START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BURGLAR AND THE BLIZZARD*** E-text prepared by Eric Betts and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14835-h.htm or 14835-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/8/3/14835/14835-h/14835-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/8/3/14835/14835-h.zip) THE BURGLAR AND THE BLIZZARD A Christmas Story by ALICE DUER MILLER Author of "The Blue Arch," etc. With Illustrations by Charlotte Harding Hearst's International Library Co., Inc. 1914 [Illustration: THE BURGLAR] ILLUSTRATIONS The Burglar (Frontispiece) "It was a young lady who disposed of the silver" "Good God," he cried, "what a night you have had" He let McVay out of the closet She was dressed in his sister's sables--ready for departure "Please move a little back, Holland," he said, "I want to get nearer the fire" "My dear fellow--pray allow me" "I have here a slight token, in honor of the day" I Geoffrey Holland stood up and for the second time surveyed the restaurant in search of other members of his party, two fingers in the pocket of his waistcoat, as if they had just relinquished his watch. He was tall enough to be conspicuous and well bred enough to be indifferent to the fact, good looking, in a bronzed, blond clean-shaven way, and branded in the popular imagination as a young and active millionaire. At a neighbouring table a man lent forward and whispered to the other men and women with him: "Do you know who that is?--that is young Holland." "What, that boy! He doesn't look as if he were out of school." "No," said one of the women, elaborating the comment, "he does not look old enough to order a dinner, let alone managing mines." "Oh, I guess he can order a dinner all right," said the first man. "He is older than he looks. He must be twenty-six." "What do you suppose he does with all that money?" The first thing he did with it, at the moment, was to purchase an evening paper, for just then he snapped his fingers at a boy, who promptly ran to get him one. "Well, one thing he does," answered the man who had first given information, "he has an apartment in this building, up stairs, and I bet that costs him a pretty penny." In the meantime Holland had opened his paper, scanned the head lines, and was about to turn to the stock quotations when a paragraph of interest caught his eye. So marked was the gesture with which he raised it to his eyes that his admirers at the next table noticed it, and speculated on the subject of the paragraph. It was headed: "Millionaires' Summer Homes Looted," and said further: "Hillsborough, December 21st. The fourth in a series of daring robberies which have been taking place in this neighbourhood during the past month occurred last night when the residence of C.B. Vaughan of New York was entered and valuable wines and bric-a-brac removed. The robbery was not discovered until this morning when a shutter was observed unfastened on the second story. On entering the watchman found the house had been carefully gone over, and although only a few objects seem to be missing, these are of the greatest value. The thief apparently had plenty of time, and probably occupied the whole night in his search. This is the more remarkable because the watchman asserts that he spent at least an hour on the piazza during the night. How the thief effected an entrance by the second story is not clear. During the past five weeks the houses of L.G. Innes, T. Wilson and Abraham Marheim have been entered in a manner almost precisely similar. There was a report yesterday that some of the Marheim silver had been discovered with a dealer in Boston, but that he could not identify the person from whom he bought them further than that she was a young lady to whom they might very well have belonged. The fact that it was a young lady who disposed of them to him suggests that the goods must have changed hands several times. The Marheim family is abroad, and the servants...." Here a waiter touched his elbow. "Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan have come, sir," he said. "Send up to my apartment and tell Mrs. May we are sitting down to dinner," returned Holland promptly, and advanced to meet the prosperous looking couple approaching. "I'm afraid we are late," said the lady, "but can you blame us? Have you heard? We have been telegraphing to Hillsborough all the afternoon to find out what has gone." "You are not late. My sister has not come down yet. I was just reading about your robbery. Have you lost anything of value?" "Oh, I suppose so," said Mrs. Vaughan cheerfully, sitting down and beginning to draw off her gloves. "We had a Van Dyke etching, and some enamels that have gone certainly, and Charlie feels awfully about his wine." "Yes," said Mr. Vaughan gloomily. "I tell you he is going to have a happy time with that champagne. It is the best I ever tasted." "Upon my word," said Geoffrey, "they are a nice lot of countrymen up there. Four robberies and not so much as a clue." "_You_ need not be afraid," said Mrs. Vaughan rather spitefully. "In spite of all your treasures, I don't believe any thief would take the trouble to climb to the top of your mountain." Holland's selection of a distant hilltop for his large place pleased no true Hillsboroughite. As an eligible bachelor he was inaccessible, and as a property-holder he was too far away to increase the value of Hillsborough real-estate by his wonderful lawns and gardens. Mrs. Vaughan's irritation did not appear to disturb Geoffrey, for he laughed very amiably, and replied that he could only hope that the thief was as poor a pedestrian as she seemed to imagine as he should not like to lose any of his things; and he added that in his opinion Vaughan ought to be starting for Hillsborough at once. "Pooh," said that gentleman, "I can't go with the market in this condition,--would lose more than the whole house is worth." "You would go duck-shooting in a minute," said Holland, "and this would be a good deal better sport." Mr. Vaughan ignored this remark. "The thing to do," he said, "is to offer a reward, a big enough reward to attract some first-class detective." "All right," said Geoffrey readily, "I'll join you. Those other fellows ought to be willing to put up a thousand apiece,--that will be five thousand. Is that enough? We can have it in the papers to-morrow. What shall I say? Five thousand dollars reward will be paid for information leading to the conviction--and so on. I'll go and telephone now," and with a promptness which surprised Mr. Vaughan, he was gone. When he came back his sister was in her place and they were all discussing the burglary with interest. Mrs. May, who was somewhat older than her brother, had some of the more agreeable qualities of a gossip, that is to say she had imagination and a good memory for detail. "For my part," she was saying, "I have the greatest respect and admiration for him. Do you know he could not find anything worth taking at the Wilsons',--after all his trouble. I have often sat in that drawing-room myself, and wondered if they should offer me anything in it as a present, whether I could find something that would not actually disgrace me. I never could. He evidently felt the same way. The Wilsons make a great to-do about the house having been entered, and tell you how he must have been frightened away,--frightened away by the hideousness of their things! Those woolly paintings on wood, and the black satin parasol that turns out to be an umbrella stand." "My dear Florence," said her brother mildly, "how can a black satin parasol be an umbrella-stand?" "Exactly, Geof, how can it? That is what you say all through the Wilsons' house. How can it be! However it is not really black satin, only painted to resemble it. The waste paper baskets look like trunks of trees, and the match boxes like old shoes. Nothing in the house is really what it looks like, except the beds; they look uncomfortable, and some one who had stayed there told me that they were." "Dear Florence," said Mrs. Vaughan, "is it not like her kindness of heart--it runs in the family--to try and make my burglary into a compliment, but really though it is flattering to be robbed by a connoisseur I could forego the honour. You see you have taken away my last hope that my very best escaped his attention." "No, indeed, the best is all he cared for. Honestly, Jane, haven't you an admiration for a man of so much taste and ability? Just think, he has entered four houses and there is not the slightest trace of him." "There must be _traces_ of him," said Geoffrey. "The Inness house was entered after that snow storm in the early part of the month. There must have been footprints." "Of course," said Mr. Vaughan, "that is what makes me think that the watchmen are in it. It's probably a combination of two or three of them." "Well, that lets Geoffrey out," said the irrepressible Florence. "No one would take his watchman into any combination,--he is a thousand and two and feeble for his age. However, there is no use in discussing the possibility, for it is not a combination of watchmen, begging your pardon, Mr. Vaughan. It is lonely genius, a slim, dark figure in a slouch hat. That is the way I imagine him. Do you really suppose that a watchman would take six pair of Mrs. Inness' best linen sheets, embroidered in her initials, the monogram so thick that it scratches your nose; and a beautiful light blue silk coverlet,--all just out from Paris. I saw them when she first had them." "What," said Geoffrey, addressing the other male intellect present, "do you make of the young woman who disposed of some of the Marheim silver in Boston?" [Illustration: "IT WAS A YOUNG LADY WHO DISPOSED OF THE SILVER"] But it was Mrs. May who answered: "She is of course the lady of his love--a lady doubtless of high social position in Boston. There was a book about something like that once. He is just waiting to make one more grand coup, rob the bank or something and then the world will be startled by the news of their elopement. They will go and live somewhere luxuriously in the south Pacific, and travellers will bring home strange stories of their happiness and charm. Perhaps, though, he would turn pirate. That would suit his style." "I hope," said Holland, "that he won't take a fancy to rob the Hillsborough Bank, for I consider it public spirited to keep quite a little money there. You begin to make me nervous." "No bank robbery would make _me_ nervous," replied his sister, "that is the comfort of being insignificant. I have not enough money in any bank to know the difference, and as for my humble dwelling in Hillsborough, who would take the trouble to rifle it when Geoffrey's palace is within an easy walk. Besides, I haven't anything worth the attention of a respectable burglar like this one." "Thank you," said Geoffrey, "I'm sorry I spent so much time choosing your Christmas present a year ago." "Oh, of course, Geof dear, that wonderful old silver is valuable, but it is put away where I defy any burglar to find it. There is only my sable coat, and I am going to send for that as soon as I have time to have it cut over." "In my opinion," said Mr. Vaughan, "the man is no longer in the neighbourhood. He would scarcely dare try a fifth attempt while the whole country was so aroused. You see Hillsborough has always been an attractive place to thieves. It is such an easy place to get away from,--three railroads within reach. A man would be pretty sure to be able to catch a passing freight train on one of them at almost any time, to say nothing of the increased difficulty of tracing him." "I don't suppose he will ever be caught," said Florence. "When he has got all he wants he will simply melt away and be forgotten. If he were caught--" Here she was interrupted by the waiter who laid a telegram at her plate. It had come to her brother's apartment, and been sent down. "Who is telegraphing me," she said, as she tore it open. "I hope Jack has not been breaking himself." Opening it, she read: "Your house was entered about five o'clock this afternoon. Tea-set and sable coat missing." II The next evening at seven o'clock, Holland stepped out of the train on the Hillsborough station. He wore a long fur-coat, for the morning had been bitterly cold in New York, and though the snow was now falling in small close flakes, the temperature had not risen appreciably, and a wild wind was blowing. He looked about for the figure of McFarlane, for he had telegraphed the old man to meet him at the train with a trap, but there was no one to be seen. The station, which in summer on the arrival of the express was a busy scene with well dressed women and well-kept horses, was now utterly deserted except for one native who had charge of the mails. "Hullo, Harris," Geoffrey sung out. "Is McFarlane here for me?" "Ain't seen him. Guess it's too stormy for the old man," Harris replied dropping the mail bag into his wagon. "Then you've got to drive me out." "What, all the way to your place? No, sir, I guess it is too stormy for me, too." But Geoffrey at last, by the promise of three times what the trip was worth, induced Harris to change his mind. He stepped into the mail cart, and having stopped at the post-office to leave the bag, and at the stable to change the cart for a sleigh, they finally set out on their five-mile drive. "Guess you come up to see about Mr. May's house being robbed?" Harris hazarded before they had gone far. "You're a nice lot, aren't you?" returned Geoffrey. "Five robberies and not a motion to catch the thief!" "Oh, I dunno, I dunno, there is a big reward out to-day," said Harris, divided between pride in the notoriety and shame at the lawlessness of his native town. "Yes, but not by any of you." "Well, the boys did talk some of a vigilance committee, if any more houses was robbed." "They are going to wait for him to make up his half dozen." "Well, to tell the truth," said Harris, "it seems like he only went for you city folks, and I guess the boys thought you could better afford to lose a few things than they could to lose their sleep. That's about the size of it." Geoffrey could not but laugh. "That's a fine spirited way to look at it, I must say." "Well," returned Harris, who appeared to have need of the monosyllable in order to collect and arrange his ideas. "'Tain't lack of sand exactly, either, for most of the fellows about here thinks it is a woman." "A woman?" cried Geoffrey, remembering the lady in Boston. "Yes, _sir_," said Harris, "a young woman. Look at the things took. What burglar would want sheets and a lady's coat? Besides just before the first one happened, Will Brown, he was driving along up your way and a young woman, pretty as a picter, Will said, slips out of the wood and asks for a lift. Well, Will takes her some two miles, and when they got to that piece of woods at the back of your place she says of a sudden that she guesses she wants exercise, and will walk the rest of the way, and out she gets, and no one has seen her since. Seems kinder strange, no house but yours within six miles, and you away." "It would have seemed quite as strange if I had been at home," returned Geoffrey, amused at his imputation. "Well," Harris went on imperturbably, "you can't tell the rights of them stories. Will Brown, he's a liar, just like all the Browns; still this time he seemed to think he was telling the truth. Looks like we were going to have a blizzard, don't it?" When they reached the McFarlane cottage, Mrs. McFarlane appeared bobbing on the threshold. She was an old Scotch woman and covered all occasions with courtesy. It appeared that Holland's telegram had been duly telephoned from the office, but that her husband was down with rheumatism, the second gardener dismissed, and the "boy" allowed to go home to spend Christmas, so that there had been no one to send. Geoffrey suggested that she might have telephoned to the local livery-stable, and she was at once so overcome at her own stupidity that she could do nothing but bob and murmur, until Geoffrey sent her away to get him something to eat. It was about ten o'clock, when he determined to take a turn about his house. The next day he intended removing all valuables to the vaults of the Hillsborough bank. It was a long walk from the cottage, and Geoffrey, as he trudged up hill against the wind, was surprised to find how much snow had already fallen. He had expected to return to New York the next day, but now a fair prospect of being stalled on the way presented itself. It took him so much longer to reach the house than he had supposed, that he abandoned all idea of entering it. It stood before him grimly like a mountain of grey stone, its face plastered with snow. He walked round it, feeling each door and window to be sure of the fastenings. Once past the corner, the house sheltered him from the wind. He was conscious of that exhilaration snow storms so often bring, while at the same time the atmosphere of desolation that surrounds all shut up houses, even one's own, took hold of him. Unconsciously he stopped and felt in his pocket for his revolver, and at the same moment, faintly, in the interior of the house, he heard a clock strike. The sound was not perhaps alarming in itself, yet it sounded ominously in Geoffrey's ears. He recognised, or thought he recognised, the bell. It was that of an old French clock he had bought, and had never had put in order. He had never been able to make it go, but once touching it inadvertently he had aroused in it a breath of life so that it had struck one,--this same sweet piercing note. Who, he wondered, was touching it now? Geoffrey was one of those who act best and naturally without delay. Now he hesitated not at all. He had the keys of the house in his pocket, and he moved quickly toward a side door which he remembered swung silently on its hinges. It was not so much that he believed that there was any one in the house--perhaps to the most apprehensive a burglar comes as a surprise--but he felt he had too good grounds for suspicion to fail to investigate. He unlocked the door without a sound. As he stepped within, doubt was put an end to by the patch of white light that, streaming out of the library door, fell across the passageway before him. He stooped down and took off his boots, and then cautiously approached the open door and looked in, knowing that darkness and preparation were in his favour. His caution was unnecessary, for his entrance had not been heard. The Hillsborough theory of the femininity of the burglar instantly fell to the ground. A man of medium size was standing before one of the bookcases with his elbow resting near the clock; he was holding a volume in his hands with the careful ease of a book fancier. The man's back was turned so that a sandy head and a strongly built figure were all Geoffrey could make out. Had it not been for a glimpse of a mask on his face, he might have been a student at work. So intent did he appear that Geoffrey could not resist the temptation to make his entrance dramatic. Creeping almost to the other's elbow, revolver in hand, he said gently: "Fond of reading?" The man, naturally startled, made a surprisingly quick movement toward his own revolver, and had it knocked out of his hand with a benumbing blow. Geoffrey secured the weapon, and seeing the man's retreat, may be excused for supposing the struggle over. He underestimated his adversary's resources, for the burglar, retreating with a look of surrender, came within reach of the electric light, turned it off, and fled in the total darkness that followed. Geoffrey sprang to the switch, but the few seconds that his fingers were fumbling for it told against him. When he turned it on the room was empty. The door by which the thief had gone opened on the main hall and not on the passageway, so that Geoffrey still had time to secure the outer door. Next he lit the chandelier in the hall, but its illumination told nothing. It was Geoffrey's own sharp ears that told him of light footsteps beyond the turn of the stairs. Here Holland recognised at once that the burglar had a great advantage. The flight of stairs from the hall reached the upper story at a point very near where the back stairs came up, while they descended to widely different places in the lower story, so that the burglar, looking down, could choose his flight of stairs as soon as he saw his pursuer committed to the other, and thus reach the lower hall with several seconds to spare. Fortunately, however, Geoffrey remembered that there was a door at the foot of the back stairs. With incredible quickness he turned off the light again, threw his boots upstairs in the ingenious hope that the sound would give the effect of his own ascent, dashed round and locked the door at the foot of the stairs and then at the top of his speed ran up the front stairs and down the back. The result was somewhat as he expected. The burglar had reached the door at the foot of the stairs, and finding it locked was half way up again when he and Geoffrey met. The impetus of Geoffrey's descent carried the man backward. They both landed against the locked door with a force that burst it open. Geoffrey, on top and armed, had little difficulty in securing his bruised foe, and marching him back to the library where he now took the precaution of locking all the doors. Geoffrey, who had felt himself tingling with excitement and the natural love of the chase, now had time to wonder what he was going to do with his capture. He thought of the darkness, the storm, the absence of the two undermen, and the helplessness of the McFarlanes. Then he remembered the telephone, which, fortunately, stood in a closet off the library. He turned to the burglar. "Stand with your face to the wall and your hands up," he said; "and if I see you move I'd just as lief shoot you as look at you," with which warning he approached the telephone and, still keeping an eye on the other, rang up central. There was no answer. He rang again,--six, seven times he repeated the process unavailingly. He tried the private wire to the McFarlane cottage with no better result. At this point the burglar spoke. "Oh, what the devil!" he said mildly; "I can't stand here with my hands over my head all night." "You'll stand there," replied Geoffrey with some temper, "until I'm ready for you to move." "And when will that be?" "When this fool of a Central answers." "Oh, not as long as that, I hope," said the burglar, "because, to tell the truth, I always cut the telephone wires before I enter a house." There was a pause in which it was well Geoffrey did not see the artless smile of satisfaction which wreathed the burglar's face. At length Geoffrey said: "In that case you might as well sit down, for we seem likely to stay here until morning." He calculated that by that time, Mrs. McFarlane, alarmed at his absence, would send some one to look for him,--some one who could be used as a messenger to fetch the constable. To this suggestion the burglar appeared to acquiesce, for he sank at once into an armchair--an armchair toward which Holland himself was making his way, knowing it to be the most comfortable for an all-night session. Feeling the absurdity of making any point of the matter, however, he contented himself with the sofa. "Take off your mask," he said as he sat down. "So I will, thank you," said the burglar as if he had been asked to remove his hat, and with his left hand he slipped it off. The face that met Geoffrey's interested gaze was thin, yet ruddy, and tanned by exposure so that his very light brilliant eyes flared oddly in so dark a surrounding. Above, his sandy hair, which had receded somewhat from his forehead, curled up from his temples like a baby's. His upper lip was long and with a pleasant mouth gave his face an expression of humour. His hands were ugly, but small. They sat for some time without moving, the burglar engaged in bandaging the cut on his right hand with obvious indifference to Holland's presence, Geoffrey meanwhile studying him carefully. The process of bandaging over, the man reached out his hand toward the bookcase and, selecting a volume of Sterne, settled back comfortably in his chair. Holland stared at him an instant in wonder, and then attempted to follow his example. But his attention to his book was much less concentrated than that of his captive, whose expression soon showed him to be completely absorbed. They must have sat thus for an hour, before the burglar began to show signs of restlessness. He asked if it were still snowing, and looked distinctly disturbed on being told it was. At last he broke the silence again. "You don't remember me, do you?" he said. Geoffrey slowly raised his eyes without moving--his revolver was drooping in his right hand. He ran his mind over his criminal acquaintance unsuccessfully, and repeated: "Remember you?" "Yes, we were at school together for a time." Geoffrey stared, and then exclaimed spontaneously: "You used to be able to wag your ears." "Can still." "Why, you are Skinny McVay." The man nodded. Neither was without a sense of humour, and yet saw nothing comic in these untender reminiscences. "I remember the masters all hated you," said Geoffrey, "but you were straight enough then, weren't you?" Again the man nodded. "I took to this sort of thing a month or so ago." After a moment Geoffrey said: "Did not I hear you were in the navy?" "No," said McVay. "I was at Annapolis for a few months. I had an idea I should like the navy, but Heavens above! I could not stand the Academy. They threw me out. It seems I had broken every rule they had ever made. It was worse than State's prison." "Are you in a position to judge?" asked Geoffrey coolly. "No," said McVay, as if he nevertheless had information on the subject. "Well, you will be soon," said Holland, not sorry for an opportunity to point out that his heart was not softened by recollections of his school days. But McVay appeared to ignore this intimation. "Yes," he said ruminatively; "I've done a lot of things in my time." "Well, I don't want to hear about them," said Geoffrey, who had no intention of being drawn into an intimate interchange. The burglar looked more surprised than angered at this shortness, and only said: "Would you have any objection to my putting a match to that fire?" "No," said Geoffrey, and McVay, with wonderful dexterity, managed to start a cheering blaze with his left hand. For a few minutes Geoffrey's determined attention to his book discouraged his companion, but presently rapping the pages of Tristram Shandy with the back of his hand, he exclaimed: "Sterne! Ah, there was a man! Something of my own type, too, it sometimes strikes me. Capable, you know, really a genius, but so unfortunately different from other people. Ordinary standards meant nothing to him--too original--sees life from another standpoint, entirely. That's me! I--" "Sit down," roared Geoffrey. "Oh, it's nothing, nothing," said McVay, "only I talk better on my feet." "Well, you wouldn't talk as well with a bullet in you." McVay sank back again in his chair. "Yes," he said, "that's me. Why, Holland, I have no doubt you would be surprised if you knew the number of things that I can do--that I am really proficient in. Anything with the hands," he waved his fingers supplely in the air, "is no trouble to me at all. I have at once a natural skill that most people take a lifetime to acquire." "I'm told there's work for all where you are going." McVay looked a trifle puzzled for an instant, but never allowing himself to remain at a loss, he said: "Work! Do you really mean to say that you believe in a utilitarian Heaven, where we are going to work with our hands? For my part--" "I had reference to the penitentiary," said Geoffrey. "Oh, yes, of course, the penitentiary. There are some wonderful men in the penitentiary. You don't admit that, I suppose, with your conventional ideas; but to me they are just as admirable as any other great creative artist,--sculptor or financier. I see you don't quite get that. You are hemmed in by conventional standards, and your possessions, and all the things to which you attach such great importance." "I don't attach so much importance that I steal them from other people," said Geoffrey. "Philistine, Holland, philistine! Is not any one who has anything stealing from some one or other? Of course. But I see you don't catch the idea. Well, I dare say I would not either in your place--rather think I would not. My sister is just the same way. Sweet girl, witty in her own way, but philistine. She is so good as to be my companion, apparently on equal terms, in many ways my superior, but it would be impossible for me even to mention these ideas to her,--ideas which are of the greatest interest to me." "I wonder," said Geoffrey, "how much of all this rubbish you believe?" McVay smiled with great sweetness. "I wonder myself, Holland. Still it is undeniably amusing, and the main thing is that I enjoy life,--a hard life too in many ways. Fate has dealt me some sad blows. Look at such a coincidence as your turning up to-night, of all nights in the year." "It was scarcely a coincidence. I came--" "Oh, I know, I know. You came to see after your sister's things, but still, if you look at it a little more carefully, you will see that it _was_ a coincidence that you should be by nature a man of prompt action. Nine men out of ten in your place--still, I'm not depressed. You cannot say, Holland, that I behave or talk like a man who has ten years of hard labour before him, can you? I dare say you have never been thrown with a person who showed less anxiety. Yet as a matter of fact, there is something preying on my mind. Something entirely aside from anything you could imagine." "You don't tell me!" said Geoffrey, who did not know whether to be most amused or infuriated by his companion's conversation. "I am about to tell you," said McVay graciously, "I am very seriously worried about my sister. In fact I don't see that there is any getting away from it; you will have to let me go out for an hour or so and get her." "Let you do _what_?" "Get my sister. She's living in a little hut in your woods, and I am actually afraid she will be snowed up." "It seems highly probable." "Well, then, I must go and get her." Geoffrey stared at him a moment, and then said: "You must be crazy." "Maybe I am," answered McVay, as if the suggestion were not without an amusing side. "Maybe I am, but that is not the point. Think of a girl, Holland, alone, all night, in such a storm. Now, I put it to you: it is not a position in which you would leave your sister, is it?" Geoffrey began a sentence and finding it inadequate, contented himself with a laugh. "There you see," said McVay. "It's out of the question. The place is draughty, too, though there is a stove. Do you remember the house at all? You would be surprised to see how nicely I've fixed it up for her." "No doubt I should," replied Holland, thinking of the Vaughan and Marheim valuables. "It is surprisingly livable, but it _is_ draughty," McVay went on. "The truth is I ought to have gone south, as I meant to do last week. But one cannot foresee everything. The winters have been open until Christmas so often lately. However, I made a mistake and I am perfectly willing to rectify it. If you have no objection, I'll go and bring her back here." "If you have any respect for your skin you won't move from that chair." "Oh, the devil, Holland, don't be so--" he hesitated for the right word, not wishing to be unjust,--"so obtuse. Listen to that wind! It's cold here. Think what it must be in that shanty." "Very unpleasant, I should think." "More than that, more than that,--suffering, I have no doubt. Why, she might freeze to death if anything went wrong with the fire. It is not safe. It's a distinct risk to leave her. Let alone that a storm like this would scare any girl alone in a place like that, there is some danger to her life. Don't you see that?" "Yes, I see," returned Geoffrey, "but you ought to have thought of that before you came burgling in a blizzard." "Thought of it! Of course I thought of it. But I had no idea whatever of being caught, with old McFarlane laid up and the two boys away, it did seem about the safest job yet." There was a pause, for Geoffrey evidently had no intention of even arguing the matter, and presently McVay continued: "Now you know you would feel badly to-morrow morning if anything went wrong with her, and you knew you could have helped it!" "Helped it!" said Geoffrey. "What do you mean? Let you loose on the county for the sake of a story no sane man would believe?" "Well," returned McVay judicially, "perhaps you could not do that, but," he added brightly, "you could go yourself." "Yes," said Geoffrey, "I _could_--" "Then I think you ought to be getting along." "Upon my word, McVay," said Holland, "you are something of a humorist, aren't you?" McVay again looked puzzled, but rose to the occasion. "Oh, hardly that," he said. "Every now and then I have a way of putting things,--a way of my own. I find often I am able to amuse people, but if you are cheerful yourself, you make other people so. I was just thinking that it must be a great thing for men who have been in prison for years to have some one come in with a new point of view." "I'm sure you will be an addition to prison life. It's an ill wind, you know." "It's an ill wind for my sister, literally enough. Come, Holland, you certainly can trust me. Do be starting." "Why, what do you take me for?" said the exasperated Geoffrey. "Do you really suppose that I am going, looking for a den of your accomplices in order to give you a chance to escape?" "'Accomplices!'" exclaimed McVay; and for the first time a shade of anger crossed his brow; "'_accomplices'_! I have no accomplices. Anything I do I think I am able to do alone. Still," he added putting aside his annoyance, "if you feel nervous about leaving me I'd just as lief give you my word of honour to stay here until you come back." "Your _what_?" McVay made a slight gesture of his shoulders, as if he were being a good deal tried. "Oh, anything you like," he said. "I suppose you could lock me up in a closet." "I don't think we need trouble to arrange the details," said Geoffrey drily. "But I'll tell you what I will do. After I get you safely in jail to-morrow, I'll get a trap and go and look up this hut." "It may be too late then." "It may," said Geoffrey, and continued to read. Yet he had no further satisfaction in his book. He knew that the burglar kept casting meditative glances at him as if in wonder at such brutality, and in truth, his own mind was not entirely at ease. If by any chance the story were true,--if there was a woman at his doors freezing to death, how could he sit enjoying the fire? But, on the other hand, could any one have a more evident motive for deception than his informant? What better opportunity for escape could be arranged? It was so evident, so impudent as to be almost convincing. What more likely for instance, than that the hut was a regular rendezvous for criminals and tramps, that by going he would be walking into the veriest trap? Yet again there was the report confirmed by Harris's story that a woman was in some way connected with these robberies. The wind whistled round the house with a suggestion of difficulty, of combat with the elements, of actual danger, perhaps, that suddenly gave Geoffrey a new view of delay. Had it not something the air of cowardice, or at least of laziness? He found his eyes had read the same page three times, while his brain was busy devising means by which McVay could be secured in his absence--if he went. At length he rose suddenly to his feet. "I'll go," he said, "but before I go, I'll tie you up so safely that, if I don't come back, you'll starve to death before you'll be able to get out or make any one hear you. On these terms do you still want me to go?" "Oh, yes, I want you to go," said McVay, "only for goodness sake be careful. If you should feel any temptation to lie down and go to sleep don't yield to it; they say it's fatal. The great thing is to keep on walking--" "Oh, shut up," said Geoffrey. In view of the possibility that he was going to meet death at the hands of his fluent companion's accomplices he found this friendly advice unbearable. "This hut, I take it," he said, "is an old woodcutter's shanty in the north woods?" "Yes, something over a mile and a half north of here." "I know the place," said Geoffrey, "now come along, and we'll see how I can fix you up until I come back." He had in mind a heavy upstairs cedar-closet. It had been designed by a thoughtful architect for the storing of summer wearing apparel, and was strongly built. It had besides the advantage of having a door that opened in and so was difficult to break open from the inside. Here, having removed a complete burglar's outfit from his pockets, Geoffrey disposed McVay, being met with a readiness on McVay's part that seemed to prove either that he was sincere in his belief in Holland's safe return, or else was perfectly confident of being able to open the door as soon as Geoffrey's back was turned. "But he'll find himself mistaken," Geoffrey murmured as, having locked the door, he turned away. At this instant a faint knocking was audible, and, gathering that McVay had some final instructions to give, Geoffrey again opened the door. "By the way," said the burglar, and for the first time a certain constraint, amounting almost to embarrassment, was discernible in his manner, "my sister has no idea about--it would be a great shock to her--in fact, you understand, she has not discovered exactly how our money comes to us." "Do you expect me to believe that?" asked Geoffrey. "I grant it does not sound likely," returned McVay, "and indeed would not be possible with any other man than myself. But I hit upon a pretty good yarn,--worked out well everyway. I told her--" "I don't want to hear your infernal lies." "But it might be convenient for you to know. I told her," McVay chuckled, "that I was employed as night watchman at Drake's paper mill. That of course kept me out all night, and--" "She must think night watchmen get good wages." "That was just it. I told her Drake was an old friend of mine, and just wanted an excuse to give me an allowance until he found me a better job. You see I just lost a nice job in a bank--" "I suppose it would be indiscreet to inquire why?" "Well, we won't discuss it," said McVay with an agreeable smile. "Of course she could understand that such an inferior position as a watchman's had to be kept a profound secret, hence our remote mode of life, and the fact that I don't allow a butcher or baker to come near us. I tell her that if it were known that I had held such a poor position, it would interfere with my getting a better. So, if you should happen to find that you have to explain to her why I am detained here--" "_If_ I should explain to her," said Geoffrey. "What do you suppose I am going to do?" "Well, I suppose you will find it necessary," said McVay. "Indeed, as a matter of fact, I would much rather have you do it than do it myself. Still, you might bear in mind to tell her as gently as possible. If she were your own sister--" "Oh, go to the devil," said Geoffrey, and slammed the door. III Geoffrey was born with a love of adventure, and his dislike to his present expedition arose not from fear, but from a consciousness that if he did run into a den of thieves he would think himself such an ass to have come. Indeed, there seemed a fair chance that he might think this even if nothing worse happened than that the hut proved empty, for he would have had a long walk for nothing better than to provide McVay with an opportunity to escape. He did not see exactly how McVay could get out, but he was aware that few people would think it wise to leave a burglar locked in a closet in an empty house with some hours of leisure at his disposal. The first glimmering of dawn was visible as he stepped off the piazza; the wind was blowing fiercely and the snow still falling. He had not gone a hundred yards before he knew that the expedition was to be more difficult than he had imagined. To make headway against the wind was a constant struggle, and he seemed to slip back in the snow at every step. Still the natural obstinacy of his nature was aroused, and as his attention was more and more engaged with the endeavor to make his way, he had less time to think of the probable futility of his proceeding. Long before he sighted the hut, he was wet to the waist, not only because he had been in half a dozen drifts, but because the snow had penetrated every crevice of his clothing. The hut was a forlorn little spot upon the landscape, a patch of grey on the stretch of forest and snow. A shutter blowing in the wind gave an impression of desertion, for how could any one, however wretched, sit idle under that recurrent bang? Drawing his revolver, Geoffrey approached the door. He had no intention of giving a possible enemy an opportunity to prepare himself, and so did not knock, but, putting his shoulder against the door, shoved mightily. The hinges broke from the rotten wood at once, and he stumbled in. The pale light of the early winter morning showed a depressing interior, for the window was not the only opening. There was a great gap in the roof where, earlier in the night, the chimney had fallen, and now its bricks littered the floor, already well covered with snow. Some attempt must have been made, as McVay had boasted, of "fixing it up"; there were books in the shelves on the walls, and a black iron stove on which the snow now lay fearlessly. As Geoffrey took in the situation, something in a huge chair, which he had taken for a heap of rugs, stirred and moved, and finally rose, betraying itself to be a woman. Geoffrey had been prepared to find a den of thieves, or nothing at all, or even a girl, as McVay had said. He told himself he would be surprised at nothing, yet found himself astounded, overwhelmed at the sight of a beautiful face. The girl must have been beautiful so to triumph over her surroundings, for all sorts of strange garments were huddled about her, and over all a silk coverlet originally tied like a shawl under her chin, had slipped sideways, and fell like a Hussar's jacket from one shoulder. Her hair stood like a dark halo about her little face, making it seem smaller and younger, almost too small for the magnificent eyes that lit it. Geoffrey, tolerably well versed in feminine attractions, said to himself that he had never seen such blue eyes. And suddenly while he looked at her and her desperate plight, pity became in him a sort of fury of protection, the awakening of the masculine instinct toward beauty in distress. It was a feeling that the other women he had admired--well-fed, well-clothed, well-cared-for young creatures--had always signally failed to arouse. He had seen it in other men, had seen their hearts wrung because an able-bodied girl must take a trolley car instead of her father's carriage, but he had thought himself hard, perhaps, unchivalrous; but now he knew better. Now he knew what it was to feel personally outraged at a woman's discomfort. "Good God!" he cried, "what a night you have had. How wicked, how abominable, how criminal--" [Illustration: "GOOD GOD," HE CRIED "WHAT A NIGHT YOU HAVE HAD"] "It has been a dreadful night," said the girl, "but it is nobody's fault." "Of course it is somebody's fault," answered Geoffrey. "It must be. Do you mean to tell me no one is to blame when I have been sitting all night with my feet on the fender, and you--" "Certainly," said she with an extraordinarily wide, sweet smile, "I could wish we might have changed places." "I wish to Heaven we might," returned Geoffrey, and meant it. Never before had he yearned to bear the sufferings of another. He had often seen that it was advisable, suitable just that he should, but burningly to want to was a new experience. "Thank you," said the girl, "but I'm afraid there is nothing to be done." "Nothing to be done!" He dropped on his knees before the black monster of a stove, "Do you suppose I'm here to do nothing?" "You are here, I think, for shelter from the storm." It had not occurred to him before that she looked upon him as a chance wanderer. "That shows your ignorance of the situation. I am here to rescue you. I left my fireside for no other reason. As I came along I said at every blast, 'that poor, poor girl.' I set out to bring you to safety. I begin to think I was born for no other reason." She smiled rather wearily, "Your coming at all is so strange that I could almost believe you." "You may thoroughly believe me, more easily perhaps when I tell you I did not particularly want to come. I started
{'title': 'The Burglar and the Blizzard: A Christmas Story by Alice Duer Miller', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}