CHAPTER XXI—“THINGS ARE COMING OUR WAY.”
Dr. Tallman was standing on his porch the next morning. By his side was Ralph, pale and a bit shaky, but with a glad look on his face. The news of Jack’s safety had heartened him up immensely.
All at once, far down the road a cloud of dust showed that a vehicle of some sort was approaching. It drew rapidly closer, and the two figures on the porch saw that it was a fast red runabout, and carried two persons.
The machine was the lawyer’s own, the yellow car having been taken by the police. The next instant they were recognized as Mr. Bowler, the lawyer, and Jack.
“I wonder where Tom is?” questioned Ralph.
The next minute, after greetings had been exchanged, Mr. Bowler and Jack were asking the same question. Dr. Tallman looked amazed.
“Why, he left here last night for your house!” exclaimed the doctor. “Didn’t he arrive?”
“No; we haven’t seen a sign of him. What can have happened?” exclaimed the lawyer anxiously.
“I’ll bet those rascals are mixed up in it in some way,” cried Jack. “Oh, what can we do to find him?”
“Wait a moment, things may not be as bad as you imagine,” said the doctor.
The words had hardly left his lips before down the road from the opposite direction to that from which the lawyer and Jack had arrived, there came another automobile.
Jack recognized its familiar outlines in a flash.
“The Flying Road Racer!” he exclaimed, and then the next instant, “Tom is in it. Hooray! Where can he have been?”
“And who is that with him?” wondered Mr. Bowler.
“Why—why—it’s a clown!” gasped Ralph, bursting into a laugh. “Why—why,” he exclaimed a moment later, “it’s old Dick Dangler, from Sawdon’s circus, the only man who was kind to me in that whole company; What can he be doing with Tom?”
The Flying Road Racer swept up to the porch, and before its wheels had stopped revolving almost, Tom and Jack were clasping each other’s hands. Ralph, too, was dancing for joy, while, in the background, Mr. Bowler and Dr. Tallman looked on.
Tom’s story was soon told.
“We found the auto as soon as it was daylight,” he said, “but the men who took the model had damaged the engine so that it took me some little time to fix it up. And that’s all, except that here we are, and the model has slipped out of our hands for a second time.”
“Never mind,” said Dr. Tallman consolingly, “maybe you’ll find it again.”
But Tom shook his head disconsolately.
“I guess not, it’s gone for good, I’m afraid, this time. But Dick Dangler here has something he wants to tell you, Dr. Tallman.”
“To tell me?” said the doctor in wondering tones, looking at the eccentric figure of the clown, who was talking apart with Ralph.
“Yes. It concerns Ralph’s identity. If I’m not mistaken, you already suspect him to be more than a friendless orphan lad.”
“Frankly I do,” was the rejoinder. “He has a peculiar mark on his arm in the shape of a wineglass. I never recall having seen such a peculiarity except on one child, an infant named Ralph Melville.”
“Hurray! Glory be!” exclaimed Tom, much to the surprise of the doctor and the lawyer, the latter of whom had started at the name of Melville. “Ralph, you’re rich, or are going to be. It’s all the same! Hurray!”
Of course, until Dick Dangler’s story had been told the rest of the party couldn’t make out Tom’s delight. But it appeared, according to Mr. Bowler, that it would be a difficult matter to prove Ralph’s rights to the Melville fortune and name, and in the meantime much had to be done. The fact that it was Melville who was also concerned in trying to swindle Mr. Peregrine out of his invention was another complication.
A conference was held, at which it was decided that Ralph for the present would remain with Dr. Tallman, his father’s old friend. In the meantime the others would go to Boston and try to get on the track of the patent thieves. Before they departed, however, Dick Dangler was fitted out with an old suit of the doctor’s, and proved to be quite a respectable, kindly appearing man, with a very grave and serious countenance. A clown would have been the last thing you’d have taken him for.
From Boston Mr. Peregrine was fully apprised of the recent exciting happenings, and begged the boys not to run into any unnecessary danger. Mr. Chadwick had returned from Washington, he said, and had expressed his desire that, as the boys had lost Mr. Peregrine’s model, they should do all they could to find it. As for Mr. Jesson, the news from him was that he was perfectly happy, having found a new variety of potato in the Pokeville district.
As Mr. Bowler had a good deal of legal work to attend to, which had been neglected during the last few days, he left the boys to their own devices. Dick Dangler rode with them to the garage where they put tip the Flying Road Racer, and then left them, promising to call at their hotel later in the day.
Having seen the car put up, the two lads started out for Police Headquarters. There they were informed that not a trace had been found of the men who had stolen the model. Tom then related what had occurred in the old mansion.
“So that’s where they have been hanging out!” exclaimed the official to whom he communicated this information. “Well, I’ll send a couple of men out there this very afternoon to search the place thoroughly. We may light on a clew.” He went on to inform them that every station in Boston would be guarded, and that no chance to capture the men, supposing them to be in that city, would be neglected.
“Well, I suppose we will have to be content with that,” said Tom, as they left. “It’s tough to think that those men may be right in the city now and yet we can do nothing.”
“I should think it more likely that they would be in New York,” said Jack. “After what they did in the old mansion it would be my idea that they would try to get as far away from this vicinity as possible, knowing that we are on their trail.”
The boys walked on through the streets, looking into shop windows, and especially into those in which mechanical apparatus was displayed. But this began to pall after a while, and Jack suggested that they take a walk along the wharves. Tom readily agreed, and, arm in arm, they set out to visit one of the most interesting quarters of the Hub.
The “T” wharf, where the fishing vessels lie, particularly attracted their attention, and they were gazing with interest at a smart schooner unloading her finny freight when a familiar voice struck on their ears.
“Why, hullo, boys, what are you doing here?”
They turned and found themselves gazing into the frank, bronzed face of Captain Andrews, skipper of the yacht Sea King, who had shared their adventures in Yucatan.
The captain was unaffectedly glad to see his young shipmates again, and asked them many questions about themselves. He said that he had prospered exceedingly, and now owned two fishing schooners besides a fast, smart motor craft, all engaged in the fishing industry. He was so eager to unfold the story of his progress that he did not at first notice that neither of the boys looked particularly cheerful.
“What’s in the wind, shipmates?” he demanded. “You look as down-in-the-mouth as a hooked codfish.”
“As bad as all that?” laughed Jack. “Well, Captain, there’s a reason, as the advertisements say.”
“What’s up? Heave ahead and spin your yarn. If it’s anything I can help you out of, trust me to do all I can.”
His manner invited confidence, and, seating themselves beside the sea veteran on an upturned box, Jack poured out the story of their troubles.
“Well, if that don’t beat a novel!” exclaimed the captain when he had finished. “And those two rascals are in Boston, do you think?”
“We don’t know,” rejoined Jack. “We’ve really no way of finding out, and the police are as helpless as we are.”
“Oh, the police are always no more use than a lot of babies,” declared Captain Andrews, who clearly had a contempt for that much-maligned body of men. “I’d back you boys against any detective I ever saw.”
“That’s very good of you,” laughed Tom, “but I’m afraid we’ve proved the kind of detectives that don’t detect.”
“Don’t be downcast, lads,” counselled the captain heartily. “When things seem at the worst, it is generally the time that they begin to mend. I’ll spin you a yarn about that, if you like.”
“I wish you would,” said Jack. “It will pass the time away pleasantly.”
“Back fifteen years ago I was mate of the brig Nancy Lee,” began the captain. “We sailed out of ’Frisco on the Fourth of July, bound for the islands on a trading cruise. Two days out we ran into as nasty a sample of weather as ever I saw. We lost our mainmast, and two of the men were killed in its fall.
“Then, when the storm had blown itself out, the captain took sick, and, worse than that, our provisions began to get low. Things went from bad to worse. We did not sight a sail of any kind; the men grew ugly and mutinous. Then one night the ship took fire and——
“Dash my lee scuppers, what’s up now?” exclaimed the amazed captain, as Jack and Tom suddenly leaped to their feet and dashed off, leaving him in the most exciting part of his story.
“It’s those men, there they go—look!” shouted Jack, flinging back the words as he ran.
It was indeed Jake Rook and Radcliff. They turned as they heard the boys shout, and then, recognizing them, took to their heels. The boys ran in and out amid the maze of traffic, and for a time kept the two rascals in sight. But finally in the crush and crowd they lost them, and had to admit that there was but little likelihood of their ever finding them again.
Regretfully they retraced their steps, but on their return they found that Captain Andrews had been called away on business, leaving word with the men on board the schooner that he would visit them at their hotel later in the day.
“We do seem to have the very worst sort of luck,” declared Tom, as the two lads trudged back to their hotel in very low spirits. “If only we could have caught up to those rascals!”
“We made a big mistake when we shouted out as we did,” said Jack. “If we had followed them in silence we might have managed to track them to wherever they have their hang-out.”
Tom reluctantly agreed that this was so. “But, just the same,” he added, “we do have hard luck, and more than our fair share of it.” After lunch they set out for Mr. Bowler’s office, having already telephoned to the police that the men were actually in Boston. Just as they were leaving the hotel, however, they met with an unexpected interruption to their plans. Dick Dangler hurried up to them, his ordinarily grave face flushed and excited.
“I’ve news!” he exclaimed. “Great news!”
“You’ve found those men?” asked Jack and Tom in the same breath.
“No; but I’ve done almost as well. Who do you suppose I’ve seen?”
“Haven’t an idea,” said Jack. “Maybe——”
“Nobody less than Sawdon, and with him was Stephen Melville himself.”
“Stephen Melville here in Boston?” gasped Jack. “He must be going to meet Jake Rook and Radcliff.”
“I don’t know, but I did better than just seeing them. I followed them. Traced them to an old tumble-down livery barn on Emmons Street. They are there now, I guess. Phew! I ran all the way here to tell you, and I’m ’most out of breath.”
“Good work!” exclaimed Jack. “It looks as if the net was closing in about those rascals. Come on, Tom, we’ll hurry to headquarters, get some officers and go down there. We’ll bag the whole gang in a bunch.”
“That’s the idea,” cried Tom, “but, hurry up, we’ve no time to lose. Glory be! I feel better than I have for many a day. Things are coming our way at last.”