Part 8 (1/2)

”I got your note, Mr. Farnum,” began the ex-foreman. ”What's the matter? Find you need me here, after all?”

”Not for long,” replied Mr. Farnum, coldly. ”Owen, before you gave your keys in to Mr. Partridge you must have taken an impression of one of them and must have fitted a key to the pattern. Why were you here last night?”

”Me? I wasn't here last night--nor any other night,” Josh Owen made haste to answer, though a look of guilty alarm crept into his face. All of the workmen had ceased their toil, and stood looking on at this unusual scene.

”You say you weren't here last night?” demanded Mr. Farnum, sternly.

”And you didn't use any false key to get into this shed?”

”Of course I didn't,” retorted the ex-foreman, defiantly. ”You wrote a note to me that, if I'd come around here this morning, I'd hear of a job.

I didn't come here to be insulted.”

”The job I mentioned in my note,” rejoined Mr. Farnum, with a meaning smile, ”is over at the penitentiary. Owen, you did come here last night.

You scaled the fence at the west side, crossed the yard, opened the door of this building with this key--”

Here the yard's owner held out the false key, that all might see it.

”--and,” finished Mr. Farnum, ”you came in here and went to work to damage a sea-valve forward on this craft. The valve shows, this morning, very plain traces of having been tampered with.”

Josh Owen was summoning all his courage, all his craft. Instead of looking frightened, he glared boldly at his accuser.

”Who says I did such a thing?” he demanded, hotly.

”Benson and Hastings saw you at your rascally work, my man.”

”Humph!” snorted the ex-foreman. ”Who? Those boys?”

”Yes.”

”Humph! I wouldn't believe those boys under oath, and you'll make a huge mistake if you do, Mr. Farnum,” continued Josh Owen, hotly.

”Then you deny that you were here, and that you tampered with a sea-valve last night?” insisted the yard's owner, looking his man keenly in the eyes.

”I'll deny it with my dying breath,” a.s.serted the former foreman, boldly.

”As for those lying boys--”

”Do you believe _this_ can lie?” inquired Mr. Farnum, pa.s.sing the accused man a photograph print.

Josh Owen took the print, staring at it hard. In an instant his eyes began to open as wide as it was possible for them to do. A sickly, greenish pallor crept into the man's face. Beads of cold perspiration appeared on his forehead and temples.

”You see, your face shows up very clearly,” went on the yard's owner, in the same cold, crus.h.i.+ng voice. ”Moreover, it shows you right at one of the sea-valves, and in the very act of tapping with a hammer. You didn't know that Benson and Hastings are very fair photographers, did you?”

”I don't care what they are,” cried Owen, in a pa.s.sionate voice, as before the print to small bits. ”That isn't a photograph of me, even if it does look like me, and I wasn't here last night. I--”

”Any judge and jury will believe the evidence against you, my man,”

cried Farnum, sternly. ”As for the boys, maybe you don't like them, nor they you. They've reason enough for not liking you. Besides, they couldn't photograph anything that wasn't here to be photographed.”

”Then it was that flash--” began Josh Owen.

He stopped instantly, biting his lips savagely.