Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris and the Sunken Treasure - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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“That shows how a scout has to be observant,” Pee-wee announced, his face bespattered with mud, his left hand nursing his right knee.

The cop did not see the force of this argument. The distant audience vented its envy in laughter. Then it became evident to the smiling officer that Pee-wee clutched a drenched newspaper in his other hand. He had pulled it out from under a rung of the ladder. It was wet and limp and muddy. But even in his prostrate and inglorious posture one of its headings had attracted his attention. In that brief, eventful moment while he lay studying astronomy (or at least seeing stars) he had read upon that soggy sheet the thrilling headline.

STRANGE MYSTERY ENSHROUDS THEFT

Pee-wee did not exactly like thefts, but he loved mysteries, particularly when they were enshrouded.

“Watcher got?” the cop asked smiling.

“I got a paper that somebody left here,” Pee-wee said, as he limped to a charred card filing cabinet and climbed upon it. It had been part of the furniture of the County Clerk’s office.

“There ain’t nobody been inside these ropes but firemen and you scout kids,” the policeman said.

“It’s dated yesterday,” Pee-wee said, “and the heading’s gone, but anyway it’s the Bugle, because anyway I can tell and there was a dandy robbery night before last; it was even better than this fire, what happened. Anyway, keep still because I want to read it.”

Thus admonished the officer had not the opportunity of observing that the robbery had not, so far as he knew, come under the notice of his department. He strolled over to the rope where a score or more of Bridgeboro’s younger set were contemplating the leader of the Chipmunks at a respectful and enforced distance. “Git away wid yez,” said the cop.

The crowd reluctantly departed, giving wistful glances at our hero as he sat enthroned like Nero amid the ruins of Rome, reading the newspaper. He had some difficulty in doing this since the wet sheet clung affectionately to his hands and arms and was continually subsiding languidly from its upright posture.

As this is the first striking picture we have of our hero in this singular chain of happenings, it may be worth while to pause and contemplate him enthroned upon the debris of Bridgeboro’s sensational fire. Scorning to hide his light under a bushel, he invariably wore his full scout regalia, and since a scout is supposed always to be prepared, carried his belt axe, not to be taken unawares by Indians or foreign foes.

I would not say that Pee-wee’s head was round, but it was certainly as round as a baseball and had just as much inside it. He had a permanent wave and a permanent appetite, his hair being thick and curly, his appetite continuous and eternal. It could hardly be said that he ate between meals; rather the meals ran into each other, forming a sort of endless chain.

His scout stockings had a bizarre habit of descending his scout legs, especially when he ran. But they did not have far to go and were easily reached and pulled up again. There was a detour from his left trousers pocket which led down into his stocking and gumdrops were sometimes known to explore this byway. His favorite dessert was three helpings, his voice was devised by Providence upon the suggestion of a boiler factory, and he was imperial head of the Chipmunk Patrol.

As he sat perched upon the broken file cabinet, pausing before plunging into his enshrouded mystery, our hero contemplated a sorry picture of wreck and ruin. A smoky odor lingered in the soaked wreckage. And all about him was a disorder of fallen stones, crumbling plaster, shattered glass and the furniture and fixtures of the old building. It was not so very old, but it was a good deal older than the head Chipmunk.

Pee-wee had always stood in awe of the court-house as a place where desperate characters were tried and whence they were sent to prison or to death. He had always thought of a judge as a being of superhuman power. He knew a boy whose father was a court attendant and that boy was a celebrity in Pee-wee’s eyes. He had sometimes chalked uncomplimentary comments on the sidewalk in front of the school, but he had never profaned the virgin concrete in front of the court-house. That might mean the electric chair.

He now surveyed the charred memorials of all this authoritative grandeur with a kind of spellbound gaze. How low was brought the majesty of the law! A few yards from where he sat enthroned some papers were kept from blowing about by a square stone which stood upon them like a huge paper-weight. These Pee-wee thought might be death warrants, or something of the sort, and he longed to inspect them.

But the enshrouded mystery of two nights previous held first claim and he pursued the delectable account with increasing wonder and excitement.

“Sometime between midnight and dawn yesterday,” the article ran, “a bold robbery occurred at the Gardiner mansion on the river road about two miles below Bridgeboro. From all evidences the daring entry was skillfully planned. An iron strong box containing about seven thousand dollars in currency and certain valuable papers was taken from a secret cupboard in the library of old Squire Gardiner. This cupboard was concealed by the paneling of the room and it is therefore supposed that the miscreants were familiar with the interior of the house and knew about the secret closet.

“Certain clews made the authorities hopeful of arresting the burglar or burglars, but these led nowhere and there seems no explanation to the affair which is likely to go down as one of the greatest mysteries of criminal history.”

Pee-wee paused in his reading to adjust the damp paper and to ponder on those last words—one of the greatest mysteries of criminal history. He recalled that on the night before, his father had been reading the paper and had said, “That’s a funny thing.” Then he had seemed on the point of reading something aloud when suddenly the first alarm was heard which heralded certainly one of the worst fires in local history. And the mystery at the Gardiner mansion had been absorbed by the greater and more immediate catastrophe.

But Pee-wee was not one to let the greatest mystery of criminal history die so ignoble a death and he read on with gloating eyes and bated breath: “In the morning preceding the robbery, old Squire Gardiner went to the city to be gone for two days leaving at home his young granddaughter Eleanor who made her home with him. She is fifteen years of age and an orphan. The only occupants of the house were the housekeeper, Mrs. Kenlake, and an aged, colored manservant, much trusted, who had been in the household for many years.

“A kitchen window was broken open and footprints across the grounds and down to the river showed that the iron box had been carried to the shore. A square impress in the soft earth near the brink of the stream showed where the box had been set down. It seemed conclusive that it was removed to a boat, but no trace of any boat could be discovered at the shore.

“Thus brought to a standstill, the authorities made inquiries of the drawbridge tender where the turnpike crosses the river a mile or so below the Gardiner mansion. This man, Haley Austin by name, said that after dark, about ten o’clock he thought, a good-sized launch had attempted to pass under the bridge on its way upstream. Its cabin bumped into the bridge and it could not pass, the tide being nearly at flood.

“Notwithstanding that there was a light in Austin’s shanty, the occupants of the boat did not summon him to open the bridge, but anchored their craft evidently with the intention of waiting till the tide had ebbed sufficiently for them to pass under. Austin called to them, asking if they wished to proceed upstream. The occupants of the boat seemed disconcerted at being noticed, but called that they were going up the river to troll for eels and that he might swing the bridge open if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.

“Austin thereupon opened the bridge and the boat passed up the river. He said that it carried no lights, but that he could readily identify it by its rough wainscot cabin, which was a makeshift affair.

“Austin declared positively that this boat did not pass down the river again; he said he was willing to swear to that. He was equally certain that it passed upstream between nine thirty and ten o’clock when the tide was not more than an hour past flood.

“Upon this definite and encouraging information, the authorities made a complete investigation of every point up the river where a boat might be moored. The stream is not navigable except for canoes for more than three miles above Bridgeboro. Every cove was visited. No launch is to be found upon the river north of the drawbridge save the few readily identified as belonging to the boating fraternity. These are well known and are anchored at the boat clubs and at two or three private landings upon property abutting on the river. Yet Austin is positive that the launch he mentioned did not pass downstream again.

“Squire Gardiner is much shaken by the affair and it is feared that his great age will prevent him from recovering from the blow of losing so considerable a sum. When seen this evening, his young granddaughter Eleanor said that her grandfather talked ‘kind of crazy’ about his loss. The girl, who is fifteen, is the only heir to the old estate which is one of the familiar landmarks down the river.”