CHAPTER XVII

ON THE TRAIL

"But the transgressors shall be destroyed together; the end of the wicked shall be cut off."--Pa. xxxvii, 38

When the police arrived at the home of Harris Wayne they found the house and grounds brilliantly illumined and every employee on the place engaged in searching for the kidnappers. Between the havoc wrought by the storm and the zeal of the searchers, if any clue had been left it was obliterated.

The detectives inspected every nook and corner of the nursery and questioned the servants. None of the latter could recall having seen any suspicious characters about, nor suggest any reason for the kidnapping.

"It was somebody who knew that Wayne was going to be away and that the servants were having a jollification," remarked one of the detectives. "He'd probably been tipped off by somebody in the house. Might be intentionally; might be by accident.

"Are you sure none of yo'-all has talked to any stranger, even if he wasn't suspicious looking?" asked the Chief, who had come personally to direct the investigation. He looked inquiringly from one to the other of the little group.

No one could recall any such conversation.

"Have yo' talked with anybody who showed a lot of interest,--asked questions? I don't care who the person is, whether it's someone you know or don't know? Anybody from out of town--visitin' hereabouts! Think, now--Think!"

They bent their brows in thought. The chauffeur spoke.

"There was a fellow--" he commenced, then paused as if loath to think of the individual in question as having any connection with the kidnapping.

"Yes, go on. What about him?" prompted the Chief.

"Oh, I don't know as it's worth anything," continued the chauffeur, "but when I stopped in at Grier's, where we always deal, to get some supply parts for the car, a fellow I never saw before was talking about the best car for these roads. But he didn't ask anything in particular and there was nothing about him anyway suspicious."

"No?" said the Chief, interrogatively. "How did you come to think of him? What impressed him on your mind!"

The chauffeur grinned, rather sheepishly.

"Nothing but his tie pin," he replied.

"H'm! What kind of a pin?"

"That's what I wondered. It didn't look just right."

"Why didn't it look just right!"

"Well, it didn't sort of seem to match up with him."

"Diamond!"

"Might have been."

"How was he dressed?"

"I don't remember. I didn't pay much attention to him except the pin." He grinned again. "I couldn't get my eyes off it."

"Was he in the store when you went in?"

"Yes, talking to Tom."

"Tom Grier?"

"Yes."

"Hm!" The Chief exchanged glances with one of the detectives. "If Tom Grier'd work more and talk less he'd be a mighty rich man. What were they talking about when you went in?"

"Oh, just about the regimental rally."

Again the detectives exchanged glances.

"You say you'd never seen this fellow before? Did he have a badge on, or button or anything? Lot of strangers in town, you know. Hotel's full of 'em. Think he was one of the veterans!"

The chauffeur shook his head. "Oh, no," he said, contemptuously. "He wasn't one of them."

The Chief eyed the chauffeur sharply. "Why not!" he snapped.

"Oh, I don't know," returned the harrassed James. "Like the pin, I guess. He didn't match up."

"Didn't impress you favorably, eh?"

"Didn't impress me at all."

"Well, if he wanted information, about anything, from politics to bee-raisin', he couldn't have picked out a better man than Tom Grier," put in the detective.

"You say you always deal at Tom's?" asked the Chief.

"Buy our supplies for the car there."

"Leave your car outside his store or down on the Square?"

"Outside his store."

"Then this bird probably knew you dealt there."

"But I don't see what--"

The Chief interrupted. "Call Tom up," he said, turning to the detective. "Get him out of bed. Find out who that fellow was, if he knows, and get a line on their conversation. Get his description, anyhow."

The servants, all but the chauffeur, were dismissed, and while the detective was occupied at the telephone the chief persuaded Wayne, who had been pacing the floor, to sit down for a few minutes and talk with him. He wanted to know if Wayne had any enemies, if anyone had ever threatened him in any way.

"I never had anyone threaten me in my life--but once," exclaimed Wayne, "and that was over in France."

"Tell me about it."

"I can't!" Wayne exclaimed, irritably. "Not now. It hasn't anything to do with this affair. All I want now is to find my baby. While we're wasting time here she may be killed." He pressed his hands to his throbbing temples and started to rise but the Chief put his hand upon his arm and detained him.

"We're not wasting time," he said. "We're doing very nicely. By daybreak we'll have something, at least, to work on. The chances are that the baby is not in danger for the present. Everything indicates this kidnapping was a carefully laid plan. People who plan a thing in such detail usually have a motive. By to-morrow morning you'll probably receive a letter demanding money for ransom. The letter will probably contain a threat. As soon as that letter comes you must let me have it. Don't lose an instant. In the meantime, rest assured the baby is safe. Now tell me about this affair you mentioned in France. Who threatened you--and why?"

Wayne groaned. He didn't want to go over that old story now, when his mind was filled with thoughts of the present. He wished the Chief wouldn't be so insistent.

"Oh, I just caught a cheap crook stealing from a Marine at the Y. hut," he exclaimed, impatiently, "and I collared him. He fought like a snake and I kicked him clear across the room. Then I turned him over to the M.P.'s."

"And he threatened you?"

"Yes. I met him twice after that. Both times he vowed to get even. He said the marine's money belonged to him--that he owed it to him. The marine was killed and the fellow never got it, he claimed. The last time I saw him, was in a restaurant, he came over to my table, leaned over my shoulder and said in a low and most disagreeable tone that I needn't think he had forgotten. That the day would come when he'd get even and he'd make me pay, and pay till it hurt. But that was six--seven years ago and I've never seen the fellow since."

The Chief seemed to be revolving something in his mind. For a moment he did not speak.

"Was this fellow a marine?" he asked, finally.

"God! No," returned Wayne with emphasis. "He was a civilian supposed to be doing something or other over there. He was doing it all right when I discovered him," he added. "I reckon he'll remember me as long as he lives."

"What did he look like?"

"The devil, I should say. A mighty disagreeable face. He had a way of drawing his lip back from his teeth when he smiled just like a vicious dog will do when he's planning to spring at your throat."

Little by little the Chief got the man's description. He was dark skinned, and smooth-faced, Wayne said.

The detective who had been telephoning joined them at the moment to make his report. "Tom didn't know that fellow," he observed. "Said he'd been out and in his place several times during the past week. Had bought a few little things but mostly asked questions. Tom answered them as well as he could, so he said, and that must have been considerable, if I know Tom, at all. Yesterday they got to talking about country estates and old houses and prominent citizens, and Tom said Wayne's name was mentioned. That means that Tom gave him the whole Wayne history as far back as Noah and clear up to date. Did Tom know about your wedding celebration?" he asked, turning to the chauffeur.

"Yes," admitted the latter. "I told him how kind Mr. Wayne had been to let the cook fix it up for us, and he wanted me to bring him a piece of the cake."

"Well," said the Chief, rising, "I guess we've got a start. Now we'll go after our men. 'Phone Ashton to check up on all the garages and gas stations around and have Burke find out who's who at the hotel. He may run across a dark, smooth-faced man with a nasty smile. It seems to me I have seen someone like that just lately but I can't quite place him. You say James didn't come in for you to-night, Mr. Wayne? Who drove you home!" he asked, turning suddenly back to where the distracted young father was pacing the floor.

"Some driver from town. I don't know his name. He works for Lawrence. I think James knows him."

"Get him on the 'phone. Ask him if he saw or heard anything suspicious going or coming," snapped the Chief to his assistant.

But the chauffeur who had driven Wayne home could not be located that night.

"Never mind. We'll look him up down town. There's a chance he might have seen a car or something suspicious."

After again warning Wayne to notify them the instant he received any word from the kidnappers the police and detectives started back to town.

By nine o'clock in the morning considerable more information had been gained, but as yet there was no direct clue to the whereabouts of the missing child.

A strange, low car had been seen early in the evening near the Help-U Gas Station. It had waited for a full half hour near the woods beyond the tobacco patch. A man working in the tobacco patch had observed it and mentioned it at the gas station when he stopped there, later, for a smoke and a chat. He gave a general description of the man who drove the car as well as the man who finally joined him.

The chauffeur who had driven away when the nurse's scream resounded, told of having seen what looked like a low, high-powered car scud off to the east, just as he came out of the driveway.

"All this helps," the Chief telephoned Wayne, "for it gives us a tangible working basis. In about half an hour--as soon as Burke gets back from the hotel--we're going to start east and see what we can learn from the farmers out that way."

When detective Burke appeared he was jubilant. He had made a find. Somebody at the hotel had lost a cuff-link. To find it the trash barrel into which all waste paper baskets had been emptied was over-hauled. Burke had witnessed the search. A scrap of paper attracted attention and was examined. He had picked it up thinking it was the report of a private operative and was amazed to find it pertained to the Wayne affair. He produced the paper and handed it to his Chief.

"But who was it sent to? Who threw it in the trash barrel?" the latter asked. That was a mystery. "Go back to the hotel," he told the detective, "and pump every employee on the premises. Get anything you can about a dark man with a nasty smile, and a chunky fellow wearing a flashy pin and a plaid suit."

He put the paper in his pocket. "Now," he remarked to those who were to accompany him on the trip through the farming district, "when the letter comes demanding ransom, we'll compare it with this handwriting first, and then with the register at the hotel."

True to the Chief's prophecy, the letter demanding ransom reached Harris Wayne with his morning's mail. He ordered his car and drove at once to the Chief's office. There, after a consultation he was advised against meeting the ransom terms.

"We've got information now that will enable us to run down the kidnappers within a few hours," declared the Chief. "You wait here while I send this letter over to Burke to check it up with handwriting on the hotel register." For the letter that threatened the life of little Doris Wayne unless the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars was paid to the kidnappers at the river pier near the cross-roads before noon that following day, was not penned by the same hand as that which wrote the report found in the wastebasket. It was soon discovered, however, that the writing corresponded in some respects with that of someone who had registered at the Mansion House as "W. J. Bailey, Phila." And Mr. Bailey was said to have a very peculiar smile--but he was not smooth faced. He wore a mustache. And he had already checked out.

"You may say," said the Chief, speaking to the newspaper men who begged him for information, "that our entire force is at work on the case and we expect to round up the criminals in a few hours."

After the reporters were gone he summoned his secretary. "Get hold of Carey and Wright," he snapped. "Tell them to slip the Mary Ann out quietly and keep watch of any suspicious looking or acting craft in the neighborhood of Simpson's pier by the cross-roads. Now, Mr. Wayne," he added, "if you care to come with us, we're going to take a little cross-country run and interview our farmer friends."

"Do you think we'll gain anything by going?" asked Wayne. "With so much information right at hand it seems like a waste of time to be driving aimlessly about the country. I feel as if I must be doing something drastic and violent toward locating my baby."

"That's just what we are going to do, Mr. Wayne," returned the Chief, rising and starting for the door, Wayne accompanying him. "The child is being secreted somewhere in the vicinity. We must learn the identity of any questionable character in the county who, for a consideration, would be apt to shelter her. My object is not only to recover the child but to wipe out the entire gang of villains involved in this outrage. They are a menace to any community. I'll not stop until I've either brought them to trial or exterminated them. Come. We're hot on the trail. Let's go."

A few hours later newspaper accounts stated that the criminals were known to the police and that arrests, with startling disclosures, were momentarily expected.