Bob Dexter and the Storm Mountain Mystery or, The Secret of the Log Cabin

“Well, the best way is to have a look,” suggested Bob. “Now the crowd seems to be gone for good, let’s have a look.” For the throng of curious ones had followed the organ grinder down the mountain trail, it seemed. Not often did one of these traveling musicians, if such they may be called, invade Storm Mountain, and the simple inhabitants of that isolated and rural community welcomed their visits.

Such careful examination as Bob and his chums, with the aid of the police chiefs and Jolly Bill Hickey, gave to the strong room, or vault in the log cabin, revealed no visible means by which a large brass key could have been passed inside after the door was locked.

The keyhole theory was, obviously, not to be mentioned again. A moment’s test proved the utter impossibility of forcing the key through the opening by which the lock was operated. And, granting that the key could have been pushed through the hole into which it was intended to be inserted, it would merely have dropped on the floor inside, and would not have fallen near the hand of the stricken man.

The walls of the room appeared very solid, nor was any hollow sound developed when they were tapped.

“How about a trap door in the floor?” asked Ned, when it had been fairly well established that there was no opening through the walls.

“That’s so!” cried Chief Drayton. “I never thought of that! There must be a trap door!”

There wasn’t much he really thought of until some one else suggested it, be it noticed.

But hopeful and feasible as this plan seemed when Ned had mentioned it, nothing developed. The floor was smooth and without any secret flap or trap door, as far as they could see.

“Well, I guess well just have to give it up,” said the Storm Mountain officer with a gesture of despair. “I’ll have to work along the line of catching the criminal. If I do that and get back Hiram’s box of valuable papers I guess that will be all I’m expected to do.”

“Yes, if you do that you’ll be doing well,” said Chief Duncan with a laugh.

“Oh, I’ll do it!” declared the other. “After all, the key mystery doesn’t amount to much. I’ll drop that.”

But there was one present who had made up his mind not to drop the mystery of the brass key, and that individual was Bob Dexter. For here was a mystery just to his liking – no sordid crime was involved, nothing like a sensational murder, such as rumor first had it – only a mysterious robbery, and that of papers which perhaps were of value only to the recent inheritor of them.

“I’ll have a go at it!” Bob Dexter told himself. “But I want to look around when there aren’t so many present. I’m not altogether satisfied that it isn’t possible to get a key in through the walls of this strong room. And I’d like to know why Hiram Beegle built such a strong room. What did he have to guard? What was he afraid of, or, rather, of whom was he afraid? I’d like to find out about these things, and I’m going to.”

He was enlightened on some of these points sooner than he expected.

With the taking away of Hiram by the physician, to the home of Tom Shan, where the old man would be nursed back to health, there was little more that could be done at the lonely log cabin.

“I’ll just lock it up and keep the key,” said Chief Drayton who, in the absence of any relatives of the old man, would seem to have this right under the law. “I’ll keep the brass key, too, though I reckon there isn’t much left in here to steal.”

They were in the strong room at the time, taking a final look around, and the empty chest in the corner bore mute evidence of the futility of keeping guard over the place. Other things of Hiram’s than the brass-bound box might have been taken, but he said nothing about them. His most valuable treasure seemed to be that which Judge Weston had given him the day before, and now that was gone.

“Yes, lock up and we’ll get out,” suggested Chief Duncan. “I’ve got to be getting back to Cliffside. You boys coming with me?” he looked at Ned and Harry.

“We’ll ride back with Bob in his Rolls Royce,” chuckled Harry.

“All right, but don’t speed in my territory or I’ll have to lock you up,” laughed the police head.

“And I think I’ll be pulling up my mud hook and making for some port myself,” said Jolly Bill Hickey with a laugh. “There isn’t any hotel around here,” he added as he stumped around on his wooden leg. “How about it over in your port, my lads?” and he looked at Bob and his chums.

“There’s the Mansion House,” Harry informed him.

“Suits me!” cried Jolly Bill. “I came here to spend a few days with my old shipmate Hiram Beegle, but since he’s in the sick bay I’ll have to make other plans. So I’ll stay at the Mansion House for a while. I’ve got the shot in my locker to pay my passage, too!” he cried, pulling out a plump wallet, and showing it with a flourish. “Don’t be afraid that the Mansion House will see me skipping my board bill, even if I have a wooden leg,” and he tapped against his tree-like ember a heavy knurled and knobbed stick that assisted him in his hobbling walk.

“That’s between you and the Mansion House,” observed Ned.

“If you like I’ll drive you down,” offered Bob. “You know you said you could tell us something about Mr. Beegle,” he added as he and his chums were left alone with this odd bald-headed character, while the two police chiefs saw to securing the cabin. The crowd of curious ones seemed to have followed the organ grinder away, as did the children after the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

“That’s what I said, and that’s what I’ll do!” cried Jolly Bill. “I can tell you almost as much about old Hiram Beegle as he can himself. Man and boy we sailed together!”

“Come on then,” urged Bob.

Jolly Bill, chuckling to himself as if at some joke he had not shared with the others, stumped in the wake of Ned and Harry as Bob led the way to where he had parked his flivver.

“I can talk while we breeze along,” said the odd character as he took his place beside Bob, Ned and Harry occupying the rear seat. “For when I get to the Mansion House I’m going to take a rest. I’ve traveled a long way to get here. Thought I’d be in time for old Hank Denby’s funeral, but I missed him.”

“Do you know him?” asked Bob.

“I did, son,” replied Jolly Bill with the trace of an accent on the second word. “I knew him well. Had a letter from him just before he went on his last long voyage. Pals we were – Hank and I and Hiram.”

“What about Rod Marbury?” asked Bob.

“Bah! That pest and scoundrel! He sailed with us, of course, but he wasn’t a true messmate in the real meaning of the name. You never could trust Rod Marbury – that’s why Hiram built his strong room.”

“I was wondering why he had the place so much like a bank vault, with the key hid in a secret place,” spoke Bob.

“Secret place – for the key – say, boy, what do you know about that?” cried Jolly Bill, all the jollity gone from him now. “What do you know?” and he gripped Bob’s arm, so that the latter had to shake loose the grip in order to steer down the trail.

“Don’t do that again,” he said, somewhat sharply. “This is a bad hill.”

“Excuse me,” murmured Bill, obviously ashamed of his show of feeling. “But I was wondering if Hiram had showed you any of his secrets.”

Conscious that he had made a mistake in betraying any knowledge of the place where the old man hid the key to his strong room, Bob tried to shift it off with a laugh as he said:

“Oh, well, it stands to reason that careful as Mr. Beegle was of that room, he’d keep the key to it in a secret place, wouldn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, I reckon he would,” admitted Jolly Bill. “I see what you mean. I beg your pardon.” Bob was glad it had passed off this way, for, truth to tell, he had not meant to say what he did.

“Well, Mr. Hickey, we’re ready to hear your story,” said Harry, when they had reached a place in the road from Storm Mountain where the going was safer and easier. “It seems like a sort of pirate yarn to me.”

“Pirate yarn!” cried Jolly Bill. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you three – or four if you like to count in Rod Marbury – ”

“I don’t like to count Rod in and I’m not going to!” cried Bill.

“Well, then, you three, yourself, Mr. Beegle and Mr. Denby – seem to have been associated in some voyages where you got wealth – not to say a fortune,” went on Harry.

“No, not a fortune – considerable money, but far from a fortune,” said Jolly Bill. “Enough for us to live on without risking our lives going aloft in a storm, but not much more. I’ll spin you the yarn.”

He settled himself comfortably in the auto and began:

“Originally there were four of us, Hiram, Hank, myself and that rat Rodney Marbury. We sailed together many a year, putting up with hard work and worse food in good ships and bad ships. We were wrecked together and saved together more than once.

“Then, one day, Hank struck it rich – that is he got hold of an old sailor who was dying. This sailor had been what I reckon you might call a pirate if there are such critters nowadays – or were then. And this fellow had gotten possession of a store of gold. It was where it couldn’t be come at easy – hidden on an island in the South Seas, to be exact, but he had papers and a map to show just where it was, and these papers and map he gave to Hank Denby.

“Now we four – that is before we knew what a rat and skunk Rod Marbury was, had made a vow to share and share alike if ever one of us got rich. So when Hank got possession of these papers showing where some gold – and a good store there was of it – was buried on an island in the South Seas, of course he told us. And we set out to get it.