Bransford of Rainbow Range Part 13

Lake had chosen well. Arcadia in epitome was within those pillaged walls. Thompson was president of the rival bank. Alec was division superintendent. Turnbull was the mill-master. Clarke was editor of the _Arcadian Day_. Clarke had been early to the storm-center; yet, of all the investigators, Clarke alone was not more or less disheveled. He was faultlessly appareled--even to the long Prince Albert and black string tie--in which, indeed, report said, he slept.

So much for capital, industry and the fourth estate. The last of the probers, whom Lake had drafted merely by the slighting personal p.r.o.noun "you," was nevertheless identifiable in private life by the name of Billy White--being, indeed, none other than our old friend the devil.

His indigenous mustache still retained a Mephistophelian twist; he was becomingly arrayed in slippers, pajamas and a pink bathrobe, girdled at the waist with a most unhermitlike cord, having gone early and surly to bed. In this improvised committee he fitly represented Society: while the sheriff represented society at large and, ex officio, that incautious portion under duress. Yet one element was unrepresented; for Lake made a mistake which other great men have made--of failing to reckon with the masterless men, who dwell without the wall.

Lake led the way.

"Will the watchman die, Alec, d'you think?" whispered Billy, as they filed through the grilled door to the counting room.

"Don't know. Hope not. Game old rooster. Good watchman, too," said Turnbull, the mill-superintendent.

Lake turned on the lights. The wall-safe was blown open; fragments of the door were scattered among the overturned chairs.

In an open recess in the vault there was a dull yellow ma.s.s; the explosion had spilled the front rows of coin to a golden heap. Behind, some golden rouleaus were intact: others tottered precariously, as you have perhaps seen beautiful tall stacks of colored counters do. Gold pieces were strewn along the floor.

"Thank G.o.d, they didn't get all the gold anyhow!" said Lake, with a sigh of relief. "Then, of course, they didn't touch the silver; but there was a lot of greenbacks--over twenty-five thousand, I think. Ba.s.sett will know. And I don't know how much gold is gone. Look round and see if they left anything incriminating, sheriff, anything that we can trace them by."

"He heard poor old Lars coming," said the sheriff. "Then, after he shot him, he hadn't the nerve to come back for the gold. This strikes me as being a bungler's job. Must have used an awful lot of dynamite to tear that door up like that! Funny no one heard the explosion. Can't be much of your gold gone, Lake. That compartment is pretty nearly as full as it will hold."

"Or heard him shoot our watchman," suggested Thompson. "Still, I don't know. There's blasting going on in the hills all the time and almost every one was at the masquerade or else asleep. How many times did they shoot old Lars--does anybody know? Is there any idea what time it was done?"

"He was shot once--right here," said Alec, indicating the spot on the flowered silk that had been part of his mandarin's dress. "Gun was held so close it burnt his shirt. Awful hole. Don't believe the old chap'll make it. He crawled along toward the telephone station till he dropped.

Say! Central must have heard that shot! It's only two blocks away. She ought to be able to tell what time it was."

"Lars said it was just before midnight," said Clarke.

"Oh!--did he speak?" asked Lake. "How many robbers were there? Did he know any of them?"

"He didn't see anybody--shot just as he reached the window. Hope some one hangs for this!" said Clarke. "Lake, I wish you'd have this money picked up--I'm not used to walking on gold--or else have me watched."

Lake shook his head, angry at the untimely pleasantry. It was a pleasantry in effect only, put forward to hide uneditorial agitation and distress for Lars Porsena. Lake's undershot jaw thrust forward; he fingered the blot of whisker at his ear. It was a time for action, not for talk. He began his campaign.

"Look here, sheriff! You ought to wire up and down the line to keep a lookout. Hold all suspicious characters. Then get a posse to ride for some sign round the town. If we only had something to go on--some clue!

Later we'll look through this town with a finetooth comb. Most likely they--or he, if there was only one--won't risk staying here. First of all, I've got to telegraph to El Paso for money to stave off a run on the bank. You'll help me, Thompson? Of course my burglar insurance will make good my loss--or most of it; but that'll take time. We mustn't risk a run. People lose their heads so. I'll give you a statement for the _Day_, Clarke, as soon as I find out where Mr. Thompson stands."

"I will back you up, sir. With the bulk of depositors' money loaned out, no bank, however solvent, can withstand a continued run without backing.

I shall be glad to tide you over if only for my own protection. A panic is contagious----"

"Thanks," said Lake shortly, interrupting this stately financial discourse. "Then we shall do nicely.... Let's see--to-morrow's payday.

You fellows"--he turned briskly to the two superintendents--"can't you hold up your payday, say, until Sat.u.r.day? Stand your men off. The company stands good for their money. They can wait a while."

"No need to do that," said Alec. "I'll have the railroad checks drawn on St. Louis. The storekeepers'll cash 'em. If necessary I'll wire for authority to let Turnbull pay off the millhands with railroad checks.

It's just taking money from one pocket to put it in the other, anyhow."

"Then that's all right! Now for the robbers!" The banker's face betrayed impatience. "My first duty was to protect my clients; but now we'll waste no more time. You gentlemen make a close search for any possible sc.r.a.p of evidence while the sheriff and I write our telegrams. I must wire the burglar insurance company, too." He plunged a pen into an inkwell and fell to work.

Acting upon this hint, the sheriff took a desk. "Wish Phillips was here--my deputy," he sighed. "I've sent for him. He's got a better head than I have for noticing clues and things." This was eminently correct as well as modest. The sheriff was a Simon-pure Arcadian, the company's nominee; his deputy was a concession to the disgruntled Hinterland, where the un.o.bservant rarely reach maturity.

"Oh, Alec!" said Lake over his shoulder, "you sit down, too, and wire all your conductors about their pa.s.sengers last night. Yes, and the freight crews, too. We'll rush those through first. And can't you scare up another operator?" His pen scratched steadily over the paper. "More apt to be some of our local outlaws, though. In that case it will be easier to find their trail. They'll probably be on horseback."

"You were an--old-timer yourself, were you not?" asked Billy amiably.

"If the robbers are frontiersmen they may be easier to get track of, as you suggest; but won't they be harder to get?" Billy spoke languidly.

The others were searching a.s.siduously for "clues" in the most approved manner, but Billy sprawled easily in a chair.

"We'll get 'em if we can find out who they were," snapped Lake, setting his strong jaw. He did not particularly like Billy--especially since their late trip to Rainbow. "There never was a man yet so good but there was one just a little better."

"By a good man, in this connection, you mean a bad man, I presume?" said Billy in a meditative drawl. "Were you a good man before you became a banker?"

"Look here! What's this?" The interruption came from Clarke. He pounced down between two fragments of the safe door and brought up an object which he held to the light.

At the startled tones, Lake spun round in his swivel-chair. He held out his hand.

"Really, I don't think I ever saw anything like this thing before," he said. "Any of you know what it is?"

"It's a noseguard," said Billy. Billy was a college man and had worn a nosepiece himself. He frowned unconsciously, remembering his successful rival of the masquerade.

"A noseguard? What for?"

"You wear it to protect your nose and teeth when playing football,"

explained Billy. "Keeps you from swearing, too. You hold this piece between your teeth; the other part goes over your nose, up between your eyes and fastens with this band around your forehead."

"Why! Why!" gasped Clarke, "there was a man at the masquerade togged out as a football player!"

"I saw him," said Alec. "And he wore one of these things. I saw him talking to Topsy."

"One of my guests?" demanded Lake scoffingly. "Oh, nonsense! Some young fellow has been in here yesterday, talking to the clerks, and dropped it. Who went as a football player, White? You know all these college boys. Know anything about this one?"

"Not a thing." There Billy lied--a prompt and loyal gentleman--reasoning that b.u.t.tinski, as he mentally styled the interloper who had misappropriated the Quaker lady, would have cared nothing at that time for a paltry thirty thousand. Thus was he guilty of a practice against which we are all vainly warned--of judging others by ourselves. Billy remembered very distinctly that Miss Ellinor had not reappeared until the midnight unmasking, and he therefore acquitted her companion of this particular crime, entirely without prejudice to b.u.t.tinski's felonious instincts in general. For the watchman had been shot before midnight.

Billy made a tentative mental decision that this famous noseguard had been brought to the bank later and left there purposely; and resolved to keep his eye open.

"Oh, well, it's no great difference anyhow," said Lake. "Whoever it was dropped it here yesterday, I guess, and got another one for the masquerade."

"Hold on there!" said Clarke, holding the spotlight tenaciously. "That don't go! This thing was on top of one of those pieces of the safe!"

For the first time Lake was startled from his iron composure.

"Are you sure?" he demanded, jumping up.

"Sure! It was right here against the sloping side of this piece--so."

"That puts a different light on the case, gentlemen," said Lake. "Luck is with us; and----"

"And, while I think of it," said Clarke, making the most of his unexpected opportunity, "I made notes of all the costumes and their wearers after the masks were off--for the paper, you know--and I saw no football player there. I remember that distinctly."

"I only saw him the one time," confirmed Alec, "and I stayed almost to the break-up. Whoever it was, he left early."

"But what possible motive could the robber have for going to the dance at all?" queried Lake in perplexity.

"Maybe he made his appearance there in a football suit purposely, so as to leave us some one to hunt for, and then committed the robbery and went back in another costume," suggested Clarke, pleased and not a little surprised at his own ingenuity. "In that case, he would have left this rubber thing here of design."