A Hunch

Paul, however, did not go home. On the way he changed his mind and went to the library instead. He went to the back of the room and pored over the newspaper files of the past few months. About an hour later he left the library. He had a hunch which gave him a new track to work on. He had a slip of paper in his hand and he looked on the writing on it several times until he memorized it. Then he tore the slip of paper into minute scraps and disposed of it.

Immediately after supper, he went out of the house and walked off. He had a definite destination in mind. At Corral Street, which was two blocks from Water Street, he set about looking for a particular number. That led him about half a mile away from the place of the former fire, which coincided with his hunch. He came upon the number he was looking for. The house was a two story dwelling, set away from the sidewalk. At the gate was a sign:

JONES & JONES
REALTORS
HOUSE FOR RENT

Paul walked around the block and looked over the neighborhood. It was a similarly poor section of the town. Coming back to the empty house, he sneaked into the yard and walked to the rear of the house. Unable to find a good location from which he could watch anyone approaching or entering the house, he retreated a short distance and took up a position behind the gate and sheltered by some shrubbery. From his vantage point, he could not only see anyone approaching the house, but also keep a sharp watch at those passing along the street.

It was already dusk. Paul settled himself, getting as comfortable as possible. There was nothing else to do but wait and see. Perhaps his hunch was a good one, and on the other hand, perhaps a very poor one, he thought to himself. At any rate, he had nothing to lose by going through with it.

Time dragged on. He watched the sky become grayer and darker. The moon rose and the first star came out. Night came on gradually. In spite of himself, he began to fidget and become impatient. Was something going to happen or wasn’t it? He went over in his mind the hunch that he had and tried to figure out how reasonable it was. At least to himself it appeared reasonable. He wondered, however, what Jack or Ken might think of it. It was no use doing that, he told himself, because he had not spoken to them about it. The next moment he was sorry he hadn’t done it. Two heads, three heads are always better than one and they might have seen things about this which had not occurred to him. He felt his eyelids become heavy and tired and he closed his eyes for a second. Only a second. He had to keep watch, he told himself. But even though he fought against it, he did fall sound asleep as he waited. He dreamed a hodge podge in which Mr. Grey, Captain Bob, Ken and Jack were all setting fire to a house, laughing gleefully. When he awoke he felt ashamed of himself for not keeping the watch.

He took up his position again and resumed his watching. How could he fall asleep like that, he asked himself. And he flushed with embarrassment to have committed such an act. For all he knew, somebody may have been here and was gone again. He looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. He had been sleeping for almost an hour. He held his breath and listened. Nothing. For about five minutes he watched the house and the street. Except for an occasional bypasser, nothing happened. He crept out of his hiding and looked all around the house. Nothing seemed to have happened, nobody seemed to have been there. Calling himself a fool, he decided to give up his watch and to go off.

He walked along and meditated upon his foolish hunch. Is it a foolish one, though, he asked himself. If nothing happened tonight, does that mean that there is no basis for my suspicion? Is it not possible that something may happen tomorrow night, or the night after? He stopped in his tracks and thought, suppose something should happen there now, just after I left? For a second he felt that he should turn around and take up his vigil again. He took several steps ahead but then turned around and walked back.

He came to the house. From across the street, he let his eyes roam about the place to see if anything might have happened. Nothing stirred. All seemed to be still and quiet. He went around the block, skipped across a fence and came up from the back of the house. Moving along noiselessly, he crept along the yard. He had made up his mind to go once again all around the house and investigate. Suddenly he caught his breath and flattened himself on the ground, midst the wild tall grasses. He saw a shadow coming around the corner of the house. The man, for such it was wore dark clothes and a slouch hat pulled down over the forehead. Like a shadow, the man moved along the wall. Every few seconds he stopped and looked and listened. There was something familiar about that man, Paul thought. He held his breath and watched, his eyes glued to the moving figure. The next instant he smiled to himself.

The man came to the front of the house, quickly ran across and disappeared behind the wall. Paul got off the ground and sprinted forward. Ducking around the corner of the house, he saw the back of the man, who seemed to be hesitating, undecided as to his next course of action. Paul moved forward on tiptoes. Coming up from behind, he touched the man, who jumped as though touched by an electric spark, “It’s only I, Captain Bob.”

He smiled. The old man stared into his face and for several seconds was speechless. “You—you certainly gave me a scare, boy,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” apologized Paul, “but I thought it was so funny to find you groping around here that—”

Captain Bob grabbed him by the arm and pulled him around to the back of the house. Shaking a finger under the boy’s nose, he muttered, “You! You young upstart! Scaring me like that and thinking it’s funny.” His severity melted and he smiled. “I should imagine it would be funny,” he said, “but what brings you here, my boy?”

Paul smiled. He had not yet gotten over the humor of the situation. “I imagine that we both came here on the same hunch,” he informed the captain.

“How do you know that my hunch is the same as yours? Tell me that.”

“Suppose you tell me your hunch and I’ll tell you mine, Captain Bob,” he said. “And I’ll wager they are both the same.”

“I asked you first,” replied the old man. “If it is the same, I won’t hesitate to say so.”

“Well,” began Paul, “I happened to be looking through the newspaper files of the last two months and I noticed that three out of the last four fires occurred at houses belonging to the Jones and Jones realty company. The papers also mentioned several addresses of other houses of theirs, and I picked this one to look things over.”

“But why should there be anything suspicious about that?” asked the shrewd old man.

“I thought that possibly somebody had a grudge against the realty company or against one of the Joneses. So I thought I might as well do a little investigation.”

Captain Bob wobbled his head. “You young pups!” he muttered. “There is no getting away from you. Did I hear you say that you want to be a doctor?”

“Yes. I am going away to college in September. Jack and I, both of us are going to study to be doctors.”

“Well, I don’t know about your friend Jack, but I think you ought to study to be a detective.”

“Then I guessed?” cried Paul.

“You certainly did,” was the answer. “And let’s walk away before someone sees us. You go first and wait for me at the end of the street.”

Paul obeyed. He sprinted across the yard and over the fence and walked away. Two minutes later, Captain Bob joined him and he related to the old man his experience of that night and how he had already walked off and then returned. “I thought for a while that the hunch was a very poor one,” he concluded.

“No,” answered the captain. “On the contrary, it was a most logical one. Have you done any more investigations along this line?”

Paul became wary. He realized that again Captain Bob was trying to elicit information from him. He shook his head. “Not much,” was his answer.

“Well, just keep it up. Perhaps if we continue we may yet catch the culprit.”

“I hope so,” remarked Paul.

Soon after they separated, Captain Bob saying that he was going home and Paul seriously intended to do the same. In front of his own home, he paused and leaned against the gate. Ken crossed the street and came up to him. “Say, where have you been all evening?” inquired the latter.

“Oh, just following up a hunch of mine.”

“What sort of hunch?”

“Tell you about it later. Did you see Jack?”

“No and he isn’t home either because I went over to call him.”

Paul leaned against the fence and mused. The wind pushed a piece of paper against his leg. Bending down to pull it away, he suddenly remembered something. “Come on,” he said to his friend.

“Where to?” asked Ken.

“To that house which Jack showed us this morning.”

“What for? It is kind of late, too. Almost ten o’clock.”

“We will be back shortly. Come on.”