The Indian Drum by William MacHarg (classic english novels txt) 📕

Sherrill had not done that, nor any one who had a business to be there. If Benjamin Corvet had emptied some of those drawers before he went away, he would not have relocked empty drawers. To Alan, the marks of violence and roughness were unmistakably the work of the man with the big hands who had left marks upon the top of the chest of drawers; and the feeling that he had been in the house very recently was stronger than ever.

Alan ran out into the hall and listened; he heard no sound; but he went back to the little room more excited than before. For what had the other man been searching? For the same things which Alan was looking for? And had the other man got them? Who might the other be, and what might be his connection with Benjamin Corvet? Alan had no doubt that everything of importance must have been taken away, but he would make sure of that. He took some of the papers from the drawers and began to examine them; after nearly an hour of this, he had found only one article which appeared connected in any way with what Sherrill had told him or with Alan himself. In one of the little drawers of the desk he found several books, much worn as though from being carried in a pocket, and one of these contained a series of entries stretching over several years. These listed an amount—$150.—opposite a series of dates with only the year and the month given, and there was an entry for every second month.

Alan felt his fingers trembling as he turned the pages of the little book and found at the end of the list a blank, and below, in the same hand but in writing which had changed slightly with the passage of years, another date and the confirming entry of $1,500. The other papers and books were only such things as might accumulate during a lifetime on the water and in business—government certificates, manifests, boat schedules of times long gone by, and similar papers. Alan looked through the little book again and put it in his pocket. It was, beyond doubt, his father's memorandum of the sums sent to Blue Rapids for Alan; it told him that here he had been in his father's thoughts; in this little room, within a few steps from those deserted apartments of his wife, Benjamin Corvet had sent "Alan's dollar"—that dollar which had been such a subject of speculation in his childhood for himself and for all the other children. He grew warm at the thought as he began putting the other things back into the drawers.

He started and straightened suddenly; then he listened attentively, and his skin, warm an instant before, turned cold and prickled. Somewhere within the house, unmistakably on the floor below him, a door had slammed. The wind, which had grown much stronger in the last hour, was battering the windows and whining round the corners of the building; but the house was tightly closed; it could not be the wind that had blown the door shut. Some one—it was beyond question now, for the realization was quite different from the feeling he had had about that before—was in the house with him. Had his father's servant come back? That was impossible; Sherrill had received a wire from the man that day, and he could not get back to Chicago before the following morning at the earliest. But the servant, Sherrill had said, was the only other one besides his father who had a key. Was it ... his father who had come back? That, though not impossible, seemed improbable.

Alan stooped quickly, unlaced and stripped off his shoes, and ran out into the hall to the head of the stairs where he looked down and listened. From here the sound of some one moving about came to him distinctly; he could see no light below, but when he ran down to the turn of the stairs, it became plain that there was a very dim and flickering light in the library. He crept on farther down the staircase. His hands were cold and moist from his excitement, and his body was hot and trembling.

Whoever it was that was moving about down-stairs, even if he was not one who had a right to be there, at least felt secure from interruption. He was going with heavy step from window to window; where he found a shade up, he pulled it down brusquely and with a violence which suggested great strength under a nervous strain; a shade, which had been pulled down, flew up, and the man damned it as though it had startled him; then, after an instant, he pulled it down again.

Alan crept still farther down and at last caught sight of him. The man was not his father; he was not a servant; it was equally sure at the same time that he was not any one who had any business to be in the house and that he was not any common house-breaker.

He was a big, young-looking man, with broad shoulders and very evident vigor; Alan guessed his age at thirty-five; he was handsome—he had a straight forehead over daring, deep-set eyes; his nose, lips, and chin were powerfully formed; and he was expensively and very carefully dressed. The light by which Alan saw these things came from a flat little pocket searchlight that the man carried in one hand, which threw a little brilliant circle of light as he directed it; and now, as the light chanced to fall on his other hand—powerful and heavily muscled—Alan recollected the look and size of the finger prints on the chest of drawers upstairs. He did not doubt that this was the same man who had gone through the desk; but since he had already rifled the desks, what did he want here now? As the man moved out of sight, Alan crept on down as far as the door to the library; the man had gone on into the rear room, and Alan went far enough into the library so he could see him.

He had pulled open one of the drawers in the big table in the rear room—the room where the organ was and where the bookshelves reached to the ceiling—and with his light held so as to show what was in it, he was tumbling over its contents and examining them. He went through one after another of the drawers of the table like this; after examining them, he rose and kicked the last one shut disgustedly; he stood looking about the room questioningly, then he started toward the front room.

He cast the light of his torch ahead of him; but Alan had time to anticipate his action and to retreat to the hall. He held the hangings a little way from the door jamb so he could see into the room. If this man were the same who had looted the desk up-stairs, it was plain that he had not procured there what he wanted or all of what he wanted; and now he did not know where next to look.

He had, as yet, neither seen nor heard anything to alarm him, and as he went to the desk in the front room and peered impatiently into the drawers, he slammed them shut, one after another. He straightened and stared about. "Damn Ben! Damn Ben!" he ejaculated violently and returned to the rear room. Alan, again following him, found him on his knees in front of one of the drawers under the bookcases. As he continued searching through the drawers, his irritation became greater and greater. He jerked one drawer entirely out of its case, and the contents flew in every direction; swearing at it, and damning "Ben" again, he gathered up the letters. One suddenly caught his attention; he began reading it closely, then snapped it back into the drawer, crammed the rest on top of it, and went on to the next of the files. He searched in this manner through half a dozen drawers, plainly finding nothing at all he wanted; he dragged some of the books from their cases, felt behind them and shoved back some of the books but dropped others on the floor and blasphemy burst from him.

He cursed "Ben" again and again, and himself, and God; he damned men by name, but so violently and incoherently that Alan could not make out the names; terribly he swore at men living and men "rotting in Hell." The beam of light from the torch in his hand swayed aside and back and forth. Without warning, suddenly it caught Alan as he stood in the dark of the front room; and as the dim white circle of light gleamed into Alan's face, the man looked that way and saw him.

The effect of this upon the man was so strange and so bewildering to Alan that Alan could only stare at him. The big man seemed to shrink into himself and to shrink back and away from Alan. He roared out something in a bellow thick with fear and horror; he seemed to choke with terror. There was nothing in his look akin to mere surprise or alarm at realizing that another was there and had been seeing and overhearing him. The light which he still gripped swayed back and forth and showed him Alan again, and he raised his arm before his face as he recoiled.

The consternation of the man was so complete that it checked Alan's rush toward him; he halted, then advanced silently and watchfully. As he went forward, and the light shone upon his face again, the big man cried out hoarsely:

"Damn you—damn you, with the hole above your eye! The bullet got you! And now you've got Ben! But you can't get me! Go back to Hell! You can't get me! I'll get you—I'll get you! You—can't save the Miwaka!"

He drew back his arm and with all his might hurled the flashlight at Alan. It missed and crashed somewhere behind him, but did not go out; the beam of light shot back and wavered and flickered over both of them, as the torch rolled on the floor. Alan rushed forward and, thrusting through the dark, his hand struck the man's chest and seized his coat.

The man caught at and seized Alan's arm; he seemed to feel of it and assure himself of its reality.

"Flesh! Flesh!" he roared in relief; and his big arms grappled Alan. As they struggled, they stumbled and fell to the floor, the big man underneath. His hand shifted its hold and caught Alan's throat; Alan got an arm free and, with all his force, struck the man's face. The man struck back—a heavy blow on the side of Alan's head which dizzied him but left him strength to strike again, and his knuckles reached the man's face once more, but he got another heavy blow in return. The man was grappling no longer; he swung Alan to one side and off of him, and rolled himself away. He scrambled to his feet and dashed out through the library, across the hall, and into the service room. Alan heard his feet clattering down the stairway to the floor beneath. Alan got to his feet; dizzied and not yet familiar with the house, he blundered against a wall and had to feel his way along it to the service room; as he slipped and stumbled down the stairway, a door closed loudly at the end of the corridor he had seen at the foot of the stairs. He ran along the corridor to the door; it had closed with a spring lock, and seconds passed while he felt in the dark for the catch; he found it and tore the door open, and came out suddenly into the cold air of the night in a paved