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CHAPTER III

MR. BILLY WORTH DOES SOME THINKING

“Hello! What’s all the feverish bustle about? Good news, I hope!”

This from Mr. Wagg as Billy and Paul, very warm and very red, hustled into that gentleman’s hotel and suddenly stopped, as if they had at that moment forgotten what they came for.

“No,—not exactly,” said Billy. “Fact is, we have no news at all and it just makes us feel that we’ve got to get busy; and that’s what we’ve been doing—hustling up here as hard as ever we could.”

“What for? What scent are you on now?” asked the landlord, peering over his glasses as he leaned upon the register counter. There was a trace of amusement in his voice.

“That’s just it,” put in Paul. “We don’t know just what scent we are on but, by thunder! we’ve got to get some news of that car!”

“Well, I suppose that nothing succeeds like determination,” observed Mr. Wagg kindly. “Still, there’s a lot o’ misdirected energy in the world.” With a sigh he sat down and resumed the afternoon nap which the swift entrance of the boys had broken in upon.

A large part of Griffin seemed to be occupied quite as was Landlord Wagg. How very quiet the little town was this tranquil June afternoon!

“Ginger! I’d just like to take a nap myself; but we’ve got to keep busy,” mused Billy. The two were seated in big armchairs of the hotel office.

“Our basket, Willie Creek’s lamp and that old raincoat are in our room. Mr. Hipp brought them and the porter carried them up. Told me so just after dinner,” suggested Paul. “We might tote Willie’s lamp over to the garage.”

Straightway up the stairs dashed the two boys. Yes, there at the foot of the bed the articles in question were deposited. Again the boys examined the lunch hamper inside and out. Again they searched pockets, lining, every shred of the muddy, dirty, wrinkled coat.

How freshly the garment, splashed with the rain and the thick pools of the road, brought back to Billy’s mind the dismal afternoon when first they ventured upon the lonely South Fork! Again, in mental vision, he saw the Torpedo come over the hill, saw the impossibility of passing the machine if it did not quickly turn out! Then he recalled—how vividly!—the dreadful scene, the Big Six ditched, the rain, the heavy, mist-laden air, the gloom, of approaching darkness.

And in the same train of thought, as he went forward, he seemed to see the man Hipp and Earnest had told of seeing, marching stolidly along the wet road, carrying the basket stolen from the Six, wearing this very raincoat and on his head a low, soft cap, his top boots or leggins splashed with mud, the rain pelting him till he stumbled as he walked. How easily the lad’s imagination drew for him the picture Alfred Earnest and his friend Hipp described! Then suddenly——

“For the love of cats, Paul Jones, I am one large punkin head! And so are you! And so are all of us!”

Quite naturally young Mr. Jones looked up suddenly, startled not a little by the extraordinary accusation.

“Wh——”

Paul’s intended response was violently interrupted. Knocking his own head with one pair of knuckles, Billy brought those of his other hand down forcibly on his friend’s tawny hair, at the same time and not once, but repeatedly.

Not until Jones escaped beyond reach, which he did by tumbling ungracefully backward over a chair, as he retreated from the mysterious attack, did Worth explain himself.

“That man—the drunken fellow we saw Fobes arrest on Saturday night—you remember? He’s the fellow who wore this raincoat, stole our basket and—who knows?—maybe the car! Plain as daylight! Why didn’t we see it before? The cap, the leather leggins all caked with mud—I couldn’t see it all plainer if he stood in this very room!”

For a few seconds Paul was lost in a confusion of thoughts, but he extricated himself at last, saying:

“Thunder! I do remember that that fellow Fobes got wore leggins—yes, and the cap! But—why, a lot of people wear ’em for fishing trips and——”

“Yes, and chauffeurs wear ’em,” put in Billy, heatedly. “I say, come on! We’ll have a look and we’ll get something out of this, you bet!”

Whether Paul would or would not wager, however, he did not say. What he did reply was: “Honest, Bill, I hope there’s something to it, but—anyhow, let’s not be too sure!”

Chief Fobes, dozing the early afternoon away in his dingy office, sleepily called to the boys, “Come in!”

They entered. Needless to say, also, the haste and earnestness in Billy’s manner fully awakened the officer of the law rather more abruptly than often happened.

“We want to find out about a fellow you arrested Saturday evening. Wore a cap and high boots or leggins,” spoke young Mr. Worth in a single breath.

“Soaked for ten days in the cooler,” said Mr. Fobes, indifferently. By which it will be understood that the village magistrate had imposed upon the man a fine of ten days in jail.

“Well, who is he? Can we see him?” Worth continued rapidly.

“He’s just a bum, I guess. I don’t know him and—well, you can ask Willie Creek whether I know everybody around here or whether I don’t. He was hanging around all Saturday afternoon and drinking. By night I had to pinch him.”

With a show of real interest Chief Fobes now heard the story Billy told and the belief that the man in the lockup could throw light on the disappearance of the Big Six. Slowly, very slowly, nevertheless, the officer rose, yawned and led the way to the corridor below, so conducting the boys to a group of steel cells in a basement at the rear of the building. The man they sought was lying on an iron bunk. He stepped forward when Mr. Fobes called sharply, “Here, you! Step up!” quite as if the unfortunate were a refractory horse.

“Might I ask you a question?” began Billy. He and Paul were both keeping pretty close to Mr. Fobes as the prisoner, still in the mud-stained boots and garments, approached the bars.

“I’ll do the talkin’,” put in the officer bluntly. Then to the man who peered out from the gloomy cell, “What was you doing on the South Fork road last—last Friday?”

“I don’t know anything about any South Fork road. What ye givin’ us? I come in here from Rochester, hittin’ the road an’ lookin’ fer a job in the country, an’ I told the judge the same thing, didn’t I?”

“It don’t go, Billy. You can’t throw any bluff here,” said Fobes with an air of familiarity, but shaking his head coldly, too. “You was seen on the South Fork road an’ there’s an automobile man lookin’ for you. Guess he wants to give you a raincoat you lost somewhere.”

This, of course, was just the kind of talk that Mr. Fobes himself had termed a “bluff” and, in the vernacular, nothing else. Whether the prisoner thought so or otherwise, for a few seconds he made no reply. Then as if feeling his way carefully, he said: “Somebody lookin’ for me, eh? Tell ’im where I am. Or mebbe he knows it.”

“It ain’t no go, I tell you,” said Fobes sharply. “There’s a little matter of a patent dinner basket on you straight. Swipin’ grub from boys, too! Ain’t you ashamed of yourself? You don’t happen to remember what you left in the raincoat, do ye?”

Billy and Paul were far from approving this kind of