Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery Part 28

He tossed an armful of blankets into his prisoner's lap, and walked briskly from the room. He was back in half a minute, carrying a tray, which he placed on the floor within reach of Bank's free hand.

"Help yourself," he said. Then he went out, shutting the door behind him.

Mr. Banks sat motionless for a full minute, staring at the tray. A small teapot stood there, with steam rising from its spout. It was flanked on the right by a small jug of cream, and on the left by an empty cup. In front squatted a round dish under a cover. At last Banks pulled off his fur cap, and wiped the cold perspiration from his brow with the palm of a grimy hand.

"I suppose the old devil has doped it," he whispered, with a sigh. "Of course he has! What's the good of supposing?"

With an effort, he turned his face away from the teapot and the covered dish. He shifted back a little, so that the rope did not pull on his right arm. He gazed intently at the window, door, walls, and ceiling.

"I must plan a way to get out," he muttered. "I must plan a way to fool this old fiend."

But he could not concentrate his thoughts, for most of them were with his heart--yearning toward the teapot and the covered dish. At last he gave way, and allowed his gaze to rest again upon the silent tempters.

His left hand went out to them, then came slowly back. He sighed, unfastened his c.o.o.nskin coat, and cursed old Wigmore huskily, but heartily. Again the hand advanced. He lifted the teapot and poured some of the steaming amber liquid into the cup.

"It looks all right," he murmured. "But what's the use of looking at it?

Of course the old beast has doped it! Heaven help him when I get hold of him!"

He set the teapot down, and groaned. He told himself to turn away; to forget the craving in his stomach; that he was not really hungry. He a.s.sured himself that it is beneficial to go without food now and then--for a day, or even for two days. Then he remembered having read somewhere that smoking allays the gnawing of hunger. He produced a cigar from the case in his pocket, and lit it fumblingly. While he smoked he kept his eyes fixed upon the tray. Suddenly he leaned forward and lifted the cover from the dish.

"b.u.t.tered toast!" he exclaimed, in so tragic a voice that the sound of it brought a smile to his dry lips. He replaced the cover with such violence as to crack the dish. After smoking gloomily for another minute or two, he again allowed his attentions to dwell upon the tea, toast, and cream. He lifted the half-filled cup and sniffed it. Did he detect a bitterness in the clean, faint fragrance of it, or was the bitterness only in his imagination? He tilted the cup this way and that, searching the clear liquid for some cloudy sign of danger. He was unsuccessful. He sniffed it again, and this time could not detect the least suggestion of bitterness.

"I am a fool!" he muttered. "My nerves have gone to pieces!"

With a quick hand, he slopped a little of the cream into the tea, and raised the cup swiftly to his lips. But he did not part his lips. For a moment he sat motionless, with the cup raised and tilted--and then, with an oath, he replaced it on the tray, untasted. The momentary gratification of thirst and hunger was not worth the risk. He turned his back upon the tray, and puffed away resolutely at his cigar. He would show the old devil that he was not entirely a fool!

Banks finished the cigar; and still old Wigmore had not returned. The tray still remained on the floor. Banks. .h.i.tched himself to the head of the bed, and set to work with his left hand to unfasten the knots in the rope which bound him to that cursed, ingenious bedstead. The rope was small, and the knots were hard; but at last the outer knot began to loosen. He paused frequently in his work to glance over his shoulder at the door, and to hearken intently. At last he was free from the bed, but with the length of line still hanging from his wrist. Now he crawled across the room to the door, stood up on his bound feet, and tried the handle. The door was locked, as he had expected. Seated with his broad back against it, he worried the cord at his ankles with both hands until its three stubborn knots were undone. Then, moving on tiptoe, he carried the heavy bedstead across the room, and stood it solidly against the door.

CHAPTER XVII

AN ASTONISHING DISCOVERY

The room was not elaborately furnished, but every piece was good of its kind. Mr. Banks worked busily, moving about stealthily on the toes of his great boots. He had shed his coat, by this time, and rid his right arm of the dangling length of rope. Atop the hinged slats of the bed he placed a substantial chest of drawers, thus reenforcing the barricade and squaring himself with the ingenious slats by one and the same move.

"It will take a bigger man than Wigmore to get in at me now," murmured the sportsman.

He was tremendously pleased with his job, but did not waste much time in admiring it. Now that he was secure from interruption for a while, at least, was the time to develop the possibilities of the window. He would try to attract the attention of some pa.s.ser-by. If there did not happen to be any pa.s.ser-by, which was frequently the case, in Samson's Mill Settlement, for hours at a time--then he would join the pieces of rope with which he had been bound, lengthen the result with a blanket, and lower himself into the free outside world. Old Wigmore might shoot at him through the panels of the door, but he was more than willing to take the risk of being hit by such blind shooting. Once outside, he felt that he would be safe. Not even the mad captain was mad enough to murder him in open sight of the road and fields. These reflections occupied his mind during the seconds in which he turned from his contemplation of the barricade. He made one step toward the window, and then----

"Halt!" exclaimed the voice of Captain Wigmore, shrill, clear and menacing. Banks halted, with a gasp, and turned his face toward the hateful sound. To his dismay, he beheld the devilish face of the old man leering horribly within seven feet of him, through a square and unsuspected aperture in the door. With a low cry of defiance and nervous fright, he tried to set his limbs in motion again. Would his feet never move? He seemed to pa.s.s through a whole minute of terrific but futile exertion. It was like a grotesque nightmare of childhood days--grotesque, but horrible. He saw the old man's hand appear beside the leering face. In the hand was that queerly shaped pistol. And still his feet clung to the floor as if they were lead! A dull, feeble, popping report came to his aching ears. And then something gripped his windpipe with huge, hard fingers; some one struck him to earth with a gigantic balloon; a blank wave curled about him, fell upon him, pounded the life from his battling lungs, and dragged him, limp and dead, to the unsounded depths.

Captain Wigmore had discharged his chemical pistol in the big sportsman's face. That is all. He had slipped the panel, cried halt, raised his hand, and pulled the trigger, all within two seconds of time.

When Mr. Banks recovered consciousness for the second time since crawling into Wigmore's house, he felt much worse than he had on the first occasion. He felt very, very sick at the very pit of his stomach.

His poor head was in a terrible way. At one moment his brains seemed to be floating far above him, light and thin as smoke, and at the next they lay heavily, but loosely, in his sore skull, like a fragment of iron, sliding from side to side. He lay flat, and groaned. Half an hour pa.s.sed before he ventured to sit up and open his eyes. Absolute darkness surrounded him. He felt about with his hands, and found that he was lying on a folded blanket. He inquired further, and discovered that his new lodging was nothing but a tiny closet, about seven feet deep, and four feet wide, with a steeply sloping roof. The roof was made of a series of sharp-cornered humps. He b.u.mped his head against one of them--and that enlightened him. He was in a closet under a staircase.

His fur coat had been left in the bedroom; but, fortunately, the closet was not very cold. After another and briefer rest upon the flat of his back, he decided to try a smoke. He thrust a hand slowly into one pocket, less slowly into another, then swiftly and desperately into pocket after pocket. All were empty! Not so much as a match had been left to him; not so much as a crumb of tobacco.

The rage which this discovery inspired in the breast of Mr. Banks was out of all proportion to the seriousness of his loss. The effect upon him was stupendous. Sandbagging, binding, and pistoling had all failed to lift him to such a height of resentment at this. Why, even he could not have explained. His big boots were left to him--and his voice, such as it was. He began to shout and stamp his feet on the floor. His voice limbered up, and grew in strength, until the dry-tongued cry became a gigantic bellow. The feet pounded up and down until they encountered the door; and then they began to swing back and forth. The door winced and shook at every blow. It was a strong door, however, hung on ma.s.sive hinges, fastened with a big lock, and barred in three places with rods of iron. Wigmore had taken no chances with this door. He had fixed things this time so that his prisoner was put to stay. That was his idea, anyway.

At last, reeling and breathless from his exertions, Banks sank to the floor, and lay still and silent. For a little while his head span sickeningly, and his mind and senses lay torpid; but only for a little while. This outbreak had done him good--had revived him to the finger tips. He sat up presently and listened for the approach of his enemy.

Surely all that bellowing and thumping would bring him.

"If he opens that door, pistol or no pistol, it'll be the end of him,"

remarked the New Yorker. And he meant it. He was ready for murder. He raised himself to his knees, ascertained the position of the door with his hand, and faced it, waiting in savage expectancy.

At last his straining ears caught a sound. It was a very faint sound, and it came from the left instead of from the door. It was repeated--a faint, furtive tapping, like the tapping of a flipped finger against plaster. He moved cautiously toward the sound. It came again. He put out his hand, and touched the rough lath and plaster of the wall. How frail the barrier felt! He stood up very cautiously. "It may be a mouse--and it may be Wigmore--but it is worth trying," he whispered. Then he swung his right foot backward slowly, and brought it forward with all the force that lay in that long and muscular shank. A sound of cracking plaster and splintered laths rewarded and encouraged him. He steadied himself, with one hand on the door and one on the slope of the staircase, and settled down to kicking. His boot was thick, his leg strong, and his heart in the job. Things cracked and smashed and splintered. At last he knelt and advanced an inquiring hand. The blackness was full of the dust of powdered plaster. He found a ragged-edged break in the wall, and thrust his hand into it.

Mr. Banks s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back to his own side of the pierced part.i.tion, at the same time uttering a sharp cry of dismay. Nothing had hurt him; but in the blackness beyond his own narrow blackness his fingers had encountered flesh--the flesh of a human nose and eyebrow. He sagged back on his haunches, limp and trembling. Whatever he had expected to find, this was not it.

"Who is there? Speak! Who is there?" he whispered.

No voice answered him; but again he heard that thin rapping, like the flipping of a finger against a hard, dry surface. It was a trifle louder this time, but in exactly the same position.

"Can't you speak? Speak, for Heaven's sake!" cried Banks.

This time he was answered by a low, m.u.f.fled, strangled groan. He searched his pockets again, with shaking fingers; and, at last, in a little roll of woolen dust in the corner of his match pocket, he found one wax match. This first seemed such a great and joyful thing to him that he had difficulty in restraining his laughter.

"Wigmore, you old devil, here's where I have you at last!" he exclaimed.

"You're a fool! You should have picked my pockets thoroughly while you were about it. This little match will prove your undoing--as sure as my name is Harvey P. Banks!"

He began to chuckle--and the sound of his chuckling quieted and steadied him in a flash. "That won't do," he said. "That sounds downright idiotic. I must keep a grip on myself."

With his left hand he found a safe and suitable spot on the wall for the striking of the precious match; and then, with his trembling right hand, he struck it. The little flame hissed into existence, then caught the wax, and burned clear and quiet. He crouched low, and thrust the burning match through the hole in the lath and plaster, and into the chamber beyond, by the length of his arm. The hole was about three feet long and twelve or fifteen inches wide. He shuffled forward and thrust his head between the jaws of ragged plaster and splintered laths.

The match lit a closet even smaller than the one in which Banks lay.

Banks beheld rough walls, a sloping roof, a door, and, directly under his hand, a small human figure, bound and gagged.

"Timothy Fletcher!" he exclaimed. "So this is New York--for you!"

The old man's bright eyes blinked like an owl's. He lay close against the wall, and now Banks saw one finger--one free finger--dart out and tap the plaster.

"Roll away from the hole," said Banks. Then the match scorched him, and he withdrew his hand and head. He sat back for a second or two, considering the situation.

"The old fiend!" he muttered. "He must be mad--or the devil himself.

This explains the other thing that happened to poor Fletcher--the attack in the woods. Oh, the cunning old beast!"

Now he set to work with his hands, tearing away the light materials of the wall in strips and lumps. He put his hand through, found that Fletcher had rolled away, and then wriggled through himself. It was a tight pa.s.sage, but at last it was safely accomplished. To remove the gag from Fletcher's stiff jaws was the work of a few seconds. To untie and unwind the complicated knots and cords that bound the old fellow's body and limbs took fully half an hour. During that time, Fletcher did not say one word.

For a little while after the freeing of Timothy Fletcher, Banks sagged weakly against the floor. His head was spinning again. He closed his eyes against the blackness, and began to drift off into a delightful, restful dream. He was all done--all in--down and out! What was the good of worrying? What was the good of anything? He had escaped from his cell. He had found Fletcher and set him free. He had earned his rest.

Timothy Fletcher dragged himself over to where Mr. Banks sagged against the door like a big, half-empty sack. Having spent half an hour in moving his tongue up and down, and round and round in his mouth, he now found himself in possession of a fragment of voice. Also, the blood was beginning to move in his arms and legs again. His mind was as clear as gla.s.s. He fastened his thin fingers in his rescuer's collar, and shook that careless head until it flopped and knocked against the door.

"Wake up!" he croaked. "Wake up! We got to get out of here."

Banks opened his eyes, and, in the dark, grabbed Fletcher with his big hands. For a moment he mistook the servant for the master, and, with a sudden, furious surge of strength, he shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Fletcher yelled, and clawed the sportsman in the face. Then Banks realized what he was doing.