The Voyage of the Hoppergrass Part 12

"Sh-h-h-h-h-h!" said Mr. Daddles, "we ought to have looked about the house a little before we began to eat. I think that's only the branch of a tree, or something like that, sc.r.a.ping against the house outside. Anyhow, we'd better investigate."

He got up, and lighted one of the candles on the side-board. Then he very carefully opened the other door of the dining-room, and we all followed him out into a hall. There we listened again, but could hear nothing. He led the way up the back-stairs, and we tip- toed behind him. The candle which he carried flickered, and cast a dim light into two rooms which opened off the landing. One was a nursery, with children's blocks, stuffed elephants, and Noah's Ark animals on the floor, and on a couch. The moon, which had come out of the fog, shone in at a window, and its light fell right on a white rabbit sitting under a doll's parasol. He had tea-cups and saucers on the floor in front of him, but he was perfectly quiet.

The noise did not come from him. The room on the other side of the landing was an ordinary bed-room, quite empty.

We stole along the landing toward the front of the house. Here were two more large bed-rooms. The beds were smooth and undisturbed, and both rooms were quiet as the grave.

"Nothing here," whispered Mr. Daddles, "we'll go down the front stairs."

He spoke in the lowest kind of a whisper,--I could hardly make out what he said. But he beckoned toward the stairs, and we all tip-toed in that direction. I can see how that hall looked,--I can see it now, just as I saw it, as we came down stairs. The wood- work was all painted white, some little moonlight came in through the gla.s.s over the front door, and that, with the candle, made it fairly clear. The stairs were broad, and they sloped gradually.

There were two big portraits on the wall, one of them over the stairs. Rooms opened to right and left of the front door, and in the corner of the hall, to the right, stood a big clock. It ticked slowly and solemnly, and a little ship, above the dial, rocked back and forth on some painted waves. I caught Mr. Daddles by the sleeve.

"The clock is going," I whispered.

He nodded. "Eight day clock," he whispered back.

Then we continued down stairs, still walking without a sound. Just as Mr. Daddles reached the foot of the stairs, the noise began again. The long-drawn, sawing sound, and then the "yop, yop, yop"

so loud that it nearly made us fall over backwards in surprise.

There was no possible doubt from what place it came. It was from the room nearest the tall clock.

Mr. Daddles instantly blew out the candle, and then we all stepped very carefully to the threshold, and looked in. The room was a library, with books from the floor to the ceiling. The gas was lighted, but turned down low, and there were the smouldering embers of a fire on the hearth. Seated in an arm chair in front of the fire, with his feet up in another chair, was a big, fat policeman. He was sound asleep, with his coat unb.u.t.toned, his gray helmet on the floor beside him, and his bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and badge glittering in the gas-light. On a couch at the other side of the room lay another policeman, in his shirt-sleeves. He, too, was asleep, his mouth was open, and from it came the most outrageous snores I ever heard.

"Whee-e-e--yar-r-r-r--yaw-w-w--yop, yop, yop," he would go. And then he would begin it again, and go through it once more.

We looked at this spectacle for about twenty seconds. Then we all turned around, and tip-toed back, through the hall, and into the dining-room.

"Somehow," said Mr. Daddles, "I think we'd better get out of this house."

"So do I," came from all the rest of us, like a chorus.

There was no dispute about it at all. Mr. Daddles and Ed Mason started for the pantry without delay.

"P'r'aps we'd better put back these dishes," whispered Jimmy; "they might find 'em, and that would start 'em after us."

But neither Mr. Daddles nor Ed heard him at all. The latter merely said "Hurry up!" and then disappeared toward the kitchen. It struck me that Jimmy was right, and although I was anxious to get out of the house as quick as possible, it did not seem likely that anything would wake up those policemen for hours to come. So we put the dishes back into the butler's pantry, set back the chairs, and fixed the room, as well as we could, in the way that we had found it. Just as I put out the gas Jimmy slipped the pound-cake into his pocket.

"We might as well have this," he said.

Then we hurried through the kitchen, and into the pantry. The others had left the window open. Jimmy went through it first, and I followed. As I stepped out into the moonlight I felt someone grab my arm. I looked up, expecting to see Mr. Daddles. But it was not he. Instead, I looked into the face of a big man, with a long beard. He had a pitchfork in his other hand. Two other men had Mr.

Daddles by the arms, and some others were holding Ed and Jimmy.

There seemed to be quite a big crowd of people on that veranda.

CHAPTER VI

WE ARE OFFERED LODGINGS

The man with the pitchfork bent down and squinted in at the window, still holding me tight by the arm.

"Any more on ye comin' out?" he inquired.

"No, there aren't any more of us," said Mr. Daddles, "you've got the whole gang now."

"Better wait a second, Eb," said one of the men who was holding Mr. Daddles. He was a fat man, with ears that stuck out the way an elephant's do, when he waves them. "Better wait a second,--yer can't tell."

"You'll waste your time," said Mr. Daddles, "there's no one left in there but the policemen,--and you can't wake them up from here."

"P'licemen?" queried the fat man.

"Whatcher talkin' about?" asked the man with the pitchfork.

"I'm talking about the two policemen who are getting their eight hours in the library," Mr. Daddles replied, "Poor things! I hope we didn't disturb them."

"Don't yer believe him, Eb," said another man, "it's some gum game."

"Look here," I said, "this is all a mistake. We're not burglars.

This house--"

"Yes, we know all about that," said a man, "we've heard this feller tell all about his Uncle Alfred Peabody's house. It's a fust-rate story,--only Uncle Alfred's is next door. This is T.

Parker Littlefield's, an' you know it, too."

"I'm afraid we did strike the wrong house, Sam," said Mr. Daddles, "you see--"

"You betcher struck the wrong house,--you're right there, fast enough," said a little man, who was hopping up and down in his excitement. He was the only one of them who was not holding one of us. He had short, paint-brush whiskers, and I remembered him as the man in the shanty,--the one whom Mr. Daddles called "black- hearted Gregory the Gauger."

"You ought to be ashamed of yerself," said he, "leadin' boys into crime!"

"Do you mean me?" asked Mr. Daddles.

"Yas--I mean you,--in the white pants," he replied, looking with great scorn at Mr. Daddles's duck trousers, "I've heard how you perfessional crooks git boys to climb up on water spouts an' let yer in. I seen yer jest after yer pa.s.sed my place, an' I knowed what yer was up to."

"Well, you are quite wrong,--you're way off," said Mr. Daddles, very seriously. "I don't suppose it will do any good, but it will save you people from making yourselves ridiculous. It's all true, --what I told you. I thought we were getting into Mr. Peabody's house, and he IS my uncle. See here,--do you think we LOOK like burglars?"

"Can't tell what yer look like," said a man, "'we caught yer in--"

"In partiseps criminy," said Gregory the Gauger, "that's what it was. An' whatever you look like, you'll look different tomorrer mornin'. I don't cal'late you know anything about breakin' an'

enterin' Dr. Bigelow's last night?"

"No, we don't. We weren't here last night."

"Course not, course not. Nor about bustin' into the Ellis place last Sat'day night?"

"No, nor about that either."

"Course not!"