STRANGE, WHITE BALLS
Supper was over in the hideout. A grand supper it had been. When time
had come for bittersweet chocolate and cakes John had blown out the
lamp. Only the gleams from the cracked stove-lids dancing on the wall
dispelled the darkness of the room.
They remained seated there for a long time, the two of them, the boy and
the man. Not a word was spoken. There is companionship in silence. It
was Jimmie who first broke the silence.
"I heard something today about Mary Dare crowning somebody with a
chair," he said. "What was it?"
"She crowned him, all right," John chuckled. "They had to take six
stitches in his scalp. Had it coming too, that fellow did. Mary's good!
Trouble is," his voice took on a worried note, "she's too blamed good.
Get herself killed if she don't look out."
"But what happened?" Jimmie insisted.
"The office got a tip that a twelve-year-old girl was chained up in a
basement somewhere on the west side; chained like a dog. The Police were
about to look into it.
"Mary hopped right into a cab and beat the police to the spot, which
sometimes isn't such a hard thing to do." John chuckled dryly.
"Well, when Mary gets there and sees that child with wrists and ankles
black and blue, looking at her wild-eyed, she just hunts up a rock and
cracks the lock as if it was a walnut.
"And just then--" John paused.
"Then what?" Jimmie demanded eagerly.
"Just then that man, father of the child, came in. He was a big brute
and was furious. He'd chained the girl because she didn't always obey
him. Yes, she'd been there all day, and she'd stay all night if he
chose. This was his house. That sort of talk, you know." John drew in a
deep breath.
"Then what?" Jimmie leaned forward in his chair.
"Mary stood up for the girl. The man made a pass at her. Mary grabbed a
heavy chair and told him to stand off or she'd crown him. He stepped in
and she made good--smashed the chair over his head."
"Good stuff!" Jimmie exclaimed.
"That's Mary," John sighed. "Regular red-head. But all I've got to say
is, she's usually on the right side of every argument." Once again he
lapsed into silence.
"John," said Jimmie after a time, "did you go to college?"
"College?" John started. "Oh! Sure!"
"Graduate?"
"Yes, of course. Most people who get anywhere at all these days do, I
guess.
"Worked my way," he added after a brief pause.
"You did? Was it hard?" Jimmie asked.
"No--o. Not hard. In fact, I think it was the softest four years of my
life. Work four or five hours a day, play and study the rest. What more
could you ask?"
"I'm going to work my way through college," Jimmie declared.
"You are?" There was surprise in John's voice, surprise and a new note
of respect. "But I thought maybe----"
"That my father would send me? Most boys expect that, I guess. But
I--well, I'd rather work," Jimmie replied modestly.
"Well, old son," John rumbled, "in that case you'll have to learn how to
choose."
"Choose? Choose what?"
"Between things you might do. There are a lot of things in college.
First there's work. You say you don't want to dodge that. Then there's
study, which you can't dodge. Then there's sports, football, baseball,
tennis, everything. After that there's social life, which means more or
less, girls.
"I'm no beauty," John laughed low, "but for every laddy there's a
lassie, and I might have gone in for that. But I didn't. You have to
choose. Choose--" his voice trailed off.
"I played baseball some," he went on after a time. "Still can swing a
fair to middling racket in tennis. Learned to beat a typewriter and did
a stretch on the college paper. That's how I got to be the way I am now,
I guess. I----"
He broke off short to listen intently. "Thought I heard a car," he
murmured. "Must have been mistaken."
"Did you like it?" Jimmie asked after a pause.
"Like what?" John groped for a thought. "Oh, college? Sure. It was a
grand life. It's not so much what you learn in classrooms that counts.
It's rubbing minds with bright men. Some of the professors are smart,
some of your fellow students are too. You talk and argue and discuss and
that way you learn to think. You----
"That _is_ a car!" He sprang to his feet. "Coming right up the circular
driveway. Thundering queer, I'd say, this time of night! Come on!"
Gripping a flashlight he let himself out noiselessly into the moonless
night. Jimmie followed closely at his heels.
"We'll just keep to the shadows," John whispered. "Probably nothing
unusual. But you never can tell. May be one of the owners of the old
place coming out to pick up some antique. Lord knows the place is full
of 'em.
"Look out," his whisper rose. "There's a rather deep rut right here. Now
we'll get up to that big lilac bush.
"It's not like the Starks to come out here at this time of night," he
went on in that low whisper. "Not like 'em to come at all, for that
matter. When I've talked to them about the place they've always sort of
acted as if it were haunted. Still, probably there's nothing to this.
Have a look all the same, and those people in the car'll be none the
wiser unless----"
"Look out now," he warned. "Don't go that way. I've noticed that lights
from cars flash across here. Let's scoot along these bushes."
So, with his breath coming short and quick Jimmie followed across the
grass-grown, bush-entangled estate.
"Now," John breathed at last, "we'll slip up to that big elm and have a
look----"
"They're inside," Jimmie whispered. "See that faint gleam of light in
the big, old library."
"That's right," John pressed the boy's arm hard. "Dim light. That looks
a little queer. Not a flashlight, too steady for that. Candle probably.
Would you bring a candle to such a place if you had a right to be
there?"
"Guess not," said Jimmie, as a chill ran up his spine.
Just then some hoot owl in a pine let out a prodigious laughing hoot.
Jimmie jumped. John laughed low.
"Nerves," he whispered. "We all have 'em."
"Come on," he led the way in the dark. "The window to the right is
almost covered by ivy and there's a stone seat beneath it just high
enough to stand on."
One more breathless moment and they were at the window looking in. There
were three men in the room, Jimmie could see that at once. Only two
faces could be seen. The third was entirely in the shadows but his hands
beneath the light could be seen plainly.
It was an unusual light, the stub of a candle with a small copper shade
which fitted over it.
The hands of the man who could not be seen were unusual hands. Long,
slender, white and flexible, they might belong to a writer, a musician,
a painter, or a card-shark.
The hands were doing strange things. They were disappearing, one at a
time, and coming back into the light bringing each time probably from a
pocket, something resembling a large egg.
"May be real eggs," Jimmie thought. "Blown eggs of some rare bird."
He did not believe this. One thing was sure, the gleaming white balls
were handled with the care usually bestowed upon rare eggs.
Jimmie did not like the faces he saw. They had hard eyes that gleamed
like glass balls. One man was short and stout, the other tall and thin
with a beak-like nose.
The short man began to speak. The tall one hushed him up. Then he
started to speak. He, in turn, was interrupted by the invisible owner of
the hands.
After that, one by one, the egg-like things were returned to their
former place.
Jimmie knew there were beads of perspiration on his nose. He felt cold
all over. It was strange standing there seeing much but understanding
nothing.
The trio sat down. The hands disappeared. The third man was still
invisible.
There was more talk, quite a lot of it, none of which was heard by
Jimmie and John.
Then other hands appeared, the hands of the short, stout man.
"Two fingers gone on his left hand," Jimmie whispered.
"Good eyes, boy," John whispered back.
The hand with two fingers gone opened a small bag and spread it flat.
"A leftie," John whispered.
"Gold," whispered Jimmie as something on the flattened bag gleamed
yellow beneath the candle.
"Looks like nuggets," said John. "How strange."
The slender, bony hand of the slim man appeared. As the right hand was
opened and spread flat on the table there came a flash of light.
"Diamonds," said John.
Instantly Jimmie thought of the recent diamond robbery.
"John!" he whispered. "What I wouldn't give for my candid camera and
three flash bulbs."
"You'd get us both shot," said John.
"Probably," Jimmie agreed. "But I'll tell you what! I'll set a trap
here. If they come back again I'll get them."
"A trap? How?"
"Tell you later. Look!" Jimmie's whisper rose shrill. "There are three
pairs of hands. The man we can't see gets the gold and diamonds."
"It's a split," said John. "Or he's been offered a risky job and is
accepting his pay in advance."
"Look out!" Jimmie warned. "They're coming out. Duck. Their car light
may shine on us."
Their car light did not shine on them because there was no light. The
powerful motor purred, then the big car slid away into the night like a
black ghost.
"We'll go in and have a look," said John. "I have a key.
"Big, clumsy, old-fashioned affair, this lock," he muttered as he thrust
the heavy brass key into the lock. "No bother at all for even a common
house breaker.
"There," he pushed the door open.
For a full moment they stood there listening. "Gone for good," said
John, snapping on his flashlight.
"For this time at least," Jimmie amended. He was thinking of the trap he
meant to set.
"People nearly always leave clues," said John, flashing his light about.
"Matches," said Jimmie. "They must have lit that candle. "Let's have a
little light on the floor.
"Yes!" He bent over. "Here's the stub. Looks--why! Say, it looks for all
the world like the matches we found on Tom Howe's last case. It would be
funny----"
He did not finish, for his eyes had caught a gleam from the table. John
had seen it too. He pounced upon the thing.
"A gold nugget!" Jimmie exclaimed.
"Must have rolled off that sack when it was flat. See! It's almost
round." He held it to the light.
"That gold may have been stolen," John went on as he stowed the bit of
gold in his purse. "If it was you could tell what mine it came from by
examining this nugget."
"How?" Jimmie asked in surprise.
"By its color." John began flashing his light about. "The gold from each
mine is a different shade of yellow. Some is almost red. It's the other
metal mixed with it, copper, silver, and the like.
"Well," he sighed, "guess that's about all."
"One more thing," said Jimmie. "They left their stub of a candle. Here
it is."
"Oh, that," said John with a gesture.
"Rough on the bottom," said Jimmie as he thrust the candle into his
sweater pocket.
"What do you say we call it a day?" said John. "These night prowls get
me down."
"O. K.," said Jimmie. "Lead the way."