Читать книгу Bob Dexter and the Storm Mountain Mystery or, The Secret of the Log Cabin - Baker Willard F. - Страница 4

Suspecting that his chums were playing some joke on him, though he thought this rather a poor subject for humor, and believing that Harry and Ned wanted to get a rise out of him, Bob Dexter did not at once show the astonishment that was expected. Instead he merely smiled and remarked:

“Hop in! If I believe that I s’pose you’ll tell me another!”

“Say, this is straight!” cried Ned.

“No kidding!” added Harry. “The old man was killed last night. You know who we mean – Rip Van Winkle – the old codger you took over to Storm Mountain in this very flivver.”

“Yes, I know, who you mean all right,” assented Bob. “But who told you he was killed? How, why, when, where and all the rest of it?”

“We didn’t hear any of the particulars,” explained Harry. “But Chief Drayton, of the Storm Mountain police force – guess he’s the whole force as a matter of fact – Drayton just came over here to get our chief to help solve the mystery.”

“Oh, then there’s a mystery about it, is there?” asked Bob, and his chums noticed that he at once began to pay close attention to what they were saying.

“Sure there’s a mystery,” asserted Ned. “Wouldn’t you call it a mystery if a man was found dead in a locked room – a room without a window in it, and only one door, and that locked on the inside and the man dead inside? Isn’t that a mystery, Bob Dexter – just as much of a mystery as who took our Golden Eagle?”

“Or what the ‘yellow boys’ were in the wreck of the Sea Hawk?” added Harry.

“Sure that would be a mystery if everything is as you say it is,” asserted Bob. “But in the first place if old Hiram Beegle has been killed and if his body is in that room, with only one door leading into it, how do the authorities know anything about it? Why, you can’t even see into that room when the door is shut!”

“How do you know?” asked Ned quickly.

“Because I’ve been in that room. I was in there yesterday afternoon with Hiram Beegle. There is only one entrance to it and that by the door, for the fireplace doesn’t count.”

“You were in that room?” cried Harry in surprise.

“Certainly I was.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Ned, feeling that his announcement of the murder was as nothing compared with this news.

“Oh, well, there wasn’t any need of speaking about it,” said Bob.

“Well, I guess you’ve seen the last of Hiram Beegle,” went on Harry. “That is unless you want to go to the scene of the crime, as the Weekly Banner will put it.”

“Yes, I’d like to go there,” said Bob quietly. “There may be a mystery about who killed Hiram Beegle, but to my mind there’s a greater mystery in discovering how it is Chief Drayton knows the old man was killed, instead of, let us say, dying a natural death, if he can’t get in the room.”

“Who said he couldn’t get in the room?” asked Ned.

“Well, it stands to reason he can’t get in the room, if the only door to it is locked on the inside, if Hiram Beegle is dead inside; for I’ve been there and you can’t go down the chimney. How does the chief know Hiram is dead?”

“You got me there,” admitted Ned. “I didn’t get it directly from Chief Drayton. Tom Wilson was telling me – he heard it from some one else, I guess.”

“That’s the trouble,” remarked Bob as he guided the flivver around a corner and brought it to a stop in front of his uncle’s hardware store. “There’s too much second-hand talk.”

“Then let’s go over to Storm Mountain and get some first-hand information!” cried Ned.

“Yes – what do you say to that?” added Harry.

Bob considered for a moment.

“I guess I can go in about an hour if you fellows can,” he replied. “Uncle Joel will let me have some time off.”

“I think I can string dad so he’ll let me go,” remarked Ned.

“Same here,” echoed Harry.

The two lads worked for their respective fathers, and the latter were not too exacting. Bob and his chums attended High School, but owing to the fact that the building was being repaired the usual fall term would be two months late in opening. Hence they still had considerable of a vacation before them, for which they were duly grateful.

Many thoughts were surging through the mind of Bob Dexter as he went about his duties in the hardware store. It was rather a shock to him to learn that the odd but kindly old man, with whom he had been drinking buttermilk less than twenty-four hours ago, was now dead.

“But who killed him, and why?” mused Bob.

“He was fearfully afraid of some one he called Rod Marbury. Could that fellow have had a hand in it? And if the old man was locked in his strong room how could anyone get in to kill him? I should like to find out all about this, and I’m going to.”

Uncle Joel chuckled silently when Bob asked if he could be excused for the remainder of the day.

“Going fishing, Bob?” he asked.

“No, not exactly,” was the answer.

“Well, I can guess. You’ll be heading for Storm Mountain, I suppose.”

“Did you hear about the murder?” exclaimed the lad.

“Murder!” repeated his uncle. “I didn’t hear there was a murder. Old Hiram Beegle was badly hurt but he wasn’t killed. He was robbed, though – robbed of some treasure box he had.”

“Robbed!” murmured Bob. “The treasure box! It must have been that brass-bound little chest he had when I saw him. But are you sure he wasn’t killed, Uncle Joel?”

“Well, I’m as sure of it as I can be of anything that Sam Drayton tells.”

“You mean Chief Drayton of Storm Mountain?”

“Huh! Chief Drayton! I like that. He’s nothing but a constable, and never will be anything but a constable. He calls himself chief because the selectmen wouldn’t raise his salary. I’ve known Sam Drayton ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper and he’s no more fit to be Chief of Police than I am – not half as much as you are, Bob Dexter, though I don’t set any great store by your detective work.”

Bob smiled. His uncle poked good-natured fun at his abilities as a sleuth, but, at the same time, Uncle Joel was rather proud of his nephew, particularly since the affair of the Golden Eagle.

“Well, I’m glad the old man isn’t dead,” said Bob. “But how did the robbery happen? How did the thief get in the strong room?”

“I don’t know. You’d better go over and find out for yourself. There’s no use asking Sam Drayton, for he won’t know.”

“I understand he came over here to get help from our police,” stated Bob.

“I don’t know that he’s much better off than if he stayed at home,” chuckled Mr. Dexter. “But go ahead, Bob. I guess the store will still be doing business when you get back.”

“I hope so, Uncle Joel. Thanks,” and Bob ran out to his flivver, intending to hurry and pick up Ned and Harry and make a quick trip to Storm Mountain.

However, he found his chums already on hand. They had come over to get him, having prevailed on their fathers to let them off for the remainder of the day.

“Old Rip Van Winkle isn’t dead after all – that was a false report, Bob!” exclaimed Ned, who, with Harry, insisted on giving Hiram Beegle the name of Irving’s mythical character.

“So I heard.”

“But there’s been a big robbery,” said Harry.

“I heard that, too.”

“Say, is there anything you haven’t heard?” inquired Ned, admiringly.

“Well, that’s really all I do know,” admitted Bob. “I haven’t any particulars and it seems as much of a mystery as before. Let’s go!”

They found a curious throng gathered about the lonely cabin of the old man, with Chief Drayton fussing about trying to keep the crowd back.

“Don’t tramp all over the place!” he kept saying. “How am I goin’ to examine for footprints of the robber if you tramp and mush all over the place? Keep back!”

But it was a waste of words to admonish the curiosity seekers who crowded up toward the front door. Then out came Chief Miles Duncan of the Cliffside police. He noticed Bob and his chums in the forefront of the gathering.

“Hello, Bob!” he greeted pleasantly. “This is one of those things you’ll be interested in – quite a mystery. Come in and take a look.”

“Now look here – !” began Sam Drayton.

“It’s all right – Bob can do more with this than you or I could,” said the Cliffside official in a low voice. “I’ll tell you about him later. He’s got the makings of a great detective in him.”

Bob, much pleased at the invitation, started to push his way through the crowd, envious murmurs accompanying him.

“Stick by me, fellows,” he told Ned and Bob. “We’ll all go in together.”

“Say, look here!” objected Sam Drayton as he saw three lads approaching, “Chief Duncan only told Bob Dexter to come in and – ”

“These are my assistants,” said Bob gravely, but, at the same time winking at Chief Duncan. And Mr. Duncan winked back.

“That’s right,” he backed up Bob.

“Oh, well, let ’em in then,” grudgingly conceded Mr. Drayton.

Bob’s first sight, on entering the main room of the log cabin, was of Hiram Beegle propped up in a chair covered with bed quilts. The old man looked worn and ill – there was a drawn, pinched look on his face, and he was pale.

“What happened, Mr. Beegle?” asked Bob, noting that the door to the strong room stood ajar, and that the oaken chest, in one corner, was also open.

Hiram Beegle opened his mouth, but instead of words there came out only a meaningless jumble of sounds.

“He’s been poisoned,” explained Chief Duncan.

“Poisoned?” cried Bob.

“Or something like that,” went on the Cliffside official. “It’s dope, or something that the robber gave him – maybe it’s chloroform, for all I can tell, though it doesn’t smell like that. Anyhow he’s knocked out and can’t tell much that’s happened.”

“Robbed! Robbed!” gasped Hiram Beegle, bringing out the words with pitiful effort.

“Yes, he’s been robbed – we’re sure of that,” said Sam Drayton.

“Box! Box!” and again the old man in the chair brought out the words as if they pained him.

“That’s right,” assented the Storm Mountain chief. “As near as we can make out he’s been robbed of some sort of a small treasure chest. It was taken from that larger chest in there.”

“Yes, I know about it,” said Bob quietly.

“You know about it?” cried both chiefs at once.

“I mean I saw the small treasure box Mr. Beegle speaks of,” said Bob. “I brought him home yesterday with it. But what I can’t understand is how the robber got in the strong room.”

“No, and there can’t anybody else either, I reckon,” declared Mr. Drayton. “It’s a big mystery.”

“Mysteries seem to be about the best little thing Bob runs into lately,” chuckled Harry. “He doesn’t more than get finished with one, than he has another on his hands. Why don’t you open a shop, Bob?”

“Cut out the comedy,” advised Ned in a low voice to his chum. “Can’t you see that these self-important chiefs don’t like this kind of talk – especially this Storm Mountain fellow?”

It was evident that this was so, and Harry, with a wink at Ned, subsided.

“I’d like to hear how it all happened, and I suppose Bob would, too,” remarked Mr. Duncan.

“I’d like to hear the details,” suggested the young detective.

“We’ll tell you all we know, Bob,” said Miles Duncan. “You see – ”

But at that moment a loud and hearty voice from without cried:

“Where is he! Where’s my old friend Hiram Beegle? Tell him Jolly Bill Hickey is here! Where’s my old friend Hiram Beegle!”

A man, broadly smiling, his bald head shining in the sun, stumped into the room, one wooden leg making a thumping sound on the floor.