The Motor Girls on Cedar Lake Part 38

"Yes, poor man. Perhaps, as he said, his one temptation was to do clever things with a pen. Let us look over the papers."

"Perhaps your father had best see you do that," Jack suggested.

"Oh no. I think I had better know first," Laurel insisted. "Let me open this," and she carefully broke a large red seal on a packet of doc.u.ments yellow with age.

Paper after paper she took out. Finally what she was looking for she found. It was a check that had been cashed and cancelled! It bore the marks also of "forgery!"

"That's it," she exclaimed. "That is the ten thousand dollar check!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

ALL ENDS WELL-CONCLUSION

"I remember it all--it's like a book open before me!"

Laurel had insisted upon her father reclining in the hammock, and she was now fussing with his pillows, that he might nestle deeper in their softness. It was he who was speaking. On the porch sat Brendon Breslin, looking into Peter Starr's face like one enchanted.

There was Cora moving a big fan so that apparently without her doing it, the breeze reached the man in the hammock. Jack was there and Ed was inside the bungalow teasing Walter who had "discovered" the new nurse. Hazel, Bess and Belle were busy--there was to be "something doing."

A day had pa.s.sed since the opening of the can of "red paint." In fact it was the evening following that eventful performance. Paul had only to say "Peter Starr"' to Mr. Breslin, and the latter was ready to be at the bungaloafers' camp. So the story was unwinding.

"Do you really feel able to talk?" asked the millionaire banker. "I will insist now--you got, the better of me once, Peter."

"Yes, Mr. Starr," Cora added to the request. "Do be careful."

"And she asks me to be careful!" He actually seized Cora in his trembling arms. "She! Why she risked her life for us. It was she who found my Laurel! She who came to us at night to be sure we would not repel her! She who followed up that--"

"Oh, please, hus.h.!.+" Cora begged, "or it will be she who causes your relapse," she insisted.

"Indeed no," and the man held in his hands before him the flushed face of Cora. "What you have done cannot be told of in this rude way."

"Father, I'll be jealous," said Laurel, trying to relieve the tension.

Cora slipped away. It was Mr. Breslin who spoke next.

"And you really remember?" he asked of Mr. Starr. "How was it that you ran away?"

"The bank president's name had been forged to a check for ten thousand dollars!"

"Yes, I know that well," said Mr. Breslin.

"And they traced the forgery to me!"

"But you knew you were innocent!"

"I knew it, but I was frightened by the accusation, and they had found trials of the signature in my desk!"

"I have a letter that explains that," Cora imparted, and then she told how Brentano had confessed to the forgery, and to his almost hypnotic influence over Mr. Starr.

"And then?" inquired Mr. Breslin.

"Brentano told me I must go. He fixed everything. I have been on the island ten years," and the hermit sighed heavily.

"How did you live?" asked the banker.

"He fixed that," and there was bitterness in his tone. "He brought me letters regularly. These were alleged to come from those who would prosecute me if I did not keep on paying money!"

At this statement the banker dashed up from his seat. "The scoundrel!" he almost hissed. "He ought to be jailed! If I had him here I'd do it too. I'm mayor of this borough."

"Oh, Mr. Breslin!" exclaimed Laurel. "He must not have been entirely bad. See how he saved the papers--the proofs--and how he kept for me my mother's jewels."

"That's the sentimental mire that foreign criminals wallow in," he replied with irony. "I cannot see that it mitigates the crime."

"And yet," interrupted Mr. Starr, "see how the influence of a mere girl turned him to right? I did like that boy!"

Cora and Laurel had crept away to the far end of the porch. Two men came up the path.

"h.e.l.lo!" said Mr. Breslin. "Officers!"

There was surprise on the officers' faces when they saw Mr. Breslin, their superior officer, the mayor of Cedar Lake, sitting on the porch. Greetings were exchanged and finally they ventured to make known their mission.

They had heard that someone saw Cora Kimball take the state's evidence--the can of "red paint!"

"But what was a can of paint?" asked the mayor. "As if a girl would want that," and his voice was almost mocking.

"Well, it might have been dynamite," and the man who wore bra.s.s b.u.t.tons shook his head sagely.

"A girl steal a can of dynamite," repeated Mr. Breslin mockingly.

The officers were trying to see who was in the hammock. But the man therein sank back into the cus.h.i.+ons, while Jack carelessly slipped his chair directly in front of him.

"Why didn't you take it when you saw it?" asked the town's mayor.

"Well," explained the other man, "we didn't fancy the blow-up. We went for Mulligan who knows about such things, and when we came back it was gone."

"You had better tell that story before the jury," and the sarcasm in Mr. Breslin's tone was unmistakable. "Suppose you tell them that a girl took what you were afraid to touch!"

Seeing that it was useless to argue with the mayor, they turned to leave.

"Wait," he said good naturedly, "I have my boat here. Take a ride with me. It's better than walking the dusty roads. Good evening,"

he said. "Mr. Fennelly," (to Mr. Starr,) "I hope you will regain your health by the time your son has to return to college!"

"Fennelly," said one officer to the other. "That's not the name, it was Starr! We're on the wrong trail." And they hurried away. Thus had Mr. Breslin saved the hermit from having to testify.

"Laurel," Cora said wearily, "let us go for a little walk. My nerves are all snarled up, and only a walk will unravel them. We will have time to go as far as the hemlocks before those girls and boys make up their minds to disband."