “Well! Quite an omnium gatherum! How are you, Maggie? Please accept my apologies for any lost sleep this may cause you. Isabelle! I didn’t think I’d have the pleasure of seeing you again. Such a pity that we have to meet under these awkward circumstances! Ah — that fiery light in your eyes — enchanting!”
“I know what to think of you, sir,” Mrs. Walker said.
“Quite so. Victoria, my dear! You look frightened. There is no need to be apprehensive, you know. As long as you all behave, no harm will come to any of you. Now, who is missing? Oh, yes, Robert! Still sleeping after the rigors of the day, I presume. Such an active little fellow!”
“My patience is at an end!” Cousin Jane shouted. “I have undergone shouting and shots in the night and impertinences and disobedience and base ingratitude and loss of sleep. This effrontery is the last intolerable straw! Get out!” She took a step forward and raised her umbrella.
“Madame,” Mr. Sweeney said with venomous intensity, “my patience is no more elastic than yours. Do you see what I have in my hand? If you don’t step back and hold your tongue, I will shoot this gentleman. And if his life is of no consequence to you, yours will instantly follow.”
“Jane!” Mrs. Walker said. “I’m afraid that Mr. Sweeney means exactly what he says. Please do what he asks.”
“Very well, Isabelle — for your sake, not for mine. I have nothing but scorn for his threats.” Cousin Jane stepped back beside Maggie and lowered her umbrella. Her face was dark with rage. “Scoundrel!” she hissed.
“That I am, Madame,” Mr. Sweeney said, flashing his most brilliant smile. “It is my calling in life, and I glory in it. But I take no pleasure in forcing my company on those who don’t welcome it, so I shall detain you no longer than absolutely necessary. Susan, my dear, where is it?”
“What?” she croaked.
“Oh, come, girl — you know what I mean. The cloth bag!”
Good grief, what was she going to do now? “Cuk — cuk — cloth bag?” she stammered, shrinking back against the wainscotting. Something in the wall gave way under the pressure of her shoulder blade.
“Sweeney, let her alone,” Mr. Shaw said. “There isn’t any cloth bag. There aren’t any jewels. The whole thing was a—”
“Still trying to put me off, Shaw? Your persistence is admirable, but I’m beginning to find it tiresome.”
“Sweeney, you flaming ass, don’t you understand? There isn’t —”
“Shut up, Shaw. Susan, bring me that bag. If the jewels aren’t in a bag yet, bring me the box—and your key, too. You have two minutes. If you are not back by then, your father is a dead man.”
‘I can fix up another pillowcase!’ she thought. ‘I can throw some of Vicky’s things in. At least it’ll give us some time to —’ “I’ll — I’ll get it,” she said, staggering forward a step.
Behind her the wainscotting split open with the old familiar rumble and sigh. A harsh glare of electric light flooded the hallway.
Everyone gasped.
“Oh, good night!” Mr. Shaw muttered at the ceiling. “That’s all we need!”
“Mer-r-rciful hivvens!” Maggie moaned. Her eyes turned up in their sockets, the candle and pitcher fell from her hands, and her body toppled over backward. Mrs. Walker caught her by the shoulders just in time, and, staggering under her weight, eased her to the floor.
Maggie’s pitcher landed on Cousin Jane’s left foot with a crunchy thud, and fell over, sending a gush of water across the parquet floor. Cousin Jane shrieked and doubled over. Her candle fell to the floor, and her pince-nez glasses, popping off her nose, bounced at the end of their black ribbon. She shrieked again, a long soaring crescendo that made the glass front of the grandfather clock rattle, and hopped backwards, putting out her free hand for support. Mrs. Walker’s shoulder was the first thing that came within reach. She seized it and leaned. Mrs. Walker, still in the act of kneeling by Maggie, dropped suddenly to her knees under Cousin Jane’s weight, and for an instant it looked as if both of them would collapse in a heap.
Victoria scurried forward and lifted Cousin Jane upright again.
“Ooooooh! My foot! Send for the doctor! Get me to a chair!”
“There’re chairs in the parlor, Cousin Jane,” Victoria quavered. “If I hold you up, do you think you can hop —?”
“No!” Mr. Sweeney said. “No one will leave this hallway but Susan. The rest of you will stay exactly where you are.”
“You are a heartless villain, sir!” Victoria flashed out. “She is in pain!”
“She may endure it standing as well as sitting. You are not to move.”
He turned to Mrs. Walker with that familiar smile of ironic appreciation. “Well, Isabelle! What a consummate deceiver you are! I knew you were wealthy, but I would never in a thousand years have suspected that you possessed electric lighting. And a closet with self-opening doors! That’s affluence on a grand scale! Well, my dear, this excessive wealth must be a burden to you, so I am going to relieve you of some of it. Susan, why are you dawdling? Fetch me that jewelry, girl. One minute left, and your father’s life hangs in the balance!”
“I — I’m going,” Susan gulped. She was rooted to the spot. She was trying not to look directly at what was happening, trying not to betray to Mr. Sweeney the fact that — that—
“Push, somebody,” Robert said.
He had crept down the hallway from the kitchen, quiet as a moth, and had gone down on his hands and knees just behind, and broadside to, Mr. Sweeney’s legs. Mr. Sweeney turned his head with a little snort of surprise. For an instant the muzzle of his revolver was not pointed at Mr. Shaw’s ribs. Susan, feeling as though she were in a dream, as though she were moving under water, as though she were someone else watching a stranger named Susan doing something that was more dangerous than anything she had ever done in her life—Susan stepped forward one long step, and laid both her hands against Mr. Sweeney’s chest, and shoved.
Mr. Sweeney toppled backwards over Robert in an almost leisurely arc, his mouth opening and his eyes widening as he went. There was a loud explosion from his pistol. Two of the paper flowers in the vase (on the marble-topped table with the carved lyre-shaped legs) leaped up and turned into fragments, and a windowpane in the parlor shivered out of its frame with a sweet silvery tinkle.
Mrs. Walker and Victoria screamed.
Mr. Sweeney hit the floor with a crash and a grunt, and his derby flew off. Mr. Shaw pounced on him, and snarled in a high choking voice, “Call her Isabelle, will you, you slimy rat!” He grabbed Mr. Sweeney’s right wrist in one hand, and pommeled his face with the other. Mr. Sweeney said “Aagh!” and seized Mr. Shaw’s cravat. They grappled and rolled together.
“This is an outrage!” Cousin Jane shouted. She pounded the floor with the tip of her umbrella. “Why has no one fetched me a chair? Why has no one gone for the doctor? Isabelle, turn those ruffians out of the house at once, and attend to my needs!”
But Mrs. Walker paid no attention. Her lower lip was crushed between her teeth, and her eyes were fixed on Robert. He was lying face down on the floor, trying to protect his head with his arms as the battle-locked forms of the two men rolled and grunted on top of him.
“Mmf fm mumpf!” came his voice from the melee.
“What?” Susan cried. She hovered on the edge of the fight, looking for her chance to jump in and help her father, but aware that if she jumped at the wrong instant she would only hinder him.
“Umm!” Robert said.
“Gun!” Mr. Shaw gasped by way of translation. “Get —” and then his voice was cut o
ff as they rolled over again. But here was Susan’s chance. Her father was forcing Mr. Sweeney’s hand, the one that held the pistol, down toward the floor. She stamped on it with her heel. Mr. Sweeney shouted, and the pistol came loose.
Then Robert’s knee appeared out of the scrimmage and struck the pistol, and sent it spinning across the floor toward the red velvet window curtains. It created a confused wake as it plowed through the puddle of water from Maggie’s pitcher. Susan leaped for it — tried to leap for it. The wet floor was as slippery as ice. Her feet shot out from under her, and she landed on her back with a jolt that knocked most of the breath out of her lungs.
A kind of buzzing roar filled her ears for a moment as she gasped air back into her chest again. She raised her head, and looked around in time to see Mr. Sweeney staggering to his feet. Her father, balanced shakily on one knee, was drawing back his arm for another blow.
His fist flashed through the air. Mr. Sweeney, either intentionally or because his feet were skidding in the water, dodged the blow. The momentum of Mr. Shaw’s swinging arm carried him around in a semicircle; he lost his balance and went down on his chest with a grunt. Mr. Sweeney lurched forward, stumbled over Susan, got to his feet again instantly, and took two great slippery steps that brought him close to Victoria and Cousin Jane.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Robert squeaked.
Mr. Sweeney glanced back, and froze.
Robert was on his knees by the window curtains. He held the revolver in both shaking hands; and even as Mr. Sweeney turned his head, one of Robert’s thumbs pulled back the hammer.
All was silent. Slowly, slowly, Mr. Sweeney turned around. “Well!” he said quietly, with a slight smile on his lips. “What do you wish me to do, Robert? Perhaps Mr. Shaw could make a suggestion.”
Without thinking, Robert turned to Mr. Shaw. Mr. Sweeney hurled himself on Victoria — but his foot slipped in the water as he pounced; and instead of seizing her firmly as he had intended, he fell toward her, saving himself from going down only by clutching her shoulder with both hands. She screamed and twisted away from his grasp; her feet skidded backwards; she fell to her knees. Deprived of their support, Cousin Jane and Mr. Sweeney toppled toward each other, and embraced. They swayed for a moment, dancing around Victoria, frantically trying to maintain balance. Their gyrations carried them forward a few steps. Cousin Jane cried out as her injured foot momentarily took her weight. Then Mr. Sweeney regained control. He spun Cousin Jane in a half-circle so that he was behind her; hugged her tightly, pinning her arms to her sides; then heaved her about to position her stout body between himself and Robert.
All in Good Time Page 16
