Auto Boys' Mystery Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  A GUEST AT NELS ANDERSON'S

  In vain did the youthful searchers examine every foot of the cellar'searthen floor. The thought that there, if anywhere, the treasure mightbe buried, impressed them strongly and right diligently did they applythemselves to their task.

  A few old boxes, a heavy pine table and a combination cupboard and icechest were substantially all the cellar contained. All these were exploredand the ground beneath them thoroughly inspected. "Nothing doing," wasthe way Jones summed up the result, and if he meant by this that everyeffort was fruitless, as would appear likely, he was quite correct.

  All through the automobile shed and all about the club grounds the boyscarried their exploring and their minute inspection of whatever had theappearance of being a likely hiding place for a suit-case containingtwenty thousand dollars of currency. Despite the temptation to experimentwith the engine that had been used for pumping, to try the tools of theworkbench, or to put afloat the fishing skiff they discovered, partlycovered with lumber at the far end of the shed, they molested nothing.They only looked, but this they did thoroughly.

  It was noon and Chip Slider, keeping camp alone, had become anxious andworried for the safety of his new friends before the latter made theirappearance at the lean-to. He looked wistfully from one to another andread in their faces the answer to the question in his mind.

  All hands fell to with preparations for dinner. Chip had busied himselfwith the gathering of an immense quantity of dry wood, but fresh watermust be brought from the well in the sandy beach, potatoes must be washed,peeled and sliced for frying; bacon must be sliced; eggs and butterbrought from the "refrigerator," also,--something for everyone to do, inshort, under Chef Billy's competent direction.

  Whether Murky, as well as the wearer of the golfing cap, that is, therecent tenant of the clubhouse, had departed from the woods, was aquestion all tried in vain to answer satisfactorily as the boys sat atdinner. And if one, or both, had or had not really gone for good, was alsoan inquiry, the answer to which could not be discovered.

  Paul Jones proposed that a visit be made to the den Murky had made forhimself. Slider could show the way. Approaching carefully, it might bequite easy to discover the tramp's presence or absence without danger ofbeing seen by him. Billy Worth interposed with the suggestion that a tripto Staretta was more important. Provisions were needed, there would surelybe some mail at the office and the letters written yesterday should beposted.

  "Yes, and stop at Anderson's, too!" put in MacLester. "I'm mightysuspicious of that individual, _myself_,--'specially after Jonesy'sexperience!"

  With these good reasons for going to town confronting them, together withthe fact that the use of their car was always a source of keen enjoymentto the Auto Boys, it seems quite needless to state what they decided to do.

  Paul inspected the gasoline supply and added the contents of a ten galloncan kept as a reserve, not forgetting to put the now empty can in thetonneau to be refilled at Staretta. Dave looked to the quantity of oilin the reservoir and decided none was needed. Phil in the meantimewas examining nuts and bolts with a practiced eye--a hardly necessaryproceeding for every part of the beloved machine had been put in thepink of order on Saturday afternoon.

  "Worth's turn to drive," said Jones. "So go on, Bill. I'll wash dishes.Gee whiz! If there's anything I'd rather do than wash dishes--"

  "Yes, the list would fill a book!" Worth broke in. "You go ahead, Paul,I'm going to stay in camp. Going to cook up a little stuff and all I askof you fellows is to bring these things from Fraley's."

  Worth passed over a list he had been writing and, with a show of anextreme reluctance he did not feel, Paul climbed up to the driver's seat.Phil Way meantime was protesting that he would remain to guard camp.Billy would not listen, but said in an undertone that Way must go alongto make Chip feel comfortable and contented.

  For Slider had shown for Way a fondness that was both beautiful andpathetic. It was as if he realized that he had truly found the answerto the musing questions of his lifetime at last. This was true withregard to all four of the chums but most especially was Chip alreadydevoted to Phil.

  With MacLester up beside Paul, and Way and the now clean and well-fedboy of the woods in the tonneau, the graceful automobile threaded itsroute among the trees. With roads averaging from fair to good, an hourwould have taken the travelers to Staretta easily. With six or seven milesof woodland trail, then an equal distance of but moderately good goingbefore getting fairly out of the forest, Paul took an hour and a halffor the trip. There was no need to hurry, he said, but just the same assoon as the wheels struck the good, level earth not far from town thespeedometer shot up to "30."

  Link Fraley was found, busy as usual, this time packing eggs into ashipping case; but for once he stopped working the moment he caught sightof his callers. Sometimes he had allowed his father to wait on the boysas they did their buying, but today he told the senior member of thehouse he would attend to them himself.

  "Been wantin' to see ye," said Link cordially. "Anything new back in thetimber?"

  The young storekeeper's voice had a peculiar inflection and his face borean expression that answered "yes" to his own question.

  "A little; that is, we have something to tell and something to ask about,as usual," Phil replied. "Here's the list of things Billy wanted. Ifyou'll get them ready while we go over to the post-office--we want tohave a good, old talk with you."

  "Been annexing part of our lumber country population, I see," remarkedFraley in an undertone, glancing toward Slider who had waited at the door.

  Phil nodded.

  "Want to look a little out," Fraley continued, with a shake of his headand a tone of doubt; but he turned away at once to find the baking soda,item number one in Billy Worth's list, and his young friends betookthemselves to the post-office.

  At the rear door of Fraley & Son's establishment was a platform tofacilitate the loading and unloading of freight. It was roofed over withpine boards that gave protection from sun or rain and, as whateverslight breeze there might be blowing was to be found here, there wasno better place in Staretta for a chat on a hot day. Seated on kegs ofnails on this platform, upon their return to the store, the Auto Boystold Mr. Fraley, Jr., the main facts of their discoveries since lastseeing him.

  Link listened with the most sober attention.

  "I honestly don't know," said he at last, "whether to take much stockin the story of the suit-case full of swag or not. But it does look asif things in general pointed in that direction. I didn't believe, atfirst, that your neighbor up there by the lake was anything more than oneof these vacation tourists that often go trapsing 'round, even if hewasn't just a chap doing some shooting out of season. But I'm prettywell satisfied now that a lot more than ever _I_ suspected has been goingon. Listen here!"

  With this Link took from between the leaves of a notebook a neatly foldedclipping from a newspaper. Clearing his throat, while he opened theclipping and smoothed it over his knee, he proceeded to read aloud.

  The newspaper item was an Associated Press dispatch dated from ----, thehome city of the Longknives Club. Its substance was that Lewis Grandall,teller of the Commercial Trust & Banking Company of that city, wasmissing from his home. His absence was supposed to be on account of aninvestigation the Grand Jury had been making in connection with certaincity contracts in which he had been interested, not as an officer of thebank, but personally. The disappearance of Grandall, the dispatch stated,had caused a small run on the bank and general uneasiness among thedepositors and stockholders. This had later been quieted by a signedstatement from the directors stating positively that the company'sinterests were not involved in any of the missing teller's personalbusiness affairs.

  "From which it would seem to a man up a tree that one certain Grandallwas finding Opal Lake atmosphere good for his constitution," remarked LinkFraley as he finished reading. "But," he went on, "it looks to me a lotmore as if he had come up here for his health,
so to speak, than tohunt for a bag of the coin of the realm that somebody stole three yearsago. The point is, that if the twenty thousand dollars that the roadbuilders should have got, but didn't, was put through a nice, neat andorderly system of being stolen here and there till it all got back toGrandall again, he ain't been letting it lie around the woods and drawin'no interest nearly three years now."

  "By ginger! I knew that fellow at the clubhouse was Grandall, all right,"spoke up Paul Jones. "And you must have hit the nail on the head when youtold us in the first place that Nels Anderson was mixed up with him incheating that whole army of men out of their pay," the boy added briskly.

  "That doesn't dovetail with what we already know about Murky getting themoney first and then Slider taking it from him and its getting back toGrandall again," said Paul thoughtfully.

  "Oh, no! that wouldn't make much difference," said Fraley. "Grandall wasplaying everybody against everybody else for the benefit of Grandall.That was his general reputation, too--downright deceitful! Never knewjust where he'd hook up or how long he'd be either one thing or theother--your best friend, or your worst enemy."

  Whether Grandall had been frightened away from the clubhouse by findingMurky to be in the vicinity, or for other reasons had deemed the lakean unsafe hiding place, the boys and Fraley debated for some time. Asthey at last prepared to go, Link called Phil to one side. He did not likethe notion of Chip Slider being taken up by the Auto Boys in any veryintimate way, he declared. He had known the elder Slider, he said, andthere were a lot of better men in Michigan than he and a lot of betterboys than his son was likely to be.

  Phil told Fraley he was surely mistaken with regard to Chip, at least,but promised he would be on his guard in case he found any deceptivetendencies developing in the young gentleman in question.

  Meanwhile Paul and Dave had driven to the general repair shop at whichtheir gasoline was purchased and all were soon ready for the road. Witha steady purr their quiet, powerful car left the town behind. What aperfect machine it was! And what its owners would do were anything tohappen to deprive them of its ever-ready services--the very thought wouldhave been quite unbearable. It is a wise plan, indeed, that none of uscan see even a few short hours forward, or know certainly the changes asingle day may bring.

  An adequate excuse for stopping at the lowly home of the Andersons hadnot been forgotten by the chums while in town. Choosing to call there ontheir homeward way rather than when on the road in from the woods, theynow had with them an extra half dozen of bananas.

  Mrs. Anderson sat on a rickety chair at the shady side of the little housevainly trying to get a breath of fresh air while doing some mending, asthe Thirty came to a stop near her. Hastily she arose and went around toa back door.

  Phil was already out of the car and was walking up to the low frontstep--the dwelling was without a porch--when through the open doorshe saw Mrs. Anderson enter at the rear. She spoke some words in hernative tongue the boy did not understand; but directly Nels Andersonstepped forward from the kitchen to meet him while at the same timeanother man glided silently out of the door at which the woman had justcome in. The man wore a golfing cap. If he was not the identical personwho had lately occupied the clubhouse then Phil Way was vastly mistaken.

  "Wouldn't you like some bananas?" asked Way pleasantly. "We thought likelyyou did not get to town often and maybe would relish a taste of these,"and with a friendly smile he tendered his offering.

  With only a word of thanks and that spoken rather indifferently, Philthought, the great Swede accepted the fruit. Still holding the papersack under his arm he said he wished the camp at the lake only good luckbut he thought it dangerous for the boys to stay there. It would be moreso as time went on, unless a pouring rain came very soon to wet the groundand foliage. The probability of forest fires near by was becoming serious.Two severe blazes had already occurred. He pointed away to the west andsouth, calling attention to smoke that he said he could see over thedistant tree tops.

  Oddly enough Phil could see no smoke, at least nothing more than usual.The horizon in this region had always a hazy, smoky tinge, he hadobserved. Nevertheless he said he appreciated the suggestion and addedthat a few days more would see the breaking of camp at the lake, anyway.It was in his thoughts to ask what Anderson himself would do in theevent of a forest fire. The tiny clearing, he thought, would be verylittle protection if the flames came near it.

  But Way refrained from speaking of this. There was a matter of moreimportance about which he wished to inquire. "Do you know if there isanyone staying at the clubhouse at the lake, Mr. Anderson?" Thus did theboy frame his question. Receiving no answer but a shake of the head, Philthen continued. "Because," said he, "it would be right convenient if wecould get permission to use the workbench in the automobile house. We'ddo no harm to anything."

  "I tank yo better let him bay," Nels answered, the least bit sharply.But more kindly he went on to say that he knew of no one being at theclubhouse now and that while the property was not his, the best advicehe could offer was not to meddle with anything in the buildings or onthe grounds.

  Quite baffled by the Swede's apparent friendliness, yet certain that hewas practicing deception, Phil returned to the machine. He told fully ofthe conversation with Anderson while the car purred forward.

  Without exception the boys agreed with him that the talk of forestfires was like the denial of all knowledge of the clubhouse beingoccupied--simple deception, and nothing else. Clinching the soundnessof this reasoning also, was the certain fact that the recent clubhousetenant was now Anderson's guest.

  "Grandall! He saw Murky or Murky saw him! He must have guessed that Murkyhas found out how he had been given the double cross, and was after himin dead earnest. Result: Grandall, in cahoots with Anderson for some badbusiness or other, packs his little satchel and goes to the Swede's tostay."

  So did Dave MacLester reason the whole matter out. Chip Slider nodded hisendorsement of these conclusions.

  "They've got that stolen money, so they have!" he said. "We could havethem arrested," he added, only the word he used was "pinched."

  "And we will! _Mark that!_" said Phil Way.

  Yet it often does happen that young gentlemen, and older ones, too, makeassertions which, in the end, lead not where it was thought they would doat all.