Paul Gets Into Trouble

Ken and Jack came to Paul’s house but they saw their friend nowhere around. “You think he is in the house?” asked Ken.

“No. He would be waiting for us on the porch.”

“What will we do, then? Where will we wait for him?”

“Let’s wait for him in front of your gate, Ken. He ought to be coming any minute, I suppose.”

The boys leaned against the fence, talking in low tones to while the time away. They were impressed before with how hard it is to be patient, but now it was doubly hard. For it seemed that Paul was not coming. They waited thirty minutes, an hour, an hour and thirty minutes and still no Paul. Jack was actually becoming worried that something had happened to his chum. Ken suggested several times, “Perhaps he is home. Do you think we ought to try to find out? Though it’s a little too late to ring the bell.”

But Jack knew better; he knew his chum. If Paul had returned before they did, he would have waited for them on the porch; that was a certainty. He would not have gone to bed until he had seen and spoken to his friends and made sure that they were all right. Finally Jack could not bear it any longer and he muttered, “I’m going to look for him.”

“I’m going with you,” said Ken with determination. “Where will we look first?”

“There are only two places where we can look—at Jones Street and then that empty house.”

“Where will we go first?”

“What do you think?”

They went down to Main Street, then they were undecided as to which direction to take. Jack said, “Let’s toss a coin.” He drew a nickel out of his pocket. “Heads we go to Jones Street; tails we go to that empty house.”

He tossed the coin into the air, caught it with his right hand and slapped it down on his left wrist. Ken put his head close to see. Jack removed his hand—it was tails up. “The empty house,” he whispered.

When Paul started out early in the evening, he leisurely strolled along Main Street until he came to his destination. There, he examined the house on the corner from every possible view. It was a two story frame house with the grocery occupying most of the ground floor; the rest of the floor, Paul figured, were either closets or some form of storage places. He was pretty sure there were no living quarters on the ground floor. The people who occupied the house lived above the store. By counting the windows—there were seven—he reasoned that there must be either three or four rooms. The grocery man and his wife most likely occupied one room, Mr. Grey another, and the children, if there were any, the other one or two rooms.

By now it had become dusk and Paul thought that it was time to take up some hiding position and watch. The next moment he changed his mind. Instead of hiding anywhere, he nonchalantly took up a position across the street and pretended that he was waiting for someone. He didn’t have to wait long. Pretty soon he saw Mr. Grey emerge from around the corner and walk up Main Street. He wondered where the man was going and what he might be up to. For several seconds he debated with himself whether to follow him or to wait, as he had previously decided, for the grocery man. He chose to wait. About fifteen minutes later he saw his man come out from the rear of the house. “Very clever,” he thought to himself.

The grocery man came to the corner and stopped, looked around and then walked off down Jones Street. Paul wanted to follow but on second consideration he realized that the street was deserted and he would instantly be noticed. He had a hunch, however, that the man’s walking down Jones Street was done on purpose to detect anyone following. Paul ran to the next parallel street and raced to come to the corner first. He hid in a doorway and saw his man round the corner and continue walking on the street parallel to Main Street. This part of the town was rather empty and deserted. He therefore decided to let his man walk at least two hundred and fifty yards ahead of him.

Soon the street became busier, with many people strolling up and down. Paul gradually narrowed the distance between himself and his man. They came to about the centre of the town. Suddenly he caught his breath and his heart began to beat rapidly. He saw Mr. Grey walking the other way, and as the two men passed each other, there was a slight movement of the head on the part of both of them. So they did know each other! So there was some connection between the two! Paul thrilled with the excitement of it.

At the next corner, the grocery man turned in and headed for Main Street, where he turned right and walked straight ahead for several blocks. At about the middle of the street he joined a group of three men who were standing to one side and talking quietly among themselves. Paul crossed to the other side of the street. Pretending that he was looking at a window display, he was actually studying the group of four men. As far as he could tell, they were not native townspeople; everything about them looked as though they came from somewhere else; possibly from a large city. Two of them were very ordinary looking—of average size and wearing the usual summer clothes. The third person was a tall, fat individual, with a big head and a double chin. One thing was common for all three; they all were rather hard looking. Such was the trio that the grocery man had joined.

It was evident that they had a lot to say to each other, for they talked for some time, while people passed up and down and paid no attention to them. Paul decided on a bold step. Walking down a bit, he crossed over and, falling in behind a group of strollers, he passed close to the group of conspirators. But they talked in such low tones that he could not overhear a word they said.

Not seeing any other opportunity of overhearing their conversation, Paul crossed over again, pretended that he was looking at a window display and walked down to the corner and back again. But every second he kept an eye on that group. Finally after about half an hour, the group broke up into twos. The big, fat fellow with one of his companions walked south, while the grocery man and the third of the trio walked north on Main Street. Paul decided to follow the grocery man and his companion.

They walked straight ahead for several blocks, then, very nonchalantly rounded the corner and disappeared. Paul felt the thrill of excitement grow on him; something hot and exciting bubbled inside of him. They had turned into the street on which the empty house was situated. He thought of Ken and Jack and their being on guard. But just then Jack’s well founded hunch occurred to him; perhaps there was a secret entrance and they would not use the front door of the house. He peeked around the corner and saw his men turn off at the next crossing. “Good!” he thought to himself. They were not fooling him; it was their intention to take a roundabout route to throw anyone off their trail if they happened to be followed.

At a rapid pace, he took a direct route to his destination. He did not intend to go to the house; if anything happened there, it was up to Jack and Ken to take care of that and he knew that he could trust them. His intention was to take up such a position that they would have to pass him. If they did not head for the house, then he would follow them and spy out the secret entrance to the house.

There were only three possibilities for a secret tunnel to the house, Paul reasoned with himself. It might be on either side or to the rear of the house. The most probable one was at the rear of the house because that afforded a direct connection with very little space intervening between the two cellars. It would be a simple thing, he thought to himself, to dig and fortify such an underground passage.

Paul hid in a doorway and waited for his quarry to come along. In time they did and passed within two feet of him. They were silent and walked as though they were out for an evening stroll. Paul hesitated ere he ventured out of his hiding place. The neighborhood was still and dark. If he dared to follow and keep them in sight, he would very easily be detected; he might have a running chance to escape, but that would give him away and they, on the other hand, would then realize that they were being suspected.

But it was not necessary for him to follow within sight of them. He had a pretty good idea where they were heading for. He waited for them to round the corner and immediately he ran after them. He peeked around the corner and saw them stop in front of a house at about the middle of the street. They stopped and looked all around them. The next moment they were gone.

Paul flushed with excitement. He had discovered their secret means of approach to the house. Now all he had to do was to thread together all the details of the mystery, put together the puzzle into a single whole, and choose a time when they would most probably be in the cellar for the police to descend upon them. Paul already foresaw the moment when the gang would be captured and locked away where they belonged.

He decided to walk down the street, get a glimpse of the house and then join his friends. What he saw put him in a jovial mood, as he walked back to the corner with every intention of joining Jack and Ken. But he did not have quite enough foresight. He had seen the group of four break up into two pairs; he should have taken into consideration the missing pair. Might it not be possible that these two had headed for the same destination by a longer route. At any rate, his not considering that angle proved disastrous for him.

Very innocently he rounded the corner and suddenly found himself facing the protruding, round stomach of the man he had seen as one of the trio. Looking up into the man’s brutal face, Paul felt himself becoming confused. In the meanwhile, he noticed the second man take his place directly behind him. “What are you doing around here?” the fat man demanded in a gruff, husky voice. “Don’t you know it is dangerous to be roaming around at this time of night?”

Paul hesitated, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking. He said, “I just took a walk, that’s all. I live only a couple of blocks from here.”

“So you were just taking a walk, eh? Well, then what were you spying around for, huh?”

Paul felt himself become tense. He wondered if they would attack him. He answered, “I wasn’t spying, Mister. I was just walking.”

“Then why did you look goggle eyed at every house as you passed down the street?”

“Just looking as I was walking.”

The man squared his jaw and gritted his teeth. “Some day,” he hissed, “you’ll go blind for seeing things you ain’t supposed to. Who are you?”

Paul began to edge away so that he would not have the second gangster directly behind his back. But he was cornered and he had no way to move. He answered, “My name is Morris Paulson.”

“Do you have any friends who have been snooping around lately? They had better watch out or they will get into heaps of trouble.”

Pretending that he was ignorant of the reference, Paul said, “I don’t know what you are talking about, Mister. My friends are nice fellows who mind their own business.”

The gangster gorilla grinned mischievously. “That’s a swell idea, everybody minding his own business,” he remarked. “And you too.”

“Yes, sir,” Paul agreed meekly. Feeling that the questioning was over and that he was being dismissed, he stepped out of the way and took a step forward to walk away. For a fraction of a second he congratulated himself on his luck. The next instant, however, he felt a crash on his head. His whole body trembled, his knees began to wobble. As he fell to the ground he turned half way and noticed the cruel grin on his attacker. Then everything went dark and he knew nothing more.

Paul lay unconscious at the feet of the fat gangster. The man poked his toes into the boy’s ribs and turned him over on his back. “You shouldn’t have hit him so hard,” the fat fellow said, addressing his henchman. “He’s only a kid.”

“I didn’t hit hard, Boss. I only tapped him nice and easy.” He looked pleadingly at his chief. “What’ll we do with him?” he asked anxiously.

“Bind his hands and feet and throw him in one of the empty lots.”

“You want me to dump him, Boss?”

“No!” was the snarling answer. “Do what I say and be quick about it.”

Bending down, the henchman used Paul’s tie and handkerchief to tie the boy’s hands and feet. When that was done, he picked up the inert body under his arm and crossed the street to an empty lot and then dropped it to the ground. Rejoining his boss, the two walked off. “That’ll teach him a lesson,” muttered the fat fellow.

Paul did not know how long he lay there, but he imagined that it must have been a very long time. He tried to rise, but couldn’t. His head ached terribly. He fell back and closed his eyes. Gradually he regained consciousness. With difficulty, he sat up and discovered his hands and feet bound. At first he could not recollect exactly what had happened to him and how he came to be in this predicament. But little by little, events came back to him.

Frantically, Paul began to work on his bonds to free himself. But he felt weak and every time he moved his wrist, he felt the bonds cutting his flesh. But at last, after about twenty minutes of tiring work, he freed his hands and it took him but a few seconds to untie his feet. Rising, he felt himself trembling all over. He could barely keep himself steady on his feet. Walking, he wobbled from one side to the other.

At the corner, he leaned against the wall of a house. Suddenly he heard some shouts. He looked to see who it might be, but his sight was blurred and he could only see dim shadows running toward him. Who are they, he wondered, and what do they want from me? Was he going to be again attacked? He wanted to run but there was no will nor effort to do so.