CHAPTER XVIIMORE SURPRISES
Sam walked out of the barn without any clear notion of what he ought to do; but when he reached the gate his step quickened.
It was Saturday; the morning was his own. It had flashed upon him that he could not do better than investigate the matters which had first seemed to be so conclusive of Orkney’s guilt. Granting that Tom probably had had nothing to do with the damage to the harness, he would attempt to remove all doubt from the value of the best piece of evidence for the prosecution, so to speak. This was the cap found by Step near the club-house.
When Master Jones had snatched the cap from Orkney’s head, and thrown it over a fence, it had dropped upon the dead turf in old Mrs. Benton’s yard. The club’s theory was that the owner had recovered it subsequently and secretly. It remained for Sam to try to discover what really had happened.
Mrs. Benton, if advanced in years, was active and alert. She answered her door-bell in person, and led Sam into her spotlessly neat sitting-room.
The boy plunged at once into his errand. Had she chanced to see a cap lying on her lawn, and did she know what had become of it?
Mrs. Benton nodded vivaciously. A cap—a boy’s cap? Of course, she remembered.
“When I looked out of my window that morning, there it was in plain sight,” she said. “And I must say it looked awfully careless and shiftless—I don’t know what strangers would have thought of the folks living in this house. So I went right out and brought the cap in.”
“And—and—and that was in the morning?” Sam faltered.
“In the morning—early.”
“Somebody came to claim it?”
“Nobody came. I declare! I don’t see how young folks get so regardless of things these days! And that was a perfectly good cap—that is, it would have been perfectly good if it hadn’t been left out in the damp all night.”
“Is it still here, ma’am?”
“Bless you, no, child! It’s gone.”
Sam leaned forward in his eagerness. “Gone where, ma’am?”
“Into the rubbish can, of course.”
“Oh!” said Sam, and sank back in his chair.
Mrs. Benton’s eyebrows rose a trifle. “Bless me, but you wouldn’t expect me to keep my house cluttered up with all sorts of other people’s odds and ends, would you?”
“No, ma’am,” Sam hastened to assure her. “But—but did it stay in the can?”
Mrs. Benton met question with question. “Why? Was it yours?”
“Oh, no,” said Sam. “It wasn’t mine, but I—I—well, I was sort of—sort of interested in it. Do you know what became of it?”
“That’s just what I don’t know.”
“Oh!” said Sam again.
The lady did not miss the disappointment in his tone.
“Somebody took it out of the can,” she explained. “It wasn’t the garbage collector, for that wasn’t his day to come ’round. But I remember that I disposed of the cap afterbreakfast, and that, when I carried out some potato peelings an hour or two later, the cap had disappeared. There often are people prowling through the alley, you know—tramps, some of ’em—and it was a pretty good cap, after all, if a body wasn’t over-particular. And you say it wasn’t yours?”
“No, ma’am,” said Sam, and rose a bit hastily. “But I’m very much obliged for the information.”
Mrs. Benton followed him to the door. “You’re thanking me for very little,” she remarked. “But if it’ll be any help to you, in whatever you are after, I can add that the cap was taken out of the can somewhere between nine and ten o’clock that morning.”
And in the hour mentioned, as Sam was quite aware, Tom Orkney was fully accounted for, having been in his place in school!
Sam’s step was slow as he moved away from the house, and his brow was furrowed. Undeniably the case against Orkney was weakening. Equally the case for the Safety First Club was tottering.
There came to Sam unhappy recollections of talk about the chain of proofs and its variouslinks, among them the cruelty to Little Perrine. Well, there was nothing for it but to go on with the inquiry he had begun.
Little Perrine, he was told, was very much better, and would be glad to see him. The convalescent was sitting up in bed, and was in excellent spirits.
“Hullo, Sam!” he called out gaily. “Gee, but it’s good of you to look me up! Sit down, and tell me all about how you pulled Tom Orkney and me out of the pond. The folks won’t tell me half enough.”
Sam drew a chair close to the bed.
“Oh, it isn’t much of a yarn,” he said modestly. “I happened to have a plank, so it was no trick at all.”
Little Perrine smiled. “That’s what you say! Doesn’t match the stories other people tell—and I guess they’re nearer the real truth. Everybody declares you did a star job. Funny, isn’t it, that I don’t remember anything about your part of it? One instant Tom Orkney was grabbing for me, and trying to drag me back, and the next—crash! There I was in the water, and Tom had jumped in after me, and was holding me up. Then everythingwas blurred, and there was a queer singing in my ears—and the next I knew, here I was, in bed. And then things got to whirling round, and I was going through it all again and again. Jiminy! but I bet I yelled like a good fellow!”
“Pretty close call for a kid like you,” said Sam.
“Poof! I’m tough!” insisted the boy. “I’d have been all right—crawled out myself, I would, if it hadn’t been for that sleepy feeling that came over me. But it was all right, anyway. There was old Orkney to hold my head out of water, and you were coming on the run. But, as it is, Orkney’ll have a good laugh on me, I tell you.”
Sam grasped the fact that Perrine had not been informed of Tom’s disappearance.
“Oh, so he—he’ll have the laugh on you?” he asked uncertainly.
“Sure! You see, he’d been telling me to keep away from the thin places. When he came along I was doing stunts—seeing how close to a blow-hole I could skate, you know; and he made a fuss about it. Why, he grabbed me, and lugged me back to shore, and tried tomake me promise to quit the funny business. But I got away from him, and beat it for the dam. I didn’t think he’d dare chase me, he weighs so much more than I do. But he pelted after me, and he’d have got me if I hadn’t kept dodging. And then—well, then the thing happened. But old Orkney was a brick, wasn’t he?”
Sam strove to make fitting reply, but achieved only a choking sound.
“Why, what’s the matter?” demanded Little Perrine. “And what makes you look so queer?”
Sam wiped his forehead with his handkerchief; he had a sense of fighting for time.
“Oh, looking—looking queer, was I?”
Little Perrine grinned. “Say! It was as if I’d hit you between the eyes and dazed you.”
Sam laughed, but it was a forced laugh and unconvincing.
“I guess this room’s pretty warm,” said he, and got upon his feet. “I’ll have to be going. You’ll be out, I suppose, in a day or two?”
“Yes. But if you meet Orkney, tell him to come to see me. You wouldn’t mindtaking the message, would you? Of course, I know he hasn’t been pals with your crowd, but after all that’s happened——”
“If I should see Tom Orkney I’d be only too glad to deliver your message,” said Sam heavily.
Another link in that famous chain had been fractured. By the testimony of the best possible witness Orkney had not imperiled Little Perrine’s life by driving him upon the thin ice; but, on the contrary, had risked his own to protect the younger and frailer boy.
With dragging step Sam went back to Lon Gates.
“I might as well speak plainly, Lon,” he said. “I’m all unsettled in my ideas.”
Lon regarded him keenly. “So? Ain’t that Orkney the all-round cut-up you thought he was?”
“I—I guess I’ll have to take back some of the things I said.”
“So?” Lon repeated.
“Yes—so!” said Sam with more spirit. “And since it’s so, and since somebody must have made all the mischief, and since it isn’t likely Orkney was the guilty one—why, Lon,I’d amazingly like to know whom you suspect.”
The hired man rubbed his chin. “Wal, I dunno. As things was, I didn’t intend to say nothin’ more till I was surer of my ground. But, seein’ how you’ve kinder cooled down and come to be ready to accept the light o’ reason, maybe I might’s well breathe a whisper or two of what the little birds may, or may not, have been tellin’ me.”
“This has been a day of surprises,” said Sam, “but I’m ready for some more. Fire ahead!”
Lon came a step nearer. They were alone in the barn, but he dropped his voice almost to a whisper.
“Wal, then, I will. Remember that day you went out and potted Major Bates?” he began.