“Captain Joe is still behind those boxes. If Max could capture him, he’d have him in all the dog fights in Quebec.”
But Max was at this time taking to his heels up the street which ran down to the slip; and Captain Joe soon made his appearance, looking very much discouraged. He was taken on board, dripping with water, and Teddy received quite a bath by approaching him too suddenly. The bulldog enjoyed that.
The chief of police made his appearance soon after the boys had partaken of breakfast, and sat down to talk over the events of the preceding night.
“This boy, Max,” he explained, “is one of the queerest customers we have anything to do with. He lives in the streets, apparently without money or friends, and yet he frequently appears at a swell hotel handsomely dressed and with plenty of money in his pockets. He seems to have been well educated, as you have probably noticed from his conversation.”
“He talks like a graduate,” admitted Clay.
“Yes, and he’s one of the sharpest little chaps in the city. We are certain that he has had a hand in several bold robberies, yet it has up to this time been impossible to convict him. He is usually defended by first-class criminal lawyers, and his wharf rat companions seem to be very desirable witnesses for him.”
“Isn’t it possible,” asked Clay, “that the boy lives along the river front for some well defined, perhaps criminal, purpose of his own?”
“I’ve often thought of that,” answered the chief, “for he always takes great pains to make friends of the creatures of the underworld. Now and then he disappears from the city for a few days, or weeks, but always comes back to his old haunts.”
“Of course,” Clay said, “you are familiar with the Fontenelle land claim and the story of the lost charter and the missing family jewels?”
“Oh, yes,” answered the chief, smiling tolerantly, “every man, woman and child in Quebec knows all about the Fontenelle case. Old man Fontenelle is almost a monomaniac on the subject of the lost charter. He has spent thousands of dollars searching for it and claims that he would have discovered it long ago only for the active and criminal opposition of men who might lose heavily if it came again into his possession.”