CHAPTER XIITANGLED UP
Fora few minutes Larry stood in the kitchen of the unfinished house, looking out of the window at the casement of the boarding-house establishment in the rear—at the window of which stood a man trying on a false beard.
“If I only had thought to bring a pair of opera-glasses, I could see who that man is,” mused Larry. “I’ll carry them after this. But perhaps I can find out who occupies that room by asking the landlady. I can make some inquiries about rates, and she may think I’m a prospective lodger, and show me through the place. Then I may meet the man. I might meet Witherby, too, and that wouldn’t be so pleasant. He might make a row, and stir things up. But I’ve got to do something.”
Larry narrowly watched the man, who could not seem to get the false beard adjusted to his satisfaction. But the young reporter was not in a good position to see the man’s face. What glimpses he had of it did not show him any one whom he could recognize.
“Though of course it might be Witherby himself,” mused Larry. “He lives there, and that’s just as likely to be his room, as that of any one else. I’ll go up to the second floor of this house, and see if I can’t get a better view of that room and the man in it.”
As Larry started from the kitchen he cast a last, hasty glance at the strange man. The young reporter saw him take off the false beard, and, the next moment pull down the shade of the window.
“It’s all up now,” thought Larry. “I’ll have to try some other plan. Guess I’ll stay here a while, and see what happens.”
But he could not carry out that plan, for a moment later a man, evidently one of the building contractors, entered the kitchen. He looked suspiciously at Larry.
“What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.
“Looking around,” answered Larry coolly.
“Did any one give you permission to come in?”
“No, I just invited myself.”
“Are you connected with the owner of this place?”
“No, I don’t even know his name.”
“Then you’d better be off. We don’t like strangers around here. We’ve been missing things lately.”
“Are you accusing me?” asked Larry sharply.
“Well, you can take it as you like. Get out of here, that’s all.”
“Of course that’s your privilege,” answered Larry, keeping his temper by an effort; “but I can assure you that I only came here to look around. I am interested in those enameled bricks you are using.”
“Agent for ’em?” demanded the contractor. “If you are, I’ll say that the bricks are not what they are cracked up to be.”
“I’m not the agent,” replied Larry, with a smile, and then, for fear the contractor might ask other questions, which would be hard to answer under the circumstances, the young reporter hurried away.
“Let’s see,” he murmured, as he walked up the street. “I think the next move will be to apply at the boarding-house. Maybe the landlady will answer some questions that will help me solve the mystery.”
Larry found the boarding mistress pleasant enough. She doubtless thought she saw in the young reporter a prospective lodger.
“Yes,” she said, in answer to his questions, “I have several vacant rooms, and my rates are reasonable.”
“Are there other young men here?” asked Larry.
“Oh, yes, several. I have one bank clerk——”
“Mr. Witherby?” interrupted the reporter.
“Yes; how did you know?”
“Oh, I have met him in New York,” repliedLarry evasively. “Perhaps you would show me some of your rooms.”
The landlady was willing, and soon was escorting our hero through the house.
“Is this room occupied?” asked Larry, as he reached the door of the one in which, from the vacant house, he had seen the man with the false beard.
“Yes, Mr. Witherby has that,” was the unexpected answer.
“Mr. Witherby!”
Larry started, and he feared lest his voice should have betrayed his anxiety. So Witherby, after all, was the man with the false beard! His house was near the pile of tell-tale bricks. More and more, everything seemed to point to him as the thief.
“Here is a room you might like to look at,” said the boarding mistress, opening the door of a chamber some distance down the hall. “I’ll just see if it’s fit to be inspected.” She vanished within the room, while Larry started toward it. At that moment the door of Witherby’s apartment opened.
The young reporter swung around to face the bank clerk, but to his surprise he saw a young man, with a sandy moustache, come out—a young man who did not at all resemble the bank clerk, and who looked at Larry with no sign of recognition.
The man with the sandy moustache passed down the hall toward the stairs, and, at that momentthe landlady, coming out of the vacant room, saw him.
“Why—why,” she stammered. “Who—who are you? I—I did not let you in!”
“He came out of Mr. Witherby’s room,” explained Larry quickly.
“Then he’s a sneak-thief!” cried the landlady sharply. “Call the police! Hold him! He’s a thief!”
Larry thought the same thing, the more so as he had seen the performance with the false beard.
“I’ll get him!” cried the young reporter.
He darted after the man with the sandy moustache, but the latter, with a quickness that was almost incredible, ran down the stairs. A moment afterward the front door slammed shut behind him, and when Larry reached the stoop there was no one in sight.
“Well, by Jove!” exclaimed the astonished reporter. “That was sure a quick get-away! I wonder where he went?”
“Did you get him? Where is he?” panted the landlady. “Call the police.”
“There’s not much use of that now,” replied the practical Larry. “The fellow has disappeared. He must have run around in some yard, and he’s far enough off by this time. The best thing to do would be to see if he has taken anything.”
“And to think that he was in Mr. Witherby’s room!” lamented the boarding mistress. “Oh, how can I explain it to him? I was sure Mr.Witherby had come home, too, but he must have gone out again. Oh, perhaps this thief has killed him in his room!”
“Not much danger of that,” replied Larry. “We’ll take a look.”
“Oh, I’m so frightened!” cried the woman. “There’s no one home now, for my servant has gone to the store. Oh, call the police! I have a telephone.”
“Wait until we see if we need them,” suggested Larry. “There’s no use causing unnecessary excitement. Perhaps you can tell, by looking at Mr. Witherby’s room, whether anything is missing.”
They found the door locked, but the landlady had a duplicate key, and soon opened it. Nothing appeared disturbed.
“His clothes all seem to be here,” said the boarding mistress, as she looked in a closet. “Of course some things may be missing, but we can’t tell until Mr. Witherby comes home. Oh, to think of a sneak-thief being in my house!”
“What makes you think Mr. Witherby came home?” asked the young reporter, making up his mind to say nothing of the man with the false beard.
“Because I heard some one come in, and he walked just as my lodger does. Some one went upstairs to Mr. Witherby’s room. You know he often comes out this way on banking business, and then he stops in his room. He’s often done it,and of course I thought it was him this time. Oh, dear!”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry,” advised Larry. “The person you heard come in was probably a sneak-thief, who used a skeleton key. He didn’t appear to be carrying much away with him, at any rate.”
“I can’t tell how much my boarders may have been robbed of until they come home,” the landlady said. “Oh, what a disgrace to my house!”
“It is too bad,” admitted Larry, “but perhaps he got nothing. He was probably frightened by hearing us in the hall. I’ll stop on my way down the street and send up the first policeman I meet, if you wish.”
“I wish you would,” said the woman. “I’d feel safer.” Larry concluded this was a good chance for him to get away without again bringing up the matter of engaging a room, and so he hurried out. He met an officer, and, briefly describing the case, advised him to call at the boarding-house.
“Well, things are getting tangled up more than ever,” thought the young reporter, as he walked toward the railroad station. “Witherby lives near some of the million-dollar bricks, and he had a chance to use them. But did he? That’s the question.
“Then there’s this false-beard business and the sneak-thief, though I suppose they only make one clew together. I don’t see how I can connect them with the bank mystery. The sneak-thiefprobably came in wearing a beard, and something went wrong with it. Then he decided to adopt the disguise of a false moustache. It was a clever trick. I wish I could have caught him. I guess I’ll get back, and have a talk with Mr. Bentfield.”
The bank president was much interested in learning from Larry of the fact of the bricks being so near the place where Witherby boarded.
“It certainly is a clew, Larry, and it might be bad evidence against him, in court,” the bank president said. “But, I’m afraid it’s too slender to warrant an arrest.”
“I think so, too, but I also think that it would be worth while to have Witherby more closely watched than any other of your employees.”
“Yes, I agree with you, and I’ll order it done. Oh, I do wish this mystery was solved! It isn’t so much the money loss, though that is serious enough, as it is that our whole bank system is demoralized by this crime hanging over our heads. Hurry up, Larry, and win that twenty thousand dollars reward!”
“I wish I could, Mr. Bentfield. We’ll see what keeping a watch on Witherby brings out.”
Close “tabs” were kept on the suspected clerk for several days, but nothing new developed. In the meanwhile Larry had some news in his paper concerning the bank robbery, but it was not much. Some of the other journals, who had put special men on the case, took them off. The detectiveswere still at work, and several well-known criminals and bank thieves were arrested and put through the “third degree,” as it is called by the police, but nothing came of the examinations.
“I don’t believe the mystery will ever be solved,” said Peter Manton to Larry one day, when both were in police headquarters, after the arrest of a man on suspicion of knowing something of the big case. “I wish my paper would take me off this assignment, and put me on one with more life in it. Don’t you want to give up, Larry?”
“I do not! I’m going to solve this.”
“You never will,” declared Peter. And Larry, as he thought how tangled up the case was now, was not as hopeful as his words indicated.