  Hurrying along the shadowed road beside Dr. David Stone and Lady, Joe Morrow was conscious of the hard pounding of his heart against his ribs. The telephone call from Police Captain Tucker had been terse and abrupt, but out of it had come alarm and revelation. The explosion he and his uncle had heard an hour ago had not been the backfire of an automobile, but the murderous bark of a pistol. And Ira Close, the Foster’s hired man, had been shot, and nine-year-old Billy Foster had been kidnaped. Joe gulped. He had seen the small boy at school that afternoon. Moonlight flooded the yard in the rear of Ben Foster’s house, and black shapes stood out in sharp relief. Pressed against the powerful flanks of the dog Joe strained his eyes and made them out: Mr. Foster, agitated, walking back and forth restlessly; Captain Tucker staring hard at the ground, and a third man—Why, the third man was Ira Close. The boy gave a suppressed cry. “He’s there, Uncle David.” “Billy?” Dr. Stone asked eagerly. “No, sir; Ira. Ira wasn’t shot badly. It’s only his hand. His hand is bandaged.” Dr. Stone said: “Lady, left,” and the dog swung them into the Foster yard. At the sound of their feet on the driveway gravel Mr. Foster gave a cry and hurried toward them. “Thank God, Doctor, you’re here. If you can find him, if you can get him back——” “Are you sure,” the doctor broke in quietly, “he hasn’t gone to a friend’s house and stayed for supper? Small boys sometimes forget to come home.” Captain Tucker shook his head. “It’s kidnaping. We have the ransom note. Five thousand dollars.” “Ten thousand!” Mr. Foster cried wildly. “Fifteen! Any amount, so long as he comes back unharmed.” “Easy,” said Dr. Stone, and took out his pipe and reached into a pocket for tobacco. Amid the hysterical panic he was controlled, steady. “If we’re to get any place we must try to think clearly. When was the boy seen last?” Captain Tucker answered. “Four o’clock.” “Then we know he wasn’t kidnaped until after four. And about eight o’clock you were given a ransom note. That means the kidnapers were in the neighborhood an hour ago. How did the note get here?” “It was brought to me,” said Mr. Foster. “Who brought it?” “Ira.” Dr. Stone’s hand came out of his pocket without the tobacco pouch. Joe, startled, saw his uncle’s eyes turn, as though by instinct, toward the hired man he could not see. Ira Close, always given to a dull, stupid sullenness, shifted his thick-set, muscular body awkwardly. “I sent him out to find Billy,” Mr. Foster explained. “The boy had been gone since four o’clock when he went out of the house with a plate of food for his rabbits. I thought he might have gone trailing after that organ-grinder——” “What organ-grinder?” Dr. Stone asked sharply. Again it was Captain Tucker who answered. “A stranger, doctor. Gave his name as Pasquale Monetti. Came to the police station four days ago and paid two dollars for a permit. Had a monkey on a chain. The kids have been following him all over the village.” The doctor said quietly: “How did you come to get the note, Ira?” “I went for Billy like Mr. Foster said.” The man’s voice was a low rumble. “Down by the Howard’s woodlot there’s a bang and I know I’m shot.” “The right thumb,” said Captain Tucker. “The bullet creased the skin.” “It bled,” Ira Close said unemotionally, and Joe saw blood on the handkerchief-bandage. “He tells me not to move, and ties my arms behind, and puts the note in my pocket.” “He,” Dr. Stone said. “What he, Ira?” “The organ-grinder.” “You’re sure?” “Yes.” “Did you see him?” “No; I have my back turned. He does not talk our kind of American.” Captain Tucker gave a grunt of exasperation. “That’s too thin for identification. A thousand men within twenty miles might talk with a foreign accent. I can’t understand this, Doctor. If somebody wanted to use Ira to carry a message why did they shoot close enough to hit him?” “I wonder,” Dr. Stone said gravely. His hand went into his pocket and this time came out with the pouch. Slowly, almost leisurely, he filled the pipe. Joe Morrow, groping in the dark for light, abruptly grasped the cords of memory. “Ira could have known his voice,” the boy cried, excited. “How’s that?” Captain Tucker barked. “I saw Ira talking to the organ-grinder yesterday in front of the bank.” “I asked him about the monkey,” Ira said stolidly. “I thought maybe I might buy one for Billy.” “Why didn’t you tell us that?” Captain Tucker flared in a temper. “Here we’re wasting time——” “And my boy being taken farther away every minute,” Mr. Foster groaned in sick despair. “Do something! I tell you I can’t stand this waiting, waiting! Do something!” “Perhaps,” Dr. Stone said gently, “we have already done something. How was Ira tied, Tucker? Tight?” “I’ve seen them tied tighter. Didn’t have to cut the rope—slipped it down over his elbows. A botchy job.” “This organ-grinder?” “Swarthy, with a heavy mustache. Not over four and one-half feet tall and weighing about 135.” “How much do you weigh, Ira?” the doctor asked. The hired man answered without interest. “One hundred eighty-five pounds.” Joe, trying to read his uncle’s face, found it inscrutable. And yet the question meant something. The pipe had gone out; Dr. Stone lighted it again. “Let’s try to reconstruct this crime, Tucker. At four o’clock Billy left the house with feed for the rabbits. After that—a blank. Did he feed the rabbits and wander on? Did he ever reach the warren?” “No,” Mr. Foster choked. “Whatever happened to him happened here.” And then, for the first time, Joe saw what lay upon the ground in the moonlight—the shattered pieces of a blue plate, scraps of lettuce and carrot, and a boy’s cap. Evidently, Billy Foster had never reached the rabbit warren with the feed. While Captain Tucker described the scene to the blind man, Joe picked up the cap. Why, they were in full view of the house. Could a boy be kidnaped in broad daylight from his own doorstep? “It couldn’t have happened,” Captain Tucker insisted testily. “Not here. The place is too open. Probably something startled the boy and he dropped the plate.” “If he were frightened,” Dr. Stone asked mildly, “why didn’t he run to the house? What frightened him? Did whatever happen happen so quickly that there was no time to run? And then there’s something else.” “What?” Captain Tucker snapped. “The cap. It would take quite a fright to pop a cap off a boy’s head.” The blind man put the pipe back in his pocket. “You’ve kept track of this organ-grinder, haven’t you, Tucker? Where has he been staying?” “Petey Ring’s shack on the river.” “I think,” Dr. Stone said, “it might be worth our while to go down toward the river.” A dozen steps toward Captain Tucker’s car he paused. “You’d better have that finger looked at, Ira. Gun-shot wounds can develop lock-jaw.” “Doctors want money,” Ira Close said resentfully. “It’s a common failing,” the blind man observed pleasantly. Joe tingled. Something lay behind those four words. But again the bland face was expressionless. Petey Ring, unkempt and wrapped in a soiled apron, met them in the frowsy public room of this river “hotel.” “Cap,” he said, “I was just thinking of giving you a buzz. You know that bird who’s been penny snatching with a monk?” Joe’s mouth fell open, and Dr. Stone stopped dead in his tracks. “Where is he?” Captain Tucker demanded. “Ask me. I ain’t clapped a peeper on him since this morning. Looks to me like he’s taken it on the lam. You got a line out for him, Cap?” The captain shrugged. “Just checking up, Petey. What time did he shove off.” “You’re asking me? I thought he was out working his graft. Then there’s a jabbering from his room, and there’s the monk all alone in there throwing fits.” Dr. Stone’s voice cut in. “Where’s his room?” Petey, stepping past the dog warily, led the way. The room was a squalor of untidiness. Dirty blankets were tumbled on the army cot bed, and a cracked mirror stood upon a paint-chipped dresser. The hand-organ, gaudy with cheap trappings, leaned in a corner and, attached to it by a light chain was a wizened, wrinkled, black-faced monkey. The animal flew into a rage, climbed the length of its chain and, from the top of a window-casing, shrieked and chattered. “Ira was right,” Captain Tucker said harshly. “And we’re too late.” Joe’s throat ached. Jolly Billy Foster taken by violence and held for ransom! Hidden away in some dark hole, probably, homesick and terror-stricken. He looked at his uncle. The blind man’s face had become intent. “This room reeks,” Dr. Stone said, “with the stench of cheap shaving soap. Search it.” “For what?” Captain Tucker asked, puzzled. “Hair.” Joe, conscious only of the stale stench of the room, marveled that his uncle could detect the smell of soap. He poked into the corners. Petey, lounging in the doorway, watched the search narrowly. “What’s this bird been pulling, Cap?” “Kidnaping,” Captain Tucker threw at him. Petey went white. “So help me, Cap. I’m out of it. You ain’t got a thing on me. Take my oath. I ain’t touching nothing like that. Who’d he snatch?” There was no answer. Lady, pawing, had brought a ball of paper out from under the bureau. Captain Tucker opened the wad. “Hair,” he said. “There’s blood, too,” Joe cried. The blind man whistled soundlessly. “A shaved off mustache and a cut lip.” “Tried a disguise and marked himself.” Captain Tucker bolted for the door. They pushed past the alarmed, agitated Petey and left him crying after them. At the railroad station a strange agent, a relief for the regular man, came to the ticket window. “Did you sell a ticket late this afternoon or this evening to a man with a cut lip?” Captain Tucker barked the question. “Why, yes.” The agent spoke with a slow, maddening drawl. “Short, dark fellow. Couldn’t help noticing that lip. Looked as though——” “How many tickets did he buy?” “Why, if I recollect, he bought one. Yes; one ticket.” “Where to?” “Peekskill. Yes; I remember that. Just happens that I have a married daughter in Peek——” Captain Tucker frothed. “Never mind your family. This is important. What train did he take?” The agent was galvanized into more rapid speech. “The 6:29.” “Did you see him get on?” “Yes. Yes; I did. I happened to be looking out the window——” “Did he get on alone or did he have someone with him. Quick!” “He got on alone.” No flicker of change showed in Dr. Stone’s face, but Captain Tucker was staggered. Joe was suddenly wan and bleak. Had they followed the trail this far only to have it fail them. And then, abruptly, the police captain was pounding the grille of the ticket-window with a huge fist. “What time does that train make Peekskill? In twelve minutes? Get that key working. I want that man with the cut lip held. If he doesn’t get off the train have it searched. Give me that telephone.” The captain called Peekskill police. Presently they were out on the platform and he took off his cap and fanned his face. Green signal lights blinked out of the darkness down the right of way. “Doctor, what did he do with the boy?” “Perhaps he did nothing,” the doctor said quietly. Joe stiffened with new hope. That tone of his uncle’s—? But the captain, brooding, was lost in his own thoughts. “There’s a slant to this I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “That boy was kidnaped in broad daylight. Snapped out of his own yard. How could a stranger have brought him through a village where he was known? How could he have been taken past his own house out to the road?” “I have been thinking about that,” Dr. Stone admitted. The blind face was again intent. “Suppose we go back to the house.” Mr. Foster hurried toward them with pathetic haste. “Any news?” “The organ-grinder left for Peekskill on the 6:29,” Captain Tucker told him. “I’ve telephoned and wired. They’ll pick him up when the train gets there.” “Was Billy with him?” The captain made a merciful answer. “I’m not sure.” Ira Close came across the yard through the moonlight. “You want me to pick up those pieces of plate, Mr. Foster?” “I’ll take care of them, Ira. I—I don’t want Mrs. Foster to see them.” “Have you his cap?” Dr. Stone asked with that same understanding gentleness. “I don’t believe he was ever taken out to the road. Now, Tucker, if you’ll lead me to where the plate was dropped—. Lady, forward.” Joe could feel Ira Close beside him rubbing the injured hand as though it pained, but his eyes were on the man walking beside the dog. They came to the shattered pieces of crockery. The doctor held the cap to the dog’s nose. “Lady, find,” he said quietly. Joe trembled. What now? Nose to the ground, the great, tawny dog sniffed for the scent. And then it moved, not toward the road but off to the left toward a grove of apple trees. The blind man pulled on the leash and the dog stopped. “What lies ahead, Foster?” “The orchard, the barn where Ira has a room in the loft, the chicken runs, the cow shed, and Billy’s rabbits.” Captain Tucker exploded. “Doctor, this is getting nowhere. The boy may have gone to the rabbits. That’s the trail you may be following this minute.” In the moonlight the sightless eyes were calm. “Aren’t you forgetting the broken plate, Captain? He started out with feed. Why should he go on without it?” Beside him Joe Morrow could feel the hired man still rubbing the hand and hear the soft scraping of flesh along the bandage. The doctor appeared to listen to something in the night. “Are you going on?” Mr. Foster cried. “Tomorrow,” the blind man said with that same gentleness. “The night offers obstacles. We might miss something we should see.” “But to wait—to wait—” The voice broke. “We wouldn’t hold you in suspense a moment longer than necessary. Tomorrow, at daybreak. Have you the cap, Joe? Don’t lose it.” Ira rumbled a heavy “good-night” and passed from the moonlight into the shadow of the orchard. A woman’s voice called: “Pa! Pa! Captain Tucker’s wanted on the telephone.” The captain hurried toward the house. Dr. Stone spoke softly: “Ira’s been with you a long time, Foster?” “Nine years. Surly, but a good worker. A bit gruffer than usual tonight. Billy was always a little afraid of him; that’s probably on his mind. And then this shooting and the loss of his money.” “Money?” “Three hundred dollars. He drew it out yesterday to send to his sister and carried it in a hip pocket. That’s the pocket in which the organ-grinder put the note. The money’s gone.” The blind man’s head was thrown back; Joe saw the lips strained and tight once more. Captain Tucker came out of the house, slowly. “Bad news,” he blurted. “Our man fooled us. Wasn’t on the train; slipped off at one of the way stations.” Mr. Foster swayed unsteadily. “Don’t,” he begged hoarsely, “tell Billy’s mother.” The policeman walked down the driveway with the doctor. “That Italian may have left the train a station or two out, and come back for the boy. I’ve ordered every road out of the village guarded.” Joe came away with a choking lump in his throat. The blind man, holding the harness and walking close to the dog, whistled an almost soundless whistle. The boy knew, by this sign, that the brain behind the sightless eyes had caught a glimmer of light. Suddenly, without warning, the apple-scented peace of the night was broken by a flash and a roar. A whistling whine filled the air. “Drop!” Dr. Stone cried. Not until he lay prone in the road did the boy grasp the significance of flash and roar. Somebody had fired on them from ambush. A shuddering chill ran up his spine, and sweat stood out upon his forehead. The moon-splashed world was silent again, and faintly to his nostrils came the drift of burnt powder. Dr. Stone stood up. “Another shot,” he called clearly, “and I’ll send the dog to tear you down. Come, Joe.” Quaking, Joe stood up. They moved ahead again, and the boy’s nerves were torture-tight as he waited for another flash and roar. But the silence remained unbroken and they came at last to the welcome protection of home. The boy’s voice trembled. “Why did the organ-grinder come back and shoot at us?” “That bullet,” Dr. Stone said grimly, “was intended for Lady, not for us.” His hand fell upon the dog’s head. “Old girl, somebody’s afraid you know too much.” In the chill dark of the following morning the boy and the man gulped hot coffee in the kitchen. Arising from the table Dr. Stone walked to a desk in the hall, took out a small first-aid kit, and slipped it into a pocket. Then man, boy and dog were out in the road, when the first golden streak was faint in the eastern sky. Captain Tucker’s car stood in the driveway. Mr. Foster looked as though he had not slept. Ira Close, his right hand wrapped in a handkerchief, went about small chores. Dr. Stone said: “Could Ira get Lady a drink, Foster?” Ira brought water in a pan. The blind man, shifting the leash, stumbled against the dog and tottered. Joe, with a cry of alarm, sprang forward. But the doctor’s arms, outstretched, had gone around the hired man; they slipped along the stout body, down, down—. He caught himself and stood erect. Ira Close swore morosely and swung an arm. “That finger?” Dr. Stone asked, concerned. “I warned you. Why didn’t you have a doctor see it?” “I fixed it myself.” “Nonsense. Here; give it to me.” After a moment of hesitation the hand was held out. Joe watched his uncle’s fingers move as though they had eyes. The tweezers came out of the kit. Abruptly the doctor’s body was between him and the throbbing wound. “Fever in here,” the blind man said; “infected.” Ira Close cried aloud. Joe glimpsed a corner of his uncle’s face, intent, strained; then there was the drip of iodine, and Dr. Stone stepped back. The blind eyes were bland and serene. “Have Mrs. Foster bandage it,” he said. Ira went into the house. The kitchen door slammed shut, and immediately tranquility left the doctor. “Tucker, stay here. Joe, this way. A few minutes, Foster; just a few minutes.” Back where the broken plate had lain yesterday, Dr. Stone unhooked the leash and gave the dog the scent of the cap. “Lady, find,” he urged. The tawny dog, as though puzzled by the absence of the leash, looked up inquiringly. “Find,” the man said again. Lady, nose down, padded toward the orchard. “Take me back, Joe.” The boy had the feeling that they hung in air. Ira Close came out of the house with a finger freshly bandaged. Captain Tucker gave an exclamation of surprise. “Doctor! Where’s the dog?” Lady made her own answer. From some place in the near distance they heard her deep-toned, full-throated, insistent bark. “Foster,” Dr. Stone said quietly, “I think Lady has found your boy.” Two men began to run—Foster toward the orchard, Ira Close toward the road. To Joe Morrow the world whirled and spun. Dr. Stone cried, “Look out, Tucker; he has a gun.” The policeman leaped, and the hired man went down. With amazing quickness brawny arms turned Ira over, and the first shaft of sunlight glinted on a blue barrel. “See if there are two exploded cartridges,” the doctor called. Captain Tucker broke the gun. “Two,” he said. “What does this mean, Doctor?” “It means you have your kidnaper.” And so it came that Ira Close, snarling and venomous, sat handcuffed in Captain Tucker’s police car. “Where’s the boy, Doctor?” “In the barn, most likely. Not a bad idea, was it? Snatch the boy and hide him away three hundred feet from his home. Who’d think of looking for him there? Why should anybody look for him there when the hue and cry had gone out for an organ-grinder who had disappeared after trying to disguise himself? “Why did Ira do it? You’ll have to ask him. The papers have been full of kidnapings and ransoms. Probably, with a greed for money, he’d been turning the thing in his mind for a long time. Then came the organ-grinder, and that brought inspiration. But there was one point, Tucker, you failed to take into account, and that was why I was not surprised to learn the Italian had boarded the train alone. A man, fleeing after a crime, does not shave off his mustache and leave the clipped hairs behind him to advertise his disguise. “Ira snapped Billy up yesterday afternoon. The boy had never liked him; there was a momentary struggle. The signs of it lay upon the ground. Probably he hid the boy in the barn loft and gagged him. With the coming of night there was alarm in the Foster home. ‘Ira, go see if you can find Billy!’ He had anticipated that command. And so he went forth, and managed to run a noose up his arms, and came back with the note and a cock-and-bull story. He was loosely tied. Did you ever see a captive who was not tied tightly? For this Italian to tie Ira, a taller man, he would have to put away his gun. Can you picture 185-pound Ira allowing a 135-pound stripling, no longer flourishing a pistol, to wind him with a rope? It didn’t hold together. “Nor was that the only point where the story didn’t hold together. Ira made positive identification of the organ-grinder. He identified him through a foreign accent. But he said nothing of a previous meeting until Joe told of seeing them in conversation. Where had that conversation been held? Outside the bank. Not significant in itself, but strikingly significant when we find Ira suddenly announcing to Foster that he had drawn three hundred dollars from the bank to send to his sister and that it had been stolen from his pocket. “What’s your guess about that three hundred dollars, Tucker? Mine is that it went to the organ-grinder. The Italian is guilty of no wrong. All he knows is that a stranger offered him three hundred dollars to shave off his mustache, abandon his organ and monkey, disappear quietly and leave the train before reaching the station for which he had purchased a ticket. Why did Ira tell us about the three hundred dollars? What’s your guess, Tucker? Mine is that he was suddenly touched with a cold fear. The withdrawal of the money was a matter of record at the bank. The money was taken out the day of the kidnaping, the day of the organ-grinder’s disappearance. These facts might have given rise to a few unpleasant questions.” Joe, breathless, looked at Captain Tucker. The policeman frowned doubtfully. “How about that shot in the finger, Doctor? Do you mean he shot himself?” “What’s your guess?” Dr. Stone asked mildly. “Mine is that, when he was sent out to look for Billy, he fired a shot in the air as an after-thought. Do you remember, when we got there, that his hand pained? He kept rubbing it as though it throbbed. Infection doesn’t set in so quickly, Captain; there must be a period of incubation. He had cut that finger earlier in the day. He objected to going to a doctor even after I warned him of lock-jaw. Why? Because he didn’t fear the lock-jaw that may follow a gun-shot wound. Because he knew that no doctor would look at that wound and believe it came from a bullet. Of course, he let me handle it; but, then, I am blind. He figured I didn’t count. My guess is that, in running the rope over his arms, he reopened a wound he had received earlier in the day.” “By the Eternal,” Captain Tucker burst out, “this seems to be nothing but guesses. You guess this and you guess that. How about a few facts. We have placed this man in irons. If Billy isn’t found you and I may discover ourselves in a sweet peck of trouble.” A voice called from the house: “Captain Tucker! Telephone.” The captain mounted the porch steps. The doctor, fishing out his pipe, methodically stuffed it with tobacco. “I can’t understand,” he said musingly, “why you didn’t light out last night, Ira, after trying to shoot Lady. Afraid to run and lose five thousand dollars, and afraid to stay and be caught. You were in one sweet peck of trouble, weren’t you, Ira?” Ira said nothing. “How were you going to work it? Collect the money and then get word to them where to find the boy?” The hired man glared in impotent fury. Captain Tucker, looking slightly dazed, came back to the car. “They picked up our Italian in a small village fifteen miles above Peekskill.” “Search him, Captain?” “Of course.” “Did they,” the doctor asked mildly, “find three hundred dollars in his pocket?” “Three hundred dollars to the penny in one roll.” The captain fanned his face with his uniform cap. Abruptly the motion of the cap stopped. “Look here, Doctor; you said you found the first clew in that injured hand.” “The first clew and the last,” the doctor told him. “The last? Did you find something else when you dressed that finger a little while ago?” The blind man puffed serenely on the pipe. “I found a nasty cut and something foreign imbedded in the cut. It had set up the infection; I could feel it under the pressure of my fingers. I took it out with the tweezers. Something hard and gritty, Captain. I haven’t seen it; it’s safely stowed away in my pocket. But I’ll stake my soul it’s a chipped splinter from a broken blue plate.” At that moment Joe Morrow saw Lady and Mr. Foster emerge from the orchard, and the man carried a small boy in his arms. |
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