AN UNKNOWN ITALIAN
Josie’s warning to Captain Lonsdale was given none too soon. The man
Irene and her aunt had seen prowling around the Hathaway house was not
the only one who made a tour of inspection on the very first night
Mary Louise left her home. As the man, who was one of the chief’s most
trusted detectives, went in the alley to get a good look at the rear of
the premises, the figure of a boy flattened itself against the side of
the garage where the ivy grew thick and close and where the shadow was
not penetrated by the electric light at the corner of the alley.
Had the trusted detective seen the boy in the light, he would have
reported him as about fifteen, perhaps an Italian, with curly black
hair that escaped rebelliously from the confines of the shabby cloth
cap; a dirty face, pinched and rather hungry looking, with great eyes
of a beauty almost unearthly but with something in their expression
that gave a lie to the first statement of the lad’s being only fifteen.
Anyhow, the trusted detective did not see him, saw nothing in fact but
a large cat humped up on the roof of the garage, and heard nothing but
the unearthly caterwauling from Tom, who was probably singing a dirge
incident to the cutting off of supplies by the departure of Aunt Sally,
who always saved scraps for all the stray cats of the neighborhood.
“Idiot!” the boy muttered under his breath as the detective gave a
cursory glance in the back yard and then made his way to the front
again. “He might have found me if he had had any sense, but sense is
the last thing to look for in a detective.”
If the detective lacked the sense that the boy had asserted, he had,
at least, the quality of faithfulness and stuck to his job until
daylight when he was relieved by another man. Whatever had been the
purpose of the boy who clung so closely to the shadow of the garage,
he had not been able to accomplish it on that night. His object seemed
to be to gain access to the big house, but, unfortunately for him,
the strong light in the alley was thrown directly on the back of the
house, making it impossible to accomplish his purpose with the tiresome
detective constantly tramping around, appearing when least expected
rather as though he suspected something.
When daylight came the boy hooked a ride on the back of an early
milkcart, leaving the detective none the wiser and unconscious that his
vigil had been shared by an interested person.
During the morning Josie made an excuse for visiting the Hathaway
house, stating she wanted to borrow a book from the Colonel’s library.
Carefully she went over the house to make sure nobody had entered since
she and Mary Louise had left it the day before. Everything was as it
had been, not a sign of meddlers! She then went to the garage. Some
one had been in there, it was plain to see. The old-fashioned lock,
fastened by a large brass key, was easy enough to open with a skeleton
key. Not only had it been picked, but Josie saw that some one had been
in the Colonel’s dilapidated old car which now reigned supreme in the
place where the fine new car had been wont to shine with polished
supremacy. The scuffed cushions had been ripped open and some one in
feverish haste must have searched in the stuffing. The back of the car
was full of the hair torn from the inside of the cushions and springs
and strips of leather thrown on the floor gave evidence of a thorough
search having been made.
“I bet they didn’t find a thing,” grinned Josie. “This doesn’t look
like the leavings of a successful hunt.”
Nevertheless, she made a close examination of the garage, even going
upstairs to the room intended for a chauffeur. She then felt it
necessary to pay a visit to the chief. As usual, he was in his inner
office knitting his brows over an intricate problem of how to catch
wrongdoers.
“Well, General O’Gorman, how goes it?” was his playful greeting.
“Who had the watch last night at the Hathaway house?” Josie didn’t seem
to want to play.
“Will Slater.”
“What kind of a man is he?”
“Honest as the day is long and never goes to sleep when he is supposed
to keep awake!”
“Well, he was asleep on his job last night, although he kept walking
around the block all night.”
“What do you mean?” sternly.
“I mean that whoever watched the Hathaway house was only watching with
his legs and not using his head at all.”
“Well?”
“Some one got in the garage and ripped open the cushions in the
Colonel’s old car. Of course, the lost money was not there but, if it
had been, it would all have been got away with by now.”
“How do you know it wasn’t there?”
“Because I myself had already closely examined the cushions, examined
under the seats and in the pockets, every place where papers might have
been hidden.”
The chief pressed his electric bell.
“Tell Slater to come to me as soon as he comes in,” he told the man who
came at his summons.
“Excuse me, Chief,” Josie said earnestly, after the man had left, “but
please do not get me in bad with Slater. My father used to say that
nothing was so hard to combat as an antagonistic local police force
and I’m sure, if you let Slater know I have found out about the garage
being entered, he will have it in for me. Isn’t he the man who let
Felix Markle escape when we had him for sure? If it hadn’t been for
that wonderful young newspaper chap, Bob Dulaney, Markle would have
been a free man this day.”
“Strange to say he is a free man. I have just got a report that he has
broken jail and is at large.”
Josie whistled, a form of astonishment she occasionally permitted
herself.
“Well what’s the use?” she asked wearily. “What’s the use of nabbing
these persons if you hand them over to a set of boobs who can’t keep
them when once they get them? We can look out for the female of the
species now, Chief. She is as certain to get back to her Felix as a
homing pigeon. There is that one good thing about Hortense Markle.
She is surely crazy about her old man. I wonder if they will begin
operations around these parts. I shouldn’t be surprised if they did.
Dorfield proved an easy mark up to a certain point.”
“No, no! They would hardly come back here.” Chief Lonsdale spoke with
conviction. “They are too well known and they will, of course, be on
to the fact that I am possessed of the knowledge that Markle has got
out.” He spoke with a certain pomposity that very much amused Josie.
However, she concealed her grin and agreed with the chief.
“You won’t put Slater on to the fact that the garage has been entered,
will you?”
The chief pondered.
“Not if you say so, but I can’t have my men slighting their duty.”
“He didn’t slight his duty. I tell you he kept tramping around the
block steadily. Mr. and Mrs. Conant saw him and Mrs. Conant thought
he was after her garbage can. Irene Macfarlane saw him and told me he
walked all night. Of course, walking is not watching, but I am sure
Slater did his duty as he saw it. The thing is, he has mistaken his
calling and ought to be a bill sticker whose object is publicity of his
business. You might caution him a bit if he is to go on with the job
and tell him to keep in the shadows a little more and sometimes turn
and go the other way. My idea is that not only do we want to keep any
treasure hunter from gaining access to the Hathaway home but we also
want to nab anyone who is so inclined.”
“Of course!” said the chief shortly.
“See here, I haven’t offended you, have I?” asked Josie with concern.
“I thought you wanted me to be frank.”
“Of course, of course! I guess I am more mortified than offended,”
confessed Captain Lonsdale, who had a real affection for the daughter
of Detective O’Gorman, but who was naturally a bit put out that this
slip of a girl should have caught one of his prize officers bungling.
He determined to give the man a stiff lecture on detective work in
general and the job of patrolling a house liable to be broken into in
particular. It would be a sad affair if this treasure, that must be
somewhere, should be found and carried off by thieves under the very
nose of the police force.
Josie left the police station, her head bowed in thought. She went by
the Hathaway house again before she returned to the Higgledy Piggledy
Shop. Again she walked around the yard and this time she closely
examined the outside of the garage.
“Umhum! Vine a little crushed where some one pressed close to the
wall,” she muttered.
Stooping she regarded the earth attentively.
“Small footprints! Tennis shoes, I should say--either a boy or a woman.
Fortunate for Slater the light in the alley is so bright that that one
couldn’t enter the house without being seen even by a sleep-walker.
That’s what Slater is--a sleep-walker!”
Josie O’Gorman whistled thoughtfully, stared up at the silent house,
and walked slowly homeward.
A little later in the day, a dark haired boy came down the alley
walking jauntily and with seeming nonchalance. In his hand he carried a
weapon known to boy-land as a “gumbo shooter” or a “sling shot.” It is
not quite like the weapon used by David in the great killing of Goliath
of Gath. That was a sling shot which must be twirled rapidly around and
then let fly. But it is a similar means of offense and even more deadly.
The boy picked up pebbles, shooting at first one object then another,
apparently careless of what he was doing. He stopped a moment, looked
up and down the alley and, selecting a pebble with care as the shepherd
might have done when he prepared to kill the doughty giant, he took
accurate aim at the electric light and the sound of shattered glass
was the result. Then, snuggling close to the high board fence, he was
around the corner before anyone saw him and the light was not known to
be broken until night-fall. Even then nobody took the trouble to report
it and the rear premises of the Hathaway house were in total darkness
soon after sunset.