CHAPTER XVII

REAL TROUBLE

Many a Paul Revere has ridden through New England hamlets since the original courier of that name and fame saw the lights twinkle in Old North's steeple. None ever carried more exciting news to the rural folk than Zeke Bassett in his motor car brought to the Twin Rocks Light early on this summer morning.

For two months the life saving crews were excused from duty at the stations. Only the captain of the crew remained on guard at the Lower Trillion station. These two summer months Zeke usually spent with Tobias and Heppy at the Light.

Occasionally Zeke made an odd dollar taking a passenger to and from the railroad station. On this morning he had driven a neighbor to the early train--"the clam train"--that stopped at Clinkerport at 5:30. When he came back he scattered along the shell road driblets of news that was destined to flash over the countryside in wide excitement.

Zeke kept his car under Ezra Condon's shed down the road, but he stopped before Miss Heppy's flower garden, where she was weeding, to tell her the news. He startled her so that the lightkeeper's sister fell back in the sand, trowel in hand, her broad face paling slowly under the peak of her sunbonnet.

"Zeke! You don't mean it's true?" demanded Miss Heppy in a smothered shriek.

"Cross my heart, Cousin Heppy!" declared the young man. "There's a crowd around the door already--and it's shut. They'll be howlin' there like wolves b'fore noon."

He started the shaking car again, and it wheezed away. Miss Heppy was several moments getting upon her feet. All strength seemed to have left her limbs.

She tottered into the lighthouse. Tobias was up in the lamp room polishing the brasswork. She might have called to him, but it did not seem to her that she could lift her voice sufficiently to make him hear. Weak as she felt bodily, she started to climb the spiral stair.

That climb was an unforgettable experience for Hephzibah Bassett. The higher she climbed the lower her spirits fell. In all her long life disaster had never looked so black and threatening before her as it did now.

For many years she and Tobias had worked, and she had scrimped and saved, against that "rainy day" that is the dread of most cautious souls of middle age. Each dollar added to their slowly growing hoard had seemed positively to lighten the burden of fear of old age on Miss Heppy's heart.

Tobias frequently called her "Martha." She admitted she was cumbered by many cares. She believed they had been very real, those troubles she saw in the offing.

And here, of late, had come the unexpected good fortune--a blessing long hoped for, yet never really believed possible by either Miss Heppy or her brother. A few hundred dollars from the estate of Cap'n Jethro Potts would have delighted them. But six thousand dollars! The gain of that sum had been quite outside their imagination.

Altogether to their joint account in the Clinkerport Bank their bankbook showed now just a few dollars over eight thousand--to these plain longshore people an actual fortune.

And now----

Miss Heppy panted her way up the last few steps. Ordinarily her flesh would have caused her to more than pant. Her face would have been as red as a sunset.

But it was positively a pallid countenance that appeared to Tobias as he briskly polished brasswork and whistled a wandering little tune through his teeth. He did not look at her at first as she appeared through the hatchway; but he recognized her step.

"I give it as my opinion," he said reflectively, "that if I had to puff and blow like a ship's donkey-engine, comin' up them stairs, I wouldn't come aloft no oftener than I could help. What's sprung a leak now to bring you 'way up here, Heppy?"

"Tobias! Tobias!" gasped Miss Heppy.

"Oh, sugar! Take your time. Get your breath. If it's bad news I'd just as lief not hear it at all. If it's good news I've found that expectation is a sight more satisfying than fulfilment most times. I can wait----

"Dad fetch it, Heppy! what's the matter o' ye?"

She had fairly tottered into his arms. She hung to him, sobbing and gasping for breath. Tobias staggered under her weight. It was a minute or more before Miss Heppy could make audible her trouble.

"Tobias, it's gone!"

"What ye lost? Them false teeth again? I knowed----"

"Tobias, it's worse than that. It's the money!"

"What money?"

"Our money, Tobias! All our money! Uncle Jethro's legacy and all!"

"Oh, sugar, Heppy, you been dreamin'? You know that money's safe in the bank," he urged.

"But it ain't safe. The bank ain't safe. We've been robbed!" she cried, her voice rising to a thin shriek.

"Heppy! What ever do you mean? That dratted Arad Thompson! You don't mean to say he's got away with it? And in that wheel chair?"

"It isn't Arad Thompson! Oh, it isn't him!" wailed his sister. "The bank has been robbed! Burglars! Last night! Every penny of cash in it! A hundred and forty thousand dollars, so Zeke says!"

"My soul and body!" murmured the lightkeeper reverently. "A hundred and forty thousand? My! My!"

"The bank's closed----"

"Course it is this time in the morning. Them bank fellers don't work the morning tide--never."

"But there's a sign on the door. 'Tisn't going to be open. Our money's gone!"

"Say!" ejaculated Tobias, his brain beginning to function, "a hundred and forty thousand dollars oughtn't to break the Clinkerport Bank--nor yet Arad Thompson. We'll get our money----"

"'Tain't likely. Not all of it. We'll have to stand our sheer of the loss, Tobias. If _'twas_ burglary! Think of it!"

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed her brother, seating her on a stool. "You needn't never mind about that. I'm thinking of it all right. I can't think of nothin' else. Who'd you say told ye?"

"Zeke."

"Cal'late it's pretty straight then. I give it as my opinion he ain't no false alarm. Well! Well!"

He started for the stairway.

"What you goin' to do, Tobias?" sobbed Heppy.

"I cal'late to change out o' these ily clo'es and go to town. Zeke will stand by ye. I got to know the wust, as the feller in jail for murder said when they interduced the hangman to him."

Miss Heppy could not follow him at the moment. The promptness of the old seaman soon put Tobias in a presentable suit--though not the funeral garments before described. He got away before his sister was able to descend the stairs.

Zeke appeared. Tobias put a question or two and learned that the disaster was all Heppy had said. A hundred and forty thousand dollars was indeed a great fortune for Clinkerport people. Nor was it a small slice of the bank's capital.

"They tell me, Tobias," Zeke said, "that Mr. Thompson had called in a lot o' money just lately from small loans and sech, so't the bank could make an investment that he cal'lated would yield a much bigger return. Somebody must ha' knowed this for a fac', to have busted the vault door open at jest this time."

"Oh, sugar!" observed the lightkeeper. "They don't mean to say it's what them city detectives that you read about call an inside job?"

"Gosh blame it! Of course it was done inside. How'd they git to the vault door otherwise?" demanded Zeke.

Tobias grinned. He asked:

"Did they bust the door with dynamite, or did they open it fair an' proper by workin' out the combination of the vault?"

"I dunno. They busted it open an' got the money. That's all I know."

"Wal, you stay here and stand by Heppy. I'm going to town to see about it," Tobias concluded.

"Don't you want my car?"

"No. I cal'late somebody'll be along to pick me up."

In fact the lightkeeper's sharp eye had already descried a bustle about the Nicholet garage. Jackson had the car out.

When he reached the road gate of the Nicholet property, the car was just sliding down into the highway. Lorna waved him a friendly hand from the tonneau.

"Am I lucky enough to catch you going to town, Mr. Bassett?"

"I cal'late," said Tobias grimly, "the luck ain't all on one side."

"Do get in," she said as Jackson brought the automobile to a throbbing halt once he was on the highway. "I want to talk to you, anyway. What do you suppose is the matter with Ralph Endicott?"

"Huh? Oh, sugar! Why don't you ax me to explain this here fourth dimension they talk so much about? I can easy tell how wide, high, and thick Ralph Endicott is," and his eyes twinkled despite his inner trouble. "But I can't tell you the _why_ of him. That's beyond all nater."

"Then you do not really know why he has gone away?"

"Oh, sugar! He _has_ gone, has he? I'd disremembered. He did bid me an' Heppy good-bye night b'fore last."

"He went away with his trunk yesterday afternoon. Jerome told me nobody knew at the house where Ralph was going. They did not dare tell Professor Endicott, for he was completely submerged in some experiment and had locked the laboratory door. Ralph tucked a note under the door when he left."

"You don't say?"

"Did he not explain to you, Mr. Bassett?"

"Not a word."

"Nor to us. He came over and bade us good-bye just before he left, in a very formal way. I did not get a word with him alone. Aunt Ida asked him where he was going, and he said he could not tell just where he would finally bring up. Tobias Bassett!"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I believe Ralph has gone away to get a job of work and is ashamed to tell us."

"If it's honest work he ain't no call to be ashamed."

"Too proud to tell us, then," flashed the girl.

"That sounds more likely."

"Anyway, he's gone!" She could not hide something besides vexation in her voice. Disturbed as Tobias was by his own trouble, he marked this fact. He believed his matchmaking scheme, as far as Lorna was concerned, was working!

"Hard work never hurt nobody." He firmly believed this fallacy. "And Ralph is rugged and capable."

"But he has not been trained to any kind of work," cried the girl with anxiety.

"Why ain't he? He can do most anything any other fellow can on a ship. And he's got a good idea of navigation into the bargain. He favors the sea, too."

"A sailor!" There was dread more than disapproval in Lorna's tone. She had never forgotten Miss Heppy's explanation of her own fear and hatred of the sea. She repeated: "A sailor!"

"No. A mate. Then a skipper. A lad like Ralph can soon work up----"

"And is that all his college training can do for him?"

"College l'arnin' won't hurt him none for a sea-farin' life," said Tobias complacently. "He can aspire to walkin' the bridge of one o' them big liners. You hafter be part dancin' master as well as navigator to sit at the head o' the captain's table on one o' them floatin' palaces. Ralph would shine there."

"Oh, Mr. Bassett! he would not be so foolish, would he? I wish I had offered to lend him some money--enough money to straighten out the family's affairs."

"Do you cal'late what I told you I'd heard whispered about the professor foolin' away their money is so?" asked Tobias slyly.

"Oh, yes. Father is away just now. Professor Endicott came to the house to find him, and he seemed in great trouble. He as good as let the cat out of the bag."

"That he was broke?" ejaculated the startled lightkeeper.

"Yes. Something like that. To Aunt Ida."

"Oh, sugar!" murmured Tobias. Then: "Guess we're all in the same pickle."

"What do you mean?" asked Lorna, a little startled by the sudden change in the expression of the old man's countenance.

"Ain't you heard?"

"Heard what? I have heard nothing at all startling."

"Didn't your folks have any money in the Clinkerport Bank?"

"Only Aunt Ida's household account. A matter of a few hundred dollars. Why?"

"You're terrible lucky, I cal'late." Tobias sighed and shook his head. "You kin afford to lose that much."

"Why! what do you mean?" she repeated. "What has happened to the bank?"

"Been robbed. Burglars. Last night. Said to have cleaned out the cash. And the bank's shet up tight."

"Mercy!"

"Heppy's purt' near done up. She----"

"But you won't lose your money, will you? You and Miss Heppy?"

"I cal'late. And we never had a mite of fun out of it. Heppy wouldn't hear to our making no splurge with that legacy we got from Cap'n Jethro Potts. It's a judgment on us, I believe. I might have got me that silver-banded pipe I've always wanted."

She looked at him with understanding.

"You never would have smoked it, Tobias Bassett."

"Well, I could have hung it up over the mantel, couldn't I, for an ornament? Oh, sugar! My doughnut always did have the biggest hole!"

"But if the bank has been robbed----"

They came into the head of Clinkerport's main street as she spoke. Their gaze swept the thoroughfare as far as the bank building which stood directly beside the post-office.

A crowd--really a throng for Clinkerport--was gathered in front of the bank's door. The stores were deserted while the excited people milled before the barred windows and grated door of the bank, and more were coming on foot and in vehicles from all directions.

"I cal'late folks is some stirred up," observed Tobias, as he proceeded to get out of the car.