by Van Reid
Thole led them to the next room but stopped short in the doorway. “What in God’s creation!” he declared, a statement that in the presence of a clergyman (not to mention the clergyman’s wife) might have seemed a little indelicate.
“Is it very bad?” asked Frederick as he reached the door.
Thole stepped into the room, moving like a sleepwalker, his head turning slowly from side to side. Isabelle let out a small gasp when she reached the threshold, and Mister Walton and Sundry hurried their steps.
The room was in shambles. Papers and pictures (mostly tintypes and photographs) were spilled all about, cupboard drawers had been pulled from their places, and these were tossed helter-skelter in the comers; furniture was heaped against the walls.
“They worked here in the middle of the room,” said Covington, standing in the one bare spot on the floor, “and they simply tossed everything as they went through it.”
“All my pictures!” Mr. Thole was saying. “My things!”
Sundry glanced at Mrs. Covington; the color had left her face.
“I don’t understand,” said Mister Walton, almost to himself.
“Nor do I, sir!” said Thole, who was beside himself with anger and frustration.
“Your wife is passed away, I know,” said Covington, “but do you have no servants?”
“Why, yes,” said Thole, just considering this. “Good Lord,” he swore, and disappeared in the direction of the hall, calling out for “Winifred and Tim.” Frederick bent down and lifted some papers from the floor, not to look at them, but to corroborate physically what his eyes had told him.
“It’s terrible!” said Isabelle.
“Who could have done such a thing?” wondered Mister Walton.
“I fear I know only too well, Mister Walton,” said Frederick. “But I couldn’t have guessed it. They have never, to my knowledge, perpetrated anything so brazen.”
Again Isabelle passed that look from her husband to their companions, and this time Covington nodded. They could hear Thole calling for his servants in another part of the house.
“These appear to be deeper waters than I had expected, Mr. Covington,” said Mister Walton with great seriousness.
“Everything I told you and Mr. Moss last night,” said Frederick, “was the truth, Mister Walton. This”-here he held his hands out to indicate the signs of plunder before them-“this I am shocked about, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.” The man looked to his wife for help.
“Frederick told you,” said Mrs. Covington, “of the care he must take in investigating these artifacts.”
“Yes,” said Mister Walton.
“But to add to his travails,” she said, “there are those who would destroy any evidence before he reached it.”
“Dear me!” said Mister Walton. “Are there people so anxious to prove you wrong that they would destroy evidence?”
“There are people who are only too hopeful that I am right, Mister Walton,” said Frederick Covington with a strange smile. “Twice I have reached the site of a possible artifact: runes found in a wood, in the one case; more runes dug up by a farmer’s plow, in the other. I both cases someone reached the artifact before I did and destroyed it! Scratched out the runes!”
“Scratched them out?” said Mister Walton.
“The runes had been ruined,” said Frederick wryly.
“Dear me!” said the bespectacled man again. “But if the people responsible were hoping for proof of the Norse discovery of the continent,” added Mister Walton, who was speaking for Sundry Moss as well, “I don’t understand why they would destroy possible evidence.”
“We were mystified as well, sir, I can assure you,” said Frederick. “But that was before we became aware of a small society that exists in Boston known as the Broumnage Club. Your servants?” he asked Mr. Thole, who had returned to the room.
The man raised his hands. “They are nowhere to be found. But there are things scattered about and drawers pulled all over the house.”
Covington made a sound deep in his throat. “Mr. Thole, I heartily apologize for this.”
“It wasn’t your doing,” said the man half-questioningly.
“Even without the telegram, it is obvious that your house has been ransacked because of your communications with me regarding the runes you found.”
“It is that then,” said the man.
Covington nodded. “Whatever the cost of setting things to rights, Mr. Thole, you must allow me to make good on it.”
“Well, Mr. Covington, I don’t know.”
“I insist. I trust your servants are well…” He prepared to leave.
“I don’t know that I trust them at al anymore!” declared Thole.
“I am sorry to hurry you,” said Covington to his companions, “and I’m sorry to leave you in this situation, Mr. Thole, but it is imperative that I make the next train to Skowhegan.”
“Don’t you want to see the pictures of the runes?” wondered the man, his mystification only deepening.
“They will be gone, I can almost assure you, sir.”
“Gone? But I have them with me.”
“What?”
“I took them with me when I came to the station. When I got the telegram, I couldn’t imagine what was so urgent, but I thought you must be passing through Augusta rather than stopping and wanted the photographs. I brought them with me. See?” He produced from a coat pocket an envelope in which there were several paper photographs.
“Mr. Thole,” cried Covington, “you may have saved the day!”
“Really?” said the man. “Is that what they were after?”
Then something else occurred to Covington, and he said, with new alarm, “You didn’t have a map about, showing the whereabouts of the runes, or anything written in a journal?”
“I didn’t, no. I am out in the woods all summer, photographing up by Oaks Pond and Lake George, and I don’t really need a map to remind myself where I found something. But they may have gotten the negatives for all I know.” He began to cast about.
“But the only description you’ve written is the one you sent me by post?”
“It is, sir.”
“That is a blessing! These photographs themselves are a triumph! May I take them with me?”
“That is why I brought them to the station in the first place,” said Thole. “What is this all about?”
“I promise an explanation, sir, but in season. I suggest, and even request, that you do not move anything till the police have looked it over.”
“And if you would hurry “I’ll photograph it!” said the many us back to the station.”
“But the police will want to know what you know!” declared the man.
“All I possess is speculation, I promise, however much faith I have in it. I shall be back to make a statement, but first I must get to Skowhegan! Mister Walton, Mr. Moss, if you still want to come along?”
“You couldn’t keep me away, Mr. Covington,” said Mister Walton, and Sundry appeared at least as game.
“Frederick!” said Isabelle then, and it was clear that she was near to bursting.
“Dear,” said the clergyman, “I think you should take the train back to Portland and stay with Lawrence till this is through.”
“You are not leaving me behind to worry about you,” insisted Isabelle. Mister Walton and Sundry thought they heard the tones of a well-worn conversation, and she confirmed their suspicions by saying, “We have discussed this,” her expression indicating that there had been discussion enough.
“There is nothing to worry about,” said Frederick unconvincingly.
“And this?” she declared, her hands swept out to take in the overturned room. “If there is nothing to worry about on your account, there is nothing to worry about on mine!”
“Mister Walton,” said Frederick, rubbing his forehead as if to promote thought. “Mr. Moss. Perhaps Isabelle and I should go forward without you.”
“Certainly not,”
said the portly fellow. “We will go to Skowhegan as planned, but perhaps you should tell us more about this situation.”
“Yes,” said Frederick with sudden decision and a renewed sense of haste. “But on the way. Mr. Thole, if you would take us back to the station?”
They had no more than stepped out the front door than they heard a woman scream, and two people jumped down from a cab that was pulling up before Mr. Thole’s home. The woman, dressed in dark clothes and with a simple shawl thrown around her shoulders, was first down the walk. She was of middle years, and her face was worked into a paroxysm of tears and relief. “Mr. Thole!” she was shouting. “Mr. Thole! They said you’d been killed at the crossing! We’ve been all over the city and at every police station and undertaker’s looking for you!”
“Winifred!” said Mr. Thole, who was understandably startled by this declaration and a little abashed to have his servant throw her arms around him.
A older man approached them from the street, shaking his head in agitation. “They told us you’d been killed,” he said quietly. He wrung his hat before him like a dishrag.
“This Broumnage Club again?” asked Sundry of Frederick Covington.
The minister nodded. “It must be. The only way to get everyone out of the house. They sent Mr. Thole out to the station with the telegram, then communicated a fatal accident on the rails to his servants.”
“The Broumnage Club,” said Sundry again. “I don’t much think I’m going to like them.”
14. Emulating the Chairman
It was noon before Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were gathered in one place and ready to fulfill the duty they had taken upon themselves for Mister Walton. The day was so fine and they were so exhilarated by the prospect of their errand that they determined to walk to the City Hotel.
They met several people and greeted them with great feeling, and crossing Congress Street in the direction of the Exchange, they fell in with the hurly-burly of business and enterprise. Christmas, or rather the anticipation of Christmas, was with them as well: The shops were filled with delicacies and temptations; greenery and bright packages in store windows were the order of the day. Feet clattered on the walks; a bell rang as the door to a confectioner’s opened; traffic in the street rang loud in the crisp air.
The Moosepathians paused at many a store window to marvel at the trinkets and treasures thus displayed. Here was a season to rival, or even surpass, the height of summer! They each had pleasant childhood memories regarding Christmas, and they carried with them certain well-used emotions about this time of year. The pleasures of the season were ready to be felt in the Moosepathian breast, and Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were glad to oblige such obliging sensations!
When they crossed Middle Street, the tall windows of the City Hotel reflected back the buildings and the people behind them, giving no hint of life or commerce within. a doorman let them in with a pleasant word and directed them through a busy foyer to the manager’s desk. The manager himself stepped from his office and said good morning.
Hats in hand, heads indicating a trio of slight bows, Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump returned his greeting and then looked at one another; when making their plans the previous evening, they had not discussed anything further than this moment and consequently were wondering which of them should tender the purpose of their mission.
The manager looked upon their hesitation as an indication of the seriousness of their purpose, and the longer the three men looked at one another, the more serious he was sure that purpose must be. It did not help seriousness of their purpose, and the longer the three men looked at one an matters that the expressions upon the Moosepathians’ faces grew more doubtful with every passing moment, till the manager was sure that some dread fate had found him out, and finally (while Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump gradually took on the look of complete desperation) the man could think of nothing that would merit such reluctant concentration (not to mention concentrated reluctance) but the imminent visitation of death and destruction.
The stricken look upon the manager’s face meanwhile did in no way reassure the members of the club.
“Good morning,” said Ephram again, and the manager shouted with alarm.
All heads (including those of Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump) in the lobby turned to see what was the matter. Thinking some missile might be flying through the air (he had been reading a gripping adventure entitled Fennell’s Final Volley just that morning), Thump threw an arm over his head. Eagleton turned about on one heel-back straight, eyes wide—and exchanged startled sounds with a large woman who was standing behind him. Ephram, who had been taking Mr. Tempest’s letter from his pocket, dropped the missive and, stooping to retrieve it, bumped his head against the side of the counter.
When all grew quiet once more and nothing but confused looks punctuated the air, Ephram tried again by clearing his throat slightly.
“Yes?” said the manager, his panic having subsided a little.
Ephram nearly dropped the letter again, but then he waved it in the air and said, “Is there anyone by the name of Burnbrake staying with you, sir?”
“Burnbrake?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We have an errand regarding Mr. Ezra Burnbrake,” elucidated Eagleton. He looked over his shoulder and nodded to the woman behind him. The woman drew her eyebrows down into a fierce scowl, and Eagleton’s eyes widened accordingly.
The manager looked now not as if he were searching his mind for the answer to this question but as if he were searching his inclination to answer at all. Once he had calmed his nerves further, he made a decision. “Yes,” he drawled, in not an answer, but only an acknowledgment that he had heard. He considered his register. “Are you a friend of Mr. Noble?”
“I do not, I think, know a Mr. Noble,” said Ephram. “Do you, Eagleton?”
“The name is not familiar,” said Eagleton, and he submitted the question to Thump, who was equally unfamiliar with a Mr. Noble. a one the three men handed the manager their cards.
“I see,” said the manager. He peered down his nose at the cards; he had not liked being startled just now and was not entirely of a mind to be helpful to these fellows.
Throughout this recent dialogue the members of the club had maintained the mildest of expressions.
“If you will wait in the sitting room,” said the manager, pointing past Ephram’s left shoulder, “I will discover if Mr. Burn brake is seeing anybody just now.” He lifted their cards to indicate that he would give them to the party in question, came around the counter, and moved without hurry up the stairs.
They repaired to the sitting room, which was a large space, filled with the requisite chairs and divans. a fire snapped merrily in the oversized fireplace opposite the entrance; there was the rustle of newspapers from several silent readers and a low conversation taking place between a man and a woman in the comer. Standing at one of the tall windows, the three friends looked out upon the busy winter street and remarked how pleased everyone seemed. They turned whenever someone entered the room or paused at the doorway but were not rewarded by the sight of an obvious Mr. Bumbrake, nor did any men search them out.
“The manager did appear to be out of sorts,” said Eagleton after a while. He had been greatly impressed by the man’s shout of alarm and hoped to avoid further exclamations.
“I think he was concerned about the woman behind us,” ventured Ephram.
“She did frown,” agreed Eagleton.
They wondered if the manager had disappeared altogether, without forwarding their cards, when a woman stopped in the door and scanned the room. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump did not of course make a practice of staring at people, but there was something arresting-one might say lovely-about the woman that slowed the movement of their eyes. There was a contradiction about her, for she carried herself with an energy that lent her the appearance of youth, yet she appeared that type of humanity that is sometimes spoken of, even in its childhood, as an old soul. She was a woman in he
r middle years, with expressive blue eyes, broad cheekbones, and light brown hair intermingled only slightly with a strand of white here or there.
Her eye passed over the three friends while she took stock of the room, then fell upon them again, as they seemed the only occupants to be expecting someone. Her expression was solemn, even cautious as she approached them. She had the look of a person who is ready to defend herself at all costs.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were so absorbed, first by her striking appearance and then by her demeanor, that they very nearly forgot to genuflect in some manner that was proper in the presence of a lady.
She had their cards in hand, and she referred to them as she approached. “Messrs. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump?” she said in a pretty voice that yet offered no sentiment.
“We are!” said the men in concert, and their combined voices carried enough volume to startle themselves as well as to raise several heads in the sitting room.
A few months before, such a meeting would have held some terror fore Moosepathians; it was difficult to know how to proceed in the presence of a woman. Some experience, however, had come their way since the inauguration of their club, and Ephram in particular had conducted a successful conversation with a young woman by the name of Sallie Riverille during the previous October. There was also the example of their chairman to follow, and only the night before they sat in the presence of Mrs. Covington with no discernible complications. Remembering some mention of a niece to Mr. Burnbrake, Ephram proceeded by inquiring, “Mrs.?”
“Miss Burnbrake,” informed the woman with a hint of severity.
This was the extent of Ephram’s bravery at the moment, and he offered nothing else.
“You asked to see my uncle,” said the woman finally, after considering each of their faces.
“We did!” said the men as one, and again heads came up in the sitting room.
The woman was puzzled. “Did my cousin send you?” she asked solemnly.
Ephram looked to Eagleton, who looked to Thump, who looked to Ephram. “Your cousin?” said Ephram, who was looking at Thump, who looked at Eagleton, who looked back at Ephram.