It
was the design of Angelo Ricci and Joe Czanek and Manuel Silva to call
on the Terrible Old Man. This old man dwells all alone in a very ancient
house on Water Street near the sea, and is reputed to be both exceedingly
rich and exceedingly feeble; which forms a situation very attractive to
men of the profession of Messrs. Ricci, Czanek, and Silva, for that profession
was nothing less dignified than robbery.
The inhabitants of Kingsport say and think many things
about the Terrible Old Man which generally keep him safe from the attention
of gentlemen like Mr. Ricci and his colleagues, despite the almost certain
fact that he hides a fortune of indefinite magnitude somewhere about his
musty and venerable abode. He is, in truth, a very strange person, believed
to have been a captain of East India clipper ships in his day; so old that
no one can remember when he was young, and so taciturn that few know his
real name. Among the gnarled trees in the front yard of his aged and neglected
place he maintains a strange collection of large stones, oddly grouped
and painted so that they resemble the idols in some obscure Eastern temple.
This collection frightens away most of the small boys who love to taunt
the Terrible Old Man about his long white hair and beard, or to break the
small-paned windows of his dwelling with wicked missiles; but there are
other things which frighten the older and more curious folk who sometimes
steal up to the house to peer in through the dusty panes. These folk say
that on a table in a bare room on the ground floor are many peculiar bottles,
in each a small piece of lead suspended pendulum-wise from a string. And
they say that the Terrible Old Man talks to these bottles, addressing them
by such names as Jack, Scar-Face, Long Tom, Spanish Joe, Peters, and Mate
Ellis, and that whenever he speaks to a bottle the little lead pendulum
within makes certain definite vibrations as if in answer.
Those who have watched the tall, lean, Terrible Old
Man in these peculiar conversations, do not watch him again. But Angelo
Ricci and Joe Czanek and Manuel Silva were not of Kingsport blood; they
were of that new and heterogeneous alien stock which lies outside the charmed
circle of New England life and traditions, and they saw in the Terrible
Old Man merely a tottering, almost helpless grey-beard, who could not walk
without the aid of his knotted cane, and whose thin, weak hands shook pitifully.
They were really quite sorry in their way for the lonely, unpopular old
fellow, whom everybody shunned, and at whom all the dogs barked singularly.
But business is business, and to a robber whose soul is in his profession,
there is a lure and a challenge about a very old and very feeble man who
has no account at the bank, and who pays for his few necessities at the
village store with Spanish gold and silver minted two centuries ago.
Messrs. Ricci, Czanek, and Silva selected the night
of April 11th for their call. Mr. Ricci and Mr. Silva were to interview
the poor old gentleman, whilst Mr. Czanek waited for them and their presumable
metallic burden with a covered motor-car in Ship Street, by the gate in
the tall rear wall of their host's grounds. Desire to avoid needless explanations
in case of unexpected police intrusions prompted these plans for a quiet
and unostentatious departure.
As prearranged, the three adventurers started out separately
in order to prevent any evil-minded suspicions afterward. Messrs. Ricci
and Silva met in Water Street by the old man's front gate, and although
they did not like the way the moon shone down upon the painted stones through
the budding branches of the gnarled trees, they had more important things
to think about than mere idle superstition. They feared it might be unpleasant
work making the Terrible Old Man loquacious concerning his hoarded gold
and silver, for aged sea-captains are notably stubborn and perverse. Still,
he was very old and very feeble, and there were two visitors. Messrs. Ricci
and Silva were experienced in the art of making unwilling persons voluble,
and the screams of a weak and exceptionally venerable man can be easily
muffled. So they moved up to the one lighted window and heard the Terrible
Old Man talking childishly to his bottles with pendulums. Then they donned
masks and knocked politely at the weather-stained oaken door.
Waiting seemed very long to Mr. Czanek as he fidgeted
restlessly in the covered motor-car by the Terrible Old Man's back gate
in Ship Street. He was more than ordinarily tender-hearted, and he did
not like the hideous screams he had heard in the ancient house just after
the hour appointed for the deed. Had he not told his colleagues to be as
gentle as possible with the pathetic old sea-captain? Very nervously he
watched that narrow oaken gate in the high and ivy-clad stone wall. Frequently
he consulted his watch, and wondered at the delay. Had the old man died
before revealing where his treasure was hidden, and had a thorough search
become necessary? Mr. Czanek did not like to wait so long in the dark in
such a place. Then he sensed a soft tread or tapping on the walk inside
the gate, heard a gentle fumbling at the rusty latch, and saw the narrow,
heavy door swing inward. And in the pallid glow of the single dim street-lamp
he strained his eyes to see what his colleagues had brought out of that
sinister house which loomed so close behind. But when he looked, he did
not see what he had expected; for his colleagues were not there at all,
but only the Terrible Old Man leaning quietly on his knotted cane and smiling
hideously. Mr. Czanek had never before noticed the colour of that man's
eyes; now he saw that they were yellow.
Little things make considerable excitement in little
towns, which is the reason that Kingsport people talked all that spring
and summer about the three unidentifiable bodies, horribly slashed as with
many cutlasses, and horribly mangled as by the tread of many cruel boot-heels,
which the tide washed in. And some people even spoke of things as trivial
as the deserted motor-car found in Ship Street, or certain especially inhuman
cries, probably of a stray animal or migratory bird, heard in the night
by wakeful citizens. But in this idle village gossip the Terrible Old Man
took no interest at all. He was by nature reserved, and when one is aged
and feeble, one's reserve is doubly strong. Besides, so ancient a sea-captain
must have witnessed scores of things much more stirring in the far-off
days of his unremembered youth.
