CHAPTER XI

THROUGH THE CRACK OF THE DOOR.

For a moment the silence was unbroken. Then the stranger stepped inside the room and set down the suit case he carried.

“Well!” he snapped. “Might I ask what this means?”

He looked at Merriwell, who happened to be seated nearest the door, and his voice quivered with suppressed rage. Dick returned his glance calmly.

“You are quite at liberty to ask anything you please,” he replied coolly; “but if you expect an answer you’ll have to be considerably more definite.”

The man’s teeth clicked together.

“What do you mean by taking possession of this house?” he ripped out. “How dare you break into another man’s place and make yourselves at home here? A lot of tramps and loafers! It’s outrageous!”

It was true that, excepting the resplendant Joblots, the Yale men were all attired in flannel shirts and rather worn, rough-looking clothes; but any one in his senses would scarcely mistake them for tramps.

Dick arose slowly to his feet, his face calm but his eyes narrowing slightly.

“I think that will be about enough,” he said quietly, but with an ominous undercurrent in his voice. “We’re not tramps, and you know it. Neither have we broken into this house. You ought to know that, too. Before you loosen up any more on that tongue of yours, kindly let us know who you might be and what business you have butting in here.”

The stranger’s black eyes fairly flashed.

“Butting in!” he exploded. “I’ll have you know that I am Andrew Jellison, son of the man who owned this place!”

Merriwell eyed him with a new interest.

“Ah, indeed,” he remarked pleasantly. “Wouldn’t son-in-law be a little more accurate?”

Jellison gave a start and darted a quick look at Dick.

“What difference does that make?” he snapped.

“Quite a little, I should think,” Merriwell returned calmly. “But you haven’t told us what right you have here.”

“Right!” frothed Jellison. “Right! I’m the heir. I own every stick and stone of the place!”

“Really?” Dick questioned. “I was under the impression that it was the property of Barry Lawrence, from whom we rented it for a few days.”

Jellison’s pompous self-assertion collapsed with the swiftness of a pricked balloon. He had evidently tried to bluff the Yale men, having no idea that they knew the truth, and for a moment he was nonplused.

His eyes shifted about the room and he moistened his dry lips with an equally dry tongue.

“Impossible!” he muttered at length. “There wasn’t any will. I am the heir-at-law.”

Dick smiled.

“I think you have been misinformed,” he said significantly. “There was a will, which left everything to Barry Lawrence, Mr. Hickey’s nephew.”

Jellison dropped into a chair, and, taking out his handkerchief, mopped his forehead.

“You’ll excuse my somewhat hasty words, I’m sure,” he said presently. “I didn’t understand what you were doing here, or I shouldn’t have spoken as I did. This has been a great shock!”

Dick dropped back into his chair without replying. He wondered whether the shock had been as great as Jellison would have it appear. He had a shrewd suspicion that the man was acting. It seemed incredible that he could really be ignorant of the fact that Hickey had cut him off without a cent and that everything had been left to Lawrence.

What was Jellison doing here, anyway? What object had he in appearing at nine o’clock at night, alone, at a probably deserted farmhouse? Such conduct was extraordinary, to say the least.

“You—er—say you have rented the place for a few days?” Jellison inquired at that moment.

Dick nodded.

“Yes. We have taken it for the remainder of the week.”

“Shooting, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

There was silence for a moment. Jellison appeared to be thinking intently.

“I came down for a few days’ rest,” he volunteered. “The late flurry in the Street has pretty well worn me out, and I knew how peaceful and quiet this place was. I had no idea I should find any one here.”

He hesitated and looked questioningly at Dick.

“I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to tolerate me for to-night,” he went on slowly. “There’s no place nearer than Cobmore’s where I could stay.”

Merriwell was not at all pleased with the turn things had taken. He and his friends had come out for a few days’ rest and recreation. They had looked forward for a long time to this little holiday when they would get away by themselves and be absolutely free from cares or worries of any sort, and they had been at considerable pains to arrange things so they could get off.

And now three people had turned up unexpectedly—two of them utter strangers. He did not mind McCormick, for he was a good fellow and one of them; but it was annoying beyond measure to have first Joblots and then this Jellison thrust themselves in. The whole outing would be spoiled.

But he failed to see how he could very well get out of it. It would not be decent to refuse Jellison a bed and make him walk three miles through the forest to Lysander Cobmore, who would, no doubt, be asleep by the time the man got there. And, after all, it was only for one night. They could put up with him for that length of time.

“Why, I guess there’s room enough,” he said slowly. “We haven’t been upstairs yet, but I should imagine there would be no lack of beds in a house of this size.”

“Oh, I don’t care about a bed,” Jellison said, with a sort of suppressed eagerness. “I can turn in on that couch there. Anything like that will be good enough.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to do that,” Merriwell returned quickly. “Suppose we take a look upstairs and see what there is. It’s about time to hit the pillow, anyhow.”

His suggestion was received with much approbation. The other fellows had grown rather restless since the appearance of Andrew Jellison. Joblots was such an insignificant fellow—almost a fool, in fact—that they had not paid much attention to him and had continued their talk and joking quite as if he were not there; but the presence of Jellison seemed, somehow, to throw a damper over everything, and, since the evening was spoiled, they might just as well go to bed.

One and all, they arose with alacrity, and, hunting up candles, lighted them and started in a procession upstairs.

Their discoveries on the second floor were most satisfactory. There were bedrooms enough to give each one of the party a separate one if he wished it, and Fitzgerald observed, on punching the mattresses, that they were all of a good quality of hair.

Here, even more than downstairs, the effect of the hit-or-miss enlarging of the house was apparent. There was very little hallway, most of the rooms opening one out of another; but, with a crowd of this sort, that was no inconvenience.

It being decidedly cold; the fellows at once hunted up sheets and blankets and proceeded with the greatest expedition to make up the beds required.

Andrew Jellison persisted in his desire to spend the night on the sofa downstairs.

“There’s no use in my bothering to make a bed just for one night,” he said. “That sofa is comfortable enough, and I shall sleep very well on it.”

He seemed to make such a point of it that Dick began to wonder whether he could possibly have any ulterior motive in wanting to be away from the rest of the bunch, and he resolved to thwart the man just on the chance of such a thing being the case.

“Nonsense!” he said positively. “There’s no trouble making a bed. It would be perfectly absurd for you to spend the night on a sofa. Just you take this room off ours. It’s got a nice little single bed, and you’ll sleep like a top.”

He was so emphatical that Jellison finally gave way, though it was with a very palpable reluctance, and proceeded to make up the bed in the little room which opened out of the larger bedroom at the head of the stairs, which Merriwell had taken possession of for Buckhart and himself.

Fitzgerald and Baxter slept in one just back of that, and McCormick chose one across the hall for himself and Percy Joblots. When the idea was mentioned to the dapper little fellow, however, he objected strenuously.

“Weally, now, I couldn’t think of thleeping with another perthon,” he said plaintively. “I wouldn’t clothe an eye all night. There’th a nice little room jutht back of thith one. I’ll make the bed all by mythelf.”

He made such a point of it that Dick gave in readily and laughingly told him to take whatever room he chose. It at once became evident, however, that Percy had not the most remote conception of how to make the bed, and McCormick finally took pity on him and did the job up in short order.

At last, when matters were settled satisfactorily, they pulled off their clothes and crawled between the cold sheets with many shivers and gasps, which quickly ceased; and presently, one by one, they dropped off to sleep.

Several hours later Dick Merriwell awoke with a start and lay still listening. Just what had roused him he did not know, but he felt that it must have been some unusual noise, or he would never have been wakened out of a sound sleep.

The house was silent as a tomb, except for the regular breathing which came from the Texan beside him and from the room where Jellison lay. His first waking thought had been that the latter was prowling about the house for some purpose, but the heavy breathing from the room showed that the stranger was either sound asleep or giving a very good imitation of it. At least he was there.

What could it have been? For a long time Dick strained his ears for a repetition of the noise, but nothing came. At last he decided that he must have imagined or dreamed it, and, relaxing himself, he closed his eyes and was just dropping off again when he opened them with a jerk and sat bolt upright in bed.

His quick ear had caught the faint but unmistakable sound of grating, as if two stones were being rubbed against each other, which came from somewhere downstairs.

The next moment Dick crept cautiously out of bed and slipped noiselessly into the hall. Bending over the railing, his eyes lighted up with triumph as he caught the faint gleam of light from the open door of the sitting room.

It was bitter cold, and he was clad in the thinnest of pajamas, but he did not notice this as he crept cautiously downstairs and approached the door. He was too interested in what was going on in that room to think of anything else.

Softly he crossed the lower hall and peered through the crack of the partly opened door. Then he saw that the light was in the dining room, and even as he advanced he heard a labored breathing as if some one was either making a great physical effort, or else was struggling under a tremendous mental strain.

With every nerve tingling and his curiosity at its highest pitch, Dick reached the door of the dining room and looked through the crack.

What he saw fairly paralyzed him with amazement. It was only with the greatest difficulty that he caught himself in time to prevent a gasp of surprise.

The great fire had died down and only a few embers glowed dully in the mammoth opening. The light he had seen came from a candle which was set down on the stone hearth, and close beside it knelt the figure of a man clad only in pajamas. His head was bent so that Merriwell could not see his face, but Dick was not thinking of him at the moment. His eyes were riveted on the gaping hole in the hearth over which the fellow was bending. It had been made by the removal of one of the stone slabs about eighteen inches square, and from where he stood Dick could see the interior quite distinctly.

It was filled almost to the brim with packages of bank notes, packed so tightly together that one could not have inserted a finger between them.

Merriwell could scarcely believe his senses. He rubbed his eyes in bewilderment and looked again. It was quite true. They were bank notes—mostly yellow-backs—and from the way they were packed together they must represent a tremendous sum.

Where had they come from? What were they doing there? The thought of the bank robbery at Hartford flashed into his mind, and at the same instant the kneeling man raised his head and revealed to Merriwell’s amazed gaze the face of Archie McCormick, ghastly white, sweat dewed, the eyes wide and shining, and the pale lips trembling spasmodically.