AN ALARMING DISCOVERY
Rex come down to the gate to meet them.
“I’m sorry that mother isn’t home,” he said. “She’s just had a telegram
from Syd that takes her to town and will keep her there with him all
night Some business connected with the new house,” he added with a
glance at Roy.
“But the girls are home and will be delighted to receive you with
fitting honors,” he went on. He did not say that he had had quite a
time to induce them to appear at all. He had rushed into the house in
his impetuous way announcing that Roy was coming along with a young man
they had met down at the creek who was a famous author and was so nice,
and whom they had invited to tea.
“But we don’t know him, Rex,” Eva had exclaimed in considerable dismay.
“You oughtn’t to bring strange people to the house in that way.”
“Oh, but it’s just the same thing as if we did know him,” and Rex went
on to explain about the story he had written, which they had all read
and admired.
“But is he nice and respectable himself?” Jess inquired. “You know some
of these writers are horribly poor and go about with threadbare
clothes. He might not be the right sort of man for us to know at all.”
“Jess!” Eva exclaimed severely. “The idea of your thinking that because
people are poor they can’t be respectable! We shall be very glad to
meet your friend, Rex,” and Jess felt that she was in such disgrace
that when Mr. Keeler was presented she tried to redeem herself by being
excessively friendly.
And this was not difficult for her to do. He was certainly very
different from what she had expected. He had neither long hair like the
traditional poet, nor trousers fringed around the bottom like the
literary hireling of Grub Street.
Indeed, she found him quite handsome; he dressed almost as well as Rex
did, and he was a most interesting talker. And all the while she was
sensible of having seen his face somewhere before.
She thought at first it might have been in a portrait painted as a
frontispiece to his book. At the first opportunity she slipped off to
the boys’ room and looked it up. But there was no portrait there.
Finally she decided that she must have passed him in the street in the
city some time and resolved to think no more about it.
Eva was pleased with the visitor too. They had a very merry supper
party. The clash of opinions about what to do with their money was
stilled for the time while they all listened to the very entertaining
stones told by their guest.
He was, it seemed, on his way home from the oil regions of Pennsylvania
whither he had gone to secure the local color for a new story. In fact
he had traveled very extensively in his short life, for he was not yet
thirty.
At one time he had lived among a tribe of blacks in Africa; at another
been a member of a party of exiled Russians, on tramp to the mines of
Siberia. He was telling of an exciting adventure he had had among the
Arabs when the twinkling lights in a train crossed the trestle caused
him to come to a sudden pause.
“I must be thinking of the time,” he said taking out his watch, and
trying to see the figures on its face by the moonlight. “I don’t want
to miss the last train in to town.”
“Oh, do, please,” pleaded Rex. “You can stay here just as well as not.
Syd won’t be home and you can have his room. The last train goes in
half an hour; you won’t nearly have exhausted your stock of stories by
then. Please stay.”
“We should be very glad to have you do so, Mr. Keeler,” said Eva.
“But this is trespassing altogether too much on your hospitality,” he
returned. “Besides, you scarcely know me and I didn’t come prepared. I
left Philadelphia this morning, meaning to be back there by night.”
“Oh, we’ll fix you out,” said Rex with an air of finality, “so go on
with your Arab story.”
It was most comfortable on that porch with its southern exposure, the
fireflies dancing to the chirp of the crickets, the span of the
railroad trestle looking like a fairy bridge against the background of
the sky. Mr. Keeler decided to stay.
Roy wondered what the others would think if they knew that their guest
was aware of what had recently befallen the family. He should most
decidedly not have told all he had if he had foreseen what was coming.
At ten o’clock Eva suggested that Mr. Keeler was probably tired from
his journey, so the boys went up stairs with him.
“I’ll come down and lock up,” Roy called back to his sisters.
When he returned in a few minutes, leaving Rex talking bicycle with
their guest, he found the girls standing in the library, over a large
book which they had open on the table before them.
“Look there!” exclaimed Jess, almost in a tragic tone, just as he
entered.
She was pointing at something in the upper left hand corner of the
page. Eva started as she looked at it and then turned a frightened face
toward Roy.
“Roy, come here,” she said.
“Why, what’s the matter with you girls?” he exclaimed. “You look as if
you’d each seen a ghost.”
“It’s worse than that!” answered Jess in a sepulchral tone. “Look
here.”
She pointed to the spot on which Eva’s gaze had been riveted.
“Why, it’s Mr. Keeler’s picture!” exclaimed Roy.
“Read what it says underneath,” went on Jess in the same tone.
Roy let his eyes drop to the printed lines beneath the portrait, which
was one of six which adorned the page. This is what he read:
Martin Blakesley,
_Alias “Gentleman George,” “Lancelot Marker” etc., Confidence Man._
“What book is this?” asked Roy.
His voice was hard. He hardly recognized it himself when he heard it.
“‘Noted Criminals of the United States,’” replied Jess. “Syd brought it
home last week to look up something or other he wanted to use in a
case. I was glancing through it this morning and saw this picture then.
I knew I’d seen Mr. Keeler somewhere before as soon as I laid eyes on
him this afternoon.”
“Perhaps it’s only somebody that looks like him,” said Eva faintly. “He
has a larger mustache than that now.”
“It’s had plenty of time to grow,” rejoined Jess significantly. “This
book was published two or three years ago. See, here is his history.
No. 131,” and she began to look over the pages till she came to the
paragraphs of description accompanying the portrait.
The three heads bent over the page eagerly, while Roy, in a low voice,
read the facts about No. 131. He had been in jail twice, it seemed, his
last term having expired, as Roy figured, some four months previous. He
was noted for his suave manners and the facility with which he imposed
on strangers.
“That’s the man,” murmured Jess. “What are we going to do?”
Eva stepped back to the sofa and sank down upon it as if every bit of
strength had gone away from her.
“It doesn’t seem possible,” was all Roy could say for the moment.
Then he turned back to the picture and studied it long and intently.
Meanwhile the steady murmur of voices could be heard from above. Rex
was showing Mr. Keeler the treasures in their room.
“I had better go up and ask him to leave,” then said Roy suddenly.
“Oh, no, no, that will precipitate a quarrel,” exclaimed Jess. “He may
murder us all.”
“What do you want me to do then?” asked Roy.
“I don’t see that you can do anything except sit up with Eva and me
down here till morning. I’m sure I should never sleep a wink if I went
to bed.”
“I’m hoping yet there’ll be some way to prove we are mistaken in
thinking him the same person,” put in Eva.
“You might take this book up, Roy, and show it to him, then if he
didn’t flush when he saw this picture we’d know it was all right.”
“And if it wasn’t, poor Roy might be stabbed where he stood,” added
Jess cheerfully. “I tell you! we might cry fire and scare him out that
way.”
“Don’t be silly, Jess,” Roy admonished her, and then he returned once
more to the study of the face of the criminal.
There was a sudden crash up stairs. Jess uttered a half stifled scream.
“Oh, Roy,” she cried, “do go and see! He may have killed poor Rex!”