CHAPTER XVI
CAUSED BY A FALL
In the meantime Sandy, Elmer and Jimmie reaching the old tool house, found Will and George very wide awake and doing the most extraordinary stunts of cooking.
"You said that your friends would be hungry," laughed Will, "and so we're preparing to feed them up fine. After that, you know, you've got to go on and tell us why we were sent down here without any real information as to the work we were to do."
"Where did you leave, Tommy and Dick?" asked George.
"They went back to see what the detective was up to."
"So he's in the mine again, is he?"
"Yes," replied Sandy, "and if I had my way about it, he'd go out so quick that he'd think he'd struck a barrel of dynamite."
"If he keeps fooling with dynamite, he's likely to do that anyhow," Elmer cut in. "The boys say that he uses dynamite in the search of the mine he is making. He doesn't know how to use it, either!"
"Then he's got to be fired out of the mine!" declared Will. "We can't have him around here carrying dynamite in his clothes, and dropping it on the ground. You might as well give a baby a box of matches and a hammer to play with. Some day there'll be an explosion."
"Aw, leave him alone for a few days!" Jimmie advised. "He's doing us a lot of good just now, and we don't want to lose his help."
"His help?" repeated Will.
"He's bully help!" shouted George, with fine sarcasm.
"I guess I'll have to tell you about the mystery of the mine," Elmer laughed. "Tommy ought to be here to get the story with the rest, but you can tell him about it later on."
"He ought to be here any minute now," Jimmie asserted.
"Oh, he'll be here all right!" George argued. "Go on with the story. It's been hours since you came in here with the suggestion that there was a story, and you haven't told it yet!"
"Yes," Will interrupted, "get busy and tell us what Mr. Horton neglected to say when he sent us down here; and while you are about it," the boy went on, "you may as well tell us whether you really became lost in the mine, or whether you were sent here to do the very things you did do."
"Also," George broke in, "you may as well tell us what the detective is doing here, and how he is helping you in trying to blow up the mine."
"The boys were never lost in the mine a minute!" replied Elmer, with a grin, "and Mr. Horton knew it. Mr. Horton received his instructions from Attorney Burlingame of New York, and I am positive that Burlingame gave his brother lawyer the whole story."
"Foxy game, eh?" laughed Will.
"I guess they wanted you to find out if we boys were of any account, and whether we were playing fair!" laughed Jimmie.
"Well, anyway, they expected you to find us and learn the story I'm now going to tell," Elmer continued.
"Jerusalem!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you get at it. That story has been jumping from tongue to tongue clothed in mystery for hours and we haven't been favored with it yet!"
"The story opens," Elmer began, "on a cold and stormy night in October in the year 1913. As the wind blew great gusts of rain down upon such pedestrians as happened to be out of doors—"
"Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you go on and tell the story? We don't want any more of that Henry James business! You know he always has a solitary horseman proceeding slowly on foot."
"Well, it was a dark night, and a stormy one!" declared Elmer. "If it had been clear and bright, Stephen Carson, the Wall street banker, wouldn't have received a dent in his cupola. In stepping down from his automobile his foot slipped on the wet pavement, and he fell, striking on the back of his head.
"What's that got to do with this mine mystery?" demanded George.
"It has a great deal to do with this mine mystery," Elmer answered. "Stephen Carson arose from the ground, rubbed the back of his head with his gloved hand, and continued on his way to a meeting of a board of directors. He appeared to be perfectly sane and responsible for his acts at the meeting of the board, and when he left in his machine there were no indications that he had suffered more than a slight bruise from his fall. He was not seen at home again for two weeks."
"Now you begin to get interesting!" declared Will.
"Where did he go?" asked Sandy.
"That is what his friends don't know," replied Elmer.
"But he must have been seen somewhere!" insisted Sandy.
"He was," answered Elmer. "He was seen in the vicinity of this mine."
"Wow, wow, wow!" exclaimed Sandy.
"What was he doing here?" asked Will.
"Wandering about the premises."
"Now I can tell you the rest," Will said with a chuckle.
"Go on, then," advised Elmer.
"From the meeting of the board of directors that night," Will went on whimsically, "this man Stephen Carson wept directly to a safety deposit vault where three or four hundred thousand dollars in the way of cash and jewelry were hidden. He took the whole bundle and disappeared. Is that anywhere near right, Elmer?"
"Go on!" Elmer replied.
"Then in two weeks time he comes back and says that he don't know where he put the jewelry, but that he thinks he hid it in this mine. And, as they can't find any place where he hocked the jewelry, or put it up to carry out some gigantic Wall street plan, they are forced to believe that he really did mislay the jewelry while temporarily out of his head. Is that anywhere near right?"
"If you'll amend your report so as to show that he went to the Night and Day bank and drew out something over two hundred thousand dollars which he had on deposit there, and disappeared with the entire sum, you'll come nearer to the truth."
Will gave a long whistle of amazement.
"Two hundred thousand dollars in real money!" exclaimed George.
"Yes, he took two hundred thousand dollars in real money away with him that night," Elmer went on, "and when he returned to his home again, he was penniless and in rags."
"Was he in his right mind?" asked Will.
"He seemed to be."
"Has he now recovered from the injury he received that night?"
"So the doctors say."
"Then why doesn't he tell what he did with the money?"
"That part of his life is blank. He was seen in the vicinity of this mine, yet denies it. He was seen loitering in the woods not far away, but insists that he never visited this mine except to attend meetings of the board of directors."
"Now I've got you!" laughed Will. "His friends think he hid the money in this mine and we've been sent here to find it!"
"That's the idea," agreed Elmer.
"And this bum detective is here for the same purpose!"
"Yes, though where he received his information is more than I know. Upon his return to his home, Mr. Carson immediately made good the two hundred thousand dollars taken from the Night and Day bank and employed detectives to look up the missing coin.
"Is Ventner one of them?" asked Will.
"I don't think so," replied Elmer. "We were sent here to look through the mine, with the understanding that you were to come on from Chicago in a few days. Mr. Horton recommended you to Mr. Burlingame and so you were employed."
"Then this detective has no right here at all?"
"None whatever, so far as I can make out."
"Then why not fire him?"
"Because he may accidentally run across the money some day."
"If he does, he'll get away with it!" declared George.
"No, he won't," answered Elmer, "He'll be watched every minute from now on. You may be sure of that!"
"But you didn't seem to know what he was doing tonight," laughed Will.
"But I knew enough to come to the right place for the information I desired," replied Elmer.
"Strange thing Tommy and Dick don't come!" Sandy exclaimed, stepping to the door of the old tool house and listening intently. "They should I have been here a long time ago!"
"Perhaps they've butted into Ventner," suggested Jimmie.
"They wouldn't do that," Elmer replied. "Every blow he strikes with his pick saves us the trouble of making one."
"You don't think he had any directions from anyone, do you?" asked Will. "You don't think he knows, where to look for the money any more than you do?"
"No, I think he just heard of the loss of the money and came down here on his own account."
"Well, if he's using dynamite in the mine," Will continued, "he ought to be turned out of it. If Mr. Carson really hid two hundred thousand dollars in currency in here, it's in some little pocket easy to find if we get into the right chamber. The use of dynamite might bury it twenty feet deep under a load of shale that would never be removed!"
"That's a fact!" cried Elmer.
The boys now stepped to the door and listened again, attracted by the sound of running feet.
"There's something doing!" exclaimed Sandy. "When Tommy comes home on a run, there's always something going on."
Directly the boys came panting up, stopping in the doorway to look behind them. They were both well winded.
"That bum detective back there," Tommy exclaimed as soon as he could catch his breath, "is putting in dynamite enough to blow up the whole mine. He's attaching a long fuse, so he can get out before the explosion comes. We tried to get down far enough to choke off the fuse, but couldn't do it. In just about another minute, you'll hear something like a Fourth of July celebration!"