A Fool and His Money Part 2

The four Schmicks wrung their hands and shook their heads and, then, repairing to the scullery, growled and grumbled for fully ten minutes before deciding to obey my commands. In the meantime, I related my experience to p.o.o.pend.y.k.e and Britton.

"That reminds me, sir," said Britton, "that I found a rag-doll in the courtyard yesterday, on that side of the building, sir--I should say castle, sir."

"I am quite sure I heard a baby crying the second night we were here, Mr. Smart," said my secretary nervously.

"And there was smoke coming from one of the back chimney pots this morning," added Britton.

I was thoughtful for a moment. "What became of the rag-doll, Britton?"

I enquired shrewdly.

"I turned it over to old Schmick, sir," said he. He grinned. "I thought as maybe it belonged to one of his boys."

On the aged caretaker's reappearance, I bluntly inquired what had become of the doll-baby. He was terribly confused.

"I know nothing, I know nothing," he mumbled, and I could see that he was miserably upset. His sons towered and glowered and his wife wrapped and unwrapped her hands in her ap.r.o.n, all the time supplicating heaven to be good to the true and the faithful.

From what I could gather, they all seemed to be more disturbed over the fact that my hallucination included a dog than by the claim that I had seen a woman.

"But, confound you, Schmick," I cried in some heat, "it barked at me."

"Gott in himmel!" they all cried, and, to my surprise, the old woman burst into tears.

"It is bad to dream of a dog," she wailed. "It means evil to all of us. Evil to--"

"Come!" said I, grabbing the keys from the old man's unresisting hand.

"And, Schmick, if that dog bites me, I'll hold you personally responsible. Do you understand?"

Two abreast we filed through the long, vaulted halls, Rudolph carrying a gigantic lantern and Max a sledge. We traversed extensive corridors, mounted tortuous stairs and came at length to the st.u.r.dy oak door that separated the east wing from the west: a huge, formidable thing strengthened by many cross-pieces and studded with rusty bolt-heads.

Padlocks as large as horse-shoes, corroded by rust and rendered absolutely impracticable by age, confronted us.

"I have not the keys," said old Conrad Schmick sourly. "This door has not been opened in my time. It is no use."

"It is no use," repeated his grizzly sons, leaning against the mouldy walls with weary tolerance.

"Then how did the woman and her dog get into that part of the castle?"

I demanded. "Tell me that!"

They shook their heads, almost compa.s.sionately, as much as to say, "It is always best to humour a mad man."

"And the baby," added p.o.o.pend.y.k.e, turning up his coat collar to protect his thin neck from the draft that smote us from the halls.

"Smash those padlocks, Max," I commanded resolutely.

Max looked stupidly at his father and the old man looked at his wife, and then all four of them looked at me, almost imploringly.

"Why destroy a perfectly good padlock, mein herr?" began Max, twirling the sledge in his hand as if it were a bamboo cane.

"Hi! Look out there!" gasped Britton, in some alarm. "Don't let that thing slip!"

"Doesn't this castle belong to me?" I demanded, considerably impressed by the ease with which he swung the sledge. A very dangerous person, I began to perceive.

"It does, mein herr," shouted all of them gladly, and touched their forelocks.

"Everything is yours," added old Conrad, with a comprehensive sweep of his hand that might have put the whole universe in my name.

"Smash that padlock, Max," I said after a second's hesitation.

"I'll bet he can't do it," said Britton, ingeniously.

Very reluctantly Max bared his great arms, spit upon his hands, and, with a pitiful look at his parents, prepared to deal the first blow upon the ancient padlock. The old couple turned their heads away, and put their fingers to their ears, cringing like things about to be whipped.

"Now, one--two--three!" cried I, affecting an enthusiasm I didn't feel.

The sledge fell upon the padlock and rebounded with almost equal force.

The sound of the crash must have disturbed every bird and bat in the towers of the grim old pile. But the padlock merely shed a few scabs of rust and rattled back into its customary repose.

"See!" cried Max, triumphantly. "It cannot be broken." Rudolph, his broad face beaming, held the lantern close to the padlock and showed me that it hadn't been dented by the blow.

"It is a very fine lock," cried old Conrad, with a note of pride in his voice.

I began to feel some pride in the thing myself. "It is, indeed," I said. "Try once more, Max."

It seemed to me that he struck with a great deal more confidence than before, and again they all uttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of pleasure. I caught Dame Schmick in the act of thanking G.o.d with her fingers.

"See here," I exclaimed, facing them angrily, "what does all this mean?

You are deceiving me, all of you. Now, let's have the truth--every word of it--or out you go to-morrow, the whole lot of you. I insist on knowing who that woman is, why she is here in my hou--my castle, and--everything, do you understand?"

Apparently they didn't understand, for they looked at me with all the stupidity they could command.

"You try, Mr. p.o.o.pend.y.k.e," I said, giving it up in despair. He sought to improve on my German, but I think he made it worse. They positively refused to be intelligent.

"Give me the hammer," I said at last in desperation. Max surrendered the clumsy, old-fashioned instrument with a grin and I motioned for them all to stand back. Three successive blows with all the might I had in my body failed to shatter the lock, whereupon my choler rose to heights. .h.i.therto unknown, I being a very mild-mannered, placid person and averse to anything savouring of the tempestuous. I delivered a savage and resounding thwack upon the broad oak panel of the door, regardless of the destructiveness that might attend the effort. If any one had told me that I couldn't splinter an oak board with a sledge-hammer at a single blow I should have laughed in his face. But as it turned out in this case I not only failed to split the panel but broke off the sledge handle near the head, putting it wholly out of commission for the time being as well as stinging my hands so severely that I doubled up with pain and shouted words that Dame Schmick could not put into her prayers.

The Schmicks fairly glowed with joy! Afterwards Max informed me that the door was nearly six inches thick and often had withstood the a.s.saults of huge battering rams, back in the dim past when occasion induced the primal baron to seek safety in the east wing, which, after all, appears to have been the real, simon pure fortress. The west wing was merely a setting for festal amenities and was by no means feudal in its aspect or appeal. Here, as I came to know, the old barons received their friends and feasted them and made merry with the flagon and the horn of plenty; here the humble t.i.the payer came to settle his dues with gold and silver instead of with blood; here the little barons and baronesses romped and rioted with childish glee; and here the barons grew fat and gross and soggy with laziness and prosperity, and here they died in stupid quiescence. On the other side of that grim, staunch old door they simply went to the other extreme in every particular. There they killed their captives, butchered their enemies, and sometimes died with the daggers of traitors in their shivering backs.

As we trudged back to the lower halls, defeated but none the less impressed by our failure to devastate our stronghold, I was struck by the awful barrenness of the surroundings. There suddenly came over me the shocking realisation: the "contents" of the castle, as set forth rather vaguely in the bill of sale, were not what I had been led to consider them. It had not occurred to me at the time of the transaction to insist upon an inventory, and I had been too busy since the beginning of my tenancy to take more than a pa.s.sing account of my belongings.

In excusing myself for this rather careless oversight, I can only say that during daylight hours the castle was so completely stuffed with workmen and their queer utensils that I couldn't do much in the way of elimination, and by night it was so horribly black and lonesome about the place and the halls were so littered with tools and mops and timber that it was extremely hazardous to go prowling about, so I preferred to remain in my own quarters, which were quite comfortable and cosy in spite of the distance between points of convenience.

Still I was vaguely certain that many articles I had seen about the halls on my first and second visits were no longer in evidence. Two or three antique rugs, for instance, were missing from the main hall, and there was a lamentable suggestion of emptiness at the lower end where we had stacked a quant.i.ty of rare old furniture in order to make room for the workmen.

"Herr Schmick," said I, abruptly halting my party in the centre of the hall, "what has become of the rugs that were here last week, and where is that pile of furniture we had back yonder?"

Rudolph allowed the lantern to swing behind his huge legs, intentionally I believe, and I was compelled to relieve him of it in order that we might extract ourselves from his shadow. I have never seen such a colossal shadow as the one he cast.

Old Conrad was not slow in answering.

"The gentlemen called day before yesterday, mein herr, and took much away. They will return to-morrow for the remainder."

"Gentlemen?" I gasped. "Remainder?"