THE CAPTAIN’S TRICK
There were three very quiet persons as the victors hastened back to
Washington in the _Hustle_, driven by Lieutenant Adeler. The General
was nursing his twisted ankle; Hike was lying still, with Poodle
occasionally patting him on the shoulder. And Captain Welch, between
the two soldiers, sat with his head on his knees. There were no
handcuffs on him, but his revolver had been taken away.
As the tetrahedral fluttered down to its aerodrome, in Washington,
the Captain stood up wearily. He seemed too tired to move. The two
soldiers guarding him thought they would have an easy time. They
plodded along beside him, silent.
Suddenly Hike, dragging himself along beside the others, made a leap
and caught at the Captain’s arm.
It was too late. The Captain had already swallowed the liquid of a
small bottle which he had drawn from his inner vest-pocket. He threw
up his arms, cried out once, and sank in a pathetic heap.
Hike picked up the bottle, turned to the astonished General, and
said, “Poison. Prussic acid. Works instantly, doesn’t it?”
Bending over the Captain, the General felt his heart. “Not dead yet,”
he cried. “We may save him. You—” pointing to a soldier, “get an auto
_quick_!”
The soldier stopped the car of a passer-by, who consented to take
them to the General’s house. They roared by a policeman—with warning,
uplifted hand—as though he didn’t exist. Down the streets, under the
arc lights, they thundered, and drew up at the General’s house.
Poodle and the two soldiers had been left behind—to come on
afterward. Hike and the General and the Lieutenant lifted out Captain
Welch, and carried him into the house. He was left on a couch.
The General bustled into another room, to telephone for a doctor.
Hike sat beside the couch, feeling the Captain’s pulse, while the
Lieutenant was searching through the General’s cabinet, upstairs, for
a medicine that would bring the Captain to. The room was very quiet.
Hike felt himself nodding away, unable to keep awake, even now, when
in the presence of what looked like death.
Through half-closed eyelids, he suddenly saw the Captain sit up,
fling his legs off the couch, and aim a blow with closed fist.
Hike ducked and hit back, but the Captain rushed to a window—open to
the summer night—and leaped out.
Dashing to the window, Hike saw him run around the corner. He yelled
to the Lieutenant and the General, and started for the door.
“Captain’s escaped. Went through window,” he bawled from the
doorstep, and hurried down the stairs. There was not a sign of the
Captain in the streets about.
The General, Hike and Adeler ran in different directions—but no trace
of Welch. He had probably caught a trolley-car, or a taxicab, on a
busy street near by. They finally gave up the chase and gathered at
the General’s house.
“My ankle is _very_ sore after this last run,” said the General
angrily. “The next time I try to handle prisoners myself—well, I
won’t.”
“It was my fault,” Hike began.
“Of _course_!” said the General. “I ought to expect you, after you’ve
been through an experience that would kill most youngsters, to
capture the Captain, single-handed! Mr. Adeler, what’s your idea of
how Welch got over prussic acid so quickly as that?”
“It’s a mystery to me,” said Jack Adeler, wearily.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Hike. “I don’t believe that _was_ prussic
acid! Here’s the bottle. Couldn’t it be tested?”
He fished the vial out of his side pocket. He had picked it up when
the Captain dropped it.
“Good boy!” roared the General. “Of course! But let’s try it. I don’t
think I’ve forgotten all my chemistry, and I’ve a small laboratory
here. Any liquid left in the bottle?”
“A couple of drops.”
“Let’s see it.” The General, limping, led the way to a small
laboratory he had upstairs. Silently the other two watched him
test the few drops left. At last he tossed the vial into a basket,
laughing.
“That’s about as much prussic acid as I am. It’s pure water! Well.
_Well!_”
The General seated himself wearily in a straight-backed wooden chair,
then started up and exclaimed, “Can’t I even have a comfortable
chair, after all this? Come on down to the library. Mr. Adeler, we’ll
have a couple of cigars. Do you smoke, you, young Griffin? No? Well,
I’m glad to hear you don’t.”
When they were all seated in the great library, the General mused:
“Well, we’ve been busy to-night. It isn’t much after midnight, but
it’s all over. By the way, Mr. Adeler, did you telephone those orders
to the police-station to have the tetrahedral’s house, and your
rooms, watched? That’s good. Some of those thugs might make trouble
yet.
“But I don’t think they will. I think we’ll have them all in jail
in a few hours. Jolls included. As for Captain Welch—it doesn’t make
much difference whether we catch him or not. He’ll be disgraced and
kicked out of the Army just the same. In fact, I think we might as
well drop the ‘Captain’ from his name, and call him plain ‘Welch,’
from now on. He’s a private citizen—and without honor.
“As for the tetrahedral, I think that the Board will have adopted
that as the Army model by noon to-morrow. You can telegraph Mr.
Priest, at once.
“Well, that’s about all.” The General’s official sternness
disappeared, and he became a gentle, humorous old man. “And now,
where is that young Darby? I think that at least I might have him
here, to talk to. He’s the only one I’ve ever met with sufficient
sense of humor to understand my grievances.
“Here I’ve comported myself with a fair amount of dignity as a
high-ranking army officer for some years. And what happens to-night?
I ride in night-flying infernal contrivances. I fight mosquitoes on a
ridiculous thatch-roof. I get covered with dirt—and I associate with
other persons like you two, who are about equally dirty. I sprain
my ankle dropping through a hole, as though I were an actor in a
moving-picture company. I kill captains and don’t kill them dead. I
act like a second lieutenant who got out of the Point about three
years too early.
“But there is one thing that I trust I may be able to do with more
dignity and efficiency. That is sleeping! Now, you gentlemen are not
going to stir one step out of the house to-night. You are to sleep
right here. Mr. Adeler, will you please ring for a servant?”
And so Hike got to bed, and slept till noon next day. It was,
perhaps, the most satisfactory thing he had ever done in his life,
to pull off the clothes fouled with the mud of the swamp, drop into
a tub of hot water, and then crawl between clean sheets. He may have
made some fair speed, in his day, with the tetrahedral; but that was
as nothing compared with the magnificent speed with which he slept.
He declared to Poodle, next day, that he had broken all records, by
sleeping at a rate of not less than one hundred knots an hour.
One other had been awake, however, and when Hike awoke, about the
noon of the following day, there was handed to him a note, mailed
late the night before, which had been addressed to him in care of
General Thorne.
The note ran:
“DEAR GERALD GRIFFIN:
“You may be pleased to learn that I shall not forget the debt I
owe to you and to Lieutenant Adeler. Believe me, my dear Gerald, I
shall have the pleasure of getting even with both of you, in the
best manner which shall present itself. I am writing in order to
give you the joy of watching for trouble every day and hour.
“Believe me, your very obedient servant,
“WILLOUGHBY WELCH, U. S. A.”
Hike read the note twice, then yawned, “So Wibbelty-Wobbelty wants to
scare us, eh? How unkind!” He turned over and slept peacefully for
another hour.
He was awakened by a call from Poodle, who shouted, “Say, Bat has
gone and confessed to the government about how they were going to try
to rob the Patent Office, and the federal secret service is after
Jolls and his thugs, already. And say, the Army Board has telegraphed
Priest, accepting the tetrahedral.”
“Good. Have they got Captain Welch?”
“No. I guess he made his getaway.”
“Too bad. Because I’m awful’ scared. Here’s a note from him.”
Poodle read through the note, and asked anxiously.
“Aw, he’s just kidding, isn’t he, Hike?”
“No. I don’t think he is.”
“Gee. Aren’t you worried?”
“Not much,” smiled Hike, and he looked it. “What worries me a whole
lot more,” he continued, “is that we’ll have to get back to Santa
Benicia Academy, in a few days—and oh! how the fellows will kid us,
for getting conspicuous, and us only Sophomores. That’s the real
thing to worry about.”
“Um-_huh_,” agreed Poodle, gloomily.