Two Boys and a Fortune Part 15

Roy did not make any reply. He had sat down on a chair by the bureau, on which he was resting his elbow. His eyes were fixed thoughtfully on the book rack opposite in which stood the volume of which Mr. Keeler was the author.

"Rex," he said suddenly, "come on downstairs."

"I've got to go down any way with this rubbish. But what's come over you, Roy? You look as sober as a judge in a criminal case."

"I'll show you in the library," was all Roy's reply, then recollecting that the girls would be anxious to hear his report, he hurried out and down the stairs.

Eva and Jess were still standing by the newel post.

"Well?" they asked in a breath.

"It was only the old clock Rex knocked down. Mr. Keeler has gone up to bed."

"Did you tell Rex?"

"No, not yet. Here he comes now."

Eva went out and showed her brother where to deposit the contents of the newspaper. Then she brought him back into the library and pointed out the portrait of Martin Blakesley.

Rex understood at once what it meant, for he had been looking at the book.

"Whew!" he brought out this low whistle and then glanced from one to the other of his companions.

"You think it is the same man then?" said Roy.

"It looks exactly like him, and I suppose it would be as easy for him to take the name Keeler as any other alias."

"But there is a Charles Keeler," went on Roy, "I didn't know these men would dare masquerade around the country as such famous people. They would be sure to be found out."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Rex.

It was characteristic of him that, though he had himself invited Keeler to the house, he was now putting all the responsibility on his brother.

"Let's sit down and talk it over calmly," replied Roy. "I've been thinking the thing over and I can't see what harm it can do to let Mr.

Keeler stay."

"What, a confidence man!" exclaimed Rex and Jess in a breath.

"He may have reformed," continued Roy. "He didn't plan deliberately to come to this house, nothing he has said or done since he has been here has made us suspect him of being anything else than what he claimed to be."

"But if he has reformed what would he be going around pretending to be what he wasn't for?" interrupted Jess, "You don't suppose that Martin Blakesley and Charles Keeler, the author, are one and the same person, do you?"

Roy did not answer for a minute. He had plainly not thought of this side of the matter.

"Ugh! it makes me creep," went on Jess, "to feel that a man who has been in state's prison twice is in this very house and going to stay here all night. I'm going to stay up until morning. I think I'll sit down here and read the lives of these criminals. It will be an appropriate occupation."

"You girls needn't stay up at all," said Rex. "Roy and I will stand guard."

"Oh, I couldn't sleep if I went to bed," declared Jess. "I don't know as I can ever sleep again so long as we are in this house. Think how he must know all the ins and outs of it by this time!"

"How silly you talk, Jess," interposed Eva. "One would think to hear you that Mr. Keeler was a common burglar. As Roy says, he didn't plan to come here, and like as not he'll go away in the morning without having disturbed us in the least."

"You're standing up for him, are you, Eva? Well, I thought his good looks were making an impression on you."

"Jessie, you have no right to talk in that way. I'm not standing up for him at all. I'm only trying to get you to look at the facts of the case in a sensible way."

"But there's nothing sensible in inviting a jail bird to the house, and having him stay all night. It isn't the sort of thing you can prepare yourself to bear up under in dignified fashion."

"Shall I go up to town and get the constable to come down and arrest him?" asked Rex.

"You can't do that!" returned Roy promptly. "He hasn't committed any crime."

"But if we wait till he does commit one, it will be like locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen."

"You might go over to the Burtons', Roy, and get Will to come and stay with us," Eva suggested.

"And rouse them up at this hour of the night? It's getting on to be eleven o'clock. And it would be a pretty reason to give, wouldn't it: 'If you please, Mr. Burton, we invited a convict to spend the night with us, and now we're afraid.'"

Eva couldn't resist smiling at Roy's way of putting it.

Rex yawned heavily.

"I'm awfully sleepy," he said.

"Yes; and you and Rex were the ones who were to stand guard," Jess reminded him promptly.

"Well, I'm beginning to agree with Eva now," Rex returned. "I haven't an idea that man intends to harm any of us. Perhaps there is some mistake after all and he isn't Martin Blakesley, only somebody that looks like him."

"I don't go to bed on any such uncertainty as that," declared Jess.

"What would we do if we stayed up and we heard him coming down stairs to burglarize the house?" Rex wanted to know.

"If you and Roy weren't shaking in your boots too much to take aim you might bring him to a halt by pointing Syd's pistol at his head."

"I suppose we could ask him to wait first till we ran up to Syd's bureau drawer and got it," retorted Rex with fine irony.

"Mercy sakes! There he is right in the room with the only weapon we've got in the house!" and Jess looked really terrified now. "Why didn't one of you think to take it out?"

"Why didn't you think to tell us who Mr. Keeler was before we asked him to stay all night?" Eva retorted. "You said you knew all the time you had seen him somewhere before."

"The boys had no business to pick up a stranger and bring him to the house in this way," Jess replied. "What do you suppose mother will say when we tell her?"

"You needn't tell her," said Rex.

"Needn't tell her!" exclaimed Jess. "When she finds half the silver gone and Syd's pistol missing I suppose we can say that the cat carried them off."

"Well, I didn't pick the fellow up," affirmed Rex. "It was Roy. He called to me to come and meet him."