Jean Webster - The Four-Pools Mystery

I found him in the stables, and putting my hand on his shoulder, marched him back toward the garden.

"Rad," I said, "Clancy has formed his conclusions as to how the bonds left the safe, and I want you to convince him that he is mistaken."

"Well? Let's hear his conclusions."

"He thinks that you took them when you took the money."

"You mean that I stole them?"

"That's what he thinks."

"He does, does he? Well he can prove it!"

Radnor broke away from me and strode toward the summer house. The detective received his onslaught placidly; his manner suggested that he was used to dealing with excitable young men.

"Sit down, Mr. Gaylord, and let's discuss this matter quietly. If you listen to reason, I assure you it will go no further."

"Do you mean to say that you accuse me of stealing those bonds?" Radnor shouted.

Clancy held up a warning hand.

"Don't talk so loud; someone will hear you. Sit down." He nodded toward a seat on the other side of the little rustic table. "I will explain the matter as I see it, and if you can disprove any of my statements I shall be more than glad to have you."

Radnor subsided and listened scowlingly while the detective outlined his theory in a perfectly non-personal way, and ended by producing the letter.

"Where did you get that?" Rad demanded.

"Out of your coat pocket which I hooked over the transom of the door." He made the statement imperturbably; it was evidently a matter of everyday routine.

"So you enter gentlemen's houses as their guest and spend your time sneaking about reading their private correspondence?"

An angry gleam appeared in Clancy's eye and he rose to his feet.

"I did not come to your house as your guest. I came on business for Colonel Gaylord. Now that my business is completed I will make my report to him and go."

Radnor rose also.

"It's a lie, and you haven't a word of proof to show."

Clancy significantly tapped the pocket that held the letter.

"That," said Radnor contemptuously, "refers to two bonds which I bought last winter with some money I got from selling a mortgage. I preferred to have the investment in bonds because they are more readily negotiable. I left them at my broker's as collateral for another investment I was making. Last week I needed some ready money and wrote to them to sell. My statement can easily be substantiated; no reputable detective would ever base any such absurd charge on the contents of a letter he did not understand."

"Of course," said the detective, "we have tried to get at the matter from the other end; but Jacoby, Haight & Company refuse to discuss the affairs of their clients. I did not press the point as I did not want to stir up comment. However," he smiled, "I must confess, Mr. Gaylord, that I think your explanation a trifle fishy. Perhaps you will answer one question. Did you mail your letter to them in Kennisburg the night of the robbery with a special delivery stamp?"

"It happens that I did, but it was merely a coincidence and has nothing to do with the robbery."

"Will you be kind enough to explain why you drove to Kennisburg in the night and why you needed the money so suddenly?"

"No, I will not. That is a matter which concerns, me alone."

"Very well! As it happens I do not base my charge on the letter; I had already formed my opinion before I knew of its existence. Do you deny that you yourself have encouraged the belief in the ghost among the negroes? That on more than one occasion, you, or your accomplice, Cat-Eye Mose, have masqueraded as the ghost? That, while you were pretending to Colonel Gaylord to be as much puzzled by the matter as he, you were in truth at the bottom of the whole business?"

Radnor glanced uneasily at me and hesitated before replying.

"No," he said at length, "I don't deny that, but I do affirm that it has nothing to do with the robbery."

The detective laughed.

"You must excuse me, Mr. Gaylord, if I stick to the opinion that I have solved the puzzle."

He turned with a motion toward the house, and Radnor barred the entrance.

"Do you think I lie when I say I know nothing of those bonds?"

"Yes, Mr. Gaylord, I do."

For a moment I thought that Radnor was going to strike him, but I pulled him back and turned to Clancy.

"He knows nothing about the bonds," said I, "but nevertheless you must not take any such story to Colonel Gaylord. He is an old man, and while he would not believe his son guilty of theft, still it would worry him. There is something else that happened that night—entirely uncriminal—but which we do not wish him to hear about. Therefore I am not going to let you go to him with this nonsensical tale that you have cooked up."

This was a trial shot on my part but it hit the bull's-eye. Radnor stared but said nothing; and the detective visibly wavered.

"Now," I added, taking out my checkbook, "suppose I pay you what you would have received had you discovered the bonds, and dispense with your further services?"

"That's just as you say. I feel that I've done the job and am entitled to the money. If you wish to pay it, all right; otherwise I get it from Colonel Gaylord. I received a retaining fee and was to have two hundred dollars more when I located the bonds. In order not to stir up any bad feeling I'm willing to take that two hundred dollars from you and drop the matter."

"It's blackmail!" said Radnor.

"Keep still, Rad," I said. "It's very accommodating of Mr. Clancy to see it this way."

I wrote out a check and tossed it to the detective.

"Now go to Colonel Gaylord," I said, "tell him that you have been unsuccessful in finding any clue; that the bonds will almost certainly be marketed in the city, and that your only hope of tracing them is to work from the other end. Then pack your bag and go. A carriage will be ready to take you to the Junction in half an hour."

"Just wait a moment, Mr. Clancy," Rad called after him as he turned away. He drew a note book from his pocket and ripping out a page scrawled across the face:

"Jacoby, Haight and Co.

" Gentlemen :—You will oblige me by answering any questions which the bearer of this note may ask concerning my past transactions with you.

"Radnor F. Gaylord."

"There," said Rad, thrusting it toward him, "kindly make use of that when you get to Washington, and in the future I should advise you to base your charges on something a little more substantial."

His manner was insultingly contemptuous, but Clancy swallowed it with smiling good nature.

"I shall be interested in continuing the investigation," he observed as he pocketed the paper and withdrew.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ROBBERY REMAINS A MYSTERY

So we got rid of the detective. But matters did not readily settle down again into their old relations. The Colonel was irritable, and Rad was moody and sullen. He showed no tendency to confide in me as to the truth about the ha'nt, and I did not probe the matter further. In a day or so he brought me three hundred dollars, to cover the amount I had loaned him, together with the "blackmail," as he insisted upon calling it. The money, he informed me, was from the proceeds of the bonds he had sold. He showed me at the same time several letters from his brokers establishing beyond a doubt that the story he had told was true. As to the stolen bonds, their whereabouts was as much a mystery as ever, and Rad appeared to take not the slightest interest in the matter. Since the detective had been summoned, he had washed his hands of all responsibility.

I think it was the morning after Clancy's departure that Solomon handed me a pale blue envelope bearing in the upper left-hand corner the device of the Post-Dispatch. I laughed as I ripped it open; I had almost forgotten Terry's existence. It contained a characteristic pencil scrawl slanting across a sheet of yellow copy paper.