The Rival Campers Part 17

"I see by your card," he continued, gravely, "that you are a private detective. I suppose you are aware that I am a busy man, engaged in important affairs, and have no time in office hours for pleasantries."

"If I had said an amateur detective I should have been more correct, sir, since this is my first case," answered Henry Burns, calmly. "It is so very curious, however, that I feel certain it cannot fail to interest you."

"But will you tell me why it should interest me, and not keep me waiting?" exclaimed the banker, in a tone of impatience. Evidently he did not for a moment connect the boyish figure before him with any possible recovery of his lost jewels.

"I will," replied Henry Burns, speaking deliberately. "Last night some other boys and I watched a man bury a small tin box in the cellar of a deserted house. When the man went away we dug it up. I have the box here; would you like to see it?"

Henry Burns calmly opened the satchel.

But the banker sprang up from the chair in which he had seated himself, and exclaimed, excitedly:

"What do you mean-let me see it-quick!"

Henry Burns pa.s.sed him the box, and with nervous fingers the banker broke the twine with which the boys had secured it. The next instant he had drawn the necklace from the box and held it up, while his hands trembled.

"They're Alice's diamonds, as I hope to live," he cried, unmindful of Henry Burns's presence for the moment. "And the rings and the brooch-everything-everything is here."

"Why," he exclaimed, "the best detectives in this country are working on the case, but I had already begun to despair of ever seeing the jewels again. They are exceedingly valuable, but, besides that, as they were wedding presents to my wife from me, we both prize them far beyond their real worth.

"But be seated. I shall postpone my trip out of town, you may be sure.

And now let me hear the story of your discovery."

In the calm, graphic manner characteristic of him, Henry Burns told the story of the night's adventure.

"Splendid!" exclaimed the banker, as the boy concluded. "You have indeed acted as efficiently as the best detective could have done. We are bound to capture the robbers. Burton must know of this at once."

He rang for an attendant, and, after writing a note, dispatched him with it. At the expiration of about half an hour the attendant returned, and ushered into the room a man of medium height, of light complexion, with steel-blue eyes, and a face that impressed Henry Burns at once as denoting great daring and coolness. The banker introduced him as Mr.

Miles Burton, of a secret detective bureau.

"Here's a young man, Burton," said the banker, smiling, "who, I take it, has some inclinations for your line of work. In fact, here is pretty convincing proof of it." And the banker pointed to the box of jewels.

Mr. Miles Burton looked nonplussed. He stared at the box in amazement for a minute, and gave a low whistle. Then he laughed and said: "I have always maintained that luck is a great factor in detective service, though I am ready to give a man his due for a good piece of work. In either case, you have my congratulations, young man, for a half a thousand dollars is just as good whether it comes by luck or shrewdness, or both."

The detective listened with the keenest attention as Henry Burns repeated the story he had told the banker. He made him give the minutest details of Mr. Kemble's personality, at the same time suggesting features which Henry Burns corroborated.

"It's just as I thought from the start, and just as I told you, Mr.

Curtis," he said. "The man is undoubtedly George Craigie, who is known among his cla.s.s as the 'Actor,' because of his cleverness in impersonating one character, and then utterly dropping out of sight and appearing as some other person. We want him on a score of charges, two bank robberies, attempted murder, several house burglaries, and other things. His picture is in the Rogues' Gallery, but he has the art of changing his expression and appearance so completely that, although I have seen him twice since that was taken, at neither of those times did his countenance resemble his photograph. However, I feel positive from what this young man tells me that it is none other than he. And as for his confederates, I can readily guess who they are. They are two Boston men, and are, no doubt, on their way to the island now in the yacht. In this case, we cannot act any too soon; and I shall ask Detective Burns, who is familiar with the ground, to be my right-hand man in the expedition."

"You can count on me," replied Henry Burns, with a smile at the t.i.tle conferred upon him, and who was, truth to tell, vastly flattered. "I can answer, moreover, for several good a.s.sistants, if you need them."

"Well," said Mr. Miles Burton, rising to go, "I will meet you at the train that leaves here to-morrow afternoon. By to-morrow night I hope to have some men on Grand Island who will give a pleasant little surprise to Messrs. Craigie & Co.;" and, bowing courteously, he took his leave.

"There's a surprising lack of jealousy in that man Burton," remarked the banker, when he had gone. "He is disappointed to have the robbers slip through his hands, and a little chagrined, I know, to have them caught through the aid of a party of boys; but he took pains not to show it, and, what's more, he will always give you the credit for it when he speaks of it. That's the kind of a man he is. He is as smart as a steel trap, too, is Burton, and has done me good service twice before.

"But let us not wait longer. I am going to take you home with me to dinner, and have you spend the night at my house. We shall feel more secure, I a.s.sure you," he continued, smiling, "with a detective under our roof."

Henry Burns declined, saying he was not dressed for such hospitality, but the keen eye of the banker had long before taken note of his neat and gentlemanly appearance, and, moreover, liked the looks of the boy's clear-cut features, and the way he had of looking one fair in the eye, with a calm but manly and courageous glance. So he waived the boy's objections, and they entered the banker's carriage and were driven to the finest home Henry Burns had ever visited.

Perhaps they didn't make him at home there when Mr. Curtis had told the story of the finding of the jewels hidden in the cellar; and perhaps Henry Burns, to his confusion, wasn't embraced by the banker's wife, and perhaps he wasn't made a hero of by the banker's two pretty daughters, who shuddered at the story of the man in the cellar, and who made Henry Burns tell it over and over again.

In short, he was treated with such wholesome and charming hospitality as to set him to wondering, after it was all over and he had gone to bed, whether he had not missed something in his solitary life, brought up without the love of father, mother, sister or brother, in a home where noise and cheerfulness were outlawed.

He was up bright and early the next day, and he and the banker went to see Mr. Warren, who was let into the secret, and the reward of five hundred dollars was, through him, placed to the credit of the boys. Then there was the aged aunt of Mrs. Carlin to call upon, and the time pa.s.sed quickly till it was time for the afternoon train.

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon when Henry Burns boarded the train in the company of Miles Burton.

"Now," said the detective, as the train rattled noisily on its way, "I have been in Mayville and know several parties there, but the island is new to me. However, you can explain it to me from this map," and Mr.

Burton unrolled a map of the bay and island from his pocket. "I shall pick up three of my men, whom I have ordered to meet us, in Mayville. One of them came all the way down from New York with me to help me work up this case. It is my opinion he traced this man Craigie to Mayville and lost track of him there. The man must have vanished, as he has done so often before.

"We will go over to the island to-night in a launch. Then we shall need some one to guide us to what you call the haunted house."

"I will meet you in the road by Captain Hervey's house, right at the very head of the island," said Henry Burns. "It is the first house you come to on landing at the outermost point. You cannot miss it."

"But how will you get there? It is a long trip up the island."

"I will come on my bicycle."

"Capital! You will go direct to the island, then, by the night boat, arriving there, you say, at six o'clock. You will see just how the land lies, so you can tell us, when we meet again. And you will instruct your friends to keep close to Craigie, so he won't be over there at the house to meet us on our arrival. We want to do the welcoming for him, and not have him do it for us. Two of the men I shall bring are somewhat familiar with the island and know one or two parties there; though I am not sure they know where the haunted house is.

"One of you boys must have a boat always in readiness somewhere up the cove, on which you say this house fronts, so that, the minute this man meets his confederates aboard the yacht, one of you can slip across the cove and let us know of it, in case we have missed them.

"Act carefully, and everything will be well; but once give them cause for suspicion and they are dangerous men to deal with. I have a little score of my own to pay them,-but that's a long story, and I'll save it for another time. Now let's go over this map, so I'll be sure of my ground."

When the train left Mayville, Miles Burton, with a hurried handshake, left Henry Burns. It was a little after six o'clock when the latter stepped ash.o.r.e at Southport, where the boys were waiting for him, upon the wharf.

"Everything is all right," said George Warren, in answer to Henry Burns's question. "He was not on the roof at all during last night, for we divided up into watches and kept a lookout from Tom's tent. He evidently knows about what time his friends are to arrive."

"How is Colonel Witham?" asked Henry Burns. "Has he pined away any during my absence?"

"Not any to notice," replied Tom Harris, "but he has gone away, down the island, to be gone two days. You must stop with us to-night at the tent, and the boys are all coming over to the tent now to eat one of Bob's prime lobster stews."

So the crowd marched on Bob, and found him down on the beach to the right of the tent, presiding over an enormous kettle, which was hung over the glowing coals of a fire of driftwood, and from which there arose such a savoury odour of stew that, in a burst of enthusiasm, they seized upon the stalwart young cook, and, raising him on their shoulders, bore him with hilarious shouts three times around the fire, much to the apparent discomfiture of the quiet Bob.

Then they sat about the fire while Tom brought some tin plates and spoons from the tent and acted as waiter, and Bob produced a pot of hot coffee and some bread. It seemed as though nothing had ever tasted so good. They called for stew till Bob's stout right arm almost ached with wielding the long-handled tin dipper that served them for a ladle.

The sun sank while they sat about the glow of coals, and, by and by, the moon rose slowly over the distant cape and poured a flood of soft light over the waters of the bay. They remembered that night long afterward, for its soft lights and its silent, mystical beauty. The moon was at its full, and the tide crept up on the beach almost to the bed of coals that remained from the fire and still showed red. The islands far off across the bay seemed to have drifted nearer in to sh.o.r.e, and showed clear and distinct.

Henry Burns's story of the day's adventures lost nothing of its interest, told down there on the sh.o.r.e by the firelight and under the stars. His account of his visit to the banker's, and how he had gained admittance to Mr. Curtis's private office, filled them with glee.

"I should have liked to see him when he opened that box," said young Joe.

"Didn't he look surprised, though, Henry?"

"Rather," said Henry Burns.

"And the banker's daughters,-were they pretty, Henry?" asked Tom.

"I didn't notice particularly," said Henry Burns.

"Henry never does notice those things," said Arthur, dryly.