The trouble at Pinelands A detective story

THE TROUBLE AT PINELANDS ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Illustration note

[Illustration: “I’ll tote yuh to death along of me, anyhow.”]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Trouble at Pinelands _A Detective Story_ BY ERNEST M. POATE CHELSEA HOUSE 79 Seventh Avenue New York City ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright, 1922 By CHELSEA HOUSE --- The Trouble at Pinelands (Printed in the United States of America) All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE POLTERGEIST 11 II. BOBWHITE 23 III. A BAD SPELL 37 IV. A FEUD 47 V. A TRAGEDY 54 VI. UNCERTAINTY 63 VII. INVESTIGATION 76 VIII. THE INQUEST 86 IX. A CONFLAGRATION 95 X. MORE TROUBLE THREATENS 104 XI. PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENSE 112 XII. A FRUSTRATED LYNCHING 118 XIII. “A LITTLE RELAXATION” 132 XIV. THE POLTERGEIST AGAIN 141 XV. A FISHING TRIP 151 XVI. SOME CLEWS, AND A SUGGESTION 158 XVII. AN UNUSUAL WEDDING 165 XVIII. SOMERS DISGRACES HIMSELF 174 XIX. AN EXPLANATION 183 XX. A FLIRTATION 190 XXI. AN ILLICIT ENTERPRISE 200 XXII. THE SHOWDOWN 207 XXIII. ANNE CHRISTIE’S STORY 216 XXIV. A PROJECTED EXCURSION 227 XXV. A TRIP TO THE MOUNTAINS 233 XXVI. ROARING LAFE 240 XXVII. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY 250 XXVIII. RUTLEDGE TALKS 256 XXIX. THE RETURN 266 XXX. AN AGITATED HOUSEHOLD 271 XXXI. A BORROWED SHOTGUN 279 XXXII. THE POLTERGEIST’S LAST VISIT 287 XXXIII. THE FINAL EXPLANATION 296 XXXIV. MATING TIME 310 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Trouble at Pinelands ❧ CHAPTER I THE POLTERGEIST I could not sleep. I am an old man now and of settled habit; a “confirmed bachelor,” the young folks call me. Even the smallest change of routine irks me; and so, on this night, I found it very hard to be comfortable in a strange bed. Peter McGregor had gone north. He was in Baltimore to order flowers, consult the caterer, and make the final arrangements for the wedding breakfast. Only women were left in the old stone mansion; the McGregors called it “Fort House,” because it had something of the grim, forbidding look of an old fort. Dorothy, Peter’s sister, her invalid aunt, and the nurse, Miss Christie, were all here. Miss Christie was too indifferent to care, I think; she was a very dormouse for contentment, and she slept so determinedly that I used to wonder when she found time to care for her patient. But Dorothy was timid, as most young girls are; and her Aunt Mary, who was paralyzed, was highly nervous at the best and declared that she’d never close an eye without a man in the house. And, indeed, I could not blame them much, for Fort House was a gloomy, eerie place, with its big, silent rooms and long, dark halls, wainscoted in time-stained oak and full of unexpected nooks and corners. Also, though well within the village, it stood far back from the street in a little grove of high, solemn pines; leafy shrubs grew thick about its gray walls, and honeysuckle vines climbed over its narrow windows and shaded them still further. A man must be had to protect these lone women, and there was I--not a very efficient protector, I fear, since I am turned sixty-five and sadly crippled with rheumatism, but the best available. For my nephew, Lewis, Doctor C. Lewis Parker, Johns Hopkins Medical College, class of ’17, though willing enough, was scarcely the man to come, since he was to marry Dorothy in two days; whereas I was of discreet age and with none to miss me at home. In spite of his assurances I knew well enough that I was a nuisance and no help in my nephew’s house; he kept me with him simply because I was his only surviving kinsman, as he was mine, and because his kind heart would not leave me to end my days in some home for the aged. Yes, I knew that I was but a burden upon his goodness--knew it sadly, but without bitterness; a long old age tempers one’s pride. But here I was, the guardian of my nephew’s bride to be; and I tossed upon my bed and could not sleep for long, sad thoughts. I rejoiced in the boy’s happiness; truly I rejoiced, for Dorothy McGregor was the sweetest of girls and as tender to a useless old man as if I had been her own kin. Yes, it was best, oh, surely it was best, that these two kindly, handsome young folk should marry and make their own home. I looked back through a vista of long, lonely years at my own friendless life, a life that might have been so different if my Dorothy had lived. They would marry and be happy in each other. But--I am a very selfish old man, I fear--but what of me? I had no other home; and, were she never so tender of heart, what bride desires that her honeymoon should have such a worthless, worn-out satellite as I? No, these two must build their own nest; and it would have no place for me. Then I thought briefly of Aunt Mary McGregor, paralyzed from the waist down, these fourteen years, and bearing her troubles with such saintly patience; where would she go, and how would she live after the wedding? We two might marry also, I thought, and laughed mirthlessly at the idea. Old maid and old bachelor, we might join our troubles and spend the evening of our days together, enlivening each other with comparisons of our various aches and pains. For I must admit that Aunt Mary, for all her sweet patience, was overfond of discussing her symptoms. The old house was very quiet, except for those strange creakings and rustlings which one hears at night in these old places. Faint, eerie noises, these, which made the silence more profound; I fancied that Fort House whispered to itself of days gone by. Without was the clear, cool hush of a North Carolina summer’s night. It had been a hot June day, but the night was cool, as are all our nights, and a round, bright moon hung high, flooding the lawn with pale light, making the black shadows of the pines blacker yet, silvering the leaves of the honeysuckle vine at my windows. The sweet, heavy scent of a few late blossoms drifted in to me, bearing with it that faint, sinister suggestion of mystery and crime that belongs peculiarly to the cloying odor of honeysuckles in a hushed, dark night. That odor fretted me, awaking in my mind unpleasant fancies. This was a dismal place, the old Fort House; no proper setting for such a vivid young flower as Dorothy McGregor. I strove to fancy the house filled with flowers, crowded with gay-dressed, laughing wedding guests, and I could not, even now, with a wedding two days off. I was queerly thankful that Dorothy and Lewis would not live here, but in a little white bungalow, red-roofed, banked about with flowers, open to the kindly, honest sun. For how could young lovers be happy here, in this grim stone pile among the solemn pines, this mournful old house, which creaked and whispered to itself so mysteriously of nights, whose dark, airless rooms were heavy with the scent of honeysuckle? Somewhere I seemed to have read or heard that the honeysuckle grows best and gives its strongest odor about places of secret crime. The fancy obsessed me; I wondered what might be the history of this old mansion--for I was but newly come to Pinelands, a year ago--what dark deeds these walls had known in days long gone; what dreadful histories were bared in the self-communings of those ancient, creaking timbers. It was very late, and I was tired out. Moreover I was sad because I must so soon give up my nephew to his new wife. My aged bones ached, and my knee joints creaked and groaned, as I paced the floor. I was feverish, perhaps, and so fanciful; or it may be that I was fey. Whatever the explanation, a sudden conviction swept over me, as of actual knowledge. Fort House was haunted. I knew it. Without knowing how or why, that knowledge swept over me in a chill wave of fear that raced up my spine and plucked at the short hairs of my neck. It left me shaken and dismayed, with a lump of ice where my heart had been. The place was deadly still. Even the indistinct complaints of aged timbers were hushed, and there seemed no possibility of sound in all the world. Then, from the hall below, came a whirring click, whereat I gasped; the grandfather clock on the stair landing struck twelve--deliberately, solemnly. The mellow chime of its old gong dropped dead on the still air, without an echo. The silence of the tomb, a hush intolerably profound. Then, with dreadful suddenness, a clanking as of chains, the crash of broken crockery, a shrill, horrid screech! My veins seemed to freeze, and I could not breathe. As in nightmares, an inescapable weight dragged at every limb, held me helpless. What was abroad I knew not, save that it could be no honest thing. Why, I would have prayed for a palpable burglar; I could have fallen on his neck with joyful tears, though he were the worst villain unhung! Then I heard a faint stir in the room beyond mine, where Dorothy McGregor slept; the tiniest of frightened sobs. That sound heartened me. I am no hero; but in a long life I have observed more than once that terrors which will turn a solitary man craven may be faced almost with boldness if he has but a weaker one beside him to protect. Alone, I dared not stay in my room, much less venture forth; but there was Dorothy next me, and downstairs her helpless aunt and the nurse. They would look to me for aid, for courage; and knowing that, I made shift to conquer my fears a very little. I threw a bath robe over my shoulders and padded out into the black hall, barefoot. “Dorothy!” I whispered; somehow, I dared not call aloud. “My dear, are you all right?” Her answer came muffled through the door. “Yes, Uncle George. It’s nothing.” But her shaking voice belied the words. “It’s nothing to be af-f-fraid of. We’ve heard it before. Wait, I’m coming out. Aunty’ll be scared.” In a moment her door opened, and Dorothy appeared, faintly visible by the pale moon that shone in her window. She was wrapped in some sort of