A Fool and His Money | Page 9

vast kitchen, watching Britton while
he pressed my trousers on an oak table so large that the castle must
have been built around it.
Herr Schmick was weighted down with the keys of the castle, which
never left his possession day or night.
"Herr Schmick," said I, "will you be so good as to inform me who the
dickens that woman is over in the east wing of the castle?"
"Woman, mein herr?" He almost dropped his keys. His big sons said
something to each other that I couldn't quite catch, but it sounded very
much like "der duyvil."
"A woman in a white dress,--with a dog."
"A dog?" he cried. "But, mein herr, dogs are not permitted to be in the
castle."
"Who is she? How did she get there?"
"Heaven defend us, sir! It must have been the ghost of--"
"Ghost, your granny!" I cried, relapsing into English. "Please don't beat
about the bush, Mr. Schmick. She's over there in the unused wing,
which I haven't been allowed to penetrate in spite of the fact that it
belongs to me. You say you can't find the keys to that side of the castle.
Will you explain how it is that it is open to strange women and--and
dogs?"
"You must be mistaken, mein herr," he whined abjectly. "She cannot be
there. She--Ah, I have it! It may have been my wife. Gretel! Have you
been in the east--"

"Nonsense!" I cried sharply. "This won't do, Mr. Schmick. Give me
that bunch of keys. We'll investigate. I can't have strange women
gallivanting about the place as if they owned it. This is no trysting
place for Juliets, Herr Schmick. We'll get to the bottom of this at once.
Here, you Rudolph, fetch a couple of lanterns. Max, get a sledge or two
from the forge. There is a forge. I saw it yesterday out there back of the
stables. So don't try to tell me there isn't one. If we can't unlock the
doors, we'll smash 'em in. They're mine, and I'll knock 'em to
smithereens if I feel like it."
The four Schmicks wrung their hands and shook their heads and, then,
repairing to the scullery, growled and grumbled for fully ten minutes
before deciding to obey my commands. In the meantime, I related my
experience to Poopendyke and Britton.
"That reminds me, sir," said Britton, "that I found a rag-doll in the
courtyard yesterday, on that side of the building, sir--I should say castle,
sir."
"I am quite sure I heard a baby crying the second night we were here,
Mr. Smart," said my secretary nervously.
"And there was smoke coming from one of the back chimney pots this
morning," added Britton.
I was thoughtful for a moment. "What became of the rag-doll, Britton?"
I enquired shrewdly.
"I turned it over to old Schmick, sir," said he. He grinned. "I thought as
maybe it belonged to one of his boys."
On the aged caretaker's reappearance, I bluntly inquired what had
become of the doll-baby. He was terribly confused.
"I know nothing, I know nothing," he mumbled, and I could see that he
was miserably upset. His sons towered and glowered and his wife
wrapped and unwrapped her hands in her apron, all the time
supplicating heaven to be good to the true and the faithful.

From what I could gather, they all seemed to be more disturbed over
the fact that my hallucination included a dog than by the claim that I
had seen a woman.
"But, confound you, Schmick," I cried in some heat, "it barked at me."
"Gott in himmel!" they all cried, and, to my surprise, the old woman
burst into tears.
"It is bad to dream of a dog," she wailed. "It means evil to all of us.
Evil to--"
"Come!" said I, grabbing the keys from the old man's unresisting hand.
"And, Schmick, if that dog bites me, I'll hold you personally
responsible. Do you understand?"
Two abreast we filed through the long, vaulted halls, Rudolph carrying
a gigantic lantern and Max a sledge. We traversed extensive corridors,
mounted tortuous stairs and came at length to the sturdy oak door that
separated the east wing from the west: a huge, formidable thing
strengthened by many cross-pieces and studded with rusty bolt-heads.
Padlocks as large as horse-shoes, corroded by rust and rendered
absolutely impracticable by age, confronted us.
"I have not the keys," said old Conrad Schmick sourly. "This door has
not been opened in my time. It is no use."
"It is no use," repeated his grizzly sons, leaning against the mouldy
walls with weary tolerance.
"Then how did the woman and her dog get into that part of the castle?"
I demanded. "Tell me that!"
They shook their heads, almost compassionately, as much