CHAPTER IVDETECTIVE BOB RACK HAS SOMETHING TO SAYTo the police officials of Syracuse, Phil and Dave first directed their steps in that city. The result was as usual. The department had a report that such-and-such a car was stolen. The officers would be pretty likely to discover it if the machine should appear in the town.“But you better see the Automobile club. They are a big help in everything where autos are concerned,” advised the police captain.At a centrally located garage the boys stopped to repeat the same questions they had asked so many times before. The man in charge had heard the story of a car mysteriously disappearing from the South Fork road beyond Port Greeley, but that was all. “You can’t dobetter than see the Automobile club,” he added, however. “They are the ones to get you the right dope if there’s any way to get it.”Although it was still too early to expect to find a secretary or other officer present, the boys decided to visit the club headquarters at once. A pleasant-faced man was reading a motor journal as they entered. To him they stated the purpose of their call.“By George, that’s interesting!” said the stranger thoughtfully. “Wait a minute!” Reaching for a desk phone, the pleasant-faced man was soon in touch with the person he desired. Briefly he told of the two young callers and their errand. “All right, that’s the ticket!” he said, after some conversation over the wire, and hung up the receiver.Asking the boys to accompany him, the agreeable stranger piloted them to an office in a large brick building where he introduced them to a gentleman who seemed hardly more than a boy in appearance, though his age was probably twenty-five. His name was Freeland Cape.(“A regular Cape of Good Hope to us,” Phil said afterward.)“Sit down,” said Mr. Cape to the young strangers, as their escort left them. Thanking him, Phil and Dave accepted the proffered chairs. Without ado Mr. Cape was informed of the loss of the Six and the search thus far so unsuccessful.“Queerest affair I ever heard of,” was the young man’s comment. “But tell me more of this Torpedo car. There was a Torpedo stolen in Harkville—(Phil and Dave exchanged glances)—an extraordinary case. And of course it is evident that the parties who, for some reason, abandoned the machine you found, grabbed your car directly afterward.”“It would seem so, but it is hardly the case,” put in Phil quickly. “We have had that notion pretty well pounded out of us by different people, especially by Mr. Fobes, the policeman at Griffin. ‘Two separate transactions,’ were his words and he made it pretty plain. And of course we were, and are, more anxious to locateour own car than anything else. So all along, ‘two separate transactions’ we have had right in mind.”Young Mr. Cape scratched the crown of his head with one forefinger while he thought for a few seconds. “There never is a theory so exclusively inclusive but some other theory can be suggested,” said he. “I may be wrong. Without knowing anything about the Torpedo you found, I’d say the two separate facts constitute a plausible supposition. But Idoknow andyouknow now, that the machine you found was probably the one stolen from Harkville. Who stole it? We do not know, but it is pretty plain that no one other than the original thieves had the car on that South Fork road, wherever they may have been with it since first it disappeared. Now that lands in the very vicinity of your car, at the time of your loss, the fellows who stole one automobile. And, having stolen one, no doubt they would just as lief take another and better one. The man who was seen with your basket may have been only a tramp.If your suitcases were left behind, the basket was thrown out, as well, at the same place or near by.”“Any way you put it, though,” suggested MacLester, his brow puckered in thought, “we are left right in the middle of it all, again. Go one way, and we might find who owned the Torpedo. Go the other way—and we stand a better chance, I should think, of finding our own Six and the thieves. Whether they stole both cars, or simply ours, isn’t a question in the case at all just yet.”“Yes,” assented Mr. Cape, “but you must go back along the road, or wherever you may have to go, for the things you need to aid your search. You can’t unsnarl a fish line, or anything else, without you have one free end with which to make a start.”Phil became nervous and uneasy as so much time was being consumed in discussion, interesting to him though the talk was. “Tell us just whatyou’ddo, Mr. Cape,” he said earnestly.“Advice is dangerous in a case like this.You may do as I would do and lose by it. Still, I’ll venture a suggestion. You have gotten together, bit by bit, a lot of valuable facts. Right here in this building is a detective. He works for big people. Why not talk with him? If that Torpedo is the stolen Harkville machine you will win the help of one of the largest insurance companies in the job of capturing the thieves and at the same time, it is quite certain, recovering your own car.”“That’s the plan!” exclaimed Phil eagerly.“The very thing!” said Dave.In a moment Mr. Cape had the telephone in his hand. Within five minutes the boys were in the office of Detective Robert Rack, or plain “Bob” Rack, as his name so often appears in the newspapers.Mr. Rack was a ready listener to the whole story in detail as the boys told it. Quietly he referred to a card index a stenographer brought him. “I don’t think this work need cost you young men a copper,” said he. His voice was soft as a June zephyr. His neat business suit,calm, gray eyes and hair just tinged with gray, made him appear a great deal more like a successful salesman of some kind than a detective—than such ideas of detectives as the boys had hitherto had, at least.“Not a copper cent,” said Bob Rack, looking up from the card index. “And how would you like to be reimbursed for your trouble and expense?”These were quite the most pleasant words that had fallen upon David’s or Philip’s ears for some time. In substance they said as much.“I do not doubt the Torpedo you picked up is one we have long wanted to get trace of. The insurance people offer four hundred dollars for the recovery of the car. For the arrest and conviction of the thieves they will give five hundred dollars more. So then, if your party—four of you in all, are there?—wish simply to turn over the Torpedo you may do so. I’ll tell you who is to be notified. There’s one hundred dollars each for you. Or if you’d like my office to help you, both with the Torpedo and yourown car, I’ll make this proposition: to go myself, or send a good man with you on this case, and whatever the expenses and whatever the receipts may amount to they all shall be shared equally.”“Bob, you’re a brick!” cried Mr. Cape, who had been an interested listener. Then he said good-bye, assuring the boys that their problem was in the best of hands. Heartily they thanked him.“But there’s some doubt about that car in Griffin being the one stolen at Harkville, isn’t there?” reasoned Phil Way as the facts in hand were further discussed with Mr. Rack. “Why did that man Kull never answer our telegram?”“Ah, that is a thing to remember! I asked myself the same question the moment you said the telegram was not answered, a little time ago,” smiled the detective. “It would be a dreadful thing, I am sure, for a man to show no interest in the recovery of his stolen car, simply because he had received the price of itin insurance.” The boys could see Mr. Rack meant something more than he said. They thought they knew the thought he entertained. But he went on at once, more seriously: “There is a great deal more to this matter than simply getting your machine for you or restoring the Torpedo, or I am badly mistaken.”Phil’s eyes glistened. Davy sat very still and I am afraid his mouth was open without reason other than for his wonder and interest.“So,” concluded Mr. Robert Rack, very calmly and gently, as he had spoken all along, “suppose you leave the whole matter with me for the present. You better stay in town until to-night or maybe to-morrow, in case I should want you. Just now I wish you to do only one other thing, but that is very important. Telegraph or telephone your friends in Griffin to hold the Torpedo. Don’t let it get out of their hands under any circumstances. If they ride out in it, they should not leave the car unattended anywhere for one moment.”As if treading on air, such was their elation,the two boys were leaving the office. “Oh, just a moment!” called Mr. Rack quietly. “Was the name ‘Fielderson Brothers’ on the cans of paint found in the car you picked up, do you remember?”“Yes, but they are the manufacturers. Their paint can be bought anywhere,” Phil replied.“Yes,” the detective answered, apparently the least bit amused.With eager interest and pleasure Phil and Dave composed a telegram to Billy and Paul. After many efforts the following is the message they completed and sent:“Don’t let Torpedo leave Creek’s garage for any purpose. Expect to find Six soon. Must stay here until to-morrow. Wire care of Auto club.”With the telegram safely dispatched, the boys found a pleasant, inexpensive hotel where they engaged a room. They went to a restaurant for dinner, then resolved to writesome letters, first to the folks at home, assuring them of the hopeful outlook, then to Billy and Paul who would be keen to learn all that had taken place. A letter would reach them the following morning.“I would rather have telephoned,” said Phil. “They’ll be wild for more news after getting our telegram, but we’ve spent so much money on long distance calls and railroad fare, to boot, the last two days!”And in addition to Phil’s remark I am able to state, in confidence, that the funds of the Auto Boys would soon need replenishing if many more railroad tickets must be bought or other considerable bills paid.For it will be remembered there were four lusty appetites to be provided for, to say nothing of the extra expenses they were meeting. The possessors of two of the “vast voids” (one of Paul’s names for the four appetites) found meal-time less pleasant now, however, than when Phil and Dave were with them. Indeed, Paul accused Worth of being absolutely“grumpy,” whatever that may be, as they sat at breakfast in the American House on Tuesday morning.This was the day Phil and Dave were in Pittsfield, it will be recalled. “And I’ll bet we’ve done more than they have,” said Paul, referring to the absent ones. He was thinking of the man in the town jail and of Billy’s talk with that untractable person.“I did think we had made quite a start,” said Billy, droopingly. “But what’s come of it? Nothing!”“Cheer up, cheer up!” chirped Jones blithely. “We’ll get busy again to-day. Hurry up, too! These pancakes are made out of old burlap. I know they are! I used to think it was perfectly grand to eat in hotels and so forth but, golly! wouldn’t some fodder from home taste good right now? Honestly, I’m getting tired of burlap pancakes, puree of shavin’ soap, pincushions a la hay, fried towels and all the other strange things you get under strange names in these places. I——”But Billy said, “If we’re going to get busy, let’s do it,” and promptly he led the way out to the office. “Better see Mr. Fobes, hadn’t we?” he suggested.Just why Worth wanted to see the police officer he possibly did not know, beyond the slight chance that the man in the lockup may have had something to say to him. Yet it did happen that while the two sought Chief Fobes, the latter was seeking them. They met in front of the bank.“Our fellow in the cooler has been asking for you. He may let go of something yet if you go at him easy.” These words, addressed particularly to Billy, took the pair to the jail quite bubbling with expectancy. They fully believed the prisoner knew something of their car—believed it regardless of Willie Creek’s mild protest that the man was fooling them.Again Chief Fobes escorted Worth through the dim corridor to the somewhat lighter basement cells. A window in the rear of the building was open, looking out upon a yard withtrees and shrubbery. The prisoner was apparently enjoying the breeze that drifted in.“Can’t I talk to the kid a second, boss?”The one behind the bars having spoken thus, though he still turned his face toward the corridor window, Chief Fobes motioned Billy forward while he stepped back a few paces.“Say, bub, did ye see that guy? Did ye tell ’im?”For a fraction of time Worth did not understand. Then recalling more clearly the chance remark about “Smith” at the hotel, he answered, “No.”“Didn’t, eh? Why didn’t ye?”“You got mad yesterday and wouldn’t talk sense or anything else. Why should I pay any more attention to you? Tell me what you know about the car you took that motor basket from and I’ll do anything you ask that’s reasonable.”“Ye was just lyin’ to me about that man Smith, now wasn’t ye?” the man returned in a low, earnest voice, ignoring Billy’s request.And then he added as the boy hesitated, and swearing as he had done the previous day, “Aw, I was just a-kiddin’ ye—just a-kiddin’ ye to pass the time away.”
CHAPTER IV
DETECTIVE BOB RACK HAS SOMETHING TO SAY
To the police officials of Syracuse, Phil and Dave first directed their steps in that city. The result was as usual. The department had a report that such-and-such a car was stolen. The officers would be pretty likely to discover it if the machine should appear in the town.
“But you better see the Automobile club. They are a big help in everything where autos are concerned,” advised the police captain.
At a centrally located garage the boys stopped to repeat the same questions they had asked so many times before. The man in charge had heard the story of a car mysteriously disappearing from the South Fork road beyond Port Greeley, but that was all. “You can’t dobetter than see the Automobile club,” he added, however. “They are the ones to get you the right dope if there’s any way to get it.”
Although it was still too early to expect to find a secretary or other officer present, the boys decided to visit the club headquarters at once. A pleasant-faced man was reading a motor journal as they entered. To him they stated the purpose of their call.
“By George, that’s interesting!” said the stranger thoughtfully. “Wait a minute!” Reaching for a desk phone, the pleasant-faced man was soon in touch with the person he desired. Briefly he told of the two young callers and their errand. “All right, that’s the ticket!” he said, after some conversation over the wire, and hung up the receiver.
Asking the boys to accompany him, the agreeable stranger piloted them to an office in a large brick building where he introduced them to a gentleman who seemed hardly more than a boy in appearance, though his age was probably twenty-five. His name was Freeland Cape.(“A regular Cape of Good Hope to us,” Phil said afterward.)
“Sit down,” said Mr. Cape to the young strangers, as their escort left them. Thanking him, Phil and Dave accepted the proffered chairs. Without ado Mr. Cape was informed of the loss of the Six and the search thus far so unsuccessful.
“Queerest affair I ever heard of,” was the young man’s comment. “But tell me more of this Torpedo car. There was a Torpedo stolen in Harkville—(Phil and Dave exchanged glances)—an extraordinary case. And of course it is evident that the parties who, for some reason, abandoned the machine you found, grabbed your car directly afterward.”
“It would seem so, but it is hardly the case,” put in Phil quickly. “We have had that notion pretty well pounded out of us by different people, especially by Mr. Fobes, the policeman at Griffin. ‘Two separate transactions,’ were his words and he made it pretty plain. And of course we were, and are, more anxious to locateour own car than anything else. So all along, ‘two separate transactions’ we have had right in mind.”
Young Mr. Cape scratched the crown of his head with one forefinger while he thought for a few seconds. “There never is a theory so exclusively inclusive but some other theory can be suggested,” said he. “I may be wrong. Without knowing anything about the Torpedo you found, I’d say the two separate facts constitute a plausible supposition. But Idoknow andyouknow now, that the machine you found was probably the one stolen from Harkville. Who stole it? We do not know, but it is pretty plain that no one other than the original thieves had the car on that South Fork road, wherever they may have been with it since first it disappeared. Now that lands in the very vicinity of your car, at the time of your loss, the fellows who stole one automobile. And, having stolen one, no doubt they would just as lief take another and better one. The man who was seen with your basket may have been only a tramp.If your suitcases were left behind, the basket was thrown out, as well, at the same place or near by.”
“Any way you put it, though,” suggested MacLester, his brow puckered in thought, “we are left right in the middle of it all, again. Go one way, and we might find who owned the Torpedo. Go the other way—and we stand a better chance, I should think, of finding our own Six and the thieves. Whether they stole both cars, or simply ours, isn’t a question in the case at all just yet.”
“Yes,” assented Mr. Cape, “but you must go back along the road, or wherever you may have to go, for the things you need to aid your search. You can’t unsnarl a fish line, or anything else, without you have one free end with which to make a start.”
Phil became nervous and uneasy as so much time was being consumed in discussion, interesting to him though the talk was. “Tell us just whatyou’ddo, Mr. Cape,” he said earnestly.
“Advice is dangerous in a case like this.You may do as I would do and lose by it. Still, I’ll venture a suggestion. You have gotten together, bit by bit, a lot of valuable facts. Right here in this building is a detective. He works for big people. Why not talk with him? If that Torpedo is the stolen Harkville machine you will win the help of one of the largest insurance companies in the job of capturing the thieves and at the same time, it is quite certain, recovering your own car.”
“That’s the plan!” exclaimed Phil eagerly.
“The very thing!” said Dave.
In a moment Mr. Cape had the telephone in his hand. Within five minutes the boys were in the office of Detective Robert Rack, or plain “Bob” Rack, as his name so often appears in the newspapers.
Mr. Rack was a ready listener to the whole story in detail as the boys told it. Quietly he referred to a card index a stenographer brought him. “I don’t think this work need cost you young men a copper,” said he. His voice was soft as a June zephyr. His neat business suit,calm, gray eyes and hair just tinged with gray, made him appear a great deal more like a successful salesman of some kind than a detective—than such ideas of detectives as the boys had hitherto had, at least.
“Not a copper cent,” said Bob Rack, looking up from the card index. “And how would you like to be reimbursed for your trouble and expense?”
These were quite the most pleasant words that had fallen upon David’s or Philip’s ears for some time. In substance they said as much.
“I do not doubt the Torpedo you picked up is one we have long wanted to get trace of. The insurance people offer four hundred dollars for the recovery of the car. For the arrest and conviction of the thieves they will give five hundred dollars more. So then, if your party—four of you in all, are there?—wish simply to turn over the Torpedo you may do so. I’ll tell you who is to be notified. There’s one hundred dollars each for you. Or if you’d like my office to help you, both with the Torpedo and yourown car, I’ll make this proposition: to go myself, or send a good man with you on this case, and whatever the expenses and whatever the receipts may amount to they all shall be shared equally.”
“Bob, you’re a brick!” cried Mr. Cape, who had been an interested listener. Then he said good-bye, assuring the boys that their problem was in the best of hands. Heartily they thanked him.
“But there’s some doubt about that car in Griffin being the one stolen at Harkville, isn’t there?” reasoned Phil Way as the facts in hand were further discussed with Mr. Rack. “Why did that man Kull never answer our telegram?”
“Ah, that is a thing to remember! I asked myself the same question the moment you said the telegram was not answered, a little time ago,” smiled the detective. “It would be a dreadful thing, I am sure, for a man to show no interest in the recovery of his stolen car, simply because he had received the price of itin insurance.” The boys could see Mr. Rack meant something more than he said. They thought they knew the thought he entertained. But he went on at once, more seriously: “There is a great deal more to this matter than simply getting your machine for you or restoring the Torpedo, or I am badly mistaken.”
Phil’s eyes glistened. Davy sat very still and I am afraid his mouth was open without reason other than for his wonder and interest.
“So,” concluded Mr. Robert Rack, very calmly and gently, as he had spoken all along, “suppose you leave the whole matter with me for the present. You better stay in town until to-night or maybe to-morrow, in case I should want you. Just now I wish you to do only one other thing, but that is very important. Telegraph or telephone your friends in Griffin to hold the Torpedo. Don’t let it get out of their hands under any circumstances. If they ride out in it, they should not leave the car unattended anywhere for one moment.”
As if treading on air, such was their elation,the two boys were leaving the office. “Oh, just a moment!” called Mr. Rack quietly. “Was the name ‘Fielderson Brothers’ on the cans of paint found in the car you picked up, do you remember?”
“Yes, but they are the manufacturers. Their paint can be bought anywhere,” Phil replied.
“Yes,” the detective answered, apparently the least bit amused.
With eager interest and pleasure Phil and Dave composed a telegram to Billy and Paul. After many efforts the following is the message they completed and sent:
“Don’t let Torpedo leave Creek’s garage for any purpose. Expect to find Six soon. Must stay here until to-morrow. Wire care of Auto club.”
“Don’t let Torpedo leave Creek’s garage for any purpose. Expect to find Six soon. Must stay here until to-morrow. Wire care of Auto club.”
With the telegram safely dispatched, the boys found a pleasant, inexpensive hotel where they engaged a room. They went to a restaurant for dinner, then resolved to writesome letters, first to the folks at home, assuring them of the hopeful outlook, then to Billy and Paul who would be keen to learn all that had taken place. A letter would reach them the following morning.
“I would rather have telephoned,” said Phil. “They’ll be wild for more news after getting our telegram, but we’ve spent so much money on long distance calls and railroad fare, to boot, the last two days!”
And in addition to Phil’s remark I am able to state, in confidence, that the funds of the Auto Boys would soon need replenishing if many more railroad tickets must be bought or other considerable bills paid.
For it will be remembered there were four lusty appetites to be provided for, to say nothing of the extra expenses they were meeting. The possessors of two of the “vast voids” (one of Paul’s names for the four appetites) found meal-time less pleasant now, however, than when Phil and Dave were with them. Indeed, Paul accused Worth of being absolutely“grumpy,” whatever that may be, as they sat at breakfast in the American House on Tuesday morning.
This was the day Phil and Dave were in Pittsfield, it will be recalled. “And I’ll bet we’ve done more than they have,” said Paul, referring to the absent ones. He was thinking of the man in the town jail and of Billy’s talk with that untractable person.
“I did think we had made quite a start,” said Billy, droopingly. “But what’s come of it? Nothing!”
“Cheer up, cheer up!” chirped Jones blithely. “We’ll get busy again to-day. Hurry up, too! These pancakes are made out of old burlap. I know they are! I used to think it was perfectly grand to eat in hotels and so forth but, golly! wouldn’t some fodder from home taste good right now? Honestly, I’m getting tired of burlap pancakes, puree of shavin’ soap, pincushions a la hay, fried towels and all the other strange things you get under strange names in these places. I——”
But Billy said, “If we’re going to get busy, let’s do it,” and promptly he led the way out to the office. “Better see Mr. Fobes, hadn’t we?” he suggested.
Just why Worth wanted to see the police officer he possibly did not know, beyond the slight chance that the man in the lockup may have had something to say to him. Yet it did happen that while the two sought Chief Fobes, the latter was seeking them. They met in front of the bank.
“Our fellow in the cooler has been asking for you. He may let go of something yet if you go at him easy.” These words, addressed particularly to Billy, took the pair to the jail quite bubbling with expectancy. They fully believed the prisoner knew something of their car—believed it regardless of Willie Creek’s mild protest that the man was fooling them.
Again Chief Fobes escorted Worth through the dim corridor to the somewhat lighter basement cells. A window in the rear of the building was open, looking out upon a yard withtrees and shrubbery. The prisoner was apparently enjoying the breeze that drifted in.
“Can’t I talk to the kid a second, boss?”
The one behind the bars having spoken thus, though he still turned his face toward the corridor window, Chief Fobes motioned Billy forward while he stepped back a few paces.
“Say, bub, did ye see that guy? Did ye tell ’im?”
For a fraction of time Worth did not understand. Then recalling more clearly the chance remark about “Smith” at the hotel, he answered, “No.”
“Didn’t, eh? Why didn’t ye?”
“You got mad yesterday and wouldn’t talk sense or anything else. Why should I pay any more attention to you? Tell me what you know about the car you took that motor basket from and I’ll do anything you ask that’s reasonable.”
“Ye was just lyin’ to me about that man Smith, now wasn’t ye?” the man returned in a low, earnest voice, ignoring Billy’s request.And then he added as the boy hesitated, and swearing as he had done the previous day, “Aw, I was just a-kiddin’ ye—just a-kiddin’ ye to pass the time away.”
CHAPTER VA BIT OF ADVICE FROM A STRANGER“Is there no way you canmakethat man talk?” Billy Worth asked Chief Fobes. The boys and the officer were again in the latter’s office.“I suppose I can if you leave it to me, but I can’t if you don’t,” Mr. Fobes answered. “Look ’e here now. That fellow’s in here for ten days. Plenty of time yet to make him loosen up, but it ain’t goin’ to do no good. What could he have had to do with swipin’ your car? Nothin’, that’s all. Might as well think he picked it up and shoved it in his pocket! There’s nothin’ to it. He’s a bum, that’s all, an’ is havin’ some fun tryin’ to make us believe he does know something about your automobile.”The two boys looked downcast. “Says hisname is Coster,” the officer went on. “Belongs nowhere in particular. So much he told me when he first was in here. Yer basket he picked up in the road, he now says, an’ he don’t deny eatin’ yer lunch an’ sleepin’ in the preacher’s barn. An’ that’s all he does know about your automobile. What’s more, it stands to reason, too. From any standpoint of the law ye can pick or choose, if he took your auto, what could he have did with it?”“Why has he been so interested, part of the time, anyway, in finding out if there’s a man named Smith, or anybody, looking for him?” Billy asked.“They all act that way, pretty much. It’s only once in a while that they give up anything by makin’ ’em believe as there’s a party lookin’ for ’em; and of course every tramp knows other tramps.”“Maybe so,” replied Worth, thoughtfully, “but I do believe your Mr. Coster is not what exactly you call a ‘bum.’ Even if he doesn’t know anything about our car, there’s someother matter on his mind and he is a lot more worried about it than he wants us to guess. What he has been trying to do was to pump me, without saying anything that would give me his reasons for doing it, and without telling me anything of any consequence. Why, he’s anawful liar!”Billy’s show of wrath in his closing sentence made Chief Fobes laugh boisterously. “Liar?” said he when he could catch his breath. “Did you expect he’d be anything else? I tell ye both,” and his eye took in both Billy and Paul, “you might just as well forget this man. We’ll have most ten days yet to make a charge of larceny against him for stealin’ the basket. If there’s anything to be had out of him we’ll get it. All’s you can do is have them East Side fellers (Hipp and Earnest) come around here sometime and see if they can identify this Coster as the man they seen on the South Fork.”“We might run out and see him right now,” Paul suggested.Billy agreed and the two were soon at Creek’s garage. It was a delightful day for driving. The car’s motion was cool and pleasant though the sun beat down with unusual warmth even for June.At the home of Alexander Hipp it was learned that he and Alfred Earnest were picking cherries at a farm three miles beyond the Forks, on the main road. Without trouble Billy and Paul found them. The work with the cherries was nearly over for the day and the Auto Boys gave a hand that it might be finished quickly. Glad of a chance for an automobile ride, Hipp and Earnest had readily agreed to visit the Griffin lockup.Alfred had the seat beside Billy, who was driving. “My brother,” said he, “thought you fellows made a mistake when two of you went away to Albany to look for your machine. I told him about your plan, last night. He wished he had seen you to talk it over because he figures you ought to have gone toward Buffalo.”“That so? Why?” Billy asked.“Because he says it’s fairly certain the people who had this Torpedo just switched to your car. They came from the east and was headed west to begin with. Naturally they wouldn’t go back the way they had just come from.”“We thought of that, but our car didn’t go through Griffin,” Billy answered. “Willie Creek is sure of that. It must have turned back east again at the Forks.”Earnest argued to the contrary but, seeing there was nothing to be gained by the discussion, Worth simply let him talk. It was strange how many people had advanced theories regarding the car’s disappearance. Indeed so much discussion and gossip had come to the ears of the boys, and so little real help had been given them, save by Mr. Creek, that it is little wonder mere talk was becoming annoying.Coster, the only occupant of the village prison, was not a little surprised when he once more answered Chief Fobes’ “Here, you! Stepup!” upon seeing four boys confronting him. He leaned with hands upon the steel bars as he had done the day before.“Good, honest automobile grease on your hands, mister,” remarked Billy Worth, noticing the fellow’s fingers and especially his black nails.Coster quickly put his hands down but volunteered no remark. Then, as if he feared being suspected of a desire to conceal something, he seized the bars again as before.“He’s the man we saw,” said Alex Hipp, when with Chief Fobes they all had reached the refreshing outer air. “At least I think so.”“Thinkin’ don’t go much from the standpoint of the law,” the officer answered. Neither Hipp nor Alfred Earnest could state positively that Coster was the person they had seen on the lonely road that rainy afternoon. Billy and Paul drove them to their respective homes in the Torpedo.“So we are knocked out of all we thoughtwe had found yesterday,” observed Jones, droopingly, on the homeward way.“Maybe not,” Worth returned, deep in thought. “Do you see how the clutch pedal of the car has pressed against the side of the sole on my shoe till the leather is curved in half an inch or more?”Paul said he did. Looking at Worth’s shoes, then his own, he added: “That’s nothing new. Mine is the same way.”“I know it is,” said Billy. “And the sole of Coster’s left boot is marked in the same way, too.”Paul saw at once the significance of this fact, the evidence that Chief Fobes’ prisoner was an automobile man. “Billy,” he said earnestly, “we are gettin’ some warm!”Try as they would to “get busy,” Worth and Jones found themselves accomplishing nothing as the afternoon wore away. Mr. Fobes was becoming quite impatient over their inquiries and they thought best not to visit him. Willie Creek was busy with some urgent repair work.There appeared no course to pursue—nothing to do—but wait. Impatient for word from Phil or Dave, restless in their inactivity, the two boys sat for a long time at the large open window of the hotel. A stranger entered.As the young man—he seemed to be twenty-one or two, perhaps—sat down near the boys, he remarked that he was waiting while his car was undergoing some repairs at the garage. A conversation concerning automobiles was the most natural result imaginable. Put two or more motor enthusiasts together and invariably they will soon be talking.The newcomer was from Texas, he said, touring through to New York. His brother was with him but had remained at the garage. The substance of the Auto Boys’ story was told the stranger as the conversation progressed.“Look here,” said the young man in his flippant, breezy fashion, “you fellows are too easy by half. You’ve let that garage keeper and his friend, the town policeman, pull you all around. The garage man—Creek, you call him—sendsyou on a wild goose chase here and there. The village cop steers you off with no help worth speaking of. Seems mighty suspicious, don’t it? I just might mention that there was a garage in a town near us that made a business of changing over stolen cars. Would switch ’em all around, in an old barn behind their shop, change wheel sizes, change engines, fix ’em up so no man could tell his own car if he saw it. Then they slipped ’em off to the big cities and sold ’em. Now, right there, you’ve got a real tip, you take it from me!”It is the meanest kind of wickedness to direct suspicion against any person without good cause. Also it is criminal. Paul Jones and Billy Worth realized this. Yet was it not true, as the stranger said, that Willie Creek and Chief Fobes were great friends? And had not Mr. Creek more than once suggested that it would be much cheaper for the boys to take a train home and conduct their search from there, paying no hotel bills while awaiting developments?“I’ve always thought Willie was our friend,” muttered Worth when he and Paul were alone again, “and I shall think so; but one thing is sure, we’ve got to keep our eyes open.”Mr. P. Jones, Esquire, as Paul sometimes referred to himself, was of the same opinion. Also he added: “It looked mighty funny to me the way old Fobes paid so little attention when Scottie was shot. Willie Creek didn’t seem to mind it, either, so much as I’d think he would.”Oh, it is a sad, bad business to sow seeds of suspicion! It is but all too likely they will grow! Always there is something which seems to confirm the suspicious thought. And yet, on the other hand, it must be admitted that dishonesty and falsehood are not infrequently concealed by an appearance of friendliness on part of those who practice them.And now, whether Willie Creek was a true friend or a false friend, we soon shall see for another night has passed and another day has come—a day to test the endurance and the courage of the Auto Boys almost to the breakingpoint. And even while Phil and Dave were making themselves known in the Automobile club of Syracuse, Billy and Paul were planning a careful inspection of Mr. Creek’s garage and its surroundings, as they sat at breakfast.
CHAPTER V
A BIT OF ADVICE FROM A STRANGER
“Is there no way you canmakethat man talk?” Billy Worth asked Chief Fobes. The boys and the officer were again in the latter’s office.
“I suppose I can if you leave it to me, but I can’t if you don’t,” Mr. Fobes answered. “Look ’e here now. That fellow’s in here for ten days. Plenty of time yet to make him loosen up, but it ain’t goin’ to do no good. What could he have had to do with swipin’ your car? Nothin’, that’s all. Might as well think he picked it up and shoved it in his pocket! There’s nothin’ to it. He’s a bum, that’s all, an’ is havin’ some fun tryin’ to make us believe he does know something about your automobile.”
The two boys looked downcast. “Says hisname is Coster,” the officer went on. “Belongs nowhere in particular. So much he told me when he first was in here. Yer basket he picked up in the road, he now says, an’ he don’t deny eatin’ yer lunch an’ sleepin’ in the preacher’s barn. An’ that’s all he does know about your automobile. What’s more, it stands to reason, too. From any standpoint of the law ye can pick or choose, if he took your auto, what could he have did with it?”
“Why has he been so interested, part of the time, anyway, in finding out if there’s a man named Smith, or anybody, looking for him?” Billy asked.
“They all act that way, pretty much. It’s only once in a while that they give up anything by makin’ ’em believe as there’s a party lookin’ for ’em; and of course every tramp knows other tramps.”
“Maybe so,” replied Worth, thoughtfully, “but I do believe your Mr. Coster is not what exactly you call a ‘bum.’ Even if he doesn’t know anything about our car, there’s someother matter on his mind and he is a lot more worried about it than he wants us to guess. What he has been trying to do was to pump me, without saying anything that would give me his reasons for doing it, and without telling me anything of any consequence. Why, he’s anawful liar!”
Billy’s show of wrath in his closing sentence made Chief Fobes laugh boisterously. “Liar?” said he when he could catch his breath. “Did you expect he’d be anything else? I tell ye both,” and his eye took in both Billy and Paul, “you might just as well forget this man. We’ll have most ten days yet to make a charge of larceny against him for stealin’ the basket. If there’s anything to be had out of him we’ll get it. All’s you can do is have them East Side fellers (Hipp and Earnest) come around here sometime and see if they can identify this Coster as the man they seen on the South Fork.”
“We might run out and see him right now,” Paul suggested.
Billy agreed and the two were soon at Creek’s garage. It was a delightful day for driving. The car’s motion was cool and pleasant though the sun beat down with unusual warmth even for June.
At the home of Alexander Hipp it was learned that he and Alfred Earnest were picking cherries at a farm three miles beyond the Forks, on the main road. Without trouble Billy and Paul found them. The work with the cherries was nearly over for the day and the Auto Boys gave a hand that it might be finished quickly. Glad of a chance for an automobile ride, Hipp and Earnest had readily agreed to visit the Griffin lockup.
Alfred had the seat beside Billy, who was driving. “My brother,” said he, “thought you fellows made a mistake when two of you went away to Albany to look for your machine. I told him about your plan, last night. He wished he had seen you to talk it over because he figures you ought to have gone toward Buffalo.”
“That so? Why?” Billy asked.
“Because he says it’s fairly certain the people who had this Torpedo just switched to your car. They came from the east and was headed west to begin with. Naturally they wouldn’t go back the way they had just come from.”
“We thought of that, but our car didn’t go through Griffin,” Billy answered. “Willie Creek is sure of that. It must have turned back east again at the Forks.”
Earnest argued to the contrary but, seeing there was nothing to be gained by the discussion, Worth simply let him talk. It was strange how many people had advanced theories regarding the car’s disappearance. Indeed so much discussion and gossip had come to the ears of the boys, and so little real help had been given them, save by Mr. Creek, that it is little wonder mere talk was becoming annoying.
Coster, the only occupant of the village prison, was not a little surprised when he once more answered Chief Fobes’ “Here, you! Stepup!” upon seeing four boys confronting him. He leaned with hands upon the steel bars as he had done the day before.
“Good, honest automobile grease on your hands, mister,” remarked Billy Worth, noticing the fellow’s fingers and especially his black nails.
Coster quickly put his hands down but volunteered no remark. Then, as if he feared being suspected of a desire to conceal something, he seized the bars again as before.
“He’s the man we saw,” said Alex Hipp, when with Chief Fobes they all had reached the refreshing outer air. “At least I think so.”
“Thinkin’ don’t go much from the standpoint of the law,” the officer answered. Neither Hipp nor Alfred Earnest could state positively that Coster was the person they had seen on the lonely road that rainy afternoon. Billy and Paul drove them to their respective homes in the Torpedo.
“So we are knocked out of all we thoughtwe had found yesterday,” observed Jones, droopingly, on the homeward way.
“Maybe not,” Worth returned, deep in thought. “Do you see how the clutch pedal of the car has pressed against the side of the sole on my shoe till the leather is curved in half an inch or more?”
Paul said he did. Looking at Worth’s shoes, then his own, he added: “That’s nothing new. Mine is the same way.”
“I know it is,” said Billy. “And the sole of Coster’s left boot is marked in the same way, too.”
Paul saw at once the significance of this fact, the evidence that Chief Fobes’ prisoner was an automobile man. “Billy,” he said earnestly, “we are gettin’ some warm!”
Try as they would to “get busy,” Worth and Jones found themselves accomplishing nothing as the afternoon wore away. Mr. Fobes was becoming quite impatient over their inquiries and they thought best not to visit him. Willie Creek was busy with some urgent repair work.There appeared no course to pursue—nothing to do—but wait. Impatient for word from Phil or Dave, restless in their inactivity, the two boys sat for a long time at the large open window of the hotel. A stranger entered.
As the young man—he seemed to be twenty-one or two, perhaps—sat down near the boys, he remarked that he was waiting while his car was undergoing some repairs at the garage. A conversation concerning automobiles was the most natural result imaginable. Put two or more motor enthusiasts together and invariably they will soon be talking.
The newcomer was from Texas, he said, touring through to New York. His brother was with him but had remained at the garage. The substance of the Auto Boys’ story was told the stranger as the conversation progressed.
“Look here,” said the young man in his flippant, breezy fashion, “you fellows are too easy by half. You’ve let that garage keeper and his friend, the town policeman, pull you all around. The garage man—Creek, you call him—sendsyou on a wild goose chase here and there. The village cop steers you off with no help worth speaking of. Seems mighty suspicious, don’t it? I just might mention that there was a garage in a town near us that made a business of changing over stolen cars. Would switch ’em all around, in an old barn behind their shop, change wheel sizes, change engines, fix ’em up so no man could tell his own car if he saw it. Then they slipped ’em off to the big cities and sold ’em. Now, right there, you’ve got a real tip, you take it from me!”
It is the meanest kind of wickedness to direct suspicion against any person without good cause. Also it is criminal. Paul Jones and Billy Worth realized this. Yet was it not true, as the stranger said, that Willie Creek and Chief Fobes were great friends? And had not Mr. Creek more than once suggested that it would be much cheaper for the boys to take a train home and conduct their search from there, paying no hotel bills while awaiting developments?
“I’ve always thought Willie was our friend,” muttered Worth when he and Paul were alone again, “and I shall think so; but one thing is sure, we’ve got to keep our eyes open.”
Mr. P. Jones, Esquire, as Paul sometimes referred to himself, was of the same opinion. Also he added: “It looked mighty funny to me the way old Fobes paid so little attention when Scottie was shot. Willie Creek didn’t seem to mind it, either, so much as I’d think he would.”
Oh, it is a sad, bad business to sow seeds of suspicion! It is but all too likely they will grow! Always there is something which seems to confirm the suspicious thought. And yet, on the other hand, it must be admitted that dishonesty and falsehood are not infrequently concealed by an appearance of friendliness on part of those who practice them.
And now, whether Willie Creek was a true friend or a false friend, we soon shall see for another night has passed and another day has come—a day to test the endurance and the courage of the Auto Boys almost to the breakingpoint. And even while Phil and Dave were making themselves known in the Automobile club of Syracuse, Billy and Paul were planning a careful inspection of Mr. Creek’s garage and its surroundings, as they sat at breakfast.
CHAPTER VIA LITTLE KINDNESS AND WHAT CAME OF ITPauland Billy received letters from home in the morning mail. They were glad to have them,—would have been sorry indeed had their respective households neglected for one day to send solicitous inquiries—but they were so very “busy,” they assured themselves, that—well, if they could just get the time, they’d write in return that afternoon. Whereupon they set forth for Willie Creek’s establishment.Mr. Creek was looking over a newspaper. He said he was waiting for a possible customer for a car whom he was to take out for a demonstration.The boys said they were going to take the Torpedo out for a little good fresh air. Mr. Creek said, “Sure! She’s your car, so far as Ican see, though you are out some on the trade you made.” This with a friendly smile.“We’ll just drive back when Willie has had time to get away and we will look his place over. Not that I think we will find anything, but—” Billy paused.“Dandy good scheme,” Paul assented. “That boy of his—we don’t need mind him at all.”“Better not go far. Let’s just wait at the hotel,” Worth suggested. They halted the Torpedo in front of the American House accordingly.From their favorite chairs at the large, screened windows the two lads watched the occasional passerby, also the clock.“He’ll be miles away by this time. We better hike over to the garage,” proposed Paul when half an hour had passed.“Well,sir!” exclaimed Billy, at the same moment. “There’s Mr. Peek. Let’s say how do you do!”Even as he was speaking, Worth hastened outto the sidewalk. The old gentleman, the tragic story of whose life was written in his stooping figure and melancholy face, recognized the boy at once. He was pleased to be so cordially greeted.“It’s the first time I’ve been to town for ’most a year,” said he, as he also shook hands with Paul. “I don’t seem to know any of the young folks, any more, and not many of the older ones I meet.”As Mr. Peek said he was just starting for home and that he was on foot, Billy spoke up: “Our car’s right here. We will take you home, Mr. Peek.”“We have something on hand, you know. Shall we let it go?” Paul whispered.Worth nodded and the visible pleasure of the aged farmer as he climbed awkwardly up to a front seat could not but give his young friends pleasure also.“You must have been up pretty early if you walked to town this morning,” observed Worth to the old gentleman at his side.“Y-a-a-a-s,” Mr. Peek replied, drawing the word out to great length, as if he were really thinking of something else. And after a long pause he said, “Did I tell you t’other day about someone bein’ around my house in the night?”Yes, he had told them, the boys answered, and he went on: “It has fretted me every day. An’ last evenin’ I got to feelin’ so down in the mouth and glum I just concluded I’d get some cartridges for my old rifle. It’d make me feel safer to know I had a loaded gun right handy. So I went to town first thing this mornin’. I might ’a’ drove, but my old horse is ’bout the same as I be,—almost ready to say good-bye.”Mr. Peek was lost for a time in his own meditations. The Torpedo whirred along at an easy speed and he seemed to enjoy greatly the pleasant motion of the car and gentle sweep of the wind. “’Tain’t much like water power, is it?” he remarked, as if he had been contrasting in his mind the machinery and appliances ofhisyoung manhood with the automobiles and electric motors of the presentday. “I suspect you boys never saw a water wheel,” he said musingly.No, they had not, said Billy, and in answer to a question whether they would like to see one, both he and Paul were quite sure they would.The car was rumbling along the lonely South Fork now. The old mill, the gray, old house of the miller, empty and cheerless, the pond and the icehouse were but a little way forward.“If you’d like to stop at the mill, I’ll show you a water wheel,” said Mr. Peek. “And it’d have been runnin’ yet, but—” Not finishing this sentence, the possible conclusion of which the boys could easily guess, the old gentleman after a little hesitation continued: “I can’t get around like I used to and not as much as I ought to. I ain’t been in the mill for nigh onto two years.”Billy halted the car before the weather-worn buildings. He glanced toward Paul as if he felt some misgiving in entering the ruins of the once busy place in company with the ruin of him whose wrecked hopes were responsible forall the gloom and decay in this otherwise charming valley.But if Jones was in any degree apprehensive, he did not show it. Truly, too, it was interesting and surely there was nothing to fear, unless it were from loose or rotting boards beneath their feet. Mr. Peek explained briefly the operation of the long-silent water wheel. There was a choke in his voice, and in one way the lads felt relief when they all were in the outer air again.“It wa’n’t a right convenient place to have a mill, but we had to take our work to where our power was. Couldn’t hitch power up an’ make it carry us anywhere, in my time, as you do with your automobile,” observed Mr. Peek.Paul said he would like to take a walk around the old pond. Billy said, “Yes, let’s do it, if Mr. Peek doesn’t care.”“Just do whatever pleases ye,” said the old gentleman kindly. “I’ll sit here on the old platform a spell.” So he seated himself at the entrance where, in the long ago, grain for themill was unloaded and the two boys sauntered along the one-time race.They strolled partly around the pond, speaking of the chances of good fishing and the probable depth of the water, and wondering that the ancient dam had not given way long ago. They drew near and walked alongside of the icehouse between the building and the water.They saw the black, decaying sawdust oozing from cracks where the siding had decayed. They passed around to the east side where were the great doors, still hanging loosely on rusty hinges. The lowest one was but a few feet above the ground. It was unlatched and stood ajar an inch or two.“Let’s look in,” Billy suggested.A runway of heavy planks, seamy and gray, built wide enough to have driven a team of horses upon, led up to the lowest door. The two boys walked easily up the incline. They drew the great door open a foot or two. The place seemed very dark after the bright sunlight without. The dead, heavy odor of thesawdust slowly being consumed by damp rot below and by dry rot higher up, was strong to their nostrils.“If there’s such a thing as spooks, they’d like to live here, I’ll bet,” said Paul Jones.The dense gloom within was slowly giving way to a heavy, blue-black light as the boys’ eyes became accustomed to the dark interior. They saw that the sawdust filled the lower part of the building up to within a few inches of the incline they stood upon, so they stepped down upon it, and to give more light as they casually looked about, Paul pushed the great door wide open.And there before the astonished eyes of the two young gentlemen stood an automobile—the Big Six of the Auto Boys, apparently sound and whole.“Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!” screamed Paul Jones in the most extravagant delight imaginable. “What d’yeknowabout it? What d’yeknowabout it? What d’ye KNOW about it?” he cried, adding emphasis each time.But if Mr. Billy Worth was answering the question, his manner of imparting information was somewhat strange, to say the least. For after his first astonished, “What in the world!” he simply seized a rear fender, as if the car might take fright and escape immediately, and there he stood, saying: “Oh, my! I’m so glad! Oh, I am thankful for this day!” For while Paul’s emotion found vent in an ecstacy of joy Billy, really more deeply moved, scarcely knew what he did or said. The prayer of thanksgiving in his heart was very earnest and sincere—so much of both that words entirely failed to give his feelings expression.The first sharp edge of their surprise, excitement and delight was gone in a minute or two and the boys began a rapid inspection of the Six and its contents. Even as they did so Mr. Peek, attracted by Paul’s delighted yells, came slowly up the incline. His surprise was very manifest, though of a decidedly less demonstrative character than Paul’s, for instance.While Worth and Jones inspected the car,Mr. Peek was making a study of the manner in which the machine had been gotten down from the road and into the icehouse.“Except for being so muddy inside as well as outside, she’s just as we left her,” announced Billy Worth presently. At the same instant Paul, who had been looking at the engine, switched on the spark, touched the starter, and lo! the motor hummed as sweetly and powerfully as anyone could possibly desire.“But how in time did they put it in here and who in thunder done it?”—Jones was apt to lose accuracy and gain a certain inelegance in his speech as his force of expression increased.As if answering Paul’s question, Mr. Peek called from outside: “Sure enough, they knew the place!” And he pointed out to the two boys as they ran out to him how the automobile had been brought down the steep bank from the road above by means of heavy planks. There were four of the thick, unplaned boards.“How’d they ever get here, do you suppose?” asked Mr. Peek. “For more’n twentyyear, I tell ye, them plank has laid in a pile way over on yon side of the hill. Somebody must ’a’ knowed where to lay hands on ’em.”“Do you mean that somebody must have expected to steal our car and brought the boards to be ready?” asked Billy.“Not exactly that,” said Mr. Peek, “but them plank was carried way down here for the purpose. No stranger would ’a’ known where to look for ’em.”Instantly Billy remembered that Alfred Earnest and Alex Hipp were familiar with all this neighborhood. He started to speak but a quick second thought bade him refrain.“Gosh! We’ve got the car and we’re mighty glad of the planks to help her up to the road again!” cried Paul. He did not grasp the significance of Mr. Peek’s words as Billy did. “We’re going to take her right to Griffin, ain’t we? We’ll telegraph Phil and Dave in a hurry if we can only find where they’re at.”It was agreed that the Big Six should be gotten out of the old icehouse and in readinessto go to Griffin, even before Mr. Peek had been taken home. The old gentleman was eager to help, but his services were hardly needed. With the same heavy boards the thieves had used, a runway was made out from the sawdust to the outside incline. Carefully the machine was backed up. All went well and in three minutes the mud-stained but still handsome automobile stood in the sunshine again.By a similar process the planks bridged the way up the steep embankment of the road, running directly over the low rail fence. The ascent was steep but with a quick start Billy made the upward run nicely. The machine’s long body swung prettily around at the top, once more on the open highway.Finding his services were of no value in the moving of the car, Mr. Peek had been making further search inside and outside the icehouse. Now Billy and Paul joined him. But all their eager scrutiny was without reward. No sign was discovered which might show who had stolen the Big Six or what the purpose of thethieves may have been in concealing the car where it was found.“This little trip has done me a world of good. I do believe I could be right spry again if I had some spry young fellows to help me get started, as you have done,” said Mr. Peek. The boys were just leaving him at his home. “It’s a pretty mysterious business about them planks,” he remarked a moment later. “Don’t you let that automobile out o’ your hands again.”There was little danger that the boys would do so, it is needless to say. Paul had driven the large car right behind Billy and Mr. Peek in the Torpedo, and similarly, each driving a machine, they returned triumphantly to Griffin and to Willie Creek’s garage.To say that Mr. Creek was surprised would be but a part of the truth. He was literally dumfounded. The story of where and how the stolen car was found seemed to surprise him still more.“Better hike over to the American prettyquick,” said he a little later. “There’s a telegram for you.”So did Billy and Paul receive the message from Phil and Dave.“Who cares for that Torpedo thing? We’ve got theSix,” said Jones, reading the telegram over Worth’s shoulder.“We’ll wire ’em! Wow! but won’t they be some surprised?” Billy returned. And forthwith the two rushed to the telegraph office.“We have found her. Pretty muddy inside but not hurt.”And such was the message received by Way and MacLester in Syracuse.
CHAPTER VI
A LITTLE KINDNESS AND WHAT CAME OF IT
Pauland Billy received letters from home in the morning mail. They were glad to have them,—would have been sorry indeed had their respective households neglected for one day to send solicitous inquiries—but they were so very “busy,” they assured themselves, that—well, if they could just get the time, they’d write in return that afternoon. Whereupon they set forth for Willie Creek’s establishment.
Mr. Creek was looking over a newspaper. He said he was waiting for a possible customer for a car whom he was to take out for a demonstration.
The boys said they were going to take the Torpedo out for a little good fresh air. Mr. Creek said, “Sure! She’s your car, so far as Ican see, though you are out some on the trade you made.” This with a friendly smile.
“We’ll just drive back when Willie has had time to get away and we will look his place over. Not that I think we will find anything, but—” Billy paused.
“Dandy good scheme,” Paul assented. “That boy of his—we don’t need mind him at all.”
“Better not go far. Let’s just wait at the hotel,” Worth suggested. They halted the Torpedo in front of the American House accordingly.
From their favorite chairs at the large, screened windows the two lads watched the occasional passerby, also the clock.
“He’ll be miles away by this time. We better hike over to the garage,” proposed Paul when half an hour had passed.
“Well,sir!” exclaimed Billy, at the same moment. “There’s Mr. Peek. Let’s say how do you do!”
Even as he was speaking, Worth hastened outto the sidewalk. The old gentleman, the tragic story of whose life was written in his stooping figure and melancholy face, recognized the boy at once. He was pleased to be so cordially greeted.
“It’s the first time I’ve been to town for ’most a year,” said he, as he also shook hands with Paul. “I don’t seem to know any of the young folks, any more, and not many of the older ones I meet.”
As Mr. Peek said he was just starting for home and that he was on foot, Billy spoke up: “Our car’s right here. We will take you home, Mr. Peek.”
“We have something on hand, you know. Shall we let it go?” Paul whispered.
Worth nodded and the visible pleasure of the aged farmer as he climbed awkwardly up to a front seat could not but give his young friends pleasure also.
“You must have been up pretty early if you walked to town this morning,” observed Worth to the old gentleman at his side.
“Y-a-a-a-s,” Mr. Peek replied, drawing the word out to great length, as if he were really thinking of something else. And after a long pause he said, “Did I tell you t’other day about someone bein’ around my house in the night?”
Yes, he had told them, the boys answered, and he went on: “It has fretted me every day. An’ last evenin’ I got to feelin’ so down in the mouth and glum I just concluded I’d get some cartridges for my old rifle. It’d make me feel safer to know I had a loaded gun right handy. So I went to town first thing this mornin’. I might ’a’ drove, but my old horse is ’bout the same as I be,—almost ready to say good-bye.”
Mr. Peek was lost for a time in his own meditations. The Torpedo whirred along at an easy speed and he seemed to enjoy greatly the pleasant motion of the car and gentle sweep of the wind. “’Tain’t much like water power, is it?” he remarked, as if he had been contrasting in his mind the machinery and appliances ofhisyoung manhood with the automobiles and electric motors of the presentday. “I suspect you boys never saw a water wheel,” he said musingly.
No, they had not, said Billy, and in answer to a question whether they would like to see one, both he and Paul were quite sure they would.
The car was rumbling along the lonely South Fork now. The old mill, the gray, old house of the miller, empty and cheerless, the pond and the icehouse were but a little way forward.
“If you’d like to stop at the mill, I’ll show you a water wheel,” said Mr. Peek. “And it’d have been runnin’ yet, but—” Not finishing this sentence, the possible conclusion of which the boys could easily guess, the old gentleman after a little hesitation continued: “I can’t get around like I used to and not as much as I ought to. I ain’t been in the mill for nigh onto two years.”
Billy halted the car before the weather-worn buildings. He glanced toward Paul as if he felt some misgiving in entering the ruins of the once busy place in company with the ruin of him whose wrecked hopes were responsible forall the gloom and decay in this otherwise charming valley.
But if Jones was in any degree apprehensive, he did not show it. Truly, too, it was interesting and surely there was nothing to fear, unless it were from loose or rotting boards beneath their feet. Mr. Peek explained briefly the operation of the long-silent water wheel. There was a choke in his voice, and in one way the lads felt relief when they all were in the outer air again.
“It wa’n’t a right convenient place to have a mill, but we had to take our work to where our power was. Couldn’t hitch power up an’ make it carry us anywhere, in my time, as you do with your automobile,” observed Mr. Peek.
Paul said he would like to take a walk around the old pond. Billy said, “Yes, let’s do it, if Mr. Peek doesn’t care.”
“Just do whatever pleases ye,” said the old gentleman kindly. “I’ll sit here on the old platform a spell.” So he seated himself at the entrance where, in the long ago, grain for themill was unloaded and the two boys sauntered along the one-time race.
They strolled partly around the pond, speaking of the chances of good fishing and the probable depth of the water, and wondering that the ancient dam had not given way long ago. They drew near and walked alongside of the icehouse between the building and the water.
They saw the black, decaying sawdust oozing from cracks where the siding had decayed. They passed around to the east side where were the great doors, still hanging loosely on rusty hinges. The lowest one was but a few feet above the ground. It was unlatched and stood ajar an inch or two.
“Let’s look in,” Billy suggested.
A runway of heavy planks, seamy and gray, built wide enough to have driven a team of horses upon, led up to the lowest door. The two boys walked easily up the incline. They drew the great door open a foot or two. The place seemed very dark after the bright sunlight without. The dead, heavy odor of thesawdust slowly being consumed by damp rot below and by dry rot higher up, was strong to their nostrils.
“If there’s such a thing as spooks, they’d like to live here, I’ll bet,” said Paul Jones.
The dense gloom within was slowly giving way to a heavy, blue-black light as the boys’ eyes became accustomed to the dark interior. They saw that the sawdust filled the lower part of the building up to within a few inches of the incline they stood upon, so they stepped down upon it, and to give more light as they casually looked about, Paul pushed the great door wide open.
And there before the astonished eyes of the two young gentlemen stood an automobile—the Big Six of the Auto Boys, apparently sound and whole.
“Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!” screamed Paul Jones in the most extravagant delight imaginable. “What d’yeknowabout it? What d’yeknowabout it? What d’ye KNOW about it?” he cried, adding emphasis each time.
But if Mr. Billy Worth was answering the question, his manner of imparting information was somewhat strange, to say the least. For after his first astonished, “What in the world!” he simply seized a rear fender, as if the car might take fright and escape immediately, and there he stood, saying: “Oh, my! I’m so glad! Oh, I am thankful for this day!” For while Paul’s emotion found vent in an ecstacy of joy Billy, really more deeply moved, scarcely knew what he did or said. The prayer of thanksgiving in his heart was very earnest and sincere—so much of both that words entirely failed to give his feelings expression.
The first sharp edge of their surprise, excitement and delight was gone in a minute or two and the boys began a rapid inspection of the Six and its contents. Even as they did so Mr. Peek, attracted by Paul’s delighted yells, came slowly up the incline. His surprise was very manifest, though of a decidedly less demonstrative character than Paul’s, for instance.
While Worth and Jones inspected the car,Mr. Peek was making a study of the manner in which the machine had been gotten down from the road and into the icehouse.
“Except for being so muddy inside as well as outside, she’s just as we left her,” announced Billy Worth presently. At the same instant Paul, who had been looking at the engine, switched on the spark, touched the starter, and lo! the motor hummed as sweetly and powerfully as anyone could possibly desire.
“But how in time did they put it in here and who in thunder done it?”—Jones was apt to lose accuracy and gain a certain inelegance in his speech as his force of expression increased.
As if answering Paul’s question, Mr. Peek called from outside: “Sure enough, they knew the place!” And he pointed out to the two boys as they ran out to him how the automobile had been brought down the steep bank from the road above by means of heavy planks. There were four of the thick, unplaned boards.
“How’d they ever get here, do you suppose?” asked Mr. Peek. “For more’n twentyyear, I tell ye, them plank has laid in a pile way over on yon side of the hill. Somebody must ’a’ knowed where to lay hands on ’em.”
“Do you mean that somebody must have expected to steal our car and brought the boards to be ready?” asked Billy.
“Not exactly that,” said Mr. Peek, “but them plank was carried way down here for the purpose. No stranger would ’a’ known where to look for ’em.”
Instantly Billy remembered that Alfred Earnest and Alex Hipp were familiar with all this neighborhood. He started to speak but a quick second thought bade him refrain.
“Gosh! We’ve got the car and we’re mighty glad of the planks to help her up to the road again!” cried Paul. He did not grasp the significance of Mr. Peek’s words as Billy did. “We’re going to take her right to Griffin, ain’t we? We’ll telegraph Phil and Dave in a hurry if we can only find where they’re at.”
It was agreed that the Big Six should be gotten out of the old icehouse and in readinessto go to Griffin, even before Mr. Peek had been taken home. The old gentleman was eager to help, but his services were hardly needed. With the same heavy boards the thieves had used, a runway was made out from the sawdust to the outside incline. Carefully the machine was backed up. All went well and in three minutes the mud-stained but still handsome automobile stood in the sunshine again.
By a similar process the planks bridged the way up the steep embankment of the road, running directly over the low rail fence. The ascent was steep but with a quick start Billy made the upward run nicely. The machine’s long body swung prettily around at the top, once more on the open highway.
Finding his services were of no value in the moving of the car, Mr. Peek had been making further search inside and outside the icehouse. Now Billy and Paul joined him. But all their eager scrutiny was without reward. No sign was discovered which might show who had stolen the Big Six or what the purpose of thethieves may have been in concealing the car where it was found.
“This little trip has done me a world of good. I do believe I could be right spry again if I had some spry young fellows to help me get started, as you have done,” said Mr. Peek. The boys were just leaving him at his home. “It’s a pretty mysterious business about them planks,” he remarked a moment later. “Don’t you let that automobile out o’ your hands again.”
There was little danger that the boys would do so, it is needless to say. Paul had driven the large car right behind Billy and Mr. Peek in the Torpedo, and similarly, each driving a machine, they returned triumphantly to Griffin and to Willie Creek’s garage.
To say that Mr. Creek was surprised would be but a part of the truth. He was literally dumfounded. The story of where and how the stolen car was found seemed to surprise him still more.
“Better hike over to the American prettyquick,” said he a little later. “There’s a telegram for you.”
So did Billy and Paul receive the message from Phil and Dave.
“Who cares for that Torpedo thing? We’ve got theSix,” said Jones, reading the telegram over Worth’s shoulder.
“We’ll wire ’em! Wow! but won’t they be some surprised?” Billy returned. And forthwith the two rushed to the telegraph office.
“We have found her. Pretty muddy inside but not hurt.”
“We have found her. Pretty muddy inside but not hurt.”
And such was the message received by Way and MacLester in Syracuse.
CHAPTER VIIA SWIFT RIDE THROUGH THE DARKNESSWithwhat glorious good feeling Paul and Billy sat down to their late dinner at the American House! Paul was a little ashamed of the slighting remarks he had lately made about the hotel fare. He said as much.“Gee! I should think you would be, to see you diving into it all right now!” Billy laughed. Ah, what a difference inhisspirits, also, the recovery of the car had made!It seems strange to me that, considering the imperative nature of the telegram from Phil and Dave, Worth and Jones were not more deeply impressed by it. No doubt the finding of their own car had made them quite indifferent to all else. At any rate, they hardly more than mentioned the message from Syracuse,when they met Mr. Creek at his garage in the afternoon. Thither they had gone, eager to give the Six such a gentle but thorough washing and oiling, and the brass such a complete polishing, as they felt no one else to be capable of doing.The work progressed most favorably. By supper time the beloved machine stood dry, clean and shining. A truly beautiful car, it never looked more lovely to Paul and to Billy than at this moment, with the sinking sun lighting up its radiance through the big front window of Creek’s garage. The Torpedo, though a first-class car, appeared dingy and commonplace beside it.After bathing and dressing in clean, dry clothes, following their labors, the two boys were passing through the hotel office toward the dining-room. Mr. Wagg stopped them.“’Nother telegram,” said he, peering over his glasses, as usual. “You two are getting to be about the most important citizens of this village.”Eagerly the yellow envelope was opened. “Yours received. Hurrah. Meet us with car eleven o’clock train. Phil.”“Hully gee! I’ll betthey’reglad!” chirped Paul. But had he known all that Dave and Phil now knew, he would have been even more elated and excited than he was.After supper the boys stepped around to the garage. Willie Creek had just left in his own car for Port Greeley, said his boy of all work, half asleep on the cot in the office. “Somebody telephoned him he could sell a car, if he could get over there and give a demonstration right off,” the lad explained. “He won’t be home till toward mornin’, maybe.”“We were only going for a ride, anyway,” said Billy.The facts were that he and Paul had decided to drive out to see Alfred Earnest and his friend Hipp. They believed they could tell from the manner of these young gentlemen whether they had not known all along where the Six was hidden.“For an entire stranger would never have found those planksaway over beyond that hill,” declared Worth with confident emphasis.If Earnest or Hipp had had any knowledge of the stealing of the Auto Boys’ car, however, they concealed the fact amazingly well. They appeared most hearty in their congratulations upon the machine’s recovery, as Billy and Paul told the story to them and to Rev. and Mrs. Earnest at the latter’s home. Later the cordial young minister and his wife were taken for a ten-mile spin. Then Mrs. Earnest insisted that all the boys come in for a little lunch. Worth and Jones had abundant time at their disposal as they must remain up to meet Phil and Dave, and cordially accepted the invitation. It was just after ten o’clock when they at last drove back to Griffin and to the American House, there to wait until train time.“Hello, here! Fobes has been looking for you boys high and low!” said Mr. Wagg, severely, hastening out to meet them. “Thatman he has had in the lockup has escaped. Sawed the bars of a cell and went out through a corridor window. It is bad luck, I’m afraid. Fobes says the man made an offer to tell you where your car was if you’d pass some saws in to him.”“But I neverdidit!” cried Billy Worth, indignantly. Quickly he had seen the likelihood that suspicion might point toward him in the remarkable coincidence that, directly the stolen car was found, Coster had been enabled to break jail.The hotel telephone rang long and loudly. The very tone of haste and impatience was in its harsh clang and clamor.“Well!” shouted Mr. Wagg, answering, and his voice was neither soft nor pleasant. Then in milder tones, “You’re wanted, Worth.”Billy stepped to the phone. “No, certainly not,” Paul heard him say. And then, “It can’t be!” A pause, then further, “Oh, that’s awful! We’ll be over there right off!”With frightened, staring eyes Worth turned to Paul. “The Torpedo is gone,” he said.Grievous anxiety and alarm filled the hearts of the two boys. Quickly they drove the Six to Creek’s garage. Chief Fobes and the youth who assisted in the establishment both ran out as the car stopped at the door.It had been long since anyone had seen Mr. Fobes so wide awake, and so keen to do his duty as he was now. He was frightened, too, lest his prisoner’s escape might cost him his position. And he was so perplexed and so confused by his excitement that, as he mentioned suspiciously the circumstance that Coster “got his saws and you fellows got your car,” Worth really feared the officer would be for clapping him into jail immediately.The Torpedo was as completely missing as if it had never been. Creek’s boy had not the shadow of an idea concerning the machine. He knew only that he fell asleep in the office and was awakened by someone who wanted gasoline. Not until this customer was gone did he discoverthe absence of the Torpedo. He at once telephoned to the hotel, thinking Worth or Jones had taken the car out, perhaps.“Don’t let Torpedo leave Creek’s garage for any purpose.” This sentence in Phil’s telegram rang in Billy’s ears. What did it all mean? He looked at his watch. Ten-forty. Way and MacLester would arrive at eleven, he thought. Then, “Have you telephoned Port Greeley and other places to be on the lookout for Coster and the car?” The question was addressed to Fobes, pacing excitedly about, accomplishing nothing.No, he had had no time, the policeman answered. Coster’s escape was not discovered until long after nine. There had been scarcely a chance to turn around before the theft of the Torpedo was also reported.“You better be telephoning, perhaps,” Worth suggested. “We will meet that eleven o’clock train and, with the car to go in, maybe we can all help you some.”* * * * *Phil Way’s eyes glistened and he smiled witha delight so inexpressible he made no effort to put his thoughts into words. He had just read the telegram from Billy and Paul, handed him at the Syracuse Automobile club’s downtown quarters.“Can it be true?” asked Dave in wonder. “Why don’t they—where was the car and—”“Course it’s true!” cried Phil joyously. “But I do think they might have spent four or six cents more to tell us something about it. They kept right down to ten words all right!”MacLester was for starting to Griffin at once. “But we can’t,” Way remonstrated. “We’ve got to stay by Mr. Rack and don’t you remember—half that reward?”However, the two boys did hurry away immediately to Mr. Bob Rack’s office. He was out. The stenographer said he would return soon and the lads waited.Detective Rack appeared greatly pleased with the telegram from Billy and Paul. “A little more information might have helped us; still, perhaps, we do not need it,” said he. “We willall go to Griffin this evening. Would you wire your friends there to meet us at—” he paused and glanced into a book of time-tables—“to meet us at the train due there at eleven o’clock?”With so much to occupy their thoughts and tongues, Dave and Phil found train time and their meeting with the detective at the station at hand without one dull minute having passed. And though they had discussed the evident ability and the possible plans of Robert Rack from all angles, they were no nearer a conclusion as to what he meant to do than they were to guessing how Jones and Worth had recovered the Big Six—a question they were pleasantly impatient to have answered.Not by word or look did Bob Rack reveal one whit of what he had found during the day to the pair of his youthful admirers, who had a seat opposite him, while the train bore rapidly on toward Griffin. When he talked about the case at all it was only to ask a few questions—some of them far removed from the problemin hand, the boys thought. For instance when he desired to know whether there was plenty of lighting gas in the tank of the Torpedo, both were puzzled, though they answered that there was.“We were extremely fortunate in getting away to-night. Every hour counts now,” said Mr. Rack, “but as I have some papers to look over I’ll get at them.”Swiftly through the summer night the train sped on. The detective seemed to be occupied with nothing more important than some road maps, but his companions did not venture to interrupt him and in their own conversation spoke in low tones. The distance seemed very great, somehow, to the impatient boys. But at last——“Here we are!” said Robert Rack, even before Phil or Dave were aware of it, and a moment later the lights of Griffin came into view.I shall not undertake to tell in detail of the conflicting emotions with which Billy and Paul greeted their friends and with which they all,Mr. Rack included, gathered beside the Big Six while Worth quickly told of the escape of Coster and the Torpedo’s disappearance.“A little faster than I expected,” mused the detective, in that same easy, gentle tone. Apparentlyhewas no more disturbed than if Billy had said it looked like rain, which, in fact, was the case.“But this man in jail—wedidn’t tell you anything about him, Mr. Rack. We didn’t know it ourselves,” Phil spoke up anxiously. For it will be remembered that Chief Fobes’ prisoner had not appeared in the situation at all at the time Way and MacLester left Griffin. “Or did you know without ourtellingyou?” Phil added, his own mind in a whirl of confused thoughts.“Oh, I have not been idle to-day,” smiled Detective Bob. Then more seriously, but still in his affable, pleasing way, quite as though he were planning a little outing, he continued, “Now I’ll need some help. The best driver take the wheel. I’ll sit beside him. The rest of you ride behind and if I may ask so much,no one will leave the car except as I may request it.”Immediately Phil nodded to Dave to take the driver’s place. In an instant Bob Rack was in the seat beside him, the others in the tonneau.“Just as fast as is consistent with a reasonable degree of safety now,” Mr. Rack said, placidly. “First, to Creek’s garage.”The Big Six moved swiftly away, throwing always a flood of light ahead, its gleaming oil lamps seeming to be but a streak of white to those who watched it pass.In a minute’s time the detective apparently had seen all he wished to see at the small garage. While he looked the place over Way, at his request, was locating Chief Fobes by phone. The policeman came from the hotel on the run when told that Mr. Bob Rack wanted him. For perhaps five minutes he and the detective talked in Willie Creek’s office.“That fellow Coster got out about nine o’clock. He must have got off with the Torpedo about half-past nine. About a two hours’ startof us,” said Billy Worth to his friends in the tonneau. There was no doubt in his mind, whatever, that the jail-bird had flown in the stolen machine.“Funny that the only thing Mr. Rack ’specially noticed in all we could tell him, Bill, was about the planks that had been carried from over the hill to run the Six down the bank on,” observed Paul Jones, thoughtfully.“Looks a lot like Hipp and Earnest, so far as the hiding of our car goes, Mack,” Billy added to Paul’s idea, for Dave was an interested listener.“In with you! Speed now, David, if there’s such a thing!” This from Detective Bob, the first words to Phil standing beside the car, the second order to MacLester at the wheel. And as the Six instantly responded,—“Out to the right-hand fork, and not a minute to lose!” he said.There was unmistakable authority and command in his manner. One could have thought of nothing but instant obedience. Yet from hissmile and gentle tone it seemed that he might have said, “I declare, it’s a very pleasant evening.”Their hearts beating hard with the excitement of adventure and the rapid ride, the Auto Boys vainly speculated, each in his own thoughts, upon the unknown plans and intentions of the detective.“Turn right! We’re doing famously, but—” Without a sign of question, or any movement save a quick, short nod to say that he heard, MacLester obeyed Bob Rack’s order. Like a flying specter, the Big Six shot down the little grade where the lonely Right Fork branched off, and on and on.Not a word was spoken. Scurrying masses of cloud swept the sky above and only at intervals did rifts appear where the moon shone through, relieving for the moment the heavy darkness. Over to the south and back to the west the inky clouds were rolling up like wind-tossed mountains. Flashes of lightning came more and more often, and after each thethunder crashed or rumbled in the distance. The lonely woodlands, and the wildness of the unused, brush-grown fields were almost terrifying as each sharp and sudden glare fell for an instant on them.All within a second the flying car drew near and passed the darker shadows that marked the miller’s grim old house, the mill, the pond, the icehouse. Over the bridge and up the grade—a stretch of level road, then down the slope to the swampy spot where the Six was ditched that other time, then up again and on!“Stop here, David.” Always that same easy, gentle tone, but Mack obeyed the order instantly.“You know this road. Could you go forward without lights?” And without waiting for an answer, “Will you put them out, Way?”Every light was extinguished. The car stood in total darkness, but stood for a second only. “Just as quietly as you can,” requested Mr. Rack, as MacLester slipped the clutch to place again.“Now,” said the detective, “I am going to tell you that this may be a wild goose chase, though I think not. I don’t believe any of you will need leave the car, but, Phil, you take this revolver. If you hear me shout, ‘close in,’ come to me instantly. The rest of you stand ready for any instructions that may be necessary.”Almost noiselessly the big machine purred forward, more slowly now but still at good speed. In wonder and excitement the Auto Boys sat silent as the darkness round them. And whiletheywere at tension that strained every nerve, the calm tranquillity of Mr. Bob Rack was, by contrast, the more amazing.“I suppose,” said he, softly, quite as if he might have been gently musing before a pleasant fireplace in the quiet of home, “I suppose the truest words ever put in verse are those which say——“‘Truth crushed to earth will rise again.“But error, wounded, writhes in pain“And dies amidst her worshipers.’“And there,” he said as if he were but speaking to himself, “there is the whole ground work, the unfailing foundation that we must work upon, whether we are detectives or doctors or anything else. There is no such thing as successful deception. This case is an excellent illustration, and I must tell you about it later. It is an old, old error, a monstrous lie that has reached its end to-night, I firmly believe.”
CHAPTER VII
A SWIFT RIDE THROUGH THE DARKNESS
Withwhat glorious good feeling Paul and Billy sat down to their late dinner at the American House! Paul was a little ashamed of the slighting remarks he had lately made about the hotel fare. He said as much.
“Gee! I should think you would be, to see you diving into it all right now!” Billy laughed. Ah, what a difference inhisspirits, also, the recovery of the car had made!
It seems strange to me that, considering the imperative nature of the telegram from Phil and Dave, Worth and Jones were not more deeply impressed by it. No doubt the finding of their own car had made them quite indifferent to all else. At any rate, they hardly more than mentioned the message from Syracuse,when they met Mr. Creek at his garage in the afternoon. Thither they had gone, eager to give the Six such a gentle but thorough washing and oiling, and the brass such a complete polishing, as they felt no one else to be capable of doing.
The work progressed most favorably. By supper time the beloved machine stood dry, clean and shining. A truly beautiful car, it never looked more lovely to Paul and to Billy than at this moment, with the sinking sun lighting up its radiance through the big front window of Creek’s garage. The Torpedo, though a first-class car, appeared dingy and commonplace beside it.
After bathing and dressing in clean, dry clothes, following their labors, the two boys were passing through the hotel office toward the dining-room. Mr. Wagg stopped them.
“’Nother telegram,” said he, peering over his glasses, as usual. “You two are getting to be about the most important citizens of this village.”
Eagerly the yellow envelope was opened. “Yours received. Hurrah. Meet us with car eleven o’clock train. Phil.”
“Hully gee! I’ll betthey’reglad!” chirped Paul. But had he known all that Dave and Phil now knew, he would have been even more elated and excited than he was.
After supper the boys stepped around to the garage. Willie Creek had just left in his own car for Port Greeley, said his boy of all work, half asleep on the cot in the office. “Somebody telephoned him he could sell a car, if he could get over there and give a demonstration right off,” the lad explained. “He won’t be home till toward mornin’, maybe.”
“We were only going for a ride, anyway,” said Billy.
The facts were that he and Paul had decided to drive out to see Alfred Earnest and his friend Hipp. They believed they could tell from the manner of these young gentlemen whether they had not known all along where the Six was hidden.
“For an entire stranger would never have found those planksaway over beyond that hill,” declared Worth with confident emphasis.
If Earnest or Hipp had had any knowledge of the stealing of the Auto Boys’ car, however, they concealed the fact amazingly well. They appeared most hearty in their congratulations upon the machine’s recovery, as Billy and Paul told the story to them and to Rev. and Mrs. Earnest at the latter’s home. Later the cordial young minister and his wife were taken for a ten-mile spin. Then Mrs. Earnest insisted that all the boys come in for a little lunch. Worth and Jones had abundant time at their disposal as they must remain up to meet Phil and Dave, and cordially accepted the invitation. It was just after ten o’clock when they at last drove back to Griffin and to the American House, there to wait until train time.
“Hello, here! Fobes has been looking for you boys high and low!” said Mr. Wagg, severely, hastening out to meet them. “Thatman he has had in the lockup has escaped. Sawed the bars of a cell and went out through a corridor window. It is bad luck, I’m afraid. Fobes says the man made an offer to tell you where your car was if you’d pass some saws in to him.”
“But I neverdidit!” cried Billy Worth, indignantly. Quickly he had seen the likelihood that suspicion might point toward him in the remarkable coincidence that, directly the stolen car was found, Coster had been enabled to break jail.
The hotel telephone rang long and loudly. The very tone of haste and impatience was in its harsh clang and clamor.
“Well!” shouted Mr. Wagg, answering, and his voice was neither soft nor pleasant. Then in milder tones, “You’re wanted, Worth.”
Billy stepped to the phone. “No, certainly not,” Paul heard him say. And then, “It can’t be!” A pause, then further, “Oh, that’s awful! We’ll be over there right off!”
With frightened, staring eyes Worth turned to Paul. “The Torpedo is gone,” he said.
Grievous anxiety and alarm filled the hearts of the two boys. Quickly they drove the Six to Creek’s garage. Chief Fobes and the youth who assisted in the establishment both ran out as the car stopped at the door.
It had been long since anyone had seen Mr. Fobes so wide awake, and so keen to do his duty as he was now. He was frightened, too, lest his prisoner’s escape might cost him his position. And he was so perplexed and so confused by his excitement that, as he mentioned suspiciously the circumstance that Coster “got his saws and you fellows got your car,” Worth really feared the officer would be for clapping him into jail immediately.
The Torpedo was as completely missing as if it had never been. Creek’s boy had not the shadow of an idea concerning the machine. He knew only that he fell asleep in the office and was awakened by someone who wanted gasoline. Not until this customer was gone did he discoverthe absence of the Torpedo. He at once telephoned to the hotel, thinking Worth or Jones had taken the car out, perhaps.
“Don’t let Torpedo leave Creek’s garage for any purpose.” This sentence in Phil’s telegram rang in Billy’s ears. What did it all mean? He looked at his watch. Ten-forty. Way and MacLester would arrive at eleven, he thought. Then, “Have you telephoned Port Greeley and other places to be on the lookout for Coster and the car?” The question was addressed to Fobes, pacing excitedly about, accomplishing nothing.
No, he had had no time, the policeman answered. Coster’s escape was not discovered until long after nine. There had been scarcely a chance to turn around before the theft of the Torpedo was also reported.
“You better be telephoning, perhaps,” Worth suggested. “We will meet that eleven o’clock train and, with the car to go in, maybe we can all help you some.”
* * * * *
Phil Way’s eyes glistened and he smiled witha delight so inexpressible he made no effort to put his thoughts into words. He had just read the telegram from Billy and Paul, handed him at the Syracuse Automobile club’s downtown quarters.
“Can it be true?” asked Dave in wonder. “Why don’t they—where was the car and—”
“Course it’s true!” cried Phil joyously. “But I do think they might have spent four or six cents more to tell us something about it. They kept right down to ten words all right!”
MacLester was for starting to Griffin at once. “But we can’t,” Way remonstrated. “We’ve got to stay by Mr. Rack and don’t you remember—half that reward?”
However, the two boys did hurry away immediately to Mr. Bob Rack’s office. He was out. The stenographer said he would return soon and the lads waited.
Detective Rack appeared greatly pleased with the telegram from Billy and Paul. “A little more information might have helped us; still, perhaps, we do not need it,” said he. “We willall go to Griffin this evening. Would you wire your friends there to meet us at—” he paused and glanced into a book of time-tables—“to meet us at the train due there at eleven o’clock?”
With so much to occupy their thoughts and tongues, Dave and Phil found train time and their meeting with the detective at the station at hand without one dull minute having passed. And though they had discussed the evident ability and the possible plans of Robert Rack from all angles, they were no nearer a conclusion as to what he meant to do than they were to guessing how Jones and Worth had recovered the Big Six—a question they were pleasantly impatient to have answered.
Not by word or look did Bob Rack reveal one whit of what he had found during the day to the pair of his youthful admirers, who had a seat opposite him, while the train bore rapidly on toward Griffin. When he talked about the case at all it was only to ask a few questions—some of them far removed from the problemin hand, the boys thought. For instance when he desired to know whether there was plenty of lighting gas in the tank of the Torpedo, both were puzzled, though they answered that there was.
“We were extremely fortunate in getting away to-night. Every hour counts now,” said Mr. Rack, “but as I have some papers to look over I’ll get at them.”
Swiftly through the summer night the train sped on. The detective seemed to be occupied with nothing more important than some road maps, but his companions did not venture to interrupt him and in their own conversation spoke in low tones. The distance seemed very great, somehow, to the impatient boys. But at last——
“Here we are!” said Robert Rack, even before Phil or Dave were aware of it, and a moment later the lights of Griffin came into view.
I shall not undertake to tell in detail of the conflicting emotions with which Billy and Paul greeted their friends and with which they all,Mr. Rack included, gathered beside the Big Six while Worth quickly told of the escape of Coster and the Torpedo’s disappearance.
“A little faster than I expected,” mused the detective, in that same easy, gentle tone. Apparentlyhewas no more disturbed than if Billy had said it looked like rain, which, in fact, was the case.
“But this man in jail—wedidn’t tell you anything about him, Mr. Rack. We didn’t know it ourselves,” Phil spoke up anxiously. For it will be remembered that Chief Fobes’ prisoner had not appeared in the situation at all at the time Way and MacLester left Griffin. “Or did you know without ourtellingyou?” Phil added, his own mind in a whirl of confused thoughts.
“Oh, I have not been idle to-day,” smiled Detective Bob. Then more seriously, but still in his affable, pleasing way, quite as though he were planning a little outing, he continued, “Now I’ll need some help. The best driver take the wheel. I’ll sit beside him. The rest of you ride behind and if I may ask so much,no one will leave the car except as I may request it.”
Immediately Phil nodded to Dave to take the driver’s place. In an instant Bob Rack was in the seat beside him, the others in the tonneau.
“Just as fast as is consistent with a reasonable degree of safety now,” Mr. Rack said, placidly. “First, to Creek’s garage.”
The Big Six moved swiftly away, throwing always a flood of light ahead, its gleaming oil lamps seeming to be but a streak of white to those who watched it pass.
In a minute’s time the detective apparently had seen all he wished to see at the small garage. While he looked the place over Way, at his request, was locating Chief Fobes by phone. The policeman came from the hotel on the run when told that Mr. Bob Rack wanted him. For perhaps five minutes he and the detective talked in Willie Creek’s office.
“That fellow Coster got out about nine o’clock. He must have got off with the Torpedo about half-past nine. About a two hours’ startof us,” said Billy Worth to his friends in the tonneau. There was no doubt in his mind, whatever, that the jail-bird had flown in the stolen machine.
“Funny that the only thing Mr. Rack ’specially noticed in all we could tell him, Bill, was about the planks that had been carried from over the hill to run the Six down the bank on,” observed Paul Jones, thoughtfully.
“Looks a lot like Hipp and Earnest, so far as the hiding of our car goes, Mack,” Billy added to Paul’s idea, for Dave was an interested listener.
“In with you! Speed now, David, if there’s such a thing!” This from Detective Bob, the first words to Phil standing beside the car, the second order to MacLester at the wheel. And as the Six instantly responded,—“Out to the right-hand fork, and not a minute to lose!” he said.
There was unmistakable authority and command in his manner. One could have thought of nothing but instant obedience. Yet from hissmile and gentle tone it seemed that he might have said, “I declare, it’s a very pleasant evening.”
Their hearts beating hard with the excitement of adventure and the rapid ride, the Auto Boys vainly speculated, each in his own thoughts, upon the unknown plans and intentions of the detective.
“Turn right! We’re doing famously, but—” Without a sign of question, or any movement save a quick, short nod to say that he heard, MacLester obeyed Bob Rack’s order. Like a flying specter, the Big Six shot down the little grade where the lonely Right Fork branched off, and on and on.
Not a word was spoken. Scurrying masses of cloud swept the sky above and only at intervals did rifts appear where the moon shone through, relieving for the moment the heavy darkness. Over to the south and back to the west the inky clouds were rolling up like wind-tossed mountains. Flashes of lightning came more and more often, and after each thethunder crashed or rumbled in the distance. The lonely woodlands, and the wildness of the unused, brush-grown fields were almost terrifying as each sharp and sudden glare fell for an instant on them.
All within a second the flying car drew near and passed the darker shadows that marked the miller’s grim old house, the mill, the pond, the icehouse. Over the bridge and up the grade—a stretch of level road, then down the slope to the swampy spot where the Six was ditched that other time, then up again and on!
“Stop here, David.” Always that same easy, gentle tone, but Mack obeyed the order instantly.
“You know this road. Could you go forward without lights?” And without waiting for an answer, “Will you put them out, Way?”
Every light was extinguished. The car stood in total darkness, but stood for a second only. “Just as quietly as you can,” requested Mr. Rack, as MacLester slipped the clutch to place again.
“Now,” said the detective, “I am going to tell you that this may be a wild goose chase, though I think not. I don’t believe any of you will need leave the car, but, Phil, you take this revolver. If you hear me shout, ‘close in,’ come to me instantly. The rest of you stand ready for any instructions that may be necessary.”
Almost noiselessly the big machine purred forward, more slowly now but still at good speed. In wonder and excitement the Auto Boys sat silent as the darkness round them. And whiletheywere at tension that strained every nerve, the calm tranquillity of Mr. Bob Rack was, by contrast, the more amazing.
“I suppose,” said he, softly, quite as if he might have been gently musing before a pleasant fireplace in the quiet of home, “I suppose the truest words ever put in verse are those which say——
“‘Truth crushed to earth will rise again.
“But error, wounded, writhes in pain
“And dies amidst her worshipers.’
“And there,” he said as if he were but speaking to himself, “there is the whole ground work, the unfailing foundation that we must work upon, whether we are detectives or doctors or anything else. There is no such thing as successful deception. This case is an excellent illustration, and I must tell you about it later. It is an old, old error, a monstrous lie that has reached its end to-night, I firmly believe.”