THE BOY WHO ACTED GUILTY.
The bank officials were perplexed and mystified. With the arrival of
Urian Eliot the inner door of the vault had been opened by Timmick. It
was evident to them all that the looters had been driven away before
they could open this door, and therefore there was every reason to
believe that the contents of the vault would be found undisturbed.
In order that a thorough examination might be made in the presence of
the president and the others, the cash and securities contained in the
various compartments of the vault had been removed and placed upon a
long oak table in the adjoining directors’ room. This done, the
officials gathered about the table and began the investigation, the
president, pencil in hand, checking everything off on a list that had
been furnished him by Timmick.
Then it was that they were shocked to discover that twenty thousand
dollars’ worth of negotiable securities could not be found. The
suggestion that these securities had been overlooked sent Timmick and
one of the directors back to the vault, but without avail. In a few
moments the cashier and his companion returned, and Timmick’s face was
pale and his voice husky as he said:
“Those securities must be here on this table. They’re not in the vault.
They must be here. They can’t be gone.”
“We’ll go over the list again,” said Urian Eliot. “Let’s do it slowly,
carefully and systematically.”
Their great care in this second inspection simply served to confirm the
fact that the securities were missing, whereupon Timmick collapsed upon
a chair, seemingly on the verge of fainting.
“It’s awful—incomprehensible!” he whispered hoarsely, staring at the
faces of the other men. “I can’t understand it.”
“Nor I,” snapped the little jeweler, rapping his knuckles sharply on the
table and facing the cashier with a piercing eye. “If you can’t explain
it, Mr. Timmick, I don’t know who can.”
“Why—why,” faltered the distressed cashier, “I hope—you don’t mean,
sir——”
“I’m sure Mr. Sprague will not be hasty with an insinuation,”
interrupted Urian Eliot. “I’m sure we all have the utmost confidence in
your integrity, Timmick.”
It was noticeable, however, that none of the others said a word in
support of this assertion, and Mr. Lucius Timmick looked very ill indeed
by the white light of the shaded chandelier.
It was some time after daylight before the officials came forth from the
bank and made inquiries concerning the search for the fugitive crooks.
Later they learned of the remarkable capture by two boys of the wounded
member of the gang, and when the prisoner had been attended by a
physician they sought to obtain some information from him by giving him
a mild sort of “third degree” treatment. The effort, however, resulted
most unsatisfactorily. The prisoner, stretched on a cot in the lockup,
grimly defied them and sullenly refused to answer a single question.
“Aw, go on,” he growled. “You couldn’t make me snitch if you skinned
me.”
“Your accomplices are certain to be captured,” asserted Lemuel Hayden.
“They can’t get away. It is your opportunity to obtain a little clemency
by confessing before any of the others do so.”
“Bite it off,” advised the prisoner. “You’re wasting your wind, old
geezer. I never ties up with squealers.”
About this time Roy Hooker, crowding down a breakfast rendered tasteless
by his excitement, was telling his astounded mother a story that made
her gasp and throw up her hands.
“Mercy!” she cried, staring at him. “You caught one of the robbers—you
and Billy Piper? I never heard of such a thing! Two boys catching a
desperate burglar!”
“We caught him,” laughed Roy, “though perhaps it wouldn’t have been so
easy, only he was pretty weak from his wound and the loss of blood.”
“You’ll be killed some day, Roy,” prophesied his mother. “Now there’s
your father; I didn’t want him to go out with the men who are hunting
the robbers, but he just would go. I’m worried to death for fear he’ll
get shot or something.”
“Wonder what he will say when he hears what Sleuth and I did,” chuckled
Roy, gulping down a final mouthful and pushing back from the table. “Bet
he don’t do as much.” He rose and grabbed his cap.
“Where are you going now?” asked Mrs. Hooker apprehensively. “I won’t be
able to rest easy a minute.”
“Oh, there’s something doing in Oakdale this morning. Only a dead one
could hang around home with so much going on. Don’t worry, mother;
nothing will happen to me. They ought to be marching in some of the
other crooks pretty soon, and I want to see ’em when they come.”
Outside the house, however, he paused, as if doubtful concerning the
course he would pursue, and for some moments he seemed struggling with
contending desires.
“Sleuth didn’t want me to see Fred,” he muttered. “He made me promise I
wouldn’t tell Sage anything. Fred’s my friend. If he’s mixed up in this
rotten business it’s a shame. I’d like to see him a minute; I must see
him. I won’t give anything away, but I’d like to see how he’ll behave.
I’m just going up to his house, that’s all.”
Having arrived at this decision, he hurried up Willow Street, crossing
to Main only after the heart of the village had been left behind. As he
drew near the home of the Sages his pace slackened somewhat, and he
began to realize that he almost dreaded to meet Fred face to face. Even
when he had reached the proper point to turn in from the street he
hesitated and was almost tempted to retrace his steps.
At that moment, as if he had seen Hooker, Fred came out of the house,
and Roy walked into the yard.
“Hello, Hook,” said Sage. “What’s the latest? Have they caught any of
the robbers? My father is down town now.”
It seemed rather singular to Hooker that Fred also was not in the
village, and, furthermore, Roy imagined he could perceive something
unnatural and distraught in his friend’s manner.
“S’pose you’ve heard about Pipe and me?” said Roy.
“No. I’ve been staying home with mother. She’s nervous. Father deposits
at the bank, you know, and he wanted to find out if there had really
been a robbery. What about you and Sleuth?”
“We caught one of the gang,” announced the visitor proudly.
“You—you did?” faltered Sage, seeming to stiffen a bit. “Really and
truly did you and Sleuth catch one of them?”
“Really and truly, old man. We ran him down over behind Turkey Hill and
nabbed him. He’s in the lockup now.”
“Back of Turkey Hill!” said Fred, a bit huskily, and the other boy
fancied his face lost color somewhat. “How—how did you do it?”
“Oh, the fellow was wounded, and it wasn’t much of a trick. Old Quinn
blazed away blindly at the robbers when they ran, and he happened to hit
this one. Of course,” he continued, with a pardonable touch of pride,
“some folks seem to think we did quite a thing in nabbing him.”
“I don’t wonder,” muttered Fred. “Tell me just how you did it.”
With a sudden impulse, Roy strode past his companion, saying: “Come on
into the stable and I’ll tell you.”
“We can talk just as well out here,” said Sage hastily. “Let’s not go in
there.”
“But I want to go in there,” persisted Hooker, keeping on, although his
friend had grasped his arm.
The sliding doors were now nearly closed, but Hooker thrust one of them
back sufficiently to enter, and Fred, ceasing to object, followed into
the building.
At a glance Roy perceived a large damp spot upon the floor, where upon
his previous visit there had been a pool of blood. Every trace of the
blood stains was gone. Turning quickly to Sage, Hooker saw that he was
being watched narrowly, but instantly Fred’s eyelids drooped.
“Sleuth was right in his suspicions, after all,” thought the visitor,
with sinking heart. “If there wasn’t something wrong, they’d never
removed those stains and kept still about it.”
“Tell me,” urged Fred, “how you happened to find this wounded robber.
How did you trace him?”
“I didn’t say we traced him.”
“No, but I supposed—that is, I imagined you must have been led in some
way to search for him over by Turkey Hill.”
“He’s in it—in it up to the neck,” thought Roy, almost bitterly. “It’s a
shame! He seemed like such a fine fellow!”
“What’s the matter?” asked the other lad nervously. “Why don’t you tell
me all about it?”
“Oh, yes, I—I will. You see, it was this way.” He began his story at the
point where he and Piper had discovered the fugitive from their position
in the clearing on the northern shoulder of the hill. In the midst of
the narrative, through which he was hurrying, the boys were startled by
the swift tread of feet, and a moment later several persons, led by
Constable Hubbard, entered the stable.
“What—what is it?” demanded Fred Sage at sight of the men. “What are you
doing here?”
“We’re a-looking for one of them there bank robber critters,” answered
the constable, “and for sartain reasons we’re led to believe he’s hiding
round these premises somewhere. The buildings are surrounded complete,
and he can’t git away.”