Joe Strong, the boy wizard; or, The mysteries of magic exposed

“What’s the joke?” demanded Jake Harrison, with a sort of sneer as he looked at the handcuffs on his wrists. “If this is one of your conjuring tricks, you’ve come to the wrong shop,” and he glared at the professor.

“It isn’t any trick,” put in Joe, “except that we’ve turned a trick against you. You’re both under arrest.”

“There! What did I tell you!” whined Burke Denton. “I said if we——”

“Stop your noise!” savagely ordered his companion. “Now then, what does all this mean?” he went on. “What right have you to arrest us?”

“The right of the law,” put in Sylvester, who seemed to enjoy the role he was playing. “I’m constable all over Folsom county, and you’re my prisoners!”

“On what charge?” demanded Harrison. “You keep still!” he directed his companion as he saw Denton about to speak. “I’ll run this end of the show. What’s the charge against us?” he asked fiercely.

“Robbing me and my wife of money—about one hundred and forty dollars,” said the deacon.

“What proof have you?” asked Harrison, sneeringly. “Did you see us take the money?”

“I saw one of you getting out of the window after the money was gone,” went on the deacon. This was practically admitting that Joe was not guilty.

“Which one of us did you see?” asked Harrison.

“I—er—I er——” the deacon hesitated. He could not positively state which of the twain it was. He had seen no face, and the room was not well lighted.

“It wasn’t only money that was taken, was it, Deacon?” asked Joe, for he was now ready to take a hand in the proceedings.

“No. It was securities—papers that you two alone knew the value of,” said the deacon, quickly. “You took the investment papers, Denton and Harrison, I’m sure you did!”

Harrison laughed.

“You’ll have to have some better proof than just being sure we did it,” he said. “That won’t go in law. Now you’d better take these ornaments off us, and let us go,” he ordered Hen Sylvester. “You haven’t a single bit of evidence against us, and if you persist in arresting us we’ll sue for false imprisonment. You haven’t a bit of evidence!”

“Haven’t we? What’s this?” cried Joe Strong, suddenly.

With a quick motion, he drew from an inner pocket of Burke Denton’s coat a folded bond paper. At the sight of it Denton’s jaw dropped, and even Harrison’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.

“There’s one of the stolen securities now in your possession,” said Joe calmly. “Isn’t that evidence enough?”

“How—how did that get in my pocket?” asked Denton. “I thought you had ’em all, Harrison. I told you not to be so careless with ’em, and now——”

“Keep still, can’t you!” fairly yelled the other. “Do you want to put us in——”

Then he himself stopped, as if conscious that he was saying too much.

Denton had collapsed in his chair. Harrison, also, seemed to have wilted. There was now practically no doubt of the men’s guilt. Hen Sylvester locked them up in the local jail until such time as he could arrange to transfer them to Bedford. Neither of the prisoners protested any further.

“Say, Joe, how did you know that investment bond was in his pocket?” asked the constable a little later.

“Because I put it there,” was the reply. “It was the one I took from the deacon. I thought I might have a use for it. It was just a little sleight-of-hand work, making it seem as if it came from his pocket.”

“Well, it—it was a good trick,” grudgingly admitted Mr. Blackford.

“Then you don’t think I’m guilty; do you?” asked Joe.

The deacon shook his head. He seemed quite ashamed of himself.

“If I was you, Deacon,” said Hen, in a whisper to the old man, “I’d sort of beg Joe’s pardon for suspecting him. You know he could make it hot for you if he wanted to.”

“How?”

“Sue you for false arrest, for humiliating him in a crowd, and all that. You’d better conciliate him.”

This the deacon did, not altogether willingly.

“I—I’m sorry I tried to have you arrested, Joe,” he said. “I admit I was wrong in thinking you robbed me.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Joe, easily. He could afford to forgive now. “It did look a bit suspicious against me for a while. But I’m glad you have the right men. I don’t want to be in fear of arrest as I travel about with the professor. And I don’t suppose you want to take me home, do you?”

“Well, no, perhaps not, under the circumstances,” replied the deacon, slowly. “I admit that maybe I wasn’t altogether right in the way I treated you, Joe. But I meant it for the best. You can stay with the professor, if you like. You seem to be doing well.”

“Indeed he is!” exclaimed Mr. Crabb. “He’s a wonder!”

“Then stay,” the deacon said. The truth was he felt he would be made fun of if he brought Joe back, after having stated as publicly as he had in Bedford that he believed his foster-son guilty of the robbery. Besides, the deacon had to admit that Joe was doing better away from him than with him.

“Yes, I guess you’d better stay and be one of them trick performers, though I don’t think much of——”

There is little more to tell of this story. The next morning the deacon and Hen Sylvester went back to Bedford, taking the two prisoners with them. Eventually the rascals were convicted of the crime and sent to jail. The deacon recovered his valuable papers, but not the money. That had been spent.

“Well, I suppose you will avail yourself of your foster-father’s permission and remain with me, won’t you?” asked Professor Rosello, at the conclusion of the next night’s performance, when they were getting ready to move on to the next town.

“Oh, yes, I’ll stay for a while,” said Joe. “I still have much to learn.” But, as he said this, he saw in fancy a certain pretty face, and he beheld a girl riding about a circus ring on a beautiful horse. Joe thought of Helen Morton, of Benny Turton, the “human fish,” and of the kind ring-master. Joe was beginning to feel a new and strange pull at his heart strings.

And how it resulted may be learned by reading the next volume of this series, to be entitled: “Joe Strong on the Trapeze; or, The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer.”

“What are you thinking of, Joe?” asked the professor as they sat in the train that night.

“A new trick,” was the answer. “You take a horse named Rosebud and you——”

“What! A horse on the stage?” cried the professor, in wonder.

“Oh—er—I—I was thinking of something else,” murmured Joe. And so for a while we will take leave of Joe Strong.