The inspector, arrived with the locksmith, ordered the latter to open the door.
Frank looked about him curiously as, the door once opened, all hands pa.s.sed into the room beyond. Its tables were littered with envelopes, circulars and letters.
The big lodge chamber was part.i.tioned off at one end by a cambric curtain. Here there was a couch, a small oil stove and some eatables and dishes, evidences of light housekeeping on the premises.
The inspector darted about from corner to corner, and into all the little apartments that had formerly been in service as lodge and rooms.
"H"m," he observed, coming back from his inspection to the others, "birds have flown."
He moved to an open window. Pendant from an iron shutter hinge was a strong portable knotted fire escape. Its ground end trailed into an inside court of the building.
"If you think you know the people who were here and who have certainly escaped," suggested the inspector to the marshal, "you had better get your men on their track before they leave town."
"All right," said the marshal glumly making for the door.
"Here, I"m in on that arrangement," observed Halsey.
The inspector with an eagle glance at the letters on the tables and a business-like air, sat down to look over a ma.s.s of correspondence lying before him. Frank went up to him.
"Can I be of any a.s.sistance to you, sir?" he asked.
"You helped in this thing. Yes, yes you can help me," said the inspector.
"Take this note to the local postmaster, will you?"
The inspector wrote a few words on his own card. It summoned the postmaster. The inspector directed that official to deliver all future mail of the Wacker outfit to himself or his representative.
When the postmaster was gone the inspector impressed Frank into service.
This consisted in sorting out the letters and taking down the names of the persons who had been swindled.
"Now you can go for the marshal, if you will," said the inspector, about an hour later.
Frank found that official just returned from an unsuccessful search for Dale Wacker and the old man with the big beard, his presumable partner, whom Stet had vaguely described to Frank.
"I must catch the afternoon train for the city and make my report to headquarters," said the inspector, when Frank returned to him with the marshal. "I want you to put a trustworthy custodian in charge here until we can send a regular man to close up the matter, and start after those swindlers."
"I"ll put one of my deputies in charge," said the marshal. "As to Wacker and his partner, they"re probably safe and far by this time."
The inspector regarded the speaker with a half-pitying, half-contemptuous look.
"That"s as may be," he observed, "for the present. We don"t let matters drop that easily, ourselves. There"s something you mustn"t forget officer: When the United States Government gets after a guilty man, if he fled to the furthest corners of the earth, we never let up till we find him."
CHAPTER XXVIII
A HEART OF GOLD
It had been a strenuous day for Frank. He and his mother had put in double duty at the office that afternoon. Everything in the mail order business was moving along smoothly. Only this complication of Dale Wacker and Markham comprised a disturbing, unsettled element in the situation.
It was a beautiful moonlight night. Frank enjoyed the quiet of the hour after the stirring turmoil of the day, and prolonged his stroll. Almost instinctively his footsteps led him in the direction of the scene of the main commotion of the day--Main Street Block.
"h.e.l.lo," said Frank suddenly and in some surprise, as, pa.s.sing its gloomy entrance, he observed a solitary figure seated on a step in its shadow.
Frank recognized the man whom the marshal had appointed as custodian of the raided mail order concern up-stairs.
"Oh, that you, Newton?" spoke the man in a somewhat embarra.s.sed way.
"Yes," replied Frank, "just headed for bed. Enjoying the fine evening?"
"Well," said the custodian slowly, "I can"t say I am. Sort of lonely.
Don"t be in a rush. Dull and sleepy hanging around this desolate old barracks."
"Why don"t you go to bed, then?" suggested Frank. "There"s a comfortable cot upstairs there."
"Ugh," responded the custodian, with a grim shudder--"catch me!"
"Why, what"s the matter?" pressed Frank, discerning that something really was wrong.
"I believe the place is haunted. I have heard some awful groans."
Frank was interested, and finally said he would go with the watchman and make an investigation. For quarter of an hour they found nothing, then Frank discovered the form of a man lying in the bottom of a disused coal chute. The man was in great pain. Much to the youth"s amazement the fellow proved to be Gideon Purnell.
Frank questioned the rascal and found out Purnell had been Wacker"s partner in the dishonest mail order scheme. Purnell had fallen down the chute while trying to escape from the marshal. His back was injured and the fellow was in a dying condition. He begged Frank to take him to some place where he could die in peace.
"I am sorry for you," said Frank. "If you really are badly hurt--"
"Don"t doubt it. I know what I"m talking about," said Purnell. "I"ve only a few days left."
"I want to do right," said Frank slowly.
"Then help a poor, broken wretch to die in peace," pleaded Purnell.
"I"ll be back soon," said Frank simply, deeply affected himself.
Frank acted on an impulse he could hardly control. He ran to the Haven home and roused up Darry and Bob. There was animated explanation and discussion.
Half-an-hour later, secret and stealthy as midnight marauders, the trio of friends wheeled the Haven Brothers" delivery hand cart down the alley behind Main Street Block.
"Bet the fellow played you--bet he"s made off," predicted Bob.
However, they found Purnell just where Frank had left him, only insensible now. They lifted him, a dead weight, into the cart. Then Bob, piloting the way, warned Frank and Darry of late pedestrians, and thus they reached Frank"s home.
"Where am I--in a hospital?" spoke Purnell weakly, arousing from his stupor an hour later.
"You are at my home," said Frank, coming to the side of the comfortable bed where the sufferer lay.