CHAPTER XVI
AT FAULT
"I am sorry," again said the night watchman, after a long thoughtfulsilence on the part of Bart.
"I know you are, Mr. McCarthy," returned Bart, "but nobody blames you.I've got to get back that trunk, though! you are positive about LemWacker's wagon being newly painted?"
"Oh, sure."
"And red?"
"Yes, a bright red. Wacker lives near us, as I said. I strolled down thealley day before yesterday. I saw his shed doors open, and Wackerputting on the paint. I remember even joking him about his experience inpainting the town the same color once in awhile. He took that as acompliment, Lem did. It seems he traded for the wagon some time ago. Hetold me he was going to start an express company of his own."
"He seems to have done it--so far as that trunk is concerned!" murmuredBart. "Mr. McCarthy, you and I are friends?"
"Good friends, Stirling."
"And I can talk pretty freely to you?"
"I see your drift--you think Lem Wacker had a hand in this burglary?"
"I certainly do."
"Well, I'll say that I don't think he's beyond it," observed thewatchman. "You'll find, though, he only had a hand in it. His way isgenerally using someone else for a cat's-paw."
"I am going to ask you to do something for me," resumed Bartseriously--"I'm going to get back that trunk--I've got to get it back."
"The company ought to provide you with a safe, decent building."
"That will come in time."
"No one can blame you. They can't expect you to sit up watching allnight, nor carrying trunks to bed with you for safe-keeping."
"No, but the head office, while it might stand an accidental fire, willnot stand a big loss on top of it. My ability to handle this expressproposition successfully is at stake and, besides that, I would ratherhave almost anybody about my ears than Mrs. Harrington."
"The colonel's wife is a Tartar, all right," bluntly declared the nightwatchman. "Hello! here's somebody from Harrington's, now."
The same buckboard that had driven up the afternoon previous, camedashing to the platform as McCarthy spoke.
It was in charge of the same driver, who promptly hailed Bart with thewords:
"That trunk gone yet?"
"No, not yet," answered Bart.
"Then I'm in time. Mrs. Harrington wanted to put something else in--thisbox. Forgot it, yesterday," and the speaker fished up an oblong packagefrom the bottom of the wagon.
"It will have to go separate," explained Bart.
"Can't do that--it's a silk dress, and not wrapped for any hard usage.Why, what's happened!" pressed the colonel's man, shrewdly scanning thedisturbed countenances of Bart and the watchman. "Door lock smashed,too, and--say! I don't see the trunk!"
He had stepped to the platform and looked inside the express shed.
Bart thought it best to explain, and did so. It made him feel morecrestfallen than ever to trace in the way his auditor took it, that heanticipated some pretty lively action when Mrs. Harrington was apprisedof her loss.
"You can tell Mrs. Harrington that everything possible is being done torecover the trunk," Bart told the man as he drove off. "Now then, Mr.McCarthy," he continued, turning to his companion, "I am going to askyou to take charge here till I return. I will pay you a full day'swages, even if you have to stay only an hour."
"You'll pay me nothing!" declared the watchman vigorously. "I'll campright in your service as soon as the seven o'clock whistle blows, andyou get on the trail of that missing trunk."
"I intend to," said Bart. "I will get Darry Haven to come down here. Heknows the office routine. In the meantime, we had better not say muchabout the burglary."
"Are you going on a hunt for Lem Wacker?"
"I am."
Bart went first to the Haven home. He found Darry Haven chopping wood,told him of the burglary, and asked him to get down to the expressoffice as soon as he could.
"If you don't come back by nine o'clock, I will arrange to stay allday," promised Darry.
Then Bart went to the house where Lem Wacker lived. It wascharacteristic of its proprietor--ricketty, disorderly, the yard unkeptand grown over with weeds.
Smoke was coming out of the chimney. Someone was evidently astirwithin, but the shades were down, and Bart stole around to the rear.
The shed doors were open, and the wagon gone and the horse's stallvacant.
Bart went to the back door of the house and knocked, and in a fewminutes it was opened by a thin-faced, slatternly-looking woman.
Bart knew who she was, and she apparently knew him, though they hadnever spoken together before. The woman's face looked interested, andthen worried.
"Good morning, Mrs. Wacker," said Bart, courteously lifting his cap."Could I see Mr. Wacker for a moment?"
"He isn't at home."
"Oh! went away early? I suppose, though, he will be back soon."
"No, he hasn't been home all night," responded the woman in a dreary,listless tone. "You work at the railroad, don't you? Have they sent forLem? He said he was expecting a job there--we need it bad enough!"
She glanced dejectedly about the wretched kitchen as she spoke, and Bartfelt truly sorry for her.
"I have no word of any work," announced Bart, "but I wish to see Mr.Wacker very much on private business." When did he leave home?
"Last night at ten o'clock."
"With his horse and wagon?"
"Why, yes," admitted the woman, with a sudden, wondering glance at Bart."How did you know that?"
"I noticed the wagon wasn't in the shed."
"Oh, he sold it--and the horse."
"When, Mrs. Wacker?"
"Last night some men came here, two of them, about nine o'clock. Theytalked a long time in the sitting room, and then Lem went out andhitched up. He came into the kitchen before he went away, and told me hehad a chance to sell the rig, and was going to do it, and had to go downto the Sharp Corner to treat the men and close the bargain."
"I see," murmured Bart. "Who were the men, Mrs. Wacker?"
"I don't know. One of them was here with Lem about two weeks ago, but Idon't know his name, or where he lives. He don't belong inPleasantville. Oh, dear!" she concluded, with a sigh of deep depression,"I wish Lem would get back on the road in a steady job, instead ofscheming at this thing and that. He'll land us all in the poorhouseyet, for he spends all he gets down at the Corner."
Bart backed down the steps, feeling secretly that Lem Wacker would havea hard time disproving a connection with the burglary.
"Take care of the dog!" warned Mrs. Wacker as she closed the door.
Bart, passing a battered dog-house, found it tenantless, however.
"I wonder if Lem Wacker has sold the dog, too?" he reflected. "Poor Mrs.Wacker! I feel awfully sorry for her."
Bart walked rapidly back the way he had come. It was just a quarter ofseven when he reached a half-street extending along and facing therailroad tracks for a single square.
The Sharp Corner was a second-class groggery and boarding house,patronized almost entirely by the poorest and most shiftless class oftrackmen.
Its proprietor was one Silas Green, once a switchman, later a prizefighter, always a hard drinker, and latterly so crippled with rheumatismand liquor that he was just able to get about.
Bart went into the place to find its proprietor just opening up for theday. The dead, tainted air of the den made the young express agentalmost faint. As it vividly contrasted with the sweet, garden scentedatmosphere of home, he wondered how men could make it their haunt, andwas sorry that even business had made it necessary for him to enter theplace.
"Mr. Green," he said, approaching the bar, "I am looking for Lem Wacker.Can you tell me where I may find him?"
"Eh? oh, young Stirling, isn't it? Wacker? Why, yes, I know where heis."
He came out slowly from the obscurity of the bar, blinking his fadedeyes.
Bart knew he would not be unfriendly. His father, one stor
my night a fewyears previous, had picked up Green half frozen to death in a snowdrift,where he had fallen in a drunken stupor.
Every Christmas day since then, Green had regularly sent a jug of liquorto his father, with word by the messenger that it was for "the squarestman in Pleasantville, who had saved his life."
Mr. Stirling had set Bart a practical temperance example by pouring theliquor into the sink, but had not offended Green by declining hiswell-meant offerings.
Bart remembered this, and felt that he might appeal to Green to somepurpose.
"Mr. Wacker is not at home," he explained, "and I wish to find him. Iunderstand he was here last night."
"He was," assented Green. "Came here about ten, and hasn't left thehouse since."
"Why!" ejaculated Bart--and paused abruptly. "He is here now?"
"Asleep upstairs."
"And he has been here since--he is here now!" questioned Bartincredulously.
"He was, ten minutes ago, when I came down--" asserted Green.
Bart stood dumbfounded. He was at fault--the thought flashed over hismind in an instant.
It would not be so easy as he had fancied to run down the burglars, forif what Silas Green said was true, Lem Wacker could prove a mostconclusive _alibi_.
Bart Stirling's Road to Success; Or, The Young Express Agent Page 16