“All the cooking and the cleaning. We used to have two ladies come out from Cold Spring to do the cleaning and help out all around. But the boss stopped that a couple of days ago—I guess because he doesn’t want anyone to know you two are here.”
“How do you feel about that—his keeping us prisoners here?” asked Andrew.
“I don’t like it—I don’t think it’s right-but I’m sure Mr. Cady’s got his reasons for it. In any case, you won’t come to no harm. He’s not a bad man, Mr. Cady. And neither is Mr. Biggs. He’s quiet, but very smart. Mr. Cady counts on him for a lot.”
“What about that other pair, Axel and Sven?” asked Sara.
“The Hansen brothers? I don’t have much truck with them. Sven runs the boat and Axel takes care of the grounds and anything that needs fixing in the house. I guess they’re all right.” Then, leaning closer to the two young people. “No, they’re not. To tell you the truth, I don’t like ’em. They’re mean!”
“We don’t like them either,” said Andrew. “But we won’t tell anyone how you feel about them.”
“Wouldn’t do any of us any good,” said Gideon. Then, looking at their empty plates, “Well, I guess you were pretty hungry at that.”
“Even if we hadn’t been, we still wouldn’t have left anything,” said Sara. “It was delicious.”
“Glad you think so. I like cooking for people who appreciate it. Drink your milk now, and I’ll take the tray.” Then, as they did so, “That’s it. It was nice talking to you. I’ll see you again at lunchtime.” And picking up the tray, he went out, locking the door behind him.
“Well, now we know how many people we have to worry about,” said Andrew. “When Manion leaves, there’ll be five—Cady, Biggs, Gideon and the two Hansens.”
“What about the man who was stoking the fire on the launch?”
“I forgot about him. That makes six. But the major problems remain the same—how to get out of this room and how to get off the island. Let’s look around a bit.”
“The room or the island?”
“Both. The island first.”
They went back to the north window and looked out. The castle was near the southern end of the island, and to the north, beyond the gardens, were some carefully spaced trees—probably an orchard—and beyond that a small but dense wood. To the east, as much as they could see, was the dock, boathouse, chicken coop and the building that looked like a barn. The only thing they hadn’t seen or noticed before was a rowboat that was pulled up on the shore on the southeast corner of the island.
“I wonder what that boat’s doing there,” said Andrew. “Why it’s not at the boathouse.”
Sara looked at it thoughtfully. “I’ll bet it’s Gideon’s,” she said. “He asked if we liked catfish. He probably likes to fish, and, if he does, he’d keep the boat there where it’s nearer the kitchen and handier than if it were at the boathouse.”
“I’ve a feeling you’re right,” said Andrew. Looking at it more closely, he could see that it was heavy and rather clumsy, as if it had been made by a local carpenter rather than at a boatyard like the launch. “But that’s volume two. Let’s see how we do with volume one.” And he went over to look at the door.
It took only a minute to convince him that there was very little that they could do there. The door was heavy and the lock was a new Yale, as efficient as their own British Chubb locks.
“Do you think you can pick it?” asked Sara.
“No. It would take a professional with very good tools to do that. What’s in the trunk?”
“Probably blankets and linen.”
She was right. There were several blankets in the trunk and under them sheets, pillow cases, towels and other articles of household linen.
“What about the wardrobe?” asked Andrew.
Old clothes,” said Sara. And again she was right, though the clothes were probably not exactly what she expected. For, along with the ladies’ dresses, coats and cloaks, there were several military uniforms, rather worn and stained, probably dating from the War Between the States. They took out some of the clothes and looked behind them to see if they could find anything useful, but there was nothing there but some old shoes and boots.
“Doesn’t look very good, does it?” said Andrew.
“No. What if we made a rope out of sheets or blankets, hung it out the window and slid down that?”
“I’ve read about that, but I’m not sure I know how to do it. Do you?”
“No. I imagine you tear the blankets or sheets into strips and twist or braid them to make them stronger.”
“And what if they’re not strong enough? We’re pretty far up.”
“Well, we wouldn’t try sliding down it until we’d tested it, made sure it would hold our weight.”
“Have you ever slid down a sixty foot rope?”
“No. Have you?”
“Not sixty feet, but I’ve climbed up and down a twelve foot rope at school, and it’s not easy, especially when the bottom end is loose and whips around. I suppose I could go down first and hold it for you, but even then, where would we be? We’d still be out here on the island and have to figure out some way to get ashore.”
“There are boats.”
“What boats? The launch?”
“No. I don’t suppose we could handle that. But what about that rowboat of Gideon’s?”
“Which the launch could catch in no time at all when they discovered we were gone.”
“But if we did it at night, they wouldn’t know we were gone until morning. Wouldn’t that give us time to get ashore—even in Gideon’s rowboat?”
“Maybe.”
She frowned at him. “Are you saying we shouldn’t do anything about this? Shouldn’t even try to escape?”
“I did try to do something about it. I wrote that note to Peter. As for the suggestions you’ve been making, will you give me a few minutes to think about them?”
“All right.”
He went over to a window and looked out. It was like Sara to refuse to accept the situation they were in, to immediately start thinking about what they could do about it. On the other hand, he was older than she was and more practical, and he was very conscious of the risks they would run if they did what she was proposing. He looked down at the ground so far below and a chill came over him. He wouldn’t like to climb down all that distance on an improvised rope. He wasn’t sure that even a sailor, used to both heights and ropes, would feel comfortable about it. And still, there must be something they could do, and, if there was, he wanted to do it because he was no more willing than Sara was to just sit back and wait until they were either rescued or released. Then, suddenly, his eyes widened. He turned and looked at the door, at the wardrobe. And he grinned.
“You’ve thought of something,” said Sara.
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
He told her.
“Andrew, that’s wonderful!” she said, her eyes shining. “When do we do it?”
“It’s going to take a while to get ready. What about tomorrow night after supper?”
“All right. And in the meantime?”
“We’ve got to make them think that we’re perfectly happy to stay here. That all we’ve got on our minds is how to spend the time.”
And so when Gideon came back with their lunch, Sara said, “Gideon, there’s no telling how long we’re going to be here. Can’t you get us some books to read or some kind of game we could play?”
“You mean like cards?”
“Well, yes. Cards would do.”
“I got a better idea. How about checkers?”
“Checkers would be fine.”
“I think I saw some in the parlor. I’ll talk to the boss about it.”
They ate their lunch, which consisted of cold ham and potato salad with freshly made hot biscuits; and when Gideon came back up to collect their dishes he brought a box of checkers, a board and a copy of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Sara and Andrew thank
ed him for the lunch, the game and the book, and when he had left and they were fairly sure they would not be disturbed, they went to work.
They had decided that sheets would be better for their purpose than blankets and took four of them out of the trunk. Andrew began tearing them in strips and giving the strips to Sara. Sara twisted several strips together, then began braiding them. It was fairly slow work at first, but when Andrew finished tearing the sheets, he started braiding them too, and by late afternoon they had about forty feet of improvised rope finished. They tested it by tying one end of it to the doorknob and throwing the rest of it over the wardrobe. Andrew climbed up it, and it held his weight so they were satisfied with that aspect of it. They had looked out of the window some time before and discovered that their guess about the rowboat was correct. Gideon had gone out in it, anchored a short distance off the end of the island and spent most of the afternoon fishing.
When he began to row back to the island, the young people decided they had better stop what they were doing, so they coiled the rope they had finished, hid it in the wardrobe, and when Gideon came up with their supper at a little after six, they were engrossed in a checker game.
Gideon watched them for a few minutes, giving Sara advice she did not need for she had won two of the three preceding games. Then, his culinary pride asserting itself, he insisted that they stop and eat their supper while it was still hot. It was southern fried chicken with baked sweet potatoes, followed by apple pie, still warm from the oven. They had no difficulty in eating it all with relish and praising it in a way that satisfied Gideon., He waited until they were finished, asked if they had any further messages or requests for Cady and, when they said they didn’t, bade them good night, took the tray and left.
They continued their rope-making by daylight while it lasted and then by lamplight, and, by about eleven o’clock, they had a rope they thought was long enough for their purposes. They let it down out of the western window of their room, which could not be seen from the front of the castle, found that it reached to within a few feet of the ground and, satisfied, pulled it up, coiled and hid it, and went to sleep feeling that they had done a good day’s work.
Though they played a good deal of checkers the next day and took turns reading aloud from The Scarlet Letter, the time seemed to pass more slowly than it had the previous day, and they waited impatiently for evening.
Gideon came up with their supper at about six thirty, grumbling because the boss and Biggs had decided that they wanted to eat a bit early that night so he’d have to go right back down and take care of them instead of being able to visit for a while with Sara and Andrew. They commiserated with him, but suggested that perhaps he could do so later on when he came back up for their tray.
It was after eight, just beginning to get dark, when he did come back. He unlocked and opened the door, started to go in, then paused staring. One of the southern windows was open, a rope made of torn-up sheets was tied to one of the beds and hung out the window, and Sara and Andrew were gone. He hurried to the window and looked out. The improvised rope dangled lazily with the end within a foot or two of the ground, but there was no sign of the two young people.
“Lordy, Lordy!” moaned Gideon, turning and running back out the door. “Boss, boss!” he called as he ran down the stairs, “We got trouble! Bad trouble!”
12
Escape
The moment Sara and Andrew heard Gideon leave, they came out of the wardrobe where they had been hiding, hurried out through the open door and followed him down the tower stairs. They reached the bottom as he ran into the parlor where Cady and Biggs were having their after-dinner coffee, heard Cady say, “What is it, Gideon? What’s wrong?” and heard Gideon answer, “The kids is gone!”
Glancing into the parlor to make sure they were unobserved, Andrew nodded to Sara, and they ran to the outside door, opened it and were outside on the terrace.
“The rowboat now?” whispered Sara.
“Yes. But let’s wait a minute, see what they’re going to do first.”
Sara nodded and crouched down next to him behind the hedge that ran around the terrace.
“That’s impossible!” Cady was saying. “Are you telling me that they climbed down from up there?”
“If Gideon says they’re gone, they’re gone,” said Biggs. “When did you last see them?”
“When I brung ’em their supper at about six thirty.”
“That means that they’ve been gone for almost two hours,” said Cady. “Damn it all, Biggs, this is your fault! Why the devil didn’t you tell me that they were that smart and that tricky?”
“How was I supposed to know it?”
“What do you mean, how? What in blazes do you think I pay you for? Do you realize what kind of trouble we’ll be in if they get away?”
“That’s not going to be easy. After all, we are on an island.”
“Don’t you think I know that? They’re probably still here, hiding someplace. Gideon, tell the Hansens and have them start searching the grounds! As for you, Biggsy, you start looking up at the northern end, the woods, and … no, never mind. I’ll do that myself!” And as Gideon hurried back toward the kitchen, Cady opened one of the French doors, came out and went running along the terrace, going toward the northern, wooded part of the island.
Biggs remained where he was for a moment, staring after Cady with a look of such intense anger and resentment that Sara clutched Andrew’s hand.
“Did you see that?” she whispered.
“Yes. We’d better go now.”
Getting up from behind the hedge, they ran around the tower, past the trailing end of the improvised rope, then south to the tip of the island where Gideon’s boat was drawn up on the sandy beach, with the rock that he used as an anchor lying beside it.
“Quick! Help me shove it out!” said Andrew, lifting the rock into the boat.
Together they pushed it out until it was floating free. But now, in spite of their previous discussion, Sara hesitated.
“The oars are in it. Don’t you think maybe we could get away this way?”
“If we’d left when they thought we did, yes. But not now. Sven will probably take the launch out, and they’d catch us before we got anywhere near shore.”
“All right. Tip it?”
“Yes.”
Wading out into the shallow water, they both stood on one gunwale until it dipped under the surface and the boat began to fill. Then they jumped off into the sandy shallows, gave the boat one more push and watched it drift away. Just before it disappeared into the darkness, water filled it completely, and it sank out of sight into the muddy depths of the river.
“Now for the barn,” said Andrew as they waded ashore. Together they ran toward the large wooden building they had noticed when they first landed. Just before they reached it, Andrew realized that the sliding doors faced the river, not the castle, and that a wooden ramp sloped down from the doors to the water’s edge.
“It’s not a barn,” he said, pulling one of the sliding doors open. “It’s an icehouse. Not that it matters.”
“An icehouse?” said Sara slipping through the opening.
“Yes,” said Andrew, following her in and pushing the door shut. He gestured toward the pile of sawdust that was some seven or eight feet high. “They cut river ice in the winter, drag it in here and cover it with sawdust to keep it from melting until they want it.”
“Won’t we freeze if we stay here?”
“Does it feel cold?”
“No. As a matter of fact, it’s very comfortable.”
“The sawdust acts as a kind of blanket, keeps the warm air from the ice and so the air doesn’t get cold. Besides, we’re going up there,” and he pointed to a crude ladder nailed to the wall that led to a platform over the mound of sawdust.
They climbed the ladder, found some old horse blankets and burlap bags on the platform, which they agreed would be useful either as blankets or to lie on.
“Well
, we did it,” said Sara, sitting down.
“So far we seem to be all right,” agreed Andrew.
“I wonder where they are, what they’re doing.”
“There’s no telling, so we’d better be quiet.”
Sara nodded, and they sat there in silence for some time. Then suddenly, so close to them they both jumped, they heard one of the Hansen brothers exclaim.
“Gideon’s boat!” he called out. “They took Gideon’s boat!”
“Are you sure?” asked Biggs, slightly further away.
“Come and look. It’s gone.”
“All right. You tell Sven and I’ll tell the boss. He’ll probably want you both to go looking for them in the launch.”
“Some chance of finding them with the head start they’ve got, especially now that it’s dark,” grumbled Hansen. “But all right.”
“Well, you were right about the boat,” whispered Sara. “If we’d taken it, they would have caught us. But now we’re safe. Because if they think we’re gone, they’ll stop looking for us here, won’t they?”
“Yes. As I said, so far we’re all right. Of course what we’ll do tomorrow is something else again.”
“How we’ll get off the island, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any ideas about that?”
“A few.”
“Like what?”
“Well, if they don’t find us on the river tonight—and of course they won’t—they’ll probably go off looking for us in the launch again tomorrow. And if they do .… Well, I’d like to take a look in the boathouse.”
“You mean there may be another boat there.”
“Yes.”
It was completely dark in the upper part of the icehouse where they sat side by side on the pile of sacks and old blankets, too dark for Sara to see his face. But she knew him well enough so that she could read his voice as easily as his expression.
“All right,” she said. “What is it?”
“What’s what?”
“You’re not thinking about tomorrow, about getting away. You’re thinking about something else.”
The Case of the Etruscan Treasure (Andrew Tillet, Sara Wiggins & Inspector Wyatt Book 5) Page 11