Lost Lake House Read Online Free PDF Page A

Harolday
was still shaking his head—”Sorry, kid, but I’ve told you—”
    But Maurice Vernon had heard him. He was
there in the inner office and overheard, and he came out with his
ever-present unlit cigar in his hand and looked Marshall over.
“Never mind, Bill,” he said to the manager, and to Marshall,
“What’s your name?”
    “Marshall Kendrick.”
    “Need a job, do you? How old are you?”
    “Almost eighteen.”
    Maurice Vernon nodded appraisingly. “Well,
you look sturdy enough,” he said. “Willing to do most any kind of
work?”
    The answer checked for only half a second on
Marshall’s lips—for in this office, he sensed it was a question he
might not be prepared to give the correct answer. But he did not
wait long. “Yes sir.”
    “All right,” said Vernon, “you’re hired,”
and he turned to the manager and began talking about something
else.
     

     
    Marshall started work at the Lost Lake House
as a groundskeeper, helping to keep the beaches clean, clip lawns
and shrubberies and clear away the litter left on the terraces and
paths by each night’s revels. When they found he knew something
about boats he was allowed to help with maintenance of the
boathouse at the back of the island and its fleet of half a dozen
nondescript rowboats. And gradually, over time, he was pulled into
the nocturnal operations of the Lost Lake House, which housed not
only the rumored speakeasy, but an active distillery in its
cellars. Marshall, who had fished from the shores of Lost Lake for
years and rowed most of it in a friend’s boat, became useful in the
new method of smuggling the bootleg liquor Maurice Vernon was
putting into practice about that time—taking it out by boat to
rendezvous on the lonely far side of the lake, now that all regular
trips of the island ferry were watched. Vernon had taken a fancy to
him, in his careless way, and generous tips in addition to
Marshall’s regular wages were always forthcoming after a successful
midnight ‘run.’
    He was an expert now at muffling oarlocks—at
guiding a boat along in the black shadows of overhanging trees
without even a faint ripple from the dark water—at helping to
transfer cargo in the dark without a word and without missing a
hold. He had been made privy to the secret of the specially built
boathouse with the trap-door in its flooring, the tunnels that led
from there to the Lake House cellars. They regarded him as
trustworthy—a fine compliment, that; he must have given the
impression of being without scruples. Or perhaps Maurice Vernon
sensed something of the stiff obligation that bound him. He would
not have talked so freely of hundred-dollar rewards if he had not
taken it for granted that Marshall was as safe as any one of
them.
    And down on the shore of a rough lake in the
gray blustering morning, Marshall worked vengefully—hating his job,
hating himself for the short-sightedness that had gotten him into
it. He dragged up a piece of wet driftwood and flung it into the
wheelbarrow with cold work-scraped hands. The job meant security,
and it also meant living with a festering conscience. Week by week
he was helping to break the law, despite a bitter disgust for the
racket that fattened the purses of profiteers like Vernon and
filled the pockets of the sharp, crooked men under him who brewed
and ran and sold the stuff. And yet it fed his family. His mother
never knew that half the money he gave her came from tips shoved
carelessly into his hand by Maurice Vernon on occasions like
these—she only knew his job paid well. The nighttime absences were
easily explained; even on ordinary nights now the head
groundskeeper and the waiters often wanted him around late, to
stoke fires or carry supplies into the kitchens.
    He earned it, anyway. If there was
such a thing as profiting honestly from crime, he did that.
    Marshall finished his work on the beach, and
took the wheelbarrow to the upper side of the island and dumped it
into the trash bins