CHAPTER XIV
Con Riley Guards a Package
Officer Con Riley was at peace with the world.
His heart was full of contentment and his stomach was full of pie. The sun was shining and one of the aldermen had just given him a fairly good cigar. His beat had been free of crime for a week. His wife had gone to the country for a visit and she had taken the children with her. Hence, Con Riley's feeling of deep and lasting satisfaction with the world.
Even the boys, his natural and hereditary enemies, had not tormented him for several days. Perhaps, he argued, it was because they were up to their ears in work, preparing for examinations. If that was the reason, Con Riley decided that examinations were good things and should be encouraged.
As he sauntered along the shady side of Main Street, leisurely swinging his club and gravely responding to the greetings of, "Good afternoon, officer," he reflected that there were worse occupations in life than being on the Bayport police force. He was well content with his lot just then. He exchanged salutations with the traffic cop on the main corner and mentally congratulated himself because he was not a traffic cop; the job exposed one to all manner of weather, from cold, drenching rains to sizzling heat. No, he was just as glad he was on the beat.
A troop of boys came down the street from the direction of the Bayport high school, and Riley instinctively stiffened. If it were not for those confounded boys, life would be very different for him. They did not seem to appreciate the dignity of his position. They were always contriving schemes to make him look ridiculous.
He spied the Hardy boys with their companions, and his frown deepened. Too smart, altogether, those Hardy lads. They weren't mischievous, he had to admit that, but they were meddling in the work of the police a little too much. Already they had been credited with solving a couple of mysteries that he, Con Riley, would certainly have solved alone if he had been given a little more time.
Then there was Chet Morton—a boy who was born to be hanged, if ever there was one. He'd come to a bad end some day, that fellow. So would all the rest of them, Tony Prito, Phil Cohen, Jerry Gilroy, Biff Hooper—the whole pack of 'em.
Still, Con Riley was in a good humor that afternoon, so he unbended sufficiently to bestow a nod of greeting upon the boys. To his surprise they gathered around him.
"What has been done with Paul Blum?" asked Frank.
"He's in jail," said Riley, with the portentous frown he always assumed when discussing matters of crime. "He's in jail, and in jail he'll stay."
"Hasn't he been tried yet?"
The constable shook his head.
"Not yet. The rascal has a lawyer and the case has been adjourned."
"Not much doubt that he'll get a heavy sentence," remarked Chet, who was carrying beneath his arm a package wrapped in brown paper.
"No doubt of it at all," agreed Riley.
"Didn't you fellows tell me that Lieutenant Riley helped capture the counterfeiter?" asked Chet innocently, turning to the Hardy boys.
Riley's chest expanded visibly when he heard himself referred to as "Lieutenant," and when it dawned on him that Chet thought he had a part in the actual capture of Blum he tried to look as modest as possible, although he did not succeed very well.
"Oh, I helped. I helped," he said, with a deprecatory wave of the hand.
"If it hadn't been for Officer Riley the fellow might have got away," said Joe smoothly. "He slapped the handcuffs on Blum in the neatest manner you ever saw. He was waiting for us right at the dock."
Riley beamed. This was praise, however undeserved, and he basked in the admiration of the boys. He told himself that he had perhaps been mistaken in his estimation of these lads after all. They were not mischievous young rascals, but bright, intelligent, high-minded boys who recognized human worth when they saw it and who respected achievement.
"Yes," he said heavily, "I got Blum behind the bars and he won't get out again in a hurry."
He said it as though he had personally been responsible for Blum's capture and personally responsible for seeing that the prisoner was kept safely locked up.
"No, he won't get away on you, Lieutenant Riley," said Chet.
Con Riley's opinion of Chet increased. The boy had mistaken him for a lieutenant. The mistake was natural enough, perhaps, but it would have to be corrected.
"Officer," he pointed out sadly. "Not lieutenant—officer."
"Do you mean to tell me that you're not a lieutenant?" exclaimed Chet in well-assumed amazement.
"Not yet," replied the officer, leaving the impression, however, that it was only a matter of hours before such promotion should be his in the natural course of events.
Chet turned to his companions.
"Can you imagine that!" he exclaimed. "There's the police force for you. They keep a solid, brainy man like Riley here on the beat and let fellows like Collig be chief. It's wrong, I tell you. It's wrong."
The boys gravely agreed that it was scandalous.
"A man's just got to be patient," said Riley, with the air of a martyr, and beginning to feel ill-used.
"There's a limit to patience!" exclaimed Chet. "They're imposing on you, Mr. Riley. If I were you, I'd insist on my rights."
"Never mind," said Riley darkly. "My turn will come."
"You're just right it will. And we'll see that it comes very soon. Let's try to stir up public opinion, fellows, and see if we can't influence the public a little bit. If the public demands that Officer Riley be promoted, he'll be promoted."
"Why, that's very good of you," returned Riley pompously. "A few words in the right place mightn't do any harm at all."
"Those words shall be said," Chet assured him earnestly. "You may depend on us, Mr. Riley. We will see that your qualities of leadership are recognized. You're the only man who can wake this city up."
Con Riley, a trifle dazed by this avalanche of flattery, but nevertheless feeling that every bit of it was deserved and that the boys deserved credit for their perception, beamed with appreciation.
"Why, I never had no idea you lads felt like this," he said. "I always thought you had a sort of grudge against me."
The boys immediately disclaimed any such sentiments.
"We may have been a little bit troublesome at times," agreed Chet regretfully; "but that was because we didn't understand you. After this, you may depend on us. Your time will come, Mr. Riley. Your time will come."
With this fine oratorical effort, Chet produced the package from beneath his arm. "By the way," he said, "I wonder if you would mind guarding this package for me, Mr. Riley? You'll be here for the next ten minutes, won't you?"
A doubt flashed across Riley's mind.
"Why don't your friends look after it?"
"We're all going to be together and we didn't care to wait. If a man by the name of Muggins comes along and asks for it, you'll give it to him, will you?"
Riley took the package. "I'll take care of it," he promised.
"I wouldn't trust it with any one but you," declared Chet solemnly.
"You can trust me. I'll look after it. And if your friend Muggins comes along I'll see that he gets it safely all right."
Chet thanked Riley warmly and the boys hastened off and disappeared around the next corner. Riley, with the package under one arm, leaned against a post and thought well of himself and of the world in general. He completely revised his opinions of boys, and particularly of Chet Morton, whom he now regarded as an exceptionally intelligent lad who would make his mark in the world. Riley was glad that he was able to be of service to Chet by minding the package for him.
The package was not very heavy. Riley was curious as to its contents. Chet had left the impression that it contained something quite valuable. He said he would not trust any one but Riley to guard it. That, in itself, was a compliment.
The late afternoon was warm and as Con Riley leaned against the post and indulged in these pleasant meditations, permitting himself to speculate on what the boys had said about his fitness for promotion, allowing himself to remember how pleasant it had sounded to hear Chet refer to him as "Lieutenant," he became a bit drowsy. He was naturally a sleepy man, and he had long since schooled himself in the art of appearing to be wide awake while on duty while indulging in covert naps of a few minute's duration. The hurrying crowds of people behind him, because it was the five o'clock rush hour, gradually became a blurred impression of tramping feet and chattering voices.
Suddenly the shrill jangle of an alarm clock sounded.
Riley started violently, straightened up, blinked, and looked behind him.
The alarm clock trilled steadily. Riley looked suspiciously at the people near by and the people looked at one another. He looked up into the air, looked down at the pavement, but still the mysterious alarm clock rattled on.
Then Riley became aware that the alarm clock was in the package under his arm.
At the same time the crowd became aware of the fact as well. Some one tittered; some one else laughed outright.
"Carry your own alarm clock with you now, do you?" asked a man.
Riley felt very foolish. He was tempted to throw the package away, but instead he held it gingerly by the string and pushed his way through the crowd. The unremitting alarm clock rang loudly.
"Time to wake up!" shouted a wit in the crowd.
Riley flushed and hastened on down the street. But the alarm clock shrilled relentlessly. That tinkling bell seemed as though it would ring forever. And as Riley hurried on his way people turned and stared and laughed, and small boys began to follow him, while all the time the bell trilled on without a sign of weakening.
His journey down the street was a triumphal procession. The crowd of small boys following him swelled to the proportions of a parade. The bell rang on. Con Riley was the center of interest. He did not know what to do. If he threw away the package now it would be an admission that he had been the victim of a practical joke; the longer he kept the package the more the crowd laughed and the louder the bell seemed to ring.
His steps became faster and faster, as though he were trying to run away from the sound. Every one was staring at him in amazement. The giggles and guffaws of the crowd became louder. The shouts of the small boys were more insistent.
Across Con Riley's mind flitted certain phrases of Chet Morton. "Your time will come. . . . You're the only man who can wake this city up. . . . We shall see that your qualities of leadership are recognized . . ."
With a mutter of wrath he flung the tinkling package into the nearest alley. A uniformed street cleaner who was just emerging from the alley received the package full in the chest and sat down very suddenly. He flung the package back at Riley. The crowd whooped with glee. The package fell into the street, the bell still ringing, and one of the small boys picked it up and ran after Riley, asking if he wanted it back.
Thus he was pursued to the police station until the bell of the alarm clock ceased to ring, and only then did the crowd scatter.
Mopping his brow, flushed with anger, Riley took refuge in the station and vowed vengeance in the future on all the boys in Bayport, particularly high school boys, most especially Chet Morton's gang, and most absolutely and positively Chet Morton himself.
As for that worthy, in company with his chums, he had witnessed the alarm clock parade from a convenient corner across the street and was now limply making his way toward the Hardys' barn, pausing every now and then to burst into shrieks of laughter at the remembrance of Riley's undignified flight.
But when the Hardy boys and their chums reached the house they found their father hastening down the front steps.
"I just had a telephone message from the police station," he said.
"What's the matter?" asked Frank, while the other lads looked at one another guiltily. Had Riley reported them?
"Paul Blum has escaped from jail," said Fenton Hardy.