Tobias O' The Light Part 43

"How do you know all this?" demanded the young woman, with strong emotion.

"Well, the chap that first put me wise to it was a fellow named Degger.

Stopping at the hotel in town. Oh, he knows Endicott well," added the detective confidently. "Went to college with him. That's where the boys show up their real characters oftentimes. They're away from home and cut loose from mamma's ap.r.o.n-strings. This Endicott certainly was a cut-up at Cambridge."

"So Degger says, eh?" muttered the lightkeeper.

"Oh, he only gave me the first steer. I soon beat up further evidence.

And, anyway, he was back in Clinkerport late that evening," added the detective. "He was seen by more than one. It seems Endicott had about five hundred dollars in the bank. He could not check it out over the bank counter so late, but he got the postmaster to cash his check for that sum."

"Five hundred dollars?" murmured Tobias. "Oh, sugar! That's a mort o'

money to take with him on a fishing v'y'ge. Humph!"

"He's got more than that with him," said the other grimly. "But that's the reason he and his friends didn't blow the post-office safe. There was nothing left in it but the stamps. That young sharper cleaned up all the cash the postmaster happened to have on hand."

"Humph!" again repeated Tobias. "So he did all that, did he? And then?"

"Don't fret," said the detective airily. "We know about everything he did in Clinkerport that evening before the bank burglary. Yes, sir. He sent a registered package-let's see? Yes, here's the address. Do either of you know this woman?"

He thrust forward a card which he took from his vest pocket. Tobias did not offer to accept it, but Lorna leaned forward and repeated aloud the name and address:

"'Miss Cora Devine, 27 Canstony Street, Charlestown, Ma.s.s.'"

"There's always some woman mixed up in these affairs. This Devine girl is probably a crook's light o' love. I've put our Boston office onto her. Oh, we'll round up the whole gang before we get through."

"How about rounding up the money that was stole?" demanded Tobias with some disgust. "Seems to me that'd be more to the p'int."

"Don't you worry about that, either, old scout," said the detective.

"We know where a part of the money is all right-the biggest share of it in all probability."

"Huh? Where?"

"In that suitcase this gay young Endicott took aboard that catboat down to Peehawket Cove," snapped the other.

"Oh, sugar!"

"And where is he and that catboat?" ventured Lorna, in a very small voice.

"According to report, the catboat is a wreck down there on what is called the jaw of Cape Fisher."

"Now, now, Lorny!" exclaimed Tobias, rising suddenly and going around the table to the young woman's side. "Don't you believe it!"

"Oh, to the best of my belief," the detective hastened to say, "Endicott abandoned the catboat. Over the long-distance 'phone, by way of Harbor Bar, I got the tip that Endicott did board that fishing boat, the _Nelly G_. I understand she is bound for the Grand Banks. That was his scheme for an alibi. He thought himself pretty shrewd, no doubt. But we'll get him yet."

"You're sure o' that, be ye?" sighed Tobias.

"Well, I'd bet money on it," rejoined the man with confidence.

"So he got aboard the _Nelly G._ after all?" ruminated Tobias.

"He was seen to by two witnesses. He had to abandon the catboat, the sea was so heavy. It was just before dark last evening."

"Oh!" and the lightkeeper comfortingly patted Lorna's shoulder. "Then she's well on her way to the banks. Of course."

"Don't be too sure of that," said the detective. "That is what brings me down this way. I am on my way to the Lower Trillion life-saving station. It is reported that the _Nelly G._ is in trouble somewhere off there. The wires are down, so that we could not communicate with the station direct. But a fellow was up from Peehawket-that old fellow that owned the catboat-and he came to the bank and told Mr. Thompson."

"You mean to say," Tobias asked hoa.r.s.ely, "that the schooner's in trouble? This schooner that Ralph Endicott boarded?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. What's the matter with that girl?"

Tobias with flushed visage and angry eyes faced the detective. Lorna sat rigidly in the chair, her eyes closed, her face pallid.

"What did Gyp Pellet say? What's the matter with the _Nelly G._?"

demanded the lightkeeper. "She has been beating off and on all night and to-day. She has got distress signals flying. I am going down there to find out what it means. I guess that Endicott fellow won't get so far away, after all."

Tobias took both the small hands of the girl in his big one. He leaned above her, patting her shoulder tenderly. There was understanding in his att.i.tude, as there was at last in Lorna's heart.

She no longer could deny the truth. Ralph Endicott was in dire peril if the _Nelly G._ was threatened with disaster. And she could not hide the fact that she loved him!

CHAPTER XXV

ACROSS THE YEARS

The Nicholets and the Endicotts had been sworn allies for generations.

Their genealogical roots were entwined in early Ma.s.sachusetts Bay history. Their forebears had perhaps helped each other burn witches and slaughter Indians in the ancient days. Basicly the families were even now as puritanical as the Sacred Codfish.

Yet under ordinary circ.u.mstances the Endicotts and the Nicholets, although living side by side, would seldom think of interfering in-or even discussing-each other's private affairs. New England people are that way-the better cla.s.s. Without being invited to do so Miss Ida would not have concerned herself in the Endicotts' financial difficulties except in this extraordinary situation.

The shocking story that Lorna had brought home-this utterly preposterous accusation against Ralph-quite startled Miss Ida out of the rut of usage. Although she had been consulted in their trouble by no member of the Endicott family, she felt that she must offer sympathy and-if possible-a.s.sistance. Although she seldom troubled her mind about financial affairs-leaving those details to her brother-Miss Ida was really the head of the Nicholet family. The bulk of the family wealth was hers, as well as the homestead at Harbor Bar.

She was in a position therefore to aid Henry Endicott privately, were he in need-as she believed he was. The professor's awkwardness when he had called on her several evenings previous, when he had really come to offer his a.s.sistance to Lorna's father, had served to convince Miss Ida that the Endicotts were in need.

For years everybody who knew him had said that Professor Endicott was wasting his substance in experiments that would never amount to anything of a practical nature. Miss Ida herself believed that he had frittered away much time and money since resigning as a young man from the chair of experimental chemistry in a mid-New England college.

Just what had happened twenty and more years before this present date to drive the wedge between Miss Ida and Henry Endicott no member of either family knew. A match that at the time was considered eminently fitting had suddenly become impossible. That was all anybody-save the two most interested persons themselves-ever learned about it.

It was years later, when Ralph and Lorna were half grown, that Professor Endicott and Miss Ida Nicholet began to agree on one important subject.

The two families should be united through Ralph and Lorna. The young people, they both said, were made for each other.

That this statement had likewise been made _en famille_ about themselves when they were young, Miss Ida and Henry Endicott perhaps had forgotten.

At least-as has been shown-neither would admit to nephew and niece any good reason why the latter should not fulfill the arrangement.

On this particular morning Miss Ida was not thinking of her niece's opposition to being joined with Ralph Endicott in wedlock. She flung a shawl about her shoulders and wound a knitted scarf around her head to venture out into the gale. A less important errand than the one she had in view might have caused her to hesitate on the side porch. The gale off the water was all but breath-taking.

On a day like this Mrs. Lucy Markham would not leave her own apartment.