The Daughter of Anderson Crow Part 16

"You bet you have, Anderson," said Elon Jones. "It's all settled. Let's go home."

"Settled nothin'!" said the marshal. "It's jest begun. Here's what I deduce: Miss Banks has been foully dealt with. Ain't this her blood, an'

ain't she used her own individual handkerchief to stop it up? It's blood right square from her heart, gentlemen!"

"I don't see how--" began Ed Higgins; but Anderson silenced him with a look.

"Of course _you_ don't, but you would if you'd 'a' been a detective as long's I have. What in thunder do you s'pose I got these badges and these medals fer? Fer _not_ seem' how? No, siree! I got 'em fer _seein_'

how; that's what!"

"But, Andy--"

"Don't call me 'Andy,'" commanded Mr. Crow.

"Well, then, Anderson, I'd like to know how the d.i.c.kens she could use her own handkerchief if she was stabbed to the heart," protested Ed. He had been crying half the time. Anderson was stunned for the moment.

"Why--why--now, look here, Ed Higgins, I ain't got time to explain things to a derned idgit like you. Everybody else understands _how_, don't you?" and he turned to the crowd. Everybody said yes. "Well, that shows what a fool you are, Ed. Don't bother me any more. I've got work to do."

"Say, Anderson," began Alf Reesling from the outer circle, "I got something important to tell--"

"Who is that? Alf Reesling?" cried Anderson wrathfully.

"Yes; I want to see you private, Anderson. Its important," begged Alf.

"How many times have I got to set down on you, Alf Reesling?" exploded Anderson. "Doggone, I'd like to know how a man's to solve mysteries if he's got to stand around half the time an' listen to fambly quarrels.

Tell yer wife I'll--"

"This ain't no family quarrel. Besides, I ain't got no wife. It's about this here--"

"That'll do, now, Alf! Not another word out of you!" commanded Anderson direfully.

"But, dern you, Anderson," exploded Alf, "I've got to tell you--"

But Anderson held up a hand.

"Don't swear in the presence of the dead," he said solemnly. "You're drunk, Alf; go home!" And Alf, news and all was hustled from the schoolhouse by a self-appointed committee of ten.

"Now, we'll search fer the body," announced Anderson. "Git out of the way, Bud!"

"I ain't standin' on it," protested twelve-year-old Bud Long.

"Well, you're standin' mighty near them blood-stains an'--"

"Yes, 'n ain't blood a part of the body?" rasped Isaac Porter scornfully; whereupon Bud faded into the outer rim.

"First we'll look down cellar," said Mr. Crow. "Where's the cellar at?"

"There ain't none," replied Elon Jones.

"What? No cellar? Well, where in thunder did they hide the body, then?"

"There's an attic," ventured Joe Perkins.

A searching party headed by Anderson Crow s.h.i.+nned up the ladder to the low garret. No trace of a body was to be found, and the searchers came down rather thankfully. Then, under Mr. Crow's direction, they searched the wood piles, the woods, and the fields for many rods in all directions. At noon they congregated at the schoolhouse. Alf Reesling was there.

"Find it?" said he thickly, with a cunning leer. He had been drinking.

Anderson was tempted to club him half to death, but instead he sent him home with Joe Perkins, refusing absolutely to hear what the town drunkard had to say.

"Well, you'll wish you'd listened to me," ominously hiccoughed Alf; and then, as a parting shot, "I wouldn't tell you now fer eighteen dollars cash. You c'n go to thunder!" It was _lese majeste_, but the crowd did nothing worse than stare at the offender.

Before starting off on the trail of the big sleigh, Anderson sent this message by wire to the lawyers in Chicago:

"_I have found the girl you want, but the body is lost. Would you just as soon have her dead as alive_?

"ANDERSON CROW."

In a big bob-sled the marshal and a picked s.e.xtette of men set off at one o'clock on the road over which the sleigh had travelled many hours before. Anderson had failed to report the suspected crime to the sheriff at Boggs City and was working alone on the mystery. He said he did not want anybody from town interfering with his affairs.

"Say, Andy--Anderson," said Harry Squires, now editor of the _Banner_, "maybe we're hunting the wrong body and the wrong people."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, ain't 'Rast Little missing? Maybe he's been killed, eh? And say, ain't there some chance that he did the killing? Didn't he say he was going to murder that city chap? Well, supposing he did. We're on the wrong track, ain't we?"

"Doggone you, Harry, that don't fit in with my deductions," wailed Anderson. "I wish you'd let me alone. 'Rast may have done the killin', but it's our place to find the body, ain't it? Whoever has been slew was taken away last night in the sleigh. S'posin it was Mr. Reddon! Well, consarn it, ain't he got a body same as anybody else? We've just got to find somebody's body, that's all. We've got to prove the corpus deelicti. Drive up, Bill!"

With a perseverance that spoke well for the detective's endurance, but ill for his intelligence, the "bob" sped along aimlessly. It was ridiculous to think of tracking a sleigh over a well-travelled road, and it was not until they reached the cross-roads that Harry Squires suggested that inquiries be made of the farmers in the neighbourhood.

After diligent effort, a farmer was discovered who said he had heard the sleigh bells at midnight, and, peering from his window, had caught a glimpse of the party turning south at the cross-roads.

"Jest as I thought!" exclaimed Anderson. "They went south so's to skip Boggs City. Boys, they've got her body er 'Rast's body er that other feller's body with 'em, an' they're skootin' down this pike so's to get to the big bridge. My idee is that they allowed to drop the body in the river, which ain't friz plum over."

"Gee! We ain't expected to search all over the bottom of the river, are we, Anderson?" s.h.i.+vered Isaac Porter, the pump repairer.

"_I_ ain't," said the leader, "but I can deputise anybody I want to."

And so they hurried on to the six-span bridge that crossed the ice-laden river. As they stood silent, awed and s.h.i.+vering on the middle span, staring down into the black water with its navy of swirling ice-chunks, even the heart of Anderson Crow chilled and grew faint.

"Boys," he said, "we've lost the track! Not even a bloodhound could track 'em in that water."

"Bloodhound?" sniffed Harry Squires. "A hippopotamus, you mean."

They were hungry and cold, and they were ready to turn homeward.

Anderson said he "guessed" he'd turn the job over to the sheriff and his men. Plainly, he was much too hungry to do any more trailing. Besides, for more than an hour he had been thinking of the warm wood fire at home. Bill Rubley was putting the "gad" to the horses when a man on horseback rode up from the opposite end of the bridge. He had come far and in a hurry, and he recognised Anderson Crow.

"Say, Anderson!" he called, "somebody broke into Colonel Randall's summer home last night an' they're there yet. Got fires goin' in all the stoves, an' havin' a high old time. They ain't got no business there, becuz the place is closed fer the winter. Aleck Burbank went over to order 'em out; one of the fellers said he'd bust his head if he didn't clear out. I think it's a gang!"

A hurried interview brought out the facts. The invaders had come up in a big sleigh long before dawn, and--but that was sufficient. Anderson and his men returned to the hunt, eager and sure of their prey. Darkness was upon them when they came in sight of Colonel Randall's country place in the hills. There were lights in the windows and people were making merry indoors; while outside the pursuing Nemesis and his men were wondering how and where to a.s.sault the stronghold.

"I'll jest walk up an' rap on the door," said Anderson Crow, "lettin' on to be a tramp. I'll ast fer somethin' to eat an' a place to sleep. While I'm out there in the kitchen eatin' you fellers c'n sneak up an'

surround us. Then you c'n let on like you're lookin' fer me because I'd robbed a hen-roost er something, an' that'll get 'em off their guard.