Caught!
BACK at the house we heard the whole story. The man Jo had gone back to
work but Michael still lingered. Hamish had taken a long drink of
Craven House well water in bold defiance of Hattie May’s warning that
it was practically sure to be full of deadly germs; his attitude being,
I think, that after what he’d been through a germ more or less was of
trifling moment. He was seated on an old wooden bench at the back door.
Hattie May had wiped some of the mud from his face but it still had a
grayish unhealthy cast.
“How in the world did you happen to go way out there?” It was Michael
who got the story going.
“It was on account of those cops,” Hamish said. “I was tryin’ to get to
the place where I’d parked my car ’thout runnin’ into ’em. You see
after they got you——”
“Were you in the house too?” Michael interrupted.
Hamish shook his head. “No, I was outside but I heard most everything
that went on. I got here ’bout ten o’clock last night. You see I had
kind of a hunch that that Bangs fellow wasn’t through with the place,
after me runnin’ into him in Millport selling that hair tonic. I said
to myself, ‘He’s still on the trail of sumpin or I miss my guess.’”
“Yeah.” Michael nodded understandingly. “Go on.”
“Well I parked my car up the road in that little lane that runs through
somebody’s orchard. Then I came back here to the house. I hid out in
the bushes there to sort of reconnoiter and I hadn’t been there more’n
a few minutes when sure enough along comes a car. It stopped down the
road a bit and after a while I spied a man comin’ through the bushes,
making for the back door. I recognized him even though it was dark—it
was Bangs.”
“Oh, Hamish, weren’t you scared to death?” cried Hattie May.
“Scared of what?” inquired her brother. “There was I lyin’ low behind a
bush—he hadn’t seen me.”
“Oh, go on,” I urged, “what happened then?”
“Well he unlocks the door, goes inside and locks it after him. ‘All
right, mister,’ I says to myself, ‘that’s all I wanted to know. Now
I’ll just buzz over to Millport and get a cop and you can do some
explaining!’”
Michael grinned wryly. “But you didn’t have to!” he put in.
“Gosh no! I hadn’t any more than got to the front wall creepin’ along
so’s not to make a sound when, boy, ’long comes another car. I guess
you know who that was,” he looked at Michael. “It stopped down the road
about where the first one had, near as I could judge. Bye and bye I
heard voices. I picked me a bush close by the house and lay down again.
The voices got nearer. One of the fellows had a flash and I saw they
were cops, two of ’em.”
“Oh, Hamish, what did you do then?”
“Do? I just lay low and listened. I could hear every word they said.
One of ’em went to the back door and one to the front. Pretty soon I
heard the back door crash in—that was the husky one did that,” again
he looked at Michael and again, surprisingly, Michael nodded
confirmation.
“Well so they got in and I could hear them walkin’ round through the
house. Say, get me another drink.”
Michael brought the water. “Oh, do go on,” Hattie May said impatiently.
“What did the villain do when they got him?”
Hamish finished the glass of water before he replied. “They didn’t get
him at all,” he said dramatically. “They got Michael instead! Can you
imagine that?”
“Michael!” All of us turned upon the other boy as if expecting him to
deny this astounding statement. But he only nodded gravely. “But—but I
don’t understand,” Eve cried, “what were you doing in the house?”
Michael gave a shrug. “Oh, it’s just a mess,” he said gloomily. “The
worst I ever got into, I guess. You see I had the same sort of hunch as
Hamish. After he told of seeing Bangs in Millport, I suspected right
away that he was still hanging around for a reason and that that reason
was somehow connected with this place. I thought if he did any more
digging, he’d probably do it at night. So I rode out here last night on
my bicycle and climbed into that upstairs window that you girls left
unlocked.”
“Oh, wasn’t it awfully spooky!” I cried.
Michael gave a wry laugh. “No, it was quite peaceful—for a while. I
poked around some with my flash to make sure the house was empty and
then sat down by the window to wait in case Mr. Bangs should turn up.
Well, everything might have been all right if it hadn’t been for the
fool idea I’d had—” he hesitated, looking rather sheepish. “Well, you
see, I’d had the brilliant idea of trying to disguise myself.”
“Disguise yourself!” Eve cried. “But how?”
“Well I had that wig I’d pulled off Bangs that night I chased him—I
suppose it was that that gave me the idea. I thought it would prevent
anyone’s recognizing me in case I was seen coming in here. So I fixed
myself up with this wig and a straw hat and an old suit of Al’s. I
found an old pair of spectacles around the house too.”