Читать книгу The Banner Boy Scouts Mystery - George A. Warren - Страница 7

The Robbery

The following morning, at the breakfast table, Paul happened to glance at the front page of the Stanhope Herald which Dr. Morrison was reading. At the bottom of the page, boxed off, was a story with the headline PROFESSOR LINK’S HOUSE ROBBED. Paul became quite upset and found it difficult to eat his cereal. However, he controlled himself and did not show any untoward interest in the newspaper. His father finished breakfast first, and he laid down the paper and left for his office. Paul gulped down his milk, picked up the paper and went out on the porch.

The story was that someone had broken into Professor Link’s home and had stolen a valuable, early edition of “Colonial History.” Nothing else was taken, except that the thief had strewn many of the books on the floor. The theory was that the thief had entered by an open window in the library.

Ken came dashing across the street and up to the porch. “Hey, Paul!” he cried, “did you read the story in the morning paper?” Paul held up the paper. “So you know already?”

Jack came. “Well, what do you think of the robbery?” he asked bluntly. “I had a feeling we should not have gone to the movies last night.”

“What could we have done?” asked Ken.

“We might have come upon him and possibly frustrated his plan.”

“So!” exclaimed Ken. “You think that ‘he’ did it? Pretty soon you will have every crime under the sun charged up against him.”

“I don’t think we could have done anything,” commented Paul. “The paper says that the robbery occurred any time after about midnight, when the professor says he left his library to go to bed.”

“But we might have come across him sometime before and followed him. Then we might about have judged what he was up to.” Thus argued Jack.

“Maybe yes and maybe no,” was Paul’s pert statement.

“Paul,” demanded Ken, “you don’t mean to tell me that you really believe this man, this so-called maniac, committed the robbery, do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Tell me, how do you figure it out?”

“It’s very simple,” was Paul’s answer. “Only one book was stolen. Of course, the book was an old edition and valuable, but valuable only to a man like Professor Link. In actual money, the book is worth perhaps ten or fifteen dollars; but if the thief was going to sell it, he wouldn’t get more than four or five dollars for it.”

“Yes,” added Jack, “there were more valuable things in the room, if the thief had been interested in stealing something valuable. That is in itself enough to show that the thief, whoever he was, was either a maniac or one who was interested in obtaining only that book and nothing else. But an ordinary, normal man, would not break into a house to steal something like that.”

“Maybe,” remarked Ken doubtfully, “but—”

Paul interrupted, saying, “Let’s go over to Bobolink and get him to go over to Professor Link. He is Bobolink’s grandfather, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

The boys wended their way to Bobolink’s home and luckily found him still in. He was glad to see them, and commented, “I was just going to call you fellows.”