Читать книгу Don Sturdy Across the North Pole or Cast Away in the Land of Ice - J. W. Duffield - Страница 5

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There was a moment of tense silence, while the others stood as if petrified, unwilling or unable to believe their ears.

Then, with a jumble of exclamations of surprise and grief, they all rushed pell-mell from the dining room to the laboratory, with Don and Teddy in the van.

Don went up the stairs two steps at a time and entered the room. A glance about confirmed his fears, and a sharp pain went through his heart like a knife.

Everything was in a wild confusion that showed with what haste the robbers had worked. Drawers had been rifled and papers thrown out on the floor. Panes in the doors of cabinets had been shattered and splintered glass was everywhere.

And the minerals, that precious collection that represented years of work in gathering them, were gone!

A few of the less important had been overlooked or discarded, but the great bulk of those worth while had been taken.

The blow to Professor Bruce was a terrible one, and his grief was shared in a lesser degree by them all.

Mr. Sturdy and the captain took charge of the matter, as the professor was too prostrated to be of much assistance for the moment.

The first thing they did was to report the theft to the police department of the town and ask them to spread the information to all the adjoining towns, so that the authorities could be on the lookout for all who could not give a good account of themselves. Then Mr. Sturdy, over the long distance ’phone, called up New York, reported the affair to the police there, and in addition summoned to his aid the help of one of the most noted of the detective agencies.

In the meantime, the captain had been examining the door and windows. The latter he found securely fastened, and there were no marks of jimmies about them. The door too showed no signs of violence. The lock had not been forced. The door had been slightly ajar when the professor had entered. It was this that had given him his first warning of what he might expect to see inside.

The captain examined the lock itself. It had not been strained or tampered with, and responded easily to the locking and unlocking of the key which Don handed him.

“It’s queer,” muttered the captain. “Is it possible, Amos, that you forgot to lock the door last night?”

“It’s impossible,” replied the professor. “I always lock it with the utmost care. I must have done so last night. But wait!” he cried, as a sudden thought came to him. “I was called away last night to Mr. Thomas’s house and left Don to do the locking up.”

They all looked at Don, who all at once had the feeling that he was on the defensive.

“That’s right,” he said, flushing a little before the battery of eyes. “Uncle Amos asked me to lock up, and I did.”

“Are you sure?” asked his father thoughtfully.

“Dead sure, father,” Don answered.

“Couldn’t you, by any chance, have thought you did and yet failed to do so?” asked the captain.

“I suppose I could; but I know I didn’t,” answered Don. “I distinctly remember turning the key in the lock and thinking at the time what an awful thing it would be if any thief should get in there and rob Uncle Amos.”

“Sometimes we think we have locked a door when the bolt doesn’t turn all the way,” remarked his father.

“I couldn’t have done that, either,” replied Don. “After I put the key in my pocket I tried the door, so as to be perfectly sure that it was locked tight. And it was.”

“That settles it,” said his father, and the captain nodded assent. “I know that lads of your age are sometimes careless, and I thought that perhaps your mind had been busy with other things. But if you remember so distinctly all the little things connected with it, that’s all I want to know.”

“Well, then, some one got in by using a key that would open the lock,” remarked the captain. “It must have been a pretty good fit too, for the lock isn’t strained a particle.”

“That’s strange,” observed the professor, “for it was a special lock, and the firm I got it from told me it was burglar-proof.”

“Nothing is burglar-proof,” said the captain skeptically. “There’s nothing yet been devised that can’t be opened, given time and opportunity.”

The thought of the man he had met on the road the day before not far from the house came into Don’s mind.

“I wonder if that could be the fellow,” he said, after he had narrated the episode. “He certainly looks like a desperate character, and he was talking thieves’ slang the day we first saw him on the road near the creek.”

“It wouldn’t be surprising,” replied Mr. Sturdy, reaching for the ’phone.

He again called up the local police department and asked that a special search should be made for the man whom Don described, and, if found, that he be detained on suspicion.

There was nothing more that could be done until the detective arrived. At Don’s suggestion however, Dan, the hired man, was directed to bring out the car. Mr. Sturdy and the captain got in it with Don and Teddy, and for the greater part of that day they scoured the roads within a radius of twenty miles on the mere chance that they might discover the man in question or some clue that might prove helpful. But nothing of value developed, and they returned tired and dispirited.

A detective from New York arrived that afternoon and took the matter in charge. He made a careful examination of the premises, checked up the description of the stolen articles, and departed to put up at a hotel in the town, from which to prosecute his inquiries.

“Looks like a Slippery Jones job,” was all that he vouchsafed. “If I didn’t know that he’s doing time now, I’d say he did it. Has all his earmarks. If it wasn’t himself, it was one of his gang.”

For that day and several that followed, a pall of gloom hovered over the Sturdy household. All felt a deep sympathy with the professor, who, although to all outward seeming he had resumed his usual placid demeanor, suffered keenly from his loss.

It was not because of the money value of the stolen articles, though that was great. The blow was deepest to his professional pride. There were awkward explanations to make to the museum. Then, too, he cherished the precious specimens almost as though they had been his children, and it hurt him sorely to think of them in the possession of criminals.

Perhaps, of all the others in the family, Don felt most grief over the disaster, for it was nothing less than that. Apart from his sympathy with his uncle, to whom he was deeply attached, he could not help feeling as though he were under a cloud in the matter.

He had been the last to leave that room before it was looted. To him had been entrusted the task of locking up. He knew that they all believed he was telling the truth when he emphatically asserted that he had locked the door. That is, they believed that he believed he was telling the truth. But how could they be sure that his memory had not played him false? How could he himself be absolutely sure of it, for that matter? Many an honest person had been mistaken in his recollection.

“Snap out of it, Don, old boy,” Teddy adjured him one day when he had been brooding. “You’re not to blame any more than I am. It was just your hard luck that the thief or thieves happened to come on that particular night. And when all’s said and done, it isn’t the end of the world. It won’t make your uncle poor.”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” answered Don. “Uncle Amos’s share of the treasure that we found in the Cave of Emeralds in the Sahara and the Tombs of Gold in Egypt has given him more money than he’ll ever be able to spend. But he values those specimens a good deal more than money. They’re part of himself, his life blood, as it were.”

“I’ve been wondering what the thieves would do with them,” remarked Teddy. “It doesn’t seem to me that they’d find many people who would buy them. Wouldn’t they have to sell them to a museum?”

“No museum would buy them,” replied Don. “They’ve all been notified of the theft, and if any one came to them for that purpose they’d hand him over to the police. What they’ll do will be to try to sell them separately, or a few at a time. Some of them are semi-precious stones, like garnets and turquoises. Jewelers, that is, the kind who are not particular where they get their stuff, will buy them. Then there are others that are extremely rare, and they’ll be bought by collectors who want to round out their collections. Most of those fellows are rich, you know, and they think nothing of giving thousands of dollars if they can get something that nobody else has. Altogether, the thief will make a pretty good clean up, if the police don’t nab him.”

Suddenly Brick caught a glimpse of something that gave a totally different direction to their thoughts.

“Look! Look!” he cried, pointing to the sky directly above them.

Don looked.

There, like a great flaming comet, was a monster airship as clearly outlined against the blue heavens as though it were a cameo, cleaving the air with the precision and speed of an arrow.

“The Red Monarch!” cried Don.