I had the night off. That was the thing people kept coming back to later, that I had the night off.

As if there was something to be read into it, as if the fact that I wasn't in the house that evening meant something about what happened while I was gone.

But it didn't mean anything. Mrs. Beckford was in Wenham with her daughter.

Lydia had her own evening to herself, and I had mine. I walked down Essex Street. I ate supper

at a place I knew. I came back before ten, let myself in through the kitchen, climbed the

back stairs, and went to sleep. That was my evening. There was nothing remarkable about it.

There was nothing remarkable about any of it until 6 o'clock the next morning.

I came downstairs the way I always did, before light, nearly.

The shutters to open on the ground floor, the fire to lay in the kitchen,

the day's first round of the house. I had done it so many

times I didn't have to think about it. My feet knew the floor. My hands knew the latches.

I came off the last step into the back passage, and I turned toward the parlor, and I stopped.

The window was open, the back parlor window that was always latched, always in April,

in the cold of an April morning in Massachusetts, was standing open and leaning against the outside

sill, visible through the gap, was a plank. A long plank set against the house like a ladder

a man might have used to climb from the

ground to the sill I stood there for a moment I want to say I didn't understand

what I was seeing but that's not quite right I understood it I just didn't want to

understand it the captain kept gold in his chest upstairs he kept valuables in

his room that everyone in the household knew about,

and the window was open and a plank was leaning against the outside of the house. I understood

what that meant. I went to find Lydia. She was in the kitchen. I told her what I'd seen. I told

...