The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn (13 page)

Hugo Philpotts stared at Anthony. He drummed his fingers on the desk top. He seemed to be considering. “Oh, I see it all now,” he said in a low voice. “You and that Eells woman read about that silly box and figured you could put me off the track that way. Well, it won’t work. Of course I read about the box. It was just one of Uncle Alpheus’s practical jokes, that’s all it was. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you and that woman are trying to hide the real treasure from me.”

“But Mr. Winter—uh, I mean, Mr. Philpotts—I keep telling you there
isn’t
any treasure, there was just that crummy old—”

“All right,” said Hugo Philpotts. His voice was calm now, but there was a malicious gleam in his eye. “Since you’re going to be uncooperative, I’ll have to be a bit more persuasive.” He shoved his desk chair back, got up, and walked over to a steel filing cabinet that stood in a corner of the room. From one of the drawers he reached in and pulled out a manila folder. Then he walked back to his desk, sat down, and opened up the folder. “Do you know that your father doesn’t own the building where he operates his, uh, ‘business’? Do you know that? Eh?”

Anthony felt a hard knot forming in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, I know.”

Hugo gave Anthony a contemptuous look. “Well, then, you must realize that if the person who does own the building decides not to renew your father’s lease—which, I think, comes up for renewal in about a week—then your father will have to get
out
. It would be very sad if that happened, especially since your father has had a heart attack. No, it’s two, isn’t it? Two heart attacks. Well, now, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if your father’s heart were permanently weakened, and if he got a bad piece of news, the shock might kill him. Wouldn’t you say that was likely?”

Anthony said nothing. He was thoroughly scared, but he also felt defiant. This rotten man was threatening to hurt his father. But how could he do that? Mr. Odegard, the guy who owned the building, was an old pal of Mr. Monday’s, and Mr. Monday had just hired his son to help him at the saloon. It didn’t seem very likely that Mr. Odegard would throw his father out.

“You can’t make Mr. Odegard toss my dad out of his store,” said Anthony in a trembling, angry voice. “He wouldn’t ever do that! Not ever!”

“Oh, he has no choice in the matter any more,” said Mr. Philpotts coolly. “You see, Magnus Odegard has just gone bankrupt. The matter hasn’t been made public yet, but the fact is that he’s broke. Well, it so happens that all his assets—his stocks and bonds, and the buildings he owns, and so on—have become the property of the bank.
This
bank.” Mr. Philpotts paused. He leafed through the papers in the folder that lay before him. Finally, he pulled out a very official-looking document with a gold paper seal at the bottom. The Old English letters at the top of the paper said “Deed.” Mr. Philpotts held the document up for Anthony to see. “This is the deed to the property at 412 Minnesota Avenue, where Monday’s Cigar Store is located. The building is in a good location—excellent for the kind of business that your father is engaged in. What do you suppose would happen if the bank decided to tear this building down for a parking lot? Or give the lease to somebody else? What do you suppose would happen to your father’s weak heart? Eh?
Just what do you suppose would happen?”

CHAPTER 12

Hugo Philpotts glared stonily at Anthony. He held up three fingers of his right hand. “Three days,” he said. “Three days is what I’ll give you, my dear boy. And that’s
all
I’ll give you. After that, your father will have to set up his business in a tent somewhere. You go back to Miss Eells and tell her what I’ve said. Tell her I mean
business
!” He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a watch. “And now I see that I have to be on my way if I’m going to catch my train to Minneapolis. Good day, young man. You may leave. The guard will let you out.”

Anthony got up and stumbled out of Hugo Philpotts’s office. He went straight back to the library and told Miss Eells everything that had happened. She was shocked, and she was angry. It had been bad enough that Hugo had burglarized her house and given her a bump on the head. Now he was trying to twist poor Anthony’s arm, and all to get his hands on a treasure that wasn’t there! Anthony was in a terrible state. He just sat in a chair in Miss Eells’s office, shaking his head and saying, “Gosh, I just can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it!” over and over again.

“Isn’t there
anything
we can do, Miss Eells?” he said at last.

“I don’t know. I’ll go and see him, Maybe I can pound some sense into his head. I’ll try to reason with him,” said Miss Eells.

“You can’t!” Anthony wailed. “He’s gone up to Minneapolis on the train!”

Outside the windows of the library something ominous was happening. The river was rising. All the snow that had fallen during the winter was melting now. And it had been raining for a solid two weeks, almost without a letup. The river looked swollen, and a lot of the low-lying areas outside the town had already been flooded. Men were laying sandbags on the levees, the high earthen banks that had been built at various points along the river side of the town. Still, nobody thought that a flood was coming. The sandbags were simply there “in case.” But there was no danger. No need to worry—or so most people said.

If there is anything worse than having something bad happen, it is
waiting
for something bad to happen. Anthony was in a constant state of torment now. Whenever he was at home and the phone rang, he jumped. At the dinner table, he glanced furtively at his mother, wondering if she suspected anything. If she did, she gave no sign. Mr. Monday was very cheerful. He whistled and hummed and sang when he was around the house and talked about how good business was. All this light- heartedness just made Anthony feel worse. He couldn’t help imagining how his dad would feel when he found out that his store was being sold out from under him.

If only he hadn’t gone poking around finding notes, Anthony thought. If only he hadn’t pestered Miss Eells into bidding on that old mirror. If only he hadn’t had all these silly ideas of getting rich quick.

Wednesday passed. Thursday morning dawned. Time was hurtling on, speeding on, seconds and minutes whipping past. When Anthony showed up for work at the library on Thursday, he had one faint hope left. Maybe somewhere, hidden in the library, there was a clue to the
real
treasure. Anthony knew he was grasping at straws, but as soon as he had checked in with Miss Eells, he went straight to the upstairs reading room and started taking books down. All books in this room were books that Alpheus Winterborn had owned. Maybe inside one of them would be a clue of some kind. One after another, Anthony opened books, leafed through them in great haste, and then shut them. Open, look, slam, open, look, slam, over and over and over and over. Clouds of dust rose, and Anthony started sneezing. Sweat was pouring down his face. Still he went on. As he leafed through the books, he noticed that all of them had bookplates. Alpheus Winterborn’s personal bookplate was interesting: It showed a clown in a clown suit that was divided right down the middle. Half was red and half was black. Even the big puffy pompons that served as buttons for the suit were divided this way. Under the figure of the clown was a scroll, and—not surprisingly—these words were on it: BELIEVE ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU READ. It was the same motto that was on that silly half-moon where Anthony had found the message. And it was the same one that was on the stone carving over the front door of the library. It was a crazy motto. What the heck did it mean, anyway? Anthony imagined somebody reading only half of every book that came into his hands, or half of every page, or half of every poem...

Anthony paused. He was standing on the stepladder with one of Alpheus Winterborn’s books open in his hand. There was a curious look on his face. He had almost had a thought, but it had gotten away from him. There’s nothing more maddening than having some idea
almost
form itself in your mind and then zip away while you’re trying to get hold of it. It’s like almost remembering somebody’s name, or almost remembering something very important that you’re supposed to do. Anthony stood there chewing his lip and trying to remember. What was it that had popped into his mind and then popped right out again? He thought and thought, but whatever it was, he couldn’t bring it back.

Finally, he gave up. He looked at his blackened hands and the pile of books on the stepladder in front of him, and he decided that he’d been wasting his time. There were no clues there.

But what
was
it that had been in the back of his mind? It had something to do with Alpheus Winterborn’s motto, but what? Oh, well. No use. It was really gone now. Gone for good.

It rained all morning, and on into the afternoon. The wind began to blow, and the rain swept past in sheets. It spattered loudly against the windows, and the panes rattled and shook. After lunch, Anthony was in the West Reading Room putting some books on the shelves. Through the wide arch that opened into the center section of the library, Anthony could see Miss Eells sitting at the circulation desk. She had one of the drawers from the card catalog in front of her. The long metal rod that held the cards in place had been pulled out, and the cards lay loose on the desk top in front of her. There was no one in the library but the two of them.

Anthony gazed gratefully for a while at Miss Eells. Miss Eells was a good friend to him. He knew that. Whatever happened now, he was glad she was on his side.

A gust of wind hit the window behind Anthony. The glass rattled violently.

“Gee,” called Anthony. “It’s really blowing out there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” answered Miss Eells without looking up. “It’s blowing up a storm. There’s a real doozer predicted for tonight. Thunder, lightning—the whole works. And the river’s still rising. It’s up above flood crest. In fact, they say it’d be pouring into the town right now if it weren’t for those men out there laying sandbags.”

Anthony had never been in a flood before, though he had read about them. “What would happen if the water got in past the sandbags?” he asked.

“Lots of things. The river water is polluted, and it would pour into the wells that a lot of people in Hoosac get their water from. That would really mess things up. It would start pouring into the basements, and what with all the mud and silt and stuff, there’d be a filthy mess to clean up afterward. I’ve got some men coming in later this afternoon to move the magazines up from the basement storage room, just in case. Ugh! Can you imagine what it would be like, sorting through a lot of soggy magazines?” Miss Eells made a face. It was a pretty repulsive thought.

“Could anybody get killed?” Anthony asked.

Miss Eells thought a minute. “Probably not. Not in the kind of flood we’re likely to have. Of course, it
could
happen. But let’s hope that nobody in Hoosac gets himself into that kind of fix.”

Another strong gust hit the window behind Anthony. He turned around and looked out. The bare branches heaved and tossed. They bent under the lash of wind and rain. In the distance, Anthony could see men laying sandbags on top of the stone wall that gave Levee Park its name. Then he happened to glance up at the bronze reindeer that stood at the top of the tower. He blinked and stared again. All this wind, and the reindeer wasn’t moving!

“Hey, Miss Eells, I think the weather vane is stuck!” Anthony called out.

Miss Eells sighed. “Of course it is. Haven’t you ever noticed that before? It doesn’t work. Never has—it’s jammed somehow. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. Needs grease, maybe.”

Anthony turned and looked up at the reindeer again. Now, once more, something was stirring in his mind. What was it? He began to wonder if he were losing his marbles. Then he shrugged. Whatever it was, it was gone, like that thought he had almost had in the upstairs reading room.

The library closed at five on Thursday. Miss Eells offered to drive Anthony home because of the bad weather, and he gladly accepted her offer. On the way, Miss Eells turned on her car radio. She had barely flipped the button when, through the crackle of the static, came a voice saying, “... a condition of emergency has been declared for the city of Hoosac and surrounding areas. As a precautionary measure, the lower end of town, from Division Street to Walnut, will be evacuated...”

“Hey, that’s us!” said Anthony excitedly.

“Sshhh! Listen!”

There was another storm of static, and then the voice went on. “... will be able to take refuge at Immaculate Conception Academy on Academy Boulevard. Work is already underway to convert the classrooms there into temporary shelters for those living in the low-lying parts of town. I repeat, there is no need for alarm. This is merely a precautionary measure. I also repeat, it would be inadvisable to attempt to leave the town by way of the bridges and causeways. Many of the low-lying areas around Hoosac are already flooded, and roads are under water in many places. It would be wise to bring up from basements any—”

Miss Eells snapped the radio off. “Wow! It sounds like we’re in for it, eh, Anthony?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I wish the flood would wash old Hugo Philpotts out to sea.”

Miss Eells smiled wryly. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Well, here’s your house. I guess I’ll be seeing you up at the academy tonight. Come to think of it, I’d better follow that guy’s advice and bring some stuff up out of my basement. I’d hate to have all my peach preserves ruined by that filthy river water.”