THE MYSTERY BOX
Lanky Wallace leaped to shore as the _Rocket_ was brought slowly in,
and Paul cast the line to him. It took several minutes to tie the
motor boat properly, but when it was done the other boys stepped
gingerly off.
They gathered about the rowboat, as if it were some strange animal,
five pairs of eyes centered upon it.
“If this is the boat, we ought to be a little more careful about
being seen, for the owner of it may be somewhere near here, and he
knows much more than we do.”
Frank spoke cautiously as he very slowly turned to look beyond the
shoreline of the river for any habitation. On this side the bank was
grown with a dense thicket.
The rowboat was of the same general appearance as a thousand other
rowboats. It was of average size and of the same semi-flat design
which the boys might have seen all along the Harrapin. The oars were
lying about five feet away, side by side, not hidden. The boat was
not tied—merely pulled up from the river so that it would not float
away.
Frank stood quietly looking at it, taking in everything about the
boat and its surroundings, which were weeds and coarse shrubbery of
the river-bank variety.
Why were they led to choose this particular boat? What reason had
they for thinking that this rowboat, and this one only, had been the
one which they had met that night on the river? Why could it not have
been some other rowboat, farther upstream or downstream? Why could
not the rowboat they were seeking not just as well be out on the
river somewhere, busy at a rowboat’s regular tasks?
These were some of the thoughts which flashed through Frank’s mind as
the five boys stood looking upon it.
“Let’s see what is beyond the thicket,” suggested Lanky, turning to
lead the way through the undergrowth.
“It was just a hunch, that was all,” mused Frank, not moving away.
They had come out to look for a rowboat, a rowboat of very common
design, perhaps, and certainly one which they had seen hastily, in
the dark, under the glare of a dancing searchlight, in moments of
excitement. To choose this particular one was certainly following a
hunch.
If they had seen three rowboats pulled up from the stream, as this
one was, which would they have chosen, even though all three had been
of different sizes and general shapes?
Lanky, Buster, Paul and Ralph were starting through the brush and had
gotten twenty or thirty feet from the boat before Frank followed.
“Psst!” came a sound from the leader of the Indian file, and Lanky
signaled back to Frank to come forward.
“There’s a house and a barn, and here’s a path leading to them!”
That was true, but, again Frank was trying to find a reason for
this blind following of a trail which had opened up to them so very
suddenly.
Surely there were hundreds of just such houses and barns along the
banks of the Harrapin, places inhabited by small farmers who dwelt
along the stream, and all of them probably owned a small boat with
which to cross the river or fish. Certainly, there was nothing about
this particular house and this particular barn to cause them any
anxiety or any feelings of discovery.
Where would this trail lead them? What was there to make them think
the robbers or the loot or any information about either lay at the
end of the trail?
“Let’s sneak up there and see what is the lie of the land,” murmured
Lanky, ready to proceed at a signal from Frank.
There was no move on the part of the latter. There was no expression
of face or body to indicate to Lanky that his suggestion had been
heard. He looked at Frank’s troubled expression in question,
wondering why there was no instant desire to move.
“What’s the matter, Frank? Don’t you think this is the right place?
There is the boat——”
“We—ll, all right, let’s see what we see. Let’s go along mighty
carefully. Don’t disturb anything.”
Like Indians stalking their prey, every nerve at tension, every
muscle under perfect control, ready for action of any kind, the inner
urge of adventure pulsing through the veins of four of them, they
crept slowly, stealthily, forward.
The sun was slanted down toward the west, indicating midafternoon of
a bright summer’s day.
The path followed no straight line to its goal. So, after twisting
and turning, dodging high weeds on both sides, holding some of them
carefully back to prevent the swishing sounds which they might
create, the seekers came close to the barn.
Before they realized where they were they broke out at the corner of
a tumble-down structure with a loft, one which had been allowed to
drift, with the years, into decay.
Lanky, in the lead, came to a halt, holding his hand up in quick
signal.
Coming down through the weeds and tall grass of a lot between the
farmhouse and this barn was the figure of a man, moving slowly,
picking his way along the weed-grown path.
“Get back!” breathed Frank in a whisper, reaching for Lanky’s
shoulder to draw him back. “Let’s see who it is and what he is doing.”
The five boys crouched in the rank growth, and, each trying to peer
through the weeds, they waited for the man to come to the barn.
Seconds seemed like hours, but Frank, who, by going to the left side
of the trail, had the point of vantage, soon saw the man get to the
barnyard proper and move across toward the weather-beaten structure.
He signalled to the others that the man was in sight, and Lanky
craned his head to get a good view. Frank’s attention was drawn from
the man by the sharp intake of breath on the part of Lanky Wallace:
“That’s the man who was rowing that boat!” he exclaimed whisperingly
to Frank.
The man went inside, and in another moment his face appeared at a
door which he opened at the rear, the side on which the boys were
hiding. Stealthily the man looked in all directions.
“That’s Jed Marmette,” muttered Frank to Lanky, who had, meanwhile,
quietly crept over to the side of his friend. “Marmette is the man
who was arrested several months ago, if you will remember, for
bootlegging. But they were never able to get him with the goods.”
“Sure, I recall!” murmured Lanky, as the recollection of the story
came to him. “They thought they had found a lot of evidence, but he
was able to show that he had nothing to do with it. I remember it
well.”
The man still stood at the half-door peering around, his iron-gray
hair falling to one side as he brushed it over with his hand
nervously, otherwise being of very unkempt appearance.
Gradually the door was closed, and the boys plainly heard the hook as
it was brought into place.
“I’m going to slip up close. You fellows listen for any trouble or
noise. I’m going to see what that fellow is doing there. Maybe he’s
as innocent as a baby, but I’m not taking any chance. Listen for any
signal from me, and then come.”
Frank crouched low, and then, when he felt that he could clear the
open space quickly, he was off. In the flash of a second he was at
the corner of the barn and around toward the front.
The other boys, stooping and watching with eyes that strained
and ears that were sharply set for every sound, waited for any
eventualities. Second after second passed away, but nothing of
untoward significance came to their ears.
In the meanwhile, Frank reached the corner at the front of the barn
and then carefully made his way toward the door which was closed and
saw a hook holding it from the inside. Obtaining a small sliver of
wood, he worked through the crack at the jamb of the door until he
had raised the wire hook within and let it slowly, silently drop out
of the staple at the side.
Stealthily opening the door and fastening it from the inside again,
he peered around the barn, accustoming his eyes to the semi-darkness.
Above him in the loft he heard a cautious tread. The boards creaked
as some one moved about. Jed Marmette was there. For what purpose?
Frank’s mind was in a whirl of ideas, of guesses, of plans. His first
involuntary thought was to go quietly up the ladder to the loft and
see what this man was about. The lay of the land up there he did not
know, however, and on second thought, the more sober one and the one
of sounder judgment, he decided to wait for the man to descend, after
which he would explore.
After many minutes had passed, during which he heard different kinds
of sounds, some of which he imagined he knew, others entirely foreign
to any notion he could arrange in his mind, Frank heard the stealthy
tread again, as if the man were approaching the loft ladder.
Quietly the boy now tiptoed to one of the stalls, and there crouched
while he saw the feet of the man dangle downward through the hole,
reach for and gain the ladder, followed by the body, the shoulders,
and the head.
In one hand the thick, heavy-set, gray-haired, but none-the-less
active man was carrying a package about the size of a cigar box,
wrapped in brown wrapping paper. He carried it gingerly as he
carefully grasped the ladder with one hand round after round,
throwing his body toward the ladder to balance himself as the hand
released one round and grasped the next lower down.
Reaching the floor of the barn he stood to get his breath, and then,
turning toward the door, Frank saw the package more plainly. As
Marmette reached the door he exchanged the package from one hand to
the other in order to unfasten the hook, and Frank heard many small
particles fall from one side of the box, which must have been of
metal, to the other.
Letting himself out through the door, the man placed the box on the
ground and very carefully locked the door from the outside with a
large padlock.
Frank’s face lighted with a merry smile as he thought of his own
predicament—inside the barn with the rear door locked from the inside!
Slipping over to the front door he peered through and saw the man
leave the barn, going straight toward the lot by which he had come.
Then, going to the rear, he quietly lifted the lock on the back door
and slipped out, the four boys watching him as the door opened.
He signaled to them to keep back. Lanky was watching Jed Marmette as
he made his way toward the farmhouse.
Frank took no chance on his going to the boys. Instead, he called to
them, in a stage whisper, and told three of the boys to watch the man
while Lanky was to come over to him.
“He took a metal box out, Lanky, and it’s got something inside that
sounds like a whole lot of things; for instance, the way that a lot
of buttons or nails or something of the kind might sound inside a
metal box. The box is wrapped in paper. He got it up in the loft.”
“Let’s follow and see what he does with it.”
“All right. Get him located, and we’ll follow.”
By this time the man was almost to the farmhouse, but they saw him
turn to the right and stride over toward an old-fashioned grape arbor.
Along the weedy pathway the two boys ran as quickly as stealth
permitted, now and then peering up to see where the man was and what
he was doing. He had gone, by the time they approached within safe
distance, into the grape arbor.
“You stay right here and I’ll sneak as near as I can. If I need any
help, come quickly.”
With this admonition, Frank stole through the weeds, circling
toward the grape arbor, hoping to find some point where he might
see through. But no such point appeared, and Frank, determined to
get whatever information he could, took the long chance of creeping
through the weeds straight up the arbor.
Here he saw plainly! Jed Marmette had dug a hole under the arbor.
Into that hole he was now placing the box. He then covered it
carefully with the earth, tamped it down, smoothed everything off and
then replaced, so it appeared, a large flagstone which was turned up
to one side. This flag fitted over the new-made hole and did away
with all newness!
Frank backed out of the weeds, crouchingly made his way back to
Lanky, beckoned him to follow and, without words, they got back to
the barn thence to the trail behind.
Here Frank laid a new scheme of exploration, and took Lanky with him
while the other boys, Paul, Buster and Ralph, watched.
Into the rear of the barn, up the ladder to the loft, and then a
search. Frank led, for he felt he knew where the sounds had been
made—and success was his at once.
Under a small amount of hay was a large box, or chest, roughly
looking like the one they had seen the night on the rowboat.
It required no tug, no hardship—just the lifting of the lid, after
pitching the hay aside, and there they saw, within the chest, piece
after piece of silver of all kinds, the dining-room treasure which
Mrs. Parsons had lost!