The Big Book of Christmas

by Anton Chekhov

  "Thank you," said Geoffrey, "I'm sorry I spent so much time choosing your Christmas present a year ago."

  "Oh, of course, Geof dear, that wonderful old silver is valuable, but it is put away where I defy any burglar to find it. There is only my sable coat, and I am going to send for that as soon as I have time to have it cut over."

  "In my opinion," said Mr. Vaughan, "the man is no longer in the neighbourhood. He would scarcely dare try a fifth attempt while the whole country was so aroused. You see Hillsborough has always been an attractive place to thieves. It is such an easy place to get away from,—three railroads within reach. A man would be pretty sure to be able to catch a passing freight train on one of them at almost any time, to say nothing of the increased difficulty of tracing him."

  "I don't suppose he will ever be caught," said Florence. "When he has got all he wants he will simply melt away and be forgotten. If he were caught—"

  Here she was interrupted by the waiter who laid a telegram at her plate. It had come to her brother's apartment, and been sent down.

  "Who is telegraphing me," she said, as she tore it open. "I hope Jack has not been breaking himself."

  Opening it, she read:

  "Your house was entered about five o'clock this afternoon. Tea-set and sable coat missing."

  Chapter 2

  The next evening at seven o'clock, Holland stepped out of the train on the Hillsborough station. He wore a long fur-coat, for the morning had been bitterly cold in New York, and though the snow was now falling in small close flakes, the temperature had not risen appreciably, and a wild wind was blowing.

  He looked about for the figure of McFarlane, for he had telegraphed the old man to meet him at the train with a trap, but there was no one to be seen. The station, which in summer on the arrival of the express was a busy scene with well dressed women and well-kept horses, was now utterly deserted except for one native who had charge of the mails.

  "Hullo, Harris," Geoffrey sung out. "Is McFarlane here for me?"

  "Ain't seen him. Guess it's too stormy for the old man," Harris replied dropping the mail bag into his wagon.

  "Then you've got to drive me out."

  "What, all the way to your place? No, sir, I guess it is too stormy for me, too."

  But Geoffrey at last, by the promise of three times what the trip was worth, induced Harris to change his mind. He stepped into the mail cart, and having stopped at the post-office to leave the bag, and at the stable to change the cart for a sleigh, they finally set out on their five-mile drive.

  "Guess you come up to see about Mr. May's house being robbed?" Harris hazarded before they had gone far.

  "You're a nice lot, aren't you?" returned Geoffrey. "Five robberies and not a motion to catch the thief!"

  "Oh, I dunno, I dunno, there is a big reward out to-day," said Harris, divided between pride in the notoriety and shame at the lawlessness of his native town.

  "Yes, but not by any of you."

  "Well, the boys did talk some of a vigilance committee, if any more houses was robbed."

  "They are going to wait for him to make up his half dozen."

  "Well, to tell the truth," said Harris, "it seems like he only went for you city folks, and I guess the boys thought you could better afford to lose a few things than they could to lose their sleep. That's about the size of it."

  Geoffrey could not but laugh. "That's a fine spirited way to look at it, I must say."

  "Well," returned Harris, who appeared to have need of the monosyllable in order to collect and arrange his ideas. "'Tain't lack of sand exactly, either, for most of the fellows about here thinks it is a woman."

  "A woman?" cried Geoffrey, remembering the lady in Boston.

  "Yes, sir," said Harris, "a young woman. Look at the things took. What burglar would want sheets and a lady's coat? Besides just before the first one happened, Will Brown, he was driving along up your way and a young woman, pretty as a picter, Will said, slips out of the wood and asks for a lift. Well, Will takes her some two miles, and when they got to that piece of woods at the back of your place she says of a sudden that she guesses she wants exercise, and will walk the rest of the way, and out she gets, and no one has seen her since. Seems kinder strange, no house but yours within six miles, and you away."

  "It would have seemed quite as strange if I had been at home," returned Geoffrey, amused at his imputation.

  "Well," Harris went on imperturbably, "you can't tell the rights of them stories. Will Brown, he's a liar, just like all the Browns; still this time he seemed to think he was telling the truth. Looks like we were going to have a blizzard, don't it?"

  When they reached the McFarlane cottage, Mrs. McFarlane appeared bobbing on the threshold. She was an old Scotch woman and covered all occasions with courtesy. It appeared that Holland's telegram had been duly telephoned from the office, but that her husband was down with rheumatism, the second gardener dismissed, and the "boy" allowed to go home to spend Christmas, so that there had been no one to send. Geoffrey suggested that she might have telephoned to the local livery-stable, and she was at once so overcome at her own stupidity that she could do nothing but bob and murmur, until Geoffrey sent her away to get him something to eat.

  It was about ten o'clock, when he determined to take a turn about his house. The next day he intended removing all valuables to the vaults of the Hillsborough bank.

  It was a long walk from the cottage, and Geoffrey, as he trudged up hill against the wind, was surprised to find how much snow had already fallen. He had expected to return to New York the next day, but now a fair prospect of being stalled on the way presented itself. It took him so much longer to reach the house than he had supposed, that he abandoned all idea of entering it. It stood before him grimly like a mountain of grey stone, its face plastered with snow. He walked round it, feeling each door and window to be sure of the fastenings. Once past the corner, the house sheltered him from the wind. He was conscious of that exhilaration snow storms so often bring, while at the same time the atmosphere of desolation that surrounds all shut up houses, even one's own, took hold of him. Unconsciously he stopped and felt in his pocket for his revolver, and at the same moment, faintly, in the interior of the house, he heard a clock strike.

  The sound was not perhaps alarming in itself, yet it sounded ominously in Geoffrey's ears. He recognised, or thought he recognised, the bell. It was that of an old French clock he had bought, and had never had put in order. He had never been able to make it go, but once touching it inadvertently he had aroused in it a breath of life so that it had struck one,—this same sweet piercing note. Who, he wondered, was touching it now?

  Geoffrey was one of those who act best and naturally without delay. Now he hesitated not at all. He had the keys of the house in his pocket, and he moved quickly toward a side door which he remembered swung silently on its hinges. It was not so much that he believed that there was any one in the house—perhaps to the most apprehensive a burglar comes as a surprise—but he felt he had too good grounds for suspicion to fail to investigate.

  He unlocked the door without a sound. As he stepped within, doubt was put an end to by the patch of white light that, streaming out of the library door, fell across the passageway before him. He stooped down and took off his boots, and then cautiously approached the open door and looked in, knowing that darkness and preparation were in his favour.

  His caution was unnecessary, for his entrance had not been heard. The Hillsborough theory of the femininity of the burglar instantly fell to the ground. A man of medium size was standing before one of the bookcases with his elbow resting near the clock; he was holding a volume in his hands with the careful ease of a book fancier. The man's back was turned so that a sandy head and a strongly built figure were all Geoffrey could make out. Had it not been for a glimpse of a mask on his face, he might have been a student at work.

  So intent did he appear that Geoffrey could not resist the temptation to make his entrance dramatic. Creeping al
most to the other's elbow, revolver in hand, he said gently:

  "Fond of reading?"

  The man, naturally startled, made a surprisingly quick movement toward his own revolver, and had it knocked out of his hand with a benumbing blow. Geoffrey secured the weapon, and seeing the man's retreat, may be excused for supposing the struggle over.

  He underestimated his adversary's resources, for the burglar, retreating with a look of surrender, came within reach of the electric light, turned it off, and fled in the total darkness that followed. Geoffrey sprang to the switch, but the few seconds that his fingers were fumbling for it told against him. When he turned it on the room was empty. The door by which the thief had gone opened on the main hall and not on the passageway, so that Geoffrey still had time to secure the outer door. Next he lit the chandelier in the hall, but its illumination told nothing. It was Geoffrey's own sharp ears that told him of light footsteps beyond the turn of the stairs. Here Holland recognised at once that the burglar had a great advantage. The flight of stairs from the hall reached the upper story at a point very near where the back stairs came up, while they descended to widely different places in the lower story, so that the burglar, looking down, could choose his flight of stairs as soon as he saw his pursuer committed to the other, and thus reach the lower hall with several seconds to spare. Fortunately, however, Geoffrey remembered that there was a door at the foot of the back stairs. With incredible quickness he turned off the light again, threw his boots upstairs in the ingenious hope that the sound would give the effect of his own ascent, dashed round and locked the door at the foot of the stairs and then at the top of his speed ran up the front stairs and down the back. The result was somewhat as he expected. The burglar had reached the door at the foot of the stairs, and finding it locked was half way up again when he and Geoffrey met. The impetus of Geoffrey's descent carried the man backward. They both landed against the locked door with a force that burst it open. Geoffrey, on top and armed, had little difficulty in securing his bruised foe, and marching him back to the library where he now took the precaution of locking all the doors.

  Geoffrey, who had felt himself tingling with excitement and the natural love of the chase, now had time to wonder what he was going to do with his capture. He thought of the darkness, the storm, the absence of the two undermen, and the helplessness of the McFarlanes. Then he remembered the telephone, which, fortunately, stood in a closet off the library.

  He turned to the burglar. "Stand with your face to the wall and your hands up," he said; "and if I see you move I'd just as lief shoot you as look at you," with which warning he approached the telephone and, still keeping an eye on the other, rang up central. There was no answer. He rang again,—six, seven times he repeated the process unavailingly. He tried the private wire to the McFarlane cottage with no better result.

  At this point the burglar spoke.

  "Oh, what the devil!" he said mildly; "I can't stand here with my hands over my head all night."

  "You'll stand there," replied Geoffrey with some temper, "until I'm ready for you to move."

  "And when will that be?"

  "When this fool of a Central answers."

  "Oh, not as long as that, I hope," said the burglar, "because, to tell the truth, I always cut the telephone wires before I enter a house."

  There was a pause in which it was well Geoffrey did not see the artless smile of satisfaction which wreathed the burglar's face. At length Geoffrey said:

  "In that case you might as well sit down, for we seem likely to stay here until morning." He calculated that by that time, Mrs. McFarlane, alarmed at his absence, would send some one to look for him,—some one who could be used as a messenger to fetch the constable.

  To this suggestion the burglar appeared to acquiesce, for he sank at once into an armchair—an armchair toward which Holland himself was making his way, knowing it to be the most comfortable for an all-night session. Feeling the absurdity of making any point of the matter, however, he contented himself with the sofa.

  "Take off your mask," he said as he sat down.

  "So I will, thank you," said the burglar as if he had been asked to remove his hat, and with his left hand he slipped it off. The face that met Geoffrey's interested gaze was thin, yet ruddy, and tanned by exposure so that his very light brilliant eyes flared oddly in so dark a surrounding. Above, his sandy hair, which had receded somewhat from his forehead, curled up from his temples like a baby's. His upper lip was long and with a pleasant mouth gave his face an expression of humour. His hands were ugly, but small.

  They sat for some time without moving, the burglar engaged in bandaging the cut on his right hand with obvious indifference to Holland's presence, Geoffrey meanwhile studying him carefully. The process of bandaging over, the man reached out his hand toward the bookcase and, selecting a volume of Sterne, settled back comfortably in his chair. Holland stared at him an instant in wonder, and then attempted to follow his example. But his attention to his book was much less concentrated than that of his captive, whose expression soon showed him to be completely absorbed.

  They must have sat thus for an hour, before the burglar began to show signs of restlessness. He asked if it were still snowing, and looked distinctly disturbed on being told it was. At last he broke the silence again.

  "You don't remember me, do you?" he said.

  Geoffrey slowly raised his eyes without moving—his revolver was drooping in his right hand. He ran his mind over his criminal acquaintance unsuccessfully, and repeated:

  "Remember you?"

  "Yes, we were at school together for a time."

  Geoffrey stared, and then exclaimed spontaneously:

  "You used to be able to wag your ears."

  "Can still."

  "Why, you are Skinny McVay."

  The man nodded. Neither was without a sense of humour, and yet saw nothing comic in these untender reminiscences.

  "I remember the masters all hated you," said Geoffrey, "but you were straight enough then, weren't you?"

  Again the man nodded. "I took to this sort of thing a month or so ago."

  After a moment Geoffrey said:

  "Did not I hear you were in the navy?"

  "No," said McVay. "I was at Annapolis for a few months. I had an idea I should like the navy, but Heavens above! I could not stand the Academy. They threw me out. It seems I had broken every rule they had ever made. It was worse than State's prison."

  "Are you in a position to judge?" asked Geoffrey coolly.

  "No," said McVay, as if he nevertheless had information on the subject.

  "Well, you will be soon," said Holland, not sorry for an opportunity to point out that his heart was not softened by recollections of his school days. But McVay appeared to ignore this intimation.

  "Yes," he said ruminatively; "I've done a lot of things in my time."

  "Well, I don't want to hear about them," said Geoffrey, who had no intention of being drawn into an intimate interchange. The burglar looked more surprised than angered at this shortness, and only said:

  "Would you have any objection to my putting a match to that fire?"

  "No," said Geoffrey, and McVay, with wonderful dexterity, managed to start a cheering blaze with his left hand.

  For a few minutes Geoffrey's determined attention to his book discouraged his companion, but presently rapping the pages of Tristram Shandy with the back of his hand, he exclaimed:

  "Sterne! Ah, there was a man! Something of my own type, too, it sometimes strikes me. Capable, you know, really a genius, but so unfortunately different from other people. Ordinary standards meant nothing to him—too original—sees life from another standpoint, entirely. That's me! I—"

  "Sit down," roared Geoffrey.

  "Oh, it's nothing, nothing," said McVay, "only I talk better on my feet."

  "Well, you wouldn't talk as well with a bullet in you."

  McVay sank back again in his chair. "Yes," he said, "that's me. Why, Holland, I have no doubt you wo
uld be surprised if you knew the number of things that I can do—that I am really proficient in. Anything with the hands," he waved his fingers supplely in the air, "is no trouble to me at all. I have at once a natural skill that most people take a lifetime to acquire."

  "I'm told there's work for all where you are going."

  McVay looked a trifle puzzled for an instant, but never allowing himself to remain at a loss, he said:

  "Work! Do you really mean to say that you believe in a utilitarian Heaven, where we are going to work with our hands? For my part—"

  "I had reference to the penitentiary," said Geoffrey.

  "Oh, yes, of course, the penitentiary. There are some wonderful men in the penitentiary. You don't admit that, I suppose, with your conventional ideas; but to me they are just as admirable as any other great creative artist,—sculptor or financier. I see you don't quite get that. You are hemmed in by conventional standards, and your possessions, and all the things to which you attach such great importance."

  "I don't attach so much importance that I steal them from other people," said Geoffrey.

  "Philistine, Holland, philistine! Is not any one who has anything stealing from some one or other? Of course. But I see you don't catch the idea. Well, I dare say I would not either in your place—rather think I would not. My sister is just the same way. Sweet girl, witty in her own way, but philistine. She is so good as to be my companion, apparently on equal terms, in many ways my superior, but it would be impossible for me even to mention these ideas to her,—ideas which are of the greatest interest to me."

  "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."