The Mark of Cain

The serious face of the speaker bore out this assertion, and Fibsy plunged at once into his subject.

“Is there a bug, sir, named something like Stephanotis?”

“Well, my child, there is the Scaphinotus. Do you mean that?”

“Oh, I guess I do! I think maybe, perhaps, most likely, that’s the trick! What sort of a bug is it?”

“It’s a beetle, a purplish black ground-beetle, of the genus Carabidæ, – ”

“What! Say that again – please!”

“Carabidæ?”

“Caribbean Sea! Stephanotis!”

“No, Scaphinotus. That is, the Scaphinotus Viduus, Dejean, – ”

“Oh, sir, thank you.”

“Did you say this has something to do with the Trowbridge case? Mr. Trowbridge was a friend of mine, – ”

“Oh, please sir, I don’t know but I think this here beetle business will help a lot. Do these pertikler bugs show up in Van Cortlandt Park woods?”

“Yes, they may be found there. I’ve set traps there for them myself – ”

“How do you set a trap for a beetle, kin I ask?”

“Why, you’re really interested, aren’t you? Well it’s a simple matter. We take a wide-mouthed bottle, – ”

“Say, a milk bottle?”

“Yes, if you like. Then put it about a half-inch of molasses and asafoetida – ”

A whoop from Fibsy startled the Professor. “What’s the matter?” he cried.

“Matter, Sir! Didn’t you read the accounts of the Trowbridge murder in the papers?”

“Not all of it. I get little time to read the papers, – ”

“Well, then, this here bottle o’ stuff – does it smell bad?”

“Oh, the asafoetida is unpleasant, of course, but we get used to that. We next sink this bottle in the ground, up to its neck, and – ”

“And you call it a trap!”

“Yes, a trap to catch unwary insects. Not very kind to them, but necessary for the advancement of science. You seem a bright lad, would you care to see some fine specimens of – ”

“Oh, sir, not now, but some other day. Oh, thank you fer this spiel about the bugs! But who was the guy what did it? You didn’t telephone Mr. Trowbridge to go after Stephanotises, did you?’”

“Scaphinotus, the name is. No, I didn’t telephone him. I haven’t seen Mr. Trowbridge for years.”

“Oh, yes, I remember, you an’ him was on the outs. Well, I’m much obliged, I sure am! Goo’ by, Sir.” and with his usual abruptness of departure, Fibsy darted out of the door, leaving the Professor bewildered at the whole episode.

Back to Miss Wilkinson the boy hurried, to verify his new discoveries.

“Say, Yellowtop,” he began, “did you sure hear Caribbean Sea?”

“Yep, fer the thoity thousandth time, – yep!”

“Sure of the Sea?”

Miss Wilkinson stared at him. “Gee, Fibsy, you are a wiz, fer sure! I was a thinkin’ that the guy jest said Caribbean, but I knew he musta meant Sea, so I ’sposed I skipped that woid.”

“Naw, he didn’t say it. Wot he said wuz, Carabidæ.”

“It was! I know it now! What’s that mean?”

“Never mind. What d’you mean, sayin’ the feller said things he didn’t say at all? He said Scaphinotus too, not Stephanotis.”

“I can’t tell any difference when you say ’em.”

“Never mind, you don’t have to. Now, turn that thinker of yourn backward, and remember hard. Don’t it seem to you like the guy said somebody’d set a trap, no matter who, and that he and Mr. Trowbridge’d get the Stephanotis and the Carib – whatever it was, – outen the trap?”

“Yes, it does seem like he said that, only that ain’t sense.”

“Never you mind the sense. I’m lookin’ after that end. An’ then, wasn’t Mr. Trowbridge tickled to death to go an’ get these queer things from the trap?”

“Yes, said he had a nengagement, but he’d break it to get the Stephanotis – ”

“Sure he would! In a minute! All right, Wilky. You keep all this under your Yellowtop; don’t squeak it to a soul. Goo’ by.”

“Sumpum told me not to go off to Philadelphia so swift,” the boy mused, as he went home. “Now, here I am chock-a-block with new dope on this murder case, an’ I dunno what to do with it. If I tell the police first, maybe Miss Avice won’t like it. And if I tell Judge Hoyt first, maybe the police’ll get mad. There’s that Duane guy, but he don’t know enough to go in when it rains. I wisht I was a real detective. Here I am just a kid, an’ yet I got a lot o’ inside info that orta be put to use. Lemmesee, who do I want to favor most? Miss Avice, o’course. But sure’s I go to her, that Pinckney feller’ll butt in, an’ he does get my goat! I b’lieve I’ll do the right thing, an’ take it straight to the strong arm o’ th’ law.”

Fibsy went to the Criminal Court Building, and by dint of wheedling, fighting, coaxing and, it must be admitted, lying, he at last obtained access to the district attorney’s office, for the boy declined to entrust his secrets to any intermediary.

Judge Hoyt was there and Detective Groot. Also Mr. Duane, looking a bit despairing, and several others, all discussing the Trowbridge case.

Fibsy was a little frightened, not at the size of his audience, but because he was not sure he wanted all those present to know of his news. And yet, after all, it might not prove of such great importance as he expected. He had misgivings on that score, as well as on many others.

But Mr. Whiting, though he greeted the boy with a nod, was in no hurry to listen to him, and Fibsy was given a chair and told to wait. Nothing loath, he sat down and pretended to be oblivious to all that was being said, though really he was taking in every thing he could hear.

At last the district attorney, in a preoccupied way told him to tell his story, and to make it as brief as he could.

But when the boy began by simply stating that he had discovered what was the meaning of the mysterious telephone message and also what relation the milk bottle bore to the trip to the woods, all eyes and ears gave him attention.

Knowing the importance of the occasion and anxious to make a good impression, Fibsy strove to make his language conform, as far as he could, to the English spoken by his present audience.

“So I asked Perfesser Meredith,” he related, “and he told me there is a beetle named Scaphinotus, and it’s of the Carabidæ fambly.”