Chance of a Lifetime (6 page)

Keith was waiting for them downstairs, the engine running softly, and he had the car moving before they were fairly in.

“Sure you weren’t dreaming, Wash?” asked Alan, wondering why his teeth had a tendency to chatter, and trying to remember whether he had finally brought those papers home with him or left them in the safe. He had a ghastly feeling that he had left them in the safe. Oh, if Dad were only well!

“Dreaming!” said Keith contemptuously. “Well, I might have been of course. I saw the light when I first rounded the corner of the post office and I thought it was odd. Thought you must have forgotten to turn it out, or else you decided to leave it burning. But when I got around the front of the store, it was all dark, so I concluded I had been mistaken. Thought it was just a reflection or something. But when I got down to your corner, I looked back, and it flashed up again and moved around. Then I decided you had gone down to the store after something, but somehow I wasn’t easy and thought I’d better see if I could get in touch with you. Thought maybe you could explain it.”

They were rounding the corner into the main street now, and suddenly Bob laid a detaining hand on the wheel.

“Better stop here, Washburn,” he suggested. “If you go nearer, the engine can be heard.”

“That’s right, Lincoln. I ought to have thought of that. I’ll park here in the shadow, and we’ll sneak up. Probably it’s only some trick of the streetlights reflecting somewhere, and I’ll feel like two cents. Probably I’ve only got a case of nerves, riding half the night. If it is, I’ll feel cheap as dirt to think I woke you up, but it’s always just as well to be on the safe side.”

“Sure thing,” said Alan with set lips, as he swung to the ground softly and wondered for the fortieth time whether he had taken those papers home or left them in the safe.

“There is a light in there,” whispered Bob as they stole along, walking on the grass at the edge of the pavement so that their feet made no sound. “There! See there! It’s moving around. Now, it’s gone. No, there it is again.”

“I’ll slide around to the alley,” whispered Alan. “It might be I can look in the back window. They’re operating down by the safe, whoever it is. You two watch this side and the front, will you?”

“Don’t do anything rash, Mac! Perhaps we better call the officer. He ought to be in the region about now.”

“No, wait! I want to get a line on things first,” said Alan as he slid off into the darkness, plunging swiftly down the alleyway that separated his father’s store from the millinery store just beyond, and passed the window behind his father’s desk.

Softly Washburn and Lincoln stepped up to the front of the store and tried to look through the front windows, but the window decorations prevented their seeing more than an indefinite dancing light that went here and there, and sometimes disappeared entirely.

Keith stepped to the door and peered through the window, but a stand full of brooms stood right in his line of vision, and he could not be sure, though once he thought he saw a dark form move across the dim distance, and then the light appeared from a new angle.

How did the man get into the store, if man it was?

Softly, he slid his hand down to the door latch and tried it, taking great care, but the creaking old latch suddenly gave out a grating sound, and simultaneously the light inside the store went out. There followed a dull thud, as of heavy metal books falling. And then a crash of metal, a lot of heavy metal articles falling against one another, a sort of scuffling sound, and then silence. Ominous silence.

Frantically Keith put his shoulder to the door and tried to push it open, but the old door was held by heavy bolts at the top and bottom, and was made of strong oak planks. Keith could not do anything but rattle it.

“We’d better call Mac and break this door open,” said Keith. “This looks odd!” But Bob had already disappeared down the alley, and Keith tiptoed to the corner of the store, with a sharp eye out, however, toward the front that there should be no possibility of anyone escaping in that direction.

Meanwhile, Alan, as he ran down the alley, had been still trying to solve the problem about those papers. Had he taken them home or left them in the safe? And what were they worth anyway? Deeds and securities! Insurance papers! If they were lost or stolen, did it spell calamity, or was everything recorded that they would lose nothing? And why would anybody want to get any of these papers? It must have something to do with the people who were trying to foreclose the mortgage—unless, perhaps, this was just a common thief looking for money in the safe. What was that paper his father had spoken about? The “agreement” he had called it, something about not foreclosing under certain conditions. It was strange how his father’s words came back now in the stress of panic. Oh, how careless he had been not to attend to this matter right away!

But there was no more time to think about it now. He had arrived at the end of the alley, just under the window at the back of the safe, and he saw to his horror that the window was wide open, and the light dancing about, just inside.

Cautiously, he approached. If he only had an old box or something to stand on, so that he could see the situation and know just what to do. There might be more than one person inside, in which case, he would need help. He ought to have brought his little revolver along, perhaps, but he had not taken time to think when he left home, and besides, he hadn’t considered any serious danger.

While he paused, watching the window, he heard the thud of the ledger falling, knew just what it was, saw the light go out, distinctly heard a hurried step and then the crash of the metal. That would be that stack of children’s hoes and shovels and rakes clattering together. He could almost visualize the intruder now, and knew just which way he was moving.

Almost instantly, there appeared a dark form at the window. He could see the gleam of a white hand laid on the windowsill, as the light from the next street showed it up. The man was coming out!

He crouched close to the wall. There was no time to signal his friends. It did not even occur to him; he was no coward. He crouched and held his breath as the intruder climbed out on the windowsill, hung an instant, and then dropped.

But he dropped into Alan MacFarland’s arms, and they grappled together and fell, rolling over in the alley.

Not for an instant did Alan let go his hold, though his prisoner kicked and struggled and applied even his teeth to the attack.

Silently they rolled about the alley, Alan finally getting the upper hand and administering the good thrashing he well knew how to give, but not yet having been able to get a good glimpse of the man’s features. Suddenly the victim, in desperation, wrenched his right arm loose and, swift as lightning, gave him a smashing blow on the nose that made all the stars in the firmament flash out in bright splinters before his stunned gaze and sent him crashing down into the awful darkness in the alley, in black obliteration.

It was Bob Lincoln who dislodged the enemy from Alan’s throat and lifted him tenderly in his arms. The enemy melted away in the darkness, but not before Keith had sighted him running and come hard on his tracks, sending forth a sharp warning whistle, which brought the officers of the law in short order. But the burglar was gone! Keith had followed at a wild speed, but when he came to the end of the alley there was no one there, and no trace anywhere of anyone in the peaceful silent darkness. He ran up and down the street in either direction but finding nothing more returned to the place where Alan was laying.

Bob had succeeded in bringing him back to consciousness and was wiping the blood away from his face. One of the officers had a big flashlight turned on, and they were talking in low voices. Alan, his voice a little shaky, was telling how it all had happened.

Alan presently insisted on getting upon his feet. He was all right of course. What did they think he was? A baby? Just a little punch in the nose, what was that? All he was sorry about was that the man got away.

They went inside the store and saw the safe. It had been blown open with noiseless powder. There were papers strewn wildly about on the floor, and the little stack of children’s garden tools was lying across them. There were the day book and ledger, too, on the floor where they had fallen when the man fled. Alan shut his lips in a tight line. Who could have done it? What would his father say when he heard of this new disaster? And how much had the man been able to get away with? Was it his fault in any way? Yes, at least in part, for he never should have opened the safe with the shade up and a light inside. Besides, he now remembered he had left the iron shutters of that window, that were always closed at sundown, wide open! He hadn’t even remembered to fasten the window. It might have even been left wide open, for all he remembered. He certainly hadn’t done anything to it except to draw down the shade.

They went home at last, back to bed, leaving the police in charge. They could find no trace of the robber anywhere.

Alan felt a little shaky and found that he had a black eye as well as a bloody face, and many minor bruises.

“Bob, you saved my life, you know,” he remarked, as they went up the walk to the MacFarland house.

“Aw, cut it! Nothing of the kind!” said Bob. “I just helped out a little. You’d have been up in a second more.”

“No,” said Alan seriously, “I was gone. He had me by the throat. I was choking to death. I remember thinking it was all over for me. You came just in time. Say, kid, this binds us close. I won’t ever forget.”

Bob threw an impulsive arm across Alan’s shoulder.

“That’s great of you, Mac,” he said. “Then we’ve got something on both sides to bind us. I’ll never forget either.”

Back in the room, while Alan washed his bruises, Bob stood handling his new Bible again, admiring it, turning the pages, reading again the inscription and the names. As he came to the little reference at the bottom of the page, he studied it thoughtfully.

“Say, Mac, what’s this down at the bottom? What does it mean? Two Timothy, two fifteen?”

“Oh, that reference?” said Alan emerging from the towel. “That’s the groups’ text for the year. Second Timothy, two fifteen. You know the verse. ‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.’ You’ll find the verse marked in the Bible, likely. Trust Sherrill Washburn for that. Here, I’ll show you.”

Alan fluttered the leaves over and handed the Bible back, opened to the chapter. And there, sure enough, the fifteenth verse stood out, marked clearly in black lines.

Robert read the verse over slowly, thoughtfully, and then looked up with a smile. “So, it seems I have a higher boss than old Hodge, haven’t I?” he said thoughtfully. “One that comes first. Well, if I can show myself approved unto God, I guess old Hodge oughtta be satisfied. How about it?”

“Sure thing, Bob,” said Alan, pulling his sweater off and flinging it across a chair.

“But say! What does this last line mean? ‘Rightly dividing the word of truth’?”

“Oh, that means understanding how to take the Bible, which thing was written to the Jews, to the Gentiles, and to the church. Dispensations and covenants and all that. It makes a lot clearer what it all means, you know. We have Scofield’s little book to read, you know. There’s an extra copy around here, somewhere. Yes, here it is. You can take it with you, and that’ll explain. It’s only a pamphlet, so it won’t take much room, and it clears up things a lot. And by the way, here’s our course of study. I promised Sherry I’d give it to you. Stick it in the book. We want you to keep up with us, and we’ll send you the exams when they come in, and then we can all be getting a line on the same things, see?”

Bob accepted the book and papers eagerly and would have sat down to examine them, then and there, but Alan reminded him that it was almost four o’clock, and he had less than four hours to sleep before his journey.

“That’s all right, Mac,” said the boy, “I’ll have plenty of time on board the ship. However, you need your sleep, too. I’ll turn in now.”

Morning came all too soon for the two young sleepers, but, nevertheless, they were alert early.

“Say, kid, you’re some beaut!” announced Bob rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and gazing at the other boy. “Boy! You look as if you’d been in a fight for sure.”

“Well, I don’t want any worse one,” laughed Alan. Then suddenly sobering, he sprang out of bed wildly.

“Great cats!” he exclaimed. “I never looked to see if I brought home those papers last night.”

He dashed wildly toward his coat, which hung in the closet, and fumbled in first one pocket and then another, finally bringing out a bundle of official-looking documents, fastened together with rubber bands.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered! Here they are!” he exclaimed, his face breaking into joy. “Now whaddaya think of that? Brought ‘em home after all, and didn’t remember a thing about it. Boy! I’m glad! Now the next thing is, is that agreement among ‘em, or did that poor fish get away with it?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Bob looking over his shoulder at the sheaf of papers. “Was there something in that safe somebody wanted? Have you any idea who that burglar was?”

“Well, not exactly, but there is a man trying to put something over on Dad, and I just reckoned he might be hunting some papers or something. I don’t know for sure, because I can’t ask Dad till he gets better. I’ve got to figure it out for myself. But I’d give two cents, right now, if I could go have a look into that fellow’s face before he cleared out. I don’t suppose we’ll ever get a line on him.”

“H’m!” said Bob thoughtfully. “Wish I were staying a day or two. I’d like to help you search it out.”

“Here’s an agreement,” said Alan thoughtfully. “Might be it.” He opened it and read, and then folded the papers away in his coat pocket again. “Guess I’ll put these in the safe deposit box in the bank this morning. Come, Bob, we’ve got to get a hustle on. You don’t want to miss that train, and we’ve several things to do before train time. We’ll just get down and eat a bite and then we can take it easy. What have you left do yet? Anything but gather up your baggage?”