Tobias O' The Light Part 52

Lorna was left on the sh.o.r.e in a fog of amazement. It was several minutes before she thought of Miss Heppy. Then she went back to the lighthouse. The storm had been abating for an hour or more.

It was not yet half past five when the big automobile swung into the head of Main Street. The round, red face of the sun was just breaking through the drab cloud banks overhanging the sea. Its first beams washed the empty village in a rosy glow. After the turmoil of the night the townspeople were late in rising.

"What do you cal'late on doing?" demanded Tobias, as Ralph halted the car in front of the hotel.

"See if those fellows are here yet. If they're not--"

"I'm with you!" exclaimed the lightkeeper, alighting with alacrity. "If they robbed the bank, why, dad fetch it! they got all my and Heppy's savings, too. I never did like that Degger."

He was right at Ralph's heels when the latter strode into the hotel office. A yawning clerk stopped in the middle of a mighty stretch, and, with mouth agape, stared at the visitors.

"Are Con Degger and Burtwell here?" demanded Ralph.

"Why-why--"

"Are they?"

"Yes. I just got 'em up. The cook's getting them some breakfast, for they are going out on the clam train."

"Where are their rooms?"

"Right upstairs. One flight. At the rear of the hall. Number eight."

This staccato information followed Ralph as he started up the stairs.

Tobias lingered long enough to say to the clerk:

"They needn't hold the clam train for 'em this morning. And you tell the cook his breakfast won't likely be eat by them two scalawags unless he serves it to 'em in jail."

Puffing after his exertions, Tobias was right behind Ralph when the young man reached the door of number eight. Ralph did not stop to knock, but flung the door open.

Conny Degger and his friend were fully dressed, even to their coats and hats. Two strapped valises stood at the foot of one of the beds. The att.i.tude of the men showed that they were more than ordinarily startled by the entrance of the visitors.

"Look out for that Burtwell, Tobias. He carries a pistol," called out Ralph, as he made for Degger.

As Ralph slammed Degger against the wall, Burtwell made a motion toward his hip. There was a heavy water pitcher in the bowl on the washstand.

As Tobias came through the doorway he saw this and grabbed it.

"Ye would, would ye?" he shouted, and, catching the pitcher up and at full arm's length, he broke the heavy piece of crockery over Burtwell's head.

The man crashed to the floor amid the shower of broken crockery, and the subsequent proceedings-even after the constable came to take both Degger and him to the local jail-interested Alonzo Burtwell not at all.

Tobias and Ralph Endicott carried the two bags over to the bank, to which Mr. Arad Thompson had been wheeled in his chair to meet them at this early hour. When the bags were opened the money taken from the bank vault was found packed underneath the clothing of Degger and Burtwell.

"That's a relief, Tobias," the bank president said. "I've had the books examined, for I did not know but one of the employees might be crooked, too. This clears everything up."

It was plain that Burtwell and Conny Degger had committed the burglary without other a.s.sistance. Later the Bankers' Protective a.s.sociation learned that Burtwell was known in the West as one of the most skillful bank burglars who ever "felt out" the combination of a vault doorlock.

The writing of that combination in Ralph Endicott's address book had merely been an attempt made by Conny Degger to throw suspicion on his enemy.

"And o' course," said the lightkeeper, as Ralph turned the prow of the limousine toward the Twin Rocks, steering carefully through the crowd of townsfolk that had gathered before the bank, "the rascal dropped your knife there where I found it. I cal'late he is a reg'lar snake in the gra.s.s, that Degger. And to think of his trying to shine up to our Lorny. Oh, sugar!"

Ralph flashed the old man a sharp glance.

"What do you think, Tobias? Do you suppose Lorna really cared for the fellow?"

"Humph!" was the lightkeeper's non-committal reply.

"For I tell you what it is," the young man went on with earnestness.

"I've been thinking a good deal about it lately--"

"Humph!" said Tobias again. "About it, or about her?"

"Why, confound you, Tobias Ba.s.sett, of course I mean I've been thinking of Lorna. And I think a whole lot of her. But she doesn't care enough about me--"

"Oh, sugar!" drawled Tobias. "I should say not. Risked her life and all. _Would_ go with me in that motor-boat to get them life savers.

Ran all the way to Upper Trillion when my old pumps plumb give out. No, no! Of course she don't think nothing at all about you, Ralph."

"Well--"

"And when she knowed for sure you was aboard that haddocker and it was in danger, she didn't get down on her knees and pray for you by name-oh, no! I cal'late I dreamed that!"

"Tobias!"

"Oh, sugar!" observed the lightkeeper with scorn in his voice. "I cal'late you are purt' near as blind as a bat, Ralph Endicott. Yessir!

That gal loves ye so hard it hurts-jest like I said she would under proper encouragement."

"Lorna?" murmured Ralph, his eyes suddenly suffused.

The car swerved and Tobias grabbed the driver's arm.

"Hey! Do ye want to have us in the ditch? She won't like ye no better with a broken neck. And me-I cal'late I want to live a leetle longer.

In spite o' Hephzibah Ba.s.sett I mean to have some good out o' our recovered savings before I die."

"If she does love me," Ralph went on, "we'll get married right away and I can save her from all the privation she might suffer now that the Nicholets have lost their money."

Tobias suddenly groaned. He turned in the seat to face his companion.

"I give it as my opinion that I'm an awful sinner-the good Lord forgive me! I did it for the best. And Lorna never would have found out she loved you, nor you that you loved her, if ye each hadn't thought t'other was in trouble."

"What do you mean?" asked Ralph, puzzled.

For a second time the old lightkeeper made his confession. Ralph showed at first nothing but wonder.

"And she isn't poor at all?" he finally asked.

"Not so fur as I know."

Ralph Endicott suddenly burst into laughter. "You old fox!" he shouted.

"I believe you were right. I never did think so much about Lorna till I began to worry over her losing her fortune. You are a wonderful psychologist, Tobias Ba.s.sett."