"What"s your brother"s name?"
"Young, Charlie Young. Is he up to anything wrong?"
"Is he apt to be?"
"Well, I wouldn"t put it past him. Charlie"s a case! I"ve tried to do well by him, but he"s been a thorn in my side for years. I"m always expecting to have him turn up in trouble of one sort or another. Yes, if you ask me, he might have been here that day, and cut up any sort of monkey-shines!"
"Do you know any young lady named Flossie?"
"Nope, never heard of any, that I remember. But Charlie has queer friends, if that"s what you"re getting at. Say, tell me more about the Pell case, if you"re from Berrien. How did the murderer get out?"
"I haven"t discovered that yet, but I hope to do so. I understand your father was an expert carpenter and joiner?"
"Yes, sir, he was that. He died some four years ago, but I"ve many examples of his fine work. Want to see some?"
But Stone could not stay to gratify the son"s pride in the paternal accomplishments and the two callers left and went back to Pellbrook.
"There"s the man," said Stone, briefly. "Charlie Young is the master mind behind all this deviltry."
"Did he kill Aunt Ursula?" asked Iris with angry eyes.
"I don"t say that, yet," Stone said, cautiously, "but he"s the man who is after the pin and----"
The detective fell into a deep study and Iris, busy with her own thoughts, did not interrupt him.
She positively identified the house as the one to which she had been taken, and if Mr. Stone said that Charlie Young was the villain who had directed the kidnapping, though he did not appear himself, she had no doubt Stone wad right.
"And I"ve got a letter that Charlie Young wrote," Stone exulted. "I rather think that will go far toward freeing Mr. Bannard!"
"Oh, how?"
"I believe that Young wrote that letter signed William Ashton, and purposely made it look like the disguised hand of Winston Bannard."
"It was exactly like Win"s writing, but different, too. The long-tailed letters were just like Win"s."
"Yes, and that helps prove it. If Bannard had tried to disguise his own writing, the first thing he would have thought of would be _not_ to make those peculiar long loops. Now their presence shows a clever trickster"s effort to make the writing suggest Bannard at once, but also to suggest a disguised hand."
"That is clever! How can you ever catch such an ingenious villain? Shall you arrest him at once?"
"Oh, no, to suspect is not to accuse, until we have incontrovertible proof. But we"ll get it! Lord, what a brain! And, yet, it may be easier to catch a smarty like that than a duller, more plodding mind. You see, he is so brilliant of scheme, so quick of execution, that he may well overreach himself, and tumble into a trap or two I shall set for him."
"Doubtless he knows you are here, doesn"t he?"
"Surely; but that doesn"t matter. If things are going as I hope, I"ll bag him soon!"
"And yet you"re not sure he"s the murderer?"
"No, Miss Clyde, and I"m inclined to think he was not. However, we must proceed with caution, but we can work swiftly, and, I hope, reach the end soon. Matters are coming to a focus."
As they drove under the Pellbrook _porte cochere_, a strange-looking figure ran to greet them.
"h.e.l.lo, darkey boy, who are _you_?" sang out Stone, as the blackamoor grinned at them.
Iris stared, and then burst out, laughing. "Why, it"s Terence!" she cried. "For goodness" sake, Fibsy, what _have_ you been doing?"
The boy was quite as black as any chimney sweep--indeed, as any full-blooded negro. He had run up from the cellar at the approach of the motor, and stood grinning at Iris and Stone.
"I"m on a trail," he said, "and it"s a mighty dark one.
"Where will it lead you--to light?" asked Stone, smiling at the earnest, blackened face.
"I hope so, oh, Mr. Stone, I hope so! For the trail is somepin" fierce, be-lieve me!"
"Well, look out, don"t get near Miss Clyde, nor me, either! You"re a sight, Fibsy!"
"Yessir, I know it," and, without another word, the boy turned and disappeared down the cellar entrance.
Iris went into the house, but Stone went down to the cellar to see what Fibsy was doing. He found the boy diligently shoveling coal from one large coal bin to another. Nearby was Sam, quite as black as Fibsy, and the two were a comical sight.
Sam was seated on a box, rocking back and forth in an ecstasy of glee, and crooning, "Colole, colole, pinny-pin in colole!"
"That"s what he says, Mr. Stone," Fibsy defended himself, "so if pinny-pin _is_ in the coal-hole, I"m going to get her out! And if not, then Sam"s fooled me again, that"s all!"
"Terence Maguire! Do you mean to say you"re going to hunt for a needle in a haystack--I mean a pin in a coal-hole?"
"Just that, sir. I"m onto friend b.o.o.bikins" curves, now, and I fully believe that his present dope is the answer! Anyway, I"m taking no chances."
"But, Fibs, it"s impossible----"
"Sure it is, that"s why I"m doing it. You run away and play, Mr. Stone, and let me work out this end. Didn"t you tell me to find the pin? Well, I"m obeyin" orders."
Fibsy turned to his task again, and Stone watched him for a few minutes.
The boy laboriously took up the coal in a small shovel, looked it over with sharpest scrutiny and then dumped it into the other bin.
By good luck the bins adjoined and the task was one of patience and perseverance rather than of difficulty.
Stepping toward his faithful a.s.sistant, Fleming Stone held out his hand, and said, quietly, "Put it there, Terence!"
Eagerly the little black paw slipped into the big, strong white one, and the handshake that ensued was all the reward or recognition the happy boy wanted.
Stone went upstairs again, and Fibsy whistled gaily as he continued his self-chosen task.
Sam, sitting by, cheered him on by continued a.s.sertions that he _had_ thrown the pin in the coal-bin, and had _not_ buried it in a crack of the floor.
And, as Fibsy had declared, he knew the half-wit now well enough to feel pretty sure when he was telling the truth and when not.
Meantime, Stone was pursuing his investigations. That afternoon he drove to Red Fox Inn. He went alone, and by dint of bribes and threats he learned that Charlie Young had been there since the day of the murder, and had instructed the waiter who had served Bannard at his Sunday luncheon to say that Bannard was coming from New York and not going to it. These instructions were made as commands and were backed up by certain forcible arguments that insured their carrying out.
It became clear, therefore, that Young was interested in making it seem that Bannard was at Pellbrook on Sunday afternoon instead of Sunday morning, which latter Stone firmly believed to be the case.