Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

"The conceited old idiot!" he muttered. "I see his game. I'll fix him!"

He halted, behind a thicket, and stood motionless for a few minutes, listening intently. Then he made a wide half circle to the right, and soon came out again upon the beaten road but now about a quarter of a mile beyond the captain's house. His feet were cold and he stamped vigorously on the road to warm them. The night was windless, but bitter.

Mr. Banks advanced stealthily toward the dark house. Not a glimmer of light showed in any window. He opened the front gate cautiously, closed it cautiously behind him, and went furtively up the narrow path between the snow-banked lawns. On the step of the little front porch he paused and listened. Then he grasped the knob of the outer door and turned it. The door opened noiselessly.

He entered the narrow porch and stood with his ear against the inner door. He could not hear anything. He fumbled for the knob, found it, and learned that the inner door was locked. He hunted under the mat and in every corner of the porch for the key, having heard somewhere that keys were sometimes hidden away in just such foolish places. He did not find it. Again he listened at the door, this time with his ear against the keyhole. The house was silent as a tomb.

He left the porch, closed the outer door, and made his way to the left along the front of the house and around the corner to the woodshed. Knowing that he could not possibly avoid leaving a trail in the snow, he shuffled his feet so as to make it an unreadable one. He did this so artfully that not one clear impression of his big New York hunting boots was left in his path. He opened the door of the shed without a check and felt his way between piles of stove wood to the door of the kitchen.

"I don't feel respectable," he murmured. "But I'll feel a darned sight worse if any one finds me sneaking 'round like this. I must get in, though, and have a look 'round."

The kitchen door was fastened tight. Banks twisted the knob this way and that, all in vain. In spite of his coonskin coat and fur cap he was beginning to feel extremely chilly. He promised himself a husky pull at a bottle of some kind or other should he ever manage to break into the house. He left the shed and tried a back window. He could not get a hold on the sash, however. He drew a heavy clasp knife from his pocket and forced the strong blade between the sill and the bottom of the sash. In this way he pried the sash up almost half an inch. The window had not been fastened. He returned to the shed, and after a few minutes of fumbling about in the darkness he found an axe. By using the thick blade of the axe in place of the knife he soon had the window on the move. He propped up the sash, put the axe back in its place, and returned to the window. With a shove of his right hand he forced it up to the top. This done, he paused for a moment and stood with every sense and nerve on the alert. He heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing.

"I wonder if my little idea is the right one," he murmured. "I wonder what I shall find."

He put his gloved hands on the sill, hoisted himself, tipped forward, and wriggled through the window into the dark and silent room. His hands touched the floor first. He pulled his legs across the ledge and was about to stand straight when his knife slipped from the pocket of his coat and clattered on the floor. Still crouched low, he groped forward, found the knife—and then!

It seemed to Harvey P. Banks that he had been asleep a long, long time on a very uncomfortable bed in a very stuffy room. The greatest trouble with the bed must be in the arrangement of the pillows, he reflected, for his neck was terribly stiff and sore. He did not open his eyes right away. There was a feeling in his head and eyes—yes, and in his mouth—suggestive of other awakenings, in the years of his gay youth. So he lay with his eyes closed, remembering that a too sudden opening of the lids under certain once familiar conditions was decidedly unpleasant. He tried to get his wits into line. Where was he? Where had he been last night? What had he been drinking? His poor head only throbbed in answer. So, at last, very cautiously, he raised his heavy lids. He gazed upon darkness—against utter darkness on every side. No. Directly above his head was a faint sheen of gray. That was a window, no doubt; but what was a window doing above his head? That beat him, and he closed his eyes again and tried hard to remember things. The far-away past came clearly to him; but that did not help him. He knew that the things he remembered were of months—even of years—ago.