CHAPTER XII.
BOB’S BRILLIANT MOVE.
“But I say, Bob, I don’t jest see how we are goin’ to get into that den,” said Tom Flannery, thoughtfully, as he and his companion hurried along towards old Gunwagner’s.
“Don’t you?” replied Bob, carelessly, as if the matter was of trivial importance.
“No, I don’t. Do you, Bob?”
“Do you think, Tom Flannery, that a detective is goin’ to tell all he knows—is goin’ to give away the game before it’s played?” said Bob, with feigned displeasure.
He asked this question to evade the one put to him.
“I thought they always told them as was in the secret, don’t they?”
“Well, I must say you have some of the ignorantest ideas of any boy I ever see,” said Bob, with assumed surprise.
Young Flannery looked sad, and made no reply.
“The trouble with you, Tom, is that you worry too much,” continued the juvenile detective.
“I ain’t worryin’, Bob. What made you think that? I only wanted to know what’s the racket, an’ what I’ve got to do.”
“Well, you s’pose I bro’t you up here to do somethin’, don’t you?”
“Of course you did, Bob. But what is it? That’s what I want to know.”
“You ask more questions than any feller I ever see, Tom Flannery. Now you jest tell me what any detective would do, on a case like this one is, and tell me what he’d want you to do, an’ then I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”
Tom looked grave, and tried hard to think.
The fact of the matter is that Bob himself hardly knew what step to take next, in order to carry out the plan he had formed. But his reputation was at stake. He thought he must make a good showing before Tom, though the matter of gaining an entrance to Gunwagner’s was far from clear to him. He therefore wanted Tom’s opinion, but it would not do to ask him for it, so he adopted this rather sharp device.
“Blamed if I can tell, Bob, what a detective would do,” replied Tom. “You see I ain’t no natural detective like you. But I should think he’d swoop down on the den and scoop it.”
“And that’s what you think a reg’lar detective would do?”
“Yes. I don’t see nothin’ else for him to do.”
“Well, how would he do it?”
“I ain’t no detective, Bob, so I don’t know.”
“I didn’t s’pose you did know, Tom Flannery, so now I’ll tell you,” said Bob, who had seized upon his companion’s suggestion. “A regular detective, if he was in my place, and had you to help him, would do jest what I’m going to do, and that is to send you into the den first, to see what you can find out.”
“Send me in?” exclaimed Tom, incredulously.
“Yes, that’s what I said, wasn’t it?”
“And that’s what a reg’lar detective would do?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what you’re goin’ to do?”
“Yes, of course it is. Why wouldn’t I do the same as any other detective? That’s what I want to know.”
“Of course you would, Bob, but I couldn’t do nothin’ if I should go in,” said Tom, gently protesting against the proposed plan of action.
“You can do what I tell you to, can’t you?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about it, any way, I tell you,” replied Tom, showing more plainly his disinclination to obedience.
“Tom Flannery, I wouldn’t er believed that you would back out this way,” said Bob, with surprise.
“Well, I don’t want to be a detective no way. I don’t care nothin’ about my name bein’ in the paper.”
“You hain’t got no ambition. If you had, you’d show some spunk now. ’Tain’t often a feller has a chance to get into a case like this one is.”
“Well, I don’t care if it ain’t, that’s what I say.”
“I thought you wanted to be a detective, and couldn’t wait, hardly, for me to work up the case.”
“Well, I didn’t think I’d have to climb into places like this old Gunwagner’s. ’Tain’t what I call bein’ a detective no way.”
“You make me tired, Tom Flannery. You get the foolishest notions into your head of any boy I ever see.”
“Well, I don’t care if I do. I know plenty detectives don’t do nothin’ like this. They jest dress up and play the gentleman, that’s what they do.”
“And that’s the kind of a detective you want to be, is it?”
“Yes, it is; there ain’t no danger about that kind of bein’ a detective.”
“Tom, you’d look great tryin’ to be a gentleman, wouldn’t you? I’d like to see you, Tom Flannery, a gentleman!” said Bob, derisively. “It makes me sick, such talk.”
Tom was silent for a time. Evidently he thought there was some ground for Bob’s remarks.
But an idea occurred to him now.
“Bob,” said he, “if you like bein’ this kind of a detective, why don’t you go in yourself, instead of sendin’ me? Now, answer me that, will you?”
“It wouldn’t be reg’lar professional like, and then there wouldn’t be no style about it.”
Tom made no reply. In fact there seemed nothing further for him to say; Bob’s answer left no chance for argument.
The two boys now stood opposite Gunwagner’s. Presently a boy with a package in his hand approached the house, and, looking nervously about him, as if he feared he was watched, walked up the stoop and rang the bell three times. He did not see the two young detectives, as they were partially hidden by a big telegraph pole.
After a time the door opened, and he passed in. Bob noticed that it was very dark inside, and wondered why no light shone.
“I couldn’t get in, nohow, if I wanted to,” said Tom, trying to justify himself for his seeming cowardice.
“Does look so,” assented Bob, absentmindedly.
“I wouldn’t like to be a prisoner in there; would you, Bob?”
“No, of course I wouldn’t.”
“I wish we could get your chum out.”
“I wish so, too; but you don’t s’pose we can do it by standing here, do you?”
“No, but I don’t know nothin’ to do; do you, Bob?”
“If I told you what to do, you wouldn’t do it.”
“Well, I didn’t see no sense in my goin’ in there alone, nohow.”
“I did, if you didn’t. I wanted you to look round and see what you could find out, and post me, so when I went in I could do the grand act.”
“I wouldn’t a’ got out to post you, Bob. They’d a’ kept me—that’s what they’d done.”
The door now opened, and out came the same boy who but a few minutes before had entered the Gunwagner den. He looked cautiously about him, and then started down the street toward the East River. He was a small boy, of about twelve years of age, while our two detectives were several years his senior. From remarks dropped by Felix Mortimer and Peter Smartweed, Bob surmised that Gunwagner might keep a fence, and the suspicious manner of this small boy confirmed his belief.
“Here’s our chance,” whispered Bob, nervously. “You follow this boy up, and don’t let him get away from you. I’ll rush ahead and cut him off. Keep close to him, so we can corner him when I whistle three times.”
“All right,” said Tom, with his old show of enthusiasm, and each commenced the pursuit.
Between Allen and Orchard Streets the detectives closed in on the small boy. Bob had put himself fairly in front of him, and Tom followed close behind. The chief detective slackened his pace very perceptibly, and seemed to be trying to make out the number on the house before which he now halted.
“Can you tell me where old Gunwagner lives?” said he, addressing the small boy, who was now about to pass by.
The boy stopped suddenly, and the color as suddenly left his face.
Bob had purposely chosen this locality, close to a gaslight, so that he might note the effect of his question upon the boy. Now he gave the signal as agreed upon, and Tom instantly came up and took a position that made retreat for the lad impossible. The latter saw this, and burst into tears. Conscious of his own guilt, he needed no further accuser to condemn him.
“Don’t take it so hard,” said Bob; “you do the square thing, and we won’t blow on you—will we, Tom?”
“No, we won’t,” replied the latter.
“We saw you when you went into Gunwagner’s—saw the package in your hand, and know the whole game,” continued Bob. “Now, if you will help us put up a job, why, we will let you off; but if you don’t come down square and do the right thing, why, we will jest run you in, and you’ll get a couple of years or more on the Island. Now what do you say?”
“What do you want me to do?” sobbed the small boy, trembling with fear.
“I want you to go back with us, and take me into Gunwagner’s.”
Tom was an interested listener, for he knew nothing about Bob’s plans or purposes.
From further questionings, and many threats, our detectives found that a number of boys were in the habit of taking stolen goods to this miserable old fence. The number mixed up in the affair Bob did not learn, but he ascertained the fact that Felix Mortimer had often been seen there by this lad.
“Now me and Tom are doin’ the detective business,” said the chief; “and if you want to be a detective with us, you can join right in.”
“I want to go home,” sobbed the boy.
“Well, you can’t, not now,” said Bob, emphatically. “We hain’t got no time for nonsense. You’ve either got to go along with me and Tom, and help us, or we will run you in. Now which will you do?”
The boy yielded to the eloquence of the chief detective, and accompanied him and Tom back to old Gunwagner’s. The boldness of this move captured young Flannery’s admiration.
“Now this is what I call bein’ detectives, Bob,” whispered he. “Gewhittaker, I didn’t think, though, you could do it so grand. I don’t believe nobody could beat you.”
Bob nodded his approval of the compliment, and then addressed himself to the young lad.
“I want you,” said he, “to take me in and say I’m a friend of yours who wants to sell somethin’. You needn’t do nothin’ more. Every detective puts up jobs like this, so ’tain’t tellin’ nothin’ wrong.”
Then, turning to his companion, he added:
“Now, Tom, if this boy ain’t square, and he does anything so I get into Gunwagner’s clutches, and can’t get out, why I want you to go for an officer, and come and arrest this boy and the whole gang.”
The lad trembled. “I won’t do nothin’,” he protested. “I’ll do just what you want me to.”
“All right; you do so, and you’ll save yourself a visit to the Island. Now, when I am talking with old Gunwagner, if I tell you to come outside and get the package I left at the door, why, you come jest as if I did have it there, and you come right straight for Tom, and he will tell you what to do. And mind you be sure and don’t close the outside door, for I want you to leave it so you and Tom can get in without ringing the bell, for that’s the secret of the whole job.”
The boy readily assented to Bob’s conditions and commands, and then the chief gave his companion secret instructions, to be acted upon after he himself had gone into the very den of the old fence.