The discovery that his unknown enemy after first firing the tannery had then rounded off a perfect evening by burglarizing his house threw Simon Varr into a state of mental confusion. Here was a saturnalia of crime condensed into the space of a few hours. And the man's audacity was no less bewildering than his swift efficiency! Who, in this hitherto quiet township of Hambleton, had suddenly developed a brand of vicious courage that nerved him to commit arson and burglary? Simon reviewed an imposing procession of possible suspects until his brain wearied, and his wits, seeking vainly for light, were hopelessly at fault in a fog of conjecture.
It was nearly three o'clock before he laid an aching head on his pillow, it was nearly five before sleep came to him, but he was up at his usual hour and downstairs in his study by eight. Physically he was still tired, but the brief spell of slumber had at least rested his brain and cleared it against the problems of a new day.
However undeserving he might be of sympathy, mere humanity would suggest that it would be pleasanter, far pleasanter, to record that this day of all days in Simon Varr's life was peaceful and calm, but the truth is exactly the reverse. It was destined to be a day of bitterness and strife, terminating in actual violence.
The trouble began with Jason Bolt.
Lucy Varr did not descend for breakfast, nor did Ocky, who elected to depart from custom and have a tray brought up by Janet to her bedroom balcony. Simon ate his usual hearty meal with more deliberation than appetite, and had barely returned to his desk when he heard the squeal of brakes that distinguished Jason's car from its numerous fellows.
He came straight back to the study and threw himself into a chair, his round, good-humored face unwontedly grave.
"Well, Simon, here's a pretty kettle of fish!"
"There are several kettles of fish. Which do you mean?"
"Well—Billy Graham's, to commence with. He was around to see me an hour ago—"
"Was he sober?"
"Of course he was, don't be too unjust, Simon! Graham doesn't make a practice of drinking, and if he took one or two too many last evening, as he admits he did, I for one don't blame him. That confounded pup Langhorn told him what he overheard—"
"I know—I know all that. I have fired Langhorn and I have fired Graham." Simon's jaw tilted truculently. "What about it?"
"That's what I've come to ask. What about it? If you keep on at this rate, another week will see you down to bed-rock—reduced to one partner and one idle tannery. And some one seems determined to burn that up piecemeal!"
"I didn't see you there last night."
"No, thank goodness, I was in blissful ignorance of our latest trouble. We have guests, you know. Mary and I took the Krechs to Barney's road house just to give them a taste of night-life in Hambleton. Mr. Krech and Barney spent the evening extemporizing cocktails—"
"I'm not interested in your orgies. What did Graham have to say this morning?"
"Nothing that wasn't mighty decent, all things considered. He is sorry to go after all these years, but he doesn't question your right to fire him. He prefers to discuss the details attendant on his quitting with me—you have no objection?—and he is writing to Rochester to tell the Thibault crowd he accepts their offer."
"That doesn't break my heart. The sooner he gets to Rochester the better pleased I'll be."
"Oh, yes—because of Copley, I suppose, and the girl. Well—I guess Billy Graham isn't in the market for sympathy. He tells me that he is fairly familiar with the Thibault tanneries from hearsay and he is confident that he is taking them some tips that will make him solid with them from the start."
"Eh? What's that?" Suddenly intent, Simon Varr leaned forward and fixed a sharp gaze on the speaker. "What is he taking them? What did he refer to?"
"Why—nothing specific, Simon! No doubt he has picked up a score of useful tips during the time he has been associated with us. We can't stop him from giving them the benefit of his experience; that's the sort of thing you must expect when you fire a good man without any reason except that he has a pretty daughter whom you can't keep your only son away from. I must say, Simon—"
"Must you? Please try not to!"
Jason complied with a shrug of his shoulders; why waste his breath on this human lump of obstinacy?
Varr relaxed in his chair again, thinking. He ran over the events of the previous night. Graham had drunk at least enough to render him irresponsible for his impulses and actions. He had seen the notebook lying on the desk. Enough time had elapsed between his departure and the alarm of fire to have enabled him to slip down the hill and fire the tannery. He might then have returned and watched his opportunity to break into the house. Yes—it was possible, physically, for him to be the guilty man. "Taking something valuable to Thibault?" The notebook? Would he have the brazen nerve to make such a remark if he were the thief? Yes! If Graham were the man, that identified him with the masquerading monk, andhehad nerve enough for anything!
It struck Simon—while his partner waited in glum silence—that it would be interesting to learn where Graham had been on the night before after leaving him in the study. To put it more bluntly—had the man an alibi? How did one go to work to learn such things, short of asking open questions? Varr shelved the problem temporarily, though an idea in the back of his head was slowly shaping itself into the answer. He would do nothing decisive until he had weighed things more carefully and was sure—
"How shall we replace Billy Graham?" said Jason Bolt, having fidgeted in silence to the limit of his patience. "Have you any one in mind?"
"Certainly I have!" snapped his partner, who had given not a thought to the matter until that moment. "D'you suppose I'd fire a man unless I saw my way free of that difficulty? There's old Maple; let him take hold when he is hungry enough to come back to work."
"Maple? A good, steady man, Simon, but not the sort I'd pick. Not a scrap of initiative. He knows enough to do just what he's told to do, but—"
"That's the sort of man I want."
"And what you say goes! Don't trouble to point that out; I have heard it before. Do you mind, however, if I mention another man whom I've been thinking might fit in?"
"Well—who?"
"Copley. Your son. Don't look as if a snake had bit you! I think he would make up in intelligence anything he lacks in experience. He is quick to learn—"
"You may leave him out of your calculations."
Jason started at the tone of the remark, glanced at Varr's set face and shot at him an impulsive question.
"Simon! You haven't gone and quarreled with himtoo, have you?"
"Never mind that."
"By thunder, youhave!" Jason Bolt regarded his partner open-mouthed. Then he added, half to himself: "'Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad!'"
"What's that?" snapped Simon. The quotation had jarred on him, something in its phraseology savoring unpleasantly of the anonymous message he had received. "I'm a long way from being mad!"
"You can't prove it by me," said Jason rudely. He came to his feet. "I'll be getting back home; only blew in to talk with you about Billy." He hesitated before continuing. "By the way, Simon, are you going to be at the office this morning?"
"Very likely—yes, I shall. Why?"
"This chap who's staying with me—Herman Krech—very nice fellow—he's the broker I was speaking of to you the other day. I thought I might bring him in and introduce him to you."
"Listen to me, Jason!" Varr's face was slowly flushing with anger. "We arenotgoing to incorporate!"
"Oh—bless me, I'd practically abandoned that notion myself," said Mr. Bolt, airily mendacious. "Nothing was farther from my thoughts; I just thought I'd show him around and introduce him to you—let him see all the sights, huh? You may as well meet him; we're bound to be dining together either here or at my house as soon as our wives get their heads—"
"Bring him in by all means," interrupted Varr. The idea in the back of his head had suddenly burgeoned while his partner rambled on. "If either of you mentions the word incorporate I'll have you thrown out, but there is another matter in which he may be of service to me."
"Krech? Why, you don't even know him!"
"Well, you're going to fix that difficulty, aren't you?" Varr turned to his desk in his usual gesture of dismissal. "I'll be there at eleven."
True to his word, at a few minutes past ten Simon left home for the tannery. He would have a busy day, there, what with insurance data and other matters relative to the fire. The prospect fretted him—and it steeled his resolution to leave no stone unturned to bring the author of his troubles to book. Blast him! He'd learn that it was safer to monkey with a buzz-saw than with Simon Varr!
He stopped at the door of the office-building for a word with Nelson, who was already yawning at his post. Without any suggestion other than the promptings of good-nature, he had turned out long before daybreak to relieve the tired Fay.
"Mr. Bolt and another gentleman are in back, sir," he reported. "Just looking around. A young man was in about the insurance—said he'd be back later. Steiner was here, very curious about the fire, but I told him he'd have to see you."
"Right. You can tell Mr. Bolt that I'm upstairs. Did you or Fay look around any more in the neighborhood of those footprints?"
"Footprints? He said nothing to me—"
"True; I told him to keep his head shut. I will talk to you about that later, Nelson. There hasn't been any trouble from the strikers?"
"I haven't seen a soul, sir, but I've heard they are having a sort of a meeting this morning. There's been talk of appointing a committee to call on you and discuss things."
"There's nothing to discuss. However, I'm perfectly willing to meet a committee from them and tell them again that they'll gain nothing by their strike but trouble for themselves. You have to tell a fool the same thing over and over again before he'll believe it. Send 'em up when they come—but not more than three of 'em, I don't want a whole mob mucking up my office."
"Yes, sir. There's been a young woman askin' for you, too, sir. A girl named Drusilla Jones."
"Never heard of her." Simon, on the point of turning away, paused and looked curious. "What does she want?"
"She's been goin' around pretty steady with Charlie Maxon, sir. I guess she'll want to see you about lettin' him out."
"Humph. He's where he belongs, and I wouldn't do anything to get him out even if I could. Tell her that, and say I won't see her. Make it clear, Nelson, I've no time to waste on Maxon's women."
"Yes, sir."
The watchman had nothing further to offer, and Varr went up to his office and busied himself with the morning mail. There were more indignant demands from aggrieved customers, and the fact that Simon had expected them did not lessen their power to annoy. His face grew steadily redder and redder as he worked through the pile of correspondence.
A clock in the outer office struck eleven, and as the last loud stroke thinned to silence there came the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the stairs. Jason Bolt believed in punctuality.
He entered with a cheerful greeting that suggested he had recovered some of his equanimity since his earlier talk with his partner. On his heels came his friend, a genial-looking, red-faced, smooth-shaven gentleman whose personal dimensions and displacement were such that they seemed to dwarf the small office to the proportions of a room in a doll's house. He stood well over six feet, was broad, deep-chested and bulky, but moved with a light-footed agility that argues muscle rather than fat. Simon was not a small man himself, but he felt like a pigmy as his hand disappeared into one that opened like a suitcase.
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Varr," said the newcomer pleasantly, in a voice that was deep but agreeably pitched. "Bolt has been showing me the whole works, here. You have a fine proposition."
"I think so," concurred Simon with mild gruffness. "Jason is dissatisfied with it, but it suits me very well."
"So I have gathered from talking with him," said Mr. Krech, genially. "No doubt you are right—at any rate, I seldom try to advise other men in respect to their own business." He took a huge cigar-case from his pocket and opened it, then offered it to Varr and Jason Bolt. "No? You don't mind if I do, though?" He carefully lighted a mammoth cigar and sat down on a chair toward which Simon had waved. "I see that some one else is dissatisfied with the tannery, too. You must have had a narrow escape from being burned out last night."
"Ah, yes! We have had some little trouble with a number of malcontent employees. I am gradually weeding out the more noxious of them—eh, Jason?" Mr. Bolt palpably winced. "In fact, Mr. Krech, there have been developments in connection with that fire, and certain other occurrences, that put it in my mind to ask something of you."
"Bolt told me that you wanted to see me about something," said the big man heartily as the tanner paused to choose his words. "If I can be of service to you I'll be delighted."
"Thanks. It's really a very simple matter. You see, I have decided to have this fire—and those other occurrences—investigated, competently investigated, and their perpetrator punished to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately, the local police are utterly incompetent to handle a case of this kind, and I don't think much more of the County officials. It finally struck me that a private detective agency might do the trick. But I don't know any such concern and I don't feel like employing one blindly, so I thought I'd take advantage of your coming from New York and ask you to hunt up a responsible agency for me."
"A private detective!" exclaimed Jason Bolt. "Why, Simon, what has happened to require any such critter as that? What are those other occurrences you speak of?"
"I'll tell you—I'll tell you in good time. First, I want to hear if Mr. Krech is disposed to assist me. He has facilities in New York for locating a reputable agency, no doubt."
"I don't have to go to New York for that," answered the big man promptly. "You've come to the right place for information, Mr. Varr. I know a very capable chap." He turned to Jason, and added slowly: "We don't talk much about it, as you can imagine, but possibly you have heard that my wife's brother was murdered under rather curious circumstances; a cold-blooded crime if ever there was one."
"I've heard Mary speak of it," admitted Bolt.
"Well, the detective I have in mind is the man who cleared up that mystery." His gaze shifted back to Simon. "Of course, knowing him and getting him are two different things. He's usually up to his ears in one thing or another. If it's not too confidential, and you want to give me an idea of your problem, perhaps it would help me interest him. At least, if it is out of his line, he will recommend some one else who'll be competent to handle it for you."
The tanner gagged a bit over the idea of any private detective rejecting his patronage, but after all he wanted a good man and not the first Tom, Dick or Harry to offer his services so he gulped down the tart comment that had sprung to his lips.
"There's nothing confidential about it—short of its getting into the papers and giving my show away. I've got to tell Jason about it, and if you care to listen I'll be glad of your opinion on the whole crazy business. It began with—"
He got no farther for the moment. There was a scuffling and shuffling of feet from the direction of the stairs, and Nelson appeared in advance of three rather ill-at-ease visitors. They were dressed in workmen's clothing and carried their caps respectfully in their hands.
"A committee from our strikers," explained Varr curtly to his partner. He stood up. "Don't bother, Jason, stay here with Mr. Krech while I talk to them in the outer room. It'll take me about two minutes to get rid of 'em!" he added grimly.
He strode from the room and met the approaching delegation halfway across the main office. From where they sat, Jason Bolt and his friend could watch the ensuing proceedings and hear every word that was spoken.
Varr was instantly wrathful at discovering in the gray-haired individual who turned out to be their spokesman an old employee whose name was Maple, the very man he had spoken of to Bolt as possibly replacing Graham as manager. He could almost hear Jason chuckling over the fact as he snapped a curt command at the fellow to state his business.
"We've come for a talk with you, Mr. Varr," began Maple soberly, "because there's some of us who feel that this strike has gone on too long as it is. It's bad for us, sir, and it must be bad for you and Mr. Bolt. We three have been appointed to call on you gentlemen and ask you to look into the whole situation with us. There's points on which we've been unreasonable, maybe, and there's others where we think you've been unreasonable. If we give in a bit and you give in a bit perhaps we can reach some sort of a compromise that'll let us all go to work—"
"Stop! I've been waiting for that word compromise! You can go back and tell your crowd that this strike isn't going to be settled—it's going to bebroken!" Varr smashed one fist into the other as he roared his defiance. "Go back and tell 'em! Tell 'em I'll watch every man of you starving in the gutters before I'll be driven into doing what I've said I won't do. Go set some more fires in the tannery; you'll soon find that'll get you nowhere but in jail!"
"We've set no fires, Mr. Varr," answered Maple with dignity. "On the contrary, sir, the three of us here now were amongst them who helped to put out the fire last night. You've no call to blackguard honest men. As for starving in the gutter, sir—"
He stopped speaking to reach in his pocket and draw out a few small bills, which he held up for Varr's inspection, and at a nod of his head, his two companions also produced money from their trousers. Simon glanced at it and sneered.
"Found a union to support you, eh?"
"No, sir, not that. To tell the truth, Mr. Varr, there don't seem to be any good reason to tell you where this came from, or how it came, but we feel in duty bound to say it brought with it a message for you."
"A message? For me?" Simon repeated the phrases quickly, his mind alert for new alarms. "Well, what was it? Get it out!"
"We were told to tell you that while we held out against you we could count on getting money for our needs from the 'Black Monk'."
"The Black Monk!" Simon fell back a pace as he whispered the words. "The Black Monk! What—what do you mean?"
"That's all we can tell you, sir." Maple fumbled with his cap and coughed nervously. "We'll ask you again, sir, as in duty bound to our comrades, if you'll help us come to a compromise—"
"No!"
The committee shrank back from the explosive quality of the monosyllable that was like a door slammed in their faces.
"Very well, sir, then we'll wish you good day—and a kinder heart for your fellowmen."
"Stop!"
Sheer anger at this latest evidence of his enemy's activity had swept Simon Varr beyond self-control, beyond reasoning and beyond decency. He launched upon the stolid committee a rushing torrent of insult and invective. The veneer of dignity that had come to him with wealth and position slipped from him, as the old skin slips from a snake, and he went back to the vocabulary of his youth for terms sufficiently blasphemous and obscene to express his opinion of the strike, the strikers, the committee and its sponsors. He did not stop until his breath failed and left him panting.
The two men in the small office listened to that tirade in embarrassed silence. Jason Bolt fidgeted in his chair and grew pink to the tips of his ears. Herman Krech, as became a tactful bystander, gazed at the floor, stared at the ceiling, studied the glowing tip of his cigar, peered through the grimy window at the uninspiring view of Hambleton and generally comported himself with discretion andsavoir faire. Inwardly, he was wondering if he had any right to inflict this termagant tanner on his unsuspecting friend, the detective. Not by a jugful, unless the mutt had a mighty interesting case—
"I think," said Simon Varr, reentering his office, "I think I have now made my position clear to those fellows!" A grim satisfaction was apparent in his voice and bearing, the usual aftermath with him of an outburst of temper. "Now we can resume where we left off."
"What was that stuff about a monk?" demanded Jason.
"That's part of my story. When Mr. Krech has heard it, he will tell us if it is likely to interest his friend." He sent a questioning glance at the big man. "By the way, what is his name?"
"Peter Creighton," said Mr. Krech.
Jason Bolt and Herman Krech listened to Varr's narrative in rapt silence. The former's interest was mixed with amazement, the latter's with enthusiasm. As the tale progressed the big man hitched farther and farther forward in his chair, his expression that of a little child who proposes to miss no syllable of a fascinating fairy story. He considered himself something of a connoisseur in crime, did Mr. Krech, thanks to a few experiences with his friend Creighton, and a subject that had always made an appeal to his imagination was now become the hobby of his every idle moment. Although he would not have abandoned a lucrative business to take a position on Creighton's staff of operatives, it was his secret grief that the detective had never recognized his ability to the extent of offering him one.
He was beaming with delight by the time Varr had ended his curt account of his tribulations, and his distaste of the tanner's personality had been temporarily forgotten.
"Gee Joseph, Mr. Varr!" he burst out. "You really ought to congratulate yourself! You've been the victim of the prettiest piece of persecution I've ever heard of!"
"Thanks," returned Simon without enthusiasm.
"He seems to be waltzing all around you and jabbing you just where it will hurt the most, and yet he's clever enough to evade capture and even to keep you from guessing his identity. Why not make a list of your known enemies and check them off one by one?"
"Too many of 'em," retorted Simon briefly.
"Ah, yes—I should have thought of that!" A muffled snort from Jason marked his appreciation of the seemingly ingenuous jibe. "If a man's known by the enemies he makes, I should say this fellow was a lasting credit to you. You'll miss him when he's gone."
"I'll miss him with pleasure. But when is he going? D'you think this is a problem that will appeal to Mr. Creighton's critical taste?"
"It will have my hearty endorsement, anyway, when I submit it to him. He likes crooks with imagination, I know, and this bird has it. I wish you had brought along that note you got from him."
"I did." The tanner reached into his pocket and drew forth the message that he had found in the deft stick. "I decided to fetch it as long as I intended to tell you the story."
Krech accepted the bit of brown paper, carefully taking it by the tip of one corner and opening it with a shake. He held it out for Jason to read, but drew it back from the other's outstretched hand.
"Naughty, naughty, mustn't touch!"
"Fingerprints?" grunted Varr skeptically.
"It's a possibility we must consider," insisted the big man firmly. "I don't believe there are any, sort of pity if there were."
"Pity, eh? What do you mean, pity?"
"It would cheapen our crook. I don't believe he's the lad to leave clues." He added calmly, "Hush, now, and let me read this carefully."
Simon gasped and hushed. He consoled himself with the reflection that this human mastodon probably knew what it was about.
"Well, I'm hanged!" blurted Jason Bolt, when he had perused the missive. "What do you make of it, Krech?"
"Why, there are a number of curious features about it that leap to the eye," said Mr. Krech blandly. "I will call them to Creighton's attention, of course." He stepped to Varr's desk, helped himself to an unused envelope and inserted the note. "How many other people have touched this paper besides yourself, Mr. Varr?"
"Not a soul. I've shown it to no one."
"Oh, that's fine." He picked up a clean letterhead and held it out to the tanner. "Ink your thumbs and forefingers on that pad there and then press them on this." He waited until Simon had gruntingly obeyed. "Good. These will identify your marks on the message, and if there are any others they will be the sign manual of our crook."
"How can you be sure?" argued Jason. "It's obviously an old scrap of paper and a dozen people may have handled it before the crook got hold of it."
Mr. Krech regarded his friend with a look of dignified annoyance.
"There's always some one around to make difficulties," he said severely. "You're a fly on the wheel of progress."
"Excuse me for living," begged the fly meekly. Then he looked at his watch and exclaimed, "Hello. Our wives, Krech, our wives—! We're late for lunch already! Drop you anywhere, Simon?"
"I have my car." The tanner glanced at Krech. "You'll notify Creighton?"
"With pleasure. I'll keep these for him, too."
He placed the envelope containing the message and the fingerprints in his pocket, then moved to follow his friend, already on his way to the stairs. He paused at the door, however, and came back rather hesitatingly. "Say—just how did that couplet run?"
Simon made a wry face, but obligingly recited:
"'Who meets the monk when dusk is nighWithin the fortnight he shall die.'"
"Do you take that seriously?" asked the big man.
"Do you take me for a blasted fool?" snapped Simon irritably.
"Yes," said Mr. Krech simply. "Just the sort of blasted fool I would be in your place, or that nine out of ten men would be. Because the threat is directed atyou, you scoff at it and ignore it."
"What are you getting at?"
"This: the fellow who wrote that note and does his stuff in a monk's costume has all the earmarks of a maniac. Maniacs are dangerous. If he has made use of this old local legend to further his purpose, he may go ahead with it to the bitter end—your bitter end! Until he is laid by the heels, why not play safe and stay home after dark?"
"Humph. I'm likely to, aren't I?" jeered Simon.
"No, you aren't, because, to use your own expression, you're 'a blasted fool,'" conceded Mr. Krech cheerfully. "Anyway, if you happen to get bumped off, don't come around haunting me on the score that I didn't warn you!" He smiled benignly. "Ta-ta!"
The tanner choked back an oath. For some time after the loud groaning of the stairs beneath his visitor's tread had died away, he sat at his desk and scratched his chin gently as he meditated. The striking of the clock in the outer office recalled him to more present matters. It was understood that if he did not return home by a certain hour in the middle of the day he would lunch downtown, and the hour was now past. On these occasions he usually walked to the Hambleton Hotel, the town's one hostelry, where he could regale himself on a couple of heavy sandwiches and a cup of doubtful coffee.
Thither he now betook himself, frowning on the way as he noted some condemnatory expressions on the faces of those he passed on the street. He knew that public opinion was antagonistic to him in the matter of the strike and his treatment of Maxon—the HambletonNewshad run a nasty paragraph about the last—and the censure irritated, if it did not move him.
He had no sooner entered the dingy lobby of the hotel than his eye rested on his son, Copley, seated at a rickety writing table and industriously scribbling on a pad of cheap paper. Varr strode across to his side and addressed him curtly.
"What are you doing here?"
"Living here," returned the young man, glancing up but making no move to rise. He met his father's angry glare coolly. "More convenient to my job."
"Your job!" echoed Simon derisively. "What mental incompetent has employedyou?"
"Barlow, the editor of theNews. I'm a reporter now."
"Humph. Why?"
"For ready money, naturally, until I can get something good."
"Am I to understand you have left my roof?"
"Absolutely. Left it last night, and returned for clothes and a few personal belongings this morning. You piled it on a bit thick last evening—too thick. I've quit."
"Saved me the trouble of throwing you out!" said Simon between his teeth. "What did you tell your mother?"
"The truth. I didn't intend to, but I found Aunt Ocky had overheard our little chat and had told her we'd had a holy row. Sorry."
"Blast your Aunt Ocky!"
That did not seem to call for a reply and Copley made none. After a few seconds of silence he raised his pencil suggestively.
"Speaking as a prominent citizen, Mr. Varr, what have you to say regarding the opening of the new sewer in State Street?"
"Nothing—except that I hope you'll fall into it!" said his father with asperity, and walked away.
Copley wrote an item on another sheet of paper. "Among those lunching at the Hambleton Hotel yesterday was Mr. Simon Varr, of the Varr-Bolt Tanneries. He did not tip the waiter." He cocked his head at a critical angle and contemplated the last six words before reluctantly obliterating them. Discretion must be his watchword, he told himself, and a job is better than a jest.
Simon finished his meal and returned to the office, noticing already the premonitory symptoms of the mild indigestion that habitually followed the greasy cooking of the hotel chef. He found his insurance man waiting for him and spent two tedious hours over an inventory and proofs of loss before he could rid himself of the fellow—and sped his going with a curse because the broker warned him the insurance company would certainly cancel their existing policies if they got wind of an incendiary.
That reminded Simon of the footprints in the tannery yard which he had wished to examine by daylight. He had intended to show them to that chap Krech, but Jason had spoiled things by hurrying him off to his silly lunch. He descended the stairs, called Nelson to join him, and went to the end of the fence around which the fire bug had fled.
He gave the watchman a brief account of Fay's experience at the commencement of the fire, when he had actually obtained a glimpse of the incendiary at his evil work. He discussed with Nelson, a shrewd man, the possible identity of the miscreant, but they arrived at no conclusion. Together they traced the footprints from the yard around the fence and up the muddy bank of the little stream until they vanished on the firmer ground outside the premises.
"Make anything of them?" asked Varr.
"Nothing more than you do, sir; they seem to be the tracks of a large man. That friend of Mr. Bolt's could have made 'em nicely."
"Get a couple of empty boxes," directed Simon, mindful of the protective device he had used in his kitchen garden to preserve the marks left by Charlie Maxon. "Cover up two good sets of these; they may come in handy later." He studied the skies. "We'll probably have rain before morning."
"Fay won't object to that," declared the watchman, grinning. "If he had his wish, it would rain chemical fire-extinguishing fluid!"
Simon lingered to see that the work of covering the tracks was properly done, and hoped that Mr. Krech and his detective would appreciate his thoughtfulness. Then he left the tannery, climbed into his car and drove home. The strain of the night before had told on even his iron physique—and there was the mute appeal of a decanter of Bourbon that he knew would freshen his nagging spirit.
Jason's dilapidated little touring car greeted his gaze as he drove past the front of the house to the garage, and a sound of light voices came to him from the side veranda. Easy enough to guess the meaning of that, the Bolts had dropped in with their friends for tea and a chat with Lucy, who counted Mary Bolt her closest friend.
He joined them a moment later. Lucy, he saw at once, had been crying. No amount of powder or superficial gayety could conceal that fact from him. She did not look at him directly, and her voice was frigid as she introduced him to the one member of the party he had not met.
"Mrs. Krech—my husband."
Varr bowed to a tall, slender, strikingly handsome young woman with deep-blue eyes and a mass of dark red hair, who was seated beside his sister-in-law on a couch. The two were talking earnestly together until he interrupted them, as though they had taken an instant liking to each other.
"Excuse me if I don't get up," apologized Krech from the deep chair in which he was sitting. "I'm anchored."
The handsome Angora had found him, and as though to mark his approbation of another animal as fine as himself, had leaped into his lap and curled up contentedly beneath his caressing hand. Despite his words, Krech put him down and rose immediately when Simon indicated that he did not propose to join them. He followed the tanner into the house and accosted him in the hall.
"I'd like to see the window where that burglar got in last night," he said. "Got a minute to show me?"
"Very well. In this way." They went into the sitting room and Varr spoke on the way of his recent activities in the tanning yard, a piece of foresight that Krech instantly applauded. "This is the window; it was either pushed open by main force, or the catch was pressed back by some tool."
"The last is it," announced the big man promptly. "See here where the paint has been broken near the lock and the brass of the bolt is scratched? It's a cinch to open these things—a child could do it with a penknife."
"You have sharp eyes," admitted Varr grudgingly. "I hadn't noticed those scratches on the brass."
"Oh, I've helped Creighton on his cases any number of times, and of course a man soon gets the trick of observing the least thing out of the ordinary. Smaller marks than those scratches have hanged many a man, Mr. Varr."
"What a cheerful thought!" exclaimed a laughing voice behind them. They turned and found Mrs. Krech, with Miss Ocky at her elbow. "What are you two talking about hanging for? Herman, I came in to look for you; we're just leaving."
"All right, Jean; I was just giving Mr. Varr my celebrated imitation of an expert criminologist!" He did not proceed further until he had glanced questioningly at his host, who gave permission with a nod and a shrug. "Some one broke in here last night and staged a burglary; I didn't tell you before because I didn't know how far it was being kept secret."
"Can't keep secrets in this place," grunted Simon. "I gave up trying long ago."
"Have the police any idea who did it?"
"The police! My dear Mrs. Krech, it's evident that you don't know much about country constabulary. I wasted no time telling them of my troubles. Your husband is going to place them in the hands of a friend of his."
"Peter Creighton! Is he coming here? Lovely!" She turned impulsively to Miss Ocky. "He's just the nicest man you ever met!"
"Who is he?" demanded Miss Ocky, but before she could get her answer, Varr had interrupted.
"We don't know yet that he is coming. You will surely write to him to-night, Mr. Krech?"
It was the very question the big man had been waiting for, but no one could have guessed it from his perfectly simulated surprise. His eyebrows were delicately arched as he made bland reply.
"You don't realize the value of time in these matters, Mr. Varr. Write to him! To-night! He'd have my life! No, sir, as soon as I left you this morning I went straight to the village and telephoned him. Bolt was fearfully annoyed about his lunch—he doesn't understand urgency, either."
"You got Creighton? What did he say?"
"He will handle it. He can't get here until the first train in the morning, but of course he is working on the case already."
"Working on the case?" repeated Simon impatiently. "How in thundercanhe? He doesn't know anything about it yet."
"Oh, yes, he does. You forget that I was able to give him a lot of information. We had a long talk—ask Bolt."
"But, what can he do in New York?"
"Plenty," said the big man airily. "You don't know him."
"May I ask again," said Miss Ocky plaintively, "who is this Peter Creighton? And what?"
"He's a dear!" said Mrs. Krech.
"He's a wonder!" said her husband.
"He's a detective," said Simon grimly.
"A detective! Coming here!" cried Miss Ocky, her eyes bright with interest. "My word, won'tthatbe jolly!"
Miss Drusilla Jones, whose fortunes were temporarily bound up with those of Charlie Maxon, was a rather tall and shapely young woman, handsome in a coarse sort of way when her face was in a state of animation; in repose, its expression was marred by a too-great boldness in the big dark eyes and a suggestion of sullenness about the heavy, full-lipped mouth. She dressed well—"too well for an honest woman," was the dark verdict of ladies more reputable and less attractive—and, with a shrewdness surprising in one of her type, avoided the cheapening allure of cosmetics. She spent most of her days in bed, and earned her living, at least ostensibly, by spending most of the night at Tom Martin's dance hall, where she was kept on the payroll as an "entertainer." It was there she had first met Charlie Maxon.
In accordance with her promise to return at a later hour, she left her small house on the edge of the town shortly after four o'clock and turned her steps in the direction of the tannery, where she hoped to catch Simon Varr in his office. Her natural sullenness of expression was intensified as she walked slowly along her way, for certain friends of hers had pointed out to her that she was wasting her time. Simon could do nothing if he would, and would do less than that if he could, for the lover languishing in jail.
"Then I'll give him a piece of my mind!" she retorted. "I'm not afraid of old Varr nor any other man."
Her course led her through the heart of the town, and her exact social status could have been nicely determined by the glances of disfavor she received from certain thin-nosed, pursed-lipped matrons of Hambleton whom she passed en route. She could pretend to ignore these glances, and she did, but they aroused a fierce resentment in her breast and hardened a resolution already half formed—she was sick of this place, she was sick of these people, she was sick of her undue prominence in a small town where every one knew all about every one else, and she proposed to shake its dust from her high heels at the first opportunity that offered.
At the tannery, Nelson opened the door when he recognized her through the peephole and greeted her with a shake of the head.
"No use, Drusilla. He isn't here, and he wouldn't talk to you if he was. Said to tell you he'd no time to waste on Maxon's women."
"He did, did he!" flared the girl. "Then you can tell him for me that he's goin' to get into a peck of trouble if he don't look out!"
"I wouldn't say things like that if I was you, Drusilla," admonished the watchman. He had always liked the girl and regarded her with as much kindly tolerance as was fitting to a respectable family man. "There's talk around town already that your Charlie knows more about the fires we've had than he ought to."
"Sort of thing this town would say! How could he start a fire when he was locked up in jail? Answer me that."
"He's got friends, ain't he?"
"That's neither here nor there. You can take it from me, he don't know anything about those fires."
"You may be wrong, Drusilla, a man don't have to tell a woman all he knows. Anyway, it will be best for you and best for him if you keep your mouth shut." He looked around them cautiously. "I know what I'm talking about. Take my tip and watch your step."
"What do you mean?"
"Varr's sending to New York for a detective."
"A detective!" Miss Jones was startled, and made no effort to conceal the fact. "How do you know?"
"Mr. Bolt was here this morning with a friend of his from New York, and I heard them speakin' about it as they went out. So you tell Charlie Maxon to be a good little boy and put away his box of matches."
"He had nothing to do with those fires," reiterated Drusilla mechanically, her thoughts elsewhere. She had met country detectives and done business with them on terms satisfactory to both sides, and she held them consequently in contempt, but a detective from New York was an unknown and possibly ominous quantity. "When's he comin'?"
"Dunno. To-morrow, I'd say likely."
"Well, to-morrow's another day," remarked Drusilla easily, recovering something of her poise. "I guess he won't amount to so much! I'm obliged to you just the same for tipping me off. Drop in at Martin's one of these evenings and have one on me—he's serving a pretty good brand just now."
"Don't you try to vamp me, Drusilla," grinned Nelson. "I'm a decent married man."
Miss Jones tossed her head and strolled away.
She quickened her step presently as she decided on a course of action that appealed to her restless, rather adventurous nature. She had played with this same idea previously, but had lacked the animus to put it through. Nelson, with his good-natured hint about a detective from the city, had supplied that.
She went straight to the dance hall, closed at this hour to its nocturnal patrons, where she knew she would find Tom Martin in the office back of the main room. He was there as she expected—a keen-eyed, sharp-featured little cockney whose history from the time he disappeared from London in a fog to the day when he emerged in this unlikely corner of the great United States would have made a thrilling story—particularly to the English police! Through the open door of his office he was keeping an eye on the activities of several waiters who were cleaning up the dance hall and straightening the small round tables where "only soft drinks" were served, and he looked up to welcome his visitor with a nod of surprised recognition.
"'Ello, Drusilla. Wotcher doin' 'ere at this time o' dye?"
Miss Jones had two wants and voiced them promptly.
"Give me a quart of rye, Tom, and a couple of knock-out drops."
Mr. Martin jumped in his chair and shot a nervous glance at the men in the outer room. "The rye's all right—you've got some wiges comin' ter yer an' I'll take it out o' them. But I don't know nothin' about them other things, Drusilla. Wot are they?"
"Don't try the baby-innocent act on me, Tom! I want some knock-out drops, same's you put in the beer of that drummer from the city last Tuesday night—and I mean to have 'em!"
Hers was a carrying voice, and she was speaking with fearful distinctness. A visible shudder ran through Mr. Martin's slender frame as he sprang to his feet and hurriedly shut the door.
"All right, Drusilla, you can have 'em—but fer the luv o' Mike don't tell th' blinkin' world abaht it! Wotcher want 'em for?"
"What you don't know won't hurt you," responded the girl.
That gave him pause, but in the end she had her way after some cajolery and a few loud threats. She left the premises with a paper parcel in her hand and the wished-for pellets in her bag.
Her house was not far removed from the police station, in the rear of which was the small square building that served as a lockup for such casual unfortunates as were not of a quality to be sent to the county jail. Here Charlie Maxon was incarcerated, his quarters consisting of a small room with a grille door and a barred window too high for anything but light and ventilation. The only additional deterrent to his escape was to be found in the person of a nondescript elderly man who received a dollar a day from the town funds to act as jailer when the lockup was in use. His name was Moody, his chief characteristic the determined grouch he had cherished since the advent of prohibition.
He was seated on the stone steps of the jail, smoking a small but powerful pipe, when Drusilla Jones appeared from the direction of her house. She bore a basket in one hand, its contents scrupulously covered with a white napkin. It was about six o'clock.
"Good evening, Mr. Moody!"
"Hullo."
"I've brought a few things I've cooked myself for Charlie's dinner," she informed him. "Want to look 'em over?" She put down the basket and whipped off the napkin, replacing it when the jailer had cast a gloomy eye over the contents and signified his satisfaction with a nod. "Come and unlock the door so I can give it to him, there's an old dear!"
The old dear arose grumbling and proceeded to obey, pulling the door key from his pocket. She followed him into the building, where their advent was hailed with joy by the prisoner, upon whose hands time was already beginning to hang heavy.
"That you, Drusilla? Say—that's fine! Twenty-five cents a day is the food allowance in this jail, and nineteen of that is grafted by some one before it turns into grub." He accepted the basket from Moody, who promptly relocked the door of the cell. "Get a chair, Drusilla, and we can talk while I polish off this dinner."
"No, you don't," corrected Moody. "What do you think this is—a hotel? You can have five minutes, young woman, an' then out you go!"
He went back to his doorstep and resumed his pipe. He might or might not be within earshot; Drusilla could not determine which and she dared not take chances. Fortunately she had guarded against such a contretemps as this by providing a second line of communication, and after chatting loudly with hervis-a-visthrough the bars of his cell she suddenly dropped her voice and whispered swiftly:
"Bottom of the basket. A note. Read it!"
He registered his perfect comprehension by an eloquent wink the while he discoursed long and loudly upon more innocent topics. They exchanged sally and quip through the forbidding grille until a warning grumble from the doorstep marked the expiration of the five minutes and the end of their interview.
"'Night, Charlie. See you again soon!"
"'Night, Drusilla—and thanks. If you run into old Varr, give him a bust on the head for me!"
"Hush, Charlie—you shouldn't talk that way! Should he, Mr. Moody?" she added brightly to Cerberus as she passed him. "I'm always telling him he talks too much and doesn't mean half what he says."
"Every one talks too much except me," declared the disappointed disciple of Bacchus. "I only talk when I'm drinkin', and I haven't said a word for months and I haven't been what you might call loquacious for some years."
"Charlie knows where to get liquor," suggested Drusilla, quick to seize this happy opportunity to titivate the jailer's thirst. "Make him get you some!"
"On your way!" said Mr. Moody virtuously—but thoughtfully.
Charlie Maxon, hearing their voices and sure that he was unobserved, delved rapidly into the bottom of the basket at some cost to a custard pie that recklessly intervened. He discovered a quart of rye which he promptly thrust into concealment beneath the single blanket on his narrow cot, a half dozen excellent cigars that he stored in a pocket of his vest, and an envelope that contained two white pellets and a hastily-written note.
The latter he carried nearer to the window and read its contents hurriedly; a soundless whistle relieved his emotions when he had finished its perusal. He was briefly pensive.
"Well—why not?" he demanded of himself finally. "She's not such a bad looker—and she's sure got a brain!"
He secreted the letter inside his shirt, proposing to destroy it at the first opportunity, then settled himself to the tranquil enjoyment of Drusilla's dainties quite as if no weightier matter than her pastry portended. A hearty eater always, he did not desist until the last fragment of the damaged pie concluded his repast. Then he went to the door of his cell, stuck his head between the bars and hailed the seated figure of his personal attendant.
"Wotcher want?" asked Moody, grudgingly coming to his call.
"Thought you might like a cigar," explained his prisoner, poking one through the grille. "Smoke 'em, don't you?"
"When I c'n get 'em," admitted the jailer, and regarded this one with the dark suspicion of a man who has been the victim of practical jokes before. "What's the matter with it?"
"Nothin'. Smoke up! Gimme a match, will you?"
"You ain't supposed to smoke in your cell," objected Moody, but produced the match and lighted both their cigars. "However, I guess you won't tell the Chief of Police if I don't!"
"No fear. You're a good sport, Moody. I always knew that."
"Fine cigar," commented the jailer critically.
"Leave it to Drusilla. You can bet she helped herself from the best box Tom Martin has."
"Women are useful when they provide a man with good tobacco, but in other ways they can get you into a mortal lot of trouble. Take it from me, Charlie, and steer clear of 'em."
"I guess you know your way around, eh, Moody?"
"You can tie to that. Frinstance, if you knew as much as me you never would've got into this jail."
"I expect you're right. You've got a head on your shoulders!"
"Well, it's an ill wind that blows nobody some good," reflected the jailer complacently. "I'm gettin' a dollar a day because you coveted your neighbor's tomatoes and then had no more sense than to shy one at him. Missed him, too, they tell me."
"I won't miss him another time if I get a shot at him, whether it's with a tomato or something else!" snapped Maxon with sudden viciousness. "I'd like to pitch him into one of his own vats!"
"You don't love him much, eh?"
Charlie Maxon thereupon expressed his exact opinion of his late employer in studied terms to which Mr. Moody lent the attentive and appreciative ear of a connoisseur in language. When the recitation was ended, he nodded approval and returned to his doorstep, where he sat down and contentedly finished his cigar.
Maxon dropped on his cot, eased the cork from the bottle of rye and took one satisfying drink of the invigorating liquor. More, he dared not allow himself for the moment.
At nine o'clock Moody rose from his doorstep and came inside, carefully locking and double-locking the door and putting its key in his pocket. He did the same by the rear exit, and was preparing to retire to the privacy of his own small room when he was hailed a second time by his charge.
"Now, what?" Moody went to the barred door of the cell with more alacrity on this occasion, hopeful of further largesse. "Can't you let a man have a minute's peace?"
"Going to bed so soon?"
"Nothin' else to do."
"Remember two years ago how we used to play checkers at the Workmen's Club?"
"What of it?"
"You used to beat me then pretty regular, but I guess it'd be different now. I'd beat you four out of five."
"That's nonsense. What are you gettin' at anyway?"
"What's the matter with letting me out of here for a while? A few games of checkers wouldn't do any harm—help pass the time."
"Help pass—! Say, where do you think you are? Why don't you ask me to take you to the movies? Mebbe you'd like me to send for Drusilla so's we could have a dance? Want me to lose my job, huh?"
"Who's going to know anything about it except us? Slip out and get a board—and a couple of glasses!"
"Glasses? What kind of glasses?"
"Whisky glasses."
Moody started. He looked keenly at his prisoner. Slowly, a warm light stole into his eye, he moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.
"Quit your kiddin'!"
"I'm not kidding—look here!"
Maxon knew his man. Satisfied that he had Moody quivering with anticipation, he stepped to his cot, produced the flat bottle and shook it invitingly. The rich gurgle was music to the jailer's ear. A more hard-boiled, professional warder would have followed just one course with decision and dispatch, to Moody's credit be it said, it did not once occur to him that he might safely confiscate the treasure and dedicate it to his own delight.
"I'll go after those glasses," he said promptly. "Sure it's good stuff, Charlie?"
"Wouldn't drink it myself if I wasn't, would I? Hustle up—I'm ready for a drink right now."
Tempted beyond his strength, the faithless keeper of the Hambleton lockup departed on winged feet. He was back in remarkably quick time, a checkerboard under his coat and two bar glasses in his pockets. A last feeble flicker of responsibility stayed his hand an instant as he opened the cell door.
"No tricks, Charlie!"
"'Course not. Cross my heart and hope to die."
With the doors locked and no windows through which they could be seen, they sat themselves confidently at a small table, a glass at each side, the checkerboard between them and the precious bottle on the floor within easy reach. The proceedings opened with one apiece.
"A-a-a-ah!"
"Told you it was good, didn't I? Have another."
"Thanks. This is like old times. Black moves first."
"Teach your grandmother. Chin-chin."
"If that's bootleg, it's good enough for me."
"It ain't, though. He gets it from Canada himself."
"An empty glass is a mournful sight. Thanks. Your move."
They played and drank and drank and played. Moody won most of the games, which suited both of them. An hour passed. There was lots of time, Charlie told himself. He wasn't due at Drusilla's until eleven-thirty—the rendezvous she had made in the event that all went well. On the other hand, he was beginning to feel the effect of the whisky he was drinking. It wouldn't do to get tight himself. Better speed things up a bit, then take a walk for half an hour or so before going to Drusilla's—
"Em-py glash—mournful shight."
Charlie's left hand hovered an instant over the mournful sight, his fingers crumbling something; then he picked up the glass and filled it.
"A-a-a-ah."
Five minutes later he was half-carrying, half-dragging the inert figure of his jailer to the cell which by rights he should have been occupying himself. He dropped Moody on the narrow cot, relieved him of his keys and stepped out, grinning as he locked the door behind him. It would be a long, long time before the recreant warder awakened to discovery and disgrace. No one from outside would come near the place until eight or nine in the morning; he had oceans of time in which to make good his escape before the alarm could be given.
He possessed himself of a slouch hat that he found in Moody's room and drew its brim well down over his eyes, then cautiously unlocked the back door of the jail. This gave on to a narrow, unlighted alley, which led to a quiet side-street. There was little chance of his meeting any one at that hour of the night. After a quick survey which assured him the alley was deserted, he left the building and locked the door.
The fresh night air after the stuffy atmosphere of the jail hit him hard. It sent the potent fumes of the whisky to his head, and by the time he had reached the end of the alley he was staggering perceptibly. He vaguely realized his condition and the peril it implied, and paused for an instant at the first corner to steady himself against the wall of a building while he strove to clear his brain. He jerked off his hat to give the air access to his head, too fuddled to note that a street-lamp not ten yards away was shining directly on his face.
Then a tight grip fastened on his arm and he was pushed back into the obscurity of the alley.
"Charlie Maxon, by glory! Who letyouout?"
"Wh-who are you?"
"Who am I? Well, that's pretty good! Mean to say you can'tseeme? I'm Langhorn!"