CHAPTER X
THE CHASE FOR THE STAR
Meanwhile, how had it been faring with Billy Faraday and Egbert Patch. It will be remembered that they left by bike on the afternoon following the departure of the hawker, so that that person had a twenty-four hours' start on them. Not that that mattered very much. The big machine could cut down that discrepancy with ease. The only problem left unsettled was the question of whether or not they would be able to find the purchaser of the precious coat.
Through the night they sped for two or three hours, and at length came storming into Rimvale, a small town of some importance in the coastal district.
Here they put up for the night; and, early next morning searched for news of the hawker. Fortunately, they had not far to seek. An old man, who had purchased some articles from the itinerant vendor, informed them that the person they sought had left the town on the previous night.
"This is alarmingly easy!" grinned Patch, leaping into the saddle as the big machine moved off. Billy followed suit, landing on the carrier; and they were off once more.
Through the long, dusty miles Egbert set his machine positively roaring, and the distances were eaten up in fine style. To such good effect did they travel that inside three hours they came up with the hawker's covered cart, and asked him to pull up.
"What the matter?" he asked, leaning down on them from his perch like a strange bird.
"You must excuse us, Mucilage," said Egbert Patch. "That is your name, isn't it? But the fact is, old coffee-bean, you bought a coat back at Deepwater College in error, and we want it back."
"What do you mean? I paid for it."
"Quite so, my dear Tupentine; quite so. You see, a chap sold you a coat belonging to this fellow here, in mistake for one of his own, and we want to buy it back. See!" And as a token of good faith, he showed a hand filled with silver.
The Indian wrinkled up his brows in a puzzled fashion, and then began to rummage in his goods without another word. At length he turned to the expectant pair and eyed them keenly.
"You mean a brown jacket?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," said Billy, impatiently. "You've got it there, have you? Bring it out, and I'll give you ten bob for it."
The Indian shook his head gravely, and calmly repacked his bundles.
"I can't do anything, sir," he said at length. "The coat is sold."
"Sold!"
The other nodded, and went on to explain in his slow, but intelligible English. It appeared that a man had bought the coat in Rimvale for six shillings. The Indian made a small song about the fact that he had been unable to get six-and-six for it. At all events, he did not know who the man was. That he was young, and that he was evidently a native of Rimvale, he was able to state. Beyond that, he knew nothing.
"Thanks," said Billy in a low voice, turning away. It seemed that he was pursued by the worst of bad luck. How on earth were they to discover the owner of the coat, now? It might be that the Indian was not telling the truth. Billy was ready to imagine that he had observed a gleam of avarice in the fellow's eye. Of course he had not been deceived; he knew that there must be something unusual about the coat. And perhaps he had lied....
Billy groaned. "Rimvale's the only place," he said, and, mounting behind Egbert Patch, he sped off back along the path to the little fishing town.
Arrived there, they stowed their machine in the local garage, and set out on a feverish errand of investigation. But they knew that it was pretty hopeless.
"How on earth can we be successful?" Billy repeated to himself again and again, and as the morning wore away his hopes sank lower and lower.
All at once he gave a great cry, caught Patch by the arm, and pointed.
"Look there!" he said hoarsely. "That fellow's wearing the jacket!"
"The Dickens he is!" replied Patch, staring at a tall, rather bullying youngster who looked as if he might be a butcher's boy. In another moment the inventor's brother had started forward and called out to the wearer of the missing coat.
"Wait a moment! Hi!" he said.
The red-faced youngster turned and eyed them with obvious disfavour. "What do you want?" he demanded. "Who are you?"
"I'm the man who put the salt in the sea," said Patch gravely, "and my friend here's the man who's going to take it out. Twig? Look here, old man, that's a nice coat you're wearing."
"Oh, go and play!" grunted the other, turning away sullenly. "What's the game, anyhow?"
"I've taken a fancy to that coat, that's all. It used to belong to my mate here, the man who rode the bull through Wagga. But another chappie mistook it for one of his, and sold it to a nigger named Mucilage, who in turn sold it to you—for six bob."
"I see—and you want it back, hey? Well, it happens I've got to like this coat, and I don't want to part with it, see?"
Billy not only did see this particular point, but saw also that he was up against a pretty shrewd bargainer, who was ready to turn their own eagerness for the jacket into ready cash. He was too anxious, however, to bluff.
"Look here," he broke in, "I'll give you ten bob for the coat, and fix everything up. No fuss—give me the coat, and this half-note will be yours."
The red-faced boy's little eyes gleamed. "Ten bob—ten bob for a coat I've taken a fancy to," he murmured. "Look here, mate, I can't part with the coat—not under a quid. It's a good coat."
"It's certainly a good coat, but—" Patch was dubious.
"Well, then," said Billy desperately, "I'll make it a quid, just to please you. There you are—a pound note—and now, the coat."
"Hold hard, hold hard." The country boy's interest had been roused by this reckless bidding for the old jacket, which was scarcely worth a third of the money Billy Faraday now flashed before his eyes. What was wrong with the coat, he asked himself; or, rather, what was right with it? "No, I don't think I'll sell," went on the yokel shrewdly, "until I've had a good look over it."
"Until you've what?" asked the horrified Billy.
The other noted his emotion and slowly winked one eye. "Until I've looked over it," he repeated cunningly. "You never know. What if there's a five-pound note sewn up in the lining?"
"A five-pound note?" gasped Billy weakly.
"I'm going to have a look," said the rustic, taking off the jacket and fumbling it between his fingers. "Why," he yelled, suddenly, "what's this here?"
Billy's heart sank into his boots as the red-faced country youth, with a grin of the most horrible triumph, rubbed between his fingers the slight lump under the coat-cloth that indicated where the Black Star had been so carefully hidden.
"There's something here, right enough," he said, cheerfully, "and we'll have it out in a jiffey. When I've seen what it is, then you can buy the coat—perhaps."
And he began to open a very efficient-looking clasp-knife. But at that, all Billy had gone through to recover the coat came up in his mind, and a wave of fury swept over him that he should be thus baulked at the last moment.
Uttering an inarticulate cry, he dashed forward, snatched the jacket out of the other's hands, and took to his heels, with Egbert merely a pace or two in his rear. The yokel stood dumbfounded for an instant, and then roared out at the top pitch of his voice, "Stop thief! Stop thief!"
The quiet, respectable little town of Rimvale witnessed the most astounding of chases along its sleepy main street. First came Billy and Patch, running their hardest for the garage and the big cycle, and after them tore the outraged country lad, yelling in a voice that would have roused the envy of any Indian chief of the prairies.
The country boy continued to yell, "Thi—eeves!" lustily as he rushed after the two boys.
The solitary policeman that the town boasted, aroused by the uproar, left the veranda of the country hotel, and stepped into the glare of the noonday sun.
"Hey! What's the trouble?" he asked, in the voice of one bent on smoothing troubled waters.
"Sto-oo-op thi-eef!" came the stentorian shout of that amazing vocalist, the robbed boy. "Stop them two thieves!"
Billy Faraday took a swift survey of the situation. It would not do, he decided, to run into the arms of the policeman, who did not look formidable, but who might cause a deal of bother.
"This way!" he yelled, breaking off at right angles, and darting down a narrow laneway, between two paling fences. But Billy had made, for once, an error of judgment. The fences abutted on a brick wall of some height, and the lane was, consequently, a blind alley.
"We're diddled—dished," gasped Egbert Patch.
"Not a bit," said Billy, pausing for six precious seconds, while, with his knife, he ripped the Star from its place of concealment, and slipped it into the pocket of his waistcoat. "Not a bit," he repeated, throwing the coat towards the pursuers, who were already at the mouth of the alley. "Come on!"
With an agile spring he vaulted over the paling fence and landed in the garden beyond. Patch followed, and the cries of the pursuers changed abruptly from triumph to chagrin. Billy found himself confronting an enormous man in a blue shirt, who seemed annoyed that the boy had landed full in the centre of a bed of prize cauliflowers.
"'Ere!" this worthy bellowed. "Oo are you?"
"The King of Sweden!" answered Patch grandly. "My card!" He made a move as if to hand the astonished fellow something, and before that person could realize what was happening, he had received a hard dig in what boxers call the "mark." He gasped, and sat down with the giant collapse of a pricked balloon.
Laughing, the two fugitives fled on, for the red-faced youth was leading the pursuit over the fence, and it was risky to linger. Over two more fences they hurried, and then found themselves confronted with an impasse.
This was a stone wall over which it was impossible to scramble. They therefore cut away towards the right again, making back towards the street. They were in the yard of a baker, as it happened, and they went full speed for the street that meant liberty. Rounding the corner, with pursuit perilously close, Patch had a sudden inspiration. He pulled open a wide door, had a swift glimpse of a bakery and a couple of white-clad forms, and then slammed it as hard as he could.
He and Billy remained outside, of course, and ducked into the friendly shelter of a pile of timber, just as the robbed boy, doubly red-faced now with his exertions, and the policeman, and a couple of others dashed up with the impetus of a fleet of fire-engines.
"In here—heard them slam the door!" gasped the rustic triumphantly.
"We've got 'em," said the constable, breathing hard. He flung open the door, and an angry white figure darted out fairly into his arms. It was the baker himself, who had been hurrying to catch the "impudent rascal" who had slammed the door; and, as it happened, his exit had coincided with the constable's entrance.
For a moment they struggled blindly, the baker dabbling his floury hands over the other's tunic with a fine eye for effect.
"Leggo!" panted the angry constable. "No use strug—whup!"
"Scoundrel!" roared the baker, who was enormously fat and red, and who was no mean hand at wrestling. "Whaddeyer mean by this—ur."
They fell over on the ground, rolling, gasping, and wheezing, like two great porpoises entangled with seaweed. Billy and Patch were helpless with suppressed laughter, as the two big men ramped and roared on the ground ludicrously. But in time their excitement cooled sufficiently to permit of recognition, and they fell back, seated on the ground, staring at one another amazedly.
"Why, it's old Jim!" said the baker.
"Course it is, you fathead! What the dickens do you mean?"
"Mean?" repeated the baker. "I like that! It's you that ought to say what you mean! Are you drunk?"
"Drunk? Me? Why?"
"Why, coming and playing fool tricks on my door—"
"Who's doing that? All I was after was two fellows funning—no, two fellows rulling!" The constable's tongue had become a trifle twisted, and he sought to make amends by shouting at the top of his voice.
"I mean," he roared, "you've got two hokes bliding—no, no!—they cinched a poat, I mean! Dash it, they dot in this gore—!"
"You are drunk," said the baker, judicially. "Very drunk," he added, as an afterthought.
"Never dinn before drinker—I mean, dink before drinner—no!" yelled the constable at the loudest tone he could raise, becoming more and more excited and inarticulate as he went on. "No, I don't mean that! What I mean is, two geeves thot away—they—hurry up!—colted with a boat!"
"A boat?" the baker asked. "Are you mad, Jim, or only—"
"Quick!" yelled the constable, threshing the air with his arms, and dancing first on one foot and then on the other. "Two fung yellows—!" This was as far as he could get, and he remained speechless, his eyes protruding from his head, his tongue tied in a furious knot.
"Oh, my only grandfather!" murmured Billy weakly, almost helpless from his restrained laughter.
There is no saying what might not have happened but for the intervention of the red-faced boy, who blurted out his story, and demanded the opening of the door.
"Oh!" said the baker, comprehension dawning on him at last. "But they didn't come in here, mate—they just slammed the door, and then bolted. That's why I thought it was Bill, here, playing jokes on me, and—"
But the red-faced youngster had turned and gazed about him, and the concealment afforded by the wood-pile proved inadequate, for he uttered a yell and his sharp little eyes gleamed. "Here!" he roared. "I see 'em. Come on!"
Billy and Patch had profited by their rest, and were away with the speed of the wind. The others gave instant chase, even the baker joining in. The fugitives realized that it would be a bad move to rush out into the open street, and they doubled on their tracks again, and darted into a grocery store, where they were met at the door by the grocer, in grimy white apron, who had not been favourably impressed by the manner of their entry.
"Ha!" he said. "What do you want?"
"A pound of hoo-jah!" said Patch promptly.
"What?" demanded the grocer in astonishment.
"Some gubbins," added Patch.
"Some—some—"
"Don't you sell it? A pound of doo-hickey."
"Here—" began the grocer.
"What I really want," said Patch calmly, "is an egg. Have you one? I'd like one called Percival, please, about fourteen hands high, and not too frisky. Ah, the very thing!"
He selected a couple of eggs from an open box on the counter, while the grocer looked on open-mouthed. He was quite convinced that he was being visited by a couple of lunatics, and he was doubly sure when he saw Patch turn to the doorway and let the red-faced youth have an egg fairly in the eye.
The pursuit had been somewhat tardy in discovering where the escapees had gone, and it was now arrested by the bombardment that Patch opened with the eggs. The baker, panting with open mouth, received a missile directly upon the teeth. The egg burst, and he found himself swallowing a mass of yolk and shattered shell. The constable had to wipe away a sticky mess before he could see; and the red-faced boy, blinded by the first egg, had collided with a pile of jam-tins, which descended joyfully upon his head as he lay sprawling.
"Thanks for the eggs," murmured Patch, pressing two florins into the grocer's palm. "Is there a back exit? Lead on, Macduffer."
And he bolted for the rear of the shop, closely followed by Billy. They had been working their way towards the garage, and it was only a stone's throw to the bicycle.
Hastily throwing his levers into position, Patch trundled the big Indian a few yards; and, as the engine began to fire, leapt on board, followed in a moment by the ever-ready Billy. They stormed out of the little village of Rimvale, leaving a trail of blue exhaust-smoke and more than one angry person.
"Quick work, quick work!" said Patch. "That's the life, isn't it? As I said, when I gave up the job of carrying the red flag in front of a steam roller, 'The excitement's killing me.' But we got the merry old Star, and that's the main thing!"
"Jingo, but I'm obliged to you," said Billy gratefully. "I don't know what I should have done without you and the old bike! And that's a fact."
"Don't apologize," returned Patch cheerily. "We'll be back about five—that is, if the idiot policeman doesn't take it into his head to ring up and send a posse of constabulary on our track. I wonder how your mates have been doing back at Deepwater? Trust that brainy young brother of mine to concoct something ingenious to account for your absence! Wonder how he did it?"
That question was soon to be answered, when they arrived back at the College, and Billy was able to question the others as to what had transpired during his absence. He was vastly amused at the account of how he had been impersonated in the classroom.
He roared with laughter over the events narrated, and appeared a different fellow altogether now that the Black Star was once again in his keeping.
"What about hiding the Star this time?" said Jack.
"No Edgar Allan What's-this stunts," said Billy, grimly. "I'm going to put it under that loose flooring-board in the study. When the carpet's back in place no one could ever find it."
And that evening the Star was duly interred in its new hiding-place, the three study-mates standing round Billy Faraday as he replaced the board and the carpet, and left everything intact. "Let's hope it's safe this time," he breathed.
As the three boys returned from lunch next day, Jack opened the study door and fell back with an exclamation.
"Redisham!" he said.
"Yes, Redisham," said the owner of the name, in an obviously forced attempt to appear at ease. "What about it?"
The intruder was standing in the middle of the study, and it was evident that their entry had surprised him. But there was nothing to show that he had been up to any shady games. Jack closed the door. He had remembered that they had their suspicions of Monty Redisham, already—and it was not usual, at Deepwater, for visits to be paid to studies during the occupants' absence.
"What about it?" repeated Redisham, with a shade of defiance that showed that he knew he was suspected.
"Oh, nothing," said Jack carelessly. "What are you after?"
Redisham met his gaze squarely, and then glanced at Billy Faraday and Patch, who also were staring at him meaningly. He shifted from one foot to the other.
"I just came in to borrow a dicker," he explained.
"And that, I suppose," said Jack, "is why you shut the door?"
Redisham's lip curled. "I don't know what you are getting at, Symonds," he said. "It's true that the door blew to, in a gust of wind just now, but—"
The three pals looked at him queerly, and he resolved on a bold stroke. "Why, hang it," he said, taking the bull by the horns, "you look as if you thought—thought I was trying to pinch some of your mouldy traps!"
It was well done of Redisham. He met the charge before it was thrown at him. He experienced a distinct ascendancy.
"Oh, not at all," said Jack politely. "It looked queer for a moment that was all—the door shut, and all that. Of course," he went on, with elaborate irony, "if it had been somebody else, then—!"
Redisham flushed under the sarcasm, and sat down with an affectation of carelessness, showing his violent green socks as he pulled up his immaculate trouser-legs.
"I'm glad to hear it," he observed, his little eyes flashing. "How did the race go this afternoon?"
For a moment Jack did not reply, but eyed their visitor narrowly. He would have given a good deal to be in a position to search the pockets of the greasy, smiling senior. But there was nothing to go on—nothing at all. Politeness had to be preserved. He too, sat down. Billy and Septimus Patch did not move from the door.
"And how's your friend, Mr. Daw, progressing?" asked Jack casually.
Either Redisham was a good actor, or he was genuinely surprised by the question. "My aunt!" he exclaimed. "Who told you that he was a friend of mine?"
"I thought it was general knowledge," replied Jack. "We all heard that you considered him a little tin god, or something like that. I confess I could never have much respect for him—unless perhaps I was in his debt, or something—"
He paused, and shot a glance at Redisham to watch the effect of this loaded remark. But the senior took it very well indeed.
"General knowledge is wrong, then," he said blandly. "Daw may be all right—to those who know him, but I'm not one, or even likely to be. You don't mind if I go now?"
"Wouldn't you like to try a cup of brew?"
"Not this time, thanks. I'll bring this dicker back directly I've used it. Ta-ta." And he closed the door behind him. Billy spoke impulsively.
"Well, that's fishy if you like! Wonder whether the brute found anything? Perhaps it's better to have a look."
He rolled back the carpet, and lifted the loose board. For a moment he lay face down with his arm fumbling in the cavity. Then he rolled over and sat up, his face gone suddenly white.
"Jiminy!" he gasped. "The thing's not there!"