A FORTUNE AND A LADY DISAPPEAR
“And that’s all I know about it, Dick.”
It was Dora who was speaking. She was seated on the sofa with Dick beside
her. She had been telling her story and weeping copiously at the same
time. He had listened with great interest, and had comforted her all he
could. Tom and Sam had gone off with Mr. Rover, to the Laning place, to
interview Mr. Laning and his wife and see if they could throw any
additional light on the mystery.
What Dora had to tell was not much, and it simply supplemented the story
Mr. Rover had already related to his sons.
One day a strange messenger had appeared at the Stanhope house with a
letter for Mrs. Stanhope. The communication was very brief and asked the
lady to get the fortune from the trust company that was holding it and
take it to Ithaca and there meet Mr. Rover. She was to do this in secret,
for, as the letter said, Mr. Rover “wanted to make an investment of great
importance, but one which must be kept from the general public, or the
chance to buy stock at a low price would be lost.” The communication had
been signed in the name of the Rover boys’ father.
Rather ignorant of business affairs, Mrs. Stanhope had taken the first
boat she could get for Ithaca and gone to the trust company and gotten
from her private box the whole fortune—her own share and also that of the
Lanings. There she had gone to the office of the Adrell Lumber Company,
where, so the letter stated, Mr. Rover was to meet her.
The Adrell company’s office proved to be a small affair on a side street,
and on entering Mrs. Stanhope had met the messenger who had delivered the
letter to her the day before. He had said that Mr. Rover was expected
every minute and had requested her to sit down.
While the lady was waiting, with the fortune in her valise, a telephone
had rung and the man in the office had gone to answer the call. He said
Mr. Rover wished to speak to her. She had answered the telephone, and
someone had spoken to her in a voice she believed to be Anderson Rover’s.
The party at the other end of the wire had said he was then dickering for
some valuable mining shares owned by a rich old man, and said the shares
would surely go up to double value inside of a month.
“I can’t leave the old man,” came over the wire. “Is Mr. Barker there?”
The man in the office had said he was Mr. Barker, and then the man on the
wire had vouchsafed the additional information to Mrs. Stanhope that he
was an old friend and perfectly trustworthy. Then Mrs. Stanhope had been
requested to turn the fortune over to Mr. Barker, who would deliver it to
Mr. Rover without delay.
Thinking that all was fair and square, Mrs. Stanhope had delivered the
valise to the man, who had gone off with it immediately. He had told her
to go home and Mr. Rover would send her word before night about what he
had done.
She had returned to Cedarville and to her home and there she had waited
patiently to hear from Anderson Rover. No message coming for her, she had
at last grown suspicious and sent word to the hotel at which the Rover
boys’ father was supposed to be stopping. On receiving a reply that he
was not there, and had not been there, she grew more alarmed than ever,
and then sent the message to Oak Run which so mystified all of the
Rovers.
“We have learned that the Adrell Lumber Company went out of business
several months ago,” explained Dora. “The old signs were left up and the
office was rented temporarily to a man who said he wanted to use it for
storage purposes.”
“And it was rented that way just to fool your mother,” returned Dick.
On learning the truth Mrs. Stanhope had been all but overcome. She had
sent word to Mr. Laning, but he could not come, having hurt his ankle as
already mentioned.
Then, while Dora and her mother were in the house alone, another message
had come. It was signed Tad Sobber, and stated that Sobber had the
fortune and would return the greater portion of it provided Mrs. Stanhope
would allow him to keep ten thousand dollars and promise not to prosecute
him. If she agreed to this, she was to meet a certain man in Cedarville,
who would take her across the lake, where she could meet Sobber and get
back her valise with her precious belongings. She was particularly
cautioned to come alone—otherwise the fortune would not be returned.
“And she went across the lake, and that is the last seen or heard of
her,” said Dora, and then she burst into fresh tears.
“Have you seen anything lately of Josiah Crabtree?” questioned Dick.
“No, but mamma got a long letter from him, in which he said he loved her
more than ever and that she had better make up her mind to marry him. The
letter was so sickening mamma tore it up and put it in the stove.”
“Dora, I hate to alarm you more, but I think Crabtree had something to do
with getting your mother to cross the lake.”
“What makes you say that, Dick?” she demanded, with a new fear coming
into her face.
“I’ll tell you,” he answered, and then related the particulars of the
meeting with Dan Baxter. When he concluded her face was very pale and her
hands icy cold.
“Oh, Dick, would that—that monster carry her off and—and force mamma to
marry him!” she moaned.
“I can’t answer that, Dora. But you’ll remember what a strange influence
Crabtree used to exercise over her.”
“Yes! yes! But mamma was sickly then and her mind was weak. Now she is
much stronger.”
“I think Crabtree is something of a hypnotist and mesmerist, and there is
no telling what such a rascal will do when he sets out for it. He wants
that fortune just as much as Sobber wants it. I think they are working
this game between them.”
“But why would they take mamma away after they had the fortune?”
“Because the fortune is not all in gold. There is some very rare jewelry
and precious stones. The thieves would have trouble in disposing of those
things unless they had some semblance of a legal right to do so. If Mr.
Crabtree was your mother’s husband he could take the jewelry and precious
stones and sell them, and nobody would prosecute him.”
“Oh, Dick, what shall I do?”
“I don’t know that you can do anything, Dora. My advice is, that you go
over and stay with the Lanings, and let us try to solve this mystery.
We’ll do all we can, and we’ll make the authorities do all they can,
too.”
“The Cedarville police are of no account—in a matter of such importance.”
“I know that. Father sent to New York for a couple of first-class
detectives. Perhaps they’ll be able to get on the trail quicker than any
of us realize.” But though Dick spoke thus it was more to allay Dora’s
anxiety than through any faith in what the sleuths of the law might be
able to accomplish.
The matter was talked over a little longer, and then Dora dressed and
packed her suit-case and announced herself ready to go to the Laning
farm, located some distance away. Dick drove her over. They found the
whole household in excitement over what had occurred.
“I declare, that fortune has brought nothing but trouble from the start,”
said Mrs. Laning, with a deep sigh. “Sometimes I wish we had never heard
of it!”
“I shouldn’t care so much for the fortune, if only I knew mamma was
safe!” answered Dora.
“I am going down to Cedarville and see if I can’t get on the trail of the
party who took your mother across the lake,” said Dick.
“And I’ll go along,” came from Tom.
“So will I,” added Sam.
“I am going to Ithaca, to look into that lumber office business,” said
Mr. Rover. “I want to get a good description of the fellow who got that
valise with the fortune.” In his excitement he did not think of his
injured knee.
All drove to Cedarville, and there Mr. Rover took the boat down Lake
Cayuga. The boys walked along the docks, looking for a man named Belcher,
who rented out small boats. They found the fellow at a boathouse, putting
a new seat in a rowboat.
“Do you know anything of this affair?” asked Dick, after he had learned
how the news of Mrs. Stanhope’s disappearance, and the disappearance of
the fortune, had spread.
“I was just thinking I might know something,” answered Caleb Belcher,
slowly. He was known to be a man who never hurried.
“What?” asked the three Rovers, eagerly.
“Well——” The boatman slowly shifted his quid of tobacco from one side of
his mouth to the other. “I was thinking I might know a little.”
“But what? Tell us, man!” cried Dick. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
“It ain’t much,” was the slow reply. “I was out rowing, you
understand—coming from the Point to Harden’s dock, when I see a boat I
didn’t know, moving across the lake.”
“Yes,” said Sam, impatiently.
“She put across the lake, and she had two men and a woman in her. The
woman wore a dark dress and a dark veil.”
“It must have been Mrs. Stanhope!” cried Dick. “When was this?”
“About the same time they say the lady disappeared.”
“Where did the boat go to?” asked Tom.
“Well, I was kind of curious to know whose boat it was, so I watched
pretty closely, and she went in over there,” and the old boatman pointed
with his hand to a spot on the opposite shore where there was a tall rock
and a fair-sized cove.
“Take us over there at once and I’ll pay you well,” said Dick. “Get out
two pairs of oars, and we’ll help you to row.”
Slow though he was, Caleb Belcher was always anxious to earn money, and
soon a rowboat was gotten ready and the three Rover boys sprang in. The
old boatman followed, and the craft was headed across the lake.
“Who lives near that spot?” questioned Dick, as they swept over the calm
bosom of the lake.
“Tony Carew’s farm isn’t far off,” answered the old boatman.
“Anybody else?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Do you know this Tony Carew.”
“Guess I do—we went to school together, and licked each other more’n a
dozen times,” and Caleb Belcher chuckled over the recollection.
“All right, show us to his place,” said Dick.
As soon as the shore was reached all sprang out of the boat, which was
tied to a bush growing nearby. Then Caleb Belcher led the way along a
trail that was rather rough. Presently they came to a road and on it an
old farmhouse.
“There is Tony Carew now,” said Belcher, and pointed to an old man who
sat on a bench, smoking.
“I didn’t have nuthin’ to do with it—you can’t mix me up in it!” cried
Tony Carew, as soon as Dick stated the object of his visit. “I didn’t
tech the lady!” And he bobbed his head vigorously. Evidently he was a man
easily scared.
“I want to learn if you know anything about it,” returned Dick, sternly.
“If you do, tell me.”
“I didn’t tech the lady! I wouldn’t tech nobuddy!” howled Tony Carew.
“Did you see her and the men?”
“Yes—but I didn’t tech nobuddy, I tell you. I stayed in the barn.”
“But you saw her!” cried Dick. “Where did she go? Or where did those men
take her?”
“The hull crowd got in a carriage wot was waitin’ down the road.”
“Whose carriage?”
“I dunno. They had a white hoss an’ a black hoss, an’ the carriage had
the top kinder torn.”
“Who was driving?”
“A man with a linen duster, an’ a cap pulled away down over his face.”
“Which way did they go?”
“That way,” answered Tony Carew, and pointed to a side road leading
eastward.