Читать книгу The Case of the Calico Crab - Augusta Huiell Seaman - Страница 3

Table of Contents

IT did not seem an afternoon for adventure. Not, at any rate, within the peaceful confines of Cedar Point. And yet it was to mark the beginning of the most exciting and mysterious events in the life of Stacy Newhall. It had been, up to this point, a very serene and uneventful life, as far as her own personal affairs were concerned. But a cold and brilliant late afternoon in January of 1942 was to change all that, though she didn’t realize it at the moment.

Peeling off one thick, knitted glove, she extracted a key from her handbag and unlocked the padlock which secured the heavy iron gate. Opening the latter and closing it behind her, she relocked the padlock and slipped the key back into her bag. The padlock had felt like a lump of ice and she thankfully slipped her glove on again. Having passed the gate which was the only entrance to the long, five-mile estate on this ocean strip of land, she stood for a moment, trying to decide by which route she would make her way back home. There was the long, straight gravel road running down through the middle of this narrow strip of land between ocean and bay. Or, she might scramble across the dunes and trudge along the sand at the edge of the surf. The third course was a narrow path through the cedars and beach heather to the bay shore, which she could follow south till she came to her own house a mile or more farther on.

“I’ll take the bay side, I guess,” she decided. “It’ll be warmer and more sheltered in among the pines and cedars, and the sunset will be lovely across the bay. Besides, I might meet Dad. He was going to be out looking for golden-eye ducks this afternoon, somewhere up this way. There’s an important-looking letter for him in the mail I got, and he might like to have it as soon as possible.”

So thinking, she turned toward a narrow, sandy path that wound through the cedars and beach heather to the southwest and the shores of the bay. There had been heavy northeast rain that morning—and for several days past—till a shift in the wind to the northwest had cleared the skies earlier in the afternoon. The usually shifting sand was still damp and firm beneath her feet. The normally gray-colored heather retained the bronze hue that rain always lent it and glowed redly in the afternoon sun. Its contrast to the deep blue sky above was breathtaking, as was the bright green of the pines and the burnished sheen of occasional holly bushes, with their brilliant red clumps of berries. The air smelt of pine and cedar and salt. Stacy drew in great breaths of it and was glad she was alive and in this particular spot.

“Though it’s a queer contrast to last winter at this time!” she thought, as she trudged along. “Then I was still at boarding-school, getting ready to graduate in June. And there were parties and plays, and studying for tests and examinations, and all the social goings-on I’d been used to. Dad and Mother were still quietly at home, busy with college work. And Jim had just announced that he had enlisted in the aviation service. And now where is he? We don’t even know—!” But she must try not to dwell on that, so she brushed the thought from her mind as she emerged from a thick cedar growth into a clearing near the shore of the bay.

In the middle of this clearing stood an old, rambling, gray-shingled house, two stories high and topped in the middle of its roof by a four-sided, glass-windowed cupola. No smoke rose from its big brick chimney, no curtains draped its gaping windows. The house was obviously empty. Stacy knew that it was the old, original house that had stood on the property when Mr. Drew, her father’s friend, had bought this long strip of ocean land; and it was, up to that time, the only house on the five-mile stretch to the inlet. Mr. Drew had used it for a while as a hunting-lodge during the duck-shooting seasons, but had found it too uncomfortable and inconvenient. He had later built the pleasant, cosy house a mile or so farther south, and on somewhat higher ground. It was this latter house in which she and her family were now living. The old house, empty and abandoned, stood intact, and rather forlorn, looking out over the bay.

Stacy was about to skirt the side of it and get down to the shore, when she suddenly changed her mind and decided to go into the old house first and run up to the tower, from whence she could obtain a good view up and down the shore. Perhaps she could locate her father easier from that high point. The wind was rather piercing on the exposed bay shore, and if she should not see him, she had determined to keep within the shelter of the woods on the rest of her walk home. The house was supposed to be locked, but she knew that she could get into it through the cellar door and so make her way upstairs. The padlock on the cellar door had long ago rusted and been broken, and she often got in this way to get the view out over the bay from the cupola. Loosening the rusted padlock, she pulled up the door and hurried down the steps into the semi-darkness of the cellar.

It seemed very dark after the brilliant glare of the sun outside. But Stacy could have found her way in it blindfolded; so she had soon scrambled up the cellar stairs to the main part of the house whose empty interior was lit by the setting sun through its west windows. It smelled musty, and the damp enclosed chill was almost more penetrating than the brisk wind outside. Hurrying up the main staircase to the second floor, she climbed the steep, ladder-like steps to the cupola and stood in the small enclosed space, lighted by its four windows looking toward the four points of the compass.

The brilliant glare of the sun on the water of the bay to the west stabbed her eyes with actual pain. She hastily turned from that direction and looked down the long, curving stretch of shore toward the south. The pointed cedars crowded close to the shore along almost its entire length, interspersed by reedy marsh patches at infrequent intervals. A narrow crust of ice was already beginning to form along the strip of sandy beach. Seagulls darted, swooped, and screamed raucously at each other, and far out toward the middle of the bay, Stacy could see a swimming flock of Canada wild geese—twenty or more. But there was no sign of her father.

“Probably he’s crouching down behind a bunch of reeds somewhere,” she thought, “with his binoculars glued to his eyes, waiting for his particular kind of duck to come swimming along. He certainly has a lot of patience—to sit still out there on a day like this, just to get a glimpse of some particular wild bird and see just what color the feathers are along its back or on the edge of its wings! I’d never try to write a book about shore birds in winter if I had to go to all that trouble! Guess I might as well give it up and go home through the woods. He may be way down the other side of our house, for all I know.”

She took one more glance through the south window before she turned to leave the little tower, resting her hand on the sill, as she leaned far to her right to get as full a view down the shore as possible. But the vista was empty of any human being. It was as she turned away to leave the cupola, that she was conscious of her hand on the window-ledge touching something that seemed unfamiliar. And on looking down at it, she saw a curious object resting on the sill.

“Now, that’s strange!” she muttered aloud, taking it up and examining it more closely. It was the upper shell of a small crab, of a species she had sometimes found along the ocean beach. Not more than three inches long and less than two in width, it was a delicate white shell, thickly dotted with bright pink spots. Her father had told her that it was commonly called the “calico-crab” and the meat of it was much in demand among sports fishermen, as it was a potent lure to the striped bass. The fisherman often paid as much as ten or twelve dollars a dozen for them in the bait-shops, because the variety was not very plentiful. But there was a curious angle to her finding this empty shell just where it was.

“I was up here three days ago,” she continued to mutter, “and I’m simply certain that thing wasn’t on the window-sill here then—or anywhere else in the house! Some one has been in here since and left that shell here. But who could it be? The house is locked up—and I don’t think any one knows about that broken cellar door lock—except myself. I’ve never told any one that I get in here sometimes. And, anyhow, no one would be likely to carry such a thing as an old crab shell and leave it, except perhaps a child. And there aren’t any children that would be likely or able to get in here. It’s a puzzle!”

Stacy shivered, as a wholly unaccountable chill ran down her spine. The old, empty house had suddenly assumed a slightly sinister aspect for some reason that she could not define. It seemed foolish to base it on just the presence—unaccountable though it was—of this empty shell of a calico-crab. It was more that the crab shell indicated the past presence of some one else in the house—perhaps the person was in here even at this minute!

This was an alarming thought. Stacy stood perfectly still, listening—every sense keenly on the alert. The setting sun had almost reached the horizon, going down in a red blaze of glory through the low mist on the other shore. The little tower had darkened perceptibly. The wind was rising with the coming of darkness. Somewhere outside, a loose shutter banged at intervals. There were other creaks and groans in the woodwork of the house which, under ordinary circumstances, she would scarcely have noticed. Now they assumed a menacing meaning.

“I mustn’t stay here another minute!” she decided, and scuttled down the ladder. Frantically wishing there were some door through which she could pass, instead of having to go through the dark cellar, she flew down the stairway, through the darkening hall to the kitchen, hesitating only a moment at the top of the cellar steps. Some one—something—might be in that black cellar, waiting to clutch at her as she felt her way toward the outer steps! In sheer panic, she had almost decided to break one of the kitchen windows and climb through, when the foolishness of her fears suddenly brought her to her senses.

“Of course there’s no one in here now!” she told herself. “If there had been, I’d have seen footprints around outside. But no, this must have happened before the northeast storm. If there were any footprints, they’ve been washed away by now. Oh, I’m just being a complete idiot!”

And with this pronouncement, she boldly marched down the cellar steps, felt her way along the wall till a turn in it brought her to the daylight still filtering down those outside steps, and leaped up them to the welcome outdoors. Never had it seemed more welcome than at that moment! Before leaving, she slammed down the cellar door and inserted the broken padlock through the hasp.

“If some one is getting in here who has no business to,” she decided, “I’m going to put a stop to it myself. Next time I drive to town, I’m going to get a new padlock and then nobody can get in but me. I’m sure Mr. Drew would be glad to have me do it. Some one might get in there and—and burn the house down—or something!”

Before she left, she looked about carefully for footprints, but could find none but her own. Then she hurried around toward the side of the house facing the bay. A stiff, cold wind tore at her flying dark hair and penetrated even the thick warm ski-suit she was wearing. But the sky was wine-colored above the darkening waters of the bay, and a few small, fleecy pink-and-gold clouds marked the place of the sun’s disappearance. Stacy raced along the shore in the direction of her home, her fears rapidly disappearing with the distance she was putting between herself and the empty house.

“But just the same,” she told herself as she neared her own strip of beach, “there’s something awfully strange about that calico-crab being where it was—and I’m going to find out more about it!”