The Four Pools Mystery by Jean Webster (free ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📖

It's barely possible that I didn't lock it; you know we haven't always kept it locked, especially when there wasn't money in it.--It never occurred to me that anyone would steal the bonds. I can't imagine what it means."

"You haven't answered my question.--Why did you need a hundred dollars in cash after ten o'clock last night?"

"I am sorry, father, but I can't answer that question. It's a private matter."

"Indeed! You are sure that you did not take the bonds as well and have forgotten it?"

"I took one hundred dollars in bills and nothing else. I took that merely because it was my only way of cashing a check. I have frequently cashed my private checks, when we had a surplus on hand and I didn't want the bother of going in to the bank. So long as I balance the books all right, I see no reason why I should not do so."

"H'm!" said the Colonel. "Two days ago you came to me and wanted two months' pay in advance because you had overdrawn your bank account, and I refused to give it to you. Where, may I ask, were you intending to get the hundred dollars to pay back this amount?"

A quick flush spread over Radnor's face.

"I already had it--Arnold will tell you that, for I borrowed it of him."

"Certainly," I put in pacifically--"that's all settled between Rad and me. I have his note and was glad to accommodate him."

"Don't you get enough from me, that you must ask the guests in my house to supply you with money?"

Radnor's flush deepened but he said nothing. I could see by his eyes however that he would not stand much more.

"Then after you had helped yourself to the money, the bonds were stolen by someone else?" said the Colonel.

"So it appears," said Radnor.

"And have you any theory as to the identity of the thief?"

Rad hesitated a visible instant before replying. The flush left his face and the pallor came back, but in the end he raised his eyes and answered steadily.

"No, father, I have not. I am as much mystified as you are."

"And you heard nothing in the night? As I said before, you are an excellent sleeper!"

Rad caught an ironical undertone in his father's voice.

"I don't understand," he said.

"I am a trifle deaf myself, but still he wakened me.--It's strange that you should be the only one in the house who could sleep through it."

"Sleep through what? I don't know what you're talking about."

I cut in hastily and explained our adventure with Mose's ha'nt.

Radnor listened with troubled eyes but made no comment at the end. His father was watching him keenly, and I don't know whether it was intuition or some knowledge of the truth that made him suddenly put the question:

"You were of course in the house all night?"

"No," Radnor returned, "I was not. I didn't get in till early this morning and I suppose the excitement occurred during my absence."

"I suppose I may not be permitted to inquire where you spent the night--that too is a private matter?"

"Yes," said Radnor, easily, "that too is a private matter."

"And would throw no light on the robbery?"

"None whatever."

Solomon brought in the breakfast and we three sat down, but not to a very cheerful meal. The Colonel wore an angry frown and Rad an air of anxious perplexity. Neither of them indulged in any unnecessary conversation. I knew that the Colonel was more upset by his son's reticence than by the robbery of the bonds, and that it was my presence alone which restrained him from giving vent to his anger. As we rose from the table he said stiffly:

"Well, Rad, have you any suggestion as to how we shall set to work to track down the thief?"

Radnor slowly shook his head.

"I shall have to talk with Mose first and find out what he really saw."

"Mose!" The Colonel laughed shortly. "He's like all the rest of the niggers. He doesn't know what he saw--No sir! I've had enough of this ha'nt business; it's one thing when he spirits chickens from the oven, it's another when he takes to spiriting securities from the safe. I shall telegraph to Washington for a first class detective."

"If you take my advice," said Rad, "you'll not do that. A detective's not much good outside the covers of a book. He'll stir up a lot of notoriety and present a bill; and you'll be no wiser than you were before."

"Whoever stole those bonds will be marketing them within a few days; the interest falls due the first of May. I am not so rich that I can let five thousand dollars go without a move to get it back. I shall telegraph today for a detective."

"Just as you please," said Radnor with a shrug, and he turned toward the door that opened on the gallery. Mose was visible at the end evidently recounting to an excited audience his experiences of the night. Rad beckoned to him and the two turned together across the lawn toward the laurel walk.

It was an hour or so later that Rad presented himself at my door. His colloquy with Mose had increased rather than lessened the mystified look on his face. He waited for no preliminaries this time, but plunged immediately into the matter that was on his mind.

"Arnold, for heaven's sake, stop my father from getting a detective down here. I don't dare say anything, for my opposition will only make him do it the more. But you have some influence with him; tell him you're a lawyer, and will take charge of it yourself."

"Why don't you want a detective?" I asked.

"Good Lord, hasn't our family had notoriety enough? Here's Nan eloping with the overseer, and Jeff the scandal of the county for five years. I can't turn around but some malicious interpretation is put on it, and now that the family ghost has taken to cracking safes gossip will never stop. Get a detective down here who goes nosing about the neighborhood in search of information and there's no telling where the thing will end. Those bonds can't be far. Aren't we more likely to get at the truth, if we lie low and don't let on we're after the thief?"

"Radnor," I said, "will you tell me the absolute truth? Have you any suspicion as to who took those securities? Do you know any facts which might lead to the apprehension of the thief?"

He remained silent a moment, then he parried my question with another.

"What time did all that row occur in the night?"

"I don't know; I didn't think to look, but I should say it was somewhere in the neighborhood of three o'clock. I didn't go to sleep again, and it was about half an hour later that you drove in."

"You heard me?"

"I heard you go and I heard you come; but I did not mention that fact to the Colonel."

Rad laughed shortly.

"I can at least prove an alibi," he said. "You can swear that I was not Mose's devil."

He remained silent a moment with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands studying the floor; then he raised his eyes to mine with a puzzled shake of the head.

"No, Arnold, I haven't the slightest suspicion as to who took those securities. I can't make it out. The robbery must have occurred while I was away. Of course the deeds and insurance policies and coin may have been taken as a blind; but it's queer. The money was in five and ten cent pieces and pennies--we always keep a lot of change on hand to pay the piece-workers during planting season. There was nearly a quart of it altogether and it must have weighed a ton. I can't imagine anyone stealing Government four-per-cents and pennies at the same haul."

"Did you get any light from Mose?" I asked.

"No, I can't make head nor tail out of his story. He isn't given to seeing visions, and as you know, he isn't afraid of the dark. He saw something that scared him; but what it was, I'll be darned if I know!"

"Then why not get a detective down and see if he can't find out?"

Radnor lowered his eyes a moment, then raised them frankly to mine.

"Oh, hang it, Arnold; I'm in the deuce of a hole! There's something else that I don't want found out. It's absolutely unconnected with the robbery, but you bring a detective down here and he's certain to stumble on that instead of the other. I'd tell you if I could, but really I can't just now. It's nothing I'm to blame for--my conduct lately has been immaculate. You get my father to abandon this detective plan, and we'll buckle down together and root out the truth about the robbery."

"Well," I promised, "I'll see what I can do; but as the Colonel says, five thousand dollars is a good deal of money to let slip through your hands without making an effort to get it back. You and I will have to finish the business if we undertake it."

"We will!" he assured me. "We can certainly get at the truth better than an outsider who doesn't know any of the facts. You switch off the old gentleman from putting it in the hands of the police and everything will come out right."

He went off actually whistling again. Whatever had been troubling him for the past two weeks had been sloughed off during the night, and all that remained now was the danger of detection; with this removed he was his old careless self. The loss of the securities was apparently not bothering him. Radnor always did exhibit a lordly disregard in money matters.

I lost no time in taking my errand to the Colonel, but I could discover him in none of the down stairs rooms nor anywhere else about the place. It occurred to me, after half an hour of searching, to see if his horse were in the stable; as I had surmised it was not. He had ordered it saddled immediately after breakfast and had ridden off in the direction of the village, one of the stablemen informed me. I had my own horse saddled, and ten minutes later was riding after him. It surprised me that he should have acted so quickly; the Colonel was usually rather given to procrastination, while Rad was the one who acted. His promptness proved that he was angry.

Four-Pools is about two miles from the village of Lambert Corners which consists of a single shady square. Two sides of the square are taken up with shops, the other two with the school, a couple of churches, and a dozen or so of dwellings. This composes as much of the town as is visible, the aristocracy being scattered over the outlying plantations, and regarding the "Corners" merely as a source of mail and drinks. Three miles farther down the pike lies Kennisburg, the county seat, which answers the varied purposes of a metropolis.

I reined in before "Miller's place," a spacious structure comprising a general store on the right, the post and telegraph office on the left, and in the rear a commodious room where a white man may quench his thirst. A negro must pass on to