Chapter XXV: Sam Makes a Discovery

With Dick Rover gone to Oklahoma and Texas and his brother Tom having taken his departure for the Far West, Sam Rover found himself in sole charge of the offices in Wall Street and consequently the only one to battle with a situation that was becoming worse every day.

Not to worry their wives and the young folks too much, the older Rovers had not told everything concerning the peculiar financial straits in which they were beginning to find themselves. These straits resolved not alone into difficulties brought about in the brokerage business because of the stolen securities but embraced also a deal made in the oil fields and two other deals in the mining districts of the Far West. Because of this peculiar situation, The Rover Company had to obtain at least four hundred thousand dollars inside of the next six weeks. Of this amount the banks and the firm’s friends could be relied upon to furnish two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But where the other one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was to come from, neither Dick, Tom nor Sam knew.

Up to within twenty-four hours of the time that the younger Rovers arrived at Key West nothing more had been heard concerning the bandits who had held up the offices. Both the authorities and the private detectives seemed to be doing their best on the case, but without material results. They had traced Ken Greene to Galveston and there lost track of the clerk. They had also traced the Browns and the Martells from the middle of New York State to Buffalo, only to learn that these individuals had without warning left that city for parts unknown.

“It’s more than likely they escaped into Canada,” said Sam Rover to himself when he received this news. “And if that’s so, it will become more difficult than ever to trace them.”

And then, while the youngest of The Rover Company officials was in the depth of despair, something happened which gave him information of the greatest importance. A retired broker whom the Rovers knew fairly well was stopping in town at a hotel near the Grand Central Terminal and Sam resolved to call on this man, thinking that possibly he might obtain an additional loan to carry on the business. Sam had come over from his home on Riverside Drive in the family automobile. On Forty-second Street near Fifth Avenue the car was halted by the police because of a fire in that vicinity.

“I’ll get out and walk the rest of the distance,” said Sam to the chauffeur. “You can remain here or otherwise turn back and park somewhere near Sixth Avenue.”

There was great excitement in the street, and people were hurrying in several directions to clear the way for the fire engines. Sam found himself caught in the crowd which suddenly broke, and then a long hook and ladder truck came speeding toward him, the powerful motor making a fearful din as it advanced.

Close to Sam was an elderly man who limped slightly. He carried a cane and when the crowd broke this clattered to the roadway and the man seemed suddenly terror-stricken.

“Get out of the way there! You’ll be killed!” yelled some one in the crowd.

Sam had leaped to safety, but now turned and saw the peril of the older person. He leaped forward once more, caught this individual by the arm, and dragged him backward just as the massive hook and ladder truck dashed madly by, the wheels just grazing the feet of the rescued one.

“Close shave for you,” remarked Sam, as he stood the elderly man on his feet and picked up his cane.

“So it was!” panted the other. “I didn’t think it was so close. I was――――” Then, as the rescued one looked more closely at Sam, he stopped short, his mouth open in wonder.

“Josiah Crabtree!” ejaculated Sam, and again caught the man by the arm. “What are you doing here? You are just the man I want to see!”

“Don’t touch me, Rover! Don’t touch me!” pleaded the former instructor of Putnam Hall. “Don’t touch me! I haven’t done anything!”

It was plainly to be seen that Josiah Crabtree was just over one fear to have another come upon him. As his shifty eyes looked at Sam, his face became blanched and he trembled.

“You come with me,” went on Sam somewhat sternly. “No nonsense now, or I’ll call a policeman.”

“No, no! Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” pleaded Crabtree, and he looked more frightened than ever. Evidently he had not forgotten his former terms in prison and he had no desire to give up his liberty again.

“Then come with me.”

“All right, Rover, I will,” was the ready reply. Then, with Josiah Crabtree’s arm safely within his grasp, Sam led the way out of the crowd and to where his chauffeur still remained with the automobile.

“Now, Crabtree, I’ll give you your choice,” went on Sam, doing some rapid thinking. “You can either go home with me and talk things over or I’ll call an officer and have you placed under arrest. Which shall it be?”

“You don’t have to call an officer. I’ll go with you. I’ll tell you everything! Only, please leave me alone, Rover! I’m getting to be an old man now! I don’t want to go to prison again! I was dragged into this thing! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it!”

“Then you’re willing to admit that you had your share in the hold-up in Wall Street, eh?” went on Sam, anxious to follow up the advantage he saw he was gaining.

“I wasn’t near Wall Street! I’m not that kind of a man――you know that,” whined the former teacher. Evidently what little courage he had possessed was fast deserting him.

“But you had something to do with the affair.”

“Well, it wasn’t much. I was on the outside. I was hard-up and they promised me a thousand dollars if I’d help them. But I haven’t had a dollar――not a cent!” groaned Josiah Crabtree.

“Well, come along,” and without further ado Sam bundled the old man into the car and gave directions to the chauffeur to drive home as fast as he could.

It may be taken for granted that Grace Rover, as well as her sister Nellie, and Dora, were astonished when they discovered who the visitor was. None of them had forgotten how Josiah Crabtree had tried to harm them in the past nor the fact that the old man had spent two terms in prison.

“Just wait outside the door, Johnson,” said Sam to the chauffeur. “And tell Rankin to go to the rear of the house. This man must not be allowed to escape under any circumstances. He’s one of the rascals wanted for that hold-up.”

Having given these orders, Sam went to the telephone and called up the private detective agency working on the case and asked that one or two of the detectives be sent up immediately.

“Now then, I want your story, Crabtree, and I want it straight,” said Sam, after these details had been taken care of. “No phony work, now!”

“Will you promise not to prosecute me if I tell you all I know?” pleaded Josiah Crabtree, as he sank into a chair, his hands shaking violently on the top of his cane as he did so. “I’m an old man, now, Rover, and I haven’t many more years to live, and I don’t want to go to prison again. Spare me and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Then you’re willing to turn state’s evidence?”

“I am. I didn’t want to go into this in the first place, but, as I said before, they promised me a thousand dollars and that was a terrible temptation because I had less than a dollar in my pocket at that time. But they didn’t give me a cent! This morning I was turned out of the rooming house where I was stopping, and all I’ve had to eat was one small ham sandwich washed down with a drink of water,” and now the tears stood in Josiah Crabtree’s watery and shifty eyes.

Had Sam not known this man as well as he did, he might have been sorry for the former teacher. But he knew how crafty and cruel Crabtree had been for many years, and so he did not allow the man’s pleadings to soften him.

“If you get out of this with a whole skin it will simply be because you help us to round up those bandits and get back our securities,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll take your medicine.”

“I’ll do all I can!” cried Josiah Crabtree in the tone of a drowning man clutching at a straw. And thereupon he made a revelation which was so astonishing that Sam could hardly believe it at first. This revelation was repeated to the two detectives who arrived a little later, and then Josiah Crabtree was closely questioned until nothing more could be extracted from the old man.

Crabtree revealed that the hold-up had been planned by Slogwell Brown, Nelson Martell and Ken Greene, the latter a nephew of their old enemy, Tad Sobber. Mr. Brown and Mr. Martell had had, of course, to take in their sons; and then Slugger Brown had met Crabtree when the latter arrived in New York and through the former teacher had been enabled to call in several other fellows, including Jerry Koswell, who had been the Rovers’ enemy at Brill College, and Pelter and Japson, who had tried to ruin the Rovers when they had first established themselves in business in New York City.

Crabtree was not certain how Mr. Brown and Mr. Martell had become acquainted with the notorious hold-up men, Lefty Ditini and Black Ronombo. But these men had been called into the game and they in turn had had the assistance of several of their pals.

The hold-up had been planned a number of weeks before it occurred, and many of the details were carefully worked out. Slugger Brown and Nappy Martell were to see to it that none of the Rover boys came back to New York from Valley Brook Farm, and Josiah Crabtree had been utilized in sending the fake messages to Dick Rover and to Dora after the telegrams had been sent which had taken Tom and Sam out of the city.

“I know the hold-up came off successfully,” said Josiah Crabtree. “And I know that Ken Greene got away from the offices without being exposed. I also know that Slugger Brown and his father met some of the bandits at the time one of their autos broke down and they had to transfer to another. But when I went after Mr. Brown and Mr. Martell to get what was coming to me, they declared that they had been double-crossed by Ditini and Ronombo and some of the others and that they hadn’t got a cent of the loot and consequently couldn’t give me what I had been promised. I thought they were fooling at first, but they insisted upon it that every cent of what had been stolen had vanished and they said they were going to skip out themselves before the officers of the law pinched them. I tried to get ten or twenty dollars from them just to tide me over, but they wouldn’t give me a penny.”

“Where did the Browns and the Martells go?” questioned Sam.

“I believe they went to Buffalo. But they said something about Galveston Texas, and I shouldn’t be surprised but what they went there. You see, these fellows, Ditini and Ronombo, were Mexicans, and I think they had an idea that the rascals would go to Galveston to a place where they used to visit and that they might have a chance of locating them.”

This was as much as Josiah Crabtree could tell, and after he had been questioned for several hours Sam and the detectives came to the conclusion that the former teacher was telling the truth so far as he knew it. He did not know what had become of Ken Greene and they did not enlighten him.

That evening the wires to Galveston were kept hot by the detectives who notified other detectives in the Texan city to be on the lookout for all those connected with the hold-up. But day after day went by, and no news of importance was received. Josiah Crabtree was given twenty dollars by Sam with which to tide himself over, but soon after he left the residence on Riverside Drive he was arrested on a technical charge of vagrancy and held by the police, thus making sure that he would be on hand when wanted.