So it was with eagerness that Mr. Tarton agreed to accompany the lad in the flivver to Perry Junction, there, if need arose, to make an arrest on suspicion.
“I’ll just wake up Sim Nettlebury, and let him take charge of matters,” the constable said with a chuckle. “Not that anything is likely to happen in Cliffside at this hour of the morning, but I got to follow regulations. Sim won’t like it, though, being woke up.”
Sim didn’t, as was evident from his grumbles and growls as the night constable aroused him in the room over the main office of police headquarters. A certain proportion of the limited police force of Cliffside slept on the premises, taking turns the different nights.
“Now I’m ready to go with you, Bob,” announced Mr. Tarton, as the half-awake Sim, rubbing his eyes, tried to find a comfortable place behind the desk with its green-shaded lamp.
Bob Dexter had thought out his plan carefully, and yet he was not at all sure of the outcome. The identity of Rod Marbury, the man suspected of assaulting Hiram and stealing the brass-bound box, with Pietro Margolis was a surprise to the young detective. How the man with the iron hook fitted into the mystery Bob could not yet fathom.
But that something had occurred between the two to make Rod leave off his disguise, and hurry out of town was evident.
“He fooled Hiram and he fooled Jolly Bill,” thought Bob. “The question is now can he fool me. I was taken in by his monkey nuts, but from now on I’ll be on my guard. And yet I don’t believe he took the brass box. But he may know who did. The man with the iron hook couldn’t have—I’m sure. Hiram never mentioned such a character, and he would have done so, I’m sure, if there had been any such character to mention. You don’t meet a man with an iron hook every day. Well, it may be working out—this Storm Mountain mystery—but it’s doing so in a queer way.”
“All set, Bob,” said the constable, as he got in the flivver.
“Let’s go!” was the grim rejoinder.
The roads were clear of traffic, save for an occasional farmer bringing to town, for the early market, a load of produce. And, as Bob had said, he could take a short cut, intercepting the milk train, almost before it reached Perry Junction. The train, as the lad had stated, would have to make a number of stops to pick up cans of milk which the dairymen had left at the different stations along the route.