“Take it up to Sylvia,” said Migwan. “She’ll be delighted to see a picture of her Beloved.”
Sylvia gazed with rapt fondness at the beautiful young face. “Isn’t—she—lovely?” she said in a hushed voice. “She looks as though she would be sorry about my being lame, if she knew. May I keep her with me all the time, Nyoda? She’s such a comfort!”
“Certainly, you may keep the picture with you,” said Nyoda, rejoicing that a new interest had come up just at this time, and left her hugging the photograph to her bosom.
Right after supper Nyoda shooed all the rest upstairs to their rooms while she arrayed Sylvia for the party. In her endeavor to cheer and divert her she gathered materials with a lavish hand and dressed her like a real fairy tale princess, in a beautiful white satin dress, and a gold chain with a diamond locket, and bracelets, and a coronet on her fine-spun golden hair. The armchair she made into a throne, covered with a purple velvet portiére; and she spread a square of gilt tapestry over the footstool.
The effect, when Sylvia was seated upon the throne, was so gorgeously royal that Nyoda felt a sudden awe stealing over her, and she could hardly believe it was the work of her own hands. Sylvia seemed indeed a real princess.
“We have on the robes of state to-night,” said Sylvia, with a half hearted return to her once loved game, “for our royal father, the king, is coming to pay us a visit with all his court.”
Nyoda made her a sweeping curtsey and hurried upstairs to dress herself. The costumes of all the rest were kept a secret from one another, and no one was to unmask until the stroke of eleven. She heard stifled giggles and exclamations coming through the doors of all the rooms as she proceeded down the hall.
Crash! went something in one of the rooms and Nyoda paused to investigate. There stood Slim before a mirror, hopelessly entangled in a sheet which he was trying to drape around himself. A wild sweep of his hand had smashed the electric light bulb at the side of the mirror, and sent the globe flying across the room to shatter itself on the floor.
“Wait a minute, I’ll help you,” said Nyoda, coming forward laughing.
Slim emerged from the sheet very red in the face, deeply abashed at the damage he had done.
“I was only trying to grab ahold of the other end,” he explained ruefully, “like this—” He flung out the other hand in a gesture of illustration, and smash went the globe on the other side of the mirror.
Nyoda laughed at his horror-stricken countenance, and soothed his embarrassment while she pinned him into the sheet and pulled over his head the pillow case which was to act as mask.
“Just as if you could disguise Slim by masking him!” she thought mirthfully as she worked. “The more you try to cover him up the worse you give him away. It’s like trying to disguise an elephant.”
She got him finished, and as a precaution against further accidents bade him sit still in the chair where she placed him until the dinner gong sounded downstairs; then she hastened on toward her own room.
“Oh, I forgot about Hercules!” she suddenly exclaimed aloud. “I promised to get something for him.”
“Migwan’s gone down to fix him up,” said a voice from one of the rooms in answer to her exclamation. “She found a costume for him this afternoon, and she’s down in the kitchen now, getting him ready.”
Nyoda breathed a sigh of gratitude for Migwan’s habitual thoughtfulness, and went in to don her own costume.
Down in the kitchen Migwan was getting Hercules into the suit she had picked out for him from the trunk full of masquerade costumes she had found up in the attic. It was a long monkish habit with a cowl, made of coarse brown stuff, and it covered him from head to foot. The mask was made of the same material as the suit, and hung down at least a foot below his grizzly beard.
“Sure nobody ain’t goin’ ter recognize me?” Hercules asked anxiously.
Migwan’s prediction that an invitation to the party would cheer him up had been fulfilled from the first. Hercules was so tickled that he forgot his misery entirely. He was in as much of a flutter as a young girl getting ready for her first ball; he had been in the house half a dozen times that day anxiously inquiring if the party were surely going to be, and if there would be a suit for him.
Migwan put in the last essential pin, and then stepped back to survey the result of her efforts. “If you keep your feet underneath the gown, not a soul will know you,” she assured him. She had thoughtfully provided a pair of gloves, so that even if he did put out his hands their color could not betray him.
“Of course, you must not talk,” she warned him further.
“Course not, course not,” he agreed. “When’s all these here mask comin’ off?” he continued.
“When the clock strikes eleven we’ll all unmask,” explained Migwan, “and then the Princess is going to give the prize to the one that had the best costume.”
“An’ they’s nobody ’cept me an’ you knows I’m wearin’ this suit?” he inquired for the third time.
Migwan reassured him, and with a final injunction not to show himself in the front part of the house until he heard the dinner gong, she sped up the back stairs to her own belated masking.
She had barely finished when the sound of the gong rose through the house, and the stairway was filled with a grotesquely garbed throng making its way, with stifled exclamations and smothered bursts of laughter, into the long drawing room where the Princess sat. Migwan clapped on her mask and sped down after them, getting there just as the fun commenced. She spied Hercules standing in the corner behind the Princess’s throne, maintaining a religious silence and keeping his feet carefully out of sight. She kept away from him, fearing that he would forget himself and speak to her, entirely forgetting that he could not recognize her under her disguise.
Sylvia shrieked with amusement at the grotesque figures circling around her. It was the very first masque party she had ever seen, and she could not get over the wonder of it. Nyoda smiled mistily behind her mask as she watched her. How lonely that valiant little spirit must have been all these years, shut away from the frolics of youth; lonely in spite of the brave make believe with which she passed away the time! And now the years stretched out before her in endless sameness; the poor little princess would never leave her throne.
Sherry and Justice and the Captain kept Nyoda guessing as to which one was which, but she soon picked out the one she knew must be Hercules, and watched him in amusement. She had rather fancied that he would turn out to be the clown of the party, but he sat still most of the time and kept his eyes on the Princess. He seemed utterly fascinated by the glitter of her costume. Even the Punch and Judy show going on in the other end of the room failed to hold his attention, although the rest of the spectators were in convulsions of mirth.
The Princess called on Punch and Judy to do their stunt over and over again until they were too hoarse to utter another sound. Migwan, who had been Judy, fled to the kitchen for a drink of water to relieve her aching throat. She took the opportunity to slip off the hot mask for a moment and get a breath of fresh air. She was almost suffocated behind the mask.
Then, while she stood there cooling off, she remembered the big pan of candy Gladys had set outdoors to harden, and hastened out to bring it in. Someone was walking across the yard, and as Migwan looked up, startled, the light which streamed out of the kitchen door fell full upon the black face of Hercules. Migwan stood still, clutching the pan of candy mechanically, her eyes wide open with surprise. Hercules stood still too, and stood staring at her with an expression of dismay. He no longer had the monk’s costume on.
“How did you get out here?” Migwan asked curiously. “You’re inside—at the party.”
Hercules laughed nervously, and Migwan noticed that his jaw was trembling.
“What’s the matter, Hercules?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“Now, missy, missy—” began Hercules, and Migwan could hear his teeth chatter, while his eyes began to roll strangely in hi
s head.
“What’s the matter, are you sick?” asked Migwan in alarm.
“Yes’m, that’s it, that’s it,” chattered Hercules, finding his voice. “I’m awful sick. I had to come outside.”
“But I left you sitting in there a minute ago with your suit on,” said Migwan wonderingly, “and you didn’t come out after me. Did you go out of the front door?”
“Yes’m, that’s it,” said Hercules hastily. “I come out the front door an’ roun’ that way.”
A sudden impulse made Migwan look down the drive, covered with a light fall of snow and gleaming white in the glare of the street light.
“But there aren’t any footprints in the snow,” she said in surprise. “Your footprints are coming from the barn.” A nameless uneasiness filled her. What was Hercules doing out here?
“Yes’m,” repeated Hercules vacuously, “I came from the barn.”
Migwan stared at him in surprise. Was he out of his mind?
“Hercules,” she began severely, but never finished the sentence, for the old man swayed, clutched at the empty air, and fell heavily in the snow at her feet.
CHAPTER XIV
AN UNINVITED GUEST
Migwan ran into the house and burst breathlessly in upon the merrymakers.
“Nyoda!” she cried in a frightened voice, “Hercules is—” Then she stopped as though she had seen a ghost, for there sat Hercules in his monk’s costume, just as he had been all evening!
“What’s the matter?” asked Nyoda in alarm, seeing her pale face and staring eyes.
Migwan clutched her convulsively. “There’s a man outside,” she panted, “that looks just like Hercules, and when I spoke to him he fell down on the ground!”
In an instant all was pandemonium. Everybody rushed for the kitchen door and ran out into the yard, where the figure of a man lay dark upon the snow. Sherry tore off his mask and flung it away, and bending over the prostrate man turned his flashlight full on his face.
“It is Hercules!” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“Is he dead?” faltered Migwan.
“No, he’s breathing, but he’s unconscious,” said Sherry. “It’s his heart, I suppose. He’s been having spells with it lately. Run into the house, somebody, and get that leather covered flask in the medicine chest.”
Justice raced in for the flask and Sherry raised Hercules’ head from the ground and poured some of the brandy between his lips. In a few minutes the old man began to stir and mutter, and Nyoda, holding his wrist, felt his pulse come up. They carried him to his room in the stable and laid him down on his bed, and Nyoda found the heart drops which Hercules had been taking for some time.
“But where is the one I thought was Hercules—the one with the monk’s suit on?” cried Migwan, after the first fright about Hercules had subsided.
Sherry and the boys looked at one another dumfounded. None of them had known, as Migwan did, that the brown robe and cowl presumably covered Hercules. They looked about for the brown figure that had moved so unobtrusively amongst them that evening. It had vanished.
“He’s gone!” shouted Sherry excitedly. “There’s something queer going on here.”
The monk was certainly not in the house any longer, and there were no footprints in the snow outside the house.
“Did he fly away?” asked Sherry in perplexity.
Justice jumped up with a great exclamation. “The secret passage!” he shouted, “he’s gone down the secret passage!”
They flew back inside the house to the stair landing, half expecting to find it standing open, but it was closed and looked perfectly natural. Sherry grasped the post, the landing slid out and the four went down the ladder. Justice gave a triumphant exclamation when he reached the bottom. “The barricades are taken down! He did come this way!”
They hurried through the door into the passage, half expecting to see a figure flying along ahead of them, but the passage was empty and no sound of a footfall broke the silence. They searched the place thoroughly, but nowhere did they find their man hidden. Behind the chest in the cave, however, Justice pounced upon something with a shout. It was the long brown costume that had been worn by the monk at the party.
CHAPTER XV
HERCULES’ STORY
When Sherry and the boys returned from their fruitless chase Hercules had regained consciousness, and was telling Nyoda in a shaking voice that he felt better, but he was still too weak to sit up.
“Mah time’s come, Miss ’Lizbeth,” he said mournfully. “I’se a goner.”
“Nonsense,” said Nyoda brightly. “You’ll be up and around in the morning. The doctor that gave you this medicine said you’d have these spells once in a while, but the heart drops would always bring you round all right.”
“I’se a-goin’ this time,” he repeated. “I’se had a token. Dreamed about runnin’ water las’ night, an’ that’s a sure sign. Ain’t no surer sign then that anywhere, Miss ’Lizbeth.”
“Nonsense,” said Nyoda again. “You shouldn’t believe in signs. Tell us what happened to-night and that’ll make you feel better.”
“Miss ’Lizbeth,” said the old man solemnly, “I’se goin’ ter tell the whole thing. I wasn’t goin’ ter say nothin’ a-tall, but gon’ ter die, like I am, I’se skeered ter go an’ not tell you-all.”
He took a sip from the tumbler at his hand and cleared his throat.
“Miss ’Lizbeth,” he began, “that weren’t no burglar that git inter the house that night. You jus’ lissen till I tell you the whole bizness. That day you-all find them footprints on the stairs I mos’ had a fit, ’case I knowed somebody’d got in th’u the secret passidge.”
“But you said you didn’t know anything about a secret passage,” said Nyoda, in surprise.
“Miss ’Lizbeth,” said Hercules deprecatingly, evidently urged on to open confession by the knowledge that death had him by the coat tail, “I said that, but it weren’t true. Ole Mr. Jasper, he say once if I ever tell about that secret passidge the debbel’d come in th’u it an’ carry me off, an’ I’se been skeered even ter say secret passidge.
“There weren’t nobody livin’ that knew about that secret passidge, an’ when I sees them footprints I reckons it mus’ be the debbel himself. But yestidday I sees a man hangin’ roun’ behin’ the barn, an’I axs him what he wants, an’ he sticks up two fingers an’ makes a sign that I uster know yeahs ago. I looks at the man agin, an’ I says, ‘Foh the Lawd, am the dead come ter life?’ ’Case it’s Mr. Jasper’s ole frien’, Tad Phillips.”
A sharp exclamation of astonishment went around the circle of listeners.
“He’s an ole man, an’ his hair’s nearly white, but I see it were Young Tad, all right.
“‘I hearn you-all was dead,’ I says ter him, but Young Tad, he say no, people all thought he’s dead an’ he let ’em think so, ’case he cain’t never meet up with his ole frien’s no more. You see, Miss ’Lizbeth,” he threw in an explanation, “Marsh Tad he gave some sick folks poison instead of medicine, an’ they die, an’ he go ’way, outen the country, an’ bimeby the papers say he’s dead an’ his wife’s dead. But they ain’t; it’s a mistake, but he don’ tell nobody, an’ by an’ by he come back, him an’ his wife. They take another name, an’ they goes to a town where nobody knows ’em. Bimeby a baby girl gits born an’ his wife she dies.
“Young Tad he ain’t never been himself since he gave them folks that poison; he cain’t fergit it a-tall. It pester him so he cain’t work, an’ he cain’t sleep, an’ he cain’t never laugh no more. He give up bein’ a doctor ’case he say he cain’t trust himself no more. He get so low in his mind when his wife die that he think he’ll die too, an’ he sends the baby away to some folks that wants one.
“But he don’t die; he just worry along, but he’s powerful low in his mind all the time. He think all the time ’bout them people he poisoned. Fin’lly he say he’ll go ’way agin; he’ll go back ter South America. But before he goes, he gits ter th
inkin’ he’d like ter see his chile once. He fin’s out that the people he sent her to ain’t never got her; that she’s with somebody else, in a place called Millvale, in this very state. He go to Millvale, an’ he look in th’u the winder, an’ he see her. She’s the livin’ image of his dead wife, light hair an’ dark eyes an’ all.
“He never let her know he’s her father, ’case he feel so terrible ’bout them folks he poisoned that he thinks he ain’t no good, a-tall, an’ mustn’t speak to her. But he’s so wild to see her that he hang aroun’ in that town, workin’ odd jobs, an’ at night lookin’ in the window where she sits.
“Den suddenly the folks she’s with up an’ move away, an’ he cain’t see her no more. He just cain’t stand it. He finds out that they come here to Oakwood, an’ he comes too. But he don’t know which house she live in and he cain’t find her. He gets to wanderin’ around, and one night he comes to the ole big house he uster live in, way up on Main Street Hill. It’s all dark and tumble down, and he thinks he’ll just go in once and look around. He goes in, and inside he hears a voice singin’. It sounds just like his wife’s voice. She were a beautiful singer, Miss ’Lizbeth—the Virginia nightingale, folks uster call her. He stands there in that dark, empty house, lissenin’ ter that voice and he thinks it’s his wife’s sperrit singin’ ter him. She’s singin’ a song she uster sing when she were young, somethin’ about larks.”
Katherine made a convulsive movement, and her heart began to pound strangely.
“Den he say a lady come in the front door and he gits scairt and runs out.”
Katherine’s head began to whirl, and she kept silence with an effort.
“He stand around outside for a while and bimeby an autermobile comes along and the folks carries a girl out of the house and takes her away. He sees the girl when they’s bringin’ her out, and he knows she’s his. He watches where that autermobile goes and it comes here.”
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 313