WHAT JACK AND DICK OVERHEARD
"I beg your pardon, Mr.---, I did not catch your name," continued
Dr. Wise, "but you have no authority in this case. You are not a
civil magistrate, not even a police court judge, and you cannot
hold this boy for any jury, grand or little. You can make a charge
against him, it is true, and then if the local magistrate considers
the evidence good he will be held for the Grand Jury. You are
doubtless unaware, being a stranger to the section, that I am a
magistrate myself, although seldom called upon to adjudge cases."
"I was not aware of it, sir," said the other, a little shamefaced.
"I may have been hasty, but my association with suspicious
characters-----"
"Has made him one himself," muttered Percival, whereat Jack could
not help smiling.
"Has made me suspect persons unjustly, perhaps," the detective
went on. "Still you must admit yourself that the finding of the
watch, as related by you, is, to say the least, singular."
"Singular, yes; suspicious, not necessarily. You say yourself
that the watch was supposedly passed from one person to another.
Why could not one of the suspected men have slipped it in Sheldon's
pocket, either designedly or by mistake? It is certainly possible."
"I wish you'd let me go out and tell the Hilltop boys that this man
has more than intimated that Jack Sheldon is a thief, Doctor,"
said Percival "I can imagine what they will have to say about
it, and what they will do to him. The river is very convenient!"
"Restrain yourself, Percival," said the doctor.
"If I have given the young gentleman an unenviable reputation,"
the detective rejoined, his face red, "it is on account of the
reports I have heard of him from-----" and he stopped short.
"Who told you this?" demanded the doctor. "There is not a more
exemplary boy in the whole Academy than John Sheldon. Ask any
one of the instructors, ask the boys themselves, ask the editors
of the Riverton papers, ask the heads of the business houses,
the superintendent of the Machine Works, the Chief of Police himself,
and they will all tell you the same. Who was your informant to
the contrary?"
"I am not at liberty to reveal the name of my informant," said the
detective, a little abashed, "but I had it from more than one source."
"Then let me tell you that you were maliciously misinformed, for
there is not a boy in the Academy who bears a better character than
John Sheldon. I will retain this watch until I have a better
authority to deliver it than yours. I wish you a very good morning."
Just then the bugle blew to call the boys to dinner, and as they
always formed in regular order to march into the dining tent there
was not the opportunity, which Percival so much desired, of pitching
the detective into the river or at least giving him a sound hissing.
"As you please, sir," the man said, as he bowed himself out. "You
cannot expect me to believe all that this young gentleman says after
what I have heard of him from-----"
"You could have consulted me, at any rate," said the doctor. "I
think I am best competent to judge of the characters of the boys
put in my charge. Good morning, sir. Boys, the bugle has sounded."
The detective went away in a hurry, looking a good deal crestfallen,
the boys getting into line with the rest, this operation preventing
Percival from giving the man the send off that he had meant to
give him.
"I'd like to know where that fellow got his information about you,
Jack," he said to his friend when they were seated at table.
"I don't care to know, Dick, so long as the doctor speaks well of
me," Jack returned.
"Well, I'd like to know just the same. There are some boys here who
would say all they could against you, and the man may have seen them
before he saw the doctor, and heard what they had to say. You could
see that he was prejudiced from the start."
"Yes, he presupposed my guilt before giving me a chance to speak for
myself, Dick. However, it is fortunate that I have a good reputation."
"Which is what some of the Hilltop boys have not. I am not mentioning
any names," and Percival began eating his soup with a good appetite.
An hour or two after dinner Jack asked Percival to go up the river in
his boat, having one or two errands in town to do, and wanting company.
Dick was glad to go in Jack's boat, as the boy managed it so well, and
he would have very little to do himself.
Finishing his errands in town Jack was proceeding down the river when,
with a sudden impulse, which he could not explain, he said to Dick:
"Suppose we go up the creek a bit. The tide is that way now, and we
shall have water enough, and it will not be against us."
"You don't want to go to the Academy, do you, Jack?" asked Percival.
"You can run in as far as the ravine. You came down that way once."
There was quite a deep ravine on the bill where the Academy was
located, from which a turbulent creek or kill ran to the river, and
Jack had once had a tumble into this, and had made his way to the
little station at the foot of the hill along its banks, and,
incidentally, had discovered a considerable sum of money stolen
from a bank in Riverton and hidden there.
"No, I don't want to go all the way, Dick," answered Jack with a
smile, "but we might go a short way up."
They put into the little kill, and went beyond the business part of
the town, finally getting into the woods and finding banks of some
height on either side.
The kill was full, and the current set their way, so that they had
no trouble and kept on for a mile beyond the town, finding themselves
in a most wild and picturesque spot, most of the time in deep
shadow, and hearing no sounds except those of the woods, now and
then seeing a drowsy bird on a bough or hearing the low hum of
insects as they flew past.
"You'll get to the station before long, Jack," said Percival at
length. "I think the tide is beginning to turn. We get considerable
of it even here. Do you think-----"
Jack raised his hand as a sign for his friend to be quiet, and at
that moment somewhere on the bank above them they heard a querulous
voice:
"Why do you give me it if it is worth so moche, and there is alarm
about it?" they heard in a high-keyed, querulous voice, evidently
that of a woman, and Jack started involuntarily.
He had heard that voice before, but at the moment he could not tell
where, or when it was.
"What have you done with it?" asked a man in a low tone, which Jack
caught, nevertheless, all being silent in the place.
"How I know where I have lose it?" answered the woman. "I have be
in a many exciting time. If there was suspicion you should not
give it. I do not know, and maybe I show it to some friend to make
her jealous."
"Did you?" growled the man. "You should have more sense."
"But you do not tell me. Now it is lose. I do not know where. I
am glad. You should not have give me it."
Jack now recognized the voice as that of the nurse who had taken the
Van der Donk child from him the night before, but he was still at a
loss to know what she was talking about.
"I gave it to you to keep safe for me until I could dispose of it,"
the man answered. "The detectives were after me. Luckily I got
rid of it in good time, but now that they have nothing against me I
can dispose of it to advantage. And you have lost it?"
"I have tell you that I have," the woman answered in her high voice,
with a strong foreign accent, Jack now remembering that she had
seemed to be French or Italian, although he had met her but a few
moments. "I have lose it, and I am glad. Why shall I get into
prison for you? You shall keep your gold and diamond watches for
yourself, and not give them to me."
"Sh! not so loud!" cautioned the man. "Somebody may hear you."
It was the watch he had found in his pocket that the woman was
talking about, and Jack had some trouble in restraining his surprise.
"But how did you lose it?" the man continued. "Did you carry it
with you? You don't go to throwing such things about, do you?"
"I don't know. There is much excitement at the house, there is the
big fire, there is the boy of the Academy coming to put it out, there
is the man from Riverton, and there is the baby, which I forget, and
the boy go up in all the smoke and bring him down. I shall lose my
place if the baby is lose. How can I remember a watch, which I
cannot carry, for fear some one say I steal? Ah! you should not give!"
"And now you have lost it!" growled the man. "Haven't you any idea?
Couldn't you have mislaid it? You are not lying to me, you have
really lost it, Gabrielle?"
"Yes, I tell you I have lose it, and I am glad!" cried the woman
in a higher key than before, and with great excitement.
The tide now began to take the boys back down the hill, and Jack
quickly steered so that he would go down with it, being speedily
out of sound of voices.
"What do you think of that, Jack?" whispered Percival.
"That the mystery of the watch seems to be as deep as ever."