The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FAKER CAUGHT
Several things happened at about the same time, and so quickly that the girls confessed afterward that they were fairly dizzy. Consequently they were not altogether sure of the sequence of events themselves.
But as that does not so much matter as does the ultimate effect, I will set down the various happenings in such order as .will best indicate to the reader the proceedings.
Naturally the attention of Mr. Blackford, and the girls, was first drawn to Mr. Bailey, the farmer, who was shaking his fist at the man selling tooth powder on the platform. His announcement that this was the man he sought was sufficiently dramatic.
Then came Carrie's startled cry. Betty and Mollie turned around to look at her.
"Are you sure he is the man who called himself your guardian?" asked Mollie. "Don't make any mistake."
"I am not making a mistake," murmured Carrie, still holding herself behind Amy and Grace. "He is that horrid man! Oh, don't let him see me!"
"What, have you a case ag'in him, too?" asked Mr. Bailey.
"She thinks so," explained Mr. Blackford. "We've got to act quickly here. Go up a little closer, Mollie."
A lane was opened for the auto, amid the crowd. The faker stopped in the midst of the "patter" concerning his wonderful powder, which "would make the teeth like unto the milky pearls of the Orient."
The man on the platform turned pale, and then a sort of sickly green color spread over his face. He had caught sight of the farmer standing in the auto. Perhaps he also had had a glimpse of Carrie Norton. At any rate he said:
"And now, my dear people, I must leave you. This is the last chance you will have to purchase Tuckerman's Tooth Tester at this price. I thank you one and all for your attention, and for your patronage. I must leave at once. I have been summoned by telegraph to attend a conference of the International Dental Society, who wish to purchase the secret of my wonderful invention. I will bid you good-day," and he started to descend from his platform.
"No, you don't!" cried Mr. Bailey. "No, you don't get away like that! The dental society kin wait until you pay me back the money you swindled out of me on that soap deal! Hold him, somebody, until I kin swear out a warrant. I've caught you, old fellow!"
The faker kept his nerve. He came down from the platform carrying his valise. The The crowd was around him.
"Good people, let me pass!" he cried, authoritatively.
Mr. Blackford sensed the danger. The man might get away after all.
"Here!" he called to a constable in the crowd. "That man is a swindler! He should be arrested."
"I haven't any warrant," answered the officer, weakly.
"You will have one in five minutes!" said Mr. Blackford. "I tell you to hold that man. Mr. Bailey, get to the nearest justice of the peace as soon as you can. Swear out a warrant and have it brought here. Officer, arrest that man!"
There was something more than disinterested authority in Mr. Blackford's tone. The constable worked his way through the crowd.
"Good people, let me pass! Let me pass!" the faker was saying. "I have to catch a train!"
"Not much you won't! If I have to hold you myself!" muttered Mr. Bailey, angrily.
"You get to that justice as fast as you can," directed Mr. Blackford. "We'll hold this man, if we have to chloroform him!"
The farmer jumped from the auto, and hurried off, a dozen hands pointing out the office he desired in the court house. The constable reached the tooth powder vendor.
"You're under arrest!" the officer said, laying a hand on the man's arm.
"Don't you touch me! Under arrest? On what charge?"
He shook himself loose, and stroked his beard nervously, also his luxurious hair, but this time it was black, instead of white—dyed obviously.
"On the charge—on the charge," began the constable nervously. "You're arrested on a charge that's soon to be here. Now don't make any fuss, but come along with me."
"I decline to go with you unless I know what I am charged with!" shouted the faker. "You let me go, or it will be the worse for you!"
Mollie arose in her place at the steering wheel.
"He's arrested on the charge of assault and battery!" she called in her fresh, strong voice. "I make the charge, Girls!" she exclaimed, turning to the others, "that's the man who thrust me into that room, and locked me there. That's the ghost. I recognize him by the scar on his thumb!"
The crowd was in an uproar as the constable caught hold of the man, and quickly snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.
Then as the girls in the auto stood up, the better to see, Carrie was revealed. The faker, closely held by the constable who had arrested him, and by a brother officer who had hurried up, gave the strange girl one look. Then those were near him heard him mutter:
"I guess the game is up!"