spend an' I'm spendin' it! Whoop-la!"
It was a characteristic attitude of one in his condition.
"We won't have any trouble with him, Bob," whispered the chief. "He'll
come along with us for the asking."
"Unless some of his friends, or would-be friends object," remarked Bob.
For, as he spoke, the doors of several dark hovel-like buildings opened,
letting out dim shafts of light. And in this illumination stood
half-revealed, sinister figures--men and women, too, who were on the
lookout for just such a gay and reckless spender as this foolish fellow
proclaimed himself to be.
"Oh, I'll handle them all right," said the chief.
"You've got to be quick then," remarked the young detective. "There goes
some one after him now."
A moment later there darted from one of the evil buildings, a slouching
figure of a man. The shaft of light from the open door put him in dark
relief. He ran to the swaying, staggering figure of the singer, who was
now mumbling to himself, clapped it jovially on the back and cried:
"Come on, Jack! We've been looking for you! Everything is all ready!
Right in here, Jack! Everything's lovely!"
He swung the victim around, and the latter, taken by surprise, followed
for a few steps. Then, as Bob and the chief watched, the singer
unexpectedly stiffened and braced himself back.
"Whoa!" he exclaimed. "Hold on! Where you goin'?"
"For a good time, Jack! To see the elephants you know!"
"Yep--I know! I seen elephants before--big ones, too--in India! I'm
elephant hunter, I am--but my name ain't Jack."
"Oh, well, Jill then--Jack or Jill, it's all the same to me. I'm a
friend of yours."
But a spirit of opposition had been awakened in the victim. It was a
small matter--that of a name, but small matters turn the tide in cases
like these.
"If you're friend of mine, you oughter know my name," went on the
celebrator, swaying and reeling as the other held him up, "You tell me
my name an' I'll go with you."
The other laughed and then tried a bluff.
"Sure, I know your name!" he declared. "It's Bill--good old Bill! Now
come on!"
He had made a shot in the dark--in the dark in more ways than one. The
chances were in his favor. Bill is a fairly common name, and many a
"sport" answers to it even though he may be Tom, Dick or Harry. But
again the spirit of perverseness took control of the victim.
"No 'tain't!" he cried. "I ain't Bill--never was--never will be. You
guessed wrong--you're no friend of mine. Now lemme be! I'm goin' to find
elephant. Tom's my name--Tom Black, an' I'm proud of it. Now lemme go!"
He shook off the hold of the other, and the man who had slipped out of
the den of thieves stood irresolute for a moment. He was taken aback,
but did not want to use too much force in getting his victim within his
clutches. He must try another game, and still be gentle about it.
But at the mention of the name Tom Black the chief nudged Bob.
"Guess we're on the wrong lay," he said.
"Do you think he'd give his right name?" asked the lad.
"They generally do--in his condition. Of course he may be going under
two names, but I don't believe this is Rod Marbury."
Bob had begun to think so from the moment he had seen how easy it
was--that is comparatively easy--to pick up the trail of the suspect.
"If we could get a look at him," the young detective suggested.
"That's what we've got to do, Bob. Come on. It's getting lighter now.
We'll catch him in front of one of these doorways."
It was getting lighter, but not because the blackness of the night was
passing, nor because the blessed sun was rising, nor because the rain
was ceasing--for none of these things were happening. It was still night
and the rain was coming down harder than ever.
But down the lane of the sordid street more doors were opening, and from
each one streaked a shaft of light. In some mysterious way, like the
smoke signal of the Indians, it was being telegraphed through the
district of crime that "pickings" were on the way. The aforesaid
"pickings" being an intoxicated man with money in his pockets. This was
the sort of victim much sought after by the dwellers of the "Barbary
Coast," as the district was called by the police.
The man who had accosted the singer, if such he might be called, had
slipped away in the darkness, either to get help, to concoct some new
scheme, or to await a more propitious occasion.
But, meanwhile, other would-be despoilers were on the scene. And Chief
Duncan proposed to take advantage of the light they were letting into
the darkness.
"Come on, Bob," he whispered. "He's in a good position now to get a look
at."
The man was again singing, or, rather, groaning about his desire to see
where the elephant was hiding. And just as he came in focus of one of
the better lighted doorways, the young detective and the officer walked
alongside of him. As they did so another man darted from the lighted
doorway as if to swoop down like some foul bird of prey.
But, seeing the other two figures--and a glance told him they were not
of his ilk--he drew back.
It needed but a glance on the part of Bob and the chief to let them see
that this man bore no resemblance whatever to the description they had
of Rod Marbury. Neither in build, stature nor appearance did he bear any
likeness to the suspected sailor.
"No go, Bob," spoke the chief, turning to flash a look full in the face
of the staggering man.
"No," was the answer.
"Who says I shan't go?" angrily demanded the man, mistaking the words
spoken. "I'm my own boss. I'll go see elephant if I like!"
"I'm not going to stop you," declared the chief. "You're your own boss,
though I wouldn't give much for your pocketbook when you come off the
Barbary Coast. Go ahead, I don't want you."
"Don't you think it would be a good plan," suggested Bob, "to get him
away from this neighborhood? He's sure to be robbed and maybe injured if
he stays here."
"You never said a truer thing in all your life, Bob Dexter," spoke the
chief. "But trying to get him to come with us wouldn't do a bit of good.
We couldn't keep him with us all night, or until he is in better senses.
He'd only be an elephant on our hands. And if we took him away from here
he'd wander back again in a few hours. The night is young yet."
"Then what can we do? I hate to see him get plucked."
"So do I, and I have a plan. I don't want the Cardiff police to know I'm
in town. But I can telephone to headquarters, in the guise of a citizen
who has seen a man with money in this dangerous neighborhood, and
they'll send the wagon and a couple of men in uniform. Brass buttons are
the only thing that will impress this fellow.
"Of course they can't arrest him, for he hasn't done anything more than
get himself into a foolish and miserable state. But they can detain him
until morning, when he'll be sober. That's often done, and that will
save his money for him. Come on, we'll slip out of here and find a
telephone."
"Yes, but while we're gone some one of these sharks will pull him into
their holes."
"He'll be easy to find, Bob. Every resident here wants a chance at
picking his bones, and for the one who gets him there'll be a dozen
envious ones ready to squeal. A stool-pigeon will tip the police off as
to what den this fellow was hauled into, and they can take him out.
There's time enough--he won't give up his roll easily. It takes a little
time to work the game and before it's played out I'll have the officers
here."
Content with this Bob followed the chief out of the vile and evil
district. The telephone tip was gladly received, for the police of
Cardiff were not anxious to have it broadcasted that irresponsible and
foolish strangers were robbed, even along the Barbary Coast. Word was
given to the chief, who, of course, did not reveal his identity, that
the matter would be looked after.
Having done their duty, Bob and the chief returned to the district long
enough to see the clanging wagon rumble in and take away the "elephant
hunter." He had been enticed into one of the dens, but, as Mr. Duncan
had said, some one "squealed," and the police easily located the place.
"Well, I guess this ends it, Bob," remarked the head of the Cliffside
police. "It was a wild goose chase."
"I wish it had been a wild duck," murmured Bob.
"Why?"
"Well, a duck's back would have shed water better than mine. I'm
soaked."
"So 'm I. But it couldn't be helped. You'll have to get used to worse
than this, Bob, if you're going to be a detective. And not only one
night but many nights in succession."
"Oh, I know that. I'm not kicking. Only I wish we had picked up Rod."
"So do I. But it wasn't to be. It was a good tip, as far as it went. But
I guess Rod is safe enough, for a time. But we'll have another shot at
finding him."
"Of course," agreed Bob, as they chugged back to Cliffside in the rain
and darkness.
It cannot be said that the young detective was very much discouraged or
disappointed at the result of this excursion. It had been but a slim
chance, at best, but slim chances must be taken when trying to solve
mysteries or catch criminals.
As a matter of fact Bob Dexter would have been rather sorry, in a way,
had the foolish man turned out to be Rod Marbury. For the credit of the
capture would have gone to Chief Duncan. And Bob wanted to solve the
mystery himself.
"And I want to find out the secret of the log cabin," he told himself as
he got into bed late that night, or, rather, early the next morning. "I
want to find out how the key got back in the room."
For about a week there were no more moves in the case--that is, moves
which appeared on the surface. What was going on beneath no one could
tell.
Pietro Margolis continued to dig holes and plant his "monkey nuts," as
Bob called them. Jolly Bill Hickey continued to reside at the Mansion
House, now and then going to Storm Mountain to visit Hiram Beegle. The
old sailor was now quite himself again, but he could throw no additional
light on the strange robbery.
"I don't know where the treasure is, nor whether Rod is digging it up or
not," he said. "I'm fogbound--that's about it--fogbound."
But Bob Dexter was anything except discouraged. He had youth and health,
and these are the two best tonics in the world. Of course he would have
been glad to come at a quick solution of the mystery.
"Though if I did there wouldn't be much credit in solving it," he told
himself more than once. "If it was as easy as all that, Ned or Harry
could do as well as I, and I wouldn't like to think that. A regular
detective wouldn't give up now, and I'm not going to!"
Bob squared his shoulders, clenched his hands and walked about with such
a defiant air that his chums, more than once, asked him after that why
he was carrying a "chip on his shoulder."
It was one day, about two weeks after Bob's night trip to Cardiff that,
as he passed the log cabin he saw, in what was the garden during the
summer, a figure using a spade.
"I wonder if that dago is planting monkey nuts on Hiram's place?"
thought Bob, for the figure, that of a man, had his back turned. "It
isn't Hiram. I wonder----"
The man with the spade straightened up. It was Jolly Bill. He saw Bob
and waved a hand.
"I'm digging worms!" he called. "Not having much luck though."
"Digging worms?" repeated the young detective in questioning tones. "I
wonder what his game is?" he said to himself as he alighted from his
flivver.
*CHAPTER XVII*
*BOB GIVES A PARTY*
Had Jolly Bill Hickey announced that he was digging in Hiram's old
garden to locate the treasure buried by the dead and gone Hank Denby,
the young detective would not have been more surprised than he was when
the laughing sailor declared that he was digging worms.
"Worms!" repeated Bob as he made his way toward the gate in the fence.
"Worms!" He spoke the last aloud.
"Sure--worms!" declared Jolly Bill. "Guess I've got as much right to dig
worms to go fishing with as that dago has to plant monkey nuts!" and he
laughed genially.
"Oh--you're going _fishing_," exclaimed Bob.
"Sure I am--what else would I be digging worms for? Hiram and I are
going fishing."
"Oh--of course," murmured Bob.
It was perfectly obvious and natural now. There was good fishing in Lake
Netcong or Rockaway river, both near Cliffside. Bob had been to both
places, with both good and bad luck at times. And he had fished with
worms as well as with hellgrammites, and grasshoppers. The lads of
Cliffside inclined to natural bait rather than spinners, plugs or
artificial flies.
"Don't you want to come along?" invited Jolly Bill as Bob stood looking
at him turn over the brown earth, scanning each spadeful, meanwhile, for
a sight of worms.
"Don't believe I can," answered the lad. "But you won't find any worms
here, no matter how long you dig. It isn't the right kind of earth."
"Do you know," said Jolly Bill with a frank and engaging smile, "I am
beginning to believe that myself. All I've turned up the last half hour
has been one poor, miserable little worm. Must be an orphan, I reckon,"
and he laughed heartily.
"That's what I been telling him," spoke the voice of Hiram Beegle from
the doorway of his log cabin. "You'll never get any bait there, Bill,
and you might as well quit. Down back where the stable used to be are
worms aplenty."
"Oh, all right," assented the other. "You ought to know the lay of the
land better than I do. And I certainly haven't had any luck here. I'll
take your advice."
At one time Hiram had kept a horse which hauled a ramshackle wagon that
took him to and from Cliffside. But he had sold the animal some years
ago, as requiring too much care from an old man.
However, land about a stable, no matter how long the equine dweller has
been away, seems to be a homestead for worms, a fact which Jolly Bill
soon demonstrated. From his digging he called:
"I'm getting slathers of 'em now. Get your pole ready, Hiram."
"All right," was the answer.
Bob had been talking to the old man while Jolly Bill had transferred the
scene of his digging operations.
"Think you'll get any fish this time of year?" asked the young
detective, for it was rather late in the season for the fish to bite
well. The finny tribes were "holing up" for the winter, or doing
whatever fish do in preparation for snow and ice covering the lake and
river.
"Well, no, Bob, I don't expect we'll get many," was the cautious answer.
"It was Bill's idea to take me fishing. He proposed it."
Bob had begun to suspect that much.
"And he suggested coming here to dig for worms, didn't he?" asked the
lad.
"Why, that's what he did!" exclaimed old Hiram. "How'd you know that,
Bob Dexter?"
"Oh, I sort of guessed it, I reckon. Has he been digging long?"
"No, he just started a little while before you came around. But he says
he and I will go fishing every day as long as the weather holds good.
I'm not much of a hand for fish myself, but I didn't want to refuse
Bill."
"He has a jolly way with him," conceded the lad. The wooden-legged
sailor stumped up with a tomato can half filled with worms.
"If we have luck like that at fishing," he remarked as he scraped some
mud off his timber-leg on the spade, "well be doing well."
"I should say so!" laughed Bob. He had marveled at the skill with which
Bill used the wooden leg. It served him at spading almost as well as did
the foot and leg of a normal person. Bill stood on his good foot, and
putting the end of his wooden stump on the top edge of the spade, where
it is made wider to give purchase, he pressed the keen, straight, garden
implement down in the soft soil. Then, with a quick motion, the spadeful
of earth was turned over, and beaten apart with a quick blow, revealing
the crawling worms.
"Then you won't come, Bob?" asked Hiram as he got down his pole from
inside the cabin.
"No, thank you--not this time."
"If you're passing back this way, later in the day, stop and well give
you some fish for your uncle," promised Hiram. "That is if we catch
any."
"Oh, well catch plenty!" predicted Jolly Bill.
"Thanks," replied Bob. "I'll stop if I pass this way. And now, if you
like, I'll run you down to the lake, or river--which are you going to
try first?"
"The lake," decided Hiram, as Bill looked to him to answer this
question. "And it's right kind of you, Bob, to do this. I was going to
ask Tom Shan to hitch up and ride us down, but your machine'll be a lot
quicker."
It was, and when Bob had left the fishermen at the lake, promising, if
he had time, to call and take them home, he went on to his uncle's
store.
Contrary to expectation, Bob did not find anything to do. Mr. Dexter had
wanted him to deliver a special order over in Cardiff, but the man
called for it himself, and this gave the lad some free time.
"I think I'll just take a run back to Storm Mountain," mused the young
detective. "Hiram won't be back for some time, and I'd like to take a
look around the place all by myself. He wouldn't mind if he knew of it,
especially when I'm trying to help him. But I'd rather not have to ask
him. This gives me a chance to get in alone."
Bob told himself that he would go in the cabin, and he knew he could do
this, for he knew the old man never carried with him the key of the
outer door, hiding it in a secret place near the doorstep. No one had
ever yet found it, and probably Bob was the only one the old man had
taken into the secret--and this only after Bob's attention to Hiram
after the latter was attacked when carrying home his treasure box.
"I'll just slip in and have a look around," decided the lad. "Maybe I
might discover something, though what it can be I don't know. If I could
only figure out a way by which that key was put back in the room, after
the door was locked on the outside, I might begin to unravel this
mystery."
Bob flivvered up to the log cabin, but he did not alight at once from
his little car. He wanted to make sure he wasn't observed. Not that he
was doing anything wrong, for it was all along the line of helping Hiram
Beegle. But he felt it would be just as well to work unobserved.
Satisfied, after having sat in his auto for five minutes, that no one
was in hiding around the log cabin, and making sure that no one was
ascending or descending the Storm Mountain road, Bob ran his car in the
weed-grown drive and parked it out of casual sight behind what had once
been a hen house. But Hiram had given up his chickens as he had his
horse. They required too much care, he said.
Bob found the key where Hiram had told him it would be hidden. Then,
with a last look up and down the lonely road in front of the log cabin,
the lad entered.
Ghostly silent and still it was, his footfalls echoing through the
rooms. But Bob was not overly sentimental and he was soon pressing the
hidden spring that opened the niche where the key to the strong room was
concealed.
It was this room that held the secret, or, rather that had held it, and
it was in this room that the young detective was most interested.
"But it seems to hold its secret pretty well," mused the lad as he
walked about it, gazing intently on the wooden walls. "There must be
some secret opening in them," thought the boy. "Though if there was why
doesn't Hiram know it? Or, if he knows it, why does he not admit it? Of
course he might have his own reasons for keeping quiet. I wish I could
find out!"
Bob looked, he tapped, he hammered he pounded. But all to no purpose.
The walls would not give up their secret. He even stuck his head up the
chimney flue as far as he could, thereby getting smudges of black on his
face, but this effort was no more fruitful than the others.
"The key could come down the chimney, of course," mused Bob, "but it
couldn't jump itself out of the ashes into the middle of the room.
That's the puzzle."
He had spent more time than he reckoned on in seeking the secret and he
was surprised, on looking at his watch, to find how late it was.
"I'd better be going after those two," thought the lad. "They'll have
fish enough by this time, if they get any at all."
As Bob was locking the strong room, and preparing to put the key back in
its hiding place, he heard something that gave him a start. This was a
knock on the front door of the log cabin.
"Gosh! Are they back so soon?" thought the lad.
He did not realize, for the moment, that Hiram would not have knocked at
his own door. It must be some one else.
Quickly the lad closed the niche and then, going to the door opened it.
Standing on the threshold was--Pietro Margolis--the Italian music
grinder. He had with him neither his monkey nor organ, but on his face
there was a look of surprise, and he started back at the sight of Bob
Dexter.
"Oh--excuse--please!" he murmured. "I t'ink to find the old man but--you
have been cleaning his chimney--maybe?"
At first Bob did not understand. Then as he looked at a daub of soot on
his hand, and remembered that there must be some on his face, he
realized how natural was the visitor's mistake.
"Hello, Pietro!" greeted the youth. "Mr. Beegle isn't home. I--I've been
doing some work for him while he's gone fishing."
"Yes--I see him go--with other man."
"Hum! Maybe that's the reason you came here--because you saw Hiram go
away," thought Bob. But he did not say this to the Italian. The latter
carried something in a bundle, and, noting that Bob's eyes were directed
toward it, the caller, with a white-tooth smile, opened it, revealing
some of those same strange nuts, or dried fruits he had been planting in
the bramble patch.
"I come see mebby Senor Beegle let me try plant monkey nuts on his
land," explained Pietro.
"Mebby so they no grow where I put 'em," and he waved his hand in the
direction of Cliffside.
"I don't believe anything would grow, the way you planted it," chuckled
Bob, remembering the deep holes the Italian had dug.
Pietro looked across the deserted garden. He saw where Jolly Bill had
been trying for worms.
"Senor Beegle--he dig holes, too!" exclaimed the caller. He seemed
strangely excited. "Mebby so he plant monkey nuts!"
"I don't believe so," stated Bob. "Hiram hasn't any monkey. They have
been digging worms," he explained.
"Worms--what for worms?" asked the Italian with a vacant look.
"For fishing. That's where they are, you know--after fish."
"Oh, sure--feesh. Well, mebby so I leave these nuts for Senor Beegle--he
plant them and try them--you t'ink?" He held the odd things out to Bob.
"You better come back and explain about them yourself," said Bob. "I'm
going after them now. Come back to-morrow."
"Aw-right. I come back!"
The Italian did not seem disappointed. With a patience characteristic of
his kind, he smiled and turned away. Bob watched until he saw the organ
grinder tramping down the Storm Mountain trail.
Then Bob locked up the log cabin, hid the key where he had found it and
took another road back to Cliffside in order to pick up Hiram and Jolly
Bill.
They had had good luck fishing, contrary to what Bob had expected and he
brought home to his aunt some welcome specimens of the lake. Hiram was
left at his cabin and Jolly Bill at the Mansion House.
"Well, I know one thing I'm going to do," said Bob to himself that night
in his room. "I'm going to give a party!"
Rather a queer decision you might think, until you knew the reason for
it.
There was a room in the headquarters of the Boys' Athletic Club
available for gatherings of various sorts. It could be hired for dances
and parties by the members or friends of the latter, and often the boys
and girls would give little affairs there.
So it did not surprise the chums of Bob Dexter to receive, in the next
few days, invitations to a little affair of this sort at the club. On
the bottom of some invitations was a line:
"Please bring peanuts."
"What's the idea, Bob?" asked Ned, reading this command. "Aren't you
going to feed us?"
"Oh, yes, but the peanuts are for the monkey."
"What monkey?"
"The organ grinder's."
"Is he coming to the party--I mean the dago?"
"Yes, and he's going to bring his organ and monkey."
For a moment Ned stared at his chum, and then, seeing that Bob was
serious, Ned broke out into a laugh.
"Oh, ho! I get you!" he chuckled. "It's a dandy idea! Organ music and
monkey tricks at your party! Quite a stunt! Good idea!"
"Yes, I think it's quite an idea," said Bob quietly.
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*THE MAN WITH THE HOOK*
Many of Bob Dexter's friends came to his party--in fact nearly all of
them were present. Whether it was the admonition to "bring peanuts," or
whether Ned Fuller had spread the news that there would be "something
doing" at the affair, is not clear. At any rate there was a goodly
attendance in the club, where Bob had arranged to entertain his guests.