by Sophie May
CHAPTER II
THE SEARCH IS CONTINUED
It is much to be feared that three certain young gentlemen finishedtheir dinner with unbecoming haste in order to join more quickly thefourth young gentleman summoned to the long distance telephone.
"Why, it was dad! Called up clear from Lannington!" announced Phil,coming from the telephone booth, perspiring but pleased. "They all gotour letters, just a little while ago, and there must have been a generalpowwow all about us and the car right away. They fixed it up that dadshould call us. And they're mighty interested. Think we haven't actedfast enough, and all that. Want us to offer a reward--get busy--travelaround--not lose so much time just staying here. And if we can't getsome news by Wednesday, they'll either come on here or send a detectivefrom Chicago or somewhere."
"It'll cost a raft of money," murmured MacLester.
"But we've been too afraid of spending a little," Billy answered.
"Over four dollars' worth of telephoning in one morning!" ejaculatedPaul, forcibly. He did not like criticism.
"Just the same, it feels good to know there's somebody back of us. Ofcourse we knew there was, anyway, but to have them get together and thentelephone clear here--it's mighty encouraging," spoke Phil. "Now wecan't let them think we aren't capable of getting out of this pickle byourselves, and we don't want them to hold a convention here. The answeris, get busy! So what are we going to do?"
"Well, what _are_ we going to do?" This from Paul, as if he would saythat everything possible to do had been done.
"Why, there's one thing that seemed like a good suggestion," said Phil,"and that is that we look in other places--get on the train, get intouch with the police and the auto clubs and garages in different likelyplaces, personally."
"It's reasonable, and the thing to do," declared Worth with emphasis."Phil, why can't you and Dave go to Albany or Rochester this very day?Stop off at Syracuse. Go up to Pittsfield, too? Paul and I can watch andhunt around here and follow up what poor little clues we've got."
"Clues? _We_ have no clues!" spoke MacLester, moodily, "unless Hipp andEarnest are the ones. I've come to the conclusion that those fellowslied about seeing a man in a raincoat. Who else saw him? Don't we knowthat young Earnest can lie like a beggar? Is Hipp any better?"
"But there's the raincoat! Saw it ourselves!" Billy argued.
"Oh, that might belong to anybody! Plenty of old raincoats lyingaround," persisted David.
"I'm afraid you're on the wrong track, Mack," Phil Way urged quietly.Then immediately he added: "We must look up trains at once. Billy's planmay not be very promising but, goodness, we can't sit around and waitfor the car to come to us!"
So the agreement was made, quite as Worth proposed. Dave and Phil hadjust time to catch the 1:24 train--one of the few fast trains thatstopped at Griffin--and they promised to telegraph from Albany the samenight, if they found anything worth reporting.
"I am glad we are making a start toward something, anyway," Worthremarked, when he and Paul had waved good-bye to the two on the train,and turned toward the hotel again.
"Tell you what, though, Bill! Let's just keep right on the job everyminute, ourselves, and maybe we can surprise the fellows--get hold ofsomething awfully important." Paul was pretty serious.
"Sure!" said Billy.
Then came the stumbling block. It was all very well to say "keep on thejob," but just what to do that might be worth while was another problem.
"Funny we never heard a word from that 'A. W. Kull, Harkville, NewYork,' if our telegram was ever delivered there," said Worth, thinkingaloud, somewhat later. "Let's ask the office here to find out whatbecame of our message. It won't cost anything."
"Oh, gravy! That has nothing to do with us! It's the Six we're after,Bill!" But notwithstanding this objection, the Griffin telegraph officewas asked for the information.
The operator kindly offered to send a service message, as it is called,desiring the Harkville office to report on the matter. Harkville repliedin due time. The message to "A. W. Kull" was delivered at his residence.Why it was not answered the telegraph people did not know, of course.
During the afternoon the boys also met Chief Fobes. With his stick underhis arm, he leaned against a railing at the Bank building, eatingpeanuts.
"Nothin' doin'," was his reply to their inquiry. "Ain't likely to be,"he added, discouragingly. "It ain't our luck, somehow. It may be here orany place around here that something will happen, but of course thegentry don't stay in these smaller places, and it's always in the biggertowns that they're nabbed if they don't get away altogether."
"Oh, yes, I see," said Billy Worth, but when he and Paul had walked on,he remarked: "No, it is not Mr. Fobes' luck to catch anything. I reckonhe banks more on luck than he does on work, though."
"'From the standpoint of the law,'" grinned Jones. But then lest he andWorth should fall into the same error, he said briskly, "But come on,Bill, we'll have to hustle if we're going to find anything."
Meanwhile Dave and Phil were approaching Albany. On the train theymapped out their general plan of work. Phil was to interview the policeofficials while Dave made inquiries at the headquarters of theautomobile club. Then, together, they would visit the central garages.The outlying establishments they would call up by telephone, theydecided. Surely, every automobile, stolen or otherwise, must havegasoline. Somewhere, then, it might be reasonably expected, trace of theBig Six would surely be discovered.
It seems likely, and probably is true, that the boys failed toappreciate the great number of cars constantly going and coming throughall such large cities as Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland and the like. Livingin a much smaller place, where tourists from a distance, especiallythose with licenses from other states, were quickly noticed, they didnot understand that machines from far and near are so numerous upon thegreat motor thoroughfares that they attract scarcely passing notice.
Disappointment followed disappointment as Phil and Dave pursued theirtask. The fact that the police department had a perfect description oftheir car and the assurance of the lieutenant, with whom Phil talked,that every patrolman had the number of the stolen machine, were the onlybits of encouragement they found.
"Didn't ye have insurance against theft?" asked a pleasant young fellowat a new garage not far from the capitol. "Ought to have a fire andtheft insurance policy," he declared, "then you let someone else do theworrying."
"Too late to think of it now, I'm afraid," said Phil with a forlornsmile.
"That's true enough," said the other, "but I was just thinking how luckya fellow considers himself when he does have insurance in a case of thiskind. There was an illustration of it up state just this spring. Man hada new car. Used it just a little, over winter. In April it was stolenand it never was found. He got a check for pretty nearly all he paid forit because he had insurance. He didn't have to lose any sleep, you see."
"Also, you may be able to sell him another car, because he has the moneyto pay for one," suggested Dave, his eyes twinkling.
"Now you're trying to jolly me," returned the young man good-humoredly."But I didn't mean it that way. Fact is, the man was away up atHarkville--'way out of our territory for Torpedoes."
"Hello, now!" exclaimed Way, eagerly. "Was there a Torpedo stolen inHarkville, recently?"
"Not lately. Two months ago," the other answered.
"Who lost it?" And again Way glanced sharply at Dave. The latter waslistening to every word but taking care to betray no unusual interest.
"H--m--m--Hull, Kull--why, that's it! Kull was his name. But _your_ carwas not a Torpedo, was it?"
If the young man thought that in this question he guessed the reason forPhil's wish to know more of the incident mentioned, he guessed wrong, ofcourse. But unwilling to tell just why he was interested, until heshould have had time to think, Phil gave him no enlightenment.
"No," answered Way, "the Torpedo people don't build a six-cylinder car,do they?"
"That's right, yours was a six," said th
e other. "Makes you so much thegreater loser, with no insurance."
"What luck did the Harkville man have finding his car? Someone must havelooked for it even if he did have insurance."
"Guess they _did_ look for it," said the garage man forcibly. "FirstKull and the police, then the insurance people and detectives, andbelieve _me_, insurance companies don't care how much it costs to find astolen car if they've had to pay for it. They do get stung though, andlast I heard, Kull had his money, for his car was never found, high orlow. Strange case! Never a clue to go by. A padlock pried off Kull'slittle garage and the machine gone and--there you are."
"Strange!" muttered Phil, but he was thinking too, that, though this wasexceedingly interesting information, he must not allow it to take histhoughts from the loss that meant so much more to himself and friends,personally. So, thanking the young man, he and Dave left the garage.
"Why didn't you tell him about the Torpedo? She's the Harkville car assure as you're born!" spoke MacLester, immediately the two were beyondhearing.
"It might have done no harm, and again--there's the trouble! I wanted totalk it over with you. It seems small and mean, but still we didn't payout railroad fare and all that to help find the owner of that Torpedo.We wired Kull and did our part. He may be in Griffin right now to claimthe property."
"More likely he doesn't care. He got insurance money, so why bother anymore about it? That would explain the whole thing--the whole reason whyour telegram was never answered," Dave reasoned.
"It looks that way," Phil replied. "And our chasing the Torpedo ischasing right away from the car we want to find. Blame it all! We don'tseem to get anywhere. Here we go stumbling into things about the Torpedobut no clues at all to the Six!" All of which, and the disgruntled tone,were both unusual words and manner in young Mr. Way.
The day had long since closed. The boys found a comfortable hotel andwent to bed, leaving a call for half-past five as the train forPittsfield left Albany at six-thirty. The distance was not great and asseveral important automobile routes branched out from the Massachusettstown, it was considered a likely source of information.
Tired as they were, Phil and Dave must and did discuss at length theday's developments before they fell asleep. A sense of duty that theyshould report at once the apparent fact that they had found the stolenHarkville car, weighed somewhat upon their minds.
"But what if we do? What happens?" they reasoned. "We are put out justthat much in hunting for the Six. We lose time being called aswitnesses, and a lot of botheration, just when we need every minute, andnothing much is gained. A few days will make no difference with regardto the Torpedo, long ago given up as beyond recovery."
And so resolving to stick to the more important business first, but toreport the finding of the stolen Harkville car just so soon as detailsof identification and the law's red tape would not be so inconvenient,they put the subject aside.
Thanks to Chief Fobes, in part, and also thanks to their own error, inpart, the boys were making a costly mistake by believing the trail ofthe Torpedo had no connection with the theft of their own car. Or so itwould seem, would it not? And yet, even if the thieves who first stolethe Harkville car were the same who, later on, made off with the BigSix, what could be gained by going back along the route to deliver theone recovered machine instead of pursuing diligently the more recentlystolen property?
"We'll never see our car again; that I know," said Dave MacLester, glumand despondent. He pulled on his shoes in the stuffy little hotel roomnext morning, as if life were to him a barren, barren waste.
"It's mostly the time of day, Mack," said Way good-humoredly. "Half-pastfive has a mighty blue appearance after you've been eating strange grub,and staying up till midnight the day before. You'll brighten up like theshining sun if we can only get out where there is such a thing--that andget hold of a little news to-day."
"We haven't got hold of any _yet_," asserted MacLester, not a bit morecheerfully.
And his words were the truth, cold and harsh, as the truth may sometimesbe, beyond a doubt.
