Colonel Effingham's Raid by Berry Fleming

Author:Berry Fleming
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453293980
Publisher: The Permanent Press

CHAPTER VI

1

Obviously the setup for foul play in the major’s visit was practically perfect, and Mr. Hoats’s nose for news was in hardly any respect keener than his nose for foul play; he had about as much faith in the over-all good intentions of humanity as a breathless fox. We didn’t carry any build-up on Major Hickock’s coming to Fredericksville, of course, but when he got there I was detailed to accompany him and the colonel on their tour of the building, partly as a reporter but also just to make sure they didn’t go in a huddle and fling us a fast one.

And furthermore I was to be prepared, in case the major was lukewarm in his belief that the building could be repaired, to do half a column for Page Two on his failure to indorse the colonel’s scheme.—Of course if the major agreed with the local contractors and declared it was impossible, I was going to Page One with a by-line.

I met them in the basement just after they arrived, the major with his hands and pockets full of such things as a yardstick, a metal tape, a hammer, a steel square, a cold chisel, and a flashlight; the colonel was talking to Joe, the janitor, and incidentally transferring to him the greater part of the equipment.

The major was a stocky little man with a large head, his stiff white hair clipped in a military cut; his knee joints may not have been quite so elastic as at Miraflores, but the upper part of his body was erect and tight. He shook my hand with the tolerant grip of a broadminded warrior for a civilian, not saying anything but pausing courteously for a moment in his professional tapping of an interior wall with the butt of the cold chisel.

“Now, Joe,” said Cousin Willy, “we want to see the courthouse, all the courthouse. I understand there have been cuts made in the floor and ceiling at sundry places.”

Joe said there had been.

“Well, we want to see them, all of them.”

The major was already round a corner, going at the building as if he were on a treasure hunt: “Main bearing walls all masonry,” he flung back in a monotone, not seeming to care whether anybody heard him or not. “Plaster weak in spots.”

Joe led us down the hall and pried up a rectangle that had been sawed out of the floor. The major creaked down on his knees and turned the flashlight inside; he opened his pocketknife and jabbed at some of the joists.

“Termites?” said Cousin Willy.

“Certainly not in any force,” said the major.

I stuck my head into the opening. I didn’t know anything about termites but I thought a decent interest might restrain any tendency in the major to exaggeration; it looked to me as if my chances of Page One might be fast getting ready to disappear.

Cousin Willy got down on his hands too. The whole arrangement, from a distance, no doubt looked deceptively like an informal game of dice; I don’t mean to say that was why Councilman Wishum joined us.

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