an unwonted activity prevailed in the miser’s cottage. the presence of saxe temple and his companions brought into the isolated dwelling a varied and bustling atmosphere, which, at times, came near confusion. the one member of the party who permitted naught to disturb his tranquillity was billy walker, and that because of a chronic aversion to every form of physical exertion. he contented himself with holding a sort of informal court on the porch, sitting at ease with his massive frame sprawled in a commodious wicker chair. mrs. west remained with him much of the time, while margaret by turns joined them, or moved about here and there as an interested observer of the other three men, who were already busily searching the house.
on occasion, margaret and may thurston wandered away together in long strolls by the lake shore, or over the hills through the forest. by the circumstances of such companionship,[63] a considerable degree of intimacy was soon established between the two girls, which was inexpressibly comforting to the secretary. she would have delighted to tell this new friend of the engagement that existed between herself and the engineer, but she had passed her word not to do so, and it never occurred to her as possible that she should break it. at times, masters joined the girls in their rambles, but that avaricious gentleman, though eager to press his suit with margaret could not often bear to absent himself from the scene of operations that had to do with the treasure. so, for the most part, he either joined the group on the porch, or gave himself over to loitering hidden in the woods, at a point a few hundred yards to the south, where a thick screen of undergrowth effectually offered a barrier against observation from the cottage. by such espionage, he was sure to be instantly advised concerning any discovery of a clue, as it would create excitement among those on the piazza. he would have preferred to remain constantly among the searchers, but this was patently impossible. masters was by no means lacking in shrewdness, however great his shortcomings[64] in the way of respect for meum et tuum, and he was both sensitive and sensible enough to know that his company was not especially agreeable to temple and his friends in their exploration of the house.
it was, in truth, rather curious to note the various opinions held in reference to the engineer by the four men engaged in seeking abernethey’s treasure. masters had been introduced to them by may on the morning after their arrival at the cottage, and had shown himself as friendly as possible. but, in accordance with the usual effect he had on men, the impression created by him on each of the four was distinctly unpleasant. saxe temple felt an intuitive dislike, which he was at no pains to explain. billy walker regarded the engineer with a mingling of amusement and disdain, ill concealed, and he did not scruple afterward to describe the visitor as a peculiarly obnoxious romantic pirate, with a flamboyant veneer of the quartier latin. but he refused to take the fellow with much seriousness. in this respect, he differed from roy morton, who made it a rule to be uniformly suspicious of all things and all persons, and lived up to this rule[65] with finical fidelity. he immediately characterized the engineer as a completely base and designing person, one of whom all decent and honest men might well beware. he proved his contentions quite to his own satisfaction by physiognomy, by phrenology, by chiromancy, by the sixth sense and by the fourth dimension. david thwing, who was ordinarily a kindly soul, made some small effort to combat the severity of roy’s strictures, but the philanthropic attempt failed dismally of appreciation—which result troubled david not at all, since his heart was not in the task.
ensued a week of feverish activity on the part of saxe and his friends, in which billy walker was as busy as any, although his toil was exclusively mental, while his body remained in its customary lethargic condition. by day and by night, he devoted himself to examination of the problem that confronted his friend, and by day and by night the other three carried out his every suggestion. unfortunately, however, for saxe’s hopes of inheritance, their first hurried search of the cottage resulted in naught save weariness and dismay. of anything in the nature of a clue, they found[66] no least trace.
billy walker delivered the final decree in a council held by the four, after dinner on the seventh day. it had so chanced that the friends were alone together in the chief room of the cottage, which was the music-room.
“i’ve addled my wits in vain,” billy walker confessed, dolefully. “until there shall have been an accumulation of new intellectual energy on my part, i shall be able to offer you no theory as to the actual hiding-place so ingeniously selected by the late lamented mr. abernethey—to whose ashes, peace! while i am thus recuperating, however, you, my children, shall not be idle—oh, by no manner of means. on the contrary, you shall be very busy, indeed, after the method prescribed by inexorable logic.”
“i’m beginning to think that a little luck just now would help more than a lot of logic,” saxe declared, gloomily.
“listen to the oracle, anyhow,” david thwing urged, in his always kindly voice. “you see,” he went on whimsically, “billy is a specialist in thinking: he doesn’t do anything except think. so, we must respect his[67] thinking. otherwise, we could not respect our friend at all.” david’s big, protruding eyes, magnified by the heavy lenses of his eyeglasses, beamed benignantly on his three companions.
the one thus dubiously lauded grunted disdainfully.
“panegyrics apart,” he resumed, in his roughly rumbling tones, “there appears at this time but one course of procedure. to wit: tomorrow morning, you must start on an exhaustive search of the whole house. hitherto, you have made only a superficial examination. this has failed miserably. now, the scrutiny must be made microscopic.”
there could be no gainsaying the utterance. as the speaker had declared, it was the command of the inevitable logic presented by the situation. the hearers gave grumbling assent to the wisdom of the suggestion—with the exception of roy morton, who, curled lazily in the depths of the morris chair, was staring vacantly at the elaborate carving of the wainscoting, and smoking an especially fat egyptian cigarette. now, he[68] suddenly sat upright, and his gaze was turned on his companions, who had looked up at his abrupt movement. roy’s eyes were hard; his chin was thrust forward, in the fashion characteristic of him when the spirit of combat flared high, which, to tell the truth, was rather often. he spoke with apparent seriousness, but thwing, who had been through some adventures of a violent sort in his company, noted that a significant excess of amiability in his tones, which was always to be heard on critical occasions, was now wanting.
“there’s only one simple and sure way to success,” roy declared authoritatively. “we must burgle.”
there were ejaculations of astonishment from his curious hearers.
“it’s this way,” he explained blandly, fixing his steel-blue eyes grimly on the wondering billy walker. “we must rifle the lawyer’s safe. of course, the lawyer whom abernethey employed has exact instructions as to how to come on the treasure. all we have to do, then, is to break into his office, carrying an oxy-acetylene blow-pipe, cut[69] open the safe, find the secret instructions, copy them off, and afterward duly retrieve the gold at our leisure; besides,” he concluded, with great complacency, “i know a first-class safe-blower, to help us on the job. i did him a favor once. he’ll be glad to do me a kindness, in turn.”
a chorus of protests came from saxe and billy, to which, at last, with much apparent reluctance, roy yielded, and definitely, though sulkily, withdrew his ingenious predatory plan. but david, the while, chuckled contentedly, for he was apt at a jest—and, too, he had known roy more closely than had the other two.
since the working schedule had been thus happily determined on the side of law and order, the friends gave themselves over to an interval of social relaxation for the remainder of the evening, during which period, at the suggestion of david, the subject of the treasure was taboo. roy, who was fond of music, and had himself once possessed no mean measure of skill on the violoncello, now besought saxe to try the piano, for hitherto their whole attention had[70] been given to the business in hand, to the exclusion of all else. david, also, who doted on music, though without any technical training, added his entreaties. billy walker, who esteemed music about as highly as a cat does water, was complacent enough not to protest, which was the utmost that might be expected of him under the circumstances. saxe went to the piano very willingly, for he was in a mood of nervous tension that craved the emotional relaxation of harmony.
saxe played with a good degree of excellence in his technique, although he was far from being such a master of the instrument as had been the dead owner. but the essential charm of the younger man’s interpretation lay in the delicate truth of his sympathy. his intelligent sensitiveness seemed, indeed, catholic in its scope. whether he toyed daintily with a graceful appoggiatura from chopin, or crashed an astonishing dissonance from strauss, he equally felt and revealed the emotion that had been in the composer’s soul. hardly had he begun, when mrs. west entered from the porch, and after her came margaret. presently,[71] may made her appearance, with masters at her side. only jake and his wife, in the kitchen, remained unattracted. they had already heard from their late master sufficient music to last them a lifetime. the audience was sympathetic enough to encourage the player, and saxe remained at the piano for a long time, to the satisfaction of all his hearers—even that of billy walker, who was shamelessly dozing.
finally, the musician’s attention, during a pause, was attracted to a stack of music, which was lying on top of a cabinet, at the right of the piano. he rose, and, going to it, began glancing over the sheets. his eyes lighted with admiration as he noted the various compositions in the collection. in this examination of the music, he realized, as he had not done hitherto, the virtuosity of that dead miser who had made him the possible heir to wealth. for here was naught save the most worthy in the world of musical art. there was not a single number of the many assembled that was not a masterpiece of its kind. in its entirety, the series presented the very highest forms of musical[72] expression, the supreme achievement, both intellectual and emotional, in the art. for the first time, saxe felt a gust of tenderness toward the lonely old man, for the sake of their brotherhood in a great love. and, then, at the very bottom of the heap, saxe came on a single sheet, which drew his particular attention.
the page showed a few measures written in manuscript. this fact alone was sufficient to make the sheet distinctive in the collection, inasmuch as it was solitary of its sort. every other composition was from editions by the best publishers. with his newly-aroused interest in abernethey, it befell that saxe was pleased thus to come on a composition which, he made sure, must have been from the pen of abernethey himself. yet, as he scanned the few bars, the young man experienced a feeling of vivid disappointment, for the work was by no possibility of a kind to compel particular admiration; so, at least, it seemed to him just then. with a sense of disillusionment concerning the quality of the dead miser’s genius, saxe carried the sheet of music to the piano,[73] where he placed it on the rack, then began to play. as the first chord sounded, may thurston, seated in a chair near the door, made a movement of surprise. afterward, as she rested quietly in her place, there lay on her face a look of melancholy that was very near dejection.
the music that saxe played was this:
[listen]
[74]thus, saxe temple played the few simple phrases, over which the old miser had lingered so long one desolate night. but, now, a vast difference appeared in the manner with which the music was sped. abernethey had rendered the composition with astonishing intensity of emotion. he had interpreted the harsh measures with exquisite, though melancholy, tenderness; he had clanged them forth with the spirit of frantic appeal, with hot passion in the uncouth numbers, with crass, savage abandonment—again, with the superimposing of mighty harmonies, vast, massive, dignified. now, the genius was gone from the reading. saxe temple felt no least degree of sympathy for this crude, unpleasant fragment. on the contrary, the piece affected him only disagreeably. to his musical sense, this creation by the miser was peculiarly offensive. yet, through some subliminal channel, the stark sequence of the rhythm laid thrall on him, so that he ran over the score not once, but many times. nevertheless, he always set the music forth nakedly, unadorned by any graces of variety in the interpretation,[75] undraped by ingenious harmonies. he played merely the written notes, played them with precision—reluctantly; and, when finally, he had made an end, he still sat on at the piano, staring toward the written page, as one vaguely troubled by a mystery.
it was may thurston who broke the little interval of silence that followed after the music ended:
“i’ve heard that before, mr. temple,” she said; “many, many times.”
saxe whirled on the piano stool to face the girl.
“yes,” he said, and there was a note of bewilderment in his voice; “i should imagine so. as it is in manuscript, it was probably composed by mr. abernethey himself. but i must say that i’m greatly disappointed in it. i can’t discover any particular merit in it. you know, he left me all his manuscripts. i’ve had no time to look at them, however, as they only arrived the day we left new york. so, i was especially interested in this, to learn something of him, and this teaches me nothing at all concerning him, or, if it does—” he broke off, unwilling[76] to voice his candid judgment of the manuscript’s merits. he turned to roy, who lounged in a window seat, smoking the inevitable cigarette. “what did you think of it?” he demanded.
“perfectly ghastly!” came the sententious answer. “i was wondering what on earth you were up to—and hoping for the best. yes, ghastly!”
may thurston laughed, but there was little merriment in her notes.
“that’s exactly what it is—ghastly!” she shuddered slightly, and glanced across the room toward margaret, as if in quest of sympathy. “it is ghastly. it got on my nerves frightfully. mr. abernethey was forever playing it, along at the last—and i used to enjoy his playing so, too! i love music, and he was simply wonderful. i’ve heard most of the great players, and it seems to me that he was as good as any of them. his technique was magnificent. he told me once that, since many years, he had had an absolute mastery of the instrument physically. he had only to think and to feel the spirit of the music. he said that the sympathetic[77] response of his body was wholly automatic.”
“that is the ideal, of course,” saxe agreed, with a sigh. “i only wish that i had attained to it myself! perhaps, he weakened a bit at the last—when he did this, you know?” he looked at may inquiringly, as he made the suggestion.
but the girl shook her head, resolutely.
“no!” she said, with an air of finality. “up to the very day of his death, there was no breaking down of mr. abernethey’s mind. yet, he was always playing that piece at the last. only, he played it in a thousand ways—never twice alike—and always ghastly!” again the girl shuddered slightly.
“that’s curious,” saxe said. he swung about on the piano-stool, and sat staring somberly at the written page.
billy walker innocently cleared the atmosphere. he sat erect, rubbing his eyes brazenly.
“now, i liked that piece,” he declared, genially. “it’s got some swing to it, some go—yes, rather! best thing you’ve played, if anybody asks me.”
[78]“nobody did,” roy retorted, sourly.
as a matter of fact, billy walker, though totally tone-deaf, had been granted a considerable capacity for the enjoyment of rhythm. the composition that distressed may thurston by its ghastliness had cheered him with the steady drumming of its chords; the law of compensation works in curious ways.
