Читать книгу The Smugglers' Secret - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 10

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“Why didn’t you tell me you were Denis Keen’s kin!” was Bill Connover’s caustic complaint when Hal had made himself known.

“How did I know you were going to chase me all the way up here to find out?” Hal returned. He introduced Blake, then returned to the subject. “Still, I suppose a clue’s a clue, huh Mr. Connover?”

“Betcha life,” answered the detective in better spirits. “I ain’t leavin’ no stone unturned in this Bellair business. Even if things don’t look so bright, I ain’t discouraged.”

Blake took a few steps back to the shelter of the tree to relight his pipe for a buoyant November wind was blowing. “Perhaps you want to talk something confidential over with Mr. Connover?” he asked Hal.

“Nah, nah!” protested Mr. Connover, “there ain’t nothin’ young Keen can tell me that I don’t know a’ready. Hank Bellair cracked up in his plane this afternoon. Mrs. Bellair acts dumb and says she don’t know where either of her sons are and when I ask her for a picture of Ted she shows me a picture of Hank and about that time I’m disgusted! So what can young Keen tell me about it, hah, except that he met Hank one time on a boat comin’ up from Panama? That ain’t helpin’ me get the low-down on this Ted and I’ve lost a lot of time a’ready on this fool journey, chasin’ this feller Keen. Nah, I’m goin’ to beat it back to that hick village of Hightown and bawl out that Collins—he might ’a’ told me that was Tony Marsh in the roadster and I’d ’a’ got wise that Keen here wasn’t mixed up with any clue that I could use.”

“Then you won’t stay for the night?” asked Blake, his face almost hidden in the wreath of smoke about his head.

“No,” answered Connover, “I won’t even go in and pay my respects to Mrs. Marsh. Guess she’s dead to the world anyhow, eh? Well, I’ll turn that flivver ’round and beat it back. Got to get back to Hadley Heights airport and work out from there again. No time to lose because it must be after two o’clock now.”

“If it is, then I have some fires to attend to,” said Blake. “Mrs. Marsh gave me orders to see that the house is good and warm when the doctor leaves at four o’clock with young Marsh. You’ll excuse me?”

“Sure,” said Hal lightly. “I’ll see Mr. Connover off with a gay bon voyage and then come in myself. Getting kind of chilly out here.”

Blake went in and as Hal walked toward the parked car with Connover he asked, “Notice Blake?”

“Sure. Kind of a thin, worried-looking guy, eh? Why ask me, though?” Connover queried gruffly. “What’s the matter with the man?”

Hal gave a detailed account of all that had transpired from the time of the shots that he and Tony had heard in the forest up to Blake’s denial a few moments before Connover’s arrival. The story of Mrs. Marsh’s gypsy fortune teller elicited a few sarcastic grunts from the detective but that was all. He held his peace until Hal had finished talking.

They had reached Connover’s car by that time and each one put a foot on the running board. “Well,” said the detective with a yawn, “that’s a pretty peppy soundin’ story the way you tell it, but I think you got too good an imagination (all due respects to the fac’ that you’re Denis Keen’s kin) and that don’t get you on the real track. Now take it from me, young feller, we don’t catch criminals the way you read that they do in detective stories. If this Blake does know this Dudley—what about it? If Dudley disappeared and Blake came up here looking for him, it looks as if Dudley owed Blake some money, eh?”

“But it happened that Blake came the same night as the house caught fire!” Hal protested.

“You ain’t goin’ to tell me you’re swallowin’ that gypsy stuff or thinkin’ that that fire was anythin’ but an accident, are you?” Connover asked sardonically. “Great Scott, Keen, you better find out how your uncle and me works first before you try and discover fairy stories on your own hook!”

“All right,” Hal said chuckling good-naturedly, “you ought to know a clue when you hear about one, huh? Still, you can’t make me stop thinking about things, and forming conclusions of my own.”

Connover gave a conceited little chuckle. “Yere, and you got a lot to learn, boy. You got to learn that there’s a whale of a difference between conclusions and deductions. You got to get the goods on a feller before you begin to talk about the law and what it can do—see! If you were to form conclusions about everybody you saw, the jails couldn’t hold all the criminals that you’d turn over. Take it from me!”

“I’m always willing to learn,” said Hal cheerily. “In fact, I thought I was learning something when Blake as good as refused to tell me about that shooting.”

“Yere, well that ain’t any business of a government man anyway,” said Connover with a certain pride. “A little thing like that is the business of that simpleton Collins—it’s his business to enforce county laws. Gypsy fortune tellin’ and illegal huntin’ ain’t in my line, boy. No siree!”

“I see,” said Hal with a curious smile. “Maybe I was wrong.” And as Connover turned the car around toward town, he added to himself: “But then again, maybe I’ll be right.”