THE ROVER BOYS Boxed Set: 26 Illustrated Adventure Novels - Stratemeyer Edward

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of sight.

      "Can we go in?" asked Frank, and told who he was.

      "I'll send in word and see," answered the policeman at the door.

      "Oh, Frank!" came from the main office, and Senator Harrington beckoned to his son; and all four of the boys went in.

      They found half a dozen men present, including the members of the firm, a detective, and the bookkeeper, a young man named Fredericks.

      "You are the only one who had the combination besides ourselves, Fredericks," Charles Rush was saying to the bookkeeper. "I hate to suspect you, but — "

      "Mr. Rush, you can't think I took that money and those securities!" gasped the bookkeeper, and fell back as if about to faint.

      "I don't know what to think."

      "I can give you my word I was not near the offices from four o'clock yesterday afternoon until I came this morning, after you."

      "Have you spoken of the safe combination to anybody?"

      "No, sir."

      "Did you put the combination down in writing?" asked Mr. Wilder.

      "No, I never did anything of that sort. The combination was an unusually easy one, as you know."

      "Yes, far too easy for our good," groaned Mr. Rush. Then he gazed at the four boys curiously. "What brought you here?" he asked.

      "We thought we might know something of this affair," said Dick, and told his story.

      "There may be something in that," said the detective. "Especially if those men fail to turn up at that tenement again."

      "Did you mention a man named Mooney?" cried Fredericks.

      "I did."

      "Do you know this Mooney?" put in Mr. Wilder to the bookkeeper.

      "Subrug, the janitor, has a brother-in-law named Mooney — a wild kind of a chap who used to hang around more or less."

      "We'll call Subrug in and find out where this Mooney is now," said Charles Rush.

      The janitor proved to be a very nervous old man. "I don't know where Mooney is now," he said. "He's been a constant worry to me. He used to borrow money, but lately I wouldn't give him any more and so he stopped coming around."

      "Was he ever in here?"

      The janitor thought for a moment.

      "I think he was, sir — about a month ago. He started to help me clean the windows, but he was too clumsy and I made him give it up."

      "I remember him!" cried the bookkeeper. " He was at the window, Mr. Rush, while you were at the safe. He must have watched you work the combination."

      CHAPTER X

       TOM, SAM, AND FARMER FOX

       Table of Contents

      For an instant there was a dead silence in the bankers' offices. Charles Rush looked blankly at his bookkeeper.

      "I believe Fredericks is right," said Mr. Wilder, the first to break the awkward pause. "I remember the fellow very well. I thought at the time that he was watching Mr. Rush rather closely."

      "You had no business to bring in a man that was not to be trusted," growled Charles Rush, turning to the janitor.

      "Do you think he stole the stuff?" ejaculated Subrug. "Sure Mooney wasn't smart enough for such a game."

      "Perhaps not, but he got others to help him," said Dick. "He got Buddy Girk and Arnold Baxter, I feel positive of it."

      "The whole thing fits together pretty well," said the detective. "If only we can lay hands on these men the boy mentions we'll be all right."

      A long conversation followed, and then Dick and the others went to the police station.

      The rooms at Yates' tenement were thoroughly searched once more, and a watch was set for Girk and Arnold Baxter.

      But the rascals had flown and the watch proved useless.

      In the meantime two detectives tried to trace what had become of Mooney, but this work also amounted to nothing, and it may be as well to add here that Mooney was never heard of again, having sailed for South America.

      Upon an accounting it was learned that Rush & Wilder were by no means in a good financial condition and that Senator Harrington would lose a good sum of money should they fail.

      "I'd give a thousand dollars to collar those thieves," said the senator dismally.

      "If Arnold Baxter and Girk got that money they'll live in high clover for a while," remarked Dick, when the excitement was over and they had returned to Frank's home. "My! what a villain that Baxter is proving to be! No wonder Dan was bad! It must run in the blood."

      The robbery kept the boys in Albany several days, and this being so, it was decided to abandon the trip on the river to New York.

      "I'll send the Spray down by somebody," said Dick, "and then we can take a train from here direct to Oak Run;" and so it was arranged.

      The trip to Oak Run proved to be uneventful, and at the railroad station they were met by Jack Ness, the Rovers' hired man, who had driven over with the carryall to take them home.

      "Glad to see you all looking so well," grinned the hired man. "Getting fat as butter, Master Tom."

      "Thanks, Jack, I'm feeling fine. Any news?"

      "No, sir, none exceptin' that your uncle has had a row with Joel Fox, who has the farm next to ours."

      "What was the row about?" questioned Dick.

      "All about some fruit, sir. We had a tree hangin' over Fox's fence — finest pear tree on the place, that was. Fox strips the tree at night, sir — saw him with my own eyes."

      "Oh, what cheek!" burst out Sam. "What did uncle do?"

      "Tried to talk to him, and Fox told him to mind his own business, that he could have what fruit hung over his fence. So he could, but not half of it hung that way, and he took every blessed pear."

      "Fox always was a mean man," murmured Tom. "I'd like to square accounts with him before I go back to Putnam Hall."

      "I reckoned as how you might be up to something like that," said Ness, with another grin. "But you want to be careful. Only yesterday Fox shot off his gun at some boys who were after his apples."

      "Did he hit the boys?"

      "I don't think he did."

      "Who were they?"

      "I don't know. And I reckon he don't either."

      "Humph!" Tom mused for a moment. "I'd like to scare the mean fellow by making him think one of the boys was killed."

      "That's an idea!" cried Sam, and winked at his brother. "Let's do it."

      They were soon bowling over Swift River and along the road leading to Valley Brook farm. At the farmhouse their Uncle Randolph and Aunt Martha stood in the dooryard to greet them.

      "Back again, safe and sound!" cried Randolph Rover. "I suppose you feel like regular sailors."

      "Well, we do feel a little that way," laughed Sam, and returned the warm kiss his aunt bestowed upon him. "It's nice to be home once more."

      "Would you rather stay here than go back to Putnam Hall?" asked his aunt quickly.

      "Oh, no, I can't say that, Aunt Martha. But it's awfully nice here, nevertheless."

      A hot supper was awaiting them, and while they ate they told of all that had happened since they had been away. Randolph Rover shuddered over the way Dick had been treated.

      "Be careful, my boy," he said. "Remember, even your father

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