Paste Jewels, John Kendrick Bangs [read aloud TXT] 📗

breakfast one morning, shortly after the royal banquet over which "Grimmins" had presided, "did you hear anything strange in the house last night? Something like a footstep in the hall?"

"No," said Thaddeus. "I slept like a top last night. I didn't hear anything. Did you?"

"I thought so," said Bessie. "About two o'clock I waked up with a start, and while it may have been a sort of waking dream, I was almost certain I heard a rustling sound out in the hall, and immediately after a creaking on the stairs, as though there was somebody there."

"Well, why on earth didn't you wake me, Bess?" returned Thaddeus. "I could easily have decided the matter by getting up and investigating."

"That was why I didn't wake you, Teddy. I'd a great deal rather lose the silver or anything else in the house a burglar might want than have you hit on the head with a sand-club," said Bessie. "You men are too brave."

"Thank you," said Thaddeus, with a smile, as he thought of a certain discussion he had had not long before at the club, in which he and several other brave men had reached the unanimous conclusion that the best thing to do at dead of night, with burglars in the house, was to crawl down under the bedclothes and snore as loudly as possible. "Nevertheless, my dear, you should have told me."

"I will next time," said Bessie.

"Was anything in the house disturbed?" Thaddeus asked.

"No," said Bessie. "Not a thing, as far as I can find out. Mary says that everything was all right when she came down, and the cook apparently found things straight, because she hasn't said anything."

So Thaddeus and Bessie made up their minds that the latter had been dreaming, and that nothing was wrong. Two or three days later, however, they changed their minds on the subject. There was something decidedly wrong, but what it was they could not discover. They were both awakened by a rustling sound in the hallway, outside of their room, and this time there was a creak on the stairs that was unmistakable.

"Don't move, Thaddeus," said Bessie, in a terrified whisper, as Thaddeus made a brave effort to get up and personally investigate. "I wouldn't have you hurt for all the world, and there isn't a thing down-stairs they can take that we can't afford to lose."

Thaddeus felt very much as Bessie did, and it would have pleased him much better to lie quietly where he was than run the risk of an encounter with thieves. He had been brave enough in the company of men to advocate cowardice in an emergency of just this sort, but now that this same course was advocated by his wife, he saw it in a different light. Prudence was possible, cowardice was not. He must get up, and get up he did; but before going out of his room he secured his revolver, which had lain untouched and unloaded in his bureau-drawer for two years, and then advanced cautiously to the head of the stairs and listened--Bessie meanwhile having buried her face in her pillow as a possible means of assuaging her fears. It is singular what a soothing effect a soft feather pillow sometimes has upon the agitated nerves if the nose of the agitated person is thrust far enough into its yielding surface.

"Who is there?" cried Thaddeus, standing at the head of the stairs, his knees all of a shake, but whether from fear or from cold, as an admirer of Thaddeus I prefer not to state.

Apparently the stage-whisper in which this challenge to a possible burglar was uttered rendered it unavailing, for there was no reply; but that there was some one below who could reply Thaddeus was now convinced, for there were sounds in the library--sounds, however, suggestive of undue attention to domestic duties rather than of that which fate has mapped out for house-breakers. The library floor was apparently being swept.

"That's the biggest idiot of a burglar I've ever heard of," said Thaddeus, returning to his room.

"Wh-wha-what, d-dud-dear?" mumbled Mrs. Perkins, burying her ear in the pillow for comfort now that she was compelled to take her nose away so that she might talk intelligibly.

"I say that burglar must be an idiot," repeated Thaddeus. "What do you suppose he is doing now?"

"Wh-wha-what, d-dud-dear?" asked Bessie, apparently unable to think of any formula other than this in speaking, since this was the second time she had used it.

"He is sweeping the library."

"Then you must not go down," cried Bessie, sitting up, and losing her fear for a moment in her anxiety for her husband's safety. "A burglar you might manage, but a maniac--"

"I must go, Bess," said Thaddeus, firmly.

"Then I'm going with you," said Mrs. Perkins, with equal firmness.

"Now, Bess, don't be foolish," returned Thaddeus, his face assuming a graver expression than his wife had ever seen there. "This is my work, and it is none of yours. I positively forbid you to stir out of this room. I shall be very careful, and you need have no concern for me. I shall go down the backstairs and around by the porch, and peep in through the library window first. The moonlight will be sufficient to enable me to see all that is necessary."

"Very well," acquiesced Bessie, "only do be careful."

Thaddeus donned his long bath-robe, put on his slippers, and started to descend. The stairs were so dark that he could with difficulty proceed--and perhaps it was just as well for Thaddeus that they were. If there had been light enough for him to see two great glaring eyes that stared at him through that darkness out from the passageway at the foot of the stairs, upon which he turned his back when he went out upon the porch, it is not unlikely that a very serious climax to his strange experience would have been reached then and there. As it was, he saw nothing, but kept straight ahead, stepped noiselessly out upon the piazza, crept stealthily along in the soft light of the moon, until he reached the library window. There he stopped and listened. All was still within--so still that the beating of his heart seemed like the hammering of a sledge upon an anvil by contrast. Then, raising himself cautiously upon his toes, he peered through the window into the room, the greater part of which was made visible by the wealth of the moon's light streaming into it.

"Humph!" said Thaddeus, after he had directed his searching gaze into every corner. "There isn't anybody there at all. Most incomprehensible thing I ever heard of."

Rising, he walked back to the piazza door, and went thence boldly into the library and lit the gas. His piazza observations were then verified, for the room was devoid of life, save for Thaddeus's own presence; but upon the floor before the hearth was a broom, and there were evidences also that the sweeping sounds he had heard had been caused by no less an instrument than this, for in the corner of the fireplace was a heap of dust, cigar ashes, and scraps of paper, which Thaddeus remembered had been upon the hearth in greater or less quantity when he had turned out the gas to retire a few hours before.

"This is a serious matter," he said to himself. "Something is wrong, and I doubt if there have been burglars in the house; but I can ascertain that without trouble. If the doors and windows are all secure the trouble is internal."

Every accessible door and window on the basement and first floor was examined, and, with the exception of the piazza door, which Thaddeus remembered to have unlocked himself a few minutes before, every lock was fastened. The disturbance had come from within.

"And Bess must never know it," said he; "it would worry her to death." And then came a thought to Thaddeus's mind that almost stopped the beating of his heart. "Unless she has discovered it in my absence," he gasped. In an instant he was mounting the stairs to hasten to Bessie's side, as though some terrible thing were pursuing him.

"Well, what was it, Ted?" she asked, as he entered the room.

Perkins gave a sigh of relief. All was safe enough above-stairs at least.

"Nothing much," said Thaddeus, in a moment. "There is no one below."

"But what could it have been?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said Thaddeus, "unless it was a stray cat in the house. The sweeping sound may have been caused by a cat scratching its collar--or purring--or--or--something. At any rate, things appear to be all right, my dear, so let's go to sleep."

Thaddeus's assumed confidence in the rightness of everything, rather than his explanations, was convincing to Mrs. Perkins, and in a very short while she was sleeping the sleep of the just and serene; but to Thaddeus's eye there came no more sleep that night, and when morning came he rose unrefreshed. There were two problems confronting him. The first was to solve the mystery of the swept library floor; the second was to do this without arousing his wife's suspicions that anything was wrong. To do the first he deemed it necessary to remain at home that day, which was easy, for Thaddeus was more or less independent of office-work.

"I'm glad you're not going down," said Mrs. Perkins, when he announced his intention of remaining at home. "You will be able to make up for your loss of sleep last night."

"Yes," said Thaddeus. "It's the only thing I can do, I'm so played out."

Breakfast passed off pleasantly in spite of a great drawback--the steak was burned almost to a crisp, and the fried potatoes were like chips of wood.

"Margaret seems to be unfamiliar with the art of cooking this morning," said Thaddeus.

"So it would seem," said Bessie. "This steak is horrible."

"The worst part of it is," said Thaddeus, "she has erred on the wrong side. If the steak were underdone it wouldn't be so bad. Isn't it a pity Edison can't invent a machine to rarefy an overdone steak?"

"That would be a fine idea," smiled Bessie. "And to take a Saratoga chip and make it less like a chip off a granite block."

"I don't mind the potatoes so much," said Thaddeus. "I can break them up in a bowl of milk and secure a gastronomic novelty that, suitably seasoned, isn't at all bad, but the steak is hopeless."

"Maybe she heard that cat last night, and thought it was a burglar, just as we did," Bessie suggested. "I can't account for a breakfast like this in any other way, can you?"

"No," said Thaddeus, shortly, and then he had an idea; and when Thaddeus had an idea he was apt to become extremely reticent.

"Poor Thad!" thought Bessie, as she noted his sudden change of demeanor. "He can't stand loss of sleep."

The morning was spent by Thaddeus in the "noble pastime of snooping," as he called it. The house was searched by him in a casual sort of way from top to bottom for a clew to the mystery, but without avail. Several