The in the Mountains Part 2 (2/2)
”Mister Charlie? Indeed I do, ma'am, and a fine young chap he is, too. I've often hunted with him through these woods up here. If he's goin' to look after the law part of this for you, you'll have a good chance to beat them sharks down there. Some pretty smart lawyers there at Hamilton, they tell me, ma'am. I ain't never been to law myself. Any time I get into a fight I can't settle with my tongue, I use my hands. Cheaper, and better, too, in the long run.”
”It's the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, Andrew. Most people can't settle their troubles so easily. Well, you'll row us to the end of the lake, I suppose?”
”Get right in, ma'am! Might as well start, so's you can take it easy on the trail. Not a bit of use hurryin' when there ain't no need of it, I say. There's lots of times when it can't be helped, without lookin' for a chance.”
So, with the strains of the Wo-he-lo cheer rising from the girls who were left behind, they started in the boat for the first stage of the short journey to Hamilton.
Andrew insisted on going with them as far as the station, and as the train pulled out, they heard his cheery voice.
”Now, remember if you need me or any of the boys, all you've got to do is to send us word, and we'll find a way to get there a bit quicker than we're expected,” he cried. ”Ain't nothin' we wouldn't do for you and the young ladies, Miss Eleanor!”
”You leave them to us, old timer,” Rogers called back from the car window. ”We'll guarantee to return them, safe and sound. And it won't take any long time, neither. There's a good case against that sneaking gypsy, and we'll have him on his way to the penitentiary in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”
”If you don't, I'll vote for another sheriff next election,” vowed Andrew, ”if I have to vote a Demmycratic ticket to do it, and that's somethin' I ain't done--not since I was old enough to vote.”
Rogers was rea.s.suring enough in his speech and manner, but Eleanor had a presentiment of evil; a foreboding that something was wrong.
The railroad trip to Hamilton was not a long one, and within two hours of the time they had left Long Lake the brakeman called out the name of the county seat. Eleanor and the two girls, with Rogers carrying their bags, moved to the door, and, as they reached the ground, looked about eagerly for Jamieson.
He was nowhere to be seen. But Holmes was there, avoiding their eyes, but with a grin of malicious triumph that worried Eleanor. And Rogers, a moment after he had left them to speak to a friend, returned, his face grave.
”I hear your friend Mr. Jamieson is arrested,” he said.
CHAPTER V.
A TANGLED NET.
”Arrested?” cried Eleanor, startled. ”Why, what do you mean? How can that be?”
”That's all I know, ma'am,” said Rogers, soberly. ”Even if I did know anything more, I guess maybe I oughtn't to be saying anything about it. I'm an officer, you see. But here's the district attorney. Maybe he'll be able to tell you what you want.”
He pointed to a tall, thin man who was talking earnestly to Holmes, and who came over when Rogers beckoned to him.
”This is Mr. Niles, Miss Mercer,” said Rogers. ”I'll leave you with him.”
”Glad to meet you, Miss Mercer,” said Niles, heartily, ”though I'm sorry to have dragged you away from your good times at Long Lake. These, I suppose, are the young ladies who were kidnapped?”
”Yes, though of course they weren't really kidnapped, because they got away before any real harm was done,” Eleanor replied. ”But, Mr. Niles, what is this absurd story about my cousin, Mr. Jamieson? Mr. Rogers said something about his having been arrested.”
Niles grew grave.
”I hope you're right--I hope it is absurd, my dear young lady,” he said. ”Your cousin, you say? Dear me, that's most distressing--most distressing, upon my word! However, you will understand I had nothing to do with the matter.
”I have to take cognizance, in my official capacity, of any charges that are made, but I am allowed to have my own opinion as to the guilt or innocence of those accused--yes, indeed! And I am quite sure that Mr. Jamieson had nothing to do with this attempted kidnapping!”
”What?” gasped Eleanor. ”Do you mean to say that it is on such a charge as that that he has been arrested?”
She laughed, in sheer relief. The absurdity of such an accusation, she was sure, would carry proof in itself that Charlie was innocent. No matter who was trying to spoil his reputation, they could not possibly succeed with such a flimsy and silly charge.
”I'm glad it seems so funny to you, Miss Mercer,” said Niles, stiffly. ”I'll confess that it looked serious to me, although, as I say, I do not believe in Mr. Jamieson's guilt. However, he will have to clear himself, of course, just as anyone else accused of a crime must do. Where I have jurisdiction, no favors are shown.
”The poor are on a basis of equality with the rich; I would send a guilty millionaire to prison with a light heart, and on the same day I would move heaven and earth to secure the freedom of an innocent beggar, though men of wealth were trying to railroad him to jail!”
He finished that peroration with a sweeping and dignified bow. And then he stopped, thunder-struck, as a clear, girlish laugh rose on the air. It was Dolly who laughed.
”I couldn't help it,” she said, afterward. ”He was so funny, and he didn't know it! As if anyone would take a man who talked such rot as that seriously!”
But the trouble was that, vain and pompous as Niles plainly was, his official position made it necessary to take him seriously. Though at first she was disposed to agree with Dolly, and had, indeed, had difficulty in keeping a straight face herself while he was boasting of his own incorruptibility, Eleanor discovered that fact as soon as she had a chance to talk with Charlie Jamieson.
”I shall be glad to arrange for you to have an interview with your cousin, Miss Mercer,” Niles informed her. ”Theoretically, he is a prisoner, although of course he will be able to arrange for his own release on bail as soon as he finds some friend who owns property in this county. But I have given orders that he is not to be confined in a cell. I trust he is making himself very much at home in the parlor of Sheriff Blaine. If you will honor me, I will take you there.”
”I should like to see him at once,” said Eleanor. ”Come, girls! Mr. Niles, I am sure, will find a place where you can wait for me while I talk with Mr. Jamieson.”
Charlie greeted her with a sour grin when she was taken to the room where, a prisoner, he was sitting near a window and smoking some of the sheriff's excellent tobacco.
”h.e.l.lo, Nell!” he said. ”First blood for our friend Holmes on this sc.r.a.p, all right. First time I've ever been in jail. It's intended as a little object lesson of what he can do when he once starts out to be unpleasant, I fancy. He must know that he hasn't any sort of chance of keeping me here.”
”Why, Charlie, I never heard anything so absurd!” said Eleanor, hotly. ”As if you, who have done everything possible for those girls, would do such an insane thing as hire that gypsy to kidnap them. And especially when we know who did do it!”
”That's just the rub! We know, but can we prove it? You see, it's my idea that Holmes is starting this as a sort of backfire. He thinks we're going to accuse him, and he wants to strike the first blow. He's clever, all right.”
”I don't see what good it can do him, Charlie.”
”A lot of good, and this is why. He puts me on the defensive, right away. He wants time as much as anything else. And if he can keep me busy proving my own innocence, he figures that I'll have less time to get after him. It's a good move. The more chance he has to work on those gypsies, the less likely they are to say anything that will make trouble for him. He can show them his power and scare them, even if he can't buy them.
”And I think the chances are that he won't find it very hard to buy them. They pinched me as soon as I got off the train this morning. I've sent out a lot of telegrams, asking fellows to come up here and bail me out, but of course I can't really expect to get an answer today--an answer in person, at least.”
”Mr. Niles seems friendly. He said that he doesn't believe you're guilty, Charlie.”
”That's kind of him, I'm sure. Niles is an a.s.s--a pompous, self-satisfied a.s.s! Holmes is using him just as he likes, and Niles hasn't got sense enough to see it. He's honest enough, I think, but he hasn't got the brains of a well-developed jellyfish.”
Eleanor laughed at the comparison.
”Well, if he's honest, you don't have anything to fear, I suppose,” she said. ”I'm glad of that, Charlie. I was afraid at first that he might be just a tool of Mr. Holmes, and that he would do what Mr. Holmes told him.”
”I'd feel easier in my mind if he were a regular out-and-out crook, Nell. That sort always has a weakness. Your crook is afraid of his own skin, and when he knows he's doing things for pay, he'll always stop just short of a certain danger point. He won't risk more than so much for anyone. But with this chap it's different. He's probably let Holmes, or Holmes's gang, fill him up with a lot of false ideas, and they're clever enough to get him to wanting to do just what they want him to do.”
”And you mean that he'll think he's doing the right thing?”
”Yes, and not only that, but he'll persuade himself that he figured the whole thing out, thought it out for himself, when really he'll just be carrying out their own suggestions. We've got to find some way to spike his guns, or else Holmes will work things so that his gypsy will get off, and there'll be no sort of chance to pin the guilt down to him, where it belongs.”
”Then the first thing to do is to get you out, isn't it?”
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