The Daughter of Anderson Crow
"Jumpin' Jehosophat!" ejaculated the detective; "it's the body!"
"The school-teacher!" exclaimed the surprised Tinkletownians, as with
their eyes they proceeded to search the figure before them for blood
stains. But no sooner had the chorused words escaped their lips than
they realised how wretchedly commonplace was their blundering expression
in comparison with the faultlessly professional phraseology of their
leader; and, overwhelmed with mortification, the posse ached to recall
them; for that the correct technical term had been applied by one for
years trained to the vernacular of his calling was little consolation to
these sensitive souls, now consumed with envy.
In the meantime, the quarry, if we may be permitted so to designate her,
stood before them as pretty as a picture. At her side was Tom Reddon,
and a dozen guests of the house fell in behind them.
"Did Rosalie tell you?" demanded Miss Banks. "The mean thing! She said
she wouldn't."
"Ro--Rosalie!" gasped Anderson; "tell me what?" nervously.
"That I was--was coming over here with Tom. Didn't she tell you?"
"I should say not. If she'd told me you don't suppose I'd'a' driv' clear
over here in this kinder weather fer nothin', do you? Thunder! Did she
know 'bout it?"
"Certainly, Mr. Crow. She helped with the plans."
"Well, good gosh a'mighty! An' we was a-keepin' from her the awful news
fer fear 'twould give her a backset."
"Awful news! What do you mean? Oh, you frighten me terribly!"
"Doggone! I don't believe Rosalie was sick at all," continued Anderson,
quite regardless of the impatience of his listeners; "she jest wanted to
keep from answerin' questions. She jest regularly let everybody believe
you had been slaughtered, an' never opened her mouth."
"Slaughtered!" cried half a dozen people.
"Sure! Hain't you heard 'bout the murder?"
"Murder?" apprehensively from the excited New Yorkers.
"Yes--the teacher of schoolhouse No. 5 was brutally butchered
las--las--night--by--"
"Go slow, Anderson! Better hold your horses!" cautioned Harry
Squires. "Don't forget the body's alive and kic--" and stopping short,
in the hope that his break might escape the school-teacher's attention,
he confusedly substituted, "and here."
Anderson's jaw dropped, but the movement was barely perceptible, the
discomfiture temporary, for to the analytical mind of the great
detective the fact that a murder had been committed was fully
established by the discovery of the blood. That a body was obviously
necessary for the continuance of further investigations he frankly
acknowledged to himself; and not for one instant would any supposition
or explanation other than assassination be tolerated. And it was with
unshaken conviction that he declared:
"Well, somebody was slew, wasn't they? That's as plain's the nose on y'r
face. Don't you contradict me, Harry Squires. I guess Anderson Crow
knows blood when he sees it."
"Do you mean to tell me that you've been trailing us all day in the
belief that some one of us had killed somebody?" demanded Tom Reddon.
Harry Squires explained the situation, Anderson being too far gone to
step into the breach. It may be of interest to say that the Tinkletown
detective was the sensation of the hour. The crowd, merry once more,
lauded him to the skies for the manner in which the supposed culprits
had been trailed, and the marshal's pomposity grew almost to the
bursting point.
"But how about that blood?" he demanded.
"Yes," said Harry Squires with a sly grin, "it was positively identified
as yours, Miss Banks."
"Well, it's the first time I was ever fooled," confessed Anderson
glibly. "I'll have to admit it. The blood really belonged to 'Rast
Little. Boys, the seegars are on me."
"No, they're on me," exclaimed Tom Reddon, producing a box of Perfectos.
"But, Miss Banks, you are wanted in Chicago," insisted Anderson. Reddon
interrupted him.
"Right you are, my dear Sherlock, and I'm going to take her there as
soon as I can. It's what I came East for."
"Ain't--I mean, wasn't you Miss Lovering?" muttered Anderson Crow.
"Good heavens, no!" cried Miss Banks. "Who is she--a shoplifter?"
"I'll tell you the story, Mr. Crow, if you'll come with me," said Mr.
Farnsworth, stepping forward with a wink.
In the library he told the Tinkletown posse that Tom Reddon had met Miss
Banks while she was at school in New York. He was a Chicago
millionaire's son and she was the daughter of wealthy New York people.
Her mother was eager to have the young people marry, but the girl at
that time imagined herself to be in love with another man. In a pique
she left school and set forth to earn her own living. A year's hardship
as governess in the family of Congressman Ritchey and subsequent
disillusionment as a country school-teacher brought her to her senses
and she realised that she cared for Tom Reddon after all. She and Miss
Gray together prepared the letter which told Reddon where she could be
found, and that eager young gentleman did the rest. He had been waiting
for months for just such a message from her. The night of the
spelling-match he induced her to come to Colonel Randall's, and now the
whole house-party, including Miss Banks, was to leave on the following
day for New York. The marriage would take place in a very few weeks.
"I'll accept your explanation," said Mr. Crow composedly as he took a
handful of cigars. "Well, I guess I'll be startin' back. It's gettin'
kind o' late-like."
There was a telegram at the livery stable for him when he reached that
haven of warmth and rest in Tinkletown about dawn the next day. It was
from Chicago and marked "Charges collect."
* * * * *
"What girl and whose body," it said, "do you refer to? Miss Lovering has
been dead two years, and we are settling the estate in behalf of the
other heirs. We were trying to establish her place of residence. Never
mind the body you have lost."
* * * * *
"Doggone," said Anderson, chuckling aloud, "that was an awful good joke
on 'Rast, wasn't it?"
The stablemen stood around and looked at him with jaws that were
drooping helplessly. The air seemed laden with a sombre uncertainty that
had not yet succeeded in penetrating the nature of Marshal Crow.
"Is it from her?" finally asked Ike Smith hoarsely, his lips trembling.
"From what her?"
"Rosalie."
"Thunder, no! It's from my lawyers in Chicago."
"Ain't you--ain't you heerd about it?" half groaned Ike, moving away as
if he expected something calamitous.
"What the dickens are you fellers drivin' at?" demanded Anderson. The
remainder of his posse deserted the red-hot stove and drew near with the
instinctive feeling that something dreadful had happened.
"Ro--Rosalie has been missin' sence early last night. She was grabbed by
some feller near Mrs. Luce's, chucked into a big wagon an' rushed out of
town before Ros Crow could let out a yell. Clean stole her--look out!
Ketch him, Joe!"
Anderson dropped limply into a hostler's arms.
CHAPTER XV
Rosalie Disappears
Things had happened in Tinkletown that night. Alf Reesling finally found
some one who would listen to his story. He told the minister and the
minister alarmed the town. To be brief, Alf admitted that 'Rast Little
was at his house in the outskirts of the village, laid up with a broken
arm and a bad cut in the top of his head.
"He came crawlin' up to my place about six o'clock in the mornin',"
explained Alf, "an' I took the poor cuss in. That's what I wanted to
tell Anderson, but the old rip wouldn't listen to me. Seems as though
'Rast waited around the schoolhouse last night to git a crack at that
feller from town. Miss Banks and her three friends set around the stove
in the schoolhouse for about an hour after the crowd left, an' 'Rast got
so cold he liked to died out there in the woodshed.
"Purty soon they all come out, an' 'Rast cut acrost the lot to git
inside the house by the fire. He was so derned cold that he didn't feel
like crackin' anybody. When they wasn't lookin' he sneaked inside. Jest
as he was gittin' ready to hug the stove he heard Miss Banks an' one of
the men comin' back. He shinned up the ladder into the garret just in
time. In they come an' the feller lit a lamp. 'Rast could hear 'em
talkin'. She said good-bye to the schoolhouse forever, an' the feller
kissed her a couple of times. 'Rast pretty nigh swore out loud at that.
Then she said she'd leave a note in her desk fer the trustees, resignin'
her job, er whatever she called it. He heard her read the note to the
man, an' it said somethin' about goin' away unexpected to git married.
'Rast says ef Anderson had looked in the desk he'd have found the note.
"Then she packed up some books an' her an' the feller went out. 'Rast
was paralysed. He heerd the sleigh-bells jingle an' then he come to. He
started down the ladder so quick that he missed his hold and went
kerslam clear to the bottom. Doggone ef he didn't light on his head,
too. He don't know how long he laid there, but finally he was
resurrected enough to crawl over by the stove. His arm was broke an' he
was bleedin' like a stuck hog. Miss Banks had left her handkerchief on
the desk, an' he says he tried to bind up his head with it, but it was
too infernal small. Somehow he got outside an' wandered around half
crazy fer a long time, finally pullin' up at my house, derned nigh froze
to death an' so weak he couldn't walk no more. He'd lost his hat an' his
ear muffs an' his way all at the same time. If Anderson had let me talk
this mornin' he'd 'a' knowed there wasn't no murder. It was just a
match."
Hours passed before Anderson was himself again and able to comprehend
the details of the story which involved the disappearance of his ward.
It slowly filtered through his mind as he sat stark-eyed and numb before
the kitchen fire that this was the means her mysterious people had taken
to remove her from his custody. The twenty years had expired, and they
had come to claim their own. There was gloom in the home of Anderson
Crow--gloom so dense that death would have seemed bright in comparison.
Mrs. Crow was prostrated, Anderson in a state of mental and physical
collapse, the children hysterical.
All Tinkletown stood close and ministered dumbly to the misery of the
bereaved ones, but made no effort to follow or frustrate the abductors.
The town seemed as helpless as the marshal, not willingly or wittingly,
but because it had so long known him as leader that no one possessed the
temerity to step into his place, even in an hour of emergency.
A dull state of paralysis fell upon the citizens, big and little. It
was as if universal palsy had been ordained to pinch the limbs and
brains of Tinkletown until the hour came for the rehabilitation of
Anderson Crow himself. No one suggested a move in any direction--in
fact, no one felt like moving at all. Everything stood stockstill while
Anderson slowly pulled himself together; everything waited dumbly for
its own comatose condition to be dispelled by the man who had been hit
the hardest.
It was not until late in the afternoon that Blucher Peabody, the
druggist, awoke from his lethargy and moved as though he intended to
take the initiative. "Blootch" was Rosalie's most persistent admirer. He
had fallen heir to his father's apothecary shop and notion store, and he
was regarded as one of the best catches in town. He approached the
half-frozen crowd that huddled near old Mrs. Luce's front gate. In this
crowd were some of the prominent men of the town, young and old; they
left their places of business every half hour or so and wandered
aimlessly to the now historic spot, as if drawn by a magnet. Just why