Barry Locke, half-back
have read more, but he didn’t. Instead he hurriedly, unbelievingly
unfolded the crackling document. Of course it wasn’t really a bond. It
couldn’t be, because if it was, how had it got into his desk? But it
was. It said so in much detail, and there, below, in serried ranks,
were dozens of little yellow coupons!
Barry stared dazedly.
CHAPTER XXI
A MYSTERY SOLVED
Returning five minutes later, Peaches thrust his head in at Barry’s
door, with strange results. An agitated youth rushed upon him, waving
a large sheet of paper. Peaches retreated. Barry pursued. Barry was
somewhat inarticulate, but Peaches finally gathered that he was being
entreated to look at the paper. He did so obligingly. Then he looked at
Barry.
“Well, what is it?” he demanded. “Where’d you get it? Who gave――”
“I didn’t!” gasped Barry. “Nobody did! I found it! In the desk!”
“You found it!” Peaches laughed mirthlessly. “Go on,” he said. “Have
your little joke.”
“But I tell you――”
“Yes, I know,” said Peaches, soothingly. “Let’s find a couple in the
bureau, eh? Quit your kidding, Barry. What’s the big idea?”
“Gee! I’m telling you!” shouted Barry, exasperated. “Look at it! Is it
any good?”
“Any good?” Peaches acted somewhat dazed himself now. “Of course it’s
any good. At least――why, sure it is! What do you think? ‘Northern
Counties Light and Power,’ eh? One thousand dollars. Six per cent.
Maturing nineteen-forty-three. Why wouldn’t it be good?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t! I only wanted to be sure!”
“Well, you’d better take it to the bank, then. It looks all right to
me, but there may be a catch to it. Where’d you get it?”
“Great Scott! I’ve told you twenty times!” Barry dragged him to the
desk and pointed to the open drawer. “In there! It was lying there,
right on top. Folded. I went to look for a patch-scrad――”
“A _what_?” Peaches viewed his friend in dawning suspicion. Last night
Barry had complained of not feeling well. Could it be possible that――
“Say, you got much fever?” he asked, trying to put a hand on Barry’s
forehead.
“Shut up, can’t you? I said I was looking for a scratch-pad, and it was
the wrong door――drawer, I mean――and there was this thing staring at me!
How’d it get there, Peaches?”
“Gosh! you don’t suspect me, do you? Listen, Barry, I’m not feeling
strong to-day. Put that blamed thing down a minute and tell it to me in
words of one sillabub.”
Barry did so. Peaches whistled. They stared at each other. Then, with
lowered voice:
“Do you suppose that’s the bond that Davy――that was lost that time?”
asked Peaches.
“Of course it is! Don’t you see? He wanted to get rid of it and came up
here some time when I was out and put it in that drawer!”
“Gosh!” muttered Peaches. Then, after an instant: “But hold on! What
would be the idea? Why put it in there? If he had it that long, why
should he want to get rid of it?”
“How do I know? But here it is, isn’t it?”
“Yes, if it is! I mean if that’s the same bond. After all, Barry,
that’s just a theory.”
“Well――hang it!――who else would do it? And――and why pick on me? Gee!
every one’s trying to put something over on me lately! First there
was that letter, and now there’s this! Why, I might be arrested for
stealing it!”
“Not likely, since you weren’t around at the time. Hold yourself and
let’s look at this thing calmly. When did you look in that drawer
last?” he asked.
“Last?” Barry considered. “I don’t know. I’m not certain. I don’t think
I’ve had it open for a couple of days; not since we had the drawers
out, the night Toby was in here.”
“You put them back after the Major left,” said Peaches. “Remember?
Well, it wasn’t there then, I suppose, or you’d have seen it.”
Barry nodded, but doubtfully.
“I guess so,” he said. “Still, I mightn’t. I――I was sort of
flabbergasted just then. I must have been, because I got the second
drawer where the third drawer goes and the third drawer――”
“Hold on!” exclaimed Peaches, excitedly. “Remember when Toby was
rummaging through the desk? Remember his saying something about
something being stuck in a splinter inside the desk?”
Barry shook his head.
“No, I don’t remember that.”
“Well,” said Peaches, triumphantly, “I do! Where’s Toby?”
“In his room, I guess. Want me to――”
“_Toby! Toby Nott!_” shouted Peaches, loudly. There was a protesting
answer from beyond the pink wall. “_Come here! On the run!_”
Peaches seized the document and refolded it, returning it to the top
of the desk just as Toby, a book in one hand, arrived at the door and
viewed them aggrievedly through his big spectacles.
“What you want?” he asked.
“Come in,” Peaches directed. “Say, Toby: you remember the night you
brought that moth in here?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Toby, moving his gaze accusingly to Barry. “He
went and threw it out the window!”
“Never mind that. When you were hunting inside the desk, after the
drawers were out, did you find anything?”
“No, he wasn’t there. Barry found him afterward――”
“Leave that plaguey moth out of it a minute, can’t you? Did you find
a――a paper or anything, I mean?”
Toby blinked, thought hard an instant, and then nodded.
“Yeah, there was a letter――no, not a letter――well, something up in the
corner. It was stuck up against the top with a splinter. I told you
about it and I put it in one of those drawers, and you needn’t try to
make out that I swiped it!”
“Is this it?”
Toby moved forward, glanced at the indicated article, and nodded.
“Sure it is! What’s all the row about, then? If you’ve got it――”
“You’re certain this is what you found?”
“’Course I’m certain! It had printing on it just like that. Say, what’s
it all about, anyway?” Toby viewed the document again. “Bond? Lookut,
Barry: if it don’t belong to you, I claim it! Yes, sir, I found it!
Lookut――”
“Much obliged,” said Peaches. “That’s all, Toby.”
“No, it ain’t, either! If that’s worth anything, I’ve got a right to
share in it. Now, see here, you fellows――”
“Toby!” said Peaches, quietly emphatic.
Toby became silent and moved toward the door, his gaze, however, still
lingering on the bond. Finally the mutinous spirit prevailed.
“That’s all right,” he ejaculated bitterly as he held the door between
him and Peaches, “but all I’ve got to say is you guys have got a gall
to throw my moth away and then try to do me out of my bond!”
As, however, neither of the others was longer aware of his existence,
he went off, muttering, and presently the slam of his door sounded a
final indignant protest.
Some three minutes later Barry and Peaches left the house hurriedly
and made toward the village. Somewhere at the rear of Mr. Hannabury’s
shop a bell tinkled, and the dealer in antiques answered the summons.
“About that desk I bought from you a while ago, Mr. Hannabury――” began
Barry.
“Yes, a very good desk,” said the dealer, smiling. “A real bargain,
too, young man.”
“Yes. Well, sir, I was wondering where it came from. I mean, would you
mind telling me where you got it?”
Mr. Hannabury was silently suspicious a moment. Then he answered:
“Well, now, it ain’t customary to tell where things come from, but I
guess there ain’t any harm in telling you that. That desk belonged to
Mr. Watkins, Mr. Benton Watkins, of Watkins and Boyle. He used it in
his office for more than twenty years, he told me. You don’t find desks
nowadays made like that one’s made. They used to――”
“Funny he sold it,” interrupted Peaches, carelessly. “It’s such a nice
desk you’d think he’d have wanted to keep it.”
“Well,” said Mr. Hannabury, “they got a notion to put in a lot of this
here oak furniture last year. Mr. Watkins said they were gettin’ fitted
out all new and up to date. Guess there wasn’t room for the old desk.
I bought that and a chair and one or two little things. Didn’t make
much on ’em, either. Mr. Watkins drives a hard bargain. I’d like you to
look at that swivel chair before you go. It rightly belongs with the
desk and you’d ought to have it.”
But Barry thought otherwise, and a moment later they were again in the
street and striding briskly homeward. For a moment neither said a word.
Then Peaches chuckled, and:
“I guess that settles it, Barry,” he said. “Somehow or other that bond
got into Watkins’s desk; probably he put it there himself. Being wedged
in the way it was, it stayed right there when the desk was cleaned
out.” He chuckled again. “Gosh! old Huckabuckle, or whatever his name
is, missed a rare find, didn’t he?”
“What are we going to do now?” asked Barry, excitedly.
Peaches considered.
“Well, there’s no one at home except Mrs. Lyle――and Davy. By Jove!
that’s the idea! We’ll spill it to Davy! After all, he’s the most
interested, I suppose. Maybe he will remember how the thing got into
the desk.”
Reaching the house, Barry went upstairs and Peaches sought Davy. Barry
rescued the bond from where he had concealed it before departing for
the village, and laid it, blank side up on the blotter. A moment later
Peaches and David Lyle came in.
Davy was much like his father, with Mr. Benjy’s small features and
friendly, gentle eyes. But Davy was taller and spoke with a firmness
and initiative that Mr. Benjy lacked. A good-looking boy, Barry
thought, and one likely to make more of a success in life than his
father had. Having smilingly shaken hands, Davy took the chair that
Peaches offered and looked inquiringly from one to another.
“Davy,” began Peaches, “I want to ask a couple of questions, and I
don’t want you to think I’m cheeky. I’ve got a reason for them.”
“All right,” said Davy, quietly.
“What sort of bond was it that was lost last winter at Watkins and
Boyle’s?”
“N. C. Light and Power,” answered Davy. “One thousand dollars, six per
cent, nineteen-forty-three, coupons attached.”
Peaches grinned and Barry took a long breath. Davy watched Peaches
unwaveringly.
“Ever see that desk before?” asked Peaches, nodding.
Davy looked at the article, frowned slightly, and hesitated.
“I think so, but it wasn’t in this room last year, was it?”
“No,” said Peaches.
“Seems to me I remember it,” puzzled Davy, “but I think it was
somewhere else. Why?”
“Did they have anything like it where you worked? At the factory, I
mean.”
“By gum! Why, that’s―― Of course it isn’t, but it’s a ringer for the
desk Mr. Watkins had in the outer office!”
“Right! One more question, Davy. Ever see that before?” He pointed to
the oblong fold of paper lying conspicuously on the blue blotter. Davy
arose, reached for it, and drew back. His face looked almost as white
as the parchment.
“Jones, if this is a joke it’s――it’s a rotten one,” he said hoarsely.
“Have a look,” answered Peaches, cheerfully. “It won’t bite you.”
Davy raised the bond, turned it over, and stood staring at it a long
moment. Then he laughed uncertainly, laid the document down again, and
walked to the window. After a little moment he asked, still looking
out, “Where did you get it, Peaches?”
“Barry found it in that desk. He bought the desk from a second-hand man
in the village. Is it the one?”
“Yes.” Davy turned and came back. He laid a finger on the upper left
corner of the bond. “There’s Mr. Boyle’s mark. He examined the bond and
wrote his initials in pencil in the corner, as he always did.” Barry
and Peaches leaned over and looked. The letters “T. J. B.” were dimly
discernible. They had been written with a hard pencil, evidently, and
neither Barry nor Peaches had noticed them before.
“I don’t understand, though,” Davy continued, frowning, “how it got
there. I put it in the safe!”
“Are you certain?” asked Peaches. “This was found by Toby one night