Читать книгу The Doom of Stark House - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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They swung along for a few miles under the shadow of the forest, then emerged onto a snow-packed trail that followed the river. Hal noticed that the ice was broken up considerably here and that the dark water, joyous in its freedom after the winter’s long imprisonment, was rushing frantically down toward the Devil’s Bowl.

“Some swift current, Ches,” he observed.

Chester nodded and smiled, and glanced idly at a patch of soft, wet snow that had fallen on his robe. The biting north wind was whipping some snow flurries crazily about their heads. Jacques Bonner, except for an occasional hissing order to the horses, sat motionless in the front seat.

“It took some dynamite to blow Bete Noire up like this,” Chester said after a long silence. “The ice must have been terribly thick.”

Hal watched the bobbing ice rushing down on the tide and let his glance wander through the murky atmosphere upstream where several ponderous branches were being borne along on the swift current. Behind them came other driftwood—an oar, part of a canoe that had once boasted a coat of bright red paint, and something else that at first glance looked like a huge box. Chester, too, had caught sight of it and partly raised himself in his seat to get a better view of it.

“Looks like a trunk or something, Hal.”

“That current is enough to float anything floatable.” Hal pushed himself up in his seat also.

“It’s the dynamite that’s largely responsible. It just gets that ice on a rampage for a week afterward. Everything is pushed along before...”

“Too much dynamite used at B’yond,” Jacques Bonner said suddenly. He drew up the horses and turned stiffly about in his seat. “I made mistake; it blew up Stark ice house. Big lot of bank blown away and go down river.”

“Whew!” Chester exclaimed with evident concern. “Nobody hurt, I hope?”

Bonner shook his head and stared out upon the river. The reins twitched in his fur-gloved hands with every jerk of the impatient horses, but the man seemed in no mind to go on. He was intensely interested in the great box which had floated downstream and was now wedged between two large cakes of ice near the bank. Suddenly he stirred, wriggled his grotesque body out of the sleigh and, without a word of explanation, walked with a queer, hobbling sort of gait toward the river bank.

“Gol darn it, Ches, that bird’s as queer as all get-out! What’s the idea of going off and holding up this parade without even so much as saying au revoir, huh?”

“Jacques does those things, Hal, that’s all. He never misses a trick of any kind. That’s a chest of some kind—that box, and he’s interested in it. I guess he wants to get a close-up of it and see what it is.”

“Mm. He’s an independent cuss, considering everything. If I was employed in the same capacity that he is, I wouldn’t have the nerve to walk off like that. It’s a wonder your father’ll stand for things like that. I suppose he does stand for it, huh? It’s easy to see Bonner doesn’t give a hang for anyone.”

“I thought you’d notice it, Hal. But I didn’t think you’d have the opportunity to notice it so soon. We’re still twelve miles from Beyond and you’ve already caught on to the mystery of the Stark household. It all seems to revolve about Jacques; you’ll see that he exercises a deucedly queer influence over my father. You’d think the governor was the under dog. Jacques does just about as he sees fit.”

“Does he live right with you—in the house, I mean?”

“Oh, no. But he might as well. He’s more often in our place than in his own diggings.”

“Diggings?”

“Dad had quite a handsome cabin built for him on our place. He lives there with his wife—one of those poor, plain yes women that don’t dare say a word. He’s got a son, a replica of Jacques as far as characteristics go. He doesn’t take after his pater physically though. Rene’s quite handsome. He has rather a crush on my kid sister, Phoebe, but she won’t give him a tumble. She knows quite a nice chap, Jerard Mathieu. He’s a Quebecan—traces his family tree way back and all that sort of thing. A lot of name but perhaps not so much money. He’s visiting at Beyond now—you’ll like him.”

“Well,” said Hal hopefully, “it doesn’t look as if things are going to be so dull after all. We have Jacques to keep us from feeling too gay and Jerry to help us enjoy ourselves. He won’t mind me calling him Jerry, will he?”

“He’ll ascribe it to your extreme youth,” Chester answered with a low chuckle. “That’s what he always says when I get merry with him.”

“Why, is he so old?”

“No, only twenty-five—five years older than we. You’d think there was fifty years difference, though, the patronizing manner he sometimes takes with me. Still, Jerard’s a good sort—I suppose we’ll act patronizingly too when we get to the ripe old age of twenty-five.”

Hal laughed but his mirth was soon cut short by a low, guttural call from Jacques Bonner at the river bank. Before the echo died away in the murky atmosphere, the raucous cry of a wild fowl sounded in the distance and for a moment Hal felt strangely disturbed by its poignant note. He clutched the soft fur robe and started visibly when Chester suddenly laid a hand on his arm.

“Jacques seems to have discovered something about that chest, Hal,” he was saying. “Look, he’s waving for us to hurry...why, what’s the matter—you look as if you’ve had a shock or something?”

“Not as bad as that, Ches,” Hal answered with a chuckle. He slid out from under the warm robes and down to the ground. “I just got a queer, spooky sort of feeling when that fowl yipped in the wake of Jacques’ dulcet tones. Can’t account for it. Let’s go and see what he wants.”

They walked quickly away from the sleigh, silent, and observing the gray, flapping wings of the fowl which came into view and circled above the ice-choked waters of the Bete Noire. Cry after cry issued from its long, narrow throat and yet the deep silence seemed but accentuated by the dismal, wailing echoes.

Jacques Bonner’s grotesque figure was bent over the chest as the boys reached his side. He was trying desperately to force a jackknife through the mud-covered top and secure an opening.

“You pull ’eem from top when I say,” he grunted without glancing up. “Mud make ’eem stick fast.”

“It looks that way, Jacques,” said young Stark as he leaned down and scraped some mud away with his finger nail. “Why, it’s cedar—a cedar chest!”

“Mm!” grunted Bonner. “Cedar make it waterproof and mud make it airtight, yes?”

“It sure looks so,” Hal spoke up. “Where the heck do you suppose it came from?”

“Not far,” Jacques answered, giving Hal a quick glance from under narrowed lids. “Dynamite push ’eem out of place where ’eem was buried—come floating down river. ’Eem not in water long—’eem buried in mud many years.”

“Hmph!” Chester Stark exclaimed. “This is interesting, Jacques. What on earth do you think can be inside of it?”

Bonner neither looked up nor answered but centered his whole attention upon getting the mud scraped away from the opening. Hal watched him and was aware after a moment that the man had a look of tense expectancy upon his swarthy countenance.

“If they had made cedar chests of that kind in Captain Kidd’s day,” said Hal, “I’d think it was another long-buried treasure of his.”

“Captain Kidd’s treasure in Canada?” Stark chuckled.

“Sure. Why not? Captain Kidd’s treasure might just as well have been in Canada as any place else.”

“It ees treasure maybe,” said Jacques Bonner softly, “but not thees Capitan Keed what you talk. Like I say, ’eem not so old, this chest—maybe twenty year. I tell by the mud and the wood,” he added with a triumphant flourish of his jackknife. “Now you pull ’eem from top.”

“Jacques seems to be nothing if not optimistic,” Chester laughed, leaning down and taking hold of the chest’s mud-covered top. “Come on, Hal, give us a hand and lend some of that six-foot strength of yours to open this lid on Jacques’ treasure.”

Hal fell to cheerfully and they forced the lid vigorously while Jacques, in his half-kneeling posture, grunted audibly and moved his jackknife back and forth in the opening. After a few moments of intensive effort, the lid gradually yielded and was forced fully open to the accompaniment of a horrified exclamation from Chester Stark’s thin lips.

“A skeleton!” he cried. “Hal—a skeleton in here!”

Hal was too horrified to open his lips. He could only stare into the mud-lined chest, horribly fascinated by the grinning bone structure which lay doubled up within it. Jacques Bonner was breathing heavily, but saying nothing. Hal glanced at him and was shocked.

A smile was spreading over the man’s face!