Two Boys and a Fortune Part 14

"But this is trespa.s.sing altogether too much on your hospitality," he returned. "Besides, you scarcely know me and I didn't come prepared. I left Philadelphia this morning, meaning to be back there by night."

"Oh, we'll fix you out," said Rex with an air of finality, "so go on with your Arab story."

It was most comfortable on that porch with its southern exposure, the fireflies dancing to the chirp of the crickets, the span of the railroad trestle looking like a fairy bridge against the background of the sky. Mr. Keeler decided to stay.

Roy wondered what the others would think if they knew that their guest was aware of what had recently befallen the family. He should most decidedly not have told all he had if he had foreseen what was coming.

At ten o'clock Eva suggested that Mr. Keeler was probably tired from his journey, so the boys went up stairs with him.

"I'll come down and lock up," Roy called back to his sisters.

When he returned in a few minutes, leaving Rex talking bicycle with their guest, he found the girls standing in the library, over a large book which they had open on the table before them.

"Look there!" exclaimed Jess, almost in a tragic tone, just as he entered.

She was pointing at something in the upper left hand corner of the page. Eva started as she looked at it and then turned a frightened face toward Roy.

"Roy, come here," she said.

"Why, what's the matter with you girls?" he exclaimed. "You look as if you'd each seen a ghost."

"It's worse than that!" answered Jess in a sepulchral tone. "Look here."

She pointed to the spot on which Eva's gaze had been riveted.

"Why, it's Mr. Keeler's picture!" exclaimed Roy.

"Read what it says underneath," went on Jess in the same tone.

Roy let his eyes drop to the printed lines beneath the portrait, which was one of six which adorned the page. This is what he read:

Martin Blakesley,

Alias "Gentleman George," "Lancelot Marker" etc., Confidence Man.

"What book is this?" asked Roy.

His voice was hard. He hardly recognized it himself when he heard it.

"'Noted Criminals of the United States,'" replied Jess. "Syd brought it home last week to look up something or other he wanted to use in a case. I was glancing through it this morning and saw this picture then. I knew I'd seen Mr. Keeler somewhere before as soon as I laid eyes on him this afternoon."

"Perhaps it's only somebody that looks like him," said Eva faintly.

"He has a larger mustache than that now."

"It's had plenty of time to grow," rejoined Jess significantly. "This book was published two or three years ago. See, here is his history.

No. 131," and she began to look over the pages till she came to the paragraphs of description accompanying the portrait.

The three heads bent over the page eagerly, while Roy, in a low voice, read the facts about No. 131. He had been in jail twice, it seemed, his last term having expired, as Roy figured, some four months previous. He was noted for his suave manners and the facility with which he imposed on strangers.

"That's the man," murmured Jess. "What are we going to do?"

Eva stepped back to the sofa and sank down upon it as if every bit of strength had gone away from her.

"It doesn't seem possible," was all Roy could say for the moment.

Then he turned back to the picture and studied it long and intently.

Meanwhile the steady murmur of voices could be heard from above. Rex was showing Mr. Keeler the treasures in their room.

"I had better go up and ask him to leave," then said Roy suddenly.

"Oh, no, no, that will precipitate a quarrel," exclaimed Jess. "He may murder us all."

"What do you want me to do then?" asked Roy.

"I don't see that you can do anything except sit up with Eva and me down here till morning. I'm sure I should never sleep a wink if I went to bed."

"I'm hoping yet there'll be some way to prove we are mistaken in thinking him the same person," put in Eva.

"You might take this book up, Roy, and show it to him, then if he didn't flush when he saw this picture we'd know it was all right."

"And if it wasn't, poor Roy might be stabbed where he stood," added Jess cheerfully. "I tell you! we might cry fire and scare him out that way."

"Don't be silly, Jess," Roy admonished her, and then he returned once more to the study of the face of the criminal.

There was a sudden crash up stairs. Jess uttered a half stifled scream.

"Oh, Roy," she cried, "do go and see! He may have killed poor Rex!"

CHAPTER XIII

DISCUSSION OF WAYS AND MEANS

Roy bounded up the stairway two steps at a time. He was conscious that both his sisters had walked to the foot of it and were looking after him fearfully. Then he heard Rex's voice. Evidently his brother was not hurt.

"Oh, it didn't matter in the least," Rex was saying. "It was an old thing, we shouldn't have taken it with us to the new house."

He and Mr. Keeler were bending over a heap of fragments on the floor.

Roy stepped into the room and saw that they had once been the clock that stood on a bracket near the foot of the bed.

"I was reaching up to get that wasp's nest we stuck behind it," Rex explained. "My coat sleeve caught on the clock and pulled the whole thing over."

Roy. gave a sigh of relief and then almost smiled as he recalled what he and his sisters had thought for a minute had really happened. He bent down and helped the others to pick up the pieces.

"I think this should be a warning to me to go to bed at once," said Mr. Keeler with a laugh. "Good-night, boys, I shall be on hand for eight o'clock breakfast."

He went out into the hall and up the stairs to the third floor, where Roy had already lighted the lamp for him in Syd's room.

"An awfully nice fellow, isn't he, Roy?" remarked Rex, rolling the fragments of the clock up in an old newspaper.