CHAPTER IV.—TWO GUESTS AND AN ARREST
The other boys made no protest, although the fear and dread of having gems which probably had been stolen—which, at least, did not belong to them—discovered in the cabin was in their hearts, so Clay swung the door open.
A slender, black-eyed boy of about sixteen stood there, an appealing look on his face. When he dodged into the cabin they saw that his clothing was shabby and insufficient for such a night, and that it was soaked with rain. He shivered as he stood by the table and motioned to Clay to lock the door. Before he could thank them for the hospitality so grudgingly extended, the policeman’s strident voice came again from the deck.
“Here!” he said, angrily. Don’t try to make a fool of me. You come on out here! You don’t belong in there, you know. There’s been robbery on the river to-day, and I want you.”
“If you’ll only tell him I belong here——”
The boy did not finish the sentence, for now the ring of the officer’s club came on the door in good earnest, rattling the glass panel and echoing through the little space within like the crack of doom, as Alex afterward expressed it.
“Open up! Open up, or I’ll break the door in! I want the diamonds you stole, and I want you!”
The boys looked at each other with apprehension showing in their manner, and the stranger seemed to sense that something not on the surface was going on in their minds.
“Well, officer, what do you want?”
Clay spoke the words with his head half out of the doorway, his eyes momentarily blinded by the gleam of an electric flashlight in the red, wet hands of a heavy man in the uniform of the Chicago police.
There was a short hesitation on the policeman’s part.
“Where’s the lad who just ran in here?” he then demanded, inserting his club into the crack of the door and forcing it wide open, in spite of the efforts of the boy to retain control of it. “You?”
“No,” answered Clay, “I’m not the lad who just ran in here. What do you want?”
“You ought to know,” was the insolent rejoinder. “There’s been a diamond robbery somewhere about this pier, and I’m looking for the stones and the thief. Let me in for a look around, or it will be the station for yours.”
Clay stepped aside, unwillingly, and the officer stooped down so as to clear the low doorway and brushed into the cabin. His great bulk, his fat red face, his arrogant manner, seemed to reduce the size of the small room by at least half. His helmet was running water, and he removed it and shook the drops over the table.
In a moment he flashed his light around, resting it longest, it seemed to the boys, on the coffee-pot sitting on the electric stove. It seemed to the imaginative Alex that he must see right through the tin to the brown leather bag, and through the folds of the brown leather bag to the stolen diamonds!
Next the policeman felt of Clay’s clothes and sniffed suspiciously when he found them wet. He seemed disappointed when the garments of Case and Alex proved dry to his touch. His face brightened again when he found evidences of recent retreat from the storm in the clothes of the stranger.
“So you are the one who just ducked in here?” he said. “You’re the lad I saw skulking behind the corner of the warehouse beyond not long ago. What?”
The stranger looked the policeman straight in the face with his black eyes, but made no reply. The chums looked on, wondering how they were to get rid of the incriminating coffee-pot.
They felt certain that the officer would make a search of the place and discover the diamonds.
Then they would, in all probability, be hustled off to the police station. They were still anxious about the strange absence of Jule, but, after all, right glad that the boy was not there to share this suspicion.
“Come,” grumbled the officer, shaking the stranger roughly by the shoulder, “the game is up! Give up the diamonds and come along.”
“I haven’t got the diamonds,” faltered the lad. “I don’t know where they are. I’m not a thief. I belong here with these boys.”
The officer turned to Clay, whom he now recognized as one he had often seen about the boat, and of whom he knew nothing discreditable.
“Does he belong here?” he asked.
Clay hesitated. The stranger looked so cold and hungry, and his eyes were appealing, and his manner asked for sympathy! He was sorely tempted to make a statement in his behalf which was not true, and which he knew would be regretted as long as he lived.
To deny the story told by the shivering lad would certainly cause his arrest as a diamond thief. The policeman might go away with his prisoner without searching the cabin if he was told that the lad had never set foot there before. In that case the gems would not be discovered in the possession of the occupants of the place.
It was certainly in the interest of the boys that the policeman should leave without searching the cabin, and yet the stranger stood so in need of protection that Clay could not for an instant decide what to do. Then he caught the eyes of his chums, fixed anxiously upon himself, and moved toward the stove where the diamonds reposed in the coffee-pot, surely an odd receptacle for so valuable a parcel.
“I’m going to tell you the truth, officer,” he said, “though it may get me into trouble. I——”
The stranger stepped forward, interrupting his progress to the place where the stones were secreted.
“Wait,” the boy said, “I’m not going to get you all into trouble. Officer,” he continued, turning to the wondering policeman, “I told you a lie just now. I don’t belong here with these boys. I’ve never been in this cabin before—before to-night. I’ve often watched the boat when it was lighted up on cold nights, and when there was a smell of cooking coming from the windows, as there was to-night, but I don’t belong here. If you’ll take me away now, I’ll be glad, because I don’t want to get these boys into any scrape.”
“So you have loitered about here nights, have you?” demanded Case, his sympathy for the lad turning to suspicion. “What were you doing out there by the warehouse a short time ago? Were you in here after our chum went away. Are you the thief who stole our money?”
Clay tried to check the boy, but his words poured out in a torrent of suspicion and reproach until the officer interrupted him.
“So ho!” he cried, “there’s been another robbery in your vicinity to-night, has there? You’ve kept yourself busy, eh? How much did you lose, lad?” he continued, turning to Clay.
“Case shouldn’t have mentioned it, because we really don’t know, yet, whether it has been stolen or not,” Clay explained, “but the sum we miss now is two hundred dollars.”
The policeman whistled softly.
“Do you happen to have it with you, lad?” he asked, facing the stranger with accusing eyes.
“I never took it!” insisted the boy.
“Search him!” cried Case, who seemed determined to say and do exactly the wrong thing that night.
“He doesn’t look like a thief,” Clay suggested, glad to be able to say something in the dejected lad’s favor.
“Much you know what a thief looks like!” said the officer.
“I don’t believe he is a thief,” declared Alex. “I don’t believe he ever stole the diamonds!”
“We’ll pass it on to the judge,” grinned the policeman. “Many’s the innocent face with a black heart behind it. So I’ll be taking the boy to the sergeant, and asking you boys to come to the trial.”
A fierce dash of rain came against the cabin windows and a burst of thunder for an instant drowned all other sounds. When the quick shock of it was over the policeman was outside, pushing against the wind and rain with his prisoner.
“What kind of a dream is this?” asked Alex, whimsically.
“A dream of a thief!” responded Case.
“Oh, quit it!” interposed Alex. “I think sometimes you haven’t got common sense. I don’t believe that boy ever stole our money.”
“What was he hanging about for, then? I shouldn’t wonder if he did worse—if he attacked Jule and left him lying dead somewhere.”
“You always go to extreme, Case,” smiled Clay. “What I’m thinking about now is that the policeman went away without searching the cabin and finding the diamonds! He says they were stolen to-day. Well, if he had found them here what would he have done?”
“Pinched us!” exclaimed Alex.
“You’ll wash the dishes in the morning for that, Alex,” grinned Case. “That’s slang.”
“Not!” retorted the other. “That is what the policemen call it themselves. They say ‘pinched,’ and that brings the word into legitimate use. Guess I know slang when I hear it.”
“Is that the boy you saw fighting at the head of the pier?” asked Case, in a moment, of Clay.
“Not a bit like him,” was the reply.
“Well, what was he watching the boat for?”
“He explained that. He was lonesome.”
“Then why couldn’t he have gone home?” grumbled Case. “I just think he knows something about where Jule is, or why he went away. I wish we had asked him.”
“I’m getting anxious about Jule,” Clay said. “There may be some connection between his absence and the robbery.”
“I’ll just bet he took the money with him when he went away!” exclaimed Alex. “If he had to go away somewhere, and there was no one to leave in the boat, that’s just what he would have done.”
“When he comes,” Clay advised, echoing Alex’s request, “don’t say a word to him about the money. If he has it, or if he put it away in another place, he will say so soon enough. There’s someone else on the deck!” he added, as a quick step was heard.
“This seems to be a sort of reception night,” Alex laughed. “Wonder who the new person can be? Why, it’s Jule!”
This last sentence as the door opened and a boy much smaller than the others bounded inside. He was covered from the crown of his red head to the soles of his feet with oilskins, which, dripping, made small lakes and rivers on the cabin floor.
Alex darted forward and began pummeling the boy on the shoulders with his fists.
“Where have you been?” he cried. “You’ve given us a bad evening, old man. Come. Tell us about it.”
Jule took off the oilskin coat, leggings, and hat quite deliberately and turned his attention to the electric stove where the coffee-pot was still sitting.
The boys stood watching him with eager eyes. Would he say anything about the money? Had he taken it with him? Had he placed it in a more secure hiding-place? The questions were in their faces, although not spoken, and Jule saw that something unusual was going on.
“Where did you get the oilskins?” asked Alex, glad of any excuse to break the pregnant silence.
Jule lifted his red eyebrows with a comical grimace and walked toward the coffee-pot. He was small and thin, and his freckled face was pathetically wasted as to flesh, but his blue eyes were bright and merry. As he moved toward the electric stove—the one place the boys wished him to keep away from just then—a racking cough convulsed the emaciated frame for a moment.
“Wait!” Alex exclaimed, as Jule recovered from the spasm of coughing and reached for the coffee-pot. “Wait! I’ll get you the coffee!”
“I’ve already connected with it,” answered the boy, taking the pot by the handle and shaking it.
The three stood by, waiting. After all, they thought, it did not matter so much if he did know about the diamonds. He would have to know sometime. The only reason why they objected to the gems coming into the case immediately was that the boy would become excited and forget to tell whatever he knew about the money.
“I’m going to ask him, plump out!” whispered Case to Clay, as Jule lifted the pot and balanced it in his hand, as if to see what the chances were for a full cup.
Clay restrained the impulsive boy by a motion of his hand. Jule did not seem pleased with the investigation of the coffee-pot. There was a bumping sound inside instead of the swish of the stimulating liquid he sought. He lifted the lid and looked in.
They saw him take out the brown leather bag and hold it up between his eyes and the light. Then he shook it, bringing forth from the bag the musical tinkle of the gems. After a second’s hesitation, he started to open the bag, but Alex snatched it away from him.
“Not until you tell us where you have been,” grinned Alex, dangling the bag before Jule’s eyes. “Not until you tell us where you got those oilskins. Not until you tell us everything about what you’ve been doing to-night! Then we’ll let you know what’s in this bag!”