Читать книгу The Disappearance of Anne Shaw - Augusta Huiell Seaman - Страница 6

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THERE was dead silence after that uncanny sound. When Mercedes had recovered from the immobility of sheer terror, she stood for a moment undecided whether to rush off to the garden to find Sanford or go forward into the house to see what was the matter. That desperate shriek could only mean that someone was badly in need of help. Somehow it seemed cowardly to rush off, and she heard the boy chasing wildly down the path toward the Bay in pursuit of the cow, which had bolted out of the garden and was plunging away to freedom. Someone in that house needed her help. Taking her courage in both hands she entered the open hall door.

“Is anybody here?” she called up the dark staircase. There was no reply. The silence and the darkness pressed on her like a leaden weight. She felt as if she could hardly breathe, but, having entered upon the undertaking, she vowed to herself that she would not back out now. After all, what was there that could hurt her? A poor, forlorn, helpless old lady might be in dire need of assistance in this deserted place, and she, Mercedes Haynes, was not going to be the one to forsake her in a possible hour of need.

“I know that sound came from upstairs,” she muttered to herself. “Perhaps I’d better go up and see where she is. She must be ill or have fallen down and injured herself or something.”

Slowly and cautiously she proceeded up the stairs, her eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the dimness. A window at the head of the stairs showed her faintly the direction of the upper hall, and she followed this hall along its entire length, peering into all of a number of rooms that opened into it, and calling at intervals, “Is anyone here? Is anything the matter?” In the fast-waning twilight she could just perceive that every room was empty of human occupation. Then a sudden idea struck her.

“She must be up in that cupola,” she decided. “I’m just certain I saw a face up there. I wonder how I could get up?” There was a third floor, she realized, over the one she was now on, and the cupola was above that. But where were the stairs? Retracing her steps to the head of the first flight, she found a partly open door which she discovered led to another stairway. Hurrying up this one, she spied at last the ladderlike steps that led undoubtedly to the cupola, and questioning or calling no further, she scrambled up them and found herself at last enclosed in the tiny space that formed the cupola. One glance sufficed her to ascertain that there was no one else there.

“Well, this is a mystery!” she muttered. “I’d better go right down and find Sanford—or somebody.” But before she went she stood a moment looking out through the open windows at the magnificent view from the four sides of the cupola—the darkening ocean with the Coast Guard Station looming up not far away, the long stretch of dunes to north and south, the wild reach of dense woodland carpeting the narrow belt of land as far as eye could see, the last faint glow of sunset over the Bay. “I don’t wonder anyone likes to come up here,” she thought. “That view just takes your breath!”

She turned to go down the ladder and, as she did so, she stumbled over something on the floor at her feet. Stooping mechanically to find out what it was, she discovered it to be a long, old-fashioned telescope or brass spyglass.

“She must have dropped this in a hurry,” thought Mercedes. “That means she went down from here after I saw the face—if it was she! Now I’m going straight to find Sanford. He must be wondering where I went.” Hurrying down the next two flights and out the front door, she found Sanford walking round the house and peering up at it and calling her name, and he met her with obvious wonder written large on his countenance.

“Where—where”—he stuttered—“how come you’ve been inside that house—alone? I—I’m sorry I had to leave you. Just got that contrary beast, Dolly, shut up in her barnyard. She led me clear down to the Bay. But why did you go in there? Weren’t you afraid?”

“There’s something the matter in there, Sanford,” she panted breathlessly. “Just as you started to chase the cow, I saw a face up there in the cupola and heard a perfectly blood-curdling shriek. And I was afraid the old lady was hurt, or something was the matter; and you were ’way off and couldn’t hear me call, so I just went in to see if I could be of any help. I couldn’t do anything else—could I?” The boy looked at her with real admiration.

“Gee! But you’re braver than I’d have been,” he acknowledged. “I’d have hated to go in there after hearing—that.”

“Yes, but you would have gone just the same,” insisted Mercedes. “I hated it too, but I didn’t dare not to. But, Sanford, I can’t find anyone there. There’s absolutely no one in the house, I think. I even went up to the cupola, where I thought I’d seen a face, and that was empty too. Only the old telescope was lying on the floor.”

“Did you look in the kitchen and other rooms downstairs?” inquired the boy. “She spends a lot of time there. Let’s go look now. She may have got hurt or something. But she’s so queer—there’s no telling.”

They both went in through the front door to the now absolutely dark hall, and Sanford produced a small electric torch from his pocket, which was a welcome addition to their quest. Through a deserted and long-unused dining room they passed to the big, dark panelled kitchen beyond. The place was absolutely void of any human being. Half a dozen cats scampered off the back steps at their approach and disappeared under the house.

“She keeps ’em by the dozens,” Sanford announced. “Seems to be crazy about ’em. I guess she must have about fifteen around here now. Well, she isn’t here. I took a squint into the parlor as we went by, and that was empty too. Now the only thing to do is look out in the chicken yard or the barn. Though how she could have got out there without either of us seeing her, I don’t quite understand.”

They ran out through the kitchen door, down the steps, and out through a rather ill-kept chicken yard to the tumbledown barn where the flashlight revealed only a time-worn, battered surrey and some rusty farming implements. No living being was within its walls. They stood and looked at each other, baffled.

“There’s only one other place,” Sanford finally declared, “and that’s the old pump over in the bushes where she gets her drinking water. She won’t drink the water from that pump in the kitchen. You stay here a minute while I run over and see.”

He left her standing by the veranda near the front steps and darted into the thick shrubbery just south of the house. While he was gone, Mercedes stood there listening to the faint wood sounds, the creaking and crackling and chirpings—and had time to marvel at the queer muddle into which she had been so unceremoniously plunged. Was it possible that she only a few hours ago arrived in this totally unfamiliar location, become acquainted with these new people, strolled along the beach feeling lonesome and a little resentful that Ken had gone off and left her to her own devices so soon? And here she was, not half an hour later, hunting frantically for a hitherto totally unknown and as yet unseen old lady, and had been alone through a dark house reputed to be haunted! Life was certainly a strange affair!

Sanford came back at this point, preceded by the flash of his torch, and announced no luck at the pump in the bushes. “Though there’s one of her pails standing by it,” he added. “But I don’t somehow think she could have got out there after you heard that noise. She’d have had to pass right by you, and you’d surely have seen her. There’ve been funny things happen in that house, but we never heard any shrieking before. Something must be the matter with her, but where she could have got to beats me. I think we’d better go over now and get some of the Coast Guard fellows on the job hunting for her. It’s kind of up to them, anyway, to see that everybody’s safe around here. Let’s go right away.”

Lighted by his electric torch, they found their way back through the lane to the Matson cottage, and at the door Sanford paused to say, “I’ll go into the Station and tell the fellows. They’ll get up a search party and go through the woods, and we’ll hunt all over the house again, too. She might have fallen down somewhere and be lying where you couldn’t see her upstairs.”

“And please send Ken out to me, won’t you?” begged Mercedes. “Unless he wants to join the search party. But I’m kind of anxious to see him now.”

Sanford agreed and disappeared into the Station, while she went to sit on the little screened porch alone and stare over at the Coast Guard Station, whose lighted windows made the darkness more cheerful. Presently a number of young Coast Guardsmen came out, headed by Sanford Matson and hurried off in the direction of the old Shaw place, while her brother Ken strolled over to join her.

“What’s all the row about?” he demanded. “Seems to me you got into a powerful mix-up the minute I left you alone. Couldn’t make it all out from Skinny’s rather disjointed tale, but I gather that there’s something the matter with old lady Shaw.”

Carefully and with considerable detail his sister gave him a history of the evening’s adventure, to which he listened with growing excitement. When she finished he exclaimed:

“Cracky! But you seem to have tumbled into a real humdinger of a mystery—I’ll have to hand it to you! Guess I’ll run over and join the boys and see if I can lend a hand.” And he was off the veranda while his sister was protesting:

“Oh, don’t go! Or take me with you if you do. I’ve been left alone by you long enough this evening.”

“Well, hurry up, then!” he cried. “Don’t know what they may be up to, but you’d better stick pretty close to me. You’re apt to get lost here if you don’t know your way around.”

With renewed excitement Mercedes plunged along in the dark after her brother, and presently they brought up in front of the old house where two or three of the Coast Guards were skirmishing around in the bushes.

“Hullo, Dane! Found anything yet?” called out Ken. A tall young fellow answered:

“Not yet, Ken. We’re going to beat up right around here while the others are going through the house again. Then we’ll divide up and go north and south through the woods. She can’t have got very far away. The beach patrol will keep an eye out for her on that side of the dunes. Come along with us if you will. The more the merrier.”

“All right. This is my sister, boys. You’ll meet her more ceremoniously to-morrow. Can’t see anyone much in this darkness, anyhow. We’ll stick around wherever we can be most useful.”

Two of the boys had flashlight torches, and Ken and Mercedes followed them as they pushed their way through the undergrowth, turning the lights into all the obscure or possible corners, without, however, discovering the faintest trace of a human being. Presently the contingent that had been searching the house came out, declaring that they had nosed into every nook and cranny in the house without the slightest success and were now prepared to join the search party to go through the woods.

“This won’t do for you, Mercy,” declared her brother. “They may be at it all night, and it’s no place for a girl—in that wilderness. I’ll take you back to the house, and you’d better go to bed. Skinny and I will stick around with the fellows and see if we can help out.” And he hurried her back to the house, leaving her in the care of Mrs. Matson, to whom she had to retail the whole affair.

“That woman’s the queerest piece of work I ever heard tell of,” commented the Captain’s wife. “I’ve lived here fifteen whole years, and I’m hardly on speaking terms with her yet. She raises chickens, and I go over and buy some—or eggs—once in a while, but that’s all I ever see of her. Sanford, he goes over and does some work for her sometimes, carpentering and such-like that’s too heavy for her, but mostly she does everything herself and doesn’t want anyone else around. They say she spends a lot of time up in that tower looking out with a telescope. I’m sure I dunno what for. But I can’t think what may have happened to her to-night. And where she could have got to sure is a puzzle.”

“I’ve heard that they say the house is haunted,” commented Mercy. “Of course I don’t take any stock in that sort of thing. What do you think about it, Mrs. Matson?”

“Well, I ain’t never seen the ghost that could convince me, yet,” asserted Mrs. Matson dryly. “And I never go over to that house except in broad daylight, so I really don’t feel able to say. But the Coast Guard fellers, they prowl around there pretty often, and according to their yarns the old ranch is just sizzlin’ with queer sights and sounds. I don’t believe a quarter of ’em, though. They say that, certain times, she’ll stay up in that tower all night peering round with the telescope—goodness knows what at! And she always keeps a lamp burning all night in one of those upper windows that look south. And sometimes they hear moaning or strange sounds like—well, I dunno what. I never heard any. And one of the fellers declares he heard talking on that veranda all of one night, pretty near—two people—though there wasn’t a soul on the veranda nowhere. He stayed in the bushes and watched. Well, anyhow,” she ended, rising, “I’m going to bed, and I guess you better go too. Ain’t no manner of use sitting up for them fellers to come back—they may be gone all night.”

Mercedes also rose and went into her tiny room and prepared for bed. But for long hours afterwards she lay there sleepless, mulling over the surprising events of the evening, listening to the never ceasing wash and thud of the breakers just beyond the dunes, and wishing that her brother would come back. At last she heard his voice bidding good-night to some of the Coast Guards, and his steps plowing through the sand to the veranda. When she had heard him enter the house and tiptoe softly past her door, she got up and opened the door and called to him in a whisper:

“Oh, Ken! Do tell me if you found anything!”

“Nothing but one thing,” he whispered back. “We beat it down—at least the fellows that I was with did—through that path that goes south a couple of miles or so from her house. And we never saw a trace of her except one thing near the entrance of the woods. There lay—right in the middle of the path—a pair of old-fashioned silver-rimmed spectacles that the Coast Guards declare belong to the old lady. She wears ’em all the time. Can’t see without ’em, probably. But that was absolutely all. Can you beat it? She couldn’t have got far in that tangle, even if she had gone to the end, so we all thought, and we decided that she must have turned around and come back. So we all came back, and the fellows went on to join the other party. I decided I’d better get some sleep if I’m going to do any fishing to-morrow, so I turned in. Enough of ’em to hunt, anyway, and they know the ground better than I do. Pretty slick little mystery, isn’t it? Well, I’m going to turn in. Don’t let it worry you. The old lady probably’ll be found safe and sound in the morning, pottering about as per usual. Good-night!”

But in spite of the salt breath of the ocean through her window, and the measured music of its rhythm, there was little sleep for Mercedes Haynes during the remainder of that night.