“I can tell you what made these marks,” broke out Jolly Bill with his characteristic laugh, while Bob was on the verge of saying something.
“What did?” asked Harry. “A bird?”
“No,” replied the bald-headed, and wooden-legged man who had appeared so unexpectedly on the scene, claiming to be a friend of Hiram Beegle. “No! They were made by some one carrying a sack of potatoes, and setting it down every now and then to rest. Isn’t that it, my young detective friend?” he asked, appealing to Bob. If the latter wondered how Jolly Bill knew his claims to being a sleuth, the lad said nothing. He only remarked:
“Yes, a heavy bag of potatoes, set here and there to ease the arms of whoever was carrying it, would make just such marks as these.”
“That’s right!” cried Chief Drayton. “I’d never have thought of that—a potato sack sure enough! What do you know about that? I s’pose, Chief,” he went on, addressing the head of the Cliffside police, “that it wasn’t a sack of potatoes though, at all.”
“What do you mean—not a sack of potatoes?” asked Mr. Duncan.
“Well, I mean the scoundrel that robbed old Hiram Beegle piled his booty in a potato sack and carried it off this way. He left us a good clew, I’ll say. We can see jist which way he went with his potato sack full of booty!”
The chief seemed to relish this word “booty,” rolling it around on his tongue as if it were a choice tidbit.
“We’ve got him now!” he declared. “Come on over this way!”
“Just a moment!” spoke Chief Duncan. “We came out here to let Bob experiment with a key dropped down the chimney. We want to see if it was possible for the thief to have assaulted Hiram, gone out, locked the door after him and then have gotten the key back inside.”