CHAPTER III.—THE BROWN LEATHER BAG
While Alex and Case waited in the doorway, watching the figure near the warehouse, the circle of light in the street beyond, the whole gloomy prospect along the pier, the shrill voice of a police whistle cut the heavy air. The boys started nervously.
“It wouldn’t be strange if Clay got into trouble up there.”
This from Case, who was still in his despondent mood, and was, as Alex had explained, imagining the worst and making himself think that was what was coming!
Alex nudged him with his elbow, in gentle reminder of his failing, and nodded toward the head of the pier. Through the falling drops, they saw the figure which had recently left the shelter of the warehouse coming toward the boat.
“Whoever it is,” muttered Case, “he’s alarmed at the police whistle, and is coming down here to hide away!”
“Oh, Case——”
Alex got no farther with his protest against his chum’s idle croakings of evil, for the figure was now almost at the pier, a few yards from the prow of the Rambler. It was moving slowly, in spite of the storm beating upon it, hands in pockets, chin buried in a turned-up coat collar, eyes on the ground.
When almost to the head of the pier the boy, for such the queer-acting stranger appeared to be, turned sharply about and went back over the course he had taken, head down, eyes evidently searching the ground. This was repeated three times, then the ring of footsteps above caused him to seek the shelter of the warehouse again.
Then Clay dashed into view, running at top speed and bending low as if to better resist the storm, or to avoid any attack which might be made upon him. The boys could see the silent figure standing in the shadow of the warehouse, standing there in a listening, observant attitude. The thought came to Alex that this might mean peril to Clay, and so he called out to warn the skulker that help was at hand.
“Hurry, Clay!” he shouted.
Clay did not reply, but dashed on at increased speed to the rotting planks of the pier, and was soon inside the cabin, shaking the rain from his clothes like a great dog just out of a pond. Alex closed the door and locked it.
“Did you see Jule?” Case asked, eagerly.
Clay shook his head. His excursion into the storm had evidently proved a disappointment to him, but he made an effort not to show it.
“Of course not,” he replied. “How could I find Jule out in all that smother? He’s warm and dry somewhere.”
“Did you see the boy skulking by the warehouse as you came in?” asked Alex. “He’s been there, watching the boat, ever since you went out.”
Clay shook his head.
“There’s something odd going on around here to-night,” he said. “I don’t know what to make of it. Whew, but I’m all out of wind!” he continued, dropping down into a chair and taking off his soaked shoes.
“Where did you go?” asked Case. “What was the cop blowing his whistle for. Why did you have to run?”
“One at a time,” panted Clay. “When I got out there I found a man and a boy fighting at the end of the pier. At any rate the man was trying to get something away from the boy, and the boy was letting into him with teeth and nails. The boy was calling for help. That’s the sound we heard, only it was faint, on account of the man trying to choke him.”
“What sort of a boy was it?” asked Case, thinking of the figure he had seen walking to and fro under the light and skulking into the shelter of the warehouse when Clay came running up.
“Wait a minute,” Clay panted, “and I’ll tell you all about it. Say, who’s going to give a cup of that hot coffee? My tummy has a hole in it as big as a rainwater barrel.”
“That’s pretty close to slang!” warned Case.
“Not so you could notice—that is, not intended as such,” corrected the boy with a grin as he took a cup of steaming coffee from Alex’s hand and sat back in his chair with a look of contentment on his face.
“Now what about it?” asked Alex, when the cup was empty.
“Well, when I ran up, the man gave a vicious yank and got something away from the boy. It looked like, a leather bag. The boy let out a great cry and fell flat down on his face. I saw his face just a minute, looking like a snowflake in the mud, it was so white and so small.
I thought the thing which had been taken from him must mean a lot, to cause him to look like that, and so I left him lying there and chased on after the man. It looked to me like a case of highway robbery, and I just ached to get my hands on the man.”
“What is that in your hand?” asked Case, indicating a brown object which was half concealed in Clay’s coat-sleeve, but which dropped down to his palm, and lay with an end resting there.
“Never you mind!” Clay answered, with a chuckle as he drew the object up the sleeve and out of sight. “Just wait a minute. I overtook the man, who couldn’t run at all, but lumbered along like an old cow, and tripped him up by— Oh, you know how to drop and catch a fellow by the ankles! He went down kerflop in the muck, where wagons had broken the pavement and cut the earth into a puddle. I didn’t stop to see if he was hurt, but picked up the thing I had seen him take from the boy and started back with it.
“When I got back to the place where I had left the boy, with his pale face in the dirt, he wasn’t there, so I just brought the object along with me, for safe keeping, of course,” he added, with a laugh as he drew a brown leather bag from his sleeve and held it up to the light.
“That’s certainly a brown leather bag!” exclaimed Case. “What’s in it?”
“Guess!” was the provoking answer.
“It must be something valuable, with all the fuss that’s been made over it,” Alex suggested. “Open up!”
“Do you know what’s in it?” asked Case.
“Of course I do; I peeked in as I came along.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Diamonds!”
“Not real diamonds?”
“Certainly not!” Case ventured. “Just fake stones, like the glad-hand men carry. They couldn’t be real diamonds, hustled about in the rain like this!”
“But they are real diamonds,” insisted Clay. “If I ever saw the real thing this is it.”
He untied the brown leather bag, pressed open the mouth with his fingers, and poured a gleaming current of diamonds on the table, where they rolled about like sparks of fire caught and held in captivity. Alex and Case stood dumbly regarding their chum, moving their eyes, presently, from his inscrutable face to the gems on the table. This seemed to them to be a leaf out of a fairy book. It was more fantastic, more unreal, than one of Alex’s ridiculous imaginings.
“I wish Jule was here to see ’em!” Clay spoke, breaking the silence with a long sigh. “He can’t be long in coming now.”
“What are you going to do with them?” asked Alex.
“First,” Clay answered, gathering up the stones and looking cautiously about, “I’m going to get them out of sight! Did you hear that motion at the door while they lay here sparkling with a “come-and-get-me” expression?”
“I heard nothing,” Case replied, as Clay put the gems back in the bag. “Where are you going to hide them now? You know this isn’t a very safe treasure house—this old boat.”
“I think I have good reason to know that,” replied Clay, looking ruefully at the box which had held the stolen money. “Guess I’ll put them in the coffee-pot, for the time being. Anybody want any more?”
Both boys declared they did, naturally! So the coffee was poured and consumed. Then the pot was emptied and the brown leather bag was deposited therein.
“What was it you said about someone being at the door while the stones were on the table?” asked Alex.
“Did you see anyone there?” added Case.
For answer Clay nodded his head toward the single pane in the cabin door, which might have been a panel of black velvet, so heavily did the darkness press upon it.
“What did you see there?” he asked.
“Nothing at all.”
Clay moved toward the door and listened between short steps as he walked.
“If anyone rushes the door,” he said, amazing the others by the seeming irrelevance of the remark, “you both stand by to fight ’em off. They will be after the diamonds—understand. You hold ’em off and I’ll grab the coffee-pot and run. They will go away without hurting you when they find out the gems are not here. After the row is over I’ll come back.”
“What are you getting at?” demanded Alex.
“You are surely getting ahead of yours truly in the monkey-story record! Who’s going to rush the door?”
“Listen!”
As Clay spoke there was a light step on the deck outside, then a hand crept over the outer surface of the door and came, fumbling, to the knob, which turned a fraction of an inch under their eyes. The lads stood quite still. Clay’s eyes were fixed on the coffee-pot, now standing within reach of his hand on the table. Case and Alex were closer to the door, against which there now came the brushing of wet garments.
“It may be Jule!” Case whispered.
“No, it is someone after the diamonds!” contended Alex.
There was no farther movement at the door, but the boys stood in the old positions, ready for whatever might come.
“What are you going to do with the diamonds?” asked Case.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Clay answered, almost fretfully. “I can’t decide on a thing like that in a second—not right off the handle, you see. I found them, you know, and——”
“Finders keep and losers seek,” half chanted Case.
“That’s what’s in my mind,” Clay went on. “I know that it isn’t just right, but I found them; and, then, I don’t see no philanthropic person bringing back our stolen money.”
“No one knows we found them,” Alex suggested.
Then the three boys looked into each other’s eyes and smiled.
“You know you won’t keep them!” Case declared. “You know very well that you’ll hunt the city, or the world, over for the owner if he doesn’t come after them.”
“You know you never meant to keep them,” Alex added. “When I hinted that no one knew about them being here I didn’t mean anything by it. You know I didn’t.”
“For just a second I meant to keep them,” Clay confessed. “I was thinking what we might do with them, you see. If we kept them Jule need never know about the robbery. He really ought not to have left the boat, not with all that money here, you see, and so he’ll blame himself just as much as if he had taken the money himself. But of course that was just an impulse. I really don’t mean to keep them!”
“There’s that hand moving on the door again!” whispered Alex.
“How do you know it is a hand?” demanded Case. “It may be the muzzle of a gun or the billy of a policeman.”
“The only way to find out,” suggested Clay, “is to open the door and see who’s there.”
Before this intention could be carried out, however, another element forced itself into the case. There came a shout from the shore and the sound of heavy footfalls on the planking of the pier.
“What’s going on here!” demanded a gruff voice. “What’s all this running round in circles about?”
There was no answer from the outside, and the boys in the cabin did not feel qualified to answer any such questions, so they remained perfectly quiet, until, in a second, the heavy voice came again.
“Come out of that, you wharf rat!” it said. “Come out where I can see you.”
“That’s a member of the river police,” Clay suggested. “They always talk about wharf rats.”
“Who is he talking to?” queried Case, puzzled. “The person on our deck, whoever he is,” Clay decided.
Then the nervous sounds on the door continued, and a voice said:
“Will you let me in, please?”
“Sounds like a girl’s voice.”
This from Alex, who stepped forward as he spoke.
“Perhaps it is the boy I saw fighting the man on the pier,” Clay suggested. “He looked pale and sick, and that voice doesn’t belong to a healthy boy.”
“I’m afraid of the police!” came the voice again. “Please let me in. I’ll go away as soon as they are gone.”
“Anyway,” Clay decided, “risk or no risk, diamonds or no diamonds, I’m going to open the door and let him in!”
“Surely,” echoed Alex, with a grin. “Let him in. We’ve been chased by the river police, ourselves, before now.”
“Do you think the policeman saw you get the brown leather bag?” asked Case, “and if he did will he accuse you of stealing the diamonds?”
“We’ll soon know all about it,” replied Clay, unlocking the door.