“He smelt a rat all right—he’s sure mixed up in this business.”
“And the quiet way he sneaked off! Let’s find out if anyone saw him go.”
Thus the chums exclaimed as the queer situation dawned upon them. Mr. Farson, too, was surprised, and did not know what to make of it.
“I think I will devote all my efforts to locating the pawnbroker,” he said. “If I get the stuff back that belongs to other persons, I don’t care so much about an arrest.”
“But we’d like to solve the mystery, seeing that we had a hand in it,” said Tom. “I wonder where Mendez could have gone?”
But no one knew—no one had seen him go. Later that evening, when the young men, after the jeweler had gone to his store, made inquiries of the owner of the cottage where the Mexican had been working all that day, they were told by a servant that a boy, coming in a boat, had brought a message to the caretaker. He had seemed surprised, and had hurried off, leaving his work partly finished, promising to return. But he did not, and that was the last seen of him—at least for the time being.
Evidently he had taken alarm at something, had hurried to the shack, hastily packed up his belongings, and fled in a boat. In fact the rowboat he generally used was missing.
As far as it went there was nothing criminal in his actions. There was no direct connection between him and the missing jewelry. He bore a good reputation among the cottagers, and had always done his work well. He was honest in his dealings, and his word could be taken in regard to the things he sold. Some of the cottagers even owed him for work performed.
“It’s another mystery connected with this strange affair,” said Tom, as he and his chums turned in for the night. “We may get to the bottom of it some day.”
“I hope so,” murmured Frank. “We’ve been doing more detective work than rowing of late. We’ll have to buckle down from now on. College opens in three weeks.”