CHAPTER XXVI
A CLEW!
The young switch-tower man had lost all interest in the fire now. He stood thinking deeply, and felt quite depressed.
He was very certain that the papers Mrs. Davis had placed in the tin box in some way referred to her interest in the twenty thousand dollars' worth of railroad bonds, to which she had so frequently and significantly alluded.
She had told his mother that she was going to get something from a friend to show her and Ralph. Was it not these very same papers?
It was very possible, Ralph reflected further, that in some way Mrs. Davis' kidnappers had got a clew to the hiding place of these self-same documents.
"One word, please," spoke up Ralph, as the young man started to wheel his mother away from the scene of the fire. "Someone certainly forced a way to your attic and rifled that trunk."
"Who could it be—how could they know?" queried the distressed invalid.
"Have you had any strange visitors?" inquired Ralph.
"No—no one hardly ever comes here, except neighbors. Of course there have been a lot of workmen building the switch. But they were harmless, ignorant persons. Got a drink at the well, and went about their business."
"You have noticed no suspicious characters hanging about?" pressed Ralph.
"Oh, no."
"By the way, mother," interposed the young man, "you forgot about the two young fellows who came here day before yesterday—no, the day before that—Tuesday."
"Oh, they were the insurance men."
"What insurance men?" asked Ralph.
"They said they were inspectors. They said they were hired by the insurance companies to look over risks. They asked me if we had any gasoline. I said no. Then they asked if I had any inflammable stuff stored in the attic. They wanted to go up and see, but I told them the attic was empty."
"They wanted to inspect the attic, did they?" murmured Ralph thoughtfully.
"Yes. Then they said they would have to look over the chimneys and roof, to be sure everything was all right."
"Did they do so?"
"I told them where the ladder was. Of course, confined helpless to my invalid chair, I couldn't go out with them. They came back inside in about ten minutes, and said they had found everything in shipshape order."
"Those are the persons who robbed the trunk," declared Ralph in a tone of conviction.
"Do you think so?" cried the old woman. "Do you know them?"
"I don't know—yet. Do you remember how they were dressed?"
"They were well-dressed, I remember that."
"Young men, I believe you said?"
"Yes, boys, almost—a little older than you. One wore a pearl-gray derby hat. The other wore a kind of automobile cap."
"Thank you," said Ralph, showing the value of this information in manner and face.
"Do you know them?" inquired the old woman eagerly.
"I think I do," said Ralph.
"Can you find them?"
"They will not be hard to locate," answered Ralph definitely. "Do not worry, ma'am. You have given me a very clever clew as to the robbers. I think I know who has got the papers that were in that little tin box."
"Oh, be sure to let me know if you get back those papers, won't you?" pressed the old woman anxiously.
"I certainly shall," promised Ralph.
He bade mother and son good-bye. Then Ralph proceeded in the direction of the old Farrington factory.
Great crowds lined the ravine and surrounded the site of the factory. This had been burned to the ground. The ravine in places was still a nest of fire, but the flames were confined there. The fires in the grass and in the shrubbery had been beaten out.
Ralph passed from crowd to crowd, gleaming many a bit of exciting gossip.
He heard a local insurance agent say that the fire had done damage to the extent of a hundred thousand dollars. The factory represented the bulk of the loss.
"And no insurance, did you say?" someone asked the agent.
"Not on the building. The insurance expired there only last week."
Ralph finally found the person he was in search of—Slavin. He had made up his mind that something must be done promptly in regard to the documents stolen from Mrs. Davis' tin box.
Ike Slump and Mort Bemis tallied precisely to the old woman's description of her "insurance inspectors" visitors.
Their call at the old house had evidently been made on the afternoon of the day when Slump and Bemis had decoyed Ralph to the Stiggs cottage.
Ralph reasoned that if they had got the documents in question, they had them now, for their arrest had followed within a few hours of their rifling of the trunk.
"I want you to do something for me, Slavin, if you will," said Ralph, leading his companion out of hearing of the crowd.
"All right," was the prompt response.
"Something urgent and important."
"Fire away—I'm yours truly."
"Can you get word for me to my friend, Van Sherwin?"
"Sure."
"To-night?"
"At any and all times. We arranged that with the road detective."
"Very well," said Ralph. "I want you to deliver a note to Van. It will take some time to write it, so you will have to come up to the house with me, and wait till I get it ready."
They proceeded forthwith in the direction of the Fairbanks homestead. Ralph invited his companion to stay to supper.
"Say," observed Slavin, as they had proceeded on their way some distance and he took a last backward glance at the dying flames—"say, Ralph Fairbanks, I wonder if it looks to you—that fire I mean—like it does to me?"
"How do you mean, Slavin?" questioned Ralph.
"That some of old Gasper Farrington's chickens are coming home to roost!"