JOE FINDS A CLUE
Next morning’s _Courier_, which was Mr. Kenton’s choice among the
Central City dailies, had a full half-column about the Vigilantes. The
_Courier_ was quite enthusiastic, and predicted that the end of bicycle
stealing was in sight. It gave much credit to Warren Scott, referring
to him as “the son of Mr. Lyman W. Scott, secretary of the Sproule-Gary
Corporation, and one of Central City’s foremost citizens.” At the end
of the article it briefly announced that the theft of two more bicycles
had been reported to the police. Joe grinned when he reached that.
“Maybe, though,” he reflected, as he hurried off, “the thieves hadn’t
heard about the Vigilantes!”
During the following week only one bicycle was reported missing.
Whether this was due to the vigilance of the Vigilantes or to the fact
that owners had pretty well learned their lesson and no longer parked
their wheels beside the curb without locking them was a question. In
any case, the papers commented favorably, praised the Vigilantes and
the Police Department――all save the _Evening Star_, which, opposed to
the present city administration, inquired loudly why the police neither
apprehended the thieves nor recovered any of the stolen property. Sam
Sawyer was very full of the honor of his position of second chief of
the Vigilantes and took his duties very seriously. To Joe he confided
that, while the society had not so far actually caused any arrests or
returned any stolen bicycles to their owners, it had undoubtedly to
be credited with the sudden cessation of theft. With nearly a hundred
fellows around the streets watching constantly, he pointed out there
wasn’t much chance for the robbers.
The following Monday the papers announced that between Saturday evening
and midnight on Sunday eleven complaints of bicycle thefts had reached
police headquarters! Some bicycles had been stolen――locks and all――from
the curb, some had been taken from yards and porches and one, belonging
to a minister on the outskirts of town, had been removed from the
church vestibule! The _Courier_ had an impassioned editorial that
morning on the subject of the revival of crime and the _Star_ gloated
and howled in big black headings and pointed an accusing finger in
direction of Police Headquarters. Somewhat to his disappointment, Joe
did not encounter Sam that day. Of course Joe deplored the thefts and
was sorry for those who had lost their wheels, but he was only human,
and he was a little bit huffed because he had not been admitted to the
Vigilantes.
It was nearly closing time on Tuesday when Burke, the store manager
at the Central City Market, sought Joe in the shipping room. “There’s
an order to go out to the North Side, Joe. None of the teams is going
that way, so you’d better hustle out on your wheel. The name’s Jordan.
Smithy’s putting it up now.”
Joe nodded. He didn’t relish the errand, however, for it had been
raining all day and was still at it, and the North Side streets were
none too good under the best of weather conditions. But he made
no protest and sought Smithy. The address on the slip read “W. H.
Jordan, Orcutt Road, 1 h’se beyond Drayton place.” Joe had to look in
the directory in the office before he could locate Orcutt Road. The
directory informed him that it ran west from Line Street in Bowker’s
Addition. With such meager intelligence he set forth at a few minutes
past five, his carrier weighted down with bundles.
It was a good twenty minutes journey to Line Street, the latter part
of it through a dejected and even unsavory part of town, and, having
reached that street, an unpaved thoroughfare sparsely inhabited
by truck farmers in a small way, he sought further enlightenment.
It was still raining desultorily and the street was deserted by
pedestrians. Finally he leaned his bicycle against a rickety fence
and pushed through a gate beyond which a small dwelling, built largely
of second-hand material, showed in the early twilight. The man who
cautiously, even suspiciously, opened the unpainted door to him,
proved to be Italian, and Joe had much difficulty in making his wants
known. In the end, however, he learned that Orcutt Road was nearly a
half-mile further on. The road was a veritable quagmire now, and he
was frequently forced to dismount and push his bicycle through the
muddy pools and over the uneven roadbed. Even the dwellings of the
truck farmers ceased presently and the road――Joe had long since stopped
referring to it as a street――stretched interminably away before him
toward the darkening horizon with little to break its monotony save
an occasional tree or group of bedraggled bushes. Eventually, though,
a tumble-down farmhouse came into sight from under a slope of field
well away from the road, and Joe decided that it must be the Drayton
place. If it was, Orcutt Road could not be much further. Nor was it.
Some fifty yards beyond the falling gate giving on to the farmhouse
lane, an ill-defined wagon track led to the right and at its junction
with the road a leaning post held a board bearing the nearly illegible
inscription: “Orcutt Road.” Joe gave up the idea of riding the bicycle
any further and detached the laden carrier and set it on his shoulder.
The Jordan residence was further along the grass-grown track than he
had supposed, and he had to shift his burden more than once before the
house came into sight.
It was a very humble dwelling, low, ancient, weathered, half hidden
by a plantation of tall poplars doubtless planted many years ago as
a windbreak. There were several outbuildings visible, all quite as
unkept as the house itself. In one of them a light burned feebly,
a lemon-yellow radiance in the gathering gloom. In the house there
appeared to be no light at all until having turned from the uncertain
road, he crossed a patch of grass and drew nearer. Then three things
happened almost simultaneously: a dog barked ferociously from the
direction of the house, a voice challenged from nearer at hand and
a light sprang dimly into sight behind the narrow sidelights of the
entrance.
“You from the store?” asked the voice.
A dark form sprang suddenly into view a dozen paces away and
approached. So did the dog, a big black nondescript who growled
menacingly as he bounded forward. “Get out o’ here, Gyp! Beat it or
I’ll bounce a brick off your bean!” commanded the voice compellingly.
Gyp stopped growling and began to sniff instead, circling around the
visitor at a few yards’ distance.
“I’ve got an order here from the Central City Market for Jordan,” said
Joe. “All right?”
“Sure,” answered the other. “Give it to me.” He proved to be a boy
some two years older than Joe; perhaps eighteen. He was tall and
broad-shouldered and uncouth. His clothes seemed too large for him and
fell into strange wrinkles as he stepped close to take the wire basket.
He wore no hat, and Joe found the fact oddly worrying him for the
instant. Then, as he yielded the carrier and said, “Four dollars and
thirty cents to pay, please,” he knew why.
“All right,” said the boy gruffly in his unpleasant voice, and started
toward the rear of the house, Joe was following more slowly when the
other turned. “You wait here,” he said in a threatening tone. “Watch
him, Gyp.”
The dog growled and Joe stopped very still. For several minutes boy and
dog stared at each other there in the rain and gloom, but Joe didn’t
see Gyp at all. He saw, instead, a figure in a dark slouch hat bending
over the handlebars of a shining purple bicycle, and although the hat
was now wanting, he knew beyond the possibility of any doubt that the
youth on the bicycle and the unpleasant-voiced boy who had disappeared
beyond the corner of the house were one and the same.
His thoughts were interrupted by the return of the boy with the empty
carrier and the money. “Here you are, kid,” he grunted. “Now beat it.”
“Guess I’d better,” said Joe pleasantly. “It’s a long way out here,
isn’t it? Gee, I was nearly bogged down getting along that road!”
“Well, why didn’t they send a team then?” demanded the other.
“There wasn’t any of them coming this way to-day. That’s a nice dog
you’ve got,” Joe snapped his fingers invitingly, but Gyp only growled
deeply. “Is he cross?”
“He don’t take to strangers,” answered the other gruffly. “Come here,
Gyp. I’ll look after him till you’re out o’ the way, kid. Better get a
move on.”
“All right. Good night,” said Joe. He turned back across the ragged
and sodden lawn and gained the road. There he dared one brief backward
look. Boy and dog still stood where he had left them, unmoving,
silent, two dark forms in the falling darkness. The light in the
house had gone, but that in one of the outbuildings――possibly a
stable――had increased in brilliancy. Against its radiance a figure――two
figures――moved, coming and going from sight across the square opening
of a wide doorway. Then Joe brought his eyes back to the uneven road
and floundered on toward the road and his bicycle.
His thoughts were very busy indeed as he pushed and pedaled his way
home.
It was quite dark by the time he swung into his own street, and the
infrequent lights left pockets of gloom between them. It was in one of
these that a voice came to Joe above the swishing sound of his tires on
the wet asphalt.
“Hey!” said the voice imperatively. “Hold up!”
Joe obeyed, coming to a halt as a dark figure detached itself from the
deeper darkness across the street. The figure resolved itself into the
burly form of a policeman who, joining the boy, peered suspiciously
from him to the bicycle.
“What’s it?” asked Joe.
“Whose wheel is that?” demanded the officer gruffly.
“Mine,” replied Joe. “That is, it belongs to Donaldson and Burns. They
let me use it.”
“What’s your name? Where do you live?”
Joe told him, explaining his errand and indicating the wire carrier as
confirmatory evidence, and the officer grunted as though satisfied and
went on. So did Joe, arriving home a minute later very wet and very
hungry; and also secretly rather excited. He had difficulty getting to
sleep that night.
The next morning three more bicycles were reported stolen and the
papers carried an advertisement inserted by a hastily formed “Bicycle
Dealers’ Association” offering a reward of one hundred dollars for
information leading to the apprehension and conviction of the thieves.
Joe read that notice with a deal of interest. He would have liked a
partner in his contemplated enterprise, but the only fellow he could
think of was Sam, and there were reasons why Sam wouldn’t answer.
When he reached the store Joe sought Mr. Burke and asked to be allowed
to leave a half hour earlier to-day. The manager objected from force of
habit, but finally consented. At half-past four Joe begged some meat
trimmings from the hand butcher, detached the parcel carrier from his
bicycle and set off.
The afternoon was cloudy and chill, but rainless, as he followed his
route of yesterday to within sight of the Drayton farm. There he
concealed his wheel in a clump of bushes, climbed the fence and found
himself in a meadow through which a dry brook meandered. It was still
broad daylight and the problem of reaching the Jordan place unseen
looked difficult. He dropped into the brook, however, and, well hunched
over, began a cautious journey. The brook crossed the meadow by many
turns toward a group of tumble-down outbuildings well away from the
Drayton house. Reaching them at last, unchallenged, he abandoned
concealment and passed behind them toward a fence a hundred yards
distant. The fence was overgrown on both sides with trees and bushes
and he had trouble breaking through. But when he had he was rewarded.
A quarter of a mile away to his left the Jordan house was in sight
beyond a corner of the clustered outbuildings and between him and the
latter stood a neglected orchard overgrown with tall weeds and littered
with dead branches. Before proceeding he reassured himself by feeling
of the packet of meat in his pocket. He was in far greater awe of Gyp
than any of the human denizens.
Traversing the orchard was like playing Indian. Joe dodged from
one tree to another, watching sharply the while. As he neared the
outbuildings a sound reached him such as might be made by tapping a
metal bar with a hammer, and although it ceased almost at once it
proved that someone was close at hand, probably in that shed where
he had yesterday seen forms moving to and fro. What he most dreaded
to hear, the challenging bark of Gyp, didn’t disturb him. Behind the
stable and sheds, which now completely hid the dwelling, lay a mass of
discarded farm machinery, lumber and miscellaneous rubbish half hidden
by grass and bushes. Three windows stared across at him. Of these, two
were in the shed in the middle, perhaps once a carriage house, and the
third, high up, was in the building on the extreme left. The stable,
at the right of the row, was windowless at its rear. Joe was certain
that the center building was the one in which he was to find an answer
to his problem, and that the answer would come to him by means of one
of its two windows. To reach it, however, he must cross a good twenty
yards of open space, and, while the shadows were gathering, it was not
yet even twilight, and he hoped devoutly that no one――least of all
Gyp――would be looking his way!
Of course he could wait for darkness, but then the shed might be
deserted and unlighted and he would discover nothing. No, it was best
to go ahead now and chance it. If he was discovered and pursued he
could, he thought, trust his legs to get him out of danger. Taking a
deep breath, he bent low and ran.