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Page 3
Elinor shook her head. "Never," she said.
"Well, don't you fret, Miss Pomeroy. We'll have to find that
coat. The man who wears it has the formula. And it won't take
long to run down a man who owns a giddy plaid like that. If your
brother could only speak, he could help a lot."
"Is he no better?" asked the girl fearfully.
"It's a pretty bad affair, I'm afraid," said the Chief
regretfully. "He'll pull through all right after a while, I
think, but the doctors say there is a piece of bone pressing on
the brain; and they may have to operate. In the meantime, we
can't wait. You see this business of the formula puts things on
a different basis. I will have to get the government secret
service men here as soon as I possibly can. It is a national
affair now. Keep cool, Miss Pomeroy, and don't talk to any one.
I'm going now, but I will leave a half-dozen men on the place.
Don't talk; don't let your brother talk. Who is the old woman
crying in the sitting room?"
"It is Aunt Ann," Elinor explained. "She is really no relation.
Her husband used to work here, and after he was killed she stayed
on and took care of things for mother. Then when mother died,
why, of course she stayed. She is all alone in the world. She
has or had a son, but he disappeared a good while ago. He was a
very bad boy. The last she heard from him he was in South
America. We think he is dead. Poor Aunt Ann! She loves Lester
as thought he were her own child. I think she would die for
him."
"She is all right then," mused the detective. "Well, I'll get
along, Miss Pomeroy. Just keep cool."
Elinor followed him to the door and stood leaning against the big
porch pillar as the detective crunched briskly down the gravel
path. A group of men came hurrying up to meet him, and Elinor
listened eagerly.
"We got him, Chief!" she heard a voice say triumphantly.
"Walking along the road bold as brass."
"Why shouldn't I?" an angry tone answered. "The street is
public. Ain't I got a right to go long it? What you pinchin' me
for, anyhow? I ain't full and it ain't vagrancy to walk along the
road to Manlius. You leave me go!"
"Put him in the car." said the Chief. "And look here, young
fellow. I'll search you later; look here. Here is something for
you to chew on for a while. Hold the flash, Dennis. Look here,
you! See that piece of cloth? It just fits the torn place in
your collar. She nearly got you, didn't she, before you managed
to beat her brains out?"
Elinor heard a subdued struggle as the police loaded the prisoner
into the car. She rushed into the house to tell Aunt Ann that
the man had been caught. Wugs with a couple of smaller scouts
came up. Wugs followed his sister into the house, and the two
other boys sat down on the steps where they would not miss
anything going on.
Philip and Benjamin Potter, known to their intimate friends as
Pork and Beans Potter, were twins painfully alike in thought,
word and deed as well as size and looks. They sat side by side.
Each boy leaned his right elbow on his right knee and supported
his chin on his hand.
"Funny 'bout that coat," said Beans. "Did you see it?"
"Yes," said Porky. "I was lookin' all the time. You mean about
there bein' two just alike. Kind o'queer, loud pattern. And
funny buttons. You know that man in the road was right under the
big light, so we seen it plain, didn't we?"
"Sure!" said Beany. He shifted elbows, and in a minute Porky did
the same. "But the man we passed in the road didn't look like
the murderer, did he? Kind of square built. Looked worse than
the real one, I thought."
"I thought so too," agreed Porky. "But they got the real one all
right on account of the tear in the collar."
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