The Million Dollar Mystery Part 3

"The patrolman has been trussed up like you," began Vroon. "If they find him they will probably find you. But before that you will grow thirsty and hungry. Where did your master put that money?"

"He carried it with him."

"Why didn't you call for help?"

"The houses on either side are too far away. I might yell till doomsday without being heard. They will have heard the pistol shots; but Mr. Hargreave was always practising in the back yard."

"The people in those two houses have been called out of town. The servants are off for the night."

"Very interesting," replied Jones, staring at the rug.

"Your master is dead."

Jones' chin sank upon his breast. His heart was heavy, heavier than it had ever been before.

"Your master left a will?"

"Indeed, I could not say."

"We can say. He has still three or four millions in stocks and bonds.

What he took to the bottom of the sea with him was his available cash."

"I know nothing about his finances. I was his butler and valet."

Vroon nodded. "Come, men; it is time we took ourselves off. Put things in order; close the safe. You poor jackals, I always have to watch you for outbreaks of vandalism. Off with you!"

He was the last to leave. He stared long and searchingly at Jones, who felt the burning gaze but refused to meet it lest the plotter see the fire in his. The door closed. For fully an hour Jones listened but did not stir. They were really gone. He pressed his feet to the floor and began to hitch the chair toward the table. Half-way across the intervening s.p.a.ce he crumpled in the chair, almost completely exhausted. He let a quarter of an hour pa.s.s, then made the final attack upon the remaining distance. He succeeded in reaching the desk, but he could not have stirred an inch farther. The hair on his head was damp with sweat and his hands were clammy.

When he felt strength returning he lifted the telephone off the hook with his teeth.

"Central, central! Call the police to come to this number at once; Hargreave's house, Riverdale. Tell them to break in."

After what seemed an age of waiting to the exhausted prisoner, with cras.h.i.+ng and smas.h.i.+ng of doors, the police appeared in the room.

"Where's your gag?" demanded the first officer to reach Jones' side.

"There wasn't any."

"Then why didn't you yell for help?"

"The thieves lured our neighbors away from town. The patrolman who walks this beat is bound and gagged and is probably reposing back of the billboard in the next block."

"Murphy, you watch this man while I make a call on the neighbors," said the officer who seemed to be in authority. When he returned he was frowning seriously. "We'd better telephone to the precinct to search for Dennison. There's n.o.body at home in either house and there's n.o.body back of the billboards. Untie the man." When this was done, the officer said: "Now, tell us what's happened; and don't forget any of the details."

Jones told a simple and convincing story; it was so simple and convincing that the police believed it without question.

"Well, if that ain't the limit! Did you hear any autos outside?"

"I don't recollect," said Jones, stretching his legs gratefully. "Why?"

"The auto bandits held up a bank messenger to-day and got away with twenty thousand. Whenever a man draws down a big sum they seem to know about it. And say, Murphy, call up and have the river police look out for a new-fangled airs.h.i.+p. Your master may have been rescued," turning to Jones.

"If I were only sure of that, sir!"

When the police took themselves off Jones proceeded to act upon those plans laid down by Hargreave early that night. When this was done he sought his bed and fell asleep, the sleep of the exhausted. When Hargreave picked up Jones to share his fortunes, he had put his trust in no ordinary man.

A dozen reporters trooped out to the Hargreave home, only to find it deserted. And while they were ringing bells and tapping windows, the man they sought was tramping up and down the platform of the railway station.

Through all this time Norton, the reporter, Hargreave's only friend, slept the sleep of the just and unjust. He rarely opened his eyes before noon.

Group after group of pa.s.sengers Jones eyed eagerly. Often, just as he was in the act of approaching a couple of young women, some man would hurry up, and there would be kisses or handshakes. At length the crowd thinned, and then it was that he discovered a young girl perhaps eighteen, accompanied by a young woman in the early thirties. They had the appearance of eagerly awaiting some one. Jones stepped forward with a good deal of diffidence.

"You are waiting for some one?"

"Yes," said the elder woman, coldly.

"A broken bracelet?"

The distrust on both faces vanished instantly. The young girl's face brightened, her eyes sparkled with suppressed excitement.

"You are ... my father?"

"No, miss," very gravely. "I am the butler."

"Let me see your part of the bracelet," said the young girl's guardian, a teacher who had been a.s.signed to this delicate task by Miss Farlow, who could not bring herself to say good-by to Florence anywhere except at the school gates.

The halves were produced and examined.

"I believe we may trust him, Florence."

"Let us hurry to the taxicab. We must not stand here."

"My mother?"

"She is dead. I believe she died shortly after your birth. I have been with your father but fourteen years. I know but little of his life prior to that."

"Why did he leave me all these years without ever coming to see me?

Why?"

"It is not for me, Miss Florence, to inquire into your father's act.

But I do know that whatever he did was meant for the best. Your welfare was everything to him."

"It is all very strange," said the girl, bewilderedly. "Why didn't he come to meet me instead of you?"

Jones stared at his hands, miserably.

"Why?" she demanded. "I have thought of him, thought of him. He has hurt me with all this neglect. I expected to see him at the station, to throw my arms, around his neck and ... forgive him!" Tears swam in her eyes as she spoke.

"Everything will be explained to you when we reach the house. But always remember this, Miss Florence: You were everything in this wide world to your father. You will never know the misery and loneliness he suffered that you might not have one hour of unrest. What are your plans?" he asked abruptly of the teacher from Miss Farlow's.