“Will you promise not to prosecute me if I tell you all I know?” pleaded Josiah Crabtree, as he sank into a chair, his hands shaking violently on the top of his cane as he did so. “I’m an old man, now, Rover, and I haven’t many more years to live, and I don’t want to go to prison again. Spare me and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Then you’re willing to turn state’s evidence?”
“I am. I didn’t want to go into this in the first place, but, as I said before, they promised me a thousand dollars and that was a terrible temptation because I had less than a dollar in my pocket at that time. But they didn’t give me a cent! This morning I was turned out of the rooming house where I was stopping, and all I’ve had to eat was one small ham sandwich washed down with a drink of water,” and now the tears stood in Josiah Crabtree’s watery and shifty eyes.
Had Sam not known this man as well as he did, he might have been sorry for the former teacher. But he knew how crafty and cruel Crabtree had been for many years, and so he did not allow the man’s pleadings to soften him.
“If you get out of this with a whole skin it will simply be because you help us to round up those bandits and get back our securities,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll take your medicine.”
“I’ll do all I can!” cried Josiah Crabtree in the tone of a drowning man clutching at a straw. And thereupon he made a revelation which was so astonishing that Sam could hardly believe it at first. This revelation was repeated to the two detectives who arrived a little later, and then Josiah Crabtree was closely questioned until nothing more could be extracted from the old man.
Crabtree revealed that the hold-up had been planned by Slogwell Brown, Nelson Martell and Ken Greene, the latter a nephew of their old enemy, Tad Sobber. Mr. Brown and Mr. Martell had had, of course, to take in their sons; and then Slugger Brown had met Crabtree when the latter arrived in New York and through the former teacher had been enabled to call in several other fellows, including Jerry Koswell, who had been the Rovers’ enemy at Brill College, and Pelter and Japson, who had tried to ruin the Rovers when they had first established themselves in business in New York City.
Crabtree was not certain how Mr. Brown and Mr. Martell had become acquainted with the notorious hold-up men, Lefty Ditini and Black Ronombo. But these men had been called into the game and they in turn had had the assistance of several of their pals.
The hold-up had been planned a number of weeks before it occurred, and many of the details were carefully worked out. Slugger Brown and Nappy Martell were to see to it that none of the Rover boys came back to New York from Valley Brook Farm, and Josiah Crabtree had been utilized in sending the fake messages to Dick Rover and to Dora after the telegrams had been sent which had taken Tom and Sam out of the city.