Out of a Labyrinth Part 16

"What! you were up there?" I cried, in astonishment.

"Worrunt I," he retorted, complacently. "_An' I wasn't the only one!_"

"Carnes!"

"Och, take off yer mittens an' sit down," he said, grinning offensively at my mighty efforts to draw off a pair of tight and moist kid gloves.

"Warn't I up there, an' I could ave told ye all about the purty gals mysilf, an' what sort av blarney ye gave till em both, if it had not been fer the murtherin' baste of a shnake as got inter the scrubbery ahead av me."

I threw aside the damp gloves, and seated myself directly in front of him.

"Now, talk business," I said, impatiently. "It's getting late, and there's a good deal to be said."

Carnes reached out for the pipe which he had laid aside at my entrance, lighted it with due deliberation, and then said, with no trace of his former absurdity:

"I don't know what sent me strolling and smoking up toward Dr. Barnard's place, but I did go. My pipe went out, and I stopped to light it, stepping off the sidewalk just where the late lilacs hang over the fence at the foot of the garden. While I stood there, entirely hidden by the darkness and the shade, a man came walking stealthily down the middle of the road. His very gait betrayed the sneak, and I followed him, forgetting my pipe and keeping to the soft gra.s.s. He seemed to know just where to go for, although he moved cautiously, there was no hesitation.

Well, he pa.s.sed the gate, climbed the fence, sneaked up to the front of the house, skulking between the trees and rose bushes directly underneath the parlor window. I took the bearings as well as I could from a distance, and I made up my mind that the fellow, if he heard anything, could hardly catch the thread of the discourse, and I reckon I was right in my conclusions for, after a good deal of prospecting around, he sneaked away as he came, and I followed him back to Porter's store."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Well he pa.s.sed the gate, climbed the fence, sneaked up to the front of the house, skulking between the trees and rose bushes directly underneath the parlor window."--page 132.]

"And you knew him?" I questioned, hastily.

"I used to know him," said Carnes, with a comical wink, "but recently I've cut his acquaintance."

For a moment we stared at each other silently, then I asked, abruptly:

"Old man, do you think it worth our while to go into this resurrection business?"

"What for?"

"To satisfy ourselves as regards Bethel's part in it."

"You needn't go into it on my account," replied Carnes, crossing his legs and clasping his two hands behind his head; "I'm satisfied."

"As how?"

"He never did it."

"Ah! how do you reason the case?"

"First, he isn't a fool; second, if he had taken the body he would have made use of it that night; it was fast decomposing, and before to-night would be past pleasant handling. Then he, being called away, if he had instructed others to disinter the body, would never have instructed them to hide it on his own premises, much less to disrobe it for no purpose whatever. Then, last and most conclusive, there's the pick and spade."

"And what of them?"

"This of them," unclasping his hands, setting his two feet squarely on the floor, and bringing his palms down upon his knees. "You know old Harding, the hardware dealer?"

I nodded. Old Harding was the elder brother of the Trafton farmer who had excited my eagerness to see Trafton by discussing its peculiarities on the railway train.

"Well," leaning toward me and dropping out his words in stiff staccato.

"After the crowd had left Jim Long and myself in possession of the doctor's premises, old Harding came back. I saw that he wanted to talk with Jim, and I went out into the yard. Presently the two went into the barn, and I skulked around till I got directly behind the window where those tools were found. And here's what I heard, stripped of old Harding's profanity, and Jim's cranky comments. Last year Harding's store was visited by burglars, and those identical tools were taken out of it along with many other things. You observed that they were quite new. Harding said he could swear to the tools. Now, if others had exhumed the body _for_ the doctor, they would not have left their tools in his stable and in so conspicuous a place. If the doctor exhumed it, how did he obtain those tools? _They were stolen before he came to Trafton._"

"Then here is another thing," I began, as Carnes paused. "A man of Bethel's sense would not take such a step without a sufficient reason.

Now, Dr. Barnard, who certainly is authority in the matter, says positively that there were no peculiar symptoms about the child's sickness; that it was a _very_ ordinary case; therefore, Dr. Bethel, who can buy all his skeletons without incurring disagreeable labor and risk, could have had no motive for taking the body."

"Then you think----"

"I think this," I interrupted, being now warm with my subject. "Dr.

Bethel, who is certainly _not_ a detective, is suspected of being one, or feared as one. And this is the way his enemies open the war upon him.

I think if we can find out who robbed that little girl's grave and secreted the body so as to throw suspicion upon Bethel, we shall be in a fair way to find out what we came here to learn, viz., what, and where, and who, are the daring, long existing successful robbers that infest Trafton. This is their first failure, and why?"

"It's easy to guess _why_," said Carnes, gravely. "The old head was out of this business; for some reason it has been entrusted to underlings, and bunglers."

"But won't old Harding give these rascals warning by claiming his stolen property?" I asked, dubiously.

"Not he," replied Carnes. "Harding's too cute and too stingy for that.

He reasons that the thieves, having begun to display their booty, may grow more reckless. He is one of the few who think that the body was not placed in the hay by the doctor's hirelings; he intends to keep silent for the present and look sharp for any more of his stolen merchandize."

"Then, Carnes, we have no bars to our present progress. To-morrow we get down to actual business."

Again we sat late into the night discussing and re-arranging our plans, only separating when we had mapped out a course which we, in our egotistical blindness, felt a.s.sured was the true route toward success; and seeking our slumbers as blissfully unconscious of what really was to transpire as the veriest dullard in all Trafton.

CHAPTER XII.

A BIG HAUL.

When I awoke next morning, I was surprised to find my erratic body-servant not in attendance.

Carnes, for convenience, and because of lack of modern hotel accommodations, occupied a cot in my room, which was the largest in the house, and sufficiently airy to serve for two. Usually, he was anything but a model serving man in the matter of rising and attending to duty, for, invariably, I was out of bed an hour before him, and had made my toilet to the music of his nasal organ, long before he broke his morning nap.

This morning, however, Carnes was not snoring peacefully on his cot underneath the open north window, and I arose and made a hasty toilet, feeling sure that something unusual had called him from his bed this early.

Wondering much, I descended to the office, where an animated buzz warned me that something new and startling was under discussion.

Usually at that hour this sanctum was untenanted, save for the youth who served as a combination of porter and clerk, and perhaps a stray boarder or two, but this morning a motley crowd filled the room. Not a noisy, bl.u.s.tering crowd, but a gathering of startled, perplexed, angry looking men, each seeming hopeful of hearing something, rather than desirous of saying much.

Jim Long, the idle, every-where-present Jim, stood near the outer door, looking as stolid and imperturbable as usual, and smoking, as a matter of course.

I made my way to him at once.

"What is it, Long," I asked, in a low tone; "something new, or--"

"Nothin' _new_, by any means," interrupted Jim, sublimely indifferent to the misfortune of his neighbors. "Nothin' new at all, Cap'n; the Trafton Bandits have been at it again, that's all."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Nothin' new at all, Cap'n; the Trafton Bandits have been at it again that's all."--page 140.]