had left his flivver out in the road, and as he got into it he saw,
farther down the highway, the Italian organ grinder trudging along.
"You're a queer character," mused Bob to himself as he started off. "You
certainly were tying sailors' knots in that rope. Must have picked it up
on your way over from Italy in a ship. If you weren't what you are, I'd
say you had been a sailor some day."
Bob had an errand to do for his uncle in a town beyond Storm Mountain,
and it was not until late in the evening when he returned. He found Ned
and Harry at the house waiting for him.
"Come on to the movies," urged Harry. "You haven't anything to do, have
you, except eat?"
"I haven't got to do even that," answered Bob. "I had supper in Yardley.
Yes, I'll go to the movies with you."
"Unless you're going to work on your latest case," added Ned with a
laugh.
"No, there isn't much I can do until I have a talk with old Hiram,"
replied Bob. "There are one or two points I want him to help me clear up
before I get down to brass tacks. I guess it will do me good to get a
sight of a movie. Is the show any good?"
"It's a sort of a circus yarn," answered Ned. "They show a lot of the
acts in the big tent, so Joe Wright was telling me."
"Good! Let's go!"
It was a lively movie and the boys enjoyed every moment of it. There was
one act where a performer slid down a slanting wire cable, attached to
the highest point of the tent, suspending himself by his teeth on a sort
of trolley wheel that spanned the taut wire.
He whizzed down the inclined cable with great speed, landing on a big
mattress at the lower end where the wire was fast to a peg in the
ground.
"Say, that was nifty!" whispered Ned to Bob. "Wasn't it?"
"What was?" asked Bob, somewhat absently.
"For cats' sakes! Didn't you see that fellow slide down the inclined
wire rope?"
"Oh, you mean that?"
"Sure! What else would I mean? Did you see it?"
"No, I didn't take particular notice," replied Bob. "I was thinking of
something else."
"Well, for the love of stamps! Say, what did you come for, anyhow, if
you aren't enjoying it?" chuckled Harry.
"Oh, I'm enjoying it all right," remarked Bob.
His chums shook their heads knowingly at each other. Well they realized
that the detective virus was working in the veins of Bob Dexter.
It was two days after this, during which time Bob and his chums had paid
a visit to Jolly Bill at the Mansion House, that something else
happened. Jolly Bill had made himself at home in the town's most
pretentious hostelry, though that isn't saying much. He was an easy
person to make friends, and seemed to be well liked.
"Well, have you located the treasure yet, or that rascal Rod?" he asked
Bob.
"No, not yet. I've been waiting to have a talk with Mr. Beegle."
"So have I," said Jolly Bill. "That's why I left my home out west and
traveled here. And no sooner do I arrive than I find my old messmate in
difficulties. But I reckon he'll soon be better, and then we'll visit
and spin many a yarn together. He may be able to give you a clew that
will lead to Rod Marbury.
"I'm hoping he will," said Bob. "I expect to see him to-morrow."
"I'll try and stump my way up there," said the wooden-legged man. "It's
a fair walk, but----"
"I'll take you," kindly offered Bob.
"Thanks--that's good of you. Let me know when you go."
But Bob wanted a private and lone conversation with Hiram Beegle before
he took the wooden-legged man to Storm Mountain, and so, with that end
in view, the young detective decided to anticipate the visit by one day.
"I think he'll be well enough to talk to me now," Bob reasoned.
On his way to the log cabin the lad in his flivver passed a small hotel
or boarding house on the outskirts of the town. It was not a very choice
or reputable place, and it did not much surprise Bob to see, sunning
himself out in front, the bewhiskered Italian organ grinder.
"Business must be pretty good that he can afford to stay there," thought
the lad. "Of course the board isn't so very expensive, but I always
thought these organ grinders had to sleep under hay stacks and beg their
food in order to get along. But there he is!"
The Italian seemed to know Bob, or at least remember him, for he nodded
in friendly fashion as the flivver chugged past.
"He's taking a day off from grinding," thought the young sleuth, for he
had sight of neither the monkey nor the organ.
Arriving at the house of Tom Shan, Bob was met by the farmer's wife who
said:
"He isn't here!"
"Who?" asked the youth.
"Hiram," was the answer. "He's much better now and he's gone back to his
cabin."
"That's good!" exclaimed Bob. "I'll go on over there to talk to him. How
did he get back? I sort of figured on coming after him."
"Oh, Tom hitched up and took him over this morning. Hiram is much
better. He says his head is all clear now."
"Then can he remember what happened--I mean when he was robbed in his
strong room?" asked Bob.
"Well, not exactly," answered Mrs. Shan. "But you better talk with him
yourself."
"I will," decided Bob, and he drove over to the log cabin.
"Who's there?" demanded a voice inside, when he had knocked at the
door--a voice he recognized as that of the old sailor.
"I am--Bob Dexter," was the reply.
There was a moment of silence, and then a movement within--the sound of
a chair being pushed back over the floor.
"Oh--all right--I'll let you in," went on Hiram Beegle.
There was the sound of a key being turned in the lock, and a rattle,
denoting a chain being slipped from its fastenings.
"He isn't taking any more chances," thought Bob with a smile.
The door was finally opened, and the old man peered out. That dazed look
was gone from his face, but he seemed a trifle weak. As he caught sight
of Bob he murmured:
"Oh, the young detective who helped me! I remember. Come in. But is
there any one with you?" he asked, suspiciously.
"Not a soul," answered Bob.
"Good! All right, come in."
The place had been straightened out since the night of the robbery, and
there were evidences of a woman's hand. So Bob judged Mrs. Shan had been
putting the log cabin to rights.
"I thought I'd like to satisfy myself on a few points about this case,"
began Bob. "Chief Duncan said I might try my hand at solving it."
"Somebody needs to do it," spoke Hiram Beegle. "It's a queer case. If I
don't get back that map I'll never know where the treasure is hid, and
I'll never get it."
"Did you have a chance to look at the map and find the location before
you were robbed?" asked Bob.
"No, I only glanced at the papers in the box Hank Denby left me in his
will. The map was quite complicated--it would take a deal of study to
puzzle it out. But now it's gone."
"And is all that story true that Jolly Bill told--about treasure on a
South Sea island?" asked Bob.
"Well, I don't know what Bill told you," was the reply. "But there was
treasure on an island. It was dug up and we four agreed to share
it--that is until Rod and Bill went to the bad when they forfeited their
shares. It wasn't so much Bill's fault though--I don't hold it against
him. It was that Rod Marbury."
"So I understand," spoke Bob. "We'll pass over that for a while," he
said, glad to have, however, this much confirmation of the tale told by
the wooden-legged sailor. "What I'd like to find out now, Mr. Beegle, is
how that key got inside the room where you were lying unconscious. Are
there any secret openings by which the key could have been tossed
in--the opening being closed later?"
"No, Bob, not a one. I watched that room built and I know. That's the
deepest mystery of all."
"Well, we'll pass that for the time being. But tell me--were you out
around your cabin, just before you were attacked, carrying a bag of
potatoes which you had to set down every now and then because it was too
heavy? Were you?"
"A bag of potatoes? No!" exclaimed Hiram, wonderingly.
"Did anybody bring you a sack of potatoes, or did you sell any one a
sack, which they carried away?" went on the lad. "There are marks of a
potato sack having been set down in the soft ground near the side of
your cabin where the chimney of the fireplace in your strong room is
built. Somebody had a sack of potatoes."
"No potatoes!" cried Mr. Beegle. "I didn't carry any, and no one brought
me any. It must be something else, my boy. But no potatoes!"
He looked at the young detective earnestly. Then some sort of doubt, or
suspicion seemed to enter his mind, for he said:
"Look here, Bob, my boy! You aren't stringing me, are you?"
"Stringing you, Mr. Beegle? No, of course not! Why do you ask that?"
"Because of this potato business. I thought maybe you were trying to
play a joke. Lots of people think they can joke with a sailor."
"No," replied the lad, "I'm in dead seriousness. I want to find out all
I can about this matter. If you say there weren't any potatoes that ends
my theory in that direction."
"But what could have made those marks if it wasn't a sack of potatoes?"
thought Bob in wonderment as he went back over the case.
*CHAPTER XII*
*MONKEY LAND*
Hiram Beegle was feeling much better. Several days had passed since the
two assaults on him--being knocked down on his way home with the
brass-bound box, and the attack in his own cabin. He was almost his own,
hearty self again as he sat there looking at Bob, trying to fathom what
the young detective was driving at.
"I don't understand this potato business, young man," said the old
sailor.
"Neither do I," admitted Bob, "unless you have a pet elephant somewhere
around this cabin," and he laughed.
"An elephant! I should say not, though I've seen plenty of 'em, and wild
ones, too, in my time. More likely I'd have a monkey."
"A monkey?" questioned the lad.
"Yes, I heard there was one camping on my doorstep while I was sick over
at Tom Shan's."
"Oh, the organ grinder's monkey--yes. But he's gone away. He's stopping
over in Cliffside--at the Railroad House."
"You don't tell me! What's the idea?"
"Guess he must be making money with his wheezy music," laughed Bob. "But
to get back to this subject, have you any idea what made the funny marks
around at the side of your cabin, Mr. Beegle?"
"No, I haven't, but I'll go out with you and take a look at them. And
say, I wish you wouldn't call me Mr. Beegle?"
"Isn't that your name?" asked Bob, thinking perhaps the inheritor of
some of the old pirate's hidden treasure might be masquerading.
"Yes, it's my name, but all my friends call me Hiram, and since you're
one of my friends--I'm sure you must be or you wouldn't go to all this
work on my account--why can't you call me Hiram?"
"I will, if you wish it," answered Bob. "But as for work--I don't call
this work--I mean trying to solve a mystery."
"You don't? Well, have it your own way. Now let's go out and have a look
at those marks. Though I'm afraid there aren't many of them left. We had
a shower in the night, and that fellow who calls himself the chief of
the Storm Mountain police has been pottering around."
"Was he here to-day?" asked Bob.
"Yes, just before you came. He didn't know anything, though, and never
will, in my opinion."
Bob did not subscribe to this, feeling that it was not just exactly
ethical, since Mr. Drayton was a sort of fellow practitioner so to
speak.
Hiram Beegle was right in his surmise that not many of the "potato
marks," as Bob called them, remained. There had been a little shower
over Storm Mountain early that morning, and the raindrops, together with
the tramping of feet about the cabin, had obliterated, for a great part,
the strange impressions.
But Bob found a place, sheltered by the trunk of the tree which grew
close to the cabin, where there was one mark plainly visible.
"And if that isn't the impression of a jute bag, the kind that holds
potatoes, I don't know what is," declared the young detective.
Hiram Beegle put on his spectacles and bent over to make a closer
inspection. Long and earnestly he gazed at the mark.
"That's been made by a bit of bagging," he declared. "I wouldn't go so
far as to say the bag had potatoes in it, though."
"No, it needn't have had potatoes in," agreed Bob. "But it was a bag and
it had something heavy in. You could tell that more easily, before, by
seeing the depth of the impressions. Chief Drayton would have it that
your box was carried off in a sack and it was so heavy that the thief
had to set it down every now and then."
"Nonsense!" laughed the old sailor. "That box wasn't at all heavy nor
big, but it did contain a treasure. It had a map in that showed where
old Hank had buried his share of the gold--his share and that which
would have gone to Jolly Bill and Rod if they had done what was right.
It's partly my treasure, too, for I didn't use up my share."
"And haven't you any idea where it is buried, even without reference to
the map?" asked the lad.
"Nary an idea," was the answer with a dubious shake of the head. "I
don't reckon I'll ever lay my eyes on it now."
"Oh, you may," said Bob, cheerfully. "Of course I'm pretty young at this
business, but----"
"I've heard good reports of you," complimented Hiram.
"Thanks. But of course there's lots I've got to learn. But I know enough
about cases like this to feel sure that, somewhere or other, the thief
has made a slip. He's left some sort of a clew, and if I can get on the
trail of it we may catch this Rod Marbury."
"Yes, Rod did it all right," declared Hiram. "He and Jolly Bill were the
only ones, except me, that knew of the treasure. Old Hank wrote to each
of them, just before he died, telling how he had willed the treasure to
me, and had left me the brass box in which the map was always kept.
"Now Jolly Bill appears, fair and square and above board, and he's man
enough to say he's sorry for what he did. Well, he may be, for he's out
of pocket by it.
"But this scoundrel Rod sneaks into town, waylays me to get the box away
and when he can't do that, because he's scared off, he comes back to my
cabin, drugs me in some way, either by dropping something into my
buttermilk, or by throwing a gas bomb into my room, and then he takes
the box, after tapping me on the head."
"Do you think that's how it happened?" asked Bob.
"Of course it was! I've told you, but I'll tell you again. I went in my
strong room, and I was looking at the brass box and the map, when all of
a sudden I felt sort of weak like. The next I knew was when I came to,
and found myself lying on the floor, locked in, the big key close to my
hand, and my box and map gone."
"And you never saw Rod nor any one else?"
"Nary a soul. It was like a dream."
"But you must have been expecting some sort of attack as this," reasoned
Bob, "else why did you build the strong room, with no entrance to it
except by the door, and the chimney barred? Why did you do that?"
"I'll tell you why, son," was the answer, "it was because I have always
feared this Rod Marbury! I've feared him ever since he and Jolly Bill
tried to bilk old Hank--not that Bill started that plan--it was Rod. But
I knew from that he was a desperate man, though Jolly Bill got the worst
of the deal--he lost a leg and the fortune that had been his, while Rod
only lost the money. But now he'll get it all--that's the way in this
world--the wicked sure do flourish like a green bay tree, as the Good
Book says, and many's the bay tree that I've sat under, though I never
thought, at the time, I'd have this bad luck."
"Maybe it will turn out all right," suggested Bob, hopefully.
"I'm afraid not," was the gloomy answer. "Anyhow, as I was telling you,
I built this strong room in my cabin after I heard what Rod had tried to
do to Hank. I thought my turn would come some day, and it did--but not
as I planned. It was the first time I ever went in my strong room, to do
anything, without locking the door behind me. If I had done that Rod
couldn't have gotten in. But I figured that after he got fooled on the
road he wouldn't try again. But he got in, and of course, after that, it
was easy for him to get out, after locking me in."
"But how did he get the key back in?" asked Bob. "That's the secret of
this log cabin that I'd like solved."
"I'll never tell you," said old Hiram with a shake of his head. "Any
more than I can tell you what made those funny marks, like a sack of
potatoes."
"Well, that's what I've got to work on," decided Bob. "I've got to
discover the secret of the log cabin, and locate Rod. But you might help
in the last."
"How?" asked Hiram.
"By giving me some idea of where he might start to dig for the hidden
treasure--telling me the probable location of the place where Hank Denby
might have hidden it."
Hiram Beegle shook his head dubiously.
"Might as well try to look for a needle in a hay stack," he said. "Hank
was a strange man. He'd pick out a hiding place you nor I would never
dream of. He must have taken a leaf out of the book of the old pirate
who originally had this money. How he got it--I mean how the pirate came
by the wealth--no one knows. Perhaps it's just as well not to inquire.
Anyhow the real owners couldn't be found after all these years. And I
intended doing good with the money after I got it. I was going to leave
most of it to a hospital."
"That would be good," remarked Bob. "So we'll have to try to get it back
for you. But can't you give me a clew as to where this Rod might start
to look for the wealth? He'll know where it is, having the map, you
see."
"Oh, yes, he'll know," agreed Hiram. "But I can't say, for the life of
me, where it might be."
"Do you think it would be in Cliffside?"
"Yes, I should say so. Hank never went far from home of late years, and
he certainly would keep the treasure near him. He didn't believe in
banks, you know."
"So I've heard. Well, well see what can be done about it. There isn't
anything more I can find out here, since you say there was no secret
opening into the strong room."
"Not an opening, but the chimney."
"And when we dropped the key down the flue it just fell in the ashes,"
said Bob. "So it couldn't have been that way."
He remained a little longer, talking to Hiram and puzzling over the
queer case, and then rode back to town. As he passed the office of Judge
Weston, the lad saw, coming from it, the Italian organ grinder.
Surprised at this, Bob stopped his car and looked after the man who had
neither his organ nor monkey with him this time. Then, as the Italian
passed on down the street, Judge Weston came out.
So excited that he hardly observed the veneration due the old gentleman,
Bob exclaimed:
"What was he after?"
He pointed to the retreating Italian.
"Why, he came in to buy monkey land!" answered the judge with a laugh.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*QUEER PLANTING*
Bob Dexter did not know whether to laugh with Judge Weston or to remain
serious, for he felt there might be something serious in the visit of
the Italian to the lawyer's office. Bob was seeing altogether too much
of that Italian organ grinder of late--at least so thought the young
detective.
However, as Judge Weston continued to smile, as though amused at
something, the lad thought it couldn't be very serious, so he repeated:
"Monkey land?"
"Yes," went on the lawyer. "It seems he is a traveling organ grinder,
and----"
"Yes, I know him," interrupted Bob. "I beg your pardon," he hastened to
add, as he saw the legal man look at him somewhat strangely. "But I was
trying to save your time in explanation."
"You say you know this Italian, Bob--er--let me see, I put his name down
somewhere--Pietro Margolis, he calls himself."
"Well, I don't exactly _know_ him, Judge Weston, but I've seen him
around town a lot. He's staying at the Railroad House. I first saw him
at the log cabin of Hiram Beegle, right after the robbery. He walked
down the road playing his wheezy old organ and showing off his monkey's
tricks."
"Yes, that's what he came to see me about," said the lawyer. "It was his
monkey. It seems the animal must have a certain kind of food, and it
doesn't grow in this country. So this Margolis wanted to buy a piece of
land and plant the peanuts or whatever it is that monkeys eat. I know he
doesn't want to plant peanuts, though I know monkeys eat them, but I use
peanuts for an illustration. He told me the name of the nut, or fruit or
whatever it was he intended to plant, but I've forgotten."
"And he wants to buy land for that purpose?" exclaimed Bob. "Why, it's
too late to plant anything now. It might not be in the tropics, where
monkeys come from, but here----"
"Oh, he doesn't intend to start planting until spring," said the lawyer.
"He just wants to get the land now."
"But you aren't a real estate agent," said Bob. "Why didn't he go to Mr.
Landry for what he wanted?"
"I suppose he came to me because he happened to learn that I controlled
the very piece of land he wanted to rent, or buy," said the judge.
"Some of your property?"
"No, Bob. Some that belongs to the estate of old Hank Denby. You see,
I'm executor of Hank's will, and there are several pieces of land to
dispose of."
"Yes, I heard he left quite a little," admitted Bob. "He was pretty well
off, even if he didn't use all the pirate gold he dug up at the South
Sea islands."
"Oh, you know that story, do you, Bob?" asked the lawyer in some
surprise.
"Yes, Jolly Bill Hickey told me part of it and Hiram Beegle the rest."
"Um! Well, I didn't know it was out, but I wouldn't spread it too
widely, if I were you. Folks think Hiram queer enough as it is, without
having this added to his reputation. Of course if it's necessary, in
order to capture the scoundrel who robbed him, to tell the story, I
wouldn't ask you to hold it back."
"I understand," stated Bob. "There doesn't seem to be any need, at
present, of broadcasting it. The police don't need to know it in order
to catch this Rod Marbury."
Again Judge Weston laughed.
"Offhand, Bob, I should say the kind of police we have around here would
need to know a great more than this story in order to capture this
fellow Marbury. But that's neither here nor there. Are you working on
the case?"
"In a way, yes. Of course I'm not officially connected with it. Uncle
Joel wouldn't allow that. But some day I'm going to be a regular
detective. However, he said I could do whatever I might think was right
in trying to find out things about this mystery."
"I wish you luck, Bob."
"Thanks. But did you rent or sell this Italian any land for his monkey
food?"
"I have, practically, Bob, though the deal isn't closed yet. He was
willing to pay a good price for a piece of otherwise waste land on which
he could raise these monkey nuts, or whatever they were. He doesn't want
to start planting until spring, but he wants to get control of the land
now to prepare it, he says."
"Where's the land?" asked Bob. "I didn't know we had any in Cliffside
that was suitable for monkey business," and he laughed.
"Why, this Pietro Margolis said he had been looking at land around here,
and he found a piece that just suited him. It's that overgrown bramble
patch back of the house where Hank Denby lived at the time of his
death."
"You mean some of Mr. Denby's land?"
"Yes, Bob. I've practically rented this Italian, for a year, that
bramble patch, and I consider, as executor of the estate of the old man,
that I got a good price for it. You know it's the duty of an executor,
Bob, to Increase the estate if possible. And though I don't imagine the
nieces and nephews of Hank--for those are all the relatives he left--I
don't imagine they appreciate what I've done, still it was my duty."
"Yes," agreed Bob. "So he left his estate to nieces and nephews, did he?
But what about the pirate fortune that went to Hiram Beegle--that is if
Hiram ever gets it--what about that? Won't these nieces and nephews want
a part of that?"
"It wouldn't do them any good to want it, Bob," stated the lawyer. "You
see that gold, or whatever form the wealth was in that was dug up on the
island--that fortune was held by Hank in trust, so to speak. At his
death it went to the survivors of the original four--or such of them as
had played fair and kept the agreement Hiram Beegle was the only one, so
he got all the others' shares."
"That is he has them to get," remarked Bob, somewhat grimly. For the
stealing of the brass-bound box, containing the directions for finding
the hidden wealth, had effectually blocked Mr. Beegle's chances.
"Yes, it's very much in distant prospect, Bob. But perhaps you'll be
able to help the old man."
"Maybe. I don't suppose Hank ever intimated to you where he had buried
the stuff?"