The House of a Thousand Candles, Meredith Nicholson [13 inch ebook reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Meredith Nicholson
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got the house.”
“Also a prisoner of war,” said Larry, grinning.
The English detective had smashed the glass in the
barred window of the potato cellar and we could hear
him howling and cursing below.
“Looks like business this time!” exclaimed Larry.
“Spread out now and the first head that sticks over the
balustrade gets a dose of hickory.”
When twenty-five yards from the terrace the advancing
party divided, half halting between us and the
water-tower and the remainder swinging around the
house toward the front entrance.
“Ah, look at that!” yelled Larry. “It’s a battering-ram
they have. O man of peace! have I your Majesty’s
consent to try the elephant guns now?”
Morgan and the sheriff carried between them a stick
of timber from which the branches had been cut, and,
with a third man to help, they ran it up the steps and
against the door with a crash that came booming back
through the house.
Bates was already bounding up the front stairway, a
revolver in his hand and a look of supreme rage on his
face. Leaving Stoddard and Larry to watch the library
windows, I was after him, and we clattered over the loose
boards in the upper hall and into a great unfinished
chamber immediately over the entrance. Bates had the
window up when I reached him and was well out upon
the coping, yelling a warning to the men below.
He had his revolver up to shoot, and when I caught
his arm he turned to me with a look of anger and indignation
I had never expected to see on his colorless, mask-like
face.
“My God, sir! That door was his pride, sir—it came
from a famous house in England, and they’re wrecking
it, sir, as though it were common pine.”
He tore himself free of my grasp as the besiegers
again launched their battering-ram against the door
with a frightful crash, and his revolver cracked smartly
thrice, as he bent far out with one hand clinging to
the window frame.
His shots were a signal for a sharp reply from one of
the men below, and I felt Bates start, and pulled him
in, the blood streaming from his face.
“It’s all right, sir—all right—only a cut across my
cheek, sir,”—and another bullet smashed through the
glass, spurting plaster dust from the wall. A fierce
onslaught below caused a tremendous crash to echo
through the house, and I heard firing on the opposite
side, where the enemy’s reserve was waiting.
Bates, with a handkerchief to his face, protested that
he was unhurt.
“Come below; there’s nothing to be gained here,”—.
and I ran down to the hall, where Stoddard stood, leaning
upon his club like a Hercules and coolly watching
the door as it leaped and shook under the repeated blows
of the besiegers.
A gun roared again at the side of the house, and I ran
to the library, where Larry had pushed furniture against
all the long windows save one, which he held open. He
stepped out upon the terrace and emptied a revolver at
the men who were now creeping along the edge of the
ravine beneath us. One of them stopped and discharged
a rifle at us with deliberate aim. The ball snapped snow
from the balustrade and screamed away harmlessly.
“Bah, such monkeys!” he muttered. “I believe I’ve
hit that chap!” One man had fallen and lay howling
in the ravine, his hand to his thigh, while his comrades
paused, demoralized.
“Serves you right, you blackguard!” Larry muttered.
I pulled him in and we jammed a cabinet against the
door.
Meanwhile the blows at the front continued with increasing
violence. Stoddard still stood where I had left
him. Bates was not in sight, but the barking of a revolver
above showed that he had returned to the window
to take vengeance on his enemies.
Stoddard shook his head in deprecation.
“They fired first—we can’t do less than get back at
them,” I said, between the blows of the battering-ram.
A panel of the great oak door now splintered in, but
in their fear that we might use the opening as a
loophole, they scampered out into range of Bates’ revolver.
In return we heard a rain of small shot on the
upper windows, and a few seconds later Larry shouted
that the flanking party was again at the terrace.
This movement evidently heartened the sheriff, for,
under a fire from Bates, his men rushed up and the log
crashed again into the door, shaking it free of the upper
hinges. The lower fastenings were wrenched loose an
instant later, and the men came tumbling into the hall,
—the sheriff, Morgan and four others I had never seen
before. Simultaneously the flanking party reached the
terrace and were smashing the small panes of the French
windows. We could hear the glass crack and tinkle
above the confusion at the door.
In the hall he was certainly a lucky man who held to
his weapon a moment after the door tumbled in. I
blazed at the sheriff with my revolver as he stumbled
and half-fell at the threshold, so that the ball passed
over him, but he gripped me by the legs and had me
prone and half-dazed by the rap of my head on the floor.
I suppose I was two or three minutes, at least, getting
my wits. I was first conscious of Bates grappling the
sheriff, who sat upon me, and as they struggled with each
other I got the full benefit of their combined, swerving,
tossing weight. Morgan and Larry were trying for a
chance at each other with revolvers, while Morgan
backed the Irishman slowly toward the library. Stoddard
had seized one of the unknown deputies with both
hands by the collar and gave his captive a tremendous
swing, jerking him high in the air and driving him
against another invader with a blow that knocked both
fellows spinning into a corner.
“Come on to the library!” shouted Larry, and Bates,
who had got me to my feet, dragged me down the hall
toward the open library-door.
Bates presented at this moment an extraordinary appearance,
with the blood from the scratch on his face
coursing down his cheek and upon his shoulder. His
coat and shirt had been torn away and the blood was
smeared over his breast. The fury and indignation in
his face was something I hope not to see again in a human
countenance.
“My God, this room—this beautiful room!” I heard
him cry, as he pushed me before him into the library.
“It was Mr. Glenarm’s pride,” he muttered, and sprang
upon a burly fellow who had came in through one of
the library doors and was climbing over the long table
we had set up as a barricade.
We were now between two fires. The sheriff’s party
had fought valiantly to keep us out of the library, and
now that we were within, Stoddard’s big shoulders held
the door half-closed against the combined strength of
the men in the ball. This pause was fortunate, for it
gave us an opportunity to deal singly with the fellows
who were climbing in from the terrace. Bates had laid
one of them low with a club and Larry disposed of another,
who had made a murderous effort to stick a knife
into him. I was with Stoddard against the door, where
the sheriff’s men were slowly gaining upon us.
“Let go on the jump when I say three,” said
Stoddard, and at his word we sprang away from the
door and into the room. Larry yelled with joy as the
sheriff and his men pitched forward and sprawled upon
the floor, and we were at it again in a hand-to-hand conflict
to clear the room.
“Hold that position, sir,” yelled Bates.
Morgan had directed the attack against me and I was
driven upon the hearth before the great fireplace. The
sheriff, Morgan and Ferguson hemmed me in. It was
evident that I was the chief culprit, and they wished to
eliminate me from the contest. Across the room, Larry,
Stoddard and Bates were engaged in a lively rough and
tumble with the rest of the besiegers, and Stoddard, seeing
my plight, leaped the overturned table, broke past
the trio and stood at my side, swinging a chair.
At that moment my eyes, sweeping the outer doors,
saw the face of Pickering. He had come to see that his
orders were obeyed, and I remember yet my satisfaction,
as, hemmed in by the men he had hired to kill me
or drive me out, I felt, rather than saw, the cowardly
horror depicted upon his face.
Then the trio pressed in upon me. As I threw down
my club and drew my revolver, some one across the
room fired several shots, whose roar through the room
seemed to arrest the fight for an instant, and then, while
Stoddard stood at my side swinging his chair defensively,
the great chandelier, loosened or broken by the shots,
fell with a mighty crash of its crystal pendants. The
sheriff, leaping away from Stoddard’s club, was struck
on the head and borne down by the heavy glass.
Smoke from the firing floated in clouds across the
room, and there was a moment’s silence save for the
sheriff, who was groaning and cursing under the debris
of the chandelier. At the door Pickering’s face appeared
again anxious and frightened. I think the scene
in the room and the slow progress his men were making
against us had half-paralyzed him.
We were all getting our second wind for a renewal
of the fight, with Morgan in command of the enemy.
One or two of his men, who had gone down early in the
struggle, were now crawling back for revenge. I think
I must have raised my hand and pointed at Pickering,
for Bates wheeled like a flash and before I realized what
happened he had dragged the executor into the room.
“You scoundrel—you ingrate!” howled the servant.
The blood on his face and bare chest and the hatred
in his eves made him a hideous object; but in that lull
of the storm while we waited, watching for an advantage,
I heard off somewhere, above or below, that same
sound of footsteps that I had remarked before. Larry
and Stoddard heard it; Bates heard it, and his eyes fixed
upon Pickering with a glare of malicious delight.
“There comes our old friend, the ghost,” yelled Larry.
“I think you are quite right, sir,” said Bates. He
threw down the revolver he held in his hand and leaned
upon the edge of the long table that lay on its side, his
gaze still bent on Pickering, who stood with his overcoat
buttoned close, his derby hat on the floor beside him,
where it had fallen as Bates hauled him into the room.
The sound of a measured step, of some one walking,
of a careful foot on a stairway, was quite distinct. I even
remarked the slight stumble that I had noticed before.
We were all so intent on those steps in the wall that
we were off guard. I heard Bates yell at me, and Larry
and Stoddard rushed for Pickering. He had drawn a
revolver from his overcoat pocket and thrown it up to
fire at me when Stoddard sent the weapon flying through
the air.
“Only a moment now, gentlemen,” said Bates, an odd
smile on his face. He was looking past me toward the
right end of the fireplace. There seemed to be in the
air a feeling of something impending. Even Morgan
and
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