Читать книгу The Smugglers' Secret - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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“Ted Bellair must be in serious difficulties,” said Hal after drawing Tony’s attention to the man. “But what I can’t understand is, why that fellow’s watching us so closely.” He smiled.

“You should wonder that, when your own uncle is a federal man, Hal!” Tony said in a gentle chiding tone. He guided the car out of the airport road, then turned again to his friend. “I don’t know whether you realized it, but you gave him every reason to suspect that you knew something about the Bellair brothers. One word from you that Denis Keen was your uncle would have sent the man about his business. He’d have known immediately that the nephew of a great secret service man like your uncle wouldn’t be holding back anything in this Bellair business—he’d have known that Hank Bellair was a shipboard friend and nothing else. Why didn’t you tell him that?”

“Why?” Hal repeated with a mischievous chuckle. “Just because I didn’t like his nosey way, and that’s a fact! It’s a good thing that Uncle Denis is over in England and not able to spend the Thanksgiving holidays with your grandmother as he usually does. If he was up there tonight when we arrived and I told him that Bill Connover was questioning me in regard to the Bellair case, he’d have a fit—a double one if I told him what answers I gave to his nosey subordinate.”

“You mean to tell me you knew all the time who that man was?” Tony asked, amazed. “You mean to tell me he’s your uncle’s subordinate?”

“Righto, Tony,” Hal laughed. “He’s been in Unk’s department for three years and I don’t like him any better now than I did three years ago! No, he don’t know me from Adam, but I know him from pictures Unk showed me of him, and I know him still better from his reports that Unk’s gone over when he’s been visiting at our house. Oh, Unk thinks he’s one of the best men the department ever had, but I don’t. He’s too cold and calculating—not a bit of human warmth in all his detective make-up. I knew him the minute I set eyes on him.”

“Regular fish eyes, huh?” said Tony with a smile.

“Bet your life. I always promised myself if I ever met Connover face to face, I’d give him a run for his money. Lead him on a wild goose chase.”

“And that’s just what you’re doing,” said Tony peering intently into his mirror overhead. “Connover got into a car soon’s we left the airport drive and he’s following us. I’m certain of it. I made the last turn on purpose just to see if he’d turn too!”

Hal chuckled. “Then he means business. That’s the way he works, Unk told me—right in the open. He don’t make any bones about following up a clue. The trouble in this case—the clue is somewhere else. He wouldn’t be driving along so confidently if he knew what little I know about Ted Bellair.”

Tony stared up into his mirror thoughtfully. “Still following,” said he. Then: “Do you mean to tell me you think he’ll follow us right up to the Adirondacks like this?”

“Perhaps not all the way, Tony,” Hal assured him with a mischievous grin, “but most of the way. He’ll follow us till he’s pretty sure where we’re headed for and then he’ll drop off just to disarm us. But you can bank on it that he’ll have every constable and state trooper along the way informed that we’re passing through and to keep an eye out to see where we go. What’s that little town we get to before we climb up into the wilderness to your grandmother’s camp?”

“Hightown.”

“Well, at Hightown we’ll be met by some bewhiskered official or other who’ll stop and chat with us in a friendly way and try to wriggle our destination out of us. When he learns that, he’ll say so-long to us and let us go on, then he’ll trot right to the nearest phone and inform the waiting Connover where we’re headed for. Now that’s Conover’s tactics, Tony! By tomorrow morning or before he’ll have made Hightown his headquarters and during our Thanksgiving holiday week he’ll make many visits to Delamere Camp—only perhaps we won’t know about it.”

Tony shifted gears and they went speeding over the Jersey state line into New York. “You seem to have it all figured out, huh Hal? Well, let me tell you something first—the constable at Hightown happens to know I’m Tony Marsh. He knows this roadster and he knows my grandmother and all about us, since we’ve been going up to Delamere Camp every year for five years and do our shopping and so forth in Hightown. He won’t have to stop us and ask us anything except perhaps he’ll be curious to know who you are if Connover’s really going to send word about you along the line.”

Hal laughed aloud. “Make up your mind that Connover will do that very thing, Tony,” he said in high glee. “I’m not discouraged by the news that you and your grandmother are well acquainted with Hightown’s constabale, but I will be discouraged if you let on to him who I am. Connover is not to know that your little friend Hal is the proud nephew of Denis Keen, do you hear?”

“Sure, I hear,” Tony answered, laughing. “But it seems to me you’re looking for trouble in leading that man on a fool’s journey.”

“Tony, don’t lose sight of the fact that I’m not leading Connover anywhere. He’s doing this on his own hook and besides I’m not supposed to know that he’s even following us. Neither are you supposed to know it, see?”

“I still insist that you’re looking for trouble, you red-headed scamp!” said Tony with a quiet smile.

“Sure, I’m looking for trouble,” Hal agreed mischievously. “And I say, the sooner, the better. What else are holidays for, Tony?”