Joe
Cone
Cambridge,
Mass.
A
DETECTIVE FOR A NIGHT.
By Joe Cone.
Harvey Haines held in
his trembling hand a suspicious looking package. He had just taken it from the
post office and was hurrying in the direction of his home. The metallic feeling
within the package gave him a thrill. It had just arrived from the west, and he
knew it contained a badge, and that badge once on his bosom would constitute
him a detective. In other words, within a half hour he would be known to the
world as “Harvey Haines, private detective.”
A nervous undoing of
the package under the smoky evening lamp proved his suspicions; it was the long
expected badge. He had first read the advertisement in a paper, and there had
been a good deal of corresponding back and forth, for Harvey wasn’t to be
caught napping, and finally when he was satisfied that the detective agency was
all right, he forwarded the three dollars. Now he was a detective, in good
standing, backed by a famous and
far-reaching western agency.
He pinned his badge
on his coat and surveyed himself in the glass. He thought he had never seen
anything look better, and without saying anything to his wife, he put on his
overcoat and hat and went out into the night. Unfortunately Harvey lived in a
small country town where crime was scarce. The little bank had been robbed once
on a time, but that was ten years ago. The robbers didn’t get anything
worthwhile and had left a note pinned on the wall which read: “What’s the use?”
There had been no desire to rob the bank after that. Still, Harvey considered
that the town needed a detective and he also considered himself the proper
person to hold that honorable position.
Nobody in town knew
that Harvey was a detective. He had kept the secret strictly to himself, and
herein, he thought, lay his great advantage. People would confide in him
freely, not knowing that he was vested with the authority of telling them to
throw up their hands and surrender. He had a dark lantern under his coat, one
that he had found in the attic, and he had polished it and tinkered it up till
it looked quite professional. He had a revolver, too, but he fondly hoped that
criminal matters would never reach a stage where he would be required to reveal
it. Truth to tell he didn’t like either end of a firearm, but he knew a
detective’s equipment was incomplete without a shining revolver. The shine, he
knew, was the thing that criminals most feared.
He usually walked
along the middle of the road, but now he crept stealthily along the walls and
fences. No detective would walk openly in the middle of the road. And from the
old heavy tread he had developed a cautious step, often standing on one foot
for an instant, with strained ears. He decided not to hang around the store or
market, or even the hotel as his presence might arouse suspicion. The bank
seemed the only logical place around which to loiter so thither he skulked in
true sleuth fashion.
The village bank was
situated at the end of the main street, behind which lay a mill pond black and
still. The nearest building was a small millinery store which was closed every
evening excepting Saturdays. Harvey passed the millinery store and came to a
halt in front of the bank. He listened long and intently. All was still
excepting a peculiar swishing sound that appeared to come from the direction of
the mill pond. Deciding that it was a fish or an animal playing on the surface
of the water he moved on a few yards further down the road. His detective ardor
was cooling off by degrees, and he began to think of the warm fireside and his
evening paper. He was repassing the bank when he thought he heard a noise as if
something wooden had given way. He listened more intently and soon he detected
the unmistakable sound of crumbling glass.
“Ha!” he muttered, “there’s
something going on round here,” and lowering his figure he crept around toward
the rear of the bank. As he neared the water he made out the dim outlines of a
rowboat pulled slightly upon the bank. His detective heart gave a great bound,
and his breathing became unsteady. Then he turned his attention to the one rear
window of the building. On approaching closely he found it open, with a thick
blanket hanging on the inside. His first impulse was to run for assistance. Then
his detective instinct came uppermost.
“No sir,” he muttered
to himself, “I’ll git these fellers all alone. I ain’t got this badge on fur
nothin’ an’ I wanter git my three dollars back,” and he was about to push the
blanket a little to one side when his arms were pinned to his side and a wet,
disagreeable substance was thrust beneath his nose.
It was quite daylight
when a pair of dazed and blurry eyes looked up into the cold gray sky. Harvey
Haines, private detective, could not move hand or foot; all he could do was to
look and think. Thought and sight, however, were very indistinct for a long
time. He knew that his body ached from head to foot, and that he was cold and
ill. How he came to be bound hand and foot, gagged and cramped up in the bottom
of a rowboat he couldn’t determine for several moments. Then the events of the
last evening came slowly before his vision. He was on the verge of making a
memorable arrest when he was seized from behind and, – the rest was blank.
There was a dull roar
as of falling water not a great way from his head. He couldn’t determine
whether it were noises in his head or the big milldam at the end of the pond.
He was so situated that he couldn’t look over the side of the boat; all he
could see was the great cold sky above him. Occasionally he could hear a shout
but it was impossible for him to answer it. The light skiff trembled now and
then as if on the crest of a great wave. Then a sickening sense came over him;
he realized that he was on the edge of the dam, hanging by a thread as it were.
He craned his neck slightly till he could see the centerboard-box. The small
iron handle was visible a foot or so above the casing. The centerboard was
partly down and had grounded at the very edge of the dam. That was all that
prevented the boat from plunging over the dam and being smashed on the rocks
below.
During those moments
of terror the detective’s ambitions faded from his being. The badge which he
could see shining upon his bosom seemed to rise up and mock him. He realized
that a shift in the current of air might swing his boat head on so that she
could easily slide over the dam. By and by the sound of voices grew clearer,
and with a thrill of hope he saw two heads coming slowly towards him over the
prow of the skiff. Nearer and nearer they came till by and by he heard the
sound of a boathook being driven into his own boat and a shout from one of the
men to “pull away!”
Slowly his boat began
to move away from the edge of the dam, and when a sufficient distance had been
gained to make it safe the two men jumped into the boat and released him from
his trying position. On sitting up he discovered that a raft had been hastily
put together and had been floated down stream by means of ropes reaching from
the further end of the pond.
“Waal, Harvey,” said
one of the men, who was a friend and neighbor, “what sort uv a mix-up do you
call this?”
“Was the bank robbed?”
asked Harvey, with difficulty.
“Cleaned out slick as
a whistle, but how did you come to be in this boat? Folks fust thought you wuz
consarned in the robbery an’ hed cleared out till someone shinned up a tree and
with a pair uv glasses, made you out tied up here in the boat.”
The moment Harvey’s
hands were free he had quietly removed the badge and had dropped it overboard.
“Me consarned in the
robbery? I guess not. I wuz fishin’ down on the bank when them fellers got hold
of me an’ put me to sleep with somethin’, an’ that’s all I remember till I woke
up here by the dam. How’s Mary?”
“She’s up there on
the bank jest about crazy, with the rest on ’em.”
The little party
moved slowly up the pond and finally landed where half of the townspeople were
waiting. The robbers had secured considerable booty and had left no trace, with
the possible exception of Harvey Haines. After explanations had been made and
all kinds of theories advanced the village constable drew near to Harvey
Haines. He was scarcely able to walk and was yet cold and suffering.
“I tell you, Harvey,”
said the constable, confidentially, “me an’ you hev got to run them fellers
down. You hev got more clews than anybuddy else, an’ with my help we stan’ a purty
good chance uv roundin’ ’em up.”
“You’ll have to excuse
me, Bill,” chattered Harvey, leaning on his wife, “I ain’t able, an’ besides, I
don’t know the fust thing about the detective bizniz.”
(undated)
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