But Anthony’s hands were slippery with sweat, and he was attacking the reindeer at a bad angle, from underneath. And he was using the arm he had broken to wield the hacksaw; it hadn’t set quite right, and it didn’t always behave properly. Anthony hadn’t made more than two or three swipes with the saw when it slipped from his grasp. It sailed up over the leg and fell onto the slates of the roof. Anthony heard it slide down, clatter, clatter, clatter, all the way to the bottom.
Anthony felt helpless. Totally and utterly helpless. He had failed. Hugo Philpotts would get mad now, and who knew what he would do?
But then Anthony remembered that he still had the hammer with him. He might be able to bang on the leg till it dropped off and get the treasure out that way. With one hand still clenched firmly on the bar, he reached down and eased the hammer up out of the loop on his belt. He shifted the heavy implement around in his hand until he had a good tight grip on it. And then he started to pound at the leg.
Blong! Blong!
Anthony’s mouth dropped open, and he stopped pounding. He was startled by the sound he had made. Since the deer was made of bronze, it rang like an alarm bell when it was hit.
An alarm bell! People would hear it for miles around!
Anthony grinned. A wonderful idea had occurred to him. He was sick of playing errand boy for Hugo Philpotts. What if he did get mad? It wouldn’t matter—Anthony knew what he had to do.
He hauled off and struck the leg of the deer again. And again and again and again. Blong! Blong! Blong! Blong!
“Stop it! Stop it! What are you doing, you little fool? Stop!” It was Hugo Philpotts calling. He was standing at the bottom of the ladder and staring up in astonishment and horror.
Anthony paid no attention. He went on pounding. The reindeer rattled and rang, sending its loud, high- pitched bell-sound out across the night.
CHAPTER 16
Although his arm was getting tired, Anthony kept on pounding. He was flailing away with a maniacal fury now, and the blows of the hammer were hitting all over the reindeer, not just on the leg. He banged on the deer’s bronze underbelly, on its sides, and even on its neck. When he hit the reindeer’s belly, the sound was very loud and bell-like. Over and over the hammer rose and fell.
“You fool! You fool! Stop, for God’s sake!” Hugo Philpotts had climbed halfway up the ladder. He was bellowing at Anthony with one hand cupped to his mouth. But it was no use. With the noise he was making, Anthony could hardly have heard him even if he had wanted to. But now, over the clanging and banging rose a louder noise. A siren. Fire trucks were coming.
Anthony stopped pounding and started to cheer. “It worked!” he yelled. “My alarm bell worked!” People were coming. They would save Miss Eells. They would discover Hugo Philpotts. Everything would be all right.
A small crowd was beginning to gather on the lawn below. Anthony didn’t know it, but the flood crisis was over. People were beginning to pour back into town. The men who had been manning the sandbag wall had heard the bell and had figured the library was on fire. So had the firemen in the firehouse on Eddy Street. They hadn’t stopped to consider whether or not there was a bell in the library tower. They had simply piled into their trucks, and now they were on their way. In fact, they were almost there.
Anthony went on bashing the reindeer with his hammer. Hugo Philpotts was hanging below on the ladder, trying to decide what to do. But then—quite suddenly—the decision was made for him. With a terrific groaning and shrieking of metal, the part of the ladder he was hanging on began to pull loose from the roof. Bolts popped and snapped. The ladder broke in two at the very rusty point that Anthony had noticed, and the section that Hugo was clinging to leaned lazily over sideways. It groaned and creaked and bent, and for a horrible instant, Hugo thought that it would break off entirely and throw him to the ground four stories below. But it didn’t. It just stopped in its bent-over position. And there he was, hanging between earth and sky—Hugo Philpotts, first vice-president of the First National Bank of Hoosac, in sneakers and jeans, in the middle of the night, with people staring at him from below! Down on the ground, with a roaring of motors and a piercing wail of sirens, fire trucks were pulling up on the gravel drive in front of the library.
Meanwhile, at the top of the tower, Anthony swayed on his dizzy perch. His section of the ladder—the top part—had held firm. The rung he had been standing on was still under his feet, and the safety belt was still hooked around the stout post that the weather vane was mounted on.
“Help! Help! For God’s sake, somebody help me!”
Anthony heard the yelling and looked down. He saw the bent-over section of the ladder hanging out in space, with Hugo Philpotts clinging to it for dear life. The shock of this incredible sight made Anthony hold on tighter to the weather vane. Then he looked back up at the reindeer. Its leg and underbelly were scarred where the hammer had hit. There were bright golden scratches on the corroded green surface. And now Anthony noticed something that he hadn’t noticed before: On the upraised leg of the reindeer, up near the place where the leg joined the body, was a button. It had been cleverly made to look like a little curl of hair, but it was a button, like the button on a doorbell. With his wild, aimless bashing, Anthony had knocked some of the green crud off the area around it, and now it lay exposed quite clearly.
Anthony hefted the hammer in his hand. He got a firm grip, raised the hammer, and struck the button a single sharp blow. Sproing! A powerful spring inside the reindeer uncoiled, and the leg, moving on a concealed hinge, swung open like a door. When this happened, something else happened, too—a package slid out of the hole in the reindeer’s body. It slid right out into Anthony’s arms.
With a startled gasp, Anthony dropped the hammer and grabbed the package. With his free hand, he clutched it tightly to his side. The package was about the size of a small loaf of bread, and it was wrapped in gray cloth and tied up in cord. A gust of wind hit Anthony, and he teetered on his perch. It was hard to hang on with one hand, but he managed it, and the safety belt helped. A wave of dizziness passed over him again. He was scared to death, but he also felt very happy. He was sure that this was the treasure, here, clasped to his side. All he had to do now was hang on till somebody rescued him.
From below came the shouts of firemen. Men were giving orders, pulling out hoses, cranking up ladders. One truck had a huge spotlight on it, and the spotlight was rotated till it shone over Hugo Philpotts and Anthony. Now the long ladder on the hook-and-ladder truck swung around on its swivel. It rose up, and with a loud clattering and clicking of gears, it started to make itself longer. Up the long ladder rose, up, up, up the side of the tall stone tower. Now the tip of the ladder had reached the base of the tower roof, and it was up even with Hugo. Its tip tapped the shingles near him. A fireman in a shiny black helmet started to climb. It didn’t take him long to reach Hugo. Carefully, gently, the fireman helped the frightened man climb down off the swaying, rusty ladder and onto the fire truck’s ladder. Then down they went, the fireman and Hugo, slowly, one rung at a time.
A couple of newsmen with flash cameras had arrived on the scene in a car. Flash bulbs popped. A loud, raucous cheer went up from the crowd. Many of them recognized Hugo.
“Who is it, anyway?” somebody yelled.
“Hey, it’s Philpotts, the guy down at the bank!”
“What the heck was he doing up there?”
“I dunno. Checkin’ up on the weather, maybe. Yay, Hugo! Let’s give him three cheers.”
Everybody yelled and laughed and hooted. Three more loud, raucous cheers went up. Hugo Philpotts, stony-faced and shivering, was helped down off the truck. He stood on the ground with a blanket over his shoulders.
Up above, Anthony still hung on. His left hand, the hand on the bar, was getting numb, but he stubbornly clung to his prize with his other hand. He would rather have died than let it go. Grimly, he stared straight ahead at the post of the weather vane. He didn’t dare look down again.
Now the ladder was rising higher. Click, grind, rattle-rattle! Now it was just under his feet. The fireman was climbing again. When he got to the top, the fireman started talking gently to Anthony. He told him to throw down whatever he was holding and take his hand. But Anthony wouldn’t drop the parcel. Finally, the fireman persuaded him to let him put it in the pocket of his coat—the fireman’s big shiny rubber coat had a deep pocket in the side of it, and the package slid in easily. Next, the fireman told Anthony to undo the clasps on the safety belt. With both hands free, this wasn’t such a difficult job. After a little fumbling, Anthony got the snaps unsnapped. All the while he was working at the snaps, the fireman’s big strong hands were around his waist. He wasn’t going to let Anthony fall.
When the safety belt was finally unhooked, the fireman, who had been talking reassuringly the whole time, eased Anthony down from his perch to the rungs of the ladder. He asked Anthony to follow him slowly down the ladder. But now that the real danger had passed, Anthony went all to pieces. He shuddered and shivered and clung rigidly to the ladder. “I don’t wanna go down! I’m scared!” he wailed.
The fireman smiled sympathetically at Anthony. He had seen cases like this before. Without hesitating, he turned and bellowed an order down to the men who were working the controls of the ladder. More rattling and grinding of gears. Slowly, the top section of the ladder began to slide down with Anthony and the fireman still on it. Click, click, one rung at a time. The ladder went on collapsing like a telescope until the two sections were lying one on top of the other. Now the ladder was only half as long as it had been before. More gear-grinding. The ladder swung around in a big arc and slowly laid itself down on top of the long red truck. A dazed Anthony found himself being led by the hand along the top of the truck and down some steps to the ground.
And there, standing next to the truck, were his mother and his father and Keith. They looked anxious and frightened and happy, too, all at the same time.
“Where’s Miss Eells?” asked Anthony weakly.
But nobody seemed to hear him.
Mrs. Monday rushed forward and grabbed him in her arms and hugged him violently. “Anthony, Anthony, oh, I’m so glad you’re safe! What happened? What happened to you? Why did you run away? Did that man over there kidnap you? What happened? Oh, I’m so glad you’re back, I’m so glad!”
Anthony felt very happy. His mother hadn’t seemed so glad to see him in a long, long time, he thought. Now Keith and his parents were all talking to him at once, bombarding him with questions that he couldn’t answer. He felt dizzy and confused. It was almost as if he were walking around in a dream. In the midst of all this, he felt a tap on his arm. He turned around, and there was the fireman who had rescued him.
“Excuse me, young man, but I believe this belongs to you. You had it in your hand when you were up there, and you wouldn’t let go of it for love or money.” The fireman held out the package that had fallen out of the reindeer. Anthony grabbed it and hugged it to his chest.
“Gee, thanks, mister. Thanks an awful lot!”
Now Mrs. Monday turned to the fireman, and for a moment it looked as if she were going to hug him. “Oh, thank you, thank you so much! What is your name, officer? I’m going to see that you get a medal for this!”
The fireman smiled politely and touched the brim of his helmet. “All in the line of duty, ma’am. Glad to see the boy is safe and sound again.” And with that he turned and went back to his truck. The newsmen who had taken Hugo Philpotts’s picture now crowded around Anthony and snapped his picture, too.
And now someone else arrived on the scene: Miss Eells. With her head still swathed in its bloody bandage, she came tottering down the front steps of the library and rushed over to Anthony. She threw her arms around him and gave him a very large hug.
“Anthony, Anthony! My Lord, what on earth is going on around here, anyway? I remember falling down the steps in my house and hitting my head, and then I woke up here just now and heard all this racket going on outside!”
“I found the treasure, Miss Eells!” Anthony exclaimed. All his fear had melted away now, and he was feeling very proud about what he had done. “It’s Alpheus Winterborn’s treasure! It’s really here, right here in this package!”
“If it is Alpheus Winterborn’s treasure, it belongs to me—I mean, it belongs to the Winterborn family, and I am a member of that family.” This, of course, was Hugo Philpotts talking. He had been standing next to the fire engine and shivering under his blanket, but now, seeing Anthony amid the little knot of people that had gathered around him, he had stepped forward. He stood stiffly, glowering at them all in turn, and then he shoved his way forward and stretched his hands toward the package that Anthony was holding. “It’s mine, you filthy little wretch! Give it to me!” he snapped.
Mr. Monday stepped in between Anthony and Hugo. There was an angry frown on his face, and his fists were doubled up. “Who the heck are you calling a little wrench?”
“Wretch,” said Hugo, correcting him.
“Well, whatever it was, you don’t have any right to call my son names. What the heck were you doin’ up there on that roof, anyway?”
“None of your business,” sniffed Hugo. “I’ll take care of you when the time comes,” he added with a malicious gleam in his eye.
Mr. Monday was beginning to get really angry now. It looked as if he might haul off and paste Hugo one in the kisser. “What the heck do you mean?” Mr. Monday growled.
“You’ll find out,” Hugo muttered. He looked Mr. Monday over from head to foot and added, in a tone of utter disgust, “Yes, you’ll find out soon enough, you disgusting, beer-guzzling clod.”
“What did you call me? Say that again, you dirty low-life!” Mr. Monday squared off and raised his fists. Mrs. Monday, Keith, and Anthony crowded around him, pleading.
“C’mon, Dad, don’t worry, he’s just a dumb creep,” said Keith. “Don’t waste your time with him!”
“Don’t do anything rash, Howard!” begged Mrs. Monday. “Think of your heart!”
“Please, Dad, don’t hit him!” said Anthony. Secretly, Anthony would have loved to see his dad lay Hugo Philpotts out on the pavement. Mr. Monday was an ex-Marine, and Anthony was sure he could make mincemeat out of Hugo. On the other hand, Anthony didn’t want his dad to have another heart attack.
“Okay, okay, now break it up! Just break it up, the lot of you!” A policeman stepped in between Hugo and Mr. Monday. In a small town, everybody knows the policemen by name, and both Hugo and Mr. Monday knew this one. It was Officer Earl Swett, the policeman who had investigated the burglary at Miss Eells’s house.
“That boy has some property of mine,” said Hugo, pointing at Anthony. “I demand that he give it to me!”
Officer Swett rubbed his chin. He was a big burly guy with sleepy, hooded eyes. He talked slowly, and he never did things in a hurry. “Well, now, Mr. Philpotts, maybe he’s got somethin’ of yours, and maybe he doesn’t. We’ll have to sort this out later. By the way, would you kindly tell me what you were doin’ up on that there roof?”
“Why don’t you ask that boy what he was doing up there? He was up there, too, you know.”
Officer Swett looked from Hugo to Anthony and back to Hugo again. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll just have to sort all this out down at the station. I want you to come down tomorrow and answer a few questions.”
Hugo glared haughtily at Officer Swett. “I beg your pardon? Are you talking to me?”
Officer Swett looked him in the eye. “Yes, sir. I believe I am.”
“Do you know who I am?” said Hugo in his huffiest voice. He was trying very hard to be grand and majestic, but it’s hard to be grand and majestic when you’re wearing tennis shoes and dungarees and when you have just been pulled down off a library roof in the middle of the night.
Office Swett was beginning to lose his temper. With him it was always a very slow process, but when he lost it, people knew that they’d better watch out.
He put his hands on his hips and stared curiously at Hugo, as if he were a bug that had just crawled out from under a rock. “Yeah, I know who you are, and I know where you were about five minutes ago. And that’s exactly what I want to talk to you about.”
“Do you understand the position I have in this community?” Hugo said in a threatening voice. “Do you know what I could do to you?”
“Yeah. You could cancel my Christmas Club,” said Officer Swett, grinning.
Quite a little crowd had gathered around Hugo and the others, and everybody laughed loudly at this remark. Hugo’s face got very red. “We’ll see about this,” he muttered. And then he turned and stalked away.
There was a lot to be talked about and taken care of, and it took a long time for everything to get thrashed out and settled. First of all, there was the matter of Miss Eells’s head wound. It turned out that she had gotten a nasty scalp wound that took several stitches to close, and she had a mild concussion. But after a few days in the hospital, she was her usual busy, cheerful self. She talked a lot about the two knocks on the head that she had gotten in less than one year.
As for the treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, there was a great deal to be settled. Of course, nothing could be hidden now. It all had to come out, the whole incredible story of how Anthony had found the clues to the treasure, of how he had chased the treasure down one blind alley and then, almost by accident, had found the true path. As he told Miss Eells again later, he had been packing his bag on the night of the flood when all of a sudden he had realized that the motto BELIEVE ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU READ applied to the poem. There were eight lines in the poem; the first four were just a decoy, a blind, and so was the message in the mirror. They led nowhere, or rather they led to a tin box with a four-leaf clover in it. But the last four lines of the poem were true, and once you saw this, it was all very simple. The poem even gave a clue as to how to get inside the reindeer without tearing the poor thing apart. And what was the treasure? What was inside the cloth-wrapped parcel? That, as they say, is the interesting part.
The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn Page 13