CHAPTER XVI
THE SECRET OF THE PIANO LEG
“Jumpin’ Jupiter! Great balls of fire! The little scallawags has escaped!”
Scoop nudged me under the bed as our furious jailer tore up and down the room like a crazy man.
I knew what was in my companion’s mind. He was tickled in the thought that it had been taken for granted, from the seeming vacancy of the room, that we had vanished from our prison.
The crazy acting one was now at the window.
“Yes, sir, by gum, they made a rope out of my best bed sheets—the little villains!—an’ got away through the windy. What do you know about that? An’ me a-sittin’ downstairs all the while with my hands folded like a’ ol’ dumb-bell. My best sheets! Wough! If I had my hands on ’em I’d shake the pants off em, by gum. Yes, sir.… Hey! What’s this? A pair of pants! An’ after me sayin’.… Money in the pockets, too. Five, ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty dollars. An’ here’s eight more dollars in another pocket.”
Scoop made a queer throat sound.
“Jerry, is he counting our money?”
“I guess so,” I whispered back, miserable in the loss of our working capital and profits. He had my eight dollars, too.
“What in the dickens did you drop your pants for? If you aren’t a peach!”
I stiffened.
“Huh! Who let the window drop?”
That shut him up.
“Lookit all the money I’ve got,” our jailer cackled, when the Harmony Hustler came hesitatingly into the room.
“Well, well!”
“One of the kids was in sech a hurry to clean out that he furgot his pants. I found the money in the pocket.”
“Did you have some boys confined in this room, sir?”
The lock tender must have nodded in answer to the question.
“That’s what makes me feel so all-fired cheap—to be done this way by a parcel of boys in knee pants.”
“I wonder.…” The Harmony Hustler paused. “May I inquire, sir, if your prisoners were four youths in charge of a show boat?”
Scoop got my ear.
“He hasn’t forgotten us, Jerry.”
The lock tender must have answered the other man with another nod.
“I’ve got their boat. An’ I’m a-goin’ to put a chain an’ padlock on it an’ keep it, by gum, till their fathers come here an’ settle with me fur the loss of my sheets.… If you be intendin’ to stay here all night, mister, this is your room. Better raise the windy an’ let some fresh air in. Gits awful hot up here in the afternoon. Wal, I’ve got to ’phone to my brother that the little imps has escaped. Drat the luck! My best sheets, too!”
Listening to the grumbler thump down the stairs, I could not doubt, after what he had said, that he had taken my pants with him. Certainly he had our money. The Harmony Hustler remained in the room. We could hear him trying to raise the window. After a lot of grunting and thumping he finally succeeded.
I was braced up in the thought that we still had a chance to escape, this in the event that Peg’s rope wasn’t taken away. As soon as it got dusk we could slide down the rope to freedom. Of course, I would be pantless in my flight, and our show money would, of necessity, be left behind. But I told myself, in looking ahead, that the double loss of my pants and the show money wasn’t necessarily a thing to worry about. Getting safely out of our prison was the big thought.
The Harmony Hustler moved here and there in the room, arranging the chairs to his satisfaction and fussing with the bed clothing. We couldn’t see what he was doing, but I had the idea that he was turning the top covers back, as Mother does with my bed at home to make it easy for me to get into.
Below us, the lock tender was getting supper. We could smell frying ham. There was a rumbling as of a cranked coffee grinder. After a few minutes the pleasing aroma of boiling coffee was added to the appetizing ham smell. In the further course of the supper preparations there was a thump! thump! that told us that potatoes were being mashed in the kettle. I had heard the same sound in our kitchen any number of times and instantly recognized it.
Mashed potatoes and ham gravy! My mouth watered in the thought of it.
“Hey, Windfeller!”
“Yes, sir,” the Harmony Hustler promptly called back.
“Be you wantin’ canned-cherry sauce fur supper, or mincemeat pie?”
“I—aw—am very partial to pie, sir.”
Scoop was holding his stomach.
“Oh!…” he groaned in my ear. “Can you smell the ham, Jerry?”
“Don’t talk about it,” I whispered back, in added misery.
“And mincemeat pie!”
“Shut up.”
“If I don’t get something to eat pretty soon,” he groaned, “I’m done for.”
We could now talk above a whisper for we had the bedroom to ourselves. We even put our heads out of our stuffy hiding place to get a breath of cooler air.
“Jerry, the rope’s gone!”
I let out my neck and took a squint at the window.
“The piano fellow must have taken it downstairs,” Scoop added, groaning in despair.
I told myself that I wouldn’t give up.
“We can make another rope,” I hung on doggedly.
“I’m not so sure about that. For if we give the least sound of our presence up here we’re done for.”
There was truth in that, all right. And depression descended upon me in spite of all that I could do to ward it off.
Night came. But if I had had any remaining small hope of being able to make another bed-sheet rope, to escape through the window after the manner of Red and Peg, I was doomed to disappointment. For the lock tender and his over-night guest never left the room below us. As a result we had to lay motionless under the bed. For a single suspicious creak of the floor could very easily have led to our undoing.
Our former jailer—I had quit regarding him as our jailer in fact, now that he had no knowledge of our presence in the house—had tried earlier in the day to get a telephone connection with his brother in Ashton. Failing, he had left word for the other to call back. So about eight o’clock the telephone bell rang. There was considerable excited conversation between the two brothers, chiefly to the point that we had escaped.
“Their boat’s still here,” the deputy concluded, “an’ I’ve got the pants belongin’ to one of ’em. If they come back to-night to try an’ git away with their boat, I’ll fix ’em, by gum! They can’t git away without me hearin’ ’em. The little scallawags!”
The attic room was cooler now. But I doubt if our misery was made any the lighter by the lessened heat. For we still had our empty stomachs and parched mouths to contend with.
It was our plan now to wait until the household was asleep and then tiptoe down the stairs to freedom. We would make some noise in our descent of the stairs, that was unavoidable, but it was our hope that whatever slight sounds we made would pass undetected in the others’ slumber.
In our nervous impatience to make our escape, it seemed to us that the lock tender and his guest never would go to bed. Our former jailer, playing the part of the host, brought out a checker board at the conclusion of his telephone conversation, and until upwards of ten-thirty the two men bent to their game, winning turn about.
Finally, though, to our tremendous relief, the lower doors were locked for the night and the Harmony Hustler mounted the stairs with a hand lamp. Upon his entrance into the bedroom he made a pretense of going to bed by dropping his removed shoes on the floor, after which, in continuation of his trick, he moved here and there in the room in his stocking feet. The trick completed, he quickly dressed his feet and blew out the light.
Boy, I was scared! It was bad enough to be in the room with him when we could see him; it was a thousand times worse to be shut up with him in the dark.
Suppose he put a snaky hand under the bed and touched me! I shivered in the thought of it.
“Jerry!” Scoop breathed in my ear.
I jumped in my nervousness.
“Did he touch you?” I gurgled.
“Touch me? Of course not. Can’t you see him? He’s watching the lock tender through the stovepipe hole.”
I changed my position ever so slightly, careful to make no sound. And sure enough, as Scoop had said, the room’s other occupant was on his hands and knees over the hole in the floor. The light from below shone on his tense face. A crouching killer! I could think of nothing else in the expression of his face and the suggestive posture of his body.
“Maybe he’s going to kill the old man,” I shivered, recalling stories I had read.
“Why should he do that?”
“Why should he hug the piano leg?” I countered.
“You think he wants the piano leg bad enough to commit murder to get it?”
“Look at his face,” I returned. “If he isn’t a killer, I never hope to see one.”
“Um.…” reflected Scoop. “I’m curious about that piano leg, Jerry. Maybe it’s made of gold and painted to look like wood.”
“Don’t talk so loud,” I shivered. “He’ll hear you.”
“I’d like to know what his scheme is.”
“Sh-h-h-h!”
“What are we going to do if he starts downstairs with a knife? We can’t let him murder the old man in his bed.”
“We can yell.”
“You poor fish!”
“If I was to yell the way I want to yell,” I shivered, “I’d scare him dead in his tracks.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“I wonder where Red and Peg are.”
“Probably in Steam Corners eating licorice … if Red has any money.”
“I don’t believe they’re in Steam Corners. I’d sooner think they’re hiding at the canal bank, waiting for us.”
This remark brought to my mind the white-haired man. We had thought that he was waiting near by with the recovered bonds. But that, I now concluded, couldn’t very well be the case. The warty-nosed man wouldn’t have put up here for the night if his accomplice was waiting for him outside.
Below us the lock tender was pottering from room to room, talking to the black and white cat and making certain that the doors had all been locked. Finally he went into his bedroom. He wasn’t going to undress, he told the cat, for he was of the belief that “them blasted b’ys,” as he called us, would be back after the boat.
Having got into bed, he happened to remember that he hadn’t wound the clock, so up he got again, pottering into the sitting room. The clock properly wound, he returned to his bed, only to remember, after a brief interval, that he had neglected to put a rug over the furnace register, to prevent the cat from doing any thimble dropping in the course of the night.
Finally a deep silence settled throughout the house. Ten-twenty-thirty minutes passed. There was not the slightest sound from the watcher at the stovepipe hole, though, of course, in the now darkened house, the man was using his ears and not his eyes. He was listening, I knew, for possible sounds from the lower bedroom that would tell him that the bed’s occupant had finally dropped asleep.
I was sort of nodding myself. But the pressure of Scoop’s hand on my arm put me wide awake again.
“Come on, Jerry. Now’s our chance.”
My mind held a horrified picture of the crouching killer at the stovepipe hole.
“You’re crazy,” I gasped, in a panic of fear in the thought of leaving our hiding place.
“It’s now or never. He’s likely to wake up any moment.”
“Is he asleep?” I breathed, in surprise.
“Sure thing. I can tell by his deep breathing.… Come on.”
Well, I don’t mind telling you that my heart was in my throat, sort of, as we crawled like snails from under the bed and tiptoed across the room to the door. The moonlight guided our steps. It revealed, too, the sleeping form of the killer. His back was against the wall and he sort of leaned to one side against a chair. It wouldn’t take much to awaken him, for we realized that he had dropped to sleep by accident. As Scoop had said, there was need for quick work on our part.
The bedroom door creaked ever so slightly as we opened it. And at the sound my heart stopped pumping until I had made sure that the sleeper hadn’t been disturbed. I felt safer when we were in the hall. If necessary we could make a run for it now.
In the moonlit lower room we had to pass the open door of the lock tender’s chamber. He would surely see us if he was awake. However, from his deep, even breathing we concluded that he was asleep, too.
We got to the door and slowly turned the key in the lock. I gave a glad sigh when the door swung open. There was nothing between us and positive freedom now.
Scoop paused.
“Jerry,” he whispered hoarsely, “I’ve got to have a drink. My mouth’s on fire.”
I went with him to the kitchen, for, as I have said, I, too, was suffering from burning thirst. And did water ever taste as good to me as it did then! Oh, boy! There was a pan of red apples on the kitchen table. We filled our pockets—that is, Scoop filled his pockets. You must remember that I had no pockets to fill except a small shirt pocket.
While we were in the kitchen Scoop got his eyes on the lock tender’s long white nightshirt. It lay on a kitchen chair, where its owner had probably dropped it, after having arrived at the determination to sleep in his clothes.
“ ‘A fair exchange is no robbery,’ ” the leader quoted, handing me the nightshirt. “Take it along, Jerry,” he grinned. “You may need it. And later you can trade even-up with the old gent for your pants.”
I was crazy to get out of the house; and rather than argue with the other about the nightshirt I rolled it up and put it under my arm. But I had no intention of using it. I’d look sweet, I told myself, parading around the landscape in old thing-a-ma-bob’s nightshirt. Nothin’ doin’!
Scoop was feeling more like himself now that he had gotten on the outside of a dipperful of water. And instead of going cautiously through the sitting room he strutted along in his most daring way, acting as though he owned the whole house and didn’t care a rap for anybody or anything.
“Um.…” he mumbled, stopping at the piano.
“Come on,” I breathed, tugging anxiously at his arm.
“Just a minute.” He got down on his knees and squinted at the marked piano leg, thumping it with his knuckles in the way the killer had done. “I wish I had a light. Skip into the kitchen, Jerry, and get some matches.”
“Not on your life. Come on.”
He had hold of the leg with his hands.
“I can turn it!”
A foot scraped on the floor directly over our heads.
“It’ll be your last ‘turn,’ ” I shivered, conscious of a pair of burning eyes in the stovepipe hole, “if you don’t hurry and get out of here.”
“I’ve got it. Boy! It weighs a ton.”
Whang! Bang!! CRASH!!! BING!
“It’s the cat!” screeched Scoop, leaping to his feet. “Beat it, Jerry. Here comes old blunder-buss.”
We went out of the house like a streak, my daring companion in the lead with the piano leg under his arm and me hot on his flying heels. Behind us we could hear the killer bounding down the stairs. The lock tender, in his bedroom, was roaring at the top of his voice.
Did you ever read the story about Jack, the boy who climbed the beanstalk? If you have you will remember the part where the hero was escaping from the giant’s castle with the singing harp. The harp, not wanting to be stolen, had awakened the giant by crying: “Master! Master!”
Well, I had a skidding thought of Jack’s flight with the harp as we made off with the lock tender’s piano leg. For back in the house the piano was yelling for its master as loudly as the black and white cat could make it.
We were now out of sight of the house. And realizing that the moonlight would show us up if we tried to escape down the tow path, we wisely dove into the heavy underbrush. Panting, our hearts pounding in the excitement of our escape, we lay on the ground, sort of tuning in on the shouting voices of our pursuers.
In a moment or two the running lock tender came into sight. He had his shotgun. Dad told me afterwards that I needn’t have been in fear of the gun—he said that the man wouldn’t have dared to have used it on us. But I’m not so sure about that. A man as crazy as the lock tender was is liable, in his excitement, to do anything.
The evil-faced killer came into sight, panting and sort of clawing the air with his working hands.
“It’s them pesky b’ys,” our former jailer roared, having paused near our hiding place. “How they got in the house, though, is more ’an I know.”
“We’ve got to capture them, sir,” the other panted hoarsely.
“Wal, you blamed idiot, I’m tryin’ to capture ’em, hain’t I?”
“They’ve stolen your piano leg, sir.”
“What?”
“A leg of your piano is missing, sir.”
The lock tender set his gun down and gave a coarse, jerky laugh.
“Wal, by gum! A pianny leg! Whoever heerd tell of anybody stealin’ a pianny leg?”
They went on down the tow path in the hope of catching possible sight of us. After ten or fifteen minutes they hurried back. Now was our chance to get away. And scrambling to our feet we started down the tow path in the direction of the wide waters lickety-cut.
When we were a good mile from the lock we stopped to rest and sort of plan things. First of all we had the job of finding our pals. Our conclusion was that they had not gone to Steam Corners. The island was the place for us to head for, though how we were going to cross the water without a boat was more than we knew in the moment.
“We might use the piano leg for a raft,” I joked, holding up the big leg and sort of squinting at it curious-like in the moonlight.
“Gosh!” laughed Scoop. “I had almost forgotten that it was here.”
I made an amazing discovery.
“Lookit!” I yipped, holding up a roll of greenbacks that I had found in the leg’s hollow stomach.
Yes, sir, it was real money. Not one-dollar and two-dollar bills, either, but tens and twenties—dozens and dozens of them, rolled tightly together.