The Mystery Megapack

struck her with something heavy; she was too upset to remember much of anything about it. Next thing she knew, she was trussed up hand and foot, and gagged with an old towel, and laying in her bathtub.
    “The Bronsons had new plumbing put in only last summer. Mighty proud of their bathroom; there’s only two others in Fast Harbor! Well, that devil wasn’t satisfied with knockin’ her senseless, and then going through all her closets and bureaus and stealing what little money and jewelry he could find, but he’d left her helpless in the tub, flat on her back, and turned on the cold water faucet. He’d put in the plug, and when she come to the water had already riz high enough to reach her shoulders. It was only a matter of minutes when it’d reach her mouth and nose and drowned her! Somehow, she herself don’t know how she done it, she managed to work herself loose, just in time, and set up. Then she fainted; and when she came to again, the tub was full and runnin’ over. She says it’s gone through the floor and spoiled the kitchen ceiling,” finished Neighbor Hodge, with an anticlimax of which he was unconscious.
    “Haven’t they any idea who did it?” asked Weston, his teeth chattering a little. “Seems as if she’d recognize something familiar about the assailant. You all must know one another pretty well around here!”
    “She’s sure he don’t belong in these parts,” Hodge said. “And so far he hasn’t been caught up with. Of course, they’re out looking for him. Tomorrow soon as it gits light enough, they’ll try to track him. But anyhow, he’s got clear away. Bronson come home about an hour after his wife got herself free, and he telephoned right to the sheriff in Allsworth, and it was him notified me. And I dressed myself and come right on over to warn ye folks. It ain’t likely he’ll trouble you none; but you never can tell. Crazy, I says. No professional burglar would bother to do such a thing, when the woman was already helpless and he’d got all there was lying loose. Took about eleven dollars, and Mrs. Bronson’s best silver spoons and forks, and a string of gold beads that belonged to her grandmother. That’s all they’ve missed, so far.”
    Jason Hodge turned aside, as if to go. Weston recollected himself, and stepped to one side. “Won’t you come in, and let my wife make you a cup of tea or something? I’m sure we are very grateful to you, and sorry for your trouble!”
    Hodge shook his head. “Nope. Never drink tea late at night, much obliged. And as for the trouble, we folks out in the country always aim to be neighborly. Not like the city, where I’ve heard it said the dwellers in the same tenements live on for years without even having a bowing acquaintance, nor ’tending one another’s funerals! We ain’t like that, down here. Only a few of us, and we try to act human.”
    Weston laughed. “That slam was deserved, I guess, Mr. Hodge! We do get sort of inhuman in the big cities. But that’s partly because families are always coming and going; and in emergencies there are always policemen and doctors to be had at a moment’s notice. But I certainly do thank you, and I’ll sleep with one eye open. If I can help track down the robber tomorrow, call on me! I want to do my share, too.”
    Hodge was already moving down the path toward the gate. He turned and spoke over his shoulder. “Guess it’ll take somebody who can read signs to do that, mister! Somebody that knows the woods. A man could hide out for weeks in these deep cedar swamps. Pretty thinly settled! But we’ll root the varmint out, if he’s anywheres about. And when we ketch him, he’ll be lucky if he ever lives to be tried!”
    A moment later the gate clicked in the darkness, and Weston rebolted his door. He also went over the rooms on the lower floor, closed and locked each window. He had bolted his door through sheer habit; all the windows had been left open, for the fresh air. They were screened against mosquitoes, but otherwise unprotected. He turned and mounted the stairs, to find Annie standing shivering on the top landing.
    “How perfectly awful!” she exclaimed, “I heard all he said. And we supposed that up here we’d get away from all the lawlessness and assaults and murders and things our city papers are full of! I didn’t dream any worse crime was ever heard of up here in this lovely country than the theft of a watermelon, or the bootlegging of a little hard cider by some