CHAPTER XX
HOP WONG IS CAUGHT
The others, rushing toward her, found Dot standing near a barrel, flashing upon it the rays from Sammy’s cigar-box lantern.
“What is it, Dot?” asked Ruth. She and the others had been about to give up exploration of the cellar, since nothing had developed. “What have you found and where is it?”
“I don’t know what it is,” Dot answered, “but it’s in that barrel. It’s a—Oh, listen! It’s a noise!” she finally told them.
“A noise!” cried Agnes. “Is that all?”
“Many things start with a noise,” remarked Ruth. “In fact, this whole affair started from a noise in the cellar. Stand back, Dot, and let us see what it is.”
With a more powerful light than Sammy’s improvised lantern, Luke leaned over and peered into the upright barrel. Grouped behind him the others waited anxiously.
Suddenly Luke laughed, and this relieved the strain under which the older ones, at least, were laboring.
“Yes, Dot’s found something all right!” chuckled Luke.
“Oh, do tell us what it is!” begged Nalbro.
“A batch of kittens!” laughed Luke. “Sandyface has gone and done it again. She’s raising another family!”
And that is what Dot had found—just a batch of Sandyface’s kittens in the barrel.
“Mew!” plaintively called the mother cat, as she saw so many faces peering into her privacy.
“You poor thing!” said Ruth. “Well, we won’t bother you. Only don’t bring them all up into the parlor at once, as you did on a former occasion.”
“Did she?” asked Nalbro, to whom Sandyface was rather a new acquaintance.
“She did,” asserted Agnes, with a laugh, “and just when the minister was calling. Oh, it was funny, but Ruthie didn’t see the fun.”
“The minister took it good-naturedly,” said Ruth. “No, children, you can’t bring the kittens upstairs!” she decided, for Tess and Sammy, having heard of Dot’s discovery, were eager to carry the kittens into the light of day.
“Oh, just for a little while!” pleaded Tess.
“No, not even for a little while. Wait until they get older.”
“But they’re so cute!” pleaded Dot.
“No!” and Ruth was firm about it.
“I’ll carry ’em up, and I won’t spill ’em!” offered Sammy.
“Children, go right upstairs!” ordered Ruth, and they thought it best to obey.
“And so, after all, we haven’t found out anything,” remarked Agnes, as they all trailed up after the youngsters. “The mystery is as deep as ever.”
“Yes,” agreed Ruth. “And I don’t know what we are going to do about it. I think we ought at least to tell Mr. Howbridge—that is, if you think we shouldn’t notify the police?” she said to Luke.
“Tell your guardian, by all means,” he quickly agreed. “As for the police, I don’t see what they could do at this time. If they had been here when that fellow gave me a blow over the head with his club they might have gotten after him. But as for picking up clews on a cold trail, I don’t believe they can do it as well as we can.”
“Not so well,” declared Neale. “And what I propose is that we start now and make a systematic search of this whole house, including the cellar, to see if there is any treasure hidden in it.”
“You seem to side with the children,” observed Hal.
“Well, I think there is something queer around here,” asserted Neale. “Those men didn’t come in to inspect water pipes without an object. That Chinese didn’t write those queer notes for nothing. What it’s all about we have to find out.”
“Go down and tell Mr. Howbridge,” suggested Agnes. “I thing he ought to be told everything.”
“I agree with you,” assented Ruth. “I’ll telephone down asking what time we can see him.”
“And while you girls go there, some of us will take another look around the cellar,” said Neale. “I think the whole mystery centers there.”
“Well, we haven’t found much so far—except kittens,” chuckled Luke.
Mr. Howbridge looked rather grave when Ruth told him the story of the night of the storm and what had happened in the cellar. Luke went with her to the lawyer’s office, leaving Neale and Hal to “putter around,” as Mrs. MacCall called it, in the cellar.
“Certainly something seems wrong,” admitted the lawyer. “I am afraid, though, that I can’t agree with you—as I have said before, I believe—about a fortune being hidden in the cellar. I attended to your Uncle Peter’s affairs, and I’m sure if he was so foolish as to hide a fortune away in a cellar I would know something about it. Of course I may be wrong——”
“Yes, but remember about our strange find in the attic? That album filled with all sorts of valuable papers.”
“Ah, that is true,” and the girls’ guardian nodded slowly. “Lemuel Aden’s money!”
“What about Hop Wong?” went on Ruth. “Did you find out anything more from him? You were going to get an interpreter and——”
“Yes, my dear, I obtained the services of the court Chinese interpreter, but I might as well have saved my time. What with the roundabout manner in which the conversation had to be carried on and the fright of Hop Wong—well, we didn’t get anywhere at all.”
“Didn’t he tell you a thing?” asked Ruth.
“Practically not a thing, my dear girl. He seemed to think he was about to be executed, or, at any rate, jailed. About all the interpreter reported that Hop Wong said was: ‘No can tell,’ and he asserted this over and over again until I wearied of it. No, I think as far as Hop Wong is concerned, there is no mystery.”
“I’m not so sure of that, Mr. Howbridge,” said Luke. “Those Chinese are queer fellows. Once they get frightened they lose their tongues.”
“Yes, but I did my best to assure Hop Wong that he had nothing to fear,” said the lawyer. “I declare, it’s beyond me.”
“But what of the two men—the tramps who struck Luke down?” asked Ruth.
“That may be a different matter altogether,” her guardian admitted. “There, I am willing to confess, may lie some danger and there may be a mystery at the bottom of it. But that it has to do with a fortune—or even a sum of money—I am not so willing to admit.”
“What had we better do?” Ruth inquired. “Shall we tell the police?”
“I say no!” cried Luke, with perhaps more energy than he intended. “I beg your pardon for my excitement,” he went on. “But I think we can solve this ourselves, Mr. Howbridge. At least, we or some of us would like to try it a bit longer. If we call in the police we shall have to report to them every little trifling thing that happens, and they’ll be running to the Corner House at all hours of the day and night.”
“Yes, there is that probability,” admitted Mr. Howbridge. “But have you any plan, Luke?”
“Not yet, no, sir. I’d like to think it over a bit longer.”
“But you mustn’t run into danger!” stipulated Ruth. “You and Agnes and Neale are all rash.”
“No, that would be foolish,” said Mr. Howbridge with a quick, discerning glance at the two young people. He understood how matters were going between his ward and the young collegian.
“Oh, we’ll be careful,” promised Luke.
“Well, of course, being a lawyer, I suppose I ought to advise you to call in the authorities,” said the girls’ guardian. “But as there is nothing yet to interest the public, I don’t see why you can’t carry on your private investigations a bit longer, if you like.”
“Thank you. We will.”
“Only, as Ruth says, don’t run into danger,” went on Mr. Howbridge. “You, Luke, have had one example of how desperate these men are—provided the one who struck you down is one of the same pair that first was seen around the Corner House. They will not stop at injuring those who get in their way. So be careful!”
“I will, yes, and I’ll warn the others. And now to solve the mystery of the Corner House!” he cried, more gaily than he felt, for his head was still painful.
Returning to the old mansion, Ruth and Luke found there had been no new developments since they had left to see the lawyer. Neale and Hal and Agnes had “prospected” around the cellar, as they called it, but had discovered nothing.
An investigation of the doorbell wires and battery disclosed, however, the reason for the erratic behavior of that piece of apparatus. There was a loose wire, and when the house was jarred, as by a thunderclap, the wire made a connection and started the bell to ringing.
“So the men in the cellar had nothing to do with that,” declared Neale, when he had found and remedied the trouble.
“I’m glad of that,” said Ruth. “If the bell had been rung by them it would mean they had a regular band, some of whom were on the outside while others were on the inside of the house, searching for the fortune.”
“Do you really think some one is after money hidden in the house?” Nalbro asked.
“I do!” declared Neale.
“It’s delightfully romantic, I know,” the Boston girl admitted, “but it doesn’t seem reasonable.”
“We found a fortune once in the attic for Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. Why not find one for ourselves in the cellar?” questioned Agnes.
“Anyhow, we’ll have fun searching for it,” said Luke.
However, as the vacation days passed and the time approached for the delightful house party to end, no new discoveries were made. No secret entrance or egress was found in the cellar, Hop Wong made no further efforts to communicate and no trace was seen of the two strange men.
As a matter of fact, Hop Wong had disappeared. He was not at his laundry, the business being carried on by the bland and strange Celestial, and to all inquiries he answered:
“Hop Wong, he mebbe come back bly-an’-bly.”
It seemed that the mystery of the Corner House would never be solved when, all unexpectedly, there began a series of events which rapidly moved to a startling conclusion.
It began one pleasant afternoon when Luke and Neale were out riding through a beautiful country district in the automobile with Ruth and Agnes. Hal and Nalbro had gone to the railroad station to see about getting chair-car tickets for Boston, for the time for their return was drawing near.
Neale drove through a little country village and was preparing to suggest, since the afternoon was waning, that they turn about, when Luke uttered an exclamation.
“What’s the matter?” asked Neale. “Did I run over a chicken?”
“No. But this has to do with something closely connected with chickens.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a Chinese—they’re very fond of chicken, you know. There goes one now—a Chinese, I mean!”
He pointed toward a small, ramshackle house standing alone in a field near the highway, just outside the village. And, as the others looked, they saw a Chinese enter this hut.
“Hop Wong!” cried Neale.
“I thought that’s who it was, but I didn’t want to be too certain,” remarked Luke. “So this is where Hop Wong has been hiding!”
“Come on! Let’s get hold of him and see if he’ll talk,” suggested Neale. He ran the car up close to the side of the road near the lonely hut and started to alight.
The Chinese—it was Hop Wong beyond doubt—heard the noise of the brakes and turned. With a yell he fled around the rear of the hut.
“Come on, Luke!” cried Neale. “Let’s capture him and see if we can get to the bottom of this!”