The Auto Boys' Mystery

"Anyhow the shaving cup or the initial, either one, is no sure sign of anything except that someone was here, and we knew that before," said Way reflectively. "Quite likely the reason the mug was left here was that it had been here all along and did not belong to Grandall," he reasoned.

"Now you're shouting," spoke Jones with emphasis.

At the end of the narrow hall was a small room with a door opening upon a balcony. Here the boys stepped out. The view of the lake from this point was extremely pretty. Under the glow of the sun the water shone like silver. The green shores looked cool and delightful–far cooler than they really were.

But they were lovely to the eye. Only one tall, dead pine whose naked top and branches rose gaunt and ghostly above the foliage of its neighbors offered the slightest omen of the impending danger in a scene so tranquil.

A high trellis on which the roses or some vines had at some time clambered to this balcony or porch roof where the boys now stood, offered them an opportunity to climb down to the ground. Only Billy chose this route. He quickly reached the earth and went out to the decaying remnants of the wharf while the others resumed their search through the house. But if he thought to discover any sign of whatever the strange man threw into the water the day before, he was disappointed.

Worth rejoined his friends in the clubhouse living-room. Striking many matches to find the way, they all descended the steep steps into the cellar. Very little light entered this dark place. One small window only was there beside the one whose presence Paul Jones had found so convenient.

"Here's the place to look carefully," observed Billy. "But I say, we are a pack of mutton-heads! What if someone should come into the house this minute? Tell you what! You fellows dig around here and I'll stand guard upstairs."

"I did think of such a plan but after seeing that broken window, I concluded it wasn't necessary," said Phil. "Whoever there might be to disturb us now, has been through the house ahead of us, I'm thinking. And it's my opinion that we are too late coming here, anyhow. The man who most likely found the twenty thousand dollars is the one who cleared out last night."

Still Billy Worth insisted on going upstairs to stand guard while the search of the dark cellar went forward and the bluejay outside harshly screamed its protests while the gaunt, bare top of the old dead pine frowned ominously across the lake.

CHAPTER IV

A GUEST AT NELS ANDERSON'S

In vain did the youthful searchers examine every foot of the cellar's earthen floor. The thought that there, if anywhere, the treasure might be buried, impressed them strongly and right diligently did they apply themselves to their task.

A few old boxes, a heavy pine table and a combination cupboard and ice chest were substantially all the cellar contained. All these were explored and the ground beneath them thoroughly inspected. "Nothing doing," was the way Jones summed up the result, and if he meant by this that every effort was fruitless, as would appear likely, he was quite correct.

All through the automobile shed and all about the club grounds the boys carried their exploring and their minute inspection of whatever had the appearance of being a likely hiding place for a suit-case containing twenty thousand dollars of currency. Despite the temptation to experiment with the engine that had been used for pumping, to try the tools of the workbench, or to put afloat the fishing skiff they discovered, partly covered with lumber at the far end of the shed, they molested nothing. They only looked, but this they did thoroughly.

It was noon and Chip Slider, keeping camp alone, had become anxious and worried for the safety of his new friends before the latter made their appearance at the lean-to. He looked wistfully from one to another and read in their faces the answer to the question in his mind.

All hands fell to with preparations for dinner. Chip had busied himself with the gathering of an immense quantity of dry wood, but fresh water must be brought from the well in the sandy beach, potatoes must be washed, peeled and sliced for frying; bacon must be sliced; eggs and butter brought from the "refrigerator," also,–something for everyone to do, in short, under Chef Billy's competent direction.

Whether Murky, as well as the wearer of the golfing cap, that is, the recent tenant of the clubhouse, had departed from the woods, was a question all tried in vain to answer satisfactorily as the boys sat at dinner. And if one, or both, had or had not really gone for good, was also an inquiry, the answer to which could not be discovered.

Paul Jones proposed that a visit be made to the den Murky had made for himself. Slider could show the way. Approaching carefully, it might be quite easy to discover the tramp's presence or absence without danger of being seen by him. Billy Worth interposed with the suggestion that a trip to Staretta was more important. Provisions were needed, there would surely be some mail at the office and the letters written yesterday should be posted.

"Yes, and stop at Anderson's, too!" put in MacLester. "I'm mighty suspicious of that individual, myself,–'specially after Jonesy's experience!"

With these good reasons for going to town confronting them, together with the fact that the use of their car was always a source of keen enjoyment to the Auto Boys, it seems quite needless to state what they decided to do.

Paul inspected the gasoline supply and added the contents of a ten gallon can kept as a reserve, not forgetting to put the now empty can in the tonneau to be refilled at Staretta. Dave looked to the quantity of oil in the reservoir and decided none was needed. Phil in the meantime was examining nuts and bolts with a practiced eye–a hardly necessary proceeding for every part of the beloved machine had been put in the pink of order on Saturday afternoon.

"Worth's turn to drive," said Jones. "So go on, Bill. I'll wash dishes. Gee whiz! If there's anything I'd rather do than wash dishes–"

"Yes, the list would fill a book!" Worth broke in. "You go ahead, Paul, I'm going to stay in camp. Going to cook up a little stuff and all I ask of you fellows is to bring these things from Fraley's."

Worth passed over a list he had been writing and, with a show of an extreme reluctance he did not feel, Paul climbed up to the driver's seat. Phil Way meantime was protesting that he would remain to guard camp. Billy would not listen, but said in an undertone that Way must go along to make Chip feel comfortable and contented.

For Slider had shown for Way a fondness that was both beautiful and pathetic. It was as if he realized that he had truly found the answer to the musing questions of his lifetime at last. This was true with regard to all four of the chums but most especially was Chip already devoted to Phil.

With MacLester up beside Paul, and Way and the now clean and well-fed boy of the woods in the tonneau, the graceful automobile threaded its route among the trees. With roads averaging from fair to good, an hour would have taken the travelers to Staretta easily. With six or seven miles of woodland trail, then an equal distance of but moderately good going before getting fairly out of the forest, Paul took an hour and a half for the trip. There was no need to hurry, he said, but just the same as soon as the wheels struck the good, level earth not far from town the speedometer shot up to "30."

Link Fraley was found, busy as usual, this time packing eggs into a shipping case; but for once he stopped working the moment he caught sight of his callers. Sometimes he had allowed his father to wait on the boys as they did their buying, but today he told the senior member of the house he would attend to them himself.

"Been wantin' to see ye," said Link cordially. "Anything new back in the timber?"

The young storekeeper's voice had a peculiar inflection and his face bore an expression that answered "yes" to his own question.

"A little; that is, we have something to tell and something to ask about, as usual," Phil replied. "Here's the list of things Billy wanted. If you'll get them ready while we go over to the post-office–we want to have a good, old talk with you."

"Been annexing part of our lumber country population, I see," remarked Fraley in an undertone, glancing toward Slider who had waited at the door.

Phil nodded.

"Want to look a little out," Fraley continued, with a shake of his head and a tone of doubt; but he turned away at once to find the baking soda, item number one in Billy Worth's list, and his young friends betook themselves to the post-office.

At the rear door of Fraley & Son's establishment was a platform to facilitate the loading and unloading of freight. It was roofed over with pine boards that gave protection from sun or rain and, as whatever slight breeze there might be blowing was to be found here, there was no better place in Staretta for a chat on a hot day. Seated on kegs of nails on this platform, upon their return to the store, the Auto Boys told Mr. Fraley, Jr., the main facts of their discoveries since last seeing him.

Link listened with the most sober attention.

"I honestly don't know," said he at last, "whether to take much stock in the story of the suit-case full of swag or not. But it does look as if things in general pointed in that direction. I didn't believe, at first, that your neighbor up there by the lake was anything more than one of these vacation tourists that often go trapsing 'round, even if he wasn't just a chap doing some shooting out of season. But I'm pretty well satisfied now that a lot more than ever I suspected has been going on. Listen here!"

With this Link took from between the leaves of a notebook a neatly folded clipping from a newspaper. Clearing his throat, while he opened the clipping and smoothed it over his knee, he proceeded to read aloud.

The newspaper item was an Associated Press dispatch dated from – , the home city of the Longknives Club. Its substance was that Lewis Grandall, teller of the Commercial Trust & Banking Company of that city, was missing from his home. His absence was supposed to be on account of an investigation the Grand Jury had been making in connection with certain city contracts in which he had been interested, not as an officer of the bank, but personally. The disappearance of Grandall, the dispatch stated, had caused a small run on the bank and general uneasiness among the depositors and stockholders. This had later been quieted by a signed statement from the directors stating positively that the company's interests were not involved in any of the missing teller's personal business affairs.

"From which it would seem to a man up a tree that one certain Grandall was finding Opal Lake atmosphere good for his constitution," remarked Link Fraley as he finished reading. "But," he went on, "it looks to me a lot more as if he had come up here for his health, so to speak, than to hunt for a bag of the coin of the realm that somebody stole three years ago. The point is, that if the twenty thousand dollars that the road builders should have got, but didn't, was put through a nice, neat and orderly system of being stolen here and there till it all got back to Grandall again, he ain't been letting it lie around the woods and drawin' no interest nearly three years now."

"By ginger! I knew that fellow at the clubhouse was Grandall, all right," spoke up Paul Jones. "And you must have hit the nail on the head when you told us in the first place that Nels Anderson was mixed up with him in cheating that whole army of men out of their pay," the boy added briskly.

"That doesn't dovetail with what we already know about Murky getting the money first and then Slider taking it from him and its getting back to Grandall again," said Paul thoughtfully.

"Oh, no! that wouldn't make much difference," said Fraley. "Grandall was playing everybody against everybody else for the benefit of Grandall. That was his general reputation, too–downright deceitful! Never knew just where he'd hook up or how long he'd be either one thing or the other–your best friend, or your worst enemy."

Whether Grandall had been frightened away from the clubhouse by finding Murky to be in the vicinity, or for other reasons had deemed the lake an unsafe hiding place, the boys and Fraley debated for some time. As they at last prepared to go, Link called Phil to one side. He did not like the notion of Chip Slider being taken up by the Auto Boys in any very intimate way, he declared. He had known the elder Slider, he said, and there were a lot of better men in Michigan than he and a lot of better boys than his son was likely to be.

Phil told Fraley he was surely mistaken with regard to Chip, at least, but promised he would be on his guard in case he found any deceptive tendencies developing in the young gentleman in question.

Meanwhile Paul and Dave had driven to the general repair shop at which their gasoline was purchased and all were soon ready for the road. With a steady purr their quiet, powerful car left the town behind. What a perfect machine it was! And what its owners would do were anything to happen to deprive them of its ever-ready services–the very thought would have been quite unbearable. It is a wise plan, indeed, that none of us can see even a few short hours forward, or know certainly the changes a single day may bring.

An adequate excuse for stopping at the lowly home of the Andersons had not been forgotten by the chums while in town. Choosing to call there on their homeward way rather than when on the road in from the woods, they now had with them an extra half dozen of bananas.

Mrs. Anderson sat on a rickety chair at the shady side of the little house vainly trying to get a breath of fresh air while doing some mending, as the Thirty came to a stop near her. Hastily she arose and went around to a back door.

Phil was already out of the car and was walking up to the low front step–the dwelling was without a porch–when through the open doors he saw Mrs. Anderson enter at the rear. She spoke some words in her native tongue the boy did not understand; but directly Nels Anderson stepped forward from the kitchen to meet him while at the same time another man glided silently out of the door at which the woman had just come in. The man wore a golfing cap. If he was not the identical person who had lately occupied the clubhouse then Phil Way was vastly mistaken.

"Wouldn't you like some bananas?" asked Way pleasantly. "We thought likely you did not get to town often and maybe would relish a taste of these," and with a friendly smile he tendered his offering.

With only a word of thanks and that spoken rather indifferently, Phil thought, the great Swede accepted the fruit. Still holding the paper sack under his arm he said he wished the camp at the lake only good luck but he thought it dangerous for the boys to stay there. It would be more so as time went on, unless a pouring rain came very soon to wet the ground and foliage. The probability of forest fires near by was becoming serious. Two severe blazes had already occurred. He pointed away to the west and south, calling attention to smoke that he said he could see over the distant tree tops.