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

“Sure I’ll help!” said Jolly Bill. “But we don’t want too much help. Who are these lads?” and he glanced sharply at Bob and his chums.

“Friends of mine,” said the Cliffside chief, shortly.

“Oh, well, then that’s all right – friends of yours – friends of Jolly Bill Hickey. Shake!” He extended a hard palm and gave the lads grips they long remembered. “Shake, Hiram!” and he clasped hands with the stricken man, though more gently, it seemed.

“No use letting all outdoors in,” went on Jolly Bill as he stumped over and closed the outer portal, bringing thereby a chorus of protests from the curious ones assembled outside. “Now let’s spin the yarn,” he suggested. “But first has anything been done for my old messmate Hiram Beegle?”

“A doctor has been here – yes,” said Chief Drayton. “He says Hiram has had a shock. There’s a lump on his head – ”

“He got that yesterday!” broke in Bob. “I picked him up right after it happened. He thinks a man named Rod Marbury did it.”

“And he did!” burst forth Jolly Bill. “A scoundrel if ever there was one – Rod Marbury! So he whanged Hiram, did he?”

“There are two lumps on Hiram’s head,” went on Chief Drayton. “We know about the first one – the one you spoke of,” he said to Bob. “But he was hit again last night. He was also either given some sort of poison that knocked him out – some sort of dope, the doctor thinks, or else it was some sort of vapor that made him unconscious. And while he was that way he was robbed.”

“But how did it all happen?” asked Bob Dexter. “How could a thief get in the strong room when he didn’t know the secret of the big brass key?”

“Whoever it was must have known some of the secrets,” said the Cliffside chief, “for he got in the strong room when it was locked, and when Hiram was inside, and the thief got out again, leaving Hiram and the key inside.”

“He got out leaving Mr. Beegle and the key inside?” asked Bob. “Why, it couldn’t be done! There’s no way out of that room except by the door, and if the key was inside, and the door locked – why, it’s impossible! Mr. Beegle showed me that yesterday afternoon. The only opening to the outer air is the chimney – no man could get in or out that way.”

“But somebody did!” said Chief Drayton. “And that’s where the mystery comes in.”

“Let’s hear how it happened – from the beginning,” suggested Harry. “Suppose you tell your story first, Bob, so we’ll know just how much of it you saw.”

“Do you want me to tell, Mr. Beegle?” asked Bob, for he remembered his promise to the old man.

Hiram Beegle tried to talk, but about the only words Bob could distinguish were “cupboard” and “key.” He judged from this that the old sailor, for so he seemed to be, did not want disclosed the information as to where he kept the big brass key of his strange strong room. The key was not now in sight, but Bob understood. He resolved to keep quiet on this point, but to tell the rest.

Thereupon he related how he had found the old man stricken beside the road the afternoon before. How he had gone with him to the office of Judge Weston, who told of the brass-bound box coming as an inheritance to Hiram Beegle from Hank Denby.

“That’s right!” chimed in Jolly Bill. “I can testify to that. We were all shipmates together – Hiram, Hank, that scoundrel Rod Marbury and me. Hank Denby was the richest of the lot. He left the box to Hiram – I know he promised to, and what Hank promised he carried out. He gave you the box, didn’t he, Hiram?”

The stricken man nodded.

“Well, I brought him home here with the box,” went on Bob, “and he brought me into this room. He explained how it could only be entered from the door which he unlocked with a big brass key. He said he was going to put his treasure in that chest,” and the lad pointed to the open one in the strong room.

“He did put it there, it seems,” said Chief Duncan, “but it didn’t stay there long. In the night somebody got in and took the little treasure chest away, nearly killing Hiram before doing so. Then they left him locked up in the room, with the brass key near him, and came out.”

“But how could they?” cried Bob. “They couldn’t get out of the room if it was locked. They couldn’t leave the key inside. There’s no other way of getting out except by the door. And if that was locked, and the key was inside – ”

“That’s where the mystery comes in,” interrupted Chief Duncan.

“And it sure Is a mystery,” added Chief Drayton. “If Hiram could talk he might explain, but, as it is, we can only guess at it. I needed help on this – that’s why I sent for you, Miles,” he said to his fellow officer.

“Hum! I don’t know as I can do much more than you,” ruefully replied the Cliffside chief. “What do you think of it, Bob?”

“Huh! A lot he can tell!” sniffed Mr. Drayton.

“You don’t know Bob Dexter as well as I do,” stated Mr. Duncan quietly. “I should like to have his opinion on this.”

For the Cliffside chief remembered the case of Jennie Thorp, in which he and his men had not shone very brilliantly.

“Let me see if I understand this,” said Bob, looking at Hiram Beegle. “Will you nod your head if I’m right?” he asked. “Don’t try to talk – just nod your head, will you?”

Hiram gave a sign of assent and understanding. Then Bob began to make a statement of the mysterious robbery as he understood it, while those in the room listened eagerly.

CHAPTER VI

STRANGE MARKS

“When I left you yesterday afternoon, after we drank the buttermilk together,” said Bob, speaking slowly, “you were going to put the brass-bound box in your chest and lock it up, weren’t you?”

Hiram Beegle nodded vigorously an assent to this.

“You did this, we’ll say,” resumed Bob, “but after I had gone, or after you had locked up your treasure, you took it out to look at it again, and count it perhaps – and you sat here in your strong room to do that – with the door open – is that it?”

Again Hiram nodded to show that this was the truth.

“While you were doing that,” continued the young detective, “some one – an enemy or a robber – slipped in and overpowered you, taking away the treasure box and locking you in the strong room. Is that how It happened? And can you tell us who it was that struck you the second time and who robbed you?”

Hiram Beegle nodded vigorously, but in both directions. Now his head indicated an affirmative and again a negative.

“What does he mean?” questioned Harry.

“He’s making queer motions,” said Ned.

The stricken man was moving in an odd way the fingers of his right hand on the arm of his chair. And then Bob Dexter guessed what it was he wanted.

“He will write it out!” exclaimed the lad. “Give him pencil and paper and he can write out what happened since he can’t talk straight. Why didn’t we think of that before?”

“I said it would be a good thing to have Bob here,” remarked Chief Duncan while Chief Drayton looked for pencil and paper. And when these were given to Hiram Beegle a look of satisfaction came over his face. He began writing more rapidly than one would have supposed an old sailor could have done, and he handed the finished sheet to Bob.

“Read it,” suggested Harry.

Bob read:

“The young man has partly the right of it. After he left me I locked up the box Judge Weston gave me. It was mine by right but I knew some who might try to take it from me. Never mind about them now.

“After supper I sat here thinking of many things, and then I wanted to look in my box again. I opened my strong room, left the door ajar, took the brass-bound box out of my chest and sat looking over the contents when, all of a sudden, I felt faint. Then I fell out of my chair – I remember falling – and that’s all I remember until I woke up early this morning.

“I was lying on the floor, and beside me, close to my right hand, was the big brass key to my strong room. But the door was locked, and my box was gone. I couldn’t understand it. First I thought I had just fainted from the blow I got in the afternoon. I thought maybe I had put my box back in the chest, but it wasn’t there. I had been robbed, and there was another lump on my head. Whether I was hit again, or whether I hit myself when I fell out of my chair I don’t know.

“But there I was, locked in my own strong room, the key was beside me and my treasure was gone. That’s all I know about it.”

“But didn’t he see anybody?”

“How did he feel just before he keeled over?”