CHAPTER XIV.

A LINK IN THE CHAIN OF MYSTERY.

“The _Spray_ is burning up!”

This astounding cry awoke Judge Oglesby from a sound sleep.

When he finally reached the pier the ill-fated steamer was beyond hope of being saved.

“Where is Dean--Captain Mercer?” he asked, excitedly, as he looked upon the doomed boat which had held out so much promise to him.

“He can’t be found!” replied a bystander. “He has been burned with the steamer.”

“Shiver yer toplight! Let go the anchor there. I’ll find the lad if I die in the flames.”

It took four strong men to hold Jack Carboy from rushing to what must have proved certain death.

“Be calm, Jack,” admonished the judge. “We shall find the boy safe and sound. No doubt he has done his best----”

“See him coming ashore,” said a bystander. “He ’peared to be running away like a sneak thief.”

“He fired the boat and then skipped,” declared some one else.

But many believed that the missing youth had perished in the fire.

The _Spray_ burned to the water’s edge, and the following morning only the charred and dismantled hulk was left of the proud steamer.

A search failed to reveal any trace of Dean Mercer.

One man alone believed fully in the innocence of Dean. That was Jack Carboy.

Filled with the wild hope that “his lad” had somehow, and he could not have explained how, gone home, he started for Millville.

Judge Oglesby telephoned home, but, as he had expected, nothing had been seen or heard of Dean.

Judge Oglesby arrived at a definite conclusion soon. The _Spray_ had been burned by an incendiary.

Who?

Where was Dean Mercer?

By nightfall a terrible suspicion assailed the judge’s mind.

On the morning of the third day after the fire, all Millville knew that Dean Mercer had disappeared, taking with him, it was believed, nine thousand dollars in stolen money.

On the morning of the fourth day, officers representing the judge’s interests, started out to scour the country around in an endeavor to secure some trace of the fugitive.

A reward of a thousand dollars was offered for the arrest of Dean, and two thousand for the recovery of the money.

It took hours, weary and torturing, to fully convince Judge Oglesby that his young protege, the boy he had so completely trusted, had proven an ingrate and a criminal.

Evaline was dumbfounded--crushed.

“Oh, papa! it cannot be true!” she had gasped, pale with horror.

“He never did it,” affirmed Lawyer Montague stanchly.

But clue by clue fastened the network of guilt more completely around Dean. The judge’s mind passed through all the graduations of stupefaction, alarm, grief, and finally, stern, unrelenting justice.

Even Lawyer Montague at last agreed that the temptation of money had been too much for Dean Mercer. He had been dazzled with the glare of wealth--he had sold honor and respectability for a fortune, and forgetting home and friends, had fled to some remote place to enjoy his stolen plunder.

“But what did he burn the _Spray_ for?” muttered the perplexed Montague. “I can’t understand that, judge?”

“Maybe he was hired.”

“Who by?”

“My rivals in business.”

“Dean wouldn’t do that.”

“A boy who would feign honesty and friendship, and betray a trust, and rob a benefactor, would do anything evil,” replied Judge Oglesby bitterly. “We have simply been deceived, and at a terrible cost.”

“A terrible cost, indeed,” sighed Montague. “I am comparatively a poor man and the loss of the thousand dollars will fall heavily upon me. Dear! dear! what is the world coming to?”

Yes, Judge Oglesby had lost, but he could afford it. As to Montague, the missing thousand dollars and the papers meant beggary. Certainly a severe blow to his prospects.

The money represented all that was possessed by Robert Ellison, a man who had reposed the most implicit confidence in him.

It was a strange and mysterious case. He was charged with killing his uncle, a miserly relative, who had led a lonely life back in the hills, and circumstances almost proved his guilt.

Ellison had just returned from a two years’ sojourn to far Western mines. He had left his son, Marcus, in charge of his uncle.

When he returned he had accumulated a little over a thousand dollars. This he intended to invest in some little business, and take his son in with him.

To his surprise, when he went to his uncle, James Conroyd, for his boy, he found Conroyd in the worst possible humor.

The latter stated that he had tired of caring for Marcus Ellison, and had sent him adrift.

“Why?” asked the amazed Ellison.

“Because I did not hear from you.”

“I wrote you and sent money for his care.”

“I never got your letters!” snapped the ill-natured Conroyd.

There was an angry interview, for Ellison was provoked at Conroyd’s heartlessness. The crabbed, irritable nature of the latter became more and more resentful, as Ellison charged him with heartlessness.

They had a fierce quarrel, and Conroyd ordered Ellison out of his house, and Ellison, wild with rage, vowed to “get even” with him.

That night, from Millville, he wrote his uncle that unless he put him on the track of his missing boy he would make him trouble.

That night James Conroyd was found shot dead near his cabin. The next day a pistol that Ellison had brought from the West with him was discovered among some bushes near the house.

One chamber was empty. The missing bullet was found in James Conroyd’s heart.

Of course Ellison was at once arrested. Conroyd’s hired man, a surly, low-browed being named Manseur, swore that he had seen Ellison lurking around the cabin.

The threatening letter that Ellison had written was also found. People remembered his threats.

In jail Ellison sent for Lawyer Montague, an old-time friend, and told him the truth. He was innocent. Montague believed him.

Ellison gave the lawyer his money, and engaged him to clear him from the crime imputed to him.

He was taken to the jail at Springfield. Public opinion was against him, but the shrewd Montague began to work up clue after clue toward proving his innocence.

His suspicions became directed toward the hired man, Manseur, as the real assassin. He watched him, questioned him, and discerned that the latter was beginning to get suspicious of him and uneasy.

Montague believed that Manseur had murdered his employer to rob him, and had taken advantage of his quarrel with Ellison, to involve the latter.

He saw that when the case came to trial he could entangle Manseur in contradictory statements and weaken his fake story of having seen Ellison lurking near the Conroyd cabin the night of the murder.

Then, again, he had secured a bit of evidence that in a measure corroborated Ellison’s claim that the night of the murder he was forty miles away from Millville in quest of his missing son, Marcus.

Old James Conroyd had sent him a letter telling him that the last he had heard of Marcus was at Highcliffe, a town some distance away. The letter, too, spoke of his being sorry for his unreasonable anger, and it was written evidently only a few hours previous to the murder.

This letter, other evidence and the thousand dollars were contained in the wallet that Lawyer Montague had given to Dean Mercer to take to Lawyer Durand at Springfield.

Montague and everybody else believed that Dean had made off with the money.

If he lost or destroyed James Conroyd’s evidence, or the other papers, Ellison was doomed to the electric chair.

Without the money Ellison could not fight his case successfully, but Montague determined to replace the thousand dollars, if it beggared him.

Then anxiously he began to advertise.

Such items as the following appeared in the city papers:

“D. M.--Return the papers and keep the money.”

“D. M.--You will not be prosecuted if you return the Conroyd letter and papers.”

“D. M.--An innocent man is doomed if you lose or destroy the Conroyd documents. For the sake of humanity, return them!”

Thus a week went by.

Drinking harder than ever, Colonel Darringford chuckled over the downfall of a business rival and kept silent.

His son, Rodney, and Tim Downey had disappeared from Millville.

Judge Oglesby waited and hoped, and finally despaired of ever recovering his stolen money.

The officers of the law found not the slightest traces of Dean Mercer.

The Conroyd papers were not returned, and Lawyer Montague gloomily decided that his client was doomed.

Where was the missing Dean Mercer?

What had become of the bright-faced, ambitious boy, who had left Millville one sunshiny day amid high hopes and golden promises, and had disappeared as effectually as if the earth had engulfed him?

Where, indeed? Only the sinister plotters who had schemed for his ruin could just then disclose the truth, and they were silent.