by A. A. Milne
"I wonder," said Geoffrey, "how much of all this rubbish you believe?"
McVay smiled with great sweetness. "I wonder myself, Holland. Still it is undeniably amusing, and the main thing is that I enjoy life,—a hard life too in many ways. Fate has dealt me some sad blows. Look at such a coincidence as your turning up to-night, of all nights in the year."
"It was scarcely a coincidence. I came—"
"Oh, I know, I know. You came to see after your sister's things, but still, if you look at it a little more carefully, you will see that itwas a coincidence that you should be by nature a man of prompt action. Nine men out of ten in your place—still, I'm not depressed. You cannot say, Holland, that I behave or talk like a man who has ten years of hard labour before him, can you? I dare say you have never been thrown with a person who showed less anxiety. Yet as a matter of fact, there is something preying on my mind. Something entirely aside from anything you could imagine."
"You don't tell me!" said Geoffrey, who did not know whether to be most amused or infuriated by his companion's conversation.
"I am about to tell you," said McVay graciously, "I am very seriously worried about my sister. In fact I don't see that there is any getting away from it; you will have to let me go out for an hour or so and get her."
"Let you do what?"
"Get my sister. She's living in a little hut in your woods, and I am actually afraid she will be snowed up."
"It seems highly probable."
"Well, then, I must go and get her."
Geoffrey stared at him a moment, and then said: "You must be crazy."
"Maybe I am," answered McVay, as if the suggestion were not without an amusing side. "Maybe I am, but that is not the point. Think of a girl, Holland, alone, all night, in such a storm. Now, I put it to you: it is not a position in which you would leave your sister, is it?"
Geoffrey began a sentence and finding it inadequate, contented himself with a laugh.
"There you see," said McVay. "It's out of the question. The place is draughty, too, though there is a stove. Do you remember the house at all? You would be surprised to see how nicely I've fixed it up for her."
"No doubt I should," replied Holland, thinking of the Vaughan and Marheim valuables.
"It is surprisingly livable, but it is draughty," McVay went on. "The truth is I ought to have gone south, as I meant to do last week. But one cannot foresee everything. The winters have been open until Christmas so often lately. However, I made a mistake and I am perfectly willing to rectify it. If you have no objection, I'll go and bring her back here."
"If you have any respect for your skin you won't move from that chair."
"Oh, the devil, Holland, don't be so—" he hesitated for the right word, not wishing to be unjust,—"so obtuse. Listen to that wind! It's cold here. Think what it must be in that shanty."
"Very unpleasant, I should think."
"More than that, more than that,—suffering, I have no doubt. Why, she might freeze to death if anything went wrong with the fire. It is not safe. It's a distinct risk to leave her. Let alone that a storm like this would scare any girl alone in a place like that, there is some danger to her life. Don't you see that?"
"Yes, I see," returned Geoffrey, "but you ought to have thought of that before you came burgling in a blizzard."
"Thought of it! Of course I thought of it. But I had no idea whatever of being caught, with old McFarlane laid up and the two boys away, it did seem about the safest job yet."
There was a pause, for Geoffrey evidently had no intention of even arguing the matter, and presently McVay continued:
"Now you know you would feel badly to-morrow morning if anything went wrong with her, and you knew you could have helped it!"
"Helped it!" said Geoffrey. "What do you mean? Let you loose on the county for the sake of a story no sane man would believe?"
"Well," returned McVay judicially, "perhaps you could not do that, but," he added brightly, "you could go yourself."
"Yes," said Geoffrey, "I could—"
"Then I think you ought to be getting along."
"Upon my word, McVay," said Holland, "you are something of a humorist, aren't you?"
McVay again looked puzzled, but rose to the occasion.
"Oh, hardly that," he said. "Every now and then I have a way of putting things,—a way of my own. I find often I am able to amuse people, but if you are cheerful yourself, you make other people so. I was just thinking that it must be a great thing for men who have been in prison for years to have some one come in with a new point of view."
"I'm sure you will be an addition to prison life. It's an ill wind, you know."
"It's an ill wind for my sister, literally enough. Come, Holland, you certainly can trust me. Do be starting."
"Why, what do you take me for?" said the exasperated Geoffrey. "Do you really suppose that I am going, looking for a den of your accomplices in order to give you a chance to escape?"
"'Accomplices!'" exclaimed McVay; and for the first time a shade of anger crossed his brow; "'accomplices'! I have no accomplices. Anything I do I think I am able to do alone. Still," he added putting aside his annoyance, "if you feel nervous about leaving me I'd just as lief give you my word of honour to stay here until you come back."
"Your what?"
McVay made a slight gesture of his shoulders, as if he were being a good deal tried. "Oh, anything you like," he said. "I suppose you could lock me up in a closet."
"I don't think we need trouble to arrange the details," said Geoffrey drily. "But I'll tell you what I will do. After I get you safely in jail to-morrow, I'll get a trap and go and look up this hut."
"It may be too late then."
"It may," said Geoffrey, and continued to read.
Yet he had no further satisfaction in his book. He knew that the burglar kept casting meditative glances at him as if in wonder at such brutality, and in truth, his own mind was not entirely at ease. If by any chance the story were true,—if there was a woman at his doors freezing to death, how could he sit enjoying the fire? But, on the other hand, could any one have a more evident motive for deception than his informant? What better opportunity for escape could be arranged? It was so evident, so impudent as to be almost convincing. What more likely for instance, than that the hut was a regular rendezvous for criminals and tramps, that by going he would be walking into the veriest trap? Yet again there was the report confirmed by Harris's story that a woman was in some way connected with these robberies. The wind whistled round the house with a suggestion of difficulty, of combat with the elements, of actual danger, perhaps, that suddenly gave Geoffrey a new view of delay. Had it not something the air of cowardice, or at least of laziness? He found his eyes had read the same page three times, while his brain was busy devising means by which McVay could be secured in his absence—if he went.
At length he rose suddenly to his feet.
"I'll go," he said, "but before I go, I'll tie you up so safely that, if I don't come back, you'll starve to death before you'll be able to get out or make any one hear you. On these terms do you still want me to go?"
"Oh, yes, I want you to go," said McVay, "only for goodness sake be careful. If you should feel any temptation to lie down and go to sleep don't yield to it; they say it's fatal. The great thing is to keep on walking—"
"Oh, shut up," said Geoffrey. In view of the possibility that he was going to meet death at the hands of his fluent companion's accomplices he found this friendly advice unbearable.
"This hut, I take it," he said, "is an old woodcutter's shanty in the north woods?"
"Yes, something over a mile and a half north of here."
"I know the place," said Geoffrey, "now come along, and we'll see how I can fix you up until I come back."
He had in mind a heavy upstairs cedar-closet. It had been designed by a thoughtful architect for the storing of summer wearing apparel, and was strongly built. It had besides the advantage of having a door that opened in and
so was difficult to break open from the inside. Here, having removed a complete burglar's outfit from his pockets, Geoffrey disposed McVay, being met with a readiness on McVay's part that seemed to prove either that he was sincere in his belief in Holland's safe return, or else was perfectly confident of being able to open the door as soon as Geoffrey's back was turned.
"But he'll find himself mistaken," Geoffrey murmured as, having locked the door, he turned away. At this instant a faint knocking was audible, and, gathering that McVay had some final instructions to give, Geoffrey again opened the door.
"By the way," said the burglar, and for the first time a certain constraint, amounting almost to embarrassment, was discernible in his manner, "my sister has no idea about—it would be a great shock to her—in fact, you understand, she has not discovered exactly how our money comes to us."
"Do you expect me to believe that?" asked Geoffrey.
"I grant it does not sound likely," returned McVay, "and indeed would not be possible with any other man than myself. But I hit upon a pretty good yarn,—worked out well everyway. I told her—"
"I don't want to hear your infernal lies."
"But it might be convenient for you to know. I told her," McVay chuckled, "that I was employed as night watchman at Drake's paper mill. That of course kept me out all night, and—"
"She must think night watchmen get good wages."
"That was just it. I told her Drake was an old friend of mine, and just wanted an excuse to give me an allowance until he found me a better job. You see I just lost a nice job in a bank—"
"I suppose it would be indiscreet to inquire why?"
"Well, we won't discuss it," said McVay with an agreeable smile. "Of course she could understand that such an inferior position as a watchman's had to be kept a profound secret, hence our remote mode of life, and the fact that I don't allow a butcher or baker to come near us. I tell her that if it were known that I had held such a poor position, it would interfere with my getting a better. So, if you should happen to find that you have to explain to her why I am detained here—"
"If I should explain to her," said Geoffrey. "What do you suppose I am going to do?"
"Well, I suppose you will find it necessary," said McVay. "Indeed, as a matter of fact, I would much rather have you do it than do it myself. Still, you might bear in mind to tell her as gently as possible. If she were your own sister—"
"Oh, go to the devil," said Geoffrey, and slammed the door.
Chapter 3
Geoffrey was born with a love of adventure, and his dislike to his present expedition arose not from fear, but from a consciousness that if he did run into a den of thieves he would think himself such an ass to have come. Indeed, there seemed a fair chance that he might think this even if nothing worse happened than that the hut proved empty, for he would have had a long walk for nothing better than to provide McVay with an opportunity to escape. He did not see exactly how McVay could get out, but he was aware that few people would think it wise to leave a burglar locked in a closet in an empty house with some hours of leisure at his disposal.
The first glimmering of dawn was visible as he stepped off the piazza; the wind was blowing fiercely and the snow still falling. He had not gone a hundred yards before he knew that the expedition was to be more difficult than he had imagined. To make headway against the wind was a constant struggle, and he seemed to slip back in the snow at every step. Still the natural obstinacy of his nature was aroused, and as his attention was more and more engaged with the endeavor to make his way, he had less time to think of the probable futility of his proceeding.
Long before he sighted the hut, he was wet to the waist, not only because he had been in half a dozen drifts, but because the snow had penetrated every crevice of his clothing.
The hut was a forlorn little spot upon the landscape, a patch of grey on the stretch of forest and snow. A shutter blowing in the wind gave an impression of desertion, for how could any one, however wretched, sit idle under that recurrent bang?
Drawing his revolver, Geoffrey approached the door. He had no intention of giving a possible enemy an opportunity to prepare himself, and so did not knock, but, putting his shoulder against the door, shoved mightily. The hinges broke from the rotten wood at once, and he stumbled in.
The pale light of the early winter morning showed a depressing interior, for the window was not the only opening. There was a great gap in the roof where, earlier in the night, the chimney had fallen, and now its bricks littered the floor, already well covered with snow. Some attempt must have been made, as McVay had boasted, of "fixing it up"; there were books in the shelves on the walls, and a black iron stove on which the snow now lay fearlessly. As Geoffrey took in the situation, something in a huge chair, which he had taken for a heap of rugs, stirred and moved, and finally rose, betraying itself to be a woman. Geoffrey had been prepared to find a den of thieves, or nothing at all, or even a girl, as McVay had said. He told himself he would be surprised at nothing, yet found himself astounded, overwhelmed at the sight of a beautiful face.
The girl must have been beautiful so to triumph over her surroundings, for all sorts of strange garments were huddled about her, and over all a silk coverlet originally tied like a shawl under her chin, had slipped sideways, and fell like a Hussar's jacket from one shoulder. Her hair stood like a dark halo about her little face, making it seem smaller and younger, almost too small for the magnificent eyes that lit it. Geoffrey, tolerably well versed in feminine attractions, said to himself that he had never seen such blue eyes.
And suddenly while he looked at her and her desperate plight, pity became in him a sort of fury of protection, the awakening of the masculine instinct toward beauty in distress. It was a feeling that the other women he had admired—well-fed, well-clothed, well-cared-for young creatures—had always signally failed to arouse. He had seen it in other men, had seen their hearts wrung because an able-bodied girl must take a trolley car instead of her father's carriage, but he had thought himself hard, perhaps, unchivalrous; but now he knew better. Now he knew what it was to feel personally outraged at a woman's discomfort.
"Good God!" he cried, "what a night you have had. How wicked, how abominable, how criminal—"
"It has been a dreadful night," said the girl, "but it is nobody's fault."
"Of course it is somebody's fault," answered Geoffrey. "It must be. Do you mean to tell me no one is to blame when I have been sitting all night with my feet on the fender, and you—"
"Certainly," said she with an extraordinarily wide, sweet smile, "I could wish we might have changed places."
"I wish to Heaven we might," returned Geoffrey, and meant it. Never before had he yearned to bear the sufferings of another. He had often seen that it was advisable, suitable just that he should, but burningly to want to was a new experience.
"Thank you," said the girl, "but I'm afraid there is nothing to be done."
"Nothing to be done!" He dropped on his knees before the black monster of a stove, "Do you suppose I'm here to do nothing?"
"You are here, I think, for shelter from the storm."
It had not occurred to him before that she looked upon him as a chance wanderer.
"That shows your ignorance of the situation. I am here to rescue you. I left my fireside for no other reason. As I came along I said at every blast, 'that poor, poor girl.' I set out to bring you to safety. I begin to think I was born for no other reason."
She smiled rather wearily, "Your coming at all is so strange that I could almost believe you."
"You may thoroughly believe me, more easily perhaps when I tell you I did not particularly want to come. I started out at dawn very cross and cold because I did not know what I was going to find… ."
"But I thought you said you did know that you were going to rescue a girl?"
"A girl, yes. But what's a mere girl? How many thousand girls have I seen in my life? Is that a thought to turn a man's head? What I did not know was that I was go
ing to find you."
"The fire will never burn with the chimney strewn on the floor," she said mildly.
"Well, I've said it, you see," he answered, "and you won't forget it, even if you do change the subject." He turned his attention to the fire. Where is the man, worthy of the name to whom the business of fire building is not serious?
Presently seeing he needed help she dropped to her knees beside him and tried to shove a piece of wood into place. In the process her numbed fingers touched his, and he instantly dropped everything to catch her hand in both of his.
"Your hands are as cold as ice," he said, holding them tightly, and thanking Fate that this bounty had fallen to his lot.
She withdrew them. "You are too conscientious," she said. "That is not part of the duty of a rescue party."
"It is, it is," said Geoffrey violently. "It is the merest humanity."
"Humanity?"
"To me, of course, if you will pin me down."
"Oh, there is no reason for the rescued to be humane."
"They ought to be grateful."
"They are."
"Gratefuller then. Is it nothing that I have taken all the trouble to be born and grow up and live just to come here for you?"
"Perhaps I could be gratefuller if there were any prospect of a fire."
"Oh, curse the fire," said Geoffrey rising from his knees. "Who minds about it?"
"I mind very much."
"Well, you mustn't. You must not mind about anything, because it sets up too strong a reaction in me. There's no telling what I might not do under the stress. Come away from this dreadful place. The fires will burn in my house, and that is where we are going."
"I can't do that," she said, looking very grave.
"You can't do anything else."
"I must wait for my brother. He's out somewhere in this storm, and if he comes back and finds me gone—"
"Oh, your brother," said Geoffrey, "I forgot all about him. He's at my house already. He sent me for you."
"Oh," said she, sighing with relief, and then added maliciously: "then my plight was not revealed to you in a vision?"