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Page 44
"I guess they wanted you to find out if we boys were of any account,
and whether we were playing fair!" laughed Jimmie.
"Well, anyway, they expected you to find us and learn the story I'm
now going to tell," Elmer continued.
"Jerusalem!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you get at it. That story
has been jumping from tongue to tongue clothed in mystery for hours
and we haven't been favored with it yet!"
"The story opens," Elmer began, "on a cold and stormy night in October
in the year 1913. As the wind blew great gusts of rain down upon such
pedestrians as happened to be out of doors--"
"Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Will. "Why don't you go on and tell the
story? We don't want any more of that Henry James business! You know
he always has a solitary horseman proceeding slowly on foot."
"Well, it was a dark night, and a stormy one!" declared Elmer. "If it
had been clear and bright, Stephen Carson, the Wall street banker,
wouldn't have received a dent in his cupola. In stepping down from
his automobile his foot slipped on the wet pavement, and he fell,
striking on the back of his head.
"What's that got to do with this mine mystery?" demanded George.
"It has a great deal to do with this mine mystery," Elmer answered.
"Stephen Carson arose from the ground, rubbed the back of his head
with his gloved hand, and continued on his way to a meeting of a board
of directors. He appeared to be perfectly sane and responsible for
his acts at the meeting of the board, and when he left in his machine
there were no indications that he had suffered more than a slight
bruise from his fall. He was not seen at home again for two weeks."
"Now you begin to get interesting!" declared Will.
"Where did he go?" asked Sandy.
"That is what his friends don't know," replied Elmer.
"But he must have been seen somewhere!" insisted Sandy.
"He was," answered Elmer. "He was seen in the vicinity of this mine."
"Wow, wow, wow!" exclaimed Sandy.
"What was he doing here?" asked Will.
"Wandering about the premises."
"Now I can tell you the rest," Will said with a chuckle.
"Go on, then," advised Elmer.
"From the meeting of the board of directors that night," Will went on
whimsically, "this man Stephen Carson wept directly to a safety
deposit vault where three or four hundred thousand dollars in the way
of cash and jewelry were hidden. He took the whole bundle and
disappeared. Is that anywhere near right, Elmer?"
"Go on!" Elmer replied.
"Then in two weeks time he comes back and says that he don't know
where he put the jewelry, but that he thinks he hid it in this mine.
And, as they can't find any place where he hocked the jewelry, or put
it up to carry out some gigantic Wall street plan, they are forced to
believe that he really did mislay the jewelry while temporarily out of
his head. Is that anywhere near right?"
"If you'll amend your report so as to show that he went to the Night
and Day bank and drew out something over two hundred thousand dollars
which he had on deposit there, and disappeared with the entire sum,
you'll come nearer to the truth."
Will gave a long whistle of amazement.
"Two hundred thousand dollars in real money!" exclaimed George.
"Yes, he took two hundred thousand dollars in real money away with him
that night," Elmer went on, "and when he returned to his home again,
he was penniless and in rags."
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