The young gardener stood uncertain, his eyes roving from one girl to the other and back to Arden.
"You--you----" faltered Arden. "I know! Yes, I"m certain now! You are Harry Pangborn!"
"Arden!" gasped Sim. "Arden!"
"What are you saying?" exclaimed Terry, dropping her half-eaten apple.
"This is the man we saw in the post office!" went on Arden, her words and breath coming rapidly. "I mean he"s the picture we saw--I mean he is the original of the man wanted in the police poster. You are, aren"t you?"
she challenged.
CHAPTER XXVII A Telegram
For a moment it seemed as if the young man was going to deny Arden"s statement or at least flee from the scene. But again he smiled in a disarming and friendly fashion, shrugged his shoulders as though getting rid of another weight, and, spreading his hands in a helpless and surrendering gesture, said:
"Yes, I am Harry Pangborn. You have found me out. I thought it wouldn"t be long after I shaved off my mustache. Well, I"m just as glad it happened this way since it had to happen. I was about to end the little masquerade, anyhow."
"Oh, please let us end it!" begged Arden. "I mean if we are allowed to tell----" She seemed confused and blushed.
"Yes, I know," said young Mr. Pangborn. "Well, have it your way. I would rather see you profit by it than anyone else. You did me a favor the night the ram came at me."
"But what does it all mean?" asked Sim.
"Why did you give up your inheritance of millions to come here as a gardener"s helper?" asked Terry.
"It"s a short story, simple enough, and perhaps you may not believe it,"
said Harry Pangborn, "but I just didn"t want my inheritance."
"Not your grandfather"s wealth?" asked Arden.
"Well, perhaps it would be more exact to say I was in no hurry for it.
Oh, I"m not going to pa.s.s it up altogether," he laughed. "But here"s the story briefly. As the poster explains, I disappeared about the time I was to inherit a large sum. But there was nothing criminal in it, and I wasn"t kidnaped as some thought. All my life I have wanted to be the owner of a big farm estate, ever since I used to go to my grandfather"s farm when I was a boy. I knew I could inherit the farm all right, but I wanted to know something about running one, especially an orchard, since I hope to raise fancy apples.
"I figured that the best way to learn from the ground up, so to speak, would be to get a job on a farm or an orchard. I knew I couldn"t do it under my own name. I"d have a lot of tabloid paper reporters after me--a millionaire apple grower and such rot. So I just quietly disappeared, as I knew those in charge of the estate I was to inherit would object, and I roved around. I finally landed here, and I may say I like the place very much." He smiled frankly at the three attractive girls. "I liked everything about it but the ram. But now the time has come to end the masquerade. I"ve learned what I wanted to learn. Old Anson is a good teacher, if he isn"t all he should be in other ways. He taught me many secrets of the soil."
"Why did you happen to come to Cedar Ridge?" asked Arden. "The poster said you might be found around here."
"I know it did. I ran a risk in coming here. But I didn"t just happen to.
You see, my grandfather and Rev. Dr. Bordmust are old college chums. I had that in mind when I came to this college farm as a.s.sistant gardener.
In case of accident I wanted someone who knew me to know where I was. So I told my story to your chaplain, swore him to secrecy, though much against his will, and then I just let matters drift along.
"More than once Dr. Bordmust urged me to give up what he called my mad scheme, and he half threatened to disclose everything. But I prevailed on him to wait just a little longer. But finally, one night just before he was hurt by the ram, he came to see me in my garden residence and said he would keep silent no longer. Then, as I had gotten all I wanted to in the way of apple knowledge, I agreed to do the disclosing myself. This made Dr. Bordmust easier in his mind. It was when he was going home through the orchard, after leaving me, that he was attacked. I can"t tell you how badly I felt over it."
"Yes, it was too bad," agreed Arden, still gasping with astonishment.
"Say," broke in Sim, "was it you who rang the alarm bell?"
Harry Pangborn smiled again and said:
"No! It was Anson who did it."
"Anson!" chorused the surprised three.
"Yes. I am on my way to the dean now, before I go to town, to tell her she had better get rid of her gardener. I can do it freely, as it can be proved I have no ulterior motive since I am giving up my place. But old Anson is a man with a warped mind and a queer sense of humor."
"Why did he ring the bell?" asked Terry.
"And how?" asked Arden.
"He reached up with a long-handled rake and tangled the teeth in the rope," said Mr. Pangborn. "That was his method. As for his reason, well, it may have been one of several.
"But slyly ringing the alarm bell with the rake and then running away wasn"t all of his peculiar sport," went on Mr. Pangborn.
"What else did he do?" asked Terry.
"Once I caught him perched up on the ledge of one of the high gymnasium windows, peering in. He jumped down and ran away as I came along the walk, but I had a chance to see him, and also to note that he was wearing some kind of a mask, that of an evil old man."
"Oh!" gasped Sim. "The face you saw at the dance, Arden!"
"Yes, it must have been," Arden agreed.
"Oh, then you saw that trick?" asked Mr. Pangborn.
"I just had a glimpse of a face at the window," Arden answered. "Then the bell rang, and we all hurried out to try to solve the mystery."
"Yes, that was the night," young Mr. Pangborn agreed.
"But what could he hope to gain by such a trick?" asked Arden. "He really didn"t frighten me."
"I think that was to have been the start of a campaign on his part for a certain purpose," the late Tom Scott answered. "He probably thought the girls would report to the dean about a strange face peering in at them out of the night. Then Anson, very likely, might have offered to drive the Peeping Tom away, which he could easily do by just ceasing his own antics. In this way he would be commended, I think he expected."
"How strange!" murmured Sim.
"He must be crazy!" echoed Terry.
"Do you think," asked Arden, "that he may have done it all as a joke?
Perhaps he was joking the time he threatened Terry and me."
Mr. Pangborn indicated his disbelief in the joke theory by shaking his head. Then he added:
"He may have had very queer ideas as to what was a joke, but I really think he was building up a case for himself."
"A case for himself?" asked Terry.
"Yes. When he had rung the bell enough times and it had become a sort of terrifying mystery, I think he intended to have it solved in a way that would not implicate him and so gain credit and perhaps a raise in wages.