“That’s what puzzles me. She came here about two years after the elopement more er less, but I don’t remember ever seein’ him after that time.”
“It’s very strange, Mr. Crow,” reflected Bonner soberly. “He has a son, I know. His wife died a year or so after the boy’s birth. Young Barnes is about twenty-one, I think at this time. By George! I’ve heard it said that Barnes and his wife were not hitting it off very well. They say she died of a broken heart. I’ve heard mother speak of it often. I wonder—great heavens, it isn’t possible that Rosalie can be connected in any way with John Barnes? Anderson Crow, I—I wonder if there is a possibility?” Bonner was quivering with excitement, wonder—and—unbelief.
“I’m workin’ on that clew,” said Anderson as calmly as his tremors would permit. He was thrilled by the mere suggestion, but it was second nature for him to act as if every discovery were his own. “Ever sence I saw him on the road up there, I’ve been trackin’ him. I tell you, Wick, he’s my man. I’ve got it almost worked out. Just as soon as these blamed robbers are moved to Boggs City, er buried, I’m goin’ over an’ git the truth out of Mr. Barnes. I’ve been huntin’ him fer twenty-one years.” Anderson, of course, was forgetting that Barnes had slipped from his mind completely until Bonner nudged his memory into life.
“It’s a delicate matter, Mr. Crow. We must go about it carefully,” said Bonner severely. “If Mr. Barnes is really interested in her, we can’t find it out by blundering; if he is not interested, we can’t afford to drag him into it. It will require tact—”
“Thunderation, don’t you suppose I know that?” exploded Anderson. “Detectives are allers tackin’. They got to, y’ see, ef they’re goin’ to foller half a dozen clews at oncet. Gee whiz, Wick, leave this thing to me! I’ll git at the bottom of it inside o’ no time.”
“Wait a few days, Mr. Crow,” argued Bonner, playing for time. “Don’t hurry. We’ve got all we can do now to take care of the fellows you and that young actor captured last night.” The young man’s plan was to keep Anderson off the trail entirely and give the seemingly impossible clew into the possession of the New York bureau.
“I don’t know what I’d ’a’ done ef it hadn’t been fer that young feller,” said the marshal. “He was right smart help to me last night.” Bonner, who knew the true story, suppressed a smile and loved the old man none the less for his mild deception.
They entered the “calaboose,” which now had all the looks and odours of a hospital. A half-dozen doctors had made the four injured men as comfortable as possible. They were stretched on mattresses in the jail dining-room, guarded by a curious horde of citizens.
“That’s Gregory!” whispered Anderson, as they neared the suffering group. He pointed to the most distant cot. “That’s jest the way he swore last night. Lie must ’a’ shaved in the automobile last night,” though Gregory had merely discarded the false whiskers he had worn for days.
“Wait!” exclaimed Bonner, stopping short beside the first cot. He stooped and peered intently into the face of the wounded bandit. “By George!”
“What’s up?”
“As I live, Mr. Crow, this fellow was one of the gang that abducted Rosalie Gray last winter. I can swear to it. Don’t you remember the one she tried to intercede for? Briggs! That’s it! Briggs!”
The injured man slowly opened his eyes as the name was half shouted. A sickly grin spread slowly over his pain-racked face.
“She tried to intercede fer me, did she?” he murmured weakly. “She said she would. She was square.”
“You were half decent to her,” said Bonner. “How do you happen to be with this gang? Another kidnaping scheme afloat?”
“No—not that I know of. Ain’t you the guy that fixed us? Say, on the dead, I was goin’ to do the right thing by her that night. I was duckin’ the gang when you slugged me. Honest, mister, I was goin’ to put her friends next. Say, I don’t know how bad I’m hurt, but if I ever git to trial, do what you can fer me, boss. On the dead, I was her friend.”
Bonner saw pity in Anderson’s face and rudely dragged him away, although Bill’s plea was not addressed to the old marshal.
“Wait for me out here, Mr. Crow,” said he when they reached the office. “You are overcome. I’ll talk to him.” He returned at once to the injured man’s cot.
“Look here, Briggs, I’ll do what I can for you, but I’m afraid it won’t help much. What do the doctors say?”
“If they ain’t lyin’, I’ll be up an’ about in a few weeks. Shoulder and some ribs cracked and my legs stove up. I can’t move. God, that was an awful tumble!” He shuddered in memory of the auto’s leap.
“Is Sam or Davy in this gang?”
“No; Davy’s at Blackwell’s Island, an’ Sam told me he was goin’ to Canada fer his health. Jim Courtney is the leader of this gang. He sailed under the name of Gregory. That’s him swearin’ at the rubes.”
“The thing for you to do is to make a clean breast of it, Briggs. It will go easier with you.”
“Turn State’s evidence? What good will that do when we was all caught with the goods?”
“If you will tell us all of the inside facts concerning the abduction I’ll guarantee that something can be done to lighten your sentence. I am Congressman Bonner’s nephew.”
“So? I thought you was the swellest hold-up man I ever met, that night out in the woods. You’d do credit to Sam Welch himself. I’ll tell you all I know, pardner, but it ain’t a great deal. It won’t do me any good to keep my mouth shut now, an’, if you say so, it may help me to squeal. But, fer the Lord’s sake, have one of these rotten doctors give me something to make me sleep. Don’t they know what morphine is for?”
Growling and cursing at the doctors, Bill was moved into the office. Anderson came in from the dining-room at that juncture, visibly excited.
“I’ve got a confession from Gregory,” he said. “He confesses that he oughter be hung.”
“What!”
“That’s what he said—’y ginger. Here’s his very words, plain as day: ‘I oughter be hung half a dozen times.’ ‘What fer?’ says I. ‘Fer bein’ sech a damned ass,’ said he. ‘But that ain’t a hangable offence,’ said I. You know, I kinder like Gregory, spite of all. ‘It’s the worst crime in the world,’ said he. ‘Then you confess you’ve committed it?’ said I, anxious to pin him right down to it, y’ see.’ ’ou bet I do. Ef they hang me it’ll be because I’m a drivelling idiot, an’ not because I’ve shot one er two in my time. Nobody but an ass could be caught at it, an’ that’s why I feel so infernal guilty. Look here, Mr. Crow, ever’ time you see a feller that’s proved himself a downright ass, jest take him out an’ lynch him. He deserves it, that’s all I’ve got to say. The greatest crime in the world is criminal neglect.’ Don’t bother me now, Wick; I’m going to write that down an’ have him sign it.”
“Look here, pard,” said Bill Briggs, laboriously breaking in upon their conversation; “I want to do the right thing by you an’ her as fer as I can. You’ve been good to me, an’ I won’t fergit it. Besides, you said you’d make things easy fer me if I told you what I knowed about that job last winter. Well, I’d better tell it now, ’cause I’m liable to pass in my checks before these doctors git through with me. An’ besides, they’ll be haulin’ me off to the county seat in a day or two. Now, this is dead straight, I’m goin’ to give you. Maybe it won’t help you none, but ’ll give you a lead.”
“Go on,” cried Bonner breathlessly.
“Well, Sam Welch come to me in Branigan’s place one night—that’s in Fourt’ Avenue—an’ says he’s got a big job on. We went over to Davy Wolfe’s house an’ found him an’ his mother—the old fairy, you remember. Well, to make it short, Sam said it was a kidnaping job an’ the Wolfes was to be in on it because they used to live in this neighbourhood an’ done a lot of work here way back in the seventies. There was to be five thousand dollars in the job if we got that girl safe on board a ship bound fer Europe. Sam told us
that the guy what engineered the game was a swell party an’ a big boy in politics, finance, society an’ ever’thin’ else. He could afford to pay, but he didn’t want to be seen in the job. Nobody but Sam ever seen his face. Sam used to be in politics some. Jest before we left New York to come up here, the swell guy comes around to Davy’s with another guy fer final orders. See? It was as cold as hell as the dickens—an’ the two of ’em was all muffled up so’s we couldn’t get a pipe at their mugs. One of ’em was old—over fifty, I guess—an’ the other was a young chap. I’m sure of that.
“They said that one or the other of ’em would be in this neighbourhood when the job was pulled off; that one thousand dollars would be paid down when we started; another thousand when we got ’er into the cave; and the rest when we had ’er at the dock in New York—alive an’ unhurt. See? We was given to understand that she was to travel all the rest of ’er life fer ’er health. I remember one thing plain: The old man said to the young ’un: ‘She must not know a thing of this, or it will ruin everything.’ He wasn’t referrin’ to the girl either. There was another woman in the case. They seemed mighty anxious to pull the job off without this woman gettin’ next.
“Well, we got ready to start, and the two parties coughed up the thousand plunks—that is, the young ’un handed it over to Sam when the old ’un told him to. Sam took three hundred and the rest of us two hundred a piece. When they were lookin’ from the winder to see that nobody on the streets was watchin’ the house, I asked Sam if he knowed either of them by name. He swore he didn’t, but I think he lied. But jest before they left the house, I happened to look inside of the old boy’s hat—he had a stiff dicer. There was a big gilt letter in the top of it.”
“What was that letter?” demanded Bonner eagerly.
“It was a B.”
Bonner looked at Anderson as if the floor were being drawn from under his feet.
“The young chap said somethin’ low to the old ’un about takin’ the night train back to the University an’ comin’ down again Saturday.”
“To the University? Which one? Did he mention the name?” cried Bonner.
“No. That’s all he said.”
“Good heavens, if it should be!” said Bonner as if to himself.
“Well, we come up here an’ done the job. You know about that, I guess. Sam saw the young feller one night up at Boggs City, an’ got instructions from him. He was to help us git ’er away from here in an automobile, an’ the old man was to go across the ocean with ’er. That’s all I know. It didn’t turn out their way that time, but Sam says it’s bound to happen.”
Bonner, all eagerness and excitement, quickly looked around for Anderson, but the marshal had surreptitiously left the room. Then, going over to the door, he called for Anderson Crow. Bud Long was there.
“Anderson left five minutes ago, Mr. Bonner, hurryin’ like the dickens, too,” he said. “He’s gone to hunt up a feller named Barnes. He told me to tell you when you came out.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
Elsie Banks Returns
Bonner, considerably annoyed and alarmed by the marshal’s actions, made every effort to turn him back before he could ruin everything by an encounter with Mr. Barnes. He sent men on bicycles and horseback to overtake him; but the effort was unsuccessful. Mr. Crow had secured a “ride” in an automobile which had brought two newspaper correspondents over from Boggs City. They speeded furiously in order to catch a train for New York, but agreed to drop the marshal at the big bridge, not more than a mile from Judge Brewster’s place.
Chagrined beyond expression, he made ready to follow Anderson with all haste in his own machine. Rosalie hurriedly perfected preparations to accompany him. She was rejoining the house party that day, was consumed by excitement over the situation, and just as eager as Bonner to checkmate the untimely operations of poor old Anderson Crow.
The marshal had more than half an hour’s start of them. Bonner was his own chauffeur and he was a reckless one today. Luck was against him at the outset. The vigorous old detective inspired to real speed, for the first time in his lackadaisacal life, left the newspaper men at the bridge nearly three-quarters of an hour before Bonner passed the same spot, driving furiously up the hill toward Judge Brewster’s.
“If your bothersome old daddy gets his eyes on Barnes before I can head him off, dearest, the jig will be up,” groaned Bonner, the first words he had spoken in miles. “Barnes will be on his guard and ready for anything. The old—pardon me, for saying it—the old jay ought to know the value of discretion in a case like this.”
“Poor old daddy,” she sighed, compassion in her heart. “He thinks he is doing it for the best. Wicker, I hope it is—it is not Mr. Barnes,” she added, voicing a thought which had been struggling in her mind for a long time.
“Why not, dearest?”
“It would mean one of two things. Either he does not want to recognise me as his child—or cannot, which is even worse. Wicker, I don’t want to know the truth. I am afraid—I am afraid.”
She was trembling like a leaf and there was positive distress in her eyes, eyes half covered by lids tense with alarm.
“Don’t feel that way about it, dear,” cried he, recovering from his astonishment and instantly grasping the situation as it must have appeared to her. “To tell you the truth, I do not believe that Mr. Barnes is related to you in any way. If he is connected with the case at all, it is in the capacity of attorney.”
“But he is supposed to be an honourable man.”
“True, and I still believe him to be. It does not seem possible that he can be engaged in such work as this. We are going altogether on supposition—putting two and two together, don’t you know, and hoping they will stick. But, in any event, we must not let any chance slip by. If he is interested, we must bring him to time. It may mean the unravelling of the whole skein, dear. Don’t look so distressed. Be brave. It doesn’t matter what we learn in the end, I love you just the same. You shall be my wife.”
“I do love you, Wicker. I will always love you.”
“Dear little sweetheart!”
They whirled up to the lodge gate at Judge Brewster’s place at last, the throbbing machine coming to a quick stop. Before he called out to the lodge keeper, Bonner impulsively drew her gloveless hand to his lips.
“Nothing can make any difference now,” he said.
The lodge keeper, in reply to Bonner’s eager query, informed them that Mr. Barnes had gone away ten or fifteen minutes before with an old man who claimed to be a detective, and who had placed the great lawyer under arrest.
“Good Lord!” gasped Bonner with a sinking heart.
“It’s an outrage, sir! Mr. Barnes is the best man in the world. He never wronged no one, sir. There’s an ’orrible mistake, sir,” groaned the lodge keeper. “Judge Brewster is in Boggs City, and the man wouldn’t wait for his return. He didn’t even want to tell Mr. Barnes what ’e was charged with.”
“Did you ever hear of anything so idiotic?” roared Bonner. Rosalie was white and red by turn. “What direction did they take?”
“The constable told Mr. Barnes he’d ’ave to go to Tinkletown with ’im at once, sir, even if he ’ad to walk all the way. The old chap said something, sir, about a man being there who could identify him on sight. Mr. Barnes ’ad to laugh, sir, and appeared to take it all in good humour. He said he’d go along of ’im, but he wouldn’t walk. So he got his own auto out, sir, and they went off together. They took the short cut, sir, by the ferry road, ’eaded for Tinkletown. Mr. Barnes said he’d be back before noon, sir—if he wasn’t lynched.”
“It’s all over,” groaned Bonner dejectedly. Something had slipped from under his feet and he was dangling in space, figuratively speaking. “There’s nothing to do, Rosalie, except to chase them down. Mr. Crow has ruined everything. I’ll leave you at Bonner Place with mother and Edith, and I’ll hurry back to Tinkletown.”
The excitement was too much for Rosalie’s nerves. She was in a
state of physical collapse when he set her down at his uncle’s summer home half an hour later. Leaving her to explain the situation to the curious friends, he set speed again for Tinkletown, inwardly cursing Anderson Crow for a meddling old fool.
In the meantime Tinkletown was staring open-mouthed upon a new sensation. The race between Anderson and Bonner was hardly under way when down the main street of the town came a jaded team and surrey. Behind the driver sat a pretty young woman with an eager expression on her pale face, her gaze bent intently on the turn in the street which hid Anderson Crow’s home from view. Beside the young woman lounged another of her sex, much older, and to all appearances, in a precarious state of health. The young men along the street gasped in amazement and then ventured to doff their timid hats to the young woman, very much as if they were saluting a ghost. Few of them received a nod of recognition from Elsie Banks, one-time queen of all their hearts.
Roscoe Crow bounded out to the gate when he saw who was in the carriage, first shouting to his mother and sisters, who were indoors receiving congratulations and condolences from their neighbours.
Miss Banks immediately inquired if she could see Rosalie.
“She ain’t here,” said Roscoe. “She’s away fer a month—over at the Bonners’. He’s her feller, you know. Ma! Here’s Miss Banks! Edner! Sue!” Mrs. Crow and the girls flew out to the gate, babbling their surprise and greetings.
“This is my mother,” introduced the young lady. “We have just come from New York, Mrs. Crow. We sail for England this week, and I must see Rosalie before we go. How can we get to Mr. Bonner’s place?”
“It’s across the river, about twelve miles from here,” said Mrs. Crow. “Come in and rest yourselves. You don’t have to go back today, do you? Ain’t you married yet?”
“No, Mrs. Crow,” responded Elsie, with a stiff, perfunctory smile. “Thank you, we cannot stop. It is necessary that we return to New York tonight, but I must see Rosalie before going. You see, Mrs. Crow, I do not expect to return to America. We are to live in London forever, I fear. It may be the last chance I’ll have to see Rosalie. I must go on to Bonner Place today. But, dear me, I am so tired and hot, and it is so far to drive,” she cried ruefully. “Do you know the way, driver?” The driver gruffly admitted that he did not. Roscoe eagerly bridged the difficulty by offering to act as pathfinder.
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