“That has nothing to do with it,” said Nyoda, firmly. “The fact that he is fearfully stingy and grasping has no bearing on this case. He has a right to know it if his property is in danger.” And she proceeded forthwith to the Red House.
Mr. Smalley was inclined to pooh-pooh the whole affair as the imagination of a houseful of women. “Saw a man running out of your barn, did you?” he asked, showing some interest in this part of the tale. “Well now, come to think of it,” he said, “I saw someone sneaking around ours too, last night. But I didn’t think much of it. That’s happened before. It’s usually chicken thieves. I keep a big dog in the barn and they think twice about breaking in after they hear him bark, and you haven’t any chickens, that’s why nothing was touched.” It was a very simple explanation of the presence of the man in the barn, but still it did not satisfy Nyoda. She could not help connecting it in some way with the occurrences in the vacant house.
Mr. Landsdowne was very much interested and excited at the story when it was told to him. “There’s probably a whole lot more to it than we know,” he said, getting out his rifle and beginning to clean it. “There’s more going on in this country in the present state of affairs than most people dream of. You have notified the police? That’s good; I guess there won’t be many more secret doings in the empty house.”
As Nyoda and Migwan went home from the Landsdownes they passed a telegraph pole in the road on which a man was working. Silhouetted against the sky as he was they could see his actions clearly. He was holding something to his ear which looked like a receiver, and with the other hand he was writing something down in a little book. Migwan looked at him curiously; then she started. “Nyoda,” she said, in a whisper, “that is the same man who used our telephone. That is Dante Venoti himself.” As if conscious that they were looking at him, the man on the pole put down the pencil, and drawing his cap, which had a large visor, down over his face, he bent his head so they could not get another look at his features. “That’s the man, all right,” said Migwan. “What do you suppose he is doing?”
“It looks,” said Nyoda, judicially, “as if he were tapping the wires for messages that are expected to pass at this time. Possibly you did not notice it, but I began to look at that man as soon as we stepped into the road from Landsdowne’s, and I saw him look at his watch and then hastily put the receiver to his ear.”
“Oh, I hope the police from town will come soon,” said Migwan, hopping nervously up and down in the road.
“Until they do come we had better keep a close watch on what goes on around here,” said Nyoda. Accordingly the Winnebagos formed themselves into a complete spy system. Migwan and Gladys and Betty and Tom took baskets and picked the raspberries that grew along the road as an excuse for watching the road and the front of the house, while Nyoda and Sahwah and Hinpoha took the raft and patrolled the river. As the girls in the road watched, the man climbed down from the pole, walked leisurely past them, went up the path to the empty house and seated himself calmly on the front steps, fanning himself with his hat, apparently an innocent line man taking a rest from the hot sun at the top of his pole.
“He’s afraid to go in with us watching him,” whispered Migwan. Just then a large automobile whirled by, stirring up clouds of dust, which temporarily blinded the girls. When they looked again toward the house the “line man” had vanished from the steps. “He’s gone inside!” said Migwan, when they saw without a doubt that he was nowhere in sight outdoors.
Meanwhile the girls on the raft, who had been keeping a sharp lookout down-stream with a pair of opera glasses, saw something approaching in the distance which arrested their attention. For a long time they could not make out what it was—it looked like a shapeless black mass. Then as they drew nearer they saw what was coming, and an exclamation of surprise burst from each one. It was a structure like a portable garage on a raft, towed by a launch. As it drew nearer still they could make out with the opera glasses that the person at the wheel was a woman, and that woman was Bella Venoti.
The hasty arrival of an automobile full of armed men who jumped out in front of the “vacant” house frightened the girls in the road nearly out of their wits, until they realized that these were the plain clothes men from town. After sizing up the house from the outside the men went up the path to the porch. The girls were watching them with a fascinated gaze, and no one saw the second automobile that was coming up the road far in the distance. One of the plain clothes men, who seemed to be the leader of the group, rapped sharply on the door of the house. There was no answer. He rapped again. This time the door was flung wide open from the inside. The girls could see that the man in the doorway was Dante Venoti. The officer of the law stepped forward. “Your little game is up, Dante Venoti,” he said, quietly, “and you are under arrest.”