Chapter XXI New Tactics
With a grinding and squeaking of the brakes, which was a reminder to Bob that he must get some new lining, the little car came to a stop near the silent and deserted railroad station in Cliffside. Deserted it was save for the presence of the lone agent in the ticket office, as evidenced by a gleam of light shining out into the cold and clammy mists of the night.
The milk train had just left, Bob knew. If he had hoped to intercept either the man with the hook or the man with the monkey he was disappointed, but Bob did not show any signs of this.
“Hello, Mr. Dawson,” he greeted the agent, who peered wonderingly out at him through the brass bars of his window.
“Well, bless my ticket stamp—if it isn’t Bob Dexter!” exclaimed the agent. “What in the world are you doing here at this hour? The milk train’s gone, Bob!”
“I know it. Heard her pulling up Storm Mountain.”
“And there isn’t another until the accommodation at 5:15.”
“Which I’m not going to take, thank goodness.”
“Well, then—” there was mild questioning in the agent’s voice.
“It’s just a private matter I’m working on, Mr. Dawson,” said Bob, making sure no early morning travelers were sitting on the deserted benches in the dimly-lighted waiting room of the station.
“Oh, up to your old tricks, eh, Bob?” The agent knew the reputation the lad was earning for himself.
“Something like that—yes.”
“Another Jennie Thorp case, Bob?”
“Not exactly. But tell me, Mr. Dawson, did a couple of men get on the milk train just now?”
“Yes—two men—one with an iron hook in place of a hand.”
“Those are the ones. The other was a fellow with a big bunch of whiskers and hair enough to stuff a sofa pillow, and a hand organ and a monkey.”
“No, Bob, not exactly.”
“Not exactly—what do you mean, Mr. Dawson?”
“I mean there wasn’t any man with a hand organ and a monkey.”
“Oh, well, he could have left that behind, though what the poor monk will do I don’t know. Anyhow he had a lot of hair and whiskers, didn’t he?”
“No, Bob,” answered the agent, “he didn’t. You got that one man right—he had a hook all right. But the other was smooth-shaved and his hair wasn’t any longer than mine.”
Bob was staggered for a minute. Then a light broke in on him.
“Of course!” he cried. “He could have taken off the false beard and wig, or have stopped long enough, somewhere, to get a hair cut and a shave.”
“He had a shave, Bob, I’ll testify to that. I was close to him when he bought the tickets.”
“Bought tickets, did he? Where to, Mr. Dawson?”
“Perry Junction.”
“Um, down where they can catch the fast trains. But there aren’t so many trains at this time of the morning. Maybe I can nab them yet.”
“What are you going to do, Bob?” asked Mr. Dawson, as the lad started from the station.
“I’m going to take the short cut to Perry Junction. I can beat the milk, for it’s got half a dozen stops between here and there to pick up cans. I want to see these fellows.”
“Better not take any chances with them, Bob,” advised Mr. Dawson. “They didn’t look like very nice customers, especially that man with the iron hook. If he made a dig at you with that—zowie, boy!” The agent drew in his breath sharply.
“Don’t worry—I’m not going to take any chances, Mr. Dawson. I’m going to stop and pick up an officer at headquarters.”
“I think that’s wise. I didn’t like the looks of these chaps from the time they came in. I was suspicious of them, and I thought I might be in for a hold-up, until I remembered that I didn’t have enough money on hand to make it worth while. But they were civil enough.”
“And you say the man with the smooth face bought the tickets?”
“Yes—two, for Ferry Junction.”
“Did he talk like an Italian?”
“No, Bob, I can’t say he did. Talked like as American, as far as I could judge.”
“Then he must have dropped his pretended Italian jargon along with his hair and whiskers,” thought the young detective. “Well, things are beginning to work out—though what the end will be I can’t tell.” Aloud, to the agent, he said:
“Well, I guess I’ll be getting along if I’m going to beat the milk, though that won’t be so hard. She’s got a bad grade ahead of her up Storm Mountain. Much obliged for your information, Mr. Dawson.”
“Don’t mention it, Bob. Hope you make out all right with your case.”
“Thanks, I hope I do.”
“I reckon, before long, you’ll be on the police force of some big city, Bob.”
“No such luck as that, Mr. Dawson. But that’s what I’m working for. Good-night.”
“Good-morning, you mean!” chuckled Mr. Dawson as he smiled at the lad. “It’ll soon be daylight.”
So it will. Well, I’ve got to get a hustle on.
The young detective found Constable Tarton on night duty at police headquarters. Mr. Tarton had considerable respect for Bob, for he knew of the outcome of the case of the Golden Eagle. In fact Caleb would rather work with Bob than with Chief Miles Duncan.
So it was with eagerness that Mr. Tarton agreed to accompany the lad in the flivver to Perry Junction, there, if need arose, to make an arrest on suspicion.
“I’ll just wake up Sim Nettlebury, and let him take charge of matters,” the constable said with a chuckle. “Not that anything is likely to happen in Cliffside at this hour of the morning, but I got to follow regulations. Sim won’t like it, though, being woke up.”
Sim didn’t, as was evident from his grumbles and growls as the night constable aroused him in the room over the main office of police headquarters. A certain proportion of the limited police force of Cliffside slept on the premises, taking turns the different nights.
“Now I’m ready to go with you, Bob,” announced Mr. Tarton, as the half-awake Sim, rubbing his eyes, tried to find a comfortable place behind the desk with its green-shaded lamp.
Bob Dexter had thought out his plan carefully, and yet he was not at all sure of the outcome. The identity of Rod Marbury, the man suspected of assaulting Hiram and stealing the brass-bound box, with Pietro Margolis was a surprise to the young detective. How the man with the iron hook fitted into the mystery Bob could not yet fathom.
But that something had occurred between the two to make Rod leave off his disguise, and hurry out of town was evident.
“He fooled Hiram and he fooled Jolly Bill,” thought Bob. “The question is now can he fool me. I was taken in by his monkey nuts, but from now on I’ll be on my guard. And yet I don’t believe he took the brass box. But he may know who did. The man with the iron hook couldn’t have—I’m sure. Hiram never mentioned such a character, and he would have done so, I’m sure, if there had been any such character to mention. You don’t meet a man with an iron hook every day. Well, it may be working out—this Storm Mountain mystery—but it’s doing so in a queer way.”
“All set, Bob,” said the constable, as he got in the flivver.
“Let’s go!” was the grim rejoinder.
The roads were clear of traffic, save for an occasional farmer bringing to town, for the early market, a load of produce. And, as Bob had said, he could take a short cut, intercepting the milk train, almost before it reached Perry Junction. The train, as the lad had stated, would have to make a number of stops to pick up cans of milk which the dairymen had left at the different stations along the route.
“Those fellows must have been in a desperate hurry, Bob, to take the milk train,” said the constable, as they jolted along side by side in the flivver.
“Hurry—on the milk?” laughed Bob.
“Well, I mean in a hurry to get out of town. Of course the train is a slow-poke, but they could get out of Cliffside on her, and that’s what they wanted, maybe.”
“That’s so,” agreed Bob. “I didn’t think of that”
“Think of what?” asked Caleb Tarton.
“Oh—nothing much. Hold fast now, here’s a bit of rough road.”
It was rough—so much so that at the speed which Bob drove all the constable could do was to hold on. And he didn’t dare open his mouth to ask questions for fear of biting off his tongue.
Which, perhaps, was Bob’s object. I’m not saying it was, but it would have been a good way to insure silence.
Then they got onto a smooth, concrete highway, leading directly to Perry Junction. A faint light was showing, now, in the east.
“Soon be sun-up, Bob,” remarked Mr. Tarton.
“Yep. It’s been a long night, I’ll say. I haven’t been to bed yet”
“You haven’t?”
“No. I ran off a party. Then I ran onto this clew and I’ve been busy on it ever since.”
“Well, we’ll soon know what’s what, Bob. There’s the station right ahead of us.”
“Yes, and here comes the milk,” added Bob, as a shrill whistle cut the keen, morning air.
“We’re just about in time,” remarked the constable.
Perry Junction was not a station of any importance save that certain fast trains stopped there to pick up passengers from other points along the line. And it was evidently the object of the two men to take advantage of this. Bob had made his plans well, and they would have worked out admirably save for one thing.
The two men he was after weren’t on the train. A simple thing, but it loomed big.
Bob and the constable leaped from their flivver as the milk train drew to a screeching stop, and the two hid themselves behind a corner of the station. It was now light enough so that they could see who got off the milk train. But the man with the iron hook and the man who had been masquerading as an organ grinder, were not among the passengers that alighted.
“Looks like they give us the slip, Bob,” observed Mr. Tarton.
“Yes, it does. But they may be on there yet. This isn’t the end of the milk run. I’ll ask the conductor.”
The latter was walking up and down the platform waiting for the completion of loading on more rattling cans of milk. He knew Bob, and greeted him.
“Man with an iron hook?” questioned the ticket puncher. “Yes, he got on at Cliffside.”
“Was there another man with him—a smooth-shaved man?”
“Yes, Bob, there was. I didn’t have many passengers—we seldom do this time of year, with the excursion business over. But I remember those two.”
“They had tickets for Perry Junction, didn’t they?”
“Yes, now I recall it, they did.”
“But they aren’t here.”
“No, Bob, they got off somewhere between Tottenville and Andover. I noticed them at Tottenville, but I didn’t see them at Andover.”
“But there isn’t a station between those two places.”
“No station, Bob, but we stop at three white posts to pick up milk. Farm-stations we call them—not regular stops for any except my train. These fellows could have gotten off anywhere along there, and they probably did.”
“Shucks!” ejaculated Bob. “That’s it! I might have known they wouldn’t give themselves away by coming to the place for which they have tickets. They got off at some place where they wouldn’t be noticed. Well, I guess we might as well go back,” he told the constable.
“How about searching the train?” asked the latter eagerly. “They might be concealed somewhere on board, Bob.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said the conductor. “They just dropped off at one of the white post stops between Tottenville and Andover. Why, was there anything wrong about them?”
“Suspicions, mostly, that’s all,” said Bob.
The last can rattled aboard, the conductor gave the signal, the engineer gave two toots to the whistle and the milk train pulled away from Perry Junction.
“Guess they had you barkin’ up the wrong tree, didn’t they, Bob?” asked the constable as they rode on back to Cliffside.
“In a way, yes. But, after all, maybe it’s just as well it turned out like this.”
“Just as well, Bob? Why, don’t you want to help find the rascal that robbed Hiram?”
“Yes, but I don’t believe either of these fellows did.”
“Who did then?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
It was with this end in view that, two days later, Bob paid a visit to the Mansion House where Jolly Bill Hickey was still staying. Bob had a long talk with Nelson Beel, the proprietor.
“Certainly, Bob, I’ll let you do it,” was the permission given. “But I don’t like any disturbance about my place.”
“There won’t be any, Mr. Beel, I promise you that. It will all be done very quietly.”
“All right, Bob, go to it.”
Thereupon the young detective began some new tactics.