THE THIRD OBLONG BOX ARRIVES
"I think," said Wilton Barnstable, when Cleggett had finished, "that I
may be able to clear up a few points for you.
"The two men whom you saw me hazing up and down the bank of the canal,
and whom you saw again tonight, followed by the man in the baby blue
silk pajamas, were Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat!"
"The wretches!" cried Lady Agatha.
"Wretches indeed," said Wilton Barnstable, Barton Ward, and Watson
Bard, in unison, and with conviction.
"And the man in the baby blue silk pajamas, was----" the great
detective paused, as if to make his revelation more effective. And
while he paused, Miss Genevieve Pringle, with pursed lips and averted
face, signified that the very idea of introducing a man in baby blue
silk pajamas into the conversation was intensely displeasing to her.
"The man in pajamas was Reginald Maltravers," finished the great
detective.
"Reginald Maltravers!" cried Lady Agatha.
She opened her mouth again as if to say something more, but words
failed her, and she only stared at the detective, with parted lips and
round eyes.
Cleggett went to her and touched her on the arm, and with the touch she
gave a sob of emotion and found her tongue again.
"Reginald Maltravers," she said, "is not dead then! Not dead after
all!"
She endeavored to control herself, but for a moment or two she
trembled. It was evident that it was all she could do to keep from
crying hysterically with relief. The nightmare that had haunted her
for days had vanished almost too suddenly. Presently she began to be
herself again.
"You are sure that he is not dead?" she said with a voice that still
shook.
"Sure," said Wilton Barnstable.
And as if quietly satisfied with the sensation they had produced, the
three detectives smiled at each other urbanely and contentedly.
Barnstable continued:
"Reginald Maltravers came to my agency some days ago and requested a
bodyguard. Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat had attacked him, no doubt
intending to earn the money which Elmer had promised them. He beat
them off. In fact, he caned them soundly. But they still continued to
dog him.
"Mr. Ward here, who handled the case, soon reported to me that he
believed Reginald Maltravers to be insane."
"Insane he was," cried Lady Agatha. "I have seen the light of insanity
in his eye, gleaming through his accursed monocle." She spoke with
vehemence. Now that she knew the man to be alive, her hatred of him
had flared up again.
"Insane he was," agreed Wilton Barnstable. "And shortly after that
discovery was made, he disappeared. The next day after his
disappearance, Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat were liberally supplied
with money.
"Of course they got the money, Lady Agatha, through the clever trick
they worked upon you."
"A great many people have got money from me since I have been in
America," said Lady Agatha.
"Ah! Yes?" The great detective went on with his masterly summing up.
"Of course they got the money from the trick they worked on Lady
Agatha. But at the time I thought it possible that they had robbed
Reginald Maltravers and then put him out of the way. They are
well-known gunmen.
"I took them into custody and determined to hold them until such time
as Reginald Maltravers would be found, or his fate discovered.
Eventually I brought them with me on my house boat. I was really
holding them without due legal warrant, but I am forced to do that,
sometimes. They complained of lack of exercise, so I gave them
exercise in the manner which you saw the other morning, Mr. Cleggett.
"One of my agents, shortly after this, picked up the trail of Reginald
Maltravers again. When I learned that he was alive my first impulse
was to release Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat. But I learned that the
two gunmen could, if they would, give me a tip as to certain of the
activities of Logan Black, against whom I have been collecting evidence
for nearly a year. So I kept them on my boat.
"Reginald Maltravers, most of the time that you were riding about the
country, Lady Agatha, with the box that you thought contained him, was
really following you. He would lose your trail and find it again, but
he was always some hours behind you. Of course, he knew nothing of the
oblong box. He thought that you were running away from him. And all
the time that Reginald Maltravers was following you, agents of mine
were following Reginald Maltravers."
"Lady Agatha," interrupted Cleggett, "was also being pursued by Miss
Pringle here."
Wilton Barnstable carefully made a note in a little book which he drew
from his waistcoat pocket. Barton Ward also made a note in a little
book, Watson Bard started to make a note, and then paused; in fact,
Watson Bard did not complete his note until he had gotten a peep into
the notebook of Barton Ward. The notes made, the three detectives once
more smiled craftily at each other, and Wilton Barnstable resumed:
"We knew, of course, that another lady was also following Lady Agatha.
But, until the present moment, we had not identified her with Miss
Pringle. And I should not be at all surprised, not at ALL surprised,
if still another person had been following Miss Pringle."
"With what object?" asked Miss Pringle, looking alarmed at the idea.
"The motive, my dear lady, I must for the present withhold," said
Wilton Barnstable. And again the three detectives exchanged knowing
glances.
"Reginald Maltravers' pursuit of you, Lady Agatha, led him to
Fairport," went on the great sleuth. "No doubt he met the driver of
the vehicle which brought you hither, and learned that you and Elmer
had been set down in this neighborhood, just as Miss Pringle learned
it. No doubt it was well after dark when he arrived in the vicinity of
the Jasper B. And it is to be supposed that, once out here, he went to
Morris's road house, thinking it quite likely that you and Elmer would
stop there, as he had been tracking you from road house to road house.
Logan Black, knowing that the authorities were on his trail, mistook
Reginald Maltravers for a detective, and held him prisoner at Morris's.
Logan Black's men took away his clothes in order to minimize the
possibility of his escape."
"And the Earl of Claiborne's signet ring----" began Cleggett.
"Of course, Reginald Maltravers was wearing it, and of course they took
his valuables from him," said Barnstable. "One of the ruffians was
wearing the ring as he approached your vessel with a bomb. But, Mr.
Cleggett, there are points about that bomb explosion which I do not
understand."
"Nor I," admitted Cleggett.
"We will clear them up later," said the great detective, smiling
benignly at his thumbs, which he was revolving slowly about each other
as he reconstructed the case.
"Later!" smiled Barton Ward. "Later!" murmured Watson Bard. With their
hands clasped over their stomachs, they, too, benignly twirled their
thumbs.
"Tonight," pursued Barnstable, "having finally got all the information
I wished from Dopey Eddie and Izzy the Cat with regard to Logan Black,
I tossed them the key to their irons and told them to unlock themselves
and clear out. It was just before the storm began, and they were
sitting on the bank of the canal at the time. I allowed them to sit
there in the evenings and get the fresh air.
"But before they could unlock themselves Reginald Maltravers, who had,
we must suppose, escaped from Morris's through the carelessness of one
of Logan Black's subordinates, crawled up the bank of the canal, which
he had swum, and made for the two gunmen, with the water dripping from
his eyeglass. He had recognized them as the men who had dogged and
assaulted him, and every other idea was obliterated in his desire for
vengeance.
"They fled. He pursued. He caught them, and they fought. They
succeeded in dropping one of the iron balls on his foot--on his bunion
foot, Mr. Cleggett--crippling him."
As this mention of the bunion, Miss Genevive Pringle arose with
dignity, and, flinging a shawl about her shoulders, left the cabin,
chin in air. She did not vouchsafe so much as one backward glance at
Cleggett or the three detectives or lady Agatha as she left, but
outraged propriety was expressed in every line of her figure.
"H'm," mused the detective, flushing slightly; and Watson Bard and
Barton Ward also colored a little, and looked hacked. They glanced
furtively at Lady Agatha, to see if she too might be offended.
"Proceed, Mr. Barnstable," she said a little impatiently. "Bunions
don't bother me, either mentally or physically. I am familiar with the
idea of bunions. There are many bunions in the Claiborne family."
"On his bunion foot, crippling him," resumed the detective, reassured.
"The storm came up, and still the gunmen fled, and still Reginald
Maltravers pursued. I suppose, since you saw them on the west side of
the canal, Mr. Cleggett, that they had run around the north end of it.
Probably, while you and Logan Black were fighting, they were running up
and down in the neighborhood, in the storm, intent only upon their own
feud."
"They certainly seemed exhausted when I saw them," said Cleggett, "all
three of them. But if you will permit me to say so, the astuteness
with which you are reconstructing this case compels my admiration."
Wilton Barnstable bowed, and Barton Ward and Watson Bard slightly
inclined their heads.
"Your skill," said Lady Agatha, "is equal to that of Sherlock Holmes."
At the name of Sherlock Holmes a shade passed over the face of Wilton
Barnstable. He slightly compressed his lips, and his eyebrows went up
a fraction of an inch. This shade was reflected on the faces of Barton
Ward and Watson Bard. There was a moment of silence, but presently
Wilton Barnstable continued, repressing a sigh:
"I thought at first, Mr. Cleggett, that you were an ally of Logan
Black's, just as you believed me to be his ally, and as he believed you
and me to be working together. It may interest you to know that
smuggling has been one of his side lines. There is, somewhere
hereabouts, a cave in which smuggled goods are stored. These coasts
have a sinister history, Mr. Cleggett. It is possible that your canal
boat--I beg your pardon, your schooner, Mr. Cleggett--played some part
in their smuggling operations. At any rate it is evident that Logan
Black transferred to the hold of this vessel the incriminating evidence
against him, contained in that oblong box, when he learned that my
agents were watching Morris's. The Jasper B. has been lying in her
present position for a long time. In the event that a sudden get-away
from Morris's became necessary, it was an advantage to Logan Black to
be able to leave without being hampered with this matter. No one, for
many years, had paid any attention to the Jasper B., with the exception
of the old truck farmer, Abernethy, who used sometimes to fish from her
deck, and----"
"Truck farmer!" cried Cleggett. "Abernethy?"
"Truck farmer," repeated Wilton Barnstable.
"Is not Abernethy an old sea captain?" asked Cleggett.
"Why, no, I believe not," said Barnstable. "At least I never heard so.
He is well known as a small truck gardener in this neighborhood. It is
true that he comes of a seafaring family--indeed, it is his boast.
But, in a community where nearly everyone knows a little about boats, I
believe that Abernethy is remarkable for an indisposition to venture
far from shore."
"I can scarcely believe it," breathed Cleggett.
"He does not understand boats," said Barnstable. "That is the reason, I
take it, why he has always fished in the canal from the deck of the
Jasper B."
"Abernethy is a gallant man," said Cleggett, rather sternly. "And even
although he may have had little actual seafaring experience, the
instinct is in him! The inherited love of a nautical life has been
latent in him all along. And at the first opportunity it has come out.
He has shown his mettle aboard the Jasper B."
"I do not doubt it, if you insist upon it," said Wilton Barnstable,
politely. And from revolving his thumbs benignly towards himself he
began to revolve them urbanely from himself. The reversal was imitated
at once by Barton Ward, but Watson Bard was slower in putting this new
coup into execution.
"The resemblance between the two oblong boxes evidently fooled Logan
Black," continued Barnstable, "and his men stole the wrong one, but he
knows by this time that his plan to get the box has failed."
"He knows it?" said Cleggett.
"From the bank of the canal he witnessed our capture of the box, and of
the two men who were making off with it. After you had beaten off his
assault upon the ship, he turned his attention to the canal, to see if
the men whom he had assigned to the job of creeping over the stern of
the Jasper B. had by any chance succeeded in purloining the box. He
was alone, but he attempted to come to the assistance of his two
followers even as we made them prisoners. In fact, we exchanged shots."
The great detective made little of the danger he had encountered.
Indeed, his smile became one of amusement as he removed his coat,
rolled up his shirt sleeves, and exhibited a bandaged wound in the
fleshy part of his arm.
"It is only a slight wound," he said, beaming on it as if wounds were
quite delightful affairs, "and scarcely inconveniences me."
Barton Ward and Watson Bard, with their sleeves rolled up, were also
smiling placidly and indulgently at bandages about their left arms.
Whether there were real wounds beneath their bandages also, Cleggett
could not determine. The bandage of Barton Ward was slightly stained
with red, but the bandage of Watson Bard was quite white. All three
replaced their coats at the same time, and Wilton Barnstable went on:
"Our course of procedure is plain, Mr. Cleggett. We have the evidence
against Logan Black. We must have the man himself. I depend upon you
to cooperate with me. I think," he said, beaming at Barton Ward and
Watson Bard with an air of modest triumph, "that the case of Logan
Black is going to prove one of my really GREAT cases.
"There is only one point which I have not yet made clear to you, I
believe--and that is how Logan Black's men were able to enter and leave
the hold of your vessel so mysteriously. But I am shaping up my theory
about that! I am shaping it up!"
"Would it be indescreet to inquire just what your theory is?" asked
Cleggett.
And Lady Agatha murmured:
"For my part, I can make nothing of it, and I should be glad to hear
your theory."
"It would," said Wilton Barnstable, soberly, "it would be premature, if
I told you my theory at the present moment. You must pardon me--but it
WOULD. In my line of business--and I insist, Mr. Cleggett, that I am a
plain business man, nothing more--I find it absolutely necessary not to
communicate all my information to the layman until the case is quite
perfect in all its points. But do not get the notion, Mr. Cleggett,
that I underestimate the part that you have taken in the case of Logan
Black. You have helped me, Mr. Cleggett. When I have my secretary
prepare the case of Logan Black for magazine and newspaper publication
I shall have your name mentioned as that of a person who has helped me.
Yes, you have helped me."
As he spoke he picked from a reading table a magazine, on the cover of
which appeared his own portrait--or rather, the portrait of the popular
conception of Wilton Barnstable--and began to make motions about it
with his finger. He appeared to be marking off the space beside the
portrait into an arrangement of letters and spaces. His lips moved as
he did so; he murmured: "The Case of Logan Black--the Case of Logan
Black!" He seemed to see, with the eye of a typographical expert, the
legend printed there. Barton Ward and Watson Bard, slightly flushed and
a little excited in spite of themselves, seemed also to see it there.
It might have occurred to a person more critical than Cleggett that it
was he himself who had furnished nearly all the real evidence upon
which Wilton Barnstable was constructing this Case of Logan Black. But
Cleggett looked for the gold in men, not the dross; the great qualities
of Wilton Barnstable appealed to his imagination; the best in Cleggett
responded to the best in Wilton Barnstable; if the detective possessed
a certain amount of vanity, Cleggett preferred to overlook it.
"Decidedly," said Wilton Barnstable, laying down the magazine, and
looking at Cleggett kindly and serenely, "I shall see to it that your
name is mentioned in connection with the Case of Logan Black." And
Barton Ward and Watson Bard also bent upon him their bland and friendly
regard.
Cleggett was about to thank them, but at that moment there was a
commotion of some sort on deck.
Two female voices, one of which they all recognized as that of Miss
Genevieve Pringle, were mingling in a babble of greeting,
expostulation, interjection, and explanation, and presently Miss
Pringle entered the cabin, followed by a younger lady who, except for
her youth, looked much like her.
"My niece, Miss Henrietta Pringle, of Flatbush," said Miss Pringle,
primly presenting her prim relation. "She has just arrived----"
"With the plum preserves!" cried Lady Agatha.
"With the plum preserves," confirmed Miss Genevieve Pringle.
And Captain Abernethy and George the Greek bore into the cabin a third
oblong box, exactly similar in appearance to the box of Reginald
Maltravers and the box which contained the evidence against Logan
Black, and set it on the floor.
The three detectives stood and looked at the three boxes with an air of
great satisfaction.
"With this addition to our oblong boxes," said Wilton Barnstable,
"their number is now complete. Miss Henrietta Pringle, we will listen
to your story."
There was little to tell, and Miss Henrietta Pringle told it in a
breath. Having received no acknowledgment of the receipt of the plum
preserves from her aunt, an unusual oversight on her aunt's part, she
had journeyed to Newark with a vague fear that there might be something
wrong.
"Arrived in Newark," she said, "I learned that my aunt, with her two
white horses and her family carriage driven by Jefferson, the negro
coachmen, had suddenly left Newark, without giving any explanation to
anyone, or making her destination known.
"The proceeding was very strange; it was very unlike my aunt, and I was
frightened. Everyone who had seen her start testified that she was
laboring under a great nervous strain of some sort.
"I called at the freight depot and got the box of plum preserves which
I had shipped to her. To tell the truth, I feared for her reason. I
thought that if I could find her, and could show her the familiar plum
preserves, which she loved so well, they would be of material
assistance in influencing her to return to her home. So, setting out
to search for her in my Ford auto, I took the box of plum preserves
with me.
"I soon got upon her trail. The negro coachman, the family carriage
and the white horses had excited remark everywhere. Briefly, I traced
her here, and am happy to discover that my worst fears with regard to
her have proved false."
"Henrietta," said her aunt, reproachfully, "your fears do you very
little credit, or me either."
"Aunt Genevieve," said the niece, "pray, do not rebuke me."
"I was certain," said Wilton Barnstable, complacently, "that it would
develop that Miss Genevieve Pringle was herself being pursued. I was
confident of it, Cleggett. And now that I have cleared up for you the
mystery of Logan Black, the mystery of the box of Reginald Maltravers,
and the mystery of the box of plum preserves, there only remains the
capture of Logan Black to hold me in this part of the country and to
keep you from your voyage to the China Seas."
"We must get together," said Cleggett, "on a plan of campaign. Logan
Black will certainly attack again. He has only been beaten off
temporarily. In the meanwhile, it is almost breakfast time."
And, indeed, the lights in the cabin were suddenly growing pale. The
sun was rising. Its beams, shining through the cabin skylight, fell
upon the three great detectives, each one of whom, with an air of
ineffable satisfaction, was gloating--but gloating urbanely and with
dignity--over an oblong box.