The old lady was foxy. She would have made a pretty good sport herself.
She shut up like a clam, went home, rushed for the telephone and called
up the wharfinger. She found that the _Treasure Trove_ was in the stream
being towed for the heads, and belonged to Burke & Coleman, this port.
She knew Burke. She got her carriage, made his office in two jumps, and
wouldn’t leave until she had an order on Captain Wynch to deliver a
sailor answering Letterblair’s description, tattooing and all. In a
half-hour more she had a tug started, chasing the _Treasure Trove_ with
that order. She offered the crew two hundred dollars over regular pay if
they got their man back safe and sound. She herself was afraid of the
water, and stayed in the tug office to wait.
While this was going on, Tom Letterblair woke up. The man watching him
tried to get him drunk again, and the jag turned out loud and nasty.
Crigg saw he’d have to be doing something right off the bat.
He knew a little how the land lay between Tom and his people, but not
enough. He was sure that some one of Tom’s relatives had done it. As far
as that he was right. He struck the wrong lead when he picked Mrs.
Burden as the one—she being a church member—that was most likely to be
ashamed of the kid. He looked up her number in the directory, and made
for the house hot-foot. She wasn’t in, so he held up a lamp-post,
waiting.
The tug got back. They packed Harry Maidslow into the dock-house. He was
still sound asleep from the knockout drops.
“My precious boy!” said the old lady, and fell on his neck. Then she
screamed so you could hear her all over the water-front and began to
jump on the captain. She said:
“You’re a pack of thieves! You’ve murdered my Tom and dressed another
man in his clothes. Where is my boy? Give me back my boy!” she said, and
a lot of other things.
Said the tug-boat captain: “You’re trying to get out of paying the two
hundred. He’s on specifications, and a nice time we had making them pass
him over. Look here.” He got the coat off Harry Maidslow. There was the
tattoo mark, just beginning to swell up.
“It’s a new mark. You and those hussies have fooled me,” said the old
lady. “I’ll have you all in jail for this,” she said. “I wish I could
find him, I’d show them up. I’d take him right up to the big dance
they’re going to have to-night. I’d shame them!” she said. And she drove
home, laughing and crying out loud. At the doorstep Spotty Crigg braced
her.
He began quiet and easy, working up her curiosity so that she would let
him know how the land lay. That’s just where he went wrong again. In
about a minute she put two and two together and saw pretty clearly
through the whole scheme. She was just one point smarter than Spotty,
and she wormed it out of him finally. He thought she wanted Tom put out
of the way, sure. She played her hand by letting him think so. It was
move and your turn, like a game of checkers, with the old lady one jump
ahead. Said Spotty:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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