Sergeant Silk E-Book

Robert Leighton

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

As long as the lone red-coated equestrian policemen of the Northwest, tracking cattle thieves across uninhabited prairies and fighting hordes of warriors, have something to do with the boy approaching his teens, Mr. Leighton’s frank tales will be in demand. Wolves, carbines, bags of gold and logging run through its pages, and Sergeant Silk meets them all – a combination of Sir Robert Baden-Powell and Sherlock Holmes in a red military jacket.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. 'LIKE A DESTITUTE TRAMP'

II. THE BAG OF GOLD

III. THE MYSTERY OF GREY WOLF FOREST

IV. THE FUGITIVE AND HIS PURSUER

V. NICK-BY-NIGHT

VI. THE SURPRISE VISIT

VII. LOCOMOTIVE 99

VIII. THREE MOOSE CROSSING

IX. RED DERRICK

X. THE OUTSIDE PASSENGERS

XI. MAPLE LEAF'S SCAR

XII. A PERILOUS MOMENT

XIII. THE MAN WHO WAS GLAD

XIV. IN THE POWER OF HIS PRISONER

XV. THE GREAT JAM AT STONE PINE RAPIDS

XVI. THE MAN THAT THE WOLVES SPARED

CHAPTER I

‘LIKE A DESTITUTE TRAMP’

“If you ask me, there’s nothing like riding across the open prairie for quickening a fellow’s eyesight,” remarked the Honourable Percy Rapson, breaking a long spell of silence. “There’s so little to be seen, anyhow, except the grass and the flowers, that he’s bound to catch sight of anything unusual.”

Sergeant Silk smiled at his companion’s boyish enthusiasm for the open-air life of the plains. Percy had been sent out to Western Canada to learn farming, but there was no doubt that he was learning a lot that had no direct connection with agriculture. Owing largely to his friendship with Sergeant Silk, of the North-West Mounted Police, he was learning to be manly and self-reliant, and he was beginning to know so much scout-craft that his remark concerning the quickening of his powers of observation was quite justified.

“That is so,” the sergeant acknowledged. “The prairie teaches you a lot. It’s like being on the sea, where everything that isn’t water or sky attracts your attention. I’m bound to say that your own eyesight is improving wonderfully by practice. You don’t miss a great deal. What do you make of the stranger that we’re coming up to?”

Percy glanced at the red-coated soldier policeman in sharp surprise.

“Stranger?” he repeated inquiringly. “I haven’t noticed one. Where?”

Silk returned the boy’s glance with a curious lift of the eyebrows.

“Why, I supposed it was your spotting him that prompted your remark about eyesight,” he said lightly. And he pointed towards a clump of bushes some little distance in advance of them across the fresh green prairie grass. “He’s sitting hunched up alongside of that patch of cactus scrub in front of us, with his head in his hands, as if he had something tremendously serious to think about. Ah, he’s moving now. He hears us. What’s he mooching around here for, I wonder?”

“You appear to know him?” said Percy.

Sergeant Silk nodded.

“I know him, yes. It’s a chap named Charlie Fortescue.”

Percy saw the stranger plainly now, a slightly built, rather good-looking young fellow, dressed as an ordinary plainsman, standing upright and looking expectantly towards the two riders who were approaching him. He waited until they came to a halt in front of him.

Sergeant Silk dropped his bridle rein over the horn of his saddle and slowly regarded the man from the toes of his boots to the crown of his wide felt hat.

“Something gone wrong, Charlie?” he casually inquired. “Where’s your pony? What are you doing hanging around here, like a destitute tramp?”

Charlie shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s sure what I am, Sergeant,” he answered with an awkward attempt at a smile, “a destitute tramp.”

“Eh?” exclaimed Silk. He evidently did not believe him. “D’you mind explaining? I don’t understand–unless you mean that you’ve had a disagreement with old man Crisp?”

“You’ve hit the mark, first shot,” said Charlie. “But it’s something more than a mere disagreement. I’ve quitted the ranch. I’m not going back–ever.”

“That’s bad,” reflected Sergeant Silk, taking out his pipe to indicate that he had leisure enough to listen to the explanation that he had invited. “Real bad, it is. You were such friends, he and you. He was shaping to take you into partnership, and–well, there’s that pretty daughter of his. I’ve heard you were likely to marry her. Surely you haven’t broken off with Dora, as well as her father?”

“I’m afraid so,” Charlie gloomily answered. “I couldn’t expect her to marry a man whom her father has accused of committing a crime.”

“A crime?” Sergeant Silk looked at him in perplexity. “A crime?” he repeated. “That’s the way of the wind, is it? Tell me about it.”

Charlie Fortescue nibbled nervously at an end of his moustache.

“The worst of it is,” he presently began to explain, “I haven’t been able to prove my innocence. Appearances are against me.”

He raised his dark eyes appealingly to the red-coated soldier policeman, and his face brightened as with a new hope. Percy Rapson was conscious that it was the face of a man of good class. It was almost aristocratic in its refinement of feature. And the tone of his voice was that of an educated Englishman as he added–

“Perhaps you can help me, Silk. You’re a member of the North-West Mounted Police and accustomed to dealing with crimes. Perhaps you can try to get at the root of this one?”

Sergeant Silk struck a match and held the flame to the bowl of his pipe.

“Why, cert’nly,” he said. “It is in my line. I shall be glad if I can clear you of suspicion. What are the circumstances? You may say whatever you like before my chum here–the Honourable Percy Rapson, late of Eton College, now of Rattlesnake Ranch.”

He dismounted, and Percy followed his example. The three of them stood close together.

“You were right about my wishing to marry Dora Crisp,” Fortescue resumed. “We’ve been engaged for a long time. We were to have been married next month. I had been saving up, on the quiet. But I never told Sam or Dora anything about it. I was keeping it for a surprise, see? I didn’t want to say anything until I had saved off my own bat a sum equal to the pile that Sam had put aside to give her as her dowry.

“One day last week the old man sent me to Banff to look at a new reaping machine attachment he thought of buying, and he asked me also to call at the bank and cash a cheque for him. I drew the money–it was two hundred pounds in gold–and delivered it to him safely.

“‘It’s for Dora,’ he told me, when, having carefully counted it, he swept it into a chamois leather bag and tied the bag round with a wisp of red tape. Then, signing to me to go with him, he went into the harness-room, and I watched him as he cunningly hid the bag of gold in a ventilation hole in the wall; high up, where it couldn’t be seen or easily reached. ‘It’ll be safe there, Charlie,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘We’ll let it stop there until the wedding morning. There’s only you and me who know where it is. It’s sure safe up there.’”

Sergeant Silk shook his head.

“I shouldn’t have thought so,” he said. “When was it missed?”

“It was last night that it was stolen,” Fortescue explained. “Stolen! and I–I was accused of being the thief; though I’d never touched it, never even looked at it.”

“And your own savings,” pursued Silk. “Were they stolen, too?”

“No. That’s where the whole complication came in,” returned Charlie. “You see, Sam didn’t know that I had any money of my own. He believed that I’d sent all that I saved home to my mother in England, and that I was really hard up, as I’d half pretended to be. And this morning, when he rushed into the house, wildly declaring that he’d been robbed, it was his belief that I was in want of money that made him so sure that I, and I alone, was the thief. No one else knew where the gold had been hidden. Who else could have taken it? He had heard me go downstairs in the middle of the night, and it was useless my protesting I’d only gone down to discover why the horses were restless in the stable, and why one of the dogs had barked.

“The more I protested, the more annoyed he grew. He was just mad with rage against me. He wouldn’t listen to me when I asked him if it was likely that I, his future son-in-law, should steal money that was intended for my own sweetheart–money that was to go to the making of my own home. Nothing I could say would convince him. And at last he went so far as to demand that I should let him search my room and boxes, see?”

Charlie was anxiously watching Sergeant Silk’s face as he spoke. But it betrayed no sign either of belief or of doubt.

“It wasn’t until that moment that I realised how awkward was my situation,” he went on. “I must have looked some guilty. I was certainly flustered. And very naturally; because, you see, my own money, my savings, which I kept upstairs in my trunk, happened also to be in English gold; and what was more suspicious and difficult to explain, it was the same in amount as the sum that had been stolen–two hundred pounds exactly; two hundred sovereigns. And I was supposed to be as poor as a church rat.”

Sergeant Silk was puffing vigorously at his pipe, but he paused to say, very quietly–

“That was awkward, real awkward for you, Charlie. But, of course, you let him search your room? You didn’t hide anything? You explained how you happened to have money of your own?”

“I hid nothing,” declared Charlie. “But his finding and counting the money seemed to be the final proof of my guilt, and I wasn’t able to show how any one else could be guilty.”

“That’s the important point,” urged Silk. “You’ve got to prove that somebody else than yourself–one of the ranch hands, one of the farm servants, or even some stranger, had discovered where that money was hidden and could have stolen it. You say the horses were restless; you say a dog barked. Did that mean nothing? Say, you’d better leave this affair in my hands. I’ll ride along to the ranch right now and have a jaw with Sam Crisp. Are you coming back with me?”

Charlie Fortescue’s face went very red under its sunburn. He shook his head resolutely.

“No,” he objected. “I’m not going back. Sam Crisp believes me guilty. He has denounced me as a contemptible thief; and in Dora’s hearing, too. I couldn’t face Dora. I shall never look into her eyes or take her hand in mine again until her father owns that I’m guiltless. Go yourself, if you will. I’ve told you everything. I’m not going back. If I’m wanted, either to be arrested as a thief or apologised to as an honest man, you’ll not have much difficulty in finding me.”

Sergeant Silk mounted to the saddle.

“Very well,” he agreed. “So long!”

CHAPTER II

THE BAG OF GOLD

During the further ride over the narrow stretch of prairie that they were crossing towards the foothills, Silk was uncommonly silent, volunteering no opinion concerning Charlie Fortescue. Percy began to believe that his companion regarded the case as of no especial interest or importance. Even when questioned, the sergeant gave him little satisfaction.

“Haven’t you made up your mind about it?” Percy asked abruptly.

“Well, you see,” returned Silk, “we’ve heard only one side of the story as yet, and you can’t always go by first impressions. What’s your own opinion, Percy?”

“Seems to me things look rather rocky against Charlie,” Percy observed. “The evidence is dead against him, and that yarn of his about saving up on the quiet isn’t very convincing–especially when he wants you to believe that the money he’d collected was so exactly the same amount that Sam Crisp had saved. Two hundred pounds; neither more nor less. It’s too much of a coincidence, too much like a story made up after the event. Assuming that Sam Crisp didn’t rob himself, it’s perfectly clear that Charlie took the money, since no one else knew where it was hidden.”

“That remains to be seen, however,” rejoined Silk. “I happen to have been inside of Crisp’s harness-room. I happen to have noticed the hole in the wall that Charlie referred to; and it isn’t the first time that it has been used as a hiding-place for articles of value, by others, as well as Sam Crisp himself. It was foolish of him to leave a bag of sovereigns there. He almost deserves to have lost it. He might as well have left it on the front doorstep.”

“Then you don’t seriously believe that Charlie Fortescue was the thief?” questioned Percy.

Sergeant Silk did not answer, but spurred his horse to a canter, which was continued until they came beyond a bluff of birches and in sight of Crisp’s homestead, lying in the midst of its blossoming orchards and far-stretching fields of green wheat.

“That rain last night has done a heap of good to the old man’s crops,” he remarked as he drew to a halt at the ford before crossing the swollen creek.

He was looking down at the moist ground of the sloping bank, where there were the impressions of a man’s boots.

“I suppose you’re thinking that Charlie must have got a wetting, wading across here on foot?” said Percy.

“No. I was thinking of the man who crossed a few hours in advance of him on horseback,” returned Silk. “He appears to have been in something of a hurry, by the look of those hoof-marks. Be careful in the middle of the stream. Follow my lead.”

At the farther side of the creek he dismounted, giving his bridle to Percy to hold.

Percy watched him as he strode away in the direction of a clump of dwarf oaks, pausing now and again to examine the ground. He went in among the trees and was out of sight for several minutes, and when again he appeared he was walking along the cart track by the edge of Crisp’s orchard. Percy joined him with their two horses.

“What’s that you’ve got in your hand?” he inquired, as the sergeant raised his foot to the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle.

“Looks like some fellow’s cloth cap,” said Silk, holding the thing suspended between a finger and thumb. “I found it over there, hanging from a tree branch. I guess the owner lost it while he was making his way through the bush. He couldn’t find it, anyhow, for all his searching and groping about the ground.”

“Do you mean he was blind?” Percy exclaimed.

“Blind? No!” Silk smiled. “I mean he lost it–had it brushed off his head–when it was dark night. If it had been daylight, he’d have seen it dangling from the twig that caught it as he passed.”

“And why have you brought it away with you?” Percy was curious to know. “It doesn’t look worth restoring to its owner. I should have let it hang.”

“I suppose you would,” nodded Silk. “But although it’s only a worn-out cloth cap, heavy with rain, I’m interested in it–very much interested. I’ve learnt a lot about its owner already.”

“I don’t see how,” said Percy. “What do you know about him, anyhow?”

Sergeant Silk thrust the cap under his arm and took the rein in his fingers.

“Not more than you could have found out yourself,” he answered. “I followed his trail and discovered that he’d left his pony hitched to a tree, back of the bluff there, while he went on foot through the orchard towards Crisp’s homestead, coming back the same way. It was when he was returning that he lost his cap; and, not finding it, he mounted and rode away. He’s a tall man. He has coarse red hair, and he has lost the forefinger of his left hand.”

Percy stared at his companion in surprise.

“Did you discover all that in the few minutes you’ve been prowling over there in the bush?” he asked.

“Why, cert’nly,” Silk intimated, touching his broncho’s flank with his heel.

“How do you know he is tall?” Percy interrogated.

“Simply because the branch that swept off his cap was high–on a level with my own head.”

“How about the colour of his hair?”