Читать книгу The Lonesome Swamp Mystery - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

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“And you’d almost agree with him when you hear how Eli Sharpe had tricked poor guileless Cyrus into signing away all that he had in the world—his cottage and his acre of land surrounding it. Eli wanted that land, he had always wanted it for he owned every inch of Lonesome Swamp but that piece of Cyrus’. The fly in the ointment, however, was that he wanted it for almost nothing.”

“Why did he want it so badly?”

“Because with the whole of Lonesome Swamp in his possession, the county would buy it and dig a reservoir. It’s a fine site for one; you’d agree if you saw it by daylight. Cyrus knew nothing about the negotiations—Eli Sharpe was particularly interested that he be kept in ignorance of it. He didn’t want the county to talk business with Price—if there was any profit to be made from the Mill Pond parcel, he wanted to make that profit himself. He’d buy it from Cyrus and sell the entire region to the county at a huge profit. And he did!”

“And poor Cypress or Cyrus or whatever his name is, found out that he’d sold his property to Sharpe for next to a drop in the bucket, huh?”

“Exactly. The very night he found out he set out for here with Lem, his son, who was then but eighteen. They were great pals, Cyrus and Lem, they had only each other, for Mrs. Price died very young. It was only reasonable to expect then that they both should share an intense hatred for Eli Sharpe; a hatred that couldn’t be appeased unless the real worth of the property was given them. It came out at the trial that Sharpe hadn’t even given Price in cash what he had agreed to give. Instead he shoved off on the poor fellow two deeds to some worthless lots that were half under water in the lowlands.”

“And right off the bat they came up here and knocked Old Sharpey in the whiskers that very night, huh?”

Denis smiled.

“Not off the bat nor in the whiskers, Hal. There were some heated arguments first. They were in the library, this room here with the French windows.”

Hal looked at the long shuttered windows and then at the aperture made by the rotted cross-strips. Somehow this little opening fascinated him, and though it showed nothing but the horizontal strip of dark dusty glass, he could not take his eyes from it.

“Well,” said Denis continuing, “Dorkas comes into the tale at that point. He related very distinctly at both trials that he was in bed and asleep on the third floor in his bedroom when he was awakened by the sound of voices keyed in an angry pitch. He got into his slippers and bathrobe and had started to descend the long, narrow stairway when he heard his father cry out. The next moment there was a heavy thud, he heard running feet, the slamming of the main door and by the time he got downstairs and into the library, there was nothing to be seen of Lem. Cyrus, on the other hand, he found standing bewildered over the dead body of Old Eli. A blood-smeared andiron lay at his feet. Dorkas said he was so enraged that he felled Cyrus with one blow.”

“Whew! What a night that was!” Hal observed.

“Terrible. Cyrus Price has never recovered from that blow either. When Dorkas hit him he fell with a terrific thud onto the hearthstone. He was unconscious for two whole days and when he came to in Ramapo Hospital the police realized that they would never learn who killed old Eli—whether it was Cyrus or Lem, or both. Be that as it may, Cyrus’ head injury has made it impossible for him to talk of anything for more than a few minutes at a time. He has lucid moments, such as he had at the trial, when he will tell you that Old Eli enraged Lem and him that night by laughing in their faces when they accused the old miser of having cheated them and tricked them. Lem, he said, then started for the old man, but he interfered, and being a healthy, husky man of about forty-five then, he was able to do it.”

“Some tussle!” was Hal’s comment.

“But Old Eli, not being satisfied yet, laughed at him some more and I guess that did the trick. He said he knocked the old man clear off his feet—threw him down. And when the old fellow didn’t move, Cyrus commanded Lem to get out of the mess. That’s all he could ever tell about it. Said he never could remember Dorkas coming into the room at all and swore that he never laid a hand on the andiron, much less killed Old Eli with it. The court claimed that he did use the andiron in a moment of terrific rage! Anyway, they’ve never found or heard of Lem since and the jury disagreed twice over Cyrus. So there you are.”

“But the money and the bonds, Unk—Lem supposed to have taken them?”

“Of course he took them. Dorkas said that when he went to bed he left his father in the library counting out his money and looking over his bonds. So Lem took the whole business and skipped. Certainly Cyrus never saw a penny of it. He barely ekes out a living as it is. Dorkas would have had nothing but this house and the worthless tracts comprising Lonesome Swamp. The county withdrew their option for the reservoir. They dug one up Orangetown way. So that’s that.”

“How about old Price, then?” Hal asked. “How is it he’s still got his house?”

“The trustees of the Sharpe estate were induced by a band of sympathetic citizens to make some concession to poor Cyrus in that matter. He was given the right to live rent free in his little cottage the rest of his natural life.”

“And that’s the end of the story,” Hal murmured glancing back toward the long shutter.

“Hardly, Hal. It won’t end until something is heard of Lem. There’s bound to be some news of him some day. No doubt he’s squandered Old Eli’s fortune by this time. Money got by those means is always squandered and you know what that means. Lem’s bound to come to grief sooner or later—a murderer and a thief. Oh, I know you’re thinking Old Eli deserved what he got, but the fact remains that a human life was taken. There’s always a better way than murdering a man for revenge. Besides, Lem forfeited what sympathy he might have had from the public by deliberately turning thief and running away, leaving his father to face the music alone.”

“Looking at it that way, he wasn’t very sporting,” Hal admitted. “Still it would be interesting to hear exactly what Lem could say about it. I suppose it was he who cracked Old Sharpey over the bean with the andiron, huh?”

“That’s what everyone thought likely. My private opinion has always been that Cyrus knew that and sent Lem away, taking all the blame upon his own shoulders. Well, Hal, do you think your distributor is dry by now?”

Hal nodded, but his eyes were on the shutter opening. He was leaning forward a trifle then, and his full, generous lips had parted in astonishment.

“Why, Hal—what is it? What do you see?” Denis asked in a hushed voice.

Hal pointed to the shutter.

“A light, Unk,” he whispered close to his uncle’s ear. “There was a light or the shadow of one reflected in that library. It came on and went off while you were talking. I saw it through the opening of that shutter. Saw it as plain as anything. It sort of flittered through the dark room and hit that bit of windowpane that we can see. Looked to me like as if it came from a flashlight.” Suddenly he stopped and leaning forward, gave his uncle a nudge. “It’s on again, Unk—look!”

Even as he spoke the bit of dusty windowpane caught the reflection of a flickering yellow light from within.