CHAPTER VIII
WHAT JACK AND DICK OVERHEARD
"I beg your pardon, Mr.—-, I did not catch your name," continued Dr. Wise, "but you have no authority in this case. You are not a civil magistrate, not even a police court judge, and you cannot hold this boy for any jury, grand or little. You can make a charge against him, it is true, and then if the local magistrate considers the evidence good he will be held for the Grand Jury. You are doubtless unaware, being a stranger to the section, that I am a magistrate myself, although seldom called upon to adjudge cases."
"I was not aware of it, sir," said the other, a little shamefaced. "I may have been hasty, but my association with suspicious characters——-"
"Has made him one himself," muttered Percival, whereat Jack could not help smiling.
"Has made me suspect persons unjustly, perhaps," the detective went on. "Still you must admit yourself that the finding of the watch, as related by you, is, to say the least, singular."
"Singular, yes; suspicious, not necessarily. You say yourself that the watch was supposedly passed from one person to another. Why could not one of the suspected men have slipped it in Sheldon's pocket, either designedly or by mistake? It is certainly possible."
"I wish you'd let me go out and tell the Hilltop boys that this man has more than intimated that Jack Sheldon is a thief, Doctor," said Percival "I can imagine what they will have to say about it, and what they will do to him. The river is very convenient!"
"Restrain yourself, Percival," said the doctor.
"If I have given the young gentleman an unenviable reputation," the detective rejoined, his face red, "it is on account of the reports I have heard of him from——-" and he stopped short.
"Who told you this?" demanded the doctor. "There is not a more exemplary boy in the whole Academy than John Sheldon. Ask any one of the instructors, ask the boys themselves, ask the editors of the Riverton papers, ask the heads of the business houses, the superintendent of the Machine Works, the Chief of Police himself, and they will all tell you the same. Who was your informant to the contrary?"
"I am not at liberty to reveal the name of my informant," said the detective, a little abashed, "but I had it from more than one source."
"Then let me tell you that you were maliciously misinformed, for there is not a boy in the Academy who bears a better character than John Sheldon. I will retain this watch until I have a better authority to deliver it than yours. I wish you a very good morning."
Just then the bugle blew to call the boys to dinner, and as they always formed in regular order to march into the dining tent there was not the opportunity, which Percival so much desired, of pitching the detective into the river or at least giving him a sound hissing.
"As you please, sir," the man said, as he bowed himself out. "You cannot expect me to believe all that this young gentleman says after what I have heard of him from——-"
"You could have consulted me, at any rate," said the doctor. "I think I am best competent to judge of the characters of the boys put in my charge. Good morning, sir. Boys, the bugle has sounded."
The detective went away in a hurry, looking a good deal crestfallen, the boys getting into line with the rest, this operation preventing Percival from giving the man the send off that he had meant to give him.
"I'd like to know where that fellow got his information about you,
Jack," he said to his friend when they were seated at table.
"I don't care to know, Dick, so long as the doctor speaks well of me," Jack returned.
"Well, I'd like to know just the same. There are some boys here who would say all they could against you, and the man may have seen them before he saw the doctor, and heard what they had to say. You could see that he was prejudiced from the start."
"Yes, he presupposed my guilt before giving me a chance to speak for myself, Dick. However, it is fortunate that I have a good reputation."
"Which is what some of the Hilltop boys have not. I am not mentioning any names," and Percival began eating his soup with a good appetite.
An hour or two after dinner Jack asked Percival to go up the river in his boat, having one or two errands in town to do, and wanting company.
Dick was glad to go in Jack's boat, as the boy managed it so well, and he would have very little to do himself.
Finishing his errands in town Jack was proceeding down the river when, with a sudden impulse, which he could not explain, he said to Dick:
"Suppose we go up the creek a bit. The tide is that way now, and we shall have water enough, and it will not be against us."
"You don't want to go to the Academy, do you, Jack?" asked Percival.
"You can run in as far as the ravine. You came down that way once."
There was quite a deep ravine on the bill where the Academy was located, from which a turbulent creek or kill ran to the river, and Jack had once had a tumble into this, and had made his way to the little station at the foot of the hill along its banks, and, incidentally, had discovered a considerable sum of money stolen from a bank in Riverton and hidden there.
"No, I don't want to go all the way, Dick," answered Jack with a smile, "but we might go a short way up."
They put into the little kill, and went beyond the business part of the town, finally getting into the woods and finding banks of some height on either side.
The kill was full, and the current set their way, so that they had no trouble and kept on for a mile beyond the town, finding themselves in a most wild and picturesque spot, most of the time in deep shadow, and hearing no sounds except those of the woods, now and then seeing a drowsy bird on a bough or hearing the low hum of insects as they flew past.
"You'll get to the station before long, Jack," said Percival at length. "I think the tide is beginning to turn. We get considerable of it even here. Do you think——-"
Jack raised his hand as a sign for his friend to be quiet, and at that moment somewhere on the bank above them they heard a querulous voice:
"Why do you give me it if it is worth so moche, and there is alarm about it?" they heard in a high-keyed, querulous voice, evidently that of a woman, and Jack started involuntarily.
He had heard that voice before, but at the moment he could not tell where, or when it was.
"What have you done with it?" asked a man in a low tone, which Jack caught, nevertheless, all being silent in the place.
"How I know where I have lose it?" answered the woman. "I have be in a many exciting time. If there was suspicion you should not give it. I do not know, and maybe I show it to some friend to make her jealous."
"Did you?" growled the man. "You should have more sense."
"But you do not tell me. Now it is lose. I do not know where. I am glad. You should not have give me it."
Jack now recognized the voice as that of the nurse who had taken the Van der Donk child from him the night before, but he was still at a loss to know what she was talking about.
"I gave it to you to keep safe for me until I could dispose of it," the man answered. "The detectives were after me. Luckily I got rid of it in good time, but now that they have nothing against me I can dispose of it to advantage. And you have lost it?"
"I have tell you that I have," the woman answered in her high voice, with a strong foreign accent, Jack now remembering that she had seemed to be French or Italian, although he had met her but a few moments. "I have lose it, and I am glad. Why shall I get into prison for you? You shall keep your gold and diamond watches for yourself, and not give them to me."
"Sh! not so loud!" cautioned the man. "Somebody may hear you."
It was the watch he had found in his pocket that the woman was talking about, and Jack had some trouble in restraining his surprise.
"But how did you lose it?" the man continued. "Did you carry it with you? You don't go to throwing such things about, do you?"
"I don't know. There is much excitement at the house, there is the big fire, there is the boy of the Academy coming to put it out, there is the man from Riverton, and there is the baby, which I forget, and the boy go up in all the smoke and bring him down. I shall lose my place if the baby is lose. How can I remember a watch, which I cannot carry, for fear some one say I steal? Ah! you should not give!"
"And now you have lost it!" growled the man. "Haven't you any idea? Couldn't you have mislaid it? You are not lying to me, you have really lost it, Gabrielle?"
"Yes, I tell you I have lose it, and I am glad!" cried the woman in a higher key than before, and with great excitement.
The tide now began to take the boys back down the hill, and Jack quickly steered so that he would go down with it, being speedily out of sound of voices.
"What do you think of that, Jack?" whispered Percival.
"That the mystery of the watch seems to be as deep as ever."