The Return of Peter Grimm Part 30

"What?" barked Frederik with an uncontrollable start and whipping the photograph around behind his back like a guilty child caught in theft.

"What's that? Anne Marie? Why do you ask _me_ about her? How should _I_ know?"

He turned his back on the boy and began to tear the photograph into tiny bits. Willem hesitated, then went back to the stairway. Again at the foot of the steps he confronted the Dead Man. Again they stood for an instant, looking wordlessly into each other's eyes. And again Willem turned back into the room.

"Mynheer Frederik," he asked in a sort of dazed bewilderment, "_where_ is Mynheer Grimm?"

"Eh? Mynheer Grimm? Dead, of course. Dead."

"Are--are you _sure_? Because just now----"

"Oh, go to bed! At once, do you hear! Go, or I'll have you punished!"

Under this dire threat and the scowl that went with it, not even the Dead Man's power could stem Willem's defeat. Up the stairs he scuttled.

At the door of his room, the fever thirst in his hot, parched throat for the moment overcame fear.

"Could--could I have a drink of water?" he whimpered, gazing longingly down at the full ice-water pitcher on the sideboard.

An angry glance from Frederik sent him into his own room like a rabbit into its warren.

Frederik, the fragments of the picture clenched in his sweat-damp hand, glowered after the retreating lad and took a step toward the fire. The movement brought him close to the desk. The lamp had suddenly burned very low. But for the faint gleam of firelight the room was in almost total darkness.

And out of that gloom leaped a Face. A Face close to Frederik's own;--a Face indescribably awful in its aspect of unearthly menace. The face of Peter Grimm. Not kindly and rugged as in life, or even as since the Dead Man's return. But terrible, accusing, bathed in a lurid glow.

Frederik, with a scream of cra.s.s horror, reeled back. The bits of cardboard tumbled from his fear-loosened grip and strewed the surface of the desk.

"My G.o.d!" croaked Frederik, his throat sanded with terror. "My G.o.d! Oh, my _G.o.d_!"

The Face was gone. The room was in shadow again and very silent. The dropping of a charred ember from andiron to hearth made the panic-stricken man jump convulsively.

Scarce breathing, crouched in a position of grotesque fright, the fear-sweat streaming down his face, Frederik Grimm peered about him through the flickering gloom. The place seemed peopled with elusive Shapes. His teeth clicked together as his loosened jaw was nerve-racked.

He shivered from head to foot.

"I--I thought----" he began, half aloud.

Then he fell silent, afraid of his own voice in that dreadful silence.

For a moment he cowered, numb, inert. Then he remembered the fragments of the photograph that still strewed the table.

"I must get rid of them," he thought.

He took an apprehensive step toward the desk. But the memory of what he had seen there was too potent. He knew he could no more approach that spot than he could walk into a den of rattlesnakes. He halted, sweating, aghast. Again he crept forward,--a step--two steps--in the direction of the torn picture. But his fears clogged his feet and brought him to a shivering stand-still. Had the wealth of the world lain strewed on that desk instead of a mere handful of scattered pasteboard bits he could not have summoned courage to step forth and seize it.

The Dead Man, in the shadows, read his mind and smiled.

"No one's likely to come in here till I get back," Frederik told himself, in self-excuse for his cowardice. "And if any one does, the picture is too badly torn to be recognised. I----"

He found that his terror-ridden subconsciousness was backing his trembling body toward the outer door. The door that led from that haunted room--from the desk he dared not go near,--out into the safe, peace-giving night of summer.

And, s.n.a.t.c.hing up his hat and stick, the shuddering, white-faced young master of the Grimm fortune half-stumbled, half-ran, from his home.

"Hicks's lawyer will be waiting," he said to his battered self-respect.

"I'm late as it is. I must hurry."

And hurry he did, nor checked his rapid pace until he had reached his destination.

Scarce had the door banged shut after Frederik when Peter Grimm raised his eyes once more toward Willem's room. And again the little white-clad figure appeared, and tiptoed toward the stair head.

Willem paused a moment, looked over the banisters to make certain that Frederik had gone, then stole down to the big living-room. His cheeks were flushed with fever. He was tired all over. His head throbbed. And his throat was unbearably dry. The perpetual thirst of childhood, augmented by the gnawing, unbearable thirst of fever, sent him speeding to the sideboard. He picked up the big ice-water pitcher,--chilled and frosted by inner cold and outer dampness--and poured out a gla.s.sful of the stingingly cold water. The boy gulped down the contents of the gla.s.s in almost a single draught. Then he filled a second gla.s.s and, with epicurean delight, let the water trickle slowly and coolingly down his hot throat. Peter Grimm stood beside him, a gentle hand on the thin little shoulder. His thirst slaked, Willem glanced fearfully toward the front door.

"Oh, he won't come back for a long time," Peter Grimm soothed him.

"Don't be afraid. He went out in a hurry and he hasn't yet stopped hurrying. He--thought he saw _me_."

Willem, rea.s.sured, laid his burning cheek against the frosted, icy side of the pitcher. A smile of utter bliss overspread his face.

"My, but it feels good!" sighed the boy.

The Dead Man continued to look down at him with an infinite pity.

"Willem," said he, stroking the tousled head and smoothing away its stabbing pain, "there are some little soldiers in this world who are handicapped when they come into Life's battlefield. Their parents haven't fitted them for the fight. Poor little moon-moths! They look in at the lighted windows. They beat at the panes. They see the glow of happy firesides,--the lamps of bright homes. But they can never get in.

You are one of those little wanderers, Willem. And children like you are a million times happier when they are spared the truth. So it's the most beautiful thing that can happen for you, that before your playing time is over--before you begin a man's bitterly hard, grinding toil,--all the care--all the tears, all the worries, all the sorrows are going to pa.s.s you by forever. G.o.d is going to lay His dear hand on your head. There is always a place for such little children as you at His side. There is none in this small, harsh, unpitying old world. If people knew--if they understood--I don't think they could be so cruel as to bring such children into the world, to carry terrible burdens. They _don't_ know.

But G.o.d does. And that is why He is going to take you to Him. It will be the most wonderful--the most beautiful thing that could happen to you."

Willem smiled dreamily. Then he took a long, ecstatic drink out of the pitcher itself, set it down, and rose to his feet. He felt suddenly better. For the time the water had cooled him. The racking headache was smoothed away. And, child-like, he had no desire whatever to cut short his surrept.i.tious good time by going to bed. He looked about him for new objects of interest.

"Willem," went on the Dead Man, "of all this whole household, you are the only one who really feels I am here. The only one who can almost see me. The only one who can help me. I have a little message for you to give Katje, and I've something to show you."

He pointed toward the desk, where lay the fragments of the picture. The firelight was strong enough now to make them plainly visible. Willem's eyes followed the direction of the pointing hand. But his glance, as it reached the desk, fell upon something infinitely more attractive than any mere photograph. He saw the tray placed there by Marta and left untouched by Frederik.

"I'm awful hungry!" observed the boy.

"H'm!" commented Peter Grimm, as Willem started across the room to investigate the mysteriously alluring tray. "I see I can't get any help from a youngster as long as his stomach is calling."

"Good!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Willem as he spied the plate of cakes.

"Help yourself!" invited Peter Grimm.

The boy obeyed the suggestion before it was made. Already his mouth was full of cake and his jaws were working rapturously.

"_Das is lecker!_" he murmured, biting into another of the cakes.

He picked a large and obese raisin from a third, swallowed it, then reached for the sugar bowl. Two lumps of sugar went the way of the raisin. After which a handful of sugar lumps were stuffed into his night-clothes' pocket for future delectation in bed. The cream pitcher next met the forager's eye. Willem looked at it longingly.

"Take it," said Peter Grimm. "It's good, thick, sweet cream. Drink it down. That's right. It won't hurt you. Nothing can hurt you now."

"I haven't had such a good time," Willem confided to his inner consciousness, "since Mynheer Grimm died. Why"--he broke off, his roving gaze concentrating on the hat-rack--"there's his hat! It's--he's _here_! Oh, Mynheer Grimm!" he wailed aloud in utter longing. "Take me back with you!"

"You know I'm here?" asked the Dead Man joyously. "Can you see me?"

"No, sir," came the answer without a breath of hesitation or any hint of misunderstanding.