"You"ll do it now," declared Frank definitely, "or I will expose you to the people here, and wire Mr. Beach for instructions."
"At least let me go and make some excuse to my friends yonder," pleaded "the count."
"Go ahead," said Frank.
CHAPTER XXII
GOOD NEWS
Frank kept a close watch on Purnell. He had reason to do so. Upon what he might by threats or persuasion compel this man to divulge, hung all the future prospects of his mother ever recovering her stolen fortune.
When Frank"s step-father died, this person, one of his former a.s.sociates, had produced notes and deeds apparently giving him the ownership to everything that Mr. Ismond owned.
There were many flaws to his claim. Mrs. Ismond"s lawyer, Mr. Beach, discovered two arrant forgeries. Before any action at law could be taken, however, Purnell transferred all the property to "an innocent purchaser," Dorsett.
Mrs. Ismond brought suit against the latter, but even Mr. Beach did not believe the law would force him to restore what he claimed to have bought for a valid consideration. Their only hope seemed to be to find Purnell, who had disappeared. If through him they could connect Dorsett with a conspiracy, Mrs. Ismond would win her case.
This was the first time since he had fled from Greenville that Frank had seen this man. Now he forgot his sample case, Markham, and the whole mail order business amid the keen importance of keeping track of the slippery fugitive, and forcing from him a confession.
Purnell approached the party of young ladies, still acting the exquisite and playing the foreign count he pretended to be. He bowed and smirked, and backed away to Frank.
Instantly his face lost its mask. With a scowl he dropped his affected foreign drawl.
"You will have it out, here and now, will you?" he growled, grinding his teeth viciously.
"Yes, I"ll have it out, or you in," responded Frank pointedly.
"Then come to my room."
The false count led the way into the hotel, hurried up a staircase, and, unlocking a door on the second floor, ushered Frank into a room. He lit the gas and threw himself into a chair, glaring at Frank in a savage and desperate way.
"You"re a determined young man, you are," he observed.
"Why not?" demanded Frank. "It has been the resolve of my life to hunt you down. If you escape me this time, I shall find you later. You are masquerading here under false pretences. I can expose you. Should I telegraph Mr. Beach, he would at once send an officer to arrest you."
"That won"t help your case any," observed the man.
"I don"t care. It will prove that Dorsett had a criminal for a partner, and that will influence the court when my mother"s suit comes to trial."
"Name your terms," spoke Purnell suddenly.
"Very well," said Frank gravely: "you helped rob my mother of the estate her husband left her. What you got out of it I don"t know, but it seems to have made it necessary for you to continue the career of a fugitive and a fraud."
"What I got!" snapped out Purnell, springing to his feet in hot anger.
"I got what everybody gets who deals with that old rascal--the bad end of the trade, drat him!"
"I"ll leave you alone to your own devices," said Frank. "I"ll promise to see that you get some money when my mother recovers hers, if you will write out, sign and swear to the facts of your conspiracy with Dorsett against my mother."
"All right," answered Purnell, after a moment of thought. "I"ve got some papers that apply to the matter. They are in my sitting room. I"ll get them."
The speaker walked to a door, turned a key and disappeared beyond the threshold. Frank sat awaiting his return. He congratulated himself on the ease with which he had intimidated the man to his purposes.
Two minutes pa.s.sed by, and Frank became impatient, five, and his suspicions were aroused. He walked to the door and knocked, tried it, pushed it open, and found himself, not in a connecting room, but in a side corridor.
"Well, he has slipped me," instantly decided Frank.
He realized that he had been tricked badly. Frank went to the hotel office to make some inquiries, made a tour of the grounds, and, finally surmising that the object of his search had fled for good, regained his sample tray and returned to the town.
Frank did not stay all night at the local hotel, although he went there to ask for mail. He had given his mother a list of the hotels in the various towns he expected to visit, secured from a guide book.
There was a brief note from his mother. It imparted no particular news, saying only that she was attending to orders as they came in.
Frank found a cheap lodging, and was back at the hotel at the lake by six o"clock the next morning. A brief talk with the clerk convinced him that Purnell would not be likely to return to that hostelry.
He had gone, owing a week"s bill, and the two valises left in his room were found to be filled with bricks.
"I"ve missed my man this time," reflected Frank, as he hitched up the horse an hour later. "I may as well go right on my route. I"ll find him again, some time."
At Derby, Frank upon his arrival went to the telegraph office. He sent a message to the reformatory at Linwood, asking if one Richard Welmore was still an inmate of that inst.i.tution. He asked, further, if one Dale Wacker had ever been a prisoner there.
He went on selling in the town, with fair returns, until mid-afternoon.
A reply to his message awaited him on his next visit to the telegraph office. It read:
"Dale Wacker paroled on bond of his uncle. Richard Welmore escaped about six months since. One hundred dollars reward for his capture. If know his whereabouts, wire at once."
"That upsets one of my theories," thought Frank. "Markham has not been captured for the reward."
Brandon was his next town. The day following he made Ess.e.x. He was pretty tired as he drove to its livery stable, about eight o"clock in the evening.
After supper he went to the local hotel, and asked if there was any mail for Frank Newton.
"No," replied the clerk whom he questioned, "but here"s a telegram been waiting here for you since noon."
"Thank you for your trouble," said Frank, rather anxiously tearing open the yellow envelope.
"That"s all right," nodded the hotel clerk. "Good news, I reckon?" he smiled, as Frank"s face lit up magically at a hasty perusal of the message.
"I should say so!" declared Frank.
The message was from Darry Haven, at Pleasantville, and it read:
"Come home at once. Money found."