by Van Reid
“Mr. Plainway,” said Charlotte. He was surprised to find her standing beside him, holding out his hat and coat. She herself was well bundled, and there was the look of excitement in her face, as if a train derailment had been the very thing to take her mind from her unfortunate day.
He thanked her as he took the hat and then the coat, shivering beneath them as he realized how cold he had been.
“Shall we go and see?” she asked. They might have been friends all their lives there was such a note of cheer in her voice.
Daniel’s only concern was that the train was settled firmly. He looked up and down the line of cars but could tell nothing in the gathering dark. “Yes,” he said, “we might as well find out what’s expected of us.”
Quite naturally she took his arm, and they plodded through the drifts to the fore of the train. For her part Charlotte felt at ease with this man. He was indeed steady (as she had characterized him); she (as a rule) was serene in herself, and it would be difficult to explain why the one was so different from the other.
Others were coming off the train, and someone shouted questions from a window as they went by. a small man in engineer’s garb approached them, his face wet with steam and dark with coal dust, and he hoped aloud that they were unharmed after the incident.
The further they walked, the more flurried the activity around them. They came into the light of a dozen lanterns when they reached the broken tracks. The engine of the one train and the caboose of the other were not thirty feet apart.
A railroad man tipped his hat to Charlotte, then said to Daniel, “They’ve already roused some folk at lceboro, back down the way a mile or so. There’s a road, just on the ridge above us, and most of the passengers from the other train have been taken to lodgings already. The sleighs will be back soon, and we can get you folks off in half an hour, I’m sure.”
They stood back and watched as the engineer directed some safety measures. Loose rails were pulled from the bed and chocked against the wheels of the train. The engine still listed, and the conductor decided that everyone should wait outside for further transportation. Another man shoveled a bucket of glowing coals from the firebox, and a fire was started with some brush and a broken rail between the two trains.
“We just need a pond and some skates,” said Daniel.
The engineer passed them again, tipping his hat to Charlotte. “I do believe he thinks I am your wife,” said Charlotte with that same impishness that had taken pleasure in Daniel’s blush earlier.
“Does he?” Daniel was befuddled by this statement and wondered if she wanted him to correct this misapprehension. “Perhaps I should explain-” he began, and even took a step in that direction.
She kept hold of his arm, however, and laughed aloud. “I don’t think it will matter to him,” she said. There was the sound of relief in her voice, as if she had feared she had lost laughter altogether that afternoon. It was a deep, heartfelt sound, and Daniel was not offended to find himself its object, there was such comradery in the way it was shared. The woman, in her fur-collared coat, and her voice in the snow reached the level of beauty that only the unexpected can attain, and there was at the same time something so natural about her presence there that he could take a truly long look at her while she smiled in reply.
“No, I don’t suppose it will,” said Daniel.
28. More Sense of a Letter
“Capital?” said Sven Henslaw, when he answered the door and found the silver-bearded man at his back stoop. “What is it?” Sven peered past the old man at the small crowd gathered around several sleighs outside his house. The tail end of the storm drifted into the realm of a nearby streetlamp, and in that halo they looked like a calendar lithograph, bundled in furs and wrapped about with scarves and blankets.
“We’ve come to ask you a great favor, Sven,” said Capital. “Could we come in?”
“Not all of you?” wondered Sven, wide-eyed.
“No, no. Three or four of us, perhaps.”
“I don’t know, Capital. Mina likes to know ahead of time if company is coming.”
“Well, maybe two or three more than that,” added Capital, who wasn’t really listening to the man. “You don’t mind if we talk to the sheriff in your kitchen, do you, Sven, while you do us a favor?”
“Good Lord, Capital! What’s happened?”
“We’ll explain the whole thing while you print some pictures for us.”
“Print some pictures? Can’t that wait till tomorrow? We were just sitting down to dinner, Mina and I.”
Capital’s eyes shone with both humor and apology. “Well, Sven,” he said, “I wish I could say we won’t take up much of your evening.”
A small commotion had started out on the sidewalk, and a large, rugged-looking man pushed his way through the crowd toward Sven’s door. “What’s going on here, Capital?” said the fellow with the air of someone who has the right, perhaps the duty to know.
“Good Lord!” said Sven. “It is the sheriff!”
A dog was barking. Mr. Noggin and Mr. Noel, along with Paul Duvaudreuil and some other brawny fellows, were escorting a pair of men, none too gently, up the walk to the kitchen door, and Sven realized, after a look or two, that these two men had their hands bound behind them. The sheriff was quick to see this as well and didn’t seem too pleased about it.
“I’m surprised to find you at the head of a mob, Capital,” he said.
“Mob? We’re orderly enough.”
“Well, I want those men untied immediately.”
“Soon as we get them in the kitchen, Sheriff.”
“The kitchen? Capital, have you gone foolish? I thought there was trouble here at Sven’s!”
“No trouble here, Sheriff!” declared Mr. Henslaw. “And I want none. Mina and I were just sitting down to dinner.” Mrs. Henslaw at this point chose to appear behind her husband, and she demanded to know what was happening.
“Bernie,” said Capital to the sheriff, “have I ever given you reason to think I’d go off half cocked?” While the sheriff frowned and thought about this, Capital added, “Well, all right then. Let’s get them in Sven’s kitchen. We’ll get Sven working on a little favor for us and explain the whole thing all to once.”
Throughout this conversation the two blond men never altered their expressions, which were respectively bland and uninterested.
Sheriff Bernard Darwin gave the two bound men a curt look, then let out a large, heartfelt sigh and nodded to Sven. “Better let us in, I guess,” he said, and led the way through to the Henslaws’ kitchen. “You be easy with those fellows!”
Sven and Mina Henslaw lived near the northern end of Skowhegan’s main street, and not in the largest house, though it was very spruce, and the kitchen smelled nicely of the Henslaws’ dinner, which was simmering upon a cheerily humping stove. There was some confusion as Capital waved several people into the kitchen: Mrs. Henslaw stood across the room and continued to query anyone who would listen.
“Now, just hold on, Mina,” the sheriff said. “I don’t know myself. Get those men untied,” he demanded of Paul and some of his kin, who had lumbered after the Covingtons, Mister Walton, and Sundry Moss. “Are all these people necessary?” wondered the sheriff.
“You have the picture?” Capital asked Sundry.
The young man waved a photograph in the air. “Mr. Henslaw,” he said, “if we could take advantage of your talent with a camera as well as your good nature…” He sounded rather like Mister Walton, and Sven appeared slightly mollified as he led Sundry toward the back of his house, where he kept his studio.
A the two blond men came free of their bonds, Capital made sure they were securely fixed in seats behind the Henslaws’ kitchen table.
“Now, really, Capital,” said the sheriff, “for the last time, what is this all about?”
Capital Gaines was not to be hurried, however, and he conveyed introductions between the sheriff, Mrs. Henslaw, the Covingtons, and Mister Walton. “You know Paul and his fa
mily,” he finished.
The sheriff nodded to the Duvaudreuil clan, members of which continued to fill the kitchen. “Shut that door!” demanded the sheriff. “And who are these fellows?” he asked, nodding to the two seated men.
“They are simply the men who shot at us, out beyond Round Pond,” informed Capital.
“Round Pond? Today? What were you doing out in the woods in this blizzard?”
“Reverend Covington here was searching for a particular artifact that he believes might be of Viking origin.”
“Come again?”
“And these ne’er-do-wells,” continued Capital, who wasn’t ready to begin repeating himself just yet, “found it in their hearts to threaten us with guns-they and their accomplices-and even to shoot at us on three occasions.” Capital looked almost happy to say it.
“I am sorry for such a commotion in your house,” said Isabelle to Mrs. Henslaw, but their hostess had realized she was to have some excitement tonight with none of the attendant trouble once everyone was gone; it would be story enough to keep them the rest of the winter.
“Good heavens, Mrs. Covington!” said Mina Henslaw. “They shot at you?”
“And what’s your name?” demanded the sheriff of the beardless blond man.
The man replied as if he were in danger of going to sleep, “I don’t believe I am obliged to say anything under the circumstances.”
“I am pretty sure,” said the sheriff, “that it would behoove you to be on a first-name basis with me.”
The man gave Darwin a look of impeccable boredom. “Arthur,” he said simply. “This is Edgar.”
The sheriff was not to be irritated by any such fatuous methods, and he turned to Edgar. “Can you speak?”
“Yes,” said the bearded man with as much enthusiasm as his compamon.
“And what do you have to say about this?” inquired the sheriff.
The bearded man raised his chin, barely cleared his throat, and took in the remainder of the room with hooded eyes. “I came upon these people trespassing,” he began in a firm and untroubled tone, “and was simply wanting to know what they were about when I was attacked by their dog.”
“Trespassing?” said Frederick Covington, but the sheriff raised his hand.
“My friend here,” continued the man, with a nod to the other blond man, “did shoot once, hoping to drive the dog and the young man who just left with Mr. Henslaw away from me. The young man knocked me in the side of the head, and I was briefly unconscious. My friend was held at gunpoint. We were tied up like so much game, thrown into a sleigh, and carried off. Realizing that we had been kidnapped by these people, other friends came after us and did give warning shots in the pursuit.”
“Warning shots!” shouted Capital. “That’s a pretty story!”
“Trespassing?” said Frederick again.
The blond man actually smiled, the dubious light of which fell rather blatantly upon Isabelle, who offered no expression in return.
Capital shook his fist at the bearded man. “I’ll give you a shot that’s more than warning!”
Darwin demanded order, threatening to clear the room. Then the sheriff’s attention fell upon Mister Walton, who remained as calm as ever. Anyone else would have taken this as a signal to say what was on his mind, but the portly fellow simply said, “I beg your pardon?” as if the sheriff had said something he hadn’t heard.
“Please, speak up,” said the sheriff, who was only too glad to see a thoughtful expression among them.
“There is, you will easily believe,” said Mister Walton, “some history behind this, which can be explained easily enough. However, Mr. -the gentleman calling himself Edgar has used the term trespassing, which would indicate that he and his fellows either own or are the agents of those who own the land where the unfortunate events took place. Otherwise they have no reason, or right, to be pointing guns at anyone.”
“It’s not customary to point guns at all in these parts,” said the sheriff. He turned to Arthur and Edgar.
“We are the owners of that land,” stated Edgar flatly.
Frederick was incensed with the declaration. “How can that be when you didn’t even know of its existence until today? When we ourselves probably led you there?”
Edgar never took his eyes from the sheriff. “You have only to go to the Registry of Deeds, where you will find the land in question to be under the ownership of the Broumnage Club.”
“The Norumbega Club, you mean,” said Frederick quietly.
Edgar managed to alter a small look of surprise into one of puzzlement as he turned to the clergyman.
“Broumnage Club?” the sheriff was saying. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s a sporting association,” explained Edgar.
“A league of vandals!” spouted Frederick.
The sheriff shook his head and sighed again. “I need someone to rouse up the town clerk,” he said, “and go with him to the Registry of Deeds.” And when, with proper instructions from Capital, Mr. Noel and Mr. Noggin (who seemed everywhere together) were after this errand, the sherifasked for a chair and a careful accounting of the day’s adventures.
The notion of photographing a positive photograph was a new one to Sven Henslaw; but as a professional he was interested in the challenge, and Sundry kept the man happy by explaining why he was missing his dinner and also why his kitchen was filled with people.
“You mean it!” Sven said several times while Sundry explained the possible origins of the artifact in the photograph, and “Good night!” another several times as the young man related the events of the day. Sven was adept at his craft and quickly formed a negative from the photograph, which they dried in the darkroom amid the acrid chemical fumes.
“The runes are the important thing,” said Sundry as they waited for the first print to come to life, but what he focused on, as it appeared, was the pictograph (an ox, Mr. Covington had thought) carved apart from the main column of figures. “We just need as many copies as we can make,” he said.
“Ah!” said Mr. Henslaw as he pulled the photograph from its bath. Shadow reigned over more of the scene than in the original, but they could make out the runes upon the boulder.
Sundry, who had never seen this process before, was enthralled, but in a little while he left Mr. Henslaw and returned to the kitchen to report their success. Mr. Noggin and Mr. Noel had returned, and the two blond sherifmen did not seem as complacent as before; Arthur was arguing with the sheriff at the state of deeds at the town registry, while Edgar simply stared at the table before him, appearing angry and astonished. “I am telling you that it is simply an oversight!” Arthur was shouting.
Sundry looked to Mister Walton, who stepped up and said in a small tone, “The deed to the parcel of land that contains the Council Hill was not in the name of the Broumnage Club, as these two clearly expected.”
“How could they have expected such a thing if they only learned about the location of the runes today?”
“They must have known their general whereabouts and needed Frederick to lead them to it directly. To cover eventualities, they meant to have the land under ownership.”
“But they don’t.”
“It seems not.” Mister Walton took Sundry by the elbow and moved him toward the pantry, where he could speak without being overheard. “Mr. Tempest’s letter, as it happens,” he said, “has had its effect.”
“Mr. Tempest?”
“Indeed.”
“The man on the ship? The one whose letter you wrote and delivered?”
“Or rather the Moosepath League delivered. The deed to the land where we encountered these fellows is in the name of Ezra Burnbrake.” Mister Walton chuckled at the look on Sundry’s face. “I had no more notion than yourself. But the letter that Mr. Tempest dictated makes more sense to me now. Mr. Tempest himself was to have been the agent by which the Broumnage Club meant to obtain the land, but he had a change of heart, it seems, and in rather oblique terms he called o
ff the deal and warned Mr. Burnbrake from making a similar one with anyone else.”
“But where does this place Mr. Tempest?”
“A a member of the Broumnage Club himself perhaps.”
“And traveling on the same ship with the Covingtons was a way to watch them,” said Sundry.
“I have not mentioned the business to anyone else, fearing that Mr. Tempest’s decision may have put him in some danger with his fellows.”
“But if he was. a member of the club?”
“He had tired of the people he represented and said as much. And he also, now that I think of it, said something about dying.”
“Was he being prophetic regarding his friends’ reaction?”
“I wonder.”
“Gentlemen,” said the sheriff. He entered the pantry and was obviously interested in what they were speaking about.
“It is a peripheral business,” said Mister Walton, “which I would rather not speak of in…mixed company.” He indicated the blond men with a glance.
The sheriff nodded. “Arthur, Edgar,” he said to the blond men, who had not offered their surnames, “you will allow me to be your host tonight at the county jail.”
“You have no right to lock us up!” spat Arthur, his fair complexion turning ruddy with anger. Edgar sat straight in his straight-backed chair and glared at the sheriff.
“It was all one word against another, as far as I could tell,” explained the sheriff, “but you stuck it out a little too far with this claim of owning the land. Something isn’t square here, and perhaps the light of day will have a beneficial effect on my ability to understand the problem.”
“They kidnapped us!” pronounced Edgar.
“And brought you straight to the sheriff,” said Darwin. “Would that all kidnappers followed the same scheme. I know it’s Sunday tomorrow,” he said to the remainder of the room, “but I think we had better rectify things in the morning.”