I am absolutely sure that Mr. Hansen had not quite made up his mind who it was that should be subdued, for he waited for a distinct moment before he moved. Then he joined the heap on the floor, and threw his body across the thrashing legs of the boy.
He was a very tough young man.
But nobody had the gun! I slid swiftly from my chair.
“I’ll get it,” said a quiet voice, and a huge man in highway patrol uniform came through the hall door behind me, crossed over to the gun and picked it up.
Mrs. Hansen, at the same moment, went to the front door and opened it, and a second patrol officer came in, his gun still in his hand. “Evening, Mrs. Hansen,” he said.
They handcuffed the boy as David and Mr. Hansen got to their feet.
“Is it the guy we thought it was?” asked the officer who had come through the back door.
“Yes, it is,” said the other. Then he turned to David.
“You re O’Neill, the one that called?”
“Yes.”
“Was it you pulled the curtain back?”
“That’s right.”
“Good. That did it. Up to then, all I could see was a bunch of legs and the face of the lady across the room.”
Mr. Hansen had not so much as nodded to the officers. His eyes were glued in loathing on the young man’s face. “Who is this person?” he demanded.
“A murderer, Mr. Hansen,” one of the officers said. “Wanted in South Dakota.
“That murder?” Mr. Hansen slowly turned to face the officer.
“Yes.”
Then he transferred his gaze to David. “He never was your son?”
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t have a chance to explain.”
Mr. Hansen rejected this with an angry pass of his hand.
Mrs. Hansen said, “You were in the barn, Lars. We had to call the police quickly.”
His brows shot up in incredulity. “You knew?” he demanded. “This was your idea?”
“Yes, it was. Mr. O’Neill wanted to drive on and let the police overtake them. But that way there would certainly have been shooting.”
Mr. Hansen almost shouted, “I suppose there wasn’t any shooting here! Why didn’t you let me handle this, Clara?”
She shook her head. “No. This way was better.”
Mr. Hansen said, “By the way, O’Neill, what is your profession?”
David looked up wearily. “Me? I’m a judge, Hansen, a judge in juvenile court!”
One of the troopers said, “Let’s go.” They both nodded to us, and led the boy out. He continued to struggle hopelessly.
David sank into a chair, his hands over his face, and from behind his hands his voice came out muffled, clouded.
“I chose your house because It wasn’t until we got here that I was sure I could tell the difference between the telephone wires and the electric service wires leading in from the poles on the road. I was positive that you had a telephone. How can I ever apologize for bringing such a thing into your home? You’ve been put out — terrified — endangered. You’ve got a broken window and there’s a blizzard coming. And a hole in the wall where the bullet hit.”
Mr. Hansen put a weathered hand on David’s shoulder. He said softly, “Don’t apologize. I can nail a canvas over the window for tonight. It’s like this, Mr. O’Neill. Clara and I, we’re human too.”
The Adventure of the Haunted Library
by August Derleth
In this tale of the supernatural, Solar Pons may follow the shadows of imagination, or he may find substance in the clues of logical deduction.
When I opened the door of our lodgings one summer day during the third year of our joint tenancy of No. 7B, Praed Street, I found my friend Solar Pons standing with one arm on the mantel, waiting with a thin edge of impatience either upon my arrival, or that of someone else, and ready to go out, for his deerstalker lay close by.
“You’re just in time, Parker,” he said, “—if the inclination moves you — to join me in another of my little inquiries. This time, evidently into the supernatural.”
“The supernatural!” I exclaimed, depositing my bag.
“So it would seem.” He pointed to a letter thrown carelessly upon the table.
I picked it up and was immediately aware of the fine quality of the paper and the embossed name: Mrs. Margaret Ashcroft. Her communication was brief.
“Dear Mr. Pons,
I should be extremely obliged if you could see your way clear to call upon me some time later today or tomorrow, at your convenience, to investigate a troublesome matter which hardly seems to be within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. I do believe the library is haunted. Mr. Carnacki says it is not, but I can hardly doubt the evidence of my own senses.”
Her signature was followed by a Sydenham address.
“I’ve sent for a cab,” said Pons.
“Who is Mr. Carnacki?” I asked.
“A self-styled psychic investigator. He lives in Chelsea, and has had some considerable success, I am told.”
“A charlatan!”
“If he were, he would hardly have turned down our client. What do you make of it, Parker? You know my methods.”
I studied the letter which I still held, while Pons waited to hear how much I had learned from his spontaneous and frequent lectures in ratiocination. “If the quality of the paper is any indication, the lady is not without means,” I said.
“Capital!”
“Unless she is an heiress, she is probably of middle age or over.”
“Go on,” urged Pons, smiling.
“She is upset because, though she begins well, she rapidly becomes very unclear.”
“And provocative,” said Pons. “Who could resist a ghost in a library, eh?”
“But what do you make of it?” I pressed him.
“Well, much the same as you,” he said generously. “But I rather think the lady is not a young heiress. She would hardly be living in Sydenham, if she were. No, I think we shall find that she recently acquired a house there and has not been in residence very long. Something is wrong with the library.”
“Pons, you don’t seriously think it’s haunted?”
“Do you believe in ghosts, Parker?”
“Certainly not!”
“Do I detect the slightest hesitation in your answer?” He chuckled. “Ought we not to say, rather, we believe there are certain phenomena which science as yet has not correctly explained or interpreted?” He raised his head suddenly, listening. “I believe that is our cab drawing to the curb.”
A moment later, the sound of a horn from below verified Pons’s deduction.
Pons clapped his deerstalker to his head and we were off.
Our client’s house was built of brick, three storeys in height, with dormers on the gable floor. It was large and spreading, and built on a knoll, partly into the slope of the earth, though it seemed at first glance to crown the rise there. It was plainly of late Victorian construction, and, while it was not shabby, it just escaped looking quite genteel. Adjacent houses were not quite far enough away from it to give the lawn and garden the kind of spaciousness required to set the house off to its best advantage in a neighborhood which was slowly declining from its former status.
Our client received us in the library. Mrs. Ashcroft was a slender, diminutive woman with flashing blue eyes and whitening hair. She wore an air of fixed determination which her smile at the sight of Pons did not diminish.
“Mr. Pons, I was confident that you would come,” she greeted us.
She acknowledged Pons’s introduction of me courteously, and went on, “This is the haunted room.”