“What’s going on? Why aren’t you people in your beds?”
He listened irritably to Amos’ story, reflected on the raw, chill night, and decided not to credit the report. “I’ve just patrolled the rear grounds myself.”
No one of us cared to comment on his crumpled coat and collar, his sleep-heavy eyes. When the deputy suggested curtly that we go to bed, we meekly obeyed.
XVIII
NEXT MORNING, WHEN I AWOKE, Patience was putting herself together and commenting happily on the first good night’s sleep she had enjoyed in days. I refrained from disturbing my great-aunt’s serenity. Amos’ account of the night marauder could wait, as could my own account of my adventure in the library.
I didn’t intend to make a secret of my expedition through the house; I merely decided to defer my report until breakfast. The others were gathered in the dining room when Patience and I went down.
Glenn leaped up from a heaping plate of bacon and eggs and found chairs for us. Cousin Hoy was sipping his usual milk, and as usual was eyeing mournfully the steaming coffee pot. Lucy was pouring a third cup for Richard, and declaring earnestly that she herself preferred to wait until a fresh pot appeared. Patience, assuming that everyone shared her passionate interest in her own personal well-being, rang for Wanda and began to inform the company of the exact degree and soundness of her sleep.
Glenn looked up from his plate. “How did you sleep, Anne?”
“Only reasonably well,” I replied, and cleared my throat. I awaited general attention. I suppose I have a certain sense of drama myself.
Glenn’s expression was a little odd. “I thought I heard you downstairs late last night.”
I saw Richard prick up his ears. And then Patience' chimed in. “You couldn’t have heard Anne. She was in with me, and she didn’t stir the whole night through. I’d have wakened if she had. The slightest sound,” she observed complacently, “brings me wide awake.”
Richard promptly lost interest. Glenn’s expression became odder still. I was exasperated that Patience had spoiled my story.
“I did come downstairs,” I said. “Around three o’clock.”
“I’d have heard you,” declared Patience, stubborn and annoyed. “The slightest noise . . .”
“I’m afraid you were fast asleep, Aunt Patience. I took pains not to disturb you. But I did come down.”
“Whatever for?” she demanded tartly.
At that moment Wanda came in with the coffee. Ordinarily, it would never have occurred to me to attempt to lay any kind of trap. But the circumstances were too perfect. The girl had entered on the question and I let her hear my answer.
“I wasn’t sleepy, Aunt Patience. I stopped in the library for a book.”
Wanda understood. Her slim body stiffened. She didn’t drop the coffeepot, but her hands shook as she placed it on the table. A few drops of coffee spattered on the cloth.
“Try to be more careful!” said Patience irritably. “And we like our coffee strong. I suppose there’s no hope of getting Eliot on his feet today.”
“He’s worse,” said Wanda. “Much worse today.”
The girl didn’t look in my direction, but I could feel her concentrating all her force on me, willing me to hold my tongue. If there had been anything appealing in her manner, it’s barely possible I might have hesitated. She did not appeal; instead, silent, hostile and aggressive, she virtually defied me to speak. The moment she left the room, I spoke.
“I saw Eliot coming from the library last night. He looked extremely healthy. He took away a book to read, Great-grandfather’s Fight to Free the Slaves.”
I suppose it was foolish of me to expect that piece of information to fall like a bombshell. My bald phrases could not convey the scene as I had experienced it. I had not drawn too well that picture of Eliot Frawley, supposedly very ill, stealing from the library with his book, his alarm at hearing me, his quick recovery. But the family’s reception of my story was mystifying nevertheless.
Except for Great-aunt Lucy, who didn’t count, it seemed to me that no one was in the least surprised. Cousin Hoy continued to sip his milk. Patience reached out for a piece of toast and took a bite of it. Richard’s reaction was curious. He was not surprised—but I did think he was disturbed in some indefinite, subtle way, and that Glenn had noticed it, and was watching him. Richard kept on stirring his coffee, which might have been a natural gesture except that there was no coffee in the cup.
“Eliot looked very healthy,” I repeated.
Patience suddenly laid down the toast, pushed back her chair, and began to struggle to her feet. “If Eliot is well enough to run about at night and borrow other people’s property, he’s plenty well enough to do his work.”
“Sit, sister, sit.” Richard sounded excessively bored and weary. He observed his empty cup, started slightly and put aside his spoon. “It’s obvious the man’s malingering—has been from the first. But how are you to drag the chap from bed? Solomon himself could not compel a sulky servant to put his shoulder to the wheel.”
Patience was easily persuaded to agree with this. She sat down with alacrity. She made Richard’s theme her own. If Eliot chose to play the invalid, we could not compel him to do his work. We could report him to the Sheriff, report the fact that the butler stayed abed by day and skulked about the house by night, but there was nothing else that we could do.
Apparently, no one was interested in Eliot’s behavior except from the single standpoint of his lack of consideration for the family, and the inconvenience entailed thereby. It was very curious. The family seemed anxious only to table the topic, and get it over with. Patience had no interest in why Eliot would want to read my greatgrandfather’s book; she merely made a mental note to get it back at once.
My distinct impression was that the Hieronomos wished I had remained peacefully in my bed. In consequence I kept to myself Amos’ story of the night marauder. They could learn it elsewhere—from Amos or from Eliot. They would learn no more from me.
Later in the morning, when I decided to put Amos’ story to the test, I went alone. I did think of calling Glenn when I left the house, and afterwards was to be heartily glad I had not.
My idea was to locate Amos, ask him for details, and trace the course that he had taken the night before. With that in mind, I started for the barn. The day was unseasonably warm. The thaw had already set in, and the snow was slushy underfoot, marred and trampled, all its hibernal glory gone. Here and there a white patch showed, but I found it difficult to follow the route that Amos had covered when he came running, breathless with his news, his lantern swinging in his hand, from the barn to the house. To locate the earlier route—to find any physical evidence of that flight and pursuit—it was patent I would need further information.
Everything looked used and ugly. The brilliant sun shone unkindly on the neglected winter garden, touched with cruel fingers the battered shingles and the absurd cupola that topped the barn, made Hieronomo House itself a mansion that had passed its prime. The front of the house, the portico and balcony, shone with fresh new paint, but Great-aunt Amanda had run out of money before she reached the rear. The melting snow emphasized the ugliness. And the high board fence stretched in the sunshine like a black line of spite and hate, and threw its own dark and sinister shadow upon the slushy ground.
I didn’t pause beside the fence.
Amos wasn’t in the barn. Princess and Betsy had the dusty, dusky place to themselves. The Negro had fed and watered the beasts and gone about those manifold tasks which the rest of us found too uncomfortable to do. His lantern was hanging on a hook outside an empty stall, waiting, I dare say, for his next patrol.
I tiptoed to the groom’s room and peered in. The very smell and feel of the barn brought inevitably to my mind the woman with the brassy hair. I could almost see her seated on the cot; and again I was struck with wonder. She had made herself so much at home. I remembered how, when I had first glimpsed her early on the day of Aunt Amanda’s de
ath, she had stood boldly in the cupola. I remembered how she had stared from her height.
I climbed the ladder to the cupola. Once there, I gazed toward the little slope, studded by the three yellow pines which had caught the woman’s fascinated attention. Except that the melting snow revealed the rocky substance that composed the little slope, it looked exactly as it had looked when I had studied it on that previous occasion. No more interesting.
Amos’ lantern, in its peregrinations the night before, had been nowhere near the slope, but had wandered in exactly the opposite direction. I turned my back upon the little hill, and resumed the investigation which had brought me to the barn. I had a piece of luck. From the height I managed to pick out the clump of currant bushes which had caused the running Negro’s downfall. I made out the very spot where he had sprawled. One bush was crushed almost flat, and the soft earth around was broken and disturbed.
I descended from the cupola, quit the barn and started toward the currant bushes. They grew in an unkempt tangle and not far away was a weather-beaten birdhouse that someone—Amos probably—had nailed to a pole embedded in the ground. Wrens lived there in summer. A family of snowbirds was now in proud possession. I vaguely noticed that the mother bird was fluttering in and out the minute entrance to the little house, chattering and scolding.
I fixed my eyes upon the ground. Even in the slush it seemed to me that I could trace the confused footprints of two separate persons. I stopped at the spot where Amos took his fall, and had been compelled to abandon his pursuit.
I began to feel excited. The Negro had not been deluded or mistaken; he had indeed pursued a marauder through the night. For blurred marks continued on beyond the bushes, and they became the footprints of one running person. The marks stopped abruptly at the birdhouse, and were lost thereafter in a waste of slush and liquid mud.
I started toward the birdhouse, and hesitated at the sound of approaching voices. I turned around. Two men were moving toward the currant bushes. One of them was Amos. The other was Sheriff Glick.
“Right here—at the currant bushes—is where I lost the fellow,” the Negro was saying.
Over the tangled bushes the two men glimpsed me. Amos gazed at me with an expression of astonishment—astonishment touched, or so I thought, with uneasiness. Glick was unperturbed.
He said dryly, “Good morning, Miss Hieronomo. You seem to have anticipated our investigation.”
I admitted that.
Amos, who had quite recovered himself, now beamed at me approvingly. “This here is a smart young lady, Sheriff Glick. She knows when old Amos tells her he heard someone running that it’s not imagination or a bad dream, either. Which is more than can be said for some other white folks I could mention.”
Aside from a scowl that boded ill for the luckless Bevins, Glick made no comment. Certainly he did not thank me for my cooperation. I awaited a suggestion that I remove myself, but none was forthcoming. I stood exactly where the two men had discovered me, and didn’t move and tried to make myself inconspicuous.
Glick seemed to dismiss me from his mind. He stooped over to examine the blurred and single line of prints that continued beyond the currant bushes. He paused beside the most perfect set, preserved in a still unbroken patch of snow. He took a little folding ruler from his pocket and measured length and breadth.
“It was a man,” he remarked presently, “who left these prints. The size of the shoe was either an eleven or a twelve—it’s difficult to be exact because of the condition of the ground—but no woman, trained athletes excepted, runs like a man. This was a tall man.”
“I knew it was a man all along,” said Amos comfortably.
“Tall?” inquired Sheriff Glick.
“It was dark,” replied the Negro slowly. “I couldn’t see.”
“You had a lantern.”
It seemed to me that Amos hesitated.
“I was running too fast myself to be doing any looking. And the lantern was close to the ground.”
I thought of a question myself.
“How can you know the man was tall?”
“By the length of the stride,” replied the Sheriff, and still studied Amos. “You can tell he was in a hurry by the way he placed his feet. The heel of a running person will seldom leave any mark on the ground he’s covering—what you find is the ball alone. But a slower moving person will leave the impression of his heels. That tells me,” said the Sheriff musingly, “that the intruder was running faster than you were, Amos. A good deal faster.”
“I told you he got away,” said the Negro.
“I don’t wonder that he did,” observed Sheriff Glick. A peculiar note in his tone struck my ear. But Amos seemed indifferent. He was staring at the birdhouse. The mother bird had abandoned her trips in and out the minute circular entrance, and was fluttering distractedly overhead, continuously uttering agitated little cries.
“Seems like that bird got something on her mind,” said Amos suddenly. “I’ve seen them act like that when there’s a snake around.”
“A snake in midwinter!”
Glick raised his eyes to the wheeling, crying mother snowbird. He gazed again at Amos, and then he moved upon the birdhouse. The entrance was too small to admit his hand, but he thrust two fingers through the aperture. It was evident from his face that he had touched something that interested him, but that he couldn’t bring it forth. Amos’ question was ill-timed and unnecessary.
“Is there something there?” he asked.
Glick made no reply. Slowly and deliberately he took out a pocket knife and went to work. The birdhouse was old, and the wood was rotted. But it seemed to me that Glick, usually so quick and expert, was maddeningly inept. Minutes passed before he loosened and removed the front wall of the little residence.
The nest inside, and the three tiny eggs that burdened it, were at last revealed. Beside the nest, encroaching on the eggs, lay a slim cloth bag. The bag was stamped with faded numerals, tied with a stout drawstring.
No one spoke.
Glick picked up the bag, untied the string. There poured into his hand a thin stream of gold pieces. Glittering, intensely yellow gold, as fresh as on the day it had been minted. I had seen few gold coins before. I saw now a heap of fifty-dollar gold pieces, each piece (as I later learned) dated 1913.
“God Almighty!” Amos’ ejaculation had an unreal air. “I wonder could that be my old master’s money—come to light at last.”
“Part of it perhaps,” said Sheriff Glick. Cool and seemingly unexcited, he consulted the numerals on the bag. “There should be exactly fifteen hundred dollars here. I’ll count and see.”
The count, which he made methodically, bore him out. Fifteen hundred dollars in gold had been concealed in the birdhouse. There were two clues to its origin.
One was the date upon the coins—that date 1913, the year in which my great-grandfather died. And the other was the line of footprints left by the intruder on the grounds, the line of footprints that stopped squarely at the bird house and was thereafter lost.
Said Amos, “The gold wasn’t in the birdhouse yesterday. The fellow I chased last night must have shoved it there when I fell at the currant bushes. I reckon I scared him.”
“I reckon you did,” said Sheriff Glick.
“But what I want to know,” demanded Amos, “is whether the gold has anything to do with what happened to Mrs. Silver.”
“I’d like to know myself,” replied the Sheriff suavely.
He gave Amos a long, sardonic stare. The stare passed on to me. But the Sheriff didn’t ask us any questions.
“I trust,” said he, “you won’t mention this to anyone.”
He didn’t linger to enforce his order. He turned on his heel and left us. It was as abrupt as that—and was very disconcerting. It was as though Sheriff Glick informed the two of us that he needed us no longer, that we had served our purpose, that, for the moment, he washed his hands of us. Later on he would return. In the meantime he would keep to himself
his own conclusions. Very rapidly he walked away. With him went the small cloth bag of gold.
Several thoughts came to me. I alone had been confounded by the discovery of the gold in that fantastic hiding place. The Sheriff hadn’t been excited, nor had Amos. Both men, the black man and the white, had seemed in some subtle way to be prepared beforehand. In other words, it seemed to me that each, by independent means, had arrived somehow at an answer for a revelation that only I had considered incredible.
It didn’t occur to me that the two men were in sympathy, that they shared any kind of secret understanding. The Sheriff’s long, sardonic stare had been meant for Amos. But it had included me. Why?
I knew nothing of how that gold had reached the birdhouse. My conscience was entirely clear. Even in that mood of his, I think I meant to pursue the Sheriff and tell him so. At any rate, I started after him.
I took one step only, and then I stopped. The Sheriff’s little lecture on the mute evidence to be read from footprints hadn’t really interested me. No doubt he could have deduced, by examining the twin prints I left behind, that a young woman, five feet three and wearing sturdy brogues, had stood in one position motionless for many minutes. But I would never have stopped short and slowly turned around if it hadn’t been for Amos. From the corner of my eye, I caught his expression. His eyes had widened slightly. He was gazing at the spot where I had stood. I looked there, too.
I saw then what I had been standing on. Trodden almost flat by the pressure of my heel, but still bright as blood against the snow, lay a tiny crimson feather.
XIX
THERE COULD HAVE BEEN IN THE WORLD many hats decorated with tiny crimson feathers. I thought of only one —a soft brown hat with two little feathers tucked jauntily in the band, a soft brown hat worn rakishly aslant a yellow head.
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