Ransom (14 page)

Then he was gone, driving around to the entrance at the rear.

“I'll just run into the kitchen and see if there's plenty for dinner before I take off me hat,” said Maggie, hastening through the hall to the back of the house. “We might have ta send out fer something, ye ken. It's gettin' that late!”

Christobel continued turning on the lights, for it was growing dark.

“There's plenty of meat for a meat pie,” said Maggie, opening the refrigerator and looking over the contents with a practiced eye. “Aw, these hired bodies, how they do gouge their employers,” she scoffed virtuously. “There's half a beefsteak an' a bit o' roast left, and just see how they've hacked it away. And the fine big icebox! It needs a good cleanin'. I'll be up early the morn an' get at it. Now, let me see, I wonder where they keep their vegetables. Would they be doon the cellar, or is there a store closet? Just let me get into me house dress an' apern, an' I'll soon get me bearings. Where's me suitcase? I'll take it up the stair.”

“But Rannie wants to carry it for you, Maggie,” said Christobel. “He'll be here in just a minute. I just heard the car drive into the garage. There. He's turned the light on, see! It's shining into the back window. He can't be long now.”

“Well, show me which dishes ye use. Now, I know where to begin. No, I can't be bothered waitin' fer the laddie. I want ta get me dress changed, and get at dinner.”

Rannie, meantime, had driven around to the garage, which was entered from an alley or lane that went through the block behind the houses. He stopped his car, got out, and unlocked the garage, turning on the light, which snapped on close to the door.

He moved slowly, for his heart was heavy with a new kind of trouble. Rannie had never taken anything in life very seriously before. He was trying to face the fact that he wasn't going back to school, that he couldn't go back to school.

He slammed the door of his car shut and turned to go back and shut the garage door behind him and lock it, but suddenly and most unreasoningly the light suddenly went out, and then before he could realize it, something big and dull struck him on the head, a great black cloth fell over his face, and the world blinked completely out around him. He did not hear the furtive rubbered footsteps about him, nor know when he was put back into the car. He did not even hear the engine start, nor feel the motion of the car as it jerked back into the alley, driven by unskilled hands, hurried, frightened hands, and made its wild way out into the traffic of the city streets. Rannie was a long way off, in a dark smothered place where nothing mattered anymore.

T
he man had gone and dinner was on the table and still Rannie had not come in.

“It's very strange,” said the father, coming into the dining room. “I told him to put the car right away, but perhaps he has gone on some errand for himself. He'll likely be here in a few minutes. Don't wait for him. He must learn to be on time.”

They sat down and Maggie waited upon them, bearing the dishes with beaming face and much ceremony. She had been deeply impressed by the grandeur of the house. She waited upon them as if they were royalty.

But when they had finished the delicious meal, Rannie was still absent and his father looked deeply troubled.

“He has no business to do this way!” he declared.

“Oh, he'll have found some of his friends and be talkin' to them and not knowin' how the time passes,” excused the old nurse. “I'll just put by some nice hot dinner for him and keep it warm till he comes home.”

“He doesn't deserve that,” said the father. “He knows better than to be so late.”

Christobel went into the kitchen with Maggie to help in clearing away the dishes, and Mr. Kershaw went back to the library and his papers, being presently absorbed in a mass of figures, to the obliteration of all else.

The dishes were assembled on their shelves at last amid many comments from Maggie about the slovenly way the kitchen had been kept, and Christobel was just about to go upstairs and show Maggie her lovely green room, for Maggie was greatly curious about this grand house. But suddenly Mr. Kershaw appeared in the kitchen doorway a look of deep anxiety on his face.

“Hasn't Rannie been back yet?” he asked, looking at his watch. “I declare he deserves a severe punishment for this. It is nearly ten o'clock. I wonder what he is thinking. Haven't you heard the car at all, Chrissie?”

“Why, yes, Father,” said Christobel, thinking back. “I was sure he drove into the garage right after he brought Maggie. I heard the car when we first came out into the kitchen, and then I'm sure he turned on the light in the garage. I saw it beam up on the back window. But then it went out again, and I forgot all about it. I supposed he would come in in a minute.”

“That is strange!” said their father, now thoroughly alarmed. “I wish you had told me at once. I had better go out and look. There are so many cases of carbon monoxide poisoning in garages now. No, never mind my coat, Maggie. I won't be a minute. I just want to make sure he's all right. He just might have been overcome perhaps after he closed the doors and turned out the light. He probably didn't remember the garage lights could be turned out from the kitchen.”

Mr. Kershaw snapped the lights at the doorway and went out in a flood of brightness to find a most amazing thing. The garage door into the backyard was still closed and locked, but the light inside the garage showed that the back door into the alley was wide open and swinging in the wind.

Wildly the father gripped the door and tried to shake it open; wildly he searched for the former chauffeur's keys, for he had given Rannie his own bunch, but no keys could be found. And then he called for a hatchet, but there seemed to be no hatchet nor any other tool available. Everything about the place seemed cleared up and guiltless of anything that could be possibly used to smash in a door or break a lock, till the canny Maggie finally produced a hammer from the kitchen. Even then, it was some minutes before the strong lock on the door finally yielded to the frantic blows of the excited father. Mr. Kershaw, as he pounded away on that door, blow after blow, wasn't sure whether he was most anxious or angry. A great apprehension was over him. He couldn't help but remember the sullen, gloomy expression on his son's face ever since he had told him that he was not to be allowed to go back to school.

Was Rannie trying to get back at him by frightening him? Had he taken the car and gone off somewhere? Perhaps he would come back very late, drunk. Such things did happen. Perhaps he would become defiant.

Still, of course it was possible that some terrible thing had happened to him. Yet of course, that wasn't so. This was a sane world, a commonplace world after all. Tragedies did not happen to modern families. Oh, such stories got into the paper but were doubtless exaggerated or were mere fake cases. Rannie was likely running around right now having a good time and would come in late and be sullen again, and what was he going to do with him? Oh, he was reaping now what he had sown in neglect of his precious children. What would Mary have said to him if she could have known he would have allowed his own children, her babies, to get so far separated from him that he knew practically nothing of their heart life? How crazy he had been to let a featherheaded little thing like Charmian order their precious lives!

He fairly groaned aloud as the door at last gave way under his continued blows, and he staggered into the brightly lighted garage.

Maggie and Christobel were close behind him, with white anxious faces, and saw what the father was too excited to see, Rannie's soft felt hat lying on the floor, crushed flat, as if a heavy foot had stepped on it. Indeed, Maggie, stooping close, could see the footprint of a shoe in a greasy outline, from a foot that had evidently stepped into a puddle of black grease on the floor of the garage.

“Here's the laddie's hat,” she said in an awed tone. “I mind the dark blue ribbon. I noticed it when ye were stopping at me door. He can't have meant ta go far missin' it. That's some big body's fut print there on the brim. See the mark of the heel. Handle with care! That fut mark may tell something.”

Kershaw remembered Rannie's caution about the revolver, and cursed his own stupidity. Even Maggie was shrewder than he was. He stepped closer to look at the hat without touching it and something crunched beneath his feet. He stepped back sharply and saw a fountain pen, big and fat and arrogantly cheerful, in a bright handle, jazzy like Rannie. Yes, that was Rannie's fountain pen, lying crushed there. He must have dropped it. And just a few inches away was his bunch of keys. What had happened?

Rannie wouldn't have dropped his keys and pen out of his pocket intentionally. He wouldn't have dropped them if he had been in a car. He must have gotten out. Could there have been a scuffle, a struggle? The crushed hat, the pen, the keys all pointed that way. Had someone tried to steal the car and Rannie defended it? If so, why hadn't he made an outcry? But perhaps he did and no one heard him.

And then he saw something lying off to the side that made his blood run cold and stopped his breath for a moment with a dreadful thought. It was a sandbag, lying as if it had been cast aside. He strode to it and lifted it. Yes, that was heavy enough to knock anyone out. Suddenly he spoke. “Go in and telephone the police to come at once, Christobel. I don't want to close these doors nor change anything until they see how things are here. I'm afraid this is the work of that bunch of crooks.”

Christobel rushed in to the telephone, and Maggie, distressed in her mind whether to go or stay by the master and protect him, finished up by hovering between the two till Christobel returned with a coat for her father and sweaters for herself and Maggie.

Kershaw, in the meantime, had been out in the alley looking up and down but found no further evidence. Shortly, two officers in a police car came riding up.

Christobel and Maggie stood in the yard listening, watching, while the two policemen went about with flashlights, poking into every corner of the garage, even going up into the chauffeur's rooms. They lifted the sandbag and looked significantly at one another. They picked up the crushed hat and made Rannie's father identify the maker's name. Yes, it was Rannie's new hat all right, which had been bought for the funeral.

Finally, the officers carefully closed and locked the garage.

“Well, sir, we'll send out word in every direction,” they said. “Of course they've got two hours' start on us, but your car ought not to be hard to find. Of course, too, they might change the license, if they have time. But don't you worry, Mr. Kershaw, we'll likely find your boy. We'll have it broadcast tonight, too. And if he should turn up, you'll let us know at once, please.”

Mr. Kershaw brightened at the thought.

“Oh, certainly,” he said.

“Meanwhile,” said the officer, “you all better keep pretty close to home tonight. They seem to have it in for you. I guess they're aiming ta clean you out. We'll have the house guarded at once, and you let us know if anything develops.”

The three went into the house and looked at one another. Mr. Kershaw sat suddenly down in a big library chair.

It seemed to the father that he no longer had power to stand upon his feet. A great weakness had suddenly come to him. He sat looking at them for a moment. Maggie, with her bare arms from dishwashing wrapped neatly in her gingham apron, Christobel, standing by the big chair, gripping its arms as if her life depended on holding on. He dropped his face into his hands and gave one groan.

The tears were running down the girl's face now as she stood holding tight to the chair, her head dropped like a delicate flower.

Maggie turned herself about with her back to them. Her Scotch blue eyes were all drenched in tears like an April shower.

“The puir wee mannie!” she blurted suddenly, as if they all were to blame, and then scuttled away to the kitchen to stare out the window into the dark yard.

Meantime, down on Seneca Street, the messenger boy had reached the Harper house, discharged his duty, and gone on his way, weaving a cheerful pattern with his bicycle in and out between traffic, unaware of the importance of the note he had just carried.

It was Hazel who answered the door. This was an exciting day in her little life—two knocks on the door in one afternoon, and now it was getting dark. She was just the least bit afraid of what might be coming. She had heard echoes of the talk that went on between Phil and her mother. She had come to dread something about a mortgage, though she wasn't just sure what a mortgage was or what harm it could do one.

But when she saw a real-live messenger boy with a bicycle carelessly thrown down on the step behind him, she drew in her breath in great excitement. People on Seneca Street did not usually get letters delivered by real messenger boys in livery, with brass buttons on their caps. The importance of this happening choked her throat all up, and her fingers trembled. Of course, though, it might even be that mortgages came by special messengers.

She signed her name in the boy's book, closed the door carefully, and stood an instant, studying the envelope to see who it was for, then she hurried into the sitting room where her mother was darning a pair of Phil's trousers. Phil sat over by the window, using the last streak of daylight to study the want ads.

“It's a letter for you Phil,” she said quite quietly, managing to keep her voice steady, though she couldn't keep the lilt of hope and excitement out of it entirely.

“A letter for
me
!” said Phil, bringing his paper down from the daylight so suddenly that it fairly crackled at his little sister.

“A letter?” said Mother, her hand going with a swift motion to her heart, and a look of wonder on her face.

The two flashed one look at each other, and the son looked back at his letter, read the name of the firm on the envelope, tore open the end swiftly, and began to read. Then a great light came into his face, a kind of bewilderment, too, and he looked at his mother. “Listen, Mother! Isn't this wonderful?”