DINAN GOES TO SCHAACK.
The livery-man thought nothing further of the circumstance until early the following Monday morning, when the excitement over the disappearance of the physician had commenced to manifest itself. The description of the white horse and buggy which Frank Scanlan—and, as it subsequently proved, Mrs. Conklin—had seen driven up, and which carried the doctor away, arrested his attention, and recalling the event of Saturday night, he determined to go to Captain Schaack and acquaint him with the facts. At the same time he had little idea that it was his own white horse that had been mixed up in the affair. Only a coincidence, he reasoned, especially in view of to the fact that it was Detective Coughlin that had hired it; while yet at the same time, it might prove be the best policy to tell what he knew. In the meantime, several police officers in uniform had called at the stable to learn if a white horse had been hired on the Saturday night, and the hostler, acting under instructions that they were never to tell who took out horses ordered by the Captain or his detectives, answered each inquiry in the negative. It was between nine and ten o'clock when Dinan went up to the station to see Captain Schaack. On the steps he met Coughlin.
"Hello!" said the detective. "Who are you looking for?"
"Captain Schaack," replied the liveryman.
"What for?" demanded Coughlin. "What are you so excited about?"
"Well," was the reply, "there have been so many inquiries made about the white horse that was out on Saturday night—the one that I let your friend have—that I want to tell him all about it."
Coughlin's face paled perceptibly. The muscles twitched, and he nervously chewed his mustache. For a few moments he stood deep in thought, and then, turning to Dinan, he said:
"Look here, there is no use making a fuss about this thing. You keep quiet about it. Me and Cronin have not been good friends, and it might get me into difficulty or trouble. Everybody knows he and I were enemies."
Although the livery-man appeared to acquiesce in the detective's suggestion, and went away for the time being, he was more than ever determined in his mind to see the captain. He did not propose to "keep quiet about it." Accordingly, an hour later he went again to the station. He was told that the official was home at dinner, and he made a bee-line for the house. Schaack was there, and into his attentive ear Dinan poured his tale of the white horse, the buggy and the peculiar customer.