AN UNKNOWN PROWLER
Squeezing the stutter out of my nerves, I followed Tom and my chums
into the kitchen. The back door was ajar. Some one had picked the lock.
But in opening the door the unknown prowler had not reckoned on Aunt
Polly’s home-made burglar alarm—a dozen or more pots and pans balanced
nicely on a wabbly stepladder.
“Um....” mumbled Mr. Ricks, pottering into the room, book in hand. “Did
I hear a noise?” Looking over his glasses, he got his eyes on the pans
and stared at them blankly. “Now how did all them pans come to fall
down? An’ whar in Sam Hill did they fall from?” Mouth open, he stared
at the ceiling, moving in a small circle.
Aunt Polly caught him as he stumbled over a pan.
“Shut the door,” she told Tom crisply, “and lock it.” Then she took the
pottering inventor by the arm and led him from the room. “Go back to
your book,” she ordered, “We don’t need you here.”
“But, Polly——”
She got him out of the kitchen. Then she sort of went to pieces.
“Oh, Tommy!” she cried, trembling, her eyes filled with fear. “It’s one
of Gennor’s spies. You know how they’ve been searching the country for
your pa. They’ve come to steal his invention. What shall we do?”
“I wish I knew,” said Tom, looking dizzy.
Scoop’s eyes were snapping.
“Why,” he spoke up, taking the lead, sort of, “the thing for us to do
is to save the frog.”
Aunt Polly gave a gesture of despair.
“We might as well give up,” she cried, sinking into a chair. “For we
stand no chance against Gennor.”
Scoop wanted to know who Gennor was.
“Mr. Felix Gennor,” Tom informed, “is the president of the Gennor Radio
Corporation of Chicago.”
“The name sounds big,” said Scoop. “He must have a lot of money.”
“Millions,” informed Tom, gloomy-like.
“Which means,” said Scoop, sizing up the situation in his quick way,
“that it’s going to be a hard fight to lick him.”
Aunt Polly was wringing her hands.
“We stand no chance,” she repeated, shaking her head. “For money always
wins out.”
“Money won’t win out this trip,” declared Scoop.
After a bit the conversation slowed up and we told Aunt Polly that she
had best go to bed and get some rest.
Scoop did the talking.
“You mustn’t worry,” he told her, as she started up the stairs with a
hand lamp, “for there’s no immediate danger. And by to-morrow morning
we’ll know what to do to save Mr. Ricks’ invention.”
It was his scheme for the four of us to stand guard till daybreak. So,
when Aunt Polly and Mr. Ricks were in bed, I ’phoned to Mother,
explaining that I would spend the night with Tom. Then Scoop and Peg
’phoned in turn to their folks.
Making sure that the doors and windows were locked, we took the talking
frog from the cupboard and buried it in a wooden box in the cellar’s
dirt floor. We intended, as guards, to see that no one entered the
house without our knowledge; but, as Scoop sensibly pointed out, it was
just as well to play safe and keep the invention under cover.
In the next hour our leader sifted his thoughts for a plan to outwit
the Chicago manufacturer. And finally he waggled, as though having come
to certain satisfactory conclusions.
“One time,” he said, “my Uncle Jasper invented a percolating coffee pot
and got it patented in Washington. The patent prevented any one else
from stealing his invention.... Is your pa’s talking frog patented?” he
inquired, looking into Tom’s face.
“Of course not. It isn’t perfected yet.”
“Everything seems to work all right except the tone bars.”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s get a patent on the parts that work. For that is what
Gennor would immediately do if he got his hands on the frog. If we get
to Washington first with our patent application he’ll be licked.”
Tom’s eyes snapped.
“You’re right. I’ll tell Pa about it the first thing in the morning.”
“Yes,” waggled Scoop, “your pa is the one to see about the patent. And
the sooner he starts for Washington the better. There’s a train into
Chicago at five o’clock. And from Chicago he can go directly to
Washington. The people in the patent office will tell him how to get
his drawings registered. And while he’s doing that, we’ll have some fun
with mister millionaire.”
“A thing I can’t understand,” mused Tom, “is how Gennor traced Pa to
this town.”
“Maybe,” I spoke up, giving Scoop and Peg the wink, “it was a ghost
that picked the lock, and not a spy as you suppose.”
“Ghost?” repeated Tom, staring.
“Mr. Matson’s ghost,” I followed up.
“Who’s Mr. Matson?” he wanted to know.
“Haven’t you heard about the murder?” I countered, surprised.
He shook his head.
“Mr. Matson,” I told him, “was a queer old codger. A puzzle maker.
Didn’t believe in banks. Kept his money in the house. One night robbers
came. The old man was murdered. But the body never was found. That’s
the strange part. The robbers either buried it or took it away with
them.”
“Then how do you know there was a murder?”
“Because the cellar stairs and the kitchen floor were covered with
blood. Big puddles of it. And the money and the ten-ring puzzle were
gone.”
Tom scratched his head.
“But I don’t get you,” he said, puzzled. “Even if there was a murder,
why should the old man’s ghost come here?”
“Because,” I said, putting my voice hollow, “right here in this kitchen
is where they cut his throat. This was his home.”
Tom’s eyes bulged. And noticing this, Scoop laughingly clapped a hand
on the frightened one’s shoulders.
“Jerry’s trying to scare you, Tom. No one ever saw the old man’s ghost
around here.”
“Old Paddy Gorbett did,” I reminded quickly.
“Shucks! Any one who knows old Paddy always believes the opposite to
what he tells.”
Tom shrugged and gave a short laugh.
“I’ve read stories about ghost houses, but I never thought I’d live in
one.”
“There’s no such thing as a ghost,” declared Scoop.
“Of course not,” agreed Tom. “But just the same we had better keep this
story from Aunt Polly’s ears. It would make her nervous. And she has
plenty of worries as it is. If Pa goes to Washington, she won’t sleep a
wink till he gets back. She’ll imagine him getting into all kinds of
trouble.”
We thought naturally that the mysterious prowler would make further
attempts to enter the house. But daybreak came without a single
disturbing sound.
At four o’clock Tom awakened his aunt. She readily admitted to the
wisdom of getting the talking frog drawings registered in the patent
office at Washington; but the thought of sending her absent-minded
brother so far from home worried her.
“I just know that something awful will happen to him,” she declared.
But Tom won her over. And then between them they made the dazed
inventor understand what was expected of him.
It was daylight when we went with Mr. Ricks to the depot. I was on
needles and pins, sort of, expecting any second to have a spy jump out
and grab the old gentleman before we could get him on the cars.
Therefore I drew a breath of relief when the train pulled out.
But a shock awaited us when we ran up the path to the house.
“He didn’t get the right papers at all,” Aunt Polly cried from the
front porch. “His drawings are in there on the table. And what he has
is a roll of my dress patterns.”
Well, we were struck dumb, sort of. For, with Mr. Ricks aboard the
speeding train, what chance had we to exchange the useless dress
patterns for the needed drawings? None. Our helplessness made me sick.
“He’ll discover the mistake when he gets to Washington,” Scoop said
finally, “and wire us. Then we can mail the drawings, registered. It
will delay matters; but it’s the best thing that we can do under the
circumstances.”
“Tom’s pa never sent a telegram in all his life,” waggled Aunt Polly.
“He won’t know how.”
Nevertheless a telegram came that afternoon. Scoop read it aloud. There
was a dead silence. Then Tom went in search of his relative.
“Aunt Polly,” he said, “you’ve got to get ready for a trip.”
“Laws-a-me!” gasped the old lady, suspecting the truth. “What awful
thing has happened to your pa?”
“He took the wrong train out of Chicago. And how he ever happened to
get off at Springfield, Illinois, I don’t know. But he’s there—the
telegram says so. And the dress patterns have come up missing.”
“Gennor’s work!” cried Aunt Polly, acting as though she was ready to
collapse.
Tom nodded grimly.
“Pa is no match for the crooks. And you’ve got to go to him and help
him. They won’t get the real drawings away from you. And you can stay
in Washington till the drawings have been registered in the patent
office.”
“But why don’t you go?” Aunt Polly wanted to know, with a troubled
look.
Tom regarded her steadily.
“I have a hunch,” he said, “that I’m going to be needed here.”
“But I don’t like to go away and leave you alone.”
Scoop came into the conversation with an easy laugh.
“Don’t let that worry you, Aunt Polly. For he won’t be alone. We’re
going to stand by him. Hey, gang?”
“Easy,” said Peg.
“How about you, Jerry?”
“Easy,” I said, copying after Peg.
I tried to act chesty about it. But I didn’t succeed very well. For I
was thinking about the man with the million dollars.