Chapter XLIII: The Farmer Questioned

When the farm wagon had reached the park, Nick commenced to talk about one thing and another, cunningly putting in from time to time questions about the murders and about Weeden.

“Is Astoria a healthy place?” asked Nick, as a starter.

“I reckon it is healthy enough for some people,” said the farmer.

“Not for such men as your friend that was relieved of his pocketbook, is it?” asked Nick, with a laugh.

“No, I hardly think that it is, although it is better than getting a bullet in you,” was the answer.

“Are there many doctors around here?”

“No, there ain’t any regular doctors around here, that I know of, excepting the ones at the asylum, and they are so thundering high-priced that it is cheaper for a man to die than to go to them, so most of the people around here either goes without doctoring or else dies.”

“I suppose that you are all healthy, and seldom need a doctor.”

“Most of us are in pretty good shape, and seldom need anything excepting a dose of physic now and then; there is Grout, the man that was robbed the other night--he has been sick ever since, at least he says that he is sick, although I think that the losing of his money is the thing that is the matter with him.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, and the day after he got touched up for his money he went into town and bought himself a medicine chest filled with all sorts of funny-looking things. There was lots of curious-shaped things in the instrument line; there was a lot of funny-looking medicines that I have never seen the like of in any drug store, and a book telling you the effects of poisons. He did not mean me to see that, but when his back was turned I took a peep at the book.”

“What do you suppose that he wants with all this stuff? He would not be allowed to practice medicine without a license from the State?”

“Practice nothing. Why the old fool cannot write his name.”

It was plain to Nick Carter that there was something back of this that would be worth looking into.

Farmer Grout was evidently a man that it would be worth while watching; he, too, might be one of the band that had been terrorizing the neighborhood, and then might he not be the man that had furnished the poison that had tipped the steel projectiles that had been found in the bodies of the men who were found within a few yards of the home of Jack Weeden?

If he was connected with the gang, he would probably need something with which to patch up the members of it when they were wounded, and he might be a skillful surgeon who had allied himself with this band of outlaws and posed as a farmer to throw off suspicion. The robbery, too, might have been part of the scheme to put the authorities off the scent, if at any time they should find out anything that tended to point the finger of suspicion at him. It was evident that this man, Weeden, had as carefully a selected gang of villains as could be found in the United States.

“We were speaking of Jack Weeden a few moments ago,” said Nick; “tell me, who is his doctor?”

The farmer looked worried.

“I don’t know anything about him, as I have told you,” was the sullen reply.

“Don’t you think that as a neighbor you ought to know? Suppose you were asked to go for the doctor for him some night, what would you do?”

“I suppose that if I was asked to go for the doctor,” replied the farmer slowly, “I would--well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what I would do.”

Sallie giggled.

It was just barely audible, but the quick ears of Nick Carter heard it.

“I wonder what there is so funny in that?” Nick asked himself. “I suppose that the woman thinks that Block is going to pull the wool over my eyes. Well, here is where I will fool them.”

Nick concluded that the best thing he could do was to play on the vanity of the woman.

“Of course, with all respect to you, Mr. Block, I suppose that you leave all the thinking that you have to do to your cousin, Miss Sallie, who seems to be very quick in grasping the meaning of the questions that I have asked.”

Sallie simpered and looked as pleased as her vinegar-like features would allow her.

“Didn’t I tell you that I always was much smarter than you are?” she said to her cousin.

“Didn’t Jack Weeden ever do any work for you or your cousin?” asked Nick, of the woman.

“Yes, he has done work for me two or three times; he fixed the wheels of my bicycle, but each time that he did it he kept it so long that I thought that perhaps he sent it into town to have it done there. He didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with it when I took it to him, and he said that he would have to have one of his men fix it, as he had several other jobs on hand,” was her reply.

“When automobiles have come to his shop to be repaired, who generally did the work?” asked Nick.

“One of his men usually did, while he either looked on or else went into the shop and pretended to be fixing the forge.”

It was evident that the automobile shop was a blind.