The same corpulent official was seated behind the desk at the police station; but on this occasion he woke up promptly. “The chief had better handle this,” he said, and went to the telephone.
“Where's this chap to go?” asked one of the policemen.
“We're full up,” said the sergeant. “Put him in with Charlie Swift. The chief'll be over in a few minutes.”
So once more Samuel was led into a cell, and heard the door clang upon him.
He was really not much alarmed this time, for he knew it was not his fault, and that he could prove it. But he was sick with horror at the fate of the unhappy girl. He began pacing back and forth in his cell.
Then suddenly from one corner growled a voice: “Say, when are you going to get quiet?”
“Oh, I beg pardon,” said Samuel. “I didn't know you were here.”
“What are you in for?” asked the voice.
“For murder,” said Samuel.
And he heard the cot give a sudden creak as the man sat up. “What!” he gasped.
“I didn't do it,” the boy explained hastily. “She killed herself.”
“Where was this?” asked the man.
“At the Continental Hotel.”
“And what did you have to do with it?”
“I took her there.”
“Who was she?”
“Why—she called herself Mary Smith.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“Up at 'Fairview.'”
“At 'Fairview'!” exclaimed the other.
“Yes,” said Samuel. “The Lockman place.”
“ALBERT Lockman's place?”
“Yes.”
“How did she come to be there?”
“Why, she was—a friend of his. She was there to dinner.”
“What!” gasped the man. “How do you know it?”
“I work there,” replied Samuel.
“And how did she come to go to the hotel?”
“Master Albert turned her out,” said Samuel. “And it was raining, and so I took her to a hotel.”
“For the love of God!” exclaimed the other; and then he asked quickly, “Did you tell the sergeant that?”
“No,” said the boy. “He didn't ask me anything.”
The man sprang up and ran to the grated door and shook it. “Hello! Hello there!” he cried.
“What's the matter?” growled a policeman down the corridor.
“Come here! quick!” cried the other; and then through the grating he whispered, “Say, tell the cap to come here for a moment, will you?”
“What do you want?” demanded the policeman.
“Look here, O'Brien,” said the other. “You know Charlie Swift is no fool. And there's something about this fellow you've put in here that the cap ought to know about quick.”
The sergeant came. “Say,” said Charlie. “Did you ask this boy any questions?”
“No,” said the sergeant, “I'm waiting for the chief.”
“Well, did you know that girl came from Albert Lockman's place?”
“Good God, no!”
“He says she was there to dinner and Lockman turned her out of the house. This boy says he works for Lockman.”
“Well, I'm damned!” exclaimed the sergeant. And so Samuel was led into a private room.
A minute or two later “the chief” strode in. McCullagh was his name and he was huge and burly, with a red face and a protruding jaw. He went at Samuel as if he meant to strike him. “What's this you're givin' us?” he cried.
“Why—why—” stammered Samuel, in alarm.
“You're tryin' to tell me that girl came from Lockman's?” roared the chief.
“Yes, sir!”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“It's true, sir!”
“What're you tryin' to give me, anyhow?” demanded the man.
“But it's true, sir!” declared Samuel again.
“You tell me she was there at dinner?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Come! Quit your nonsense, boy!”
“But she was, sir!”
“What do you expect to make out of this, young fellow?”
“But she was, sir!”
Apparently the chief's method was to doubt every statement that Samuel made, and repeat his incredulity three times, each time in a louder tone of voice and with a more ferocious expression of countenance. Then, if the boy stuck it out, he concluded that he was telling the truth. By this exhausting method the examination reached its end, and Samuel was led back to his cell.
“Did you stick to your story?” asked his cellmate.
“Of course,” said he.
“Well, if it is true,” remarked the other, “there'll be something doing soon.”
And there was. About an hour later the sergeant came again and entered. He drew the two men into a corner.
“See here, young fellow,” he said to Samuel in a low voice. “Have you got anything against young Lockman?”
“No,” replied Samuel. “Why?”
“If we let you go, will you shut up about this?”
“Why, yes,” said the boy, “if you want me to.”
“All right,” said the sergeant. “And you, Charlie—we've got you dead, you know.”
“Yes,” said the other, “I know.”
“And there's ten years coming to you, you understand?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“All right. Then will you call it a bargain?”
“I will,” said Charlie. “You'll skip the town, and hold your mouth?”
“I will.”
“Very well. Here's your own kit—and you ought to get through them bars before daylight. And here's fifty dollars. You take this young fellow to New York and lose him. Do you see?”
“I see,” said Charlie.
“All right,” went on the sergeant. “And mind you don't play any monkey tricks!”
“I'm on,” said Charlie with a chuckle.
And without more ado he selected a saw from his bag and set to work at the bars of the window. The sergeant retired; and Samuel sat down on the floor and gasped for breath.
For about an hour the man worked without a word. Then he braced himself against the wall and wrenched out one of the bars; then another wrench, and another bar gave way; after which he packed up his kit and slipped it into a pocket under his coat. “Now,” he said, “come on.”
He slipped through the opening and dropped to the ground, and Samuel followed suit. “This way,” he whispered, and they darted down an alley and came out upon a dark street. For perhaps a mile they walked on in silence, then Charlie turned into a doorway and opened the door with a latch key, and they went up two flights of stairs and into a rear room. He lit the gas, and took off his coat and flung it on the bed. “Now, make yourself at home,” he said.
“Is this your room?” asked Samuel.
“Yes,” was the reply. “The bulls haven't found it, either!”
“But I thought we were to go out of town!” exclaimed the other.
“Humph!” laughed Charlie. “Young fellow, you're easy!”
“Do you mean you're not going?” cried Samuel.
“What! When I've got a free license to work the town?”
Samuel stared at him, amazed. “You mean they wouldn't arrest you?”
“Not for anything short of murder, I think.”
“But—but what could you do?”
“Just suppose I was to tip off some newspaper with that story? Not here in Lockmanville—but the New York Howler, we'll say?”
“I see!” gasped Samuel.
Charlie had tilted back in his chair and was proceeding to fill his pipe. “Gee, sonny,” he said, “they did me the greatest turn of my life when they poked you into that cell. I'll get what's coming to me now!”
“How will you get it?” asked the boy.
“I'm a gopherman,” said the other.
“What's that?” asked Samuel.
“You'll have to learn to sling the lingo,” said Charlie with a laugh. “It's what you call a burglar.”
Samuel looked at the man in wonder. He was tall and lean, with a pale face and restless dark eyes. He had a prominent nose and a long neck, which gave him a peculiar, alert expression that reminded Samuel of a startled partridge.
“Scares you, hey?” he said. “Well, I wasn't always a gopherman.”
“What were you before that?”
“I was an inventor.”
“An inventor!” exclaimed Samuel.
“Yes. Have you seen the glass-blowing machines here in town?”
“No, I haven't.”
“Well, I invented three of them. And old Henry Lockman robbed me of them.”
“Robbed you!” gasped the boy amazed.
“Yes,” said the other. “Didn't he rob everybody he ever came near?”
“I didn't know it,” replied Samuel.
“Guess you never came near him,” laughed the man. “Say—where do you come from, anyhow? Tell me about yourself.”
So Samuel began at the beginning and told his story. Pretty soon he came to the episode of “Glass Bottle Securities.”
“My God!” exclaimed the other. “I thought you said old Lockman had never robbed you!”
“I did,” answered Samuel.
“But don't you see that he robbed you then?”
“Why, no. It wasn't his fault. The stock went down when he died.”
“But why should it have gone ............