"It's all right--Bob can do more with this than you or I could," said
the Cliffside official in a low voice. "I'll tell you about him later.
He's got the makings of a great detective in him."
Bob, much pleased at the invitation, started to push his way through the
crowd, envious murmurs accompanying him.
"Stick by me, fellows," he told Ned and Bob. "We'll all go in together."
"Say, look here!" objected Sam Drayton as he saw three lads approaching,
"Chief Duncan only told Bob Dexter to come in and----"
"These are my assistants," said Bob gravely, but, at the same time
winking at Chief Duncan. And Mr. Duncan winked back.
"That's right," he backed up Bob.
"Oh, well, let 'em in then," grudgingly conceded Mr. Drayton.
Bob's first sight, on entering the main room of the log cabin, was of
Hiram Beegle propped up in a chair covered with bed quilts. The old man
looked worn and ill--there was a drawn, pinched look on his face, and he
was pale.
"What happened, Mr. Beegle?" asked Bob, noting that the door to the
strong room stood ajar, and that the oaken chest, in one corner, was
also open.
Hiram Beegle opened his mouth, but instead of words there came out only
a meaningless jumble of sounds.
"He's been poisoned," explained Chief Duncan.
"Poisoned?" cried Bob.
"Or something like that," went on the Cliffside official. "It's dope, or
something that the robber gave him--maybe it's chloroform, for all I can
tell, though it doesn't smell like that. Anyhow he's knocked out and
can't tell much that's happened."
"Robbed! Robbed!" gasped Hiram Beegle, bringing out the words with
pitiful effort.
"Yes, he's been robbed--we're sure of that," said Sam Drayton.
"Box! Box!" and again the old man in the chair brought out the words as
if they pained him.
"That's right," assented the Storm Mountain chief. "As near as we can
make out he's been robbed of some sort of a small treasure chest. It was
taken from that larger chest in there."
"Yes, I know about it," said Bob quietly.
"You know about it?" cried both chiefs at once.
"I mean I saw the small treasure box Mr. Beegle speaks of," said Bob. "I
brought him home yesterday with it. But what I can't understand is how
the robber got in the strong room."
"No, and there can't anybody else either, I reckon," declared Mr.
Drayton. "It's a big mystery."
"Mysteries seem to be about the best little thing Bob runs into lately,"
chuckled Harry. "He doesn't more than get finished with one, than he has
another on his hands. Why don't you open a shop, Bob?"
"Cut out the comedy," advised Ned in a low voice to his chum. "Can't you
see that these self-important chiefs don't like this kind of
talk--especially this Storm Mountain fellow?"
It was evident that this was so, and Harry, with a wink at Ned,
subsided.
"I'd like to hear how it all happened, and I suppose Bob would, too,"
remarked Mr. Duncan.
"I'd like to hear the details," suggested the young detective.
"We'll tell you all we know, Bob," said Miles Duncan. "You see----"
But at that moment a loud and hearty voice from without cried:
"Where is he! Where's my old friend Hiram Beegle? Tell him Jolly Bill
Hickey is here! Where's my old friend Hiram Beegle!"
A man, broadly smiling, his bald head shining in the sun, stumped into
the room, one wooden leg making a thumping sound on the floor.
*CHAPTER V*
*A MYSTERIOUS ROBBERY*
Jolly Bill Hickey--for so he called himself--stood staring in the middle
of the room--staring at the huddled figure of the old man in the chair
covered with bed clothes.
"Why, Hiram--why--what has happened?" cried the man with the wooden
leg--an old-fashioned wooden peg, his stump strapped fast to it--and the
wooden leg showed signs of wear. "What has happened to my old shipmate
Hiram?" demanded Jolly Bill Hickey.
Again that pitiful effort to talk, but only a meaningless jumble of
sounds came forth.
"Hiram, did they ram you?" demanded he of the wooden leg. "Did they let
go a broadside at you? Did they try to sink you?"
Hiram Beegle nodded his head.
"Look here!" spluttered Chief Drayton. "You're not supposed to come in
here, you know."
"But I _am_ in, you see!" chuckled the wooden-legged man. "I am in and
I'm going to stay with my old messmate Hiram. You can't keep Jolly Bill
Hickey out when he wants to come in."
That was very evident.
"Are you a friend of his?" asked Chief Duncan.
"Am I? I should say I was! Ask him--ask Hiram I But no, what's the use.
He's been rammed--the enemy has broadsided him and he's out of action.
But I'll tell you I'm a friend of his, and he'll tell you so, too, when
he gets going again. But what happened here? Tell me--tell Jolly Bill
Hickey!" demanded he of the wooden leg.
"Hiram Beegle has been nearly killed and completely robbed," said Chief
Duncan.
"No! You don't mean it! Almost killed--and robbed! Who did it? Where are
the scoundrels?" Jolly Bill Hickey did not seem very jolly now. He
looked around with a vindictive air and fanned his bald head with his
cap.
"That's what we're here to find out," spoke Chief Drayton. "Do you know
anything about this crime?"
"Do I know anything about it? Say, I just got here!" exclaimed Jolly
Bill. "I came in on the morning train to see my old messmate Hiram
Beegle, and I find this crowd around his bunk and him knocked out like a
broadside had been delivered right in his teeth! How should I know
anything about it?"
"Well, I just asked," said Chief Drayton rather mildly for a police
official. Truth to tell the manner of Jolly Bill Hickey was a bit
overpowering.
"If you're a friend of Hiram's you might as well stay in and see if you
can help us," suggested Chief Duncan.
"Sure I'll help!" said Jolly Bill. "But we don't want too much help. Who
are these lads?" and he glanced sharply at Bob and his chums.
"Friends of mine," said the Cliffside chief, shortly.
"Oh, well, then that's all right--friends of yours--friends of Jolly
Bill Hickey. Shake!" He extended a hard palm and gave the lads grips
they long remembered. "Shake, Hiram!" and he clasped hands with the
stricken man, though more gently, it seemed.
"No use letting all outdoors in," went on Jolly Bill as he stumped over
and closed the outer portal, bringing thereby a chorus of protests from
the curious ones assembled outside. "Now let's spin the yarn," he
suggested. "But first has anything been done for my old messmate Hiram
Beegle?"
"A doctor has been here--yes," said Chief Drayton. "He says Hiram has
had a shock. There's a lump on his head----"
"He got that yesterday!" broke in Bob. "I picked him up right after it
happened. He thinks a man named Rod Marbury did it."
"And he did!" burst forth Jolly Bill. "A scoundrel if ever there was
one--Rod Marbury! So he whanged Hiram, did he?"
"There are two lumps on Hiram's head," went on Chief Drayton. "We know
about the first one--the one you spoke of," he said to Bob. "But he was
hit again last night. He was also either given some sort of poison that
knocked him out--some sort of dope, the doctor thinks, or else it was
some sort of vapor that made him unconscious. And while he was that way
he was robbed."
"But how did it all happen?" asked Bob Dexter. "How could a thief get in
the strong room when he didn't know the secret of the big brass key?"
"Whoever it was must have known some of the secrets," said the Cliffside
chief, "for he got in the strong room when it was locked, and when Hiram
was inside, and the thief got out again, leaving Hiram and the key
inside."
"He got out leaving Mr. Beegle and the key inside?" asked Bob. "Why, it
couldn't be done! There's no way out of that room except by the door,
and if the key was inside, and the door locked--why, it's impossible!
Mr. Beegle showed me that yesterday afternoon. The only opening to the
outer air is the chimney--no man could get in or out that way."
"But somebody did!" said Chief Drayton. "And that's where the mystery
comes in."
"Let's hear how it happened--from the beginning," suggested Harry.
"Suppose you tell your story first, Bob, so we'll know just how much of
it you saw."
"Do you want me to tell, Mr. Beegle?" asked Bob, for he remembered his
promise to the old man.
Hiram Beegle tried to talk, but about the only words Bob could
distinguish were "cupboard" and "key." He judged from this that the old
sailor, for so he seemed to be, did not want disclosed the information
as to where he kept the big brass key of his strange strong room. The
key was not now in sight, but Bob understood. He resolved to keep quiet
on this point, but to tell the rest.
Thereupon he related how he had found the old man stricken beside the
road the afternoon before. How he had gone with him to the office of
Judge Weston, who told of the brass-bound box coming as an inheritance
to Hiram Beegle from Hank Denby.
"That's right!" chimed in Jolly Bill. "I can testify to that. We were
all shipmates together--Hiram, Hank, that scoundrel Rod Marbury and me.
Hank Denby was the richest of the lot. He left the box to Hiram--I know
he promised to, and what Hank promised he carried out. He gave you the
box, didn't he, Hiram?"
The stricken man nodded.
"Well, I brought him home here with the box," went on Bob, "and he
brought me into this room. He explained how it could only be entered
from the door which he unlocked with a big brass key. He said he was
going to put his treasure in that chest," and the lad pointed to the
open one in the strong room.
"He did put it there, it seems," said Chief Duncan, "but it didn't stay
there long. In the night somebody got in and took the little treasure
chest away, nearly killing Hiram before doing so. Then they left him
locked up in the room, with the brass key near him, and came out."
"But how could they?" cried Bob. "They couldn't get out of the room if
it was locked. They couldn't leave the key inside. There's no other way
of getting out except by the door. And if that was locked, and the key
was inside----"
"That's where the mystery comes in," interrupted Chief Duncan.
"And it sure Is a mystery," added Chief Drayton. "If Hiram could talk he
might explain, but, as it is, we can only guess at it. I needed help on
this--that's why I sent for you, Miles," he said to his fellow officer.
"Hum! I don't know as I can do much more than you," ruefully replied the
Cliffside chief. "What do you think of it, Bob?"
"Huh! A lot he can tell!" sniffed Mr. Drayton.
"You don't know Bob Dexter as well as I do," stated Mr. Duncan quietly.
"I should like to have his opinion on this."
For the Cliffside chief remembered the case of Jennie Thorp, in which he
and his men had not shone very brilliantly.
"Let me see if I understand this," said Bob, looking at Hiram Beegle.
"Will you nod your head if I'm right?" he asked. "Don't try to
talk--just nod your head, will you?"
Hiram gave a sign of assent and understanding. Then Bob began to make a
statement of the mysterious robbery as he understood it, while those in
the room listened eagerly.
*CHAPTER VI*
*STRANGE MARKS*
"When I left you yesterday afternoon, after we drank the buttermilk
together," said Bob, speaking slowly, "you were going to put the
brass-bound box in your chest and lock it up, weren't you?"
Hiram Beegle nodded vigorously an assent to this.
"You did this, we'll say," resumed Bob, "but after I had gone, or after
you had locked up your treasure, you took it out to look at it again,
and count it perhaps--and you sat here in your strong room to do
that--with the door open--is that it?"
Again Hiram nodded to show that this was the truth.
"While you were doing that," continued the young detective, "some
one--an enemy or a robber--slipped in and overpowered you, taking away
the treasure box and locking you in the strong room. Is that how It
happened? And can you tell us who it was that struck you the second time
and who robbed you?"
Hiram Beegle nodded vigorously, but in both directions. Now his head
indicated an affirmative and again a negative.
"What does he mean?" questioned Harry.
"He's making queer motions," said Ned.
The stricken man was moving in an odd way the fingers of his right hand
on the arm of his chair. And then Bob Dexter guessed what it was he
wanted.
"He will write it out!" exclaimed the lad. "Give him pencil and paper
and he can write out what happened since he can't talk straight. Why
didn't we think of that before?"
"I said it would be a good thing to have Bob here," remarked Chief
Duncan while Chief Drayton looked for pencil and paper. And when these
were given to Hiram Beegle a look of satisfaction came over his face. He
began writing more rapidly than one would have supposed an old sailor
could have done, and he handed the finished sheet to Bob.
"Read it," suggested Harry.
Bob read:
"The young man has partly the right of it. After he left me I locked up
the box Judge Weston gave me. It was mine by right but I knew some who
might try to take it from me. Never mind about them now.
"After supper I sat here thinking of many things, and then I wanted to
look in my box again. I opened my strong room, left the door ajar, took
the brass-bound box out of my chest and sat looking over the contents
when, all of a sudden, I felt faint. Then I fell out of my chair--I
remember falling--and that's all I remember until I woke up early this
morning.
"I was lying on the floor, and beside me, close to my right hand, was
the big brass key to my strong room. But the door was locked, and my box
was gone. I couldn't understand it. First I thought I had just fainted
from the blow I got in the afternoon. I thought maybe I had put my box
back in the chest, but it wasn't there. I had been robbed, and there was
another lump on my head. Whether I was hit again, or whether I hit
myself when I fell out of my chair I don't know.
"But there I was, locked in my own strong room, the key was beside me
and my treasure was gone. That's all I know about it."
"But didn't he see anybody?"
"How did he feel just before he keeled over?"
"Didn't he hear any noise?"
"Did anybody make him drink anything that might have had poison or
knock-out drops in it?"
These were some of the questions from Ned, Harry, Jolly Bill and the two
police chiefs when Bob finished reading the document.
"Wait!" begged the young detective. "One at a time. I'll ask him the
questions and let him write the answer. We'll get along faster that
way."
"Let's see, first, how he got doped, if he was," suggested Chief Duncan.
So Bob wrote that question.
"No one gave me anything that I know of," was the written reply. "And
the only thing I drank was some buttermilk."
"I had some of that and I know there was nothing wrong with it,"
testified Bob. "But did you see any one around your cabin just before
you fainted and were robbed?"
"I saw no one," wrote Hiram, "It was very strange."
"I'll say it was!" exclaimed Harry.
"What did you do after you came to?" was the next question.
"I sat up and looked around. I couldn't understand it at all. I felt
sick--I couldn't talk--something seemed to have hold of my tongue. It's
that way yet but I can feel it wearing off. I saw that I had been
robbed.
"But the queer part of it was that whoever had robbed me had gone out,
locked the door from the outside and then, in some way, they got the key
back in here, so that it lay on the floor close to my right hand, as if
it had dropped from my fingers."
"Why, that's easy!" chuckled Jolly Bill. "They locked the door--that is
the robber did, and threw the key in over the transom. I've heard of
cases like that."
"There isn't any transom over this door," said Bob, pointing. "There
isn't a single opening to this room, either from inside the cabin or out
of doors. The keyhole is the only opening, and it Is impossible to push
a big key, like this, in through the keyhole."
"I have it!" cried Ned. "They climbed up on the roof and dropped the key
down the chimney. You said the chimney was barred inside, and too small
for a man to climb down, Bob, but a key could fall down."
"Yes," admitted the young detective dryly, "a key would fall down all
right, but it would drop in the fireplace, or in the ashes of the fire
if one had been built Mr. Beegle says the key was lying close to his
hand, and he was on the floor, ten feet away from the hearth. That won't
do, Ned."
"Couldn't the key bounce from the brick hearth, over to where Mr. Beegle
lay?" asked the lad, who hated to see his theory riddled like this.
In answer Bob pointed to the hearth. There was a thick layer of wood
ashes on it, for a fire had been burning in the place recently.
"Any key dropping in those ashes would fall as dead as a golf ball in a
mud bank," stated the young sleuth. "It wouldn't bounce a foot, let
alone ten feet, and land close beside Mr. Beegle's hand."
"Then there must be two keys, or else the door was locked with a
skeleton key," said Harry.
"No! No!" suddenly exclaimed the stricken man. He wrote rapidly.
"There is only one key, and no skeleton key would fit this lock," which
was easy to believe when its ponderous nature was taken into
consideration.
"Um!" mused Harry, when this had been read to those in the room. "Then
it's simmering down to a question of who it was knocked him out, and how
they managed to lock the door after they had left with the treasure, and
how they got the key back inside."
"That's the question," assented Bob.
"But why should the thief go to such trouble to get the key back in the
room, after he had left Mr. Beegle unconscious?" asked Ned. "That's what
I can't understand."
"He probably did it to throw suspicion off," suggested Bob. "By leaving
the key close to Mr. Beegle's hand he might have thought his victim
would come to the conclusion that he hadn't been robbed at all--or else
that in a sort of dream or sleep-walking act he had taken away his own
valuables and hidden them."
"Of course that's possible," said Chief Duncan.
"No! No!" cried Hiram, with more power than he had yet spoken since he
was stricken. Once more he quickly wrote:
"I did not hide that box. Why should I? It was mine and is yet, no
matter who has it. Someone sneaked in here while I was looking at my
treasure and overpowered me with some powerful drug, I believe--some
sort of gas, maybe the kind they used in the Great War. When I toppled
over they came in, got the box, went out and locked me in."
"But how could they get out and lock you in?" asked Chief Duncan. "The
key was here with you all the while."
Hiram Beegle shook his head. It was beyond his comprehension, and, for
that matter, beyond the comprehension of all present. Even Bob Dexter,
skillful and clever as he was, shook his head.
"I don't see how the key got back here," he mused. "But there are some
other things to find out yet. How did this robbery become known? Did any
one find Mr. Beegle in the strong room? They couldn't see him lying
there, for there aren't any windows. There aren't any panes of glass in
the door. Did he call for help? And if he did, how did he get the key
out to some one to come in and pick him up?"
"He didn't have to do that," said Chief Drayton. "He managed to crawl to
the door and unlock it himself. Then he staggered out doors and hailed
Tom Shan, a neighboring farmer, who was driving past. Shan did what he
could and then came and told me."
"I see," murmured Bob Dexter. "Then the two important points in this
mystery are to discover who robbed Mr. Beegle and how it was they got
the key back in the room after they went out and locked the door. And
that's the hardest nut to crack, for there isn't any opening in this
room through which a key could be put back."
"Except the chimney," commented Jolly Bill.
"We've eliminated that," declared Bob. "But, just to be on the safe
side, I'll climb up on the roof and drop the key down. We'll see where
it lands."
"Better first find out where the key really was," suggested Ned. "I mean
where Mr. Beegle was lying on the floor with the key near his hand."
"A good idea," declared Bob. "Can you show us how it was?" he asked.
The old man seemed rapidly to be getting better, for he arose from his
chair and tottered into his strong room. There he stretched out on the
floor in the position he had found himself in when he became conscious.
He laid the key in the position where he had first noted it on opening
his eyes.
"Well, we have that to start with," remarked Bob, as the old man arose
and went back to his chair. "Ill just mark the spot on the floor with a
pencil." As he stooped over to do this he seemed to take notice of
something, for Ned saw his chum give a little start.
"Did you get a clew then, Bob?" he asked.
"A clew? No--no clews here, I'm afraid."
"I thought you saw something."
"No--nothing to amount to anything. Now I'll get up on the roof and drop
the key down. You fellows stay here and tell me where it lands. I'll try
it half a dozen times."
They helped Hiram Beegle back to his blanketed chair, and by this time
the doctor had come back. He said his patient was much better and that
gradually all the effects of the attack would wear off.
"But you had better not stay here all alone," the physician suggested.
"I stopped at Tom Shan's on my way here and he and his wife want you to
come and stay with them a few days. You'll be well taken care of there."
"Yes--yes," slowly assented Hiram. "I'll--go. There's nothing here, now,
to be taken. They have my treasure."
He spoke sadly, as one who has lost hope.
"We'll get it back for you," said Chief Duncan cheerfully.
"Sure we will!" cried Jolly Bill. "I'll get in the wake of that
scoundrel Rod Marbury and take it away from him. Trust an old messmate
for that!"
He seemed so hale and hearty that one could not help having a friendly
feeling for him, and his weather-beaten face shone with the honesty of
his purpose, while his shiny bald head seemed to give promise of a
brighter sun rising on the affairs of Hiram Beegle.
"I'll take you over to Shan's place now, in my car," offered Dr. Martin.
"You need rest and quiet more than anything else. The police will look
after things here."
"Yes, we'll look after things," promised Chief Drayton. "I'll lock up
the cabin and bring you the key after this young man gets through
dropping the key down the chimney, though I don't see what good it's
going to do. I'll lock up the place for you."
"There isn't much--to--to lock up--now," said the old man slowly. "The
treasure is gone!"
"Oh, we'll get it back!" promised Chief Duncan. "What was in the
box--diamonds or gold?"
"Neither one," was the answer.
"Neither one? Then what was the treasure?" Chief Drayton wanted to know.
"Papers! Papers!" somewhat testily answered Mr. Beegle.
"Oh, stocks and bonds, I reckon. Well, you can stop payment on them.
Better tell Judge Weston about it."
"Yes! Yes! He must be told," mumbled Hiram. "Now I want to sleep."
He closed his eyes weakly, and the physician and others helped him into
the auto. Bob had taken the big brass key, and as he and his chums went
outside, followed by the police officers and a curious crowd, the young
detective said to Jolly Bill:
"How long have you known Mr. Beegle?"
"Off and on all my life."
"Do you know anything about this Rod Marbury and what sort of
inheritance it was that Mr. Denby left?"
"I don't know anything good about Rod Marbury," was the answer. "As for
Hiram's treasure, well, I can tell a story about that if you want me
to."
"I wish you would," said Bob, as he looked about for a way of getting up
on the roof to drop the key down the chimney in the experiment. "It
might help some in solving the mystery."
Ned, who had gone on ahead a little way, around the side of the house
where the chimney was built, suddenly uttered a cry of surprise.
"Look at these queer marks!" he called. He pointed to broad, flat
impressions in the soft ground--impressions as though made by the foot
of an elephant!
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE KEY EXPERIMENT*
Bob Dexter, when he had caught sight of the carious marks, to which
attention was called by his chum Ned, found himself wishing that he was
a little more alone on this mystery case.
"There are altogether too many cooks here--they'll spoil the broth,"
mused Bob, as he saw the ever-growing crowd following him and his
companions around to the side of the cabin where the chimney of the
fireplace was erected.
True though the "murder" had turned out to be only a mysterious robbery,
coupled with an assault on the old hermit, and in this way spoiling a
sensation, there was still much curiosity regarding everything connected
with the matter. Even though Hiram had been taken away in the
physician's automobile.