That night the Wolfes’ Matilda was in her element. Mrs. Wolfe had
returned, and as soon as she heard what had been going on, she
insisted on inviting the three Secret Service men who had been around
with the boys, to come to her house and celebrate, and (perhaps to be
sure of hearing everything about the affair that was closing so
successfully) she asked Eddie to supper with the rest of the
“plotters” as she called them. And because she knew that the
participants would want an audience, she asked Frank’s chum Walter
Fletcher, who lived next door, to come and help Mr. Wolfe and her
with the listening. So Matilda cooked and cooked, and when the
hungry guests sat down everybody cheered up after one look at the
loaded table. When half-way through, they had reached a state of
dangerous appreciation, and with dessert Walter declared that Matilda
deserved the distinguished service medal, and Mrs. Wolfe a place in
the Hall of Fame.
After dinner they all went out on the screened-in porch and talked
and talked, and told the tale over and over.
“Zipousky, or whatever his name is, is a queer pill,” said the Major.
“Actually, he would not harm Dee, yet he spent his life making bombs
and spreading propaganda. There is enough evidence against him to
keep him in prison for the next ninety years.”
“Why, the dub thought that just as soon as we had taken down his
declaration, we would drop him at the doctor’s and bid him a fond
farewell. He went on like a madman when he found himself at the
station, and told me I had lied to him.”
“Where is he now?” asked Mrs. Wolfe.
“At the Infirmary at the jail. Under guard, too. We don’t want
anything to happen to him. He is too valuable a witness. I think he
would kill himself if he found a chance, but two men are watching him
night and day.
“We sent the other Secret Service men back to headquarters, with
copies of the lists, and couriers are being dispatched in airplanes
to all cities noted. It will be a great scoop.”
“Did you have a scrap when you arrested the three men and the woman
at the Seelbach?” asked Walter.
“Only one man tried to put up a fight,” said the detective. “The big
one who drove the car out to Knox. We went up to the room and
knocked. The lady in the case called, ‘Come,’ and we two went in.
We simply grabbed her before she could do anything, and put the
bracelets on her. My, but she was mad! She never said a word, but
if looks could kill we would all have been dead. She was alone, and
we shut the door and waited, after warning her to keep still.
“Presently someone came down the hall. The carpet is so thick that
you could not hear footsteps, but we heard the key-check jangle. And
the woman started to let out a yell. We beat her to it, and gagged
her. Then we waited awhile longer, first moving her chair around
where it could not be seen from the door.
“After awhile someone came to the door and came in. It was the thin
man, and we stacked him up beside the lady. All at once I noticed
her little foot tapping the floor, and there she was sending messages
right under our noses. Then I put the anklets on her and, to make
sure, placed a cushion under her feet. It wasn’t long before the
other two whom we expected came along. We were ready for them with
revolvers, but the big one wanted to fight the worst way.
“The management didn’t want us to take a bunch of prisoners out the
front, so we had to take them down the freight elevator. It seems
they have been splurging round the hotel for six weeks, the woman
wearing wonderful clothes, and the men posing as oil men from the
west.”
“Where are they now?” asked someone.
“Safe in a nice tight cell, each of them,” said the detective,
smiling. “And far enough apart so they can’t tap out any messages to
each other. We went through their luggage, of course, and found all
sorts of things. Sulphuric acid, and caps and fuses, and what not,
and you should have seen the diamonds the woman had! All sorts of
pins and bracelets in boxes in her trunk and a chamois bag fastened
in her dress with ten or twelve rings, all worth at least five
hundred dollars apiece. I suppose she was afraid of going broke
somewhere. You can always get cash out of perfect stones. Either
that, or else she was going to make a getaway to South America or
Mexico after the thirteenth.”
“It is pretty tough for you, youngster,” said the detective, laying a
sympathetic hand on Dee’s shoulder, “pretty tough to have this happen
to the man you have always thought was your own father.”
“I don’t know,” said Dee. “I am glad you mentioned it. There has
always been something funny about that. I have never liked him. I
hated it when he leaned on my arm when we walked around the Park. I
always distrusted him, and yet I didn’t. He walked feebly and leaned
on me hard, but his touch felt strong.
“I used to hate myself for feeling the way I did, because of course I
thought he was my own father. And I was sort of afraid of him. I
suppose that sounds as though I was an awful coward, but it was so.
He used to look at me so hard through those dark glasses, and lots of
times I have waked up in the night and have found him standing by my
bed staring at me.”
“He probably wanted to see how sound a sleeper you were,” said Frank.
“Suppose he had croaked you?”
“Frank, dear!” said Mrs. Wolfe in shocked tones. “Where do you pick
up such awful slang? You should think of Willie.”
“I know some worse than that,” crowed Bill. “Want to hear it, mom?”
“Certainly not!” said Mrs. Wolfe.
“Well, what are you going to do, Dee?” asked Mr. Wolfe.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Dee. “I have an Aunt down in the Blue
Grass but of course I don’t know whether she wants me or not, and I
feel sort of queer about going down to see her before she knows about
me. It would make her feel as though she had to take me in.”
“I will tell you what to do, if you will let me,” said Mrs. Wolfe.
“Come here and stay with Bill through this term of High School. That
is my first plan for you. The second is this:
“Next Saturday we will go down to your Aunt’s, you and I, and we will
see what she is like, and have a talk with her, and then you can
decide what you would like to do.”
“And _my_ plan is this,” said Frank, breaking in. “I will take you
down in the flivver, and as Fatty would say, that will save your
carfare.”
“Very well, we will let you,” said Mrs. Wolfe, and Frank laughed.
“That’s the way she acts when I spend my good gasoline on her: says
‘We will let you.’ Isn’t that enough to make a man drink seventeen
chocolate ice-cream sodas in succession? Mom, you are an inweiglin’
wampire!”
“And you are a perfect silly!” smiled his mother. “Now, Dee, what do
you think of that for a plan?”
“Just the thing,” said Dee. “But I can’t go on the way I have been
going. I am not sure I can go to school any more.”
“Why, why not?” demanded Bill.
“I will have to go to work,” answered Dee stoutly. “I can’t go and
live on my Aunt and I can’t come here and not pay board, and I have
no money at all.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” said the detective. “Your stepfather had
plenty of money. He had accounts in three or four banks here, an
account in Rochester, New York, and three more in Chicago. And he
owns the house you are living in.”
“That was in the market when De Lorme bought it for twenty-two
thousand dollars,” said Mr. Wolfe.
“I can’t take his money,” said Dee. “It is not clean.”
“Now, look here, my boy,” said the practical detective. “Let me tell
you where that money came from. It was not wrung from the poor and
needy. It came mostly as free offerings at the meetings he used to
address, and the fees of the Order. If you are able to take the
money from a lot of unbalanced half-cracked lunatics, and educate
yourself so that you will be a help instead of a hindrance to this
country of ours, you go ahead and do it! The money really belonged
to De Lorme, and we found a will to-day giving all that he had to
you. I think that will was just another blind. I don’t believe he
ever in the world meant to use it, but it was a good way of proving
how much he thought of you. Especially if you should disappear some
fine day.
“Oh, he was smooth. Think how many years he went scot free. But he
never meant to be taken. He had that poison right with him on his
watch chain, all the time. You take the money with a clean
conscience. If you don’t some anarchist will come prancing along and
claim it. We will get that will probated before you can say Jack
Robinson. Of course you will take the money.”
“Most certainly he will take it,” said Frank. “He will take it,
or--or--I will take it myself.”
“Well, of course if you think it is all right,” said Dee. “I _do_
want to go to school and fit myself for something of the right sort.”
It was settled so, and that very night Dee came to Bill’s to stay.
The club room became a place of beauty and comfort. When the
furniture from the De Lorme house was being packed for the auction
room downtown, the Wireless Club went through the house from cellar
to attic and selected rugs and furniture for the club room.
Dee showed them the laboratory, with all its delicate utensils and
tools. And in a drawer they found a number of empty infernal machine
cases. Dee gave one to each boy as a keepsake. He did not know what
to do with his mother’s little trunk until Mrs. Wolfe suggested
taking it down to the country. Dee showed her the letters he had
found and she shed tears of sympathy over them.
Old Anna remained in the empty house, refusing to leave until the
very day that the furniture was taken out. Then she appeared with a
huge suit case, and said briefly, “I go.”
“Go where?” Dee demanded.
“Home,” said Anna. “I have no place here now, and I go. I am like
Mr. De Lorme. I too believe in down with everything, but there is no
place for that here. Americans, they growl and they sneer, but
always they sing, ‘_My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of
liberty,_’ and what can you do? They are all satisfied down in their
hearts. Only the dwellers in far lands who come here are anarchists.
Across the water, when an anarchist shows himself much, off goes his
head! He is dead! Over here, they laugh; they say, ‘Let him rave,
he enjoys it, let him go on.’ It is only when they arrange for a day
like the thirteenth like rattlebrains, why then America says, ‘Bad
child, don’t you do that or else I send you home.’”
“You must have some money anyway,” said Dee.
The old woman shook her head. “Anna has plenty.” She fumbled in her
dress and pulled out a sack containing many bills of large
denominations.
“There is much money,” said old Anna. “And I will go home and live
like a lady. I shall not give it up to someone who has not earned
it. Bah! Down with everything if you please, but Anna keeps her
money.”
She turned and walked away, then as she left the room, she turned and
said: “Most of the money Mr. De Lorme had belonged to your mother.
Old Anna knows. Get it quick before the courts get it, and carry it
about with you. That’s the only way.”
Without a good-bye, she went through the door and was gone, leaving
Dee with a light heart. So the money came from his mother! Of
course it was his.
He found the Aunt down in the beautiful Blue Grass country all that a
lonely boy would wish. She was altogether lovely, altogether loving
and he returned to Louisville for school with the feeling that at
last he had people of his own and a home to go to when he was not
studying. Letters came from her every week, and he found himself
looking forward to Monday as his letter-day.
One day a month or so later, the Wireless Club was holding a meeting
to decide whether any new members should be admitted and the club
enlarged. As they were in the most heated part of the discussion,
Frank and Ernest came in.
“Aha, we are all here,” said Ernest. He looked at Fatty. “Even
little sunbeam over there. My word, Henry Bascom, you are certainly
growing thin.”
Fatty took on a look of cheer.
“That’s what,” he said. “Glad you noticed it. Everybody does! I
lost three ounces last week.”
“Break it gently, gently to me,” said Ernest. “Well, you are going
down hill fast, I should say. Do you diet?”
“Yes,” said Fatty. “That’s the way I am doing it. It’s hard, but it
works.”
“Let’s hear how you do it,” said Ernest.
“Well,” said Fatty, “I only eat eight pancakes every morning, and one
glass of milk, and next week I am going to cut down on cereals. Only
take one bowlful, you know. Cream is awfully fattening.”
“You are going to make it, sure as shooting,” said Ernest
delightedly. “Gee, I am proud of you! But you want to go slow.
Don’t let this diet stuff run away with you. I knew a fellow once--”
“Did he die?” asked Fatty suspiciously.
Ernest looked grieved.
“Die? No!” he said. “It was this way. He was a young chap, and
fat. _My_, he was certainly well padded! Well, he wanted to go in
for football, and he was afraid to play the way he was, because once
he tried it and someone took him for the pigskin and kicked him clear
off the gridiron. So he started in just as you are, cutting out part
of his pancakes, then cereals, then bread and butter, and only ate a
square inch of meat and so on, the way the books said to do. I
forgot to say that he was doing this by the correspondence school
method. After awhile he commenced to lose, and he lost and he lost,
and he went down from two hundred pounds to one-eighty, and then to
one-fifty and next he tipped the beam at one-ten. So it went on. He
commenced eating more cakes and things, but he couldn’t stop. Poor
chap, I’ll never forget the last time I saw him!” Ernest paused.
“Where was he?” asked Frank, who never failed to come across with the
right question.
“Living skeleton in a side show,” groaned Ernest.
“Awful!” said Frank, and the boys roared.
“What do you do with yourself now there are no more dynamiters to lay
low?” asked Ernest.
“I wish there were,” said Eddie Rowland. “Those were the good old
days! I’d like ’em back. There is one thing certain. The wireless
was a wonder and we did some pretty smooth spy work, but the best
detective work of all was done high in the air. That’s always an
aviator’s luck.”
THE END.