Kitabı oku: «The Banner Boy Scouts Mystery», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XV

Following Up Their Clues

Jack was restless, excited. The mystery had him upset. While Paul and Ken each went to their respective homes, Jack loitered along Main Street. Not that he hoped to do anything or come upon any clues; he merely didn’t feel like going home. He walked down as far as Jones Street and again investigated the neighborhood. Returning to the corner, he went into the store and on the pretense that he was buying a small box of chocolate wafers, he let his eyes wander about the place. But there was nothing especial to see; it was the same as any other ordinary grocery. The woman was in the store and she appeared to be a mild sort of person. Considering it unwise to ask any questions or seek any information from her, he paid for his wafers and left.

He munched as he walked along. Thinking hard for some plan of action, he couldn’t come to any definite decision. Finally he concluded that Paul was right—he should go home and let the matter rest for a while. Quickening his pace, he walked home and busied himself with tasks about the house.

After supper, the three boys met at Paul’s home. They sat down on the porch and waited for someone to speak first. Paul finally spoke up and said, “Right now, I think, we have to look into two angles of the situation. One of us should go down to Jones Street and watch the grocery man. The other two should go back to that empty house and see what happens there.”

“How about you going down to Jones Street?” asked Jack. “You spoke to the grocery man and you know what he looks like.”

“That suits me. You and Ken, in the meanwhile, will watch the empty house.”

“How about that other angle of yours, Paul? The one about watching out for a fire at some house owned by the Jones and Jones real estate company,” commented Ken. “I think it’s a good hunch that we ought to follow up.”

“I think we can drop it for tonight at any rate and see what happens,” answered Paul. “Let’s go.”

They walked off the porch and headed for Main Street. “So long,” called Paul, and waved.

“Good luck,” returned Jack.

“We’ll be seeing you,” said Ken.

Jack and Ken walked off together. “It’s a little early yet, don’t you think?” asked Ken.

Jack looked at his watch; it was not quite seven-thirty. “Yes,” he answered. “But we will go down there anyhow and see.”

They walked past the house as though they were ordinary pedestrians. Coming to the railroad tracks, they turned around and walked back through the street on which the back of the house faced. It was eight o’clock now but it was still daylight. So they decided to walk around the block once more and as far as the railroad tracks. As soon as it became dusk, they returned to the house and took up different positions. Jack hid himself directly behind the fence overlooking the front of the house; Ken, on the other hand, picked out a hiding place at the rear of the house. The two were thus able to keep a watch all around the house and at the same time be within reach of each other in case of necessity.

The boys watched the sky become gray and the stars come out; the moon crept out of the horizon and night descended. Perfectly still, noiseless, inconspicuous, the two kept guard. Every once in a while, people passed up and down the street, and immediately Jack was on the alert, anxious, impatient. But nothing happened and time dragged along. Suddenly he heard the sound of a soft whistle and he turned his head to locate Ken. Again the same soft whistle. Jack looked all around him, then, very cautiously, he crept over to his friend. Ken had his ear to the ground. Jack whispered, “What’s up?”

Ken motioned for his friend to put his ear to the ground and Jack did so. He flattened himself out and glued his ear to the ground. A slight trembling of the earth came to his ears, accompanied by a steady, muffled sound. For about five minutes both boys put their ears to the ground and listened. Ken, although he guessed what it was, whispered, “What do you think it is?”

“The printing press.”

Ken nodded. “I thought so too.”

Jack whispered, “When did you first hear that sound?” he asked.

“It seemed to begin only a short while ago.”

The boys were silent, thinking hard. If the press had been operating only a short while, then it was most logical to conclude that whoever was in the cellar had come there recently, within the last thirty, forty, fifty minutes. Yet the boys had been on guard for a full hour and as far as they knew, no one had entered the house by the front door. Jack, therefore, became more firmly convinced that there was another door somewhere; that the cellar could be reached and left perhaps some distance away from the house. Jack whispered, “I’m going back.”

Ken nodded. His friend crept away and again he was alone. Each one in his own hiding place, they watched and waited, but nothing happened. Overhead was the blue sky with the moon and the stars. All around them was darkness. Their waiting and watching was in vain—at least so it seemed.

Another hour passed and still nothing happened. Ken lay with his ear to the ground and occupied himself with listening to the hissing sound that came out of the earth. Jack watched and waited but not a thing stirred. He became restless and chafed with impatience. Finally he wiggled over to Ken and also put his ear to the ground. Still that hissing sound and the trembling of the earth. Ken whispered, “They must be working hard down there.”

Jack nodded and kept silent. Together they lay flat on the ground and listened. Again it was Ken who whispered, “What do you say, you think we ought to go? There is nothing doing here.”

“No, let’s wait a short while more. I wonder what Paul is doing.”

“Same here. I hope at least he has found something interesting to do. This doing nothing is killing me.”

Jack felt the same way about it. As a matter of fact, Jack was of more impatient nature than Ken, but he felt it upon himself to urge his friend on. “Take it easy and don’t lose your patience,” he whispered back. “A thing like this takes time you know; plenty of time.”

Again they fixed their ears to the ground. They remained like that for a short time. Suddenly they pushed their ears deeper into the ground. In the darkness, they looked at each other. “Do you hear what I hear?” whispered Ken.

“Yes, nothing.”

“That’s right. They must have stopped the printing press.”

“Yes. Now what?”

Silence. The boys knitted their brows. If they had stopped their press, Jack asked himself, would they be coming out of the cellar now? And if they were, which door would they use? Possibly they would come out by the front door because they might not care to use the same door for an exit as well as an entrance. But if they did use the rear door how would the boys find it? Jack looked around. It might be in either of three directions, he reasoned to himself—on either sides of the house or to the rear; to the front was the sidewalk and street, which would be a most improbable means for a tunnel or other form of approach and exit. “Stay here,” he whispered to Ken. “I’m going back to my place. We will stay here another half hour, and if nothing happens, I have other plans.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

Jack crept back to his hiding place. With nothing else to do but to wait and watch he again became conscious of the darkness and of time dragging. There was utter stillness and he could hear himself breathe; the tick of his watch in his pocket sounded extraordinarily loud. He waited. A few pedestrians passed by. He waited some more. He counted every minute. When the time was up a low muffled whistle issued from his lips. He turned his head and saw Ken creep out of his place. Together they sneaked out of the yard and walked off. Ken asked, “Well, what are your other plans?”

“I was thinking,” said Jack, “that they must have another way of getting in and out—”

“Yes, you mentioned that once before.”

“Well, what I was really trying to determine is where that other entrance might be. Now, logically, it can be at any one of three places. There might be a tunnel leading away from the cellar of the house on either side or at the rear. What we have to do, therefore, is to examine those three possibilities.”

“But we can’t do much tonight,” remarked Ken. “For one thing it’s dark and there isn’t much we can see. And secondly, it’s late already.”

“That’s very true, but I certainly would like to get an idea of how the land lays.”

“We can leave that for tomorrow. Now I think we ought to go over and see if Paul is waiting for us.”

“That’s right. I almost forgot about him. I wonder if he came across anything.”

“Well, I only hope that he didn’t have to spend such a dull time as we did,” was Ken’s comment.

“You have to take things as they come,” answered Jack. “Sometimes there is plenty to do and at other times there is nothing to do.”

CHAPTER XVI

Paul Gets Into Trouble

Ken and Jack came to Paul’s house but they saw their friend nowhere around. “You think he is in the house?” asked Ken.

“No. He would be waiting for us on the porch.”

“What will we do, then? Where will we wait for him?”

“Let’s wait for him in front of your gate, Ken. He ought to be coming any minute, I suppose.”

The boys leaned against the fence, talking in low tones to while the time away. They were impressed before with how hard it is to be patient, but now it was doubly hard. For it seemed that Paul was not coming. They waited thirty minutes, an hour, an hour and thirty minutes and still no Paul. Jack was actually becoming worried that something had happened to his chum. Ken suggested several times, “Perhaps he is home. Do you think we ought to try to find out? Though it’s a little too late to ring the bell.”

But Jack knew better; he knew his chum. If Paul had returned before they did, he would have waited for them on the porch; that was a certainty. He would not have gone to bed until he had seen and spoken to his friends and made sure that they were all right. Finally Jack could not bear it any longer and he muttered, “I’m going to look for him.”

“I’m going with you,” said Ken with determination. “Where will we look first?”

“There are only two places where we can look—at Jones Street and then that empty house.”

“Where will we go first?”

“What do you think?”

They went down to Main Street, then they were undecided as to which direction to take. Jack said, “Let’s toss a coin.” He drew a nickel out of his pocket. “Heads we go to Jones Street; tails we go to that empty house.”

He tossed the coin into the air, caught it with his right hand and slapped it down on his left wrist. Ken put his head close to see. Jack removed his hand—it was tails up. “The empty house,” he whispered.

When Paul started out early in the evening, he leisurely strolled along Main Street until he came to his destination. There, he examined the house on the corner from every possible view. It was a two story frame house with the grocery occupying most of the ground floor; the rest of the floor, Paul figured, were either closets or some form of storage places. He was pretty sure there were no living quarters on the ground floor. The people who occupied the house lived above the store. By counting the windows—there were seven—he reasoned that there must be either three or four rooms. The grocery man and his wife most likely occupied one room, Mr. Grey another, and the children, if there were any, the other one or two rooms.

By now it had become dusk and Paul thought that it was time to take up some hiding position and watch. The next moment he changed his mind. Instead of hiding anywhere, he nonchalantly took up a position across the street and pretended that he was waiting for someone. He didn’t have to wait long. Pretty soon he saw Mr. Grey emerge from around the corner and walk up Main Street. He wondered where the man was going and what he might be up to. For several seconds he debated with himself whether to follow him or to wait, as he had previously decided, for the grocery man. He chose to wait. About fifteen minutes later he saw his man come out from the rear of the house. “Very clever,” he thought to himself.

The grocery man came to the corner and stopped, looked around and then walked off down Jones Street. Paul wanted to follow but on second consideration he realized that the street was deserted and he would instantly be noticed. He had a hunch, however, that the man’s walking down Jones Street was done on purpose to detect anyone following. Paul ran to the next parallel street and raced to come to the corner first. He hid in a doorway and saw his man round the corner and continue walking on the street parallel to Main Street. This part of the town was rather empty and deserted. He therefore decided to let his man walk at least two hundred and fifty yards ahead of him.

Soon the street became busier, with many people strolling up and down. Paul gradually narrowed the distance between himself and his man. They came to about the centre of the town. Suddenly he caught his breath and his heart began to beat rapidly. He saw Mr. Grey walking the other way, and as the two men passed each other, there was a slight movement of the head on the part of both of them. So they did know each other! So there was some connection between the two! Paul thrilled with the excitement of it.

At the next corner, the grocery man turned in and headed for Main Street, where he turned right and walked straight ahead for several blocks. At about the middle of the street he joined a group of three men who were standing to one side and talking quietly among themselves. Paul crossed to the other side of the street. Pretending that he was looking at a window display, he was actually studying the group of four men. As far as he could tell, they were not native townspeople; everything about them looked as though they came from somewhere else; possibly from a large city. Two of them were very ordinary looking—of average size and wearing the usual summer clothes. The third person was a tall, fat individual, with a big head and a double chin. One thing was common for all three; they all were rather hard looking. Such was the trio that the grocery man had joined.

It was evident that they had a lot to say to each other, for they talked for some time, while people passed up and down and paid no attention to them. Paul decided on a bold step. Walking down a bit, he crossed over and, falling in behind a group of strollers, he passed close to the group of conspirators. But they talked in such low tones that he could not overhear a word they said.

Not seeing any other opportunity of overhearing their conversation, Paul crossed over again, pretended that he was looking at a window display and walked down to the corner and back again. But every second he kept an eye on that group. Finally after about half an hour, the group broke up into twos. The big, fat fellow with one of his companions walked south, while the grocery man and the third of the trio walked north on Main Street. Paul decided to follow the grocery man and his companion.

They walked straight ahead for several blocks, then, very nonchalantly rounded the corner and disappeared. Paul felt the thrill of excitement grow on him; something hot and exciting bubbled inside of him. They had turned into the street on which the empty house was situated. He thought of Ken and Jack and their being on guard. But just then Jack’s well founded hunch occurred to him; perhaps there was a secret entrance and they would not use the front door of the house. He peeked around the corner and saw his men turn off at the next crossing. “Good!” he thought to himself. They were not fooling him; it was their intention to take a roundabout route to throw anyone off their trail if they happened to be followed.

At a rapid pace, he took a direct route to his destination. He did not intend to go to the house; if anything happened there, it was up to Jack and Ken to take care of that and he knew that he could trust them. His intention was to take up such a position that they would have to pass him. If they did not head for the house, then he would follow them and spy out the secret entrance to the house.

There were only three possibilities for a secret tunnel to the house, Paul reasoned with himself. It might be on either side or to the rear of the house. The most probable one was at the rear of the house because that afforded a direct connection with very little space intervening between the two cellars. It would be a simple thing, he thought to himself, to dig and fortify such an underground passage.

Paul hid in a doorway and waited for his quarry to come along. In time they did and passed within two feet of him. They were silent and walked as though they were out for an evening stroll. Paul hesitated ere he ventured out of his hiding place. The neighborhood was still and dark. If he dared to follow and keep them in sight, he would very easily be detected; he might have a running chance to escape, but that would give him away and they, on the other hand, would then realize that they were being suspected.

But it was not necessary for him to follow within sight of them. He had a pretty good idea where they were heading for. He waited for them to round the corner and immediately he ran after them. He peeked around the corner and saw them stop in front of a house at about the middle of the street. They stopped and looked all around them. The next moment they were gone.

Paul flushed with excitement. He had discovered their secret means of approach to the house. Now all he had to do was to thread together all the details of the mystery, put together the puzzle into a single whole, and choose a time when they would most probably be in the cellar for the police to descend upon them. Paul already foresaw the moment when the gang would be captured and locked away where they belonged.

He decided to walk down the street, get a glimpse of the house and then join his friends. What he saw put him in a jovial mood, as he walked back to the corner with every intention of joining Jack and Ken. But he did not have quite enough foresight. He had seen the group of four break up into two pairs; he should have taken into consideration the missing pair. Might it not be possible that these two had headed for the same destination by a longer route. At any rate, his not considering that angle proved disastrous for him.

Very innocently he rounded the corner and suddenly found himself facing the protruding, round stomach of the man he had seen as one of the trio. Looking up into the man’s brutal face, Paul felt himself becoming confused. In the meanwhile, he noticed the second man take his place directly behind him. “What are you doing around here?” the fat man demanded in a gruff, husky voice. “Don’t you know it is dangerous to be roaming around at this time of night?”

Paul hesitated, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking. He said, “I just took a walk, that’s all. I live only a couple of blocks from here.”

“So you were just taking a walk, eh? Well, then what were you spying around for, huh?”

Paul felt himself become tense. He wondered if they would attack him. He answered, “I wasn’t spying, Mister. I was just walking.”

“Then why did you look goggle eyed at every house as you passed down the street?”

“Just looking as I was walking.”

The man squared his jaw and gritted his teeth. “Some day,” he hissed, “you’ll go blind for seeing things you ain’t supposed to. Who are you?”

Paul began to edge away so that he would not have the second gangster directly behind his back. But he was cornered and he had no way to move. He answered, “My name is Morris Paulson.”

“Do you have any friends who have been snooping around lately? They had better watch out or they will get into heaps of trouble.”

Pretending that he was ignorant of the reference, Paul said, “I don’t know what you are talking about, Mister. My friends are nice fellows who mind their own business.”

The gangster gorilla grinned mischievously. “That’s a swell idea, everybody minding his own business,” he remarked. “And you too.”

“Yes, sir,” Paul agreed meekly. Feeling that the questioning was over and that he was being dismissed, he stepped out of the way and took a step forward to walk away. For a fraction of a second he congratulated himself on his luck. The next instant, however, he felt a crash on his head. His whole body trembled, his knees began to wobble. As he fell to the ground he turned half way and noticed the cruel grin on his attacker. Then everything went dark and he knew nothing more.

Paul lay unconscious at the feet of the fat gangster. The man poked his toes into the boy’s ribs and turned him over on his back. “You shouldn’t have hit him so hard,” the fat fellow said, addressing his henchman. “He’s only a kid.”

“I didn’t hit hard, Boss. I only tapped him nice and easy.” He looked pleadingly at his chief. “What’ll we do with him?” he asked anxiously.

“Bind his hands and feet and throw him in one of the empty lots.”

“You want me to dump him, Boss?”

“No!” was the snarling answer. “Do what I say and be quick about it.”

Bending down, the henchman used Paul’s tie and handkerchief to tie the boy’s hands and feet. When that was done, he picked up the inert body under his arm and crossed the street to an empty lot and then dropped it to the ground. Rejoining his boss, the two walked off. “That’ll teach him a lesson,” muttered the fat fellow.

Paul did not know how long he lay there, but he imagined that it must have been a very long time. He tried to rise, but couldn’t. His head ached terribly. He fell back and closed his eyes. Gradually he regained consciousness. With difficulty, he sat up and discovered his hands and feet bound. At first he could not recollect exactly what had happened to him and how he came to be in this predicament. But little by little, events came back to him.

Frantically, Paul began to work on his bonds to free himself. But he felt weak and every time he moved his wrist, he felt the bonds cutting his flesh. But at last, after about twenty minutes of tiring work, he freed his hands and it took him but a few seconds to untie his feet. Rising, he felt himself trembling all over. He could barely keep himself steady on his feet. Walking, he wobbled from one side to the other.

At the corner, he leaned against the wall of a house. Suddenly he heard some shouts. He looked to see who it might be, but his sight was blurred and he could only see dim shadows running toward him. Who are they, he wondered, and what do they want from me? Was he going to be again attacked? He wanted to run but there was no will nor effort to do so.