The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn Read online

  Anthony flipped to page 106 and started reading. The article gave thirteen rules for homeowners, including such things as not letting milk bottles and newspapers pile up on your porch, notifying the police when you went on vacation, and leaving lights on in the house. Rule Ten interested Anthony very much.

  Rule Ten: On doors with old-fashioned locks, there is usually a plate (on the doorpost) with two holes. It looks like this:

  The lower hole, the oblong one, is meant to receive the door latch, which moves when the knob is turned. The upper hole, square in shape, is meant to receive the bolt, which turns when the key is turned in the keyhole. It is the upper hole that we are concerned with. A favorite trick of burglars is to insert a chip of wood in this hole so that the bolt, when thrown home by the turning of the key, will not enter the hole. The door, thus tampered with, is not locked and may be opened at the convenience of our friend the burglar. It would be well to check the outside doors of your home nightly to make sure they have not been tampered with. Cellar doors in particular are vulnerable. Note any suspicious persons prowling about in your yard, as they may be burglars looking for a chance to “fix” your door in the manner described above.

  Anthony sat on the heap of magazines, reading by the fading light. His heart started beating faster. This was the way! Could he... Of course he could. He would have to, to save his family and to keep old Hugo Philpotts from grabbing the loot. He would bide his time, watch carefully, and then...

  For the next several days, Anthony carried around a small chip of wood in his pocket. He had whittled it to fit the bolt-hole in the outside cellar door of his own house. He had tried out the trick, and he had been delighted to discover that it really worked. Now he kept closer watch than ever over the old Winterborn place. The moving truck was gone now. The house looked deserted. The shades were all pulled down. The swing set was gone from the backyard. So was the sandbox, but the doghouse was still there. It looked forlorn and empty. A for sale sign was tacked up on the front of the house. One day when Anthony walked by to see how things were going, he saw a big red panel truck parked outside. The lettering on the side of the truck said LOOMIS AND SON, PAINTERS AND INTERIOR DECORATORS. The front door of the house was open, and Anthony could see men inside. They were wearing gray paint-stained coveralls and paint caps. They were spreading out a drop cloth on the hall floor. Another man was taking a ladder and some cans of paint out of the back of the truck.

  Anthony was panic-stricken. What if these guys started taking the wallpaper off the walls and then discovered... no, no. That simply couldn’t happen. Doncha see, you dumb clunk, he said to himself excitedly, this is your big chance! They’re gonna be opening up doors all over the house. Maybe they’ll open up the cellar door. Then you can do what you want to do.

  Trying hard to act nonchalant, Anthony sauntered around to the side of the house. The cellar door was directly opposite Mrs. Speece’s house. Mrs. Speece, otherwise known as old Eagle Eye. It was a solid-looking black door that stood at the bottom end of a stone ramp. The ramp and its stone-lined sides formed a kind of ditch, and the ditch was full of dead leaves. Anthony checked the door. Nope. It was still shut tight. Darn! But then, as he stood there watching, the doorknob turned. The door rattled and then moved inward. A few leaves fluttered in onto the cellar floor.

  Anthony felt extremely nervous. His heart was going like a trip hammer. The door was ajar, but whoever had opened it hadn’t come out. Maybe somebody was painting the basement and wanted the door open for air. Slowly, Anthony began to shuffle forward. His hand was in his pocket now. It closed around the little chip of wood. He edged down the little sloping ramp that led to the door. Dry leaves crackled under his feet. Now he was at the door. He peered inside. Nobody around. Good. Quick as a flash, he pulled out the chip of wood, stuck it into the bolt-hole, and stepped back. And at that moment, somebody behind him said, “Hey, kid! What the hell you think you’re doin’, huh?”

  Anthony froze. He jammed both hands into his pockets as if to prove that he hadn’t been doing anything with them. Then he turned around. Out by the street, next to the truck, was a man in coveralls. He was smoking a cigar. It was Mr. Loomis. Anthony had seen him in his father’s saloon a number of times. His dad and Mr. Loomis were old pals—sort of. At least Anthony hoped so.

  “I—I wasn’t doin’ nothin’, Mr. Loomis! Honest I wasn’t!”

  The man’s face softened when he saw that it was Anthony. “Oh, it’s you, Tony. Look, sorry to holler at you, but there’s been a bunch of kids pokin’ around here today makin’ life difficult for me. Did you want something?”

  “Uh, no, I didn’t, Mr. Loomis,” Anthony mumbled. He shuffled awkwardly up the ramp and started walking across the lawn toward Mr. Loomis. “I just, uh, I mean, I sorta wanted to see what the inside of this old house looked like.”

  “Casin’ the joint, hey?” said Mr. Loomis. He laughed and patted Anthony on the back. Anthony stiffened. “Say, tell me, are you the burglar that busted into old Missus Eells’s place? Come on, fess up! I got the goods on ya!”

  Anthony’s face got very red. He said nothing.

  Mr. Loomis puffed at his cigar and laughed hoarsely. “Just kiddin’, Tony, just kiddin’! Look, sometime when I don’t have a lot to do, I’ll show you around this dump. It’s a weird old place. All the rooms are funny-looking inside on account of the house has eight sides. But right now I’m busy as heck. See ya later.” He threw his cigar into the gutter, stepped on it, and turned away toward the house.

  “Okay, Mr. Loomis. See you later.” Anthony turned and started walking away fast. As he walked, he wondered if Mr. Loomis had seen him stick the chip of wood into the door. From the way Mr. Loomis had talked, Anthony figured that he probably hadn’t. Now he began to feel very smug and proud of himself. He had pulled a real burglar’s trick, and he had gotten away with it. Of course, the thought of actually breaking into somebody’s house frightened him. He had always been a very law-abiding boy. But here he was, planning to break into somebody’s house! That was a crime, a burglary. Did that mean he was turning into a criminal? No, Anthony told himself firmly. It was only going to be this once.

  Days passed. October turned into November. Now that he had set things up for the big break-in, Anthony was developing cold feet. It was one thing to stick a piece of wood in a door, and something else to be a real-life burglar. Night after night, as he walked home from the library, Anthony thought, I could do it now. I really could. But then he would say to himself, No, it’s not late enough. Old Eagle Eye will be awake. She’ll see. Besides, I need to have tools. I need a mallet and a chisel and some other stuff. (He could have gotten these tools from his dad’s tool chest in the garage, but he hadn’t yet gotten around to taking them.) He would make other excuses to himself, excuses of all kinds. Then he would bite his lip and call himself a coward because he was afraid of old Eagle Eye. He began to think that maybe he would never get up the courage to do what he wanted to do.

  Late one cold November night, Anthony lay awake in his bed. Downstairs, his folks were arguing—the old familiar scene. For a while, the arguments had stopped because Mr. Monday had been too sick to stay up late at night. But now his health was returning, and that was one of the things that tonight’s argument was about—Mr. Monday’s health. Mr. Monday was planning to open up the store again whether Doc Luescher gave him the go-ahead or not.

  Anthony lay there, wide-eyed, listening to the battle. He began to torture himself with accusations. As far as he was concerned, this fighting and bickering was his fault. If he had only had the guts to go down and get that treasure out, they would be rich, and everything would be fine. After all, the burglary was all set up. All he had to do was push a door open and walk in. But he just couldn’t force himself. He was scared of getting caught.

  The argument was over. Anthony could hear chairs scraping around. His folks were coming up to bed. The shelf clock in the front hall struck eleven, then twelve, then one. But Anthony still lay
there motionless, wide awake under the covers. Then, with a sudden motion, he flung back the sheet and the blankets. He sat up, swung around, and put his feet on the floor. He padded noiselessly over to the closet, put his shirt and pants on over his pajamas, and laced up his tennis shoes.

  How he managed to get down to Front Street, Anthony never remembered. It was as if the whole thing were happening in a dream, as if some force outside himself were moving him around from place to place. All he knew was that sometime after he got dressed and slipped out of the house, he was down on Front Street and crouching behind a bush in the side yard of the old Winterborn place, shivering with the cold. And he was mad at himself because he hadn’t brought any tools with him. His heart was beating fast, and his body felt prickly all over. His blood was pounding in his ears. He felt very strange, but he was there, he was at the house. That was all that mattered. As for the tools, men had been working in the house, and they had probably left some lying around. If not, he would dig the treasure out of that wall with his nails if he had to.

  Anthony crouched there, staring at the cellar door. He could see it clearly by the light of the street lamp. Behind him was the house of old Eagle Eye. It was completely dark. Anthony felt his body grow tense. He clenched his fists. He stood up and started walking across the frozen grass toward the house. He walked with swift, resolute strides. He was almost there...

  And then something happened.

  Anthony heard a loud barking sound. A growling dog was rushing at him. It had leaped out of the doghouse that stood near the back porch—the doghouse that was supposed to be empty now! Anthony screamed, “No, no! Help!” Then he turned and ran, hell for leather, across the backyard of the Winterborn house and across Mrs. Speece’s backyard. Suddenly, as he was about to cross the sidewalk that ran from Mrs. Speece’s back door to her garage, his feet flew out from under him. He felt as if someone had grabbed him by the ankles and flipped his legs upward.

  He fell onto the sidewalk, which was sunk between two banks of grassy earth. He fell awkwardly, with his right arm pinned across his belly and his left hand thrust out to break his fall. He landed with a sickening thud and lay there in a daze. His body stung all over. The heel of his left hand was scraped, and it burned like fire. Warm blood was oozing out of it. In the distance, the dog was still barking. Anthony shook his head and groaned. He felt sick. Then he tried to raise himself on his right arm, but the arm wouldn’t move.

  The dog went right on barking, but it didn’t follow him. It was a stray that had crept into Prince’s old doghouse to get out of the cold and was trying to defend its right to stay. Anthony didn’t know that, of course. He was bruised and shaken, and scared and cold and shivering. Using his left hand, he dragged himself to his knees. He shook his head groggily and looked around. Up above him, at the top of the low bank he had just fallen down, was a wire. It glimmered faintly in the light from the distant street lamp. A trip wire. Mrs. Speece had rigged it up because she had gotten tired of having kids cut across her backyard.

  Anthony staggered to his feet. He put his left hand under his right forearm to hold it up. He had the very strange and terrifying feeling that if he took his hand away, his right arm would drop off. He looked at it as if he had never seen it before. It still seemed to be attached. But it was useless. It wouldn’t move, and a dull pain was spreading through it. He shook his head groggily. The dog barked some more, louder now, and then a light came on in an upstairs window of Mrs. Speece’s house. Anthony was so shaken and confused that all thoughts of burglary and treasure had been driven right out of his mind. All he wanted to do was get away from Mrs. Speece’s house before she discovered him.

  He stumbled up the second bank, checked to make sure there wasn’t a second trip wire—there wasn’t—and walked quickly out to the sidewalk, across the little side street, and then across Front Street to the park. He started trotting along one of the long diagonal walks that crossed the park. Confused and jumbled thoughts were running through his head: What am I doing out here anyway? 1 must ye been out of my mind.... This is all a weird dream.... I’ll wake up any minute now.... Wasn’t it funny about that dog? What the heck was he doing there? There wasn’t supposed to be any dog in that doghouse. Maybe they left him behind when they moved...

  A sharp pain shot through his arm and shoulder. The pain cleared his head. It shook him out of the dreamy, numb state he had been falling into. He had better go get help. Now, as he began to get his bearings, he realized that he was closer to Miss Eells’s house than he was to home. He started walking faster. He walked from one pool of lamplight to another, and dead leaves scuttled past him as he went.

  He crossed the park and started up Hannah Street. He was headed toward Miss Eells’s house now. His arm burned, and he felt feverish. Now the dreamy state was coming back. All sorts of weird fantasies flitted through his mind. He wondered, Is gangrene setting in? Will they have to cut my arm off? He had watched westerns on TV where men had their legs cut off. They always gave them whiskey to drink and made them bite hard on pieces of leather. A vague terror began to grow in his mind. Would his arm be all right?

  He walked on through the silent streets, holding his arm carefully in front of him like a parcel. When he got to Miss Eells’s house, he went up on the porch and rang the bell. He rang it three, four, five, ten times, pushing the button hard and holding it in for a long time. Oh, please answer, Miss Eells, he sobbed to himself. Please be there, please be there. Oh, somebody do something, please do something...

  The porch light went on. He heard Miss Eells fumbling with the lock. Then the door opened, and Miss Eells was standing there in her bathrobe and slippers. Her glasses were stuck crookedly onto her nose. She looked crabby at first, as people often do when they have just been awakened. But then her mouth dropped open.

  “Good Lord, Anthony! What are you doing here at this hour?”

  “I—I—my arm,” stammered Anthony. His eyes were stinging. “I think I’ve broken my arm....”

  CHAPTER 10

  Miss Eells made Anthony sit down on the couch in the living room. Then she went out to the hall and picked up the phone. She dialed the Mondays’ number. The phone rang a long time, but finally somebody answered. It was Mrs. Monday. She sounded sleepy and annoyed.

  “Hello, Mrs. Monday. This is Myra Eells. I really don’t quite know how to tell you this, but about two minutes ago Anthony showed up at my door. No, I don’t know any more than you do what he was doing out at this hour. Just calm down and listen to me. I think he’s broken his arm. Yes, that’s right, his arm. I’m going to drive him down to the—well, how do I know how he broke it? Please be calm and listen. I’m going to drive him down to the hospital. I’ll see you down there. Okay?” Without waiting to hear what else Mrs. Monday had to say, Miss Eells hung up.

  When Miss Eells got back to the living room, Anthony was still sitting there on the couch, holding his arm and looking frightened. She sat down on the couch next to him and laid her hand gently on his knee. “Anthony?”

  “Yeah, Miss Eells?”

  “Come on, I’m going to take you down to the hospital, to the emergency room. You’ll be okay. Don’t worry. They’ll know what to do down there.”

  “All right,” Anthony said in a dull, lifeless voice.

  Miss Eells drove straight to the hospital and took Anthony into the brightly lit emergency room. A nurse told him to sit down; she’d be with him in a few minutes. He nodded dumbly and did as he was told. He felt as if he had somehow become a very small child again, fit only to be ordered around from place to place by grown-ups. Soon a doctor came. He carefully felt the two bones of Anthony’s forearm. Neither of them was broken. Then his hand moved up, and Anthony winced. Hot pain shot up through his shoulder.

  “So it’s there, eh?” said the doctor, nodding very professionally. “Humeral fracture. We don’t get many of those.”

  Anthony had broken the big bone of his upper arm. And what’s more—as the doctor found out after h
e took an X-ray—the two pieces of the arm bone had separated and were now lying next to each other, like this:

  The doctor thought he might have to operate to get the two pieces back where they ought to be. But first he wanted to try something else. He put Anthony’s arm in a very heavy cast. Then he told him that he wanted him to spend the night in the hospital with his arm hanging down over the side of the bed. If the heavy cast did its work, the bones would slide back into place.

  A few minutes later, Anthony was lying in an iron bed at the end of a long, dark hallway. His whole right arm, from fingertips to shoulder, was encased in a heavy white plaster cast. He had been given a shot of morphine to kill the pain and help him to sleep. It made him feel very relaxed and happy and drowsy. Miss Eells was sitting on a chair next to the bed. She looked at him in a kind, motherly way. There were tears in her eyes.

  “I called your mother before I left the house, Anthony,” Miss Eells whispered. She leaned forward and looked at his face. “But—by the way, can you still hear me?”

  “Uh huh,” said Anthony dreamily.

  “Good. Now, I wonder if you could tell me what happened before she gets here. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I would sort of like to know.”

  “I was going after the treasure,” said Anthony in a dull, faraway voice. “I fixed the door of Mr. Winterborn’s house just like a real burglar, and then I was scared to go in, but then I thought I better try, on account of we need the money, only there was this dog and I got scared, and I tripped on a wire and fell down. I’m sorry... I’ll... do... better... next...” Anthony’s head dropped down on his shoulder. He was asleep.