The House of a Thousand Candles - Meredith Nicholson (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

half a dozen blows broke it off.

 

“The house of a thousand ghosts,” chanted the irrepressible

Larry, as I pushed the door open and crawled

through.

 

Whatever the place was it had a floor and I set my

feet firmly upon it and turned to take the lantern.

 

“Hold a bit,” he exclaimed. “Some one’s coming,”

—and bending toward the opening I heard the sound

of steps down the corridor. In a moment Bates ran up,

calling my name with more spirit than I imagined possible

in him.

 

“What is it?” I demanded, crawling out into the

tunnel.

 

“It’s Mr. Pickering. The sheriff has come with him,

sir.”

 

As he spoke his glance fell upon the broken wall and

open door. The light of Larry’s lantern struck full

upon him. Amazement, and, I thought, a certain satisfaction,

were marked upon his countenance.

 

“Run along, Jack—I’ll be up a little later,” said

Larry. “If the fellow has come in daylight with the

sheriff, he isn’t dangerous. It’s his friends that shoot

in the dark that give us the trouble.”

 

I crawled out and stood upright. Bates, staring at

the opening, seemed reluctant to leave the spot.

 

“You seem to have found it, sir,” he said—I thought

a little chokingly. His interest in the matter nettled

me; for my first business was to go above for an interview

with the executor, and the value of our discovery

was secondary.

 

“Of course we have found it!” I ejaculated, brushing

the dust from my clothes. “Is Mr. Stoddard in the

library?”

 

“Oh, yes, sir; I left him entertaining the gentlemen.”

 

“Their visit is certainly most inopportune,” said

Larry. “Give them my compliments and tell them I’ll

be up as soon as I’ve articulated the bones of my friend’s

ancestors.”

 

Bates strode on ahead of me with his lantern, and I

left Larry crawling through the new-found door as I

hurried toward the house. I knew him well enough to

be sure he would not leave the spot until he had found

what lay behind the Door of Bewilderment.

 

“You didn’t tell the callers where you expected to

find me, did you?” I asked Bates, as he brushed me off

in the kitchen.

 

“No, sir. Mr. Stoddard received the gentlemen. He

rang the bell for me and when I went into the library

he was saying, ‘Mr. Glenarm is at his studies. Bates,’—

he says—‘kindly tell Mr. Glenarm that I’m sorry to interrupt

him, but won’t he please come down?’ I thought

it rather neat, sir, considering his clerical office. I

knew you were below somewhere, sir; the trap-door was

open and I found you easily enough.”

 

Bates’ eyes were brighter than I had ever seen them.

A certain buoyant note gave an entirely new tone to

his voice. He walked ahead of me to the library door,

threw it open and stood aside.

 

“Here you are, Glenarm,” said Stoddard. Pickering

and a stranger stood near the fireplace in their overcoats.

 

Pickering advanced and offered his hand, but I

turned away from him without taking it. His companion,

a burly countryman, stood staring, a paper in his

hand.

 

“The sheriff,” Pickering explained, “and our business

is rather personal—”

 

He glanced at Stoddard, who looked at me.

 

“Mr. Stoddard will do me the kindness to remain,”

I said and took my stand beside the chaplain.

 

“Oh!” Pickering ejaculated scornfully. “I didn’t

understand that you had established relations with the

neighboring clergy. Your taste is improving, Glenarm.”

 

“Mr. Glenarm is a friend of mine,” remarked Stoddard

quietly. “A very particular friend,” he added.

 

“I congratulate you—both.”

 

I laughed. Pickering was surveying the room as he

spoke—and Stoddard suddenly stepped toward him,

merely, I think, to draw up a chair for the sheriff; but

Pickering, not hearing Stoddard’s step on the soft rug

until the clergyman was close beside him, started perceptibly

and reddened.

 

It was certainly ludicrous, and when Stoddard faced

me again he was biting his lip.

 

“Pardon me!” he murmured.

 

“Now, gentlemen, will you kindly state your business?

My own affairs press me.”

 

Pickering was studying the cartridge boxes on the

library table. The sheriff, too, was viewing these effects

with interest not, I think, unmixed with awe.

 

“Glenarm, I don’t like to invoke the law to eject you

from this property, but I am left with no alternative.

I can’t stay out here indefinitely, and I want to know

what I’m to expect.”

 

“That is a fair question,” I replied. “If it were

merely a matter of following the terms of the will I

should not hesitate or be here now. But it isn’t the will,

or my grandfather, that keeps me, it’s the determination

to give you all the annoyance possible—to make it

hard and mighty hard for you to get hold of this house

until I have found why you are so much interested

in it.”

 

“You always had a grand way in money matters. As

I told you before you came out here, it’s a poor stake.

The assets consist wholly of this land and this house,

whose quality you have had an excellent opportunity

to test. You have doubtless heard that the country

people believe there is money concealed here—but I

dare say you have exhausted the possibilities. This is

not the first time a rich man has died leaving precious

little behind him.”

 

“You seem very anxious to get possession of a property

that you call a poor stake,” I said. “A few acres

of land, a half-finished house and an uncertain claim

upon a school-teacher!”

 

“I had no idea you would understand it,” he replied.

“The fact that a man may be under oath to perform

the solemn duties imposed upon him by the law would

hardly appeal to you. But I haven’t come here to debate

this question. When are you going to leave?”

 

“Not till I’m ready—thanks!”

 

“Mr. Sheriff, will you serve your writ?” he said, and

I looked to Stoddard for any hint from him as to what

I should do.

 

“I believe Mr. Glenarm is quite willing to hear whatever

the sheriff has to say to him,” said Stoddard. He

stepped nearer to me, as though to emphasize the fact

that he belonged to my side of the controversy, and the

sheriff read an order of the Wabana County Circuit

Court directing me, immediately, to deliver the house

and grounds into the keeping of the executor of the

will of the estate of John Marshall Glenarm.

 

The sheriff rather enjoyed holding the center of the

stage, and I listened quietly to the unfamiliar phraseology.

Before he had quite finished I heard a step in

the hall and Larry appeared at the door, pipe in mouth.

Pickering turned toward him frowning, but Larry paid

not the slightest attention to the executor, leaning

against the door with his usual tranquil unconcern.

 

“I advise you not to trifle with the law, Glenarm,”

said Pickering angrily. “You have absolutely no right

whatever to be here. And these other gentlemen—your

guests, I suppose—are equally trespassers under the

law.”

 

He stared at Larry, who crossed his legs for greater

ease in adjusting his lean frame to the door.

 

“Well, Mr. Pickering, what is the next step?” asked

the sheriff, with an importance that had been increased

by the legal phrases he had been reading.

 

“Mr. Pickering,” said Larry, straightening up and

taking the pipe from his mouth, “I’m Mr. Glenarm’s

counsel. If you will do me the kindness to ask the

sheriff to retire for a moment I should like to say a

few words to you that you might prefer to keep between

ourselves.”

 

I had usually found it wise to take any cue Larry

threw me, and I said:

 

“Pickering, this is Mr. Donovan, who has every authority

to act for me in the matter.”

 

Pickering looked impatiently from one to the other

of us.

 

“You seem to have the guns, the ammunition and the

numbers on your side,” he observed dryly.

 

“The sheriff may wait within call,” said Larry, and

at a word from Pickering the man left the room.

 

“Now, Mr. Pickering,”—Larry spoke slowly—“as

my friend has explained the case to me, the assets of

his grandfather’s estate are all accounted for—the land

hereabouts, this house, the ten thousand dollars in securities

and a somewhat vague claim against a lady

known as Sister Theresa, who conducts St. Agatha’s

School. Is that correct?”

 

“I don’t ask you to take my word for it, sir,” rejoined

Pickering hotly. “I have filed an inventory of the

estate, so far as found, with the proper authorities.”

 

“Certainly. But I merely wish to be sure of my facts

for the purpose of this interview, to save me the trouble

of going to the records. And, moreover, I am somewhat

unfamiliar with your procedure in this country. I am

a member, sir, of the Irish Bar. Pardon me, but I repeat

my question.”

 

“I have made oath—that, I trust, is sufficient even

for a member of the Irish Bar.”

 

“Quite so, Mr. Pickering,” said Larry, nodding his

head gravely.

 

He was not, to be sure, a presentable member of any

bar, for a smudge detracted considerably from the appearance

of one side of his face, his clothes were rumpled

and covered with black dust, and his hands were

black. But I had rarely seen him so calm. He recrossed

his legs, peered into the bowl of his pipe for a moment,

then asked, as quietly as though he were soliciting an

opinion of the weather:

 

“Will you tell me, Mr. Pickering, whether you yourself

are a debtor of John Marshall Glenarm’s estate?”

 

Pickering’s face grew white and his eyes stared, and

when he tried suddenly to speak his jaw twitched. The

room was so still that the breaking of a blazing log on

the andirons was a pleasant relief. We stood, the three

of us, with our eyes on Pickering, and in my own case

I must say that my heart was pounding my ribs at an

uncomfortable speed, for I knew Larry was not sparring

for time.

 

The blood rushed into Pickering’s face and he turned

toward Larry stormily.

 

“This is unwarrantable and infamous! My relations

with Mr. Glenarm are none of your business. When

you remember that after being deserted by his own flesh

and blood he appealed to me, going so far as to intrust

all his affairs to my care at his death, your reflection

is an outrageous insult. I am not accountable to you

or any one else!”

 

“Really, there’s a good deal in all that,” said Larry.

“We don’t pretend to any judicial functions. We are

perfectly willing to submit the whole business and all

my client’s acts to the authorities.”

 

(I would give much if I could reproduce some hint

of the beauty of that word authorities as it rolled from

Larry’s tongue!)

 

“Then, in God’s name, do it, you blackguards!”

roared Pickering.

 

Stoddard, sitting on a table, knocked his heels together

gently. Larry recrossed his legs and blew a

cloud of smoke. Then, after a quarter of a minute in

which he gazed at the ceiling with his quiet blue eyes,

he said:

 

“Yes; certainly, there are always the authorities. And

as I have a tremendous respect for your American institutions

I shall at once act on your suggestion. Mr.

Pickering, the estate is richer than you thought it was.

It holds, or will hold, your notes given to the decedent

for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

 

He drew from his pocket a brown envelope, walked

to where I stood