CHAPTER 23 ESCAPE BY NIGHT

Fearful for Salt, Penny and her father ran down the tracks toward the railroad trestle. Scrambling and sliding down the slippery embankment, they saw Salt lying in a heap near the edge of the creek.

Webb, his ankle injured, was trying to hobble toward a corn field just beyond the railroad right of way.

“Get him! Don’t let him escape!” Salt cried, raising himself to his knees.

Although alarmed for the photographer who appeared to have been injured by his leap, Penny and her father pursued Webb. Handicapped as he was with an injured ankle, they overtook him by the barbed wire fence.

Already badly battered from the fight, and bruised as a result of his fall from the train, the man put up only a brief struggle as Mr. Parker pinned him to the ground.

“Quick!” the publisher directed Penny. “See what you can do for Salt. He may be badly injured.”

The photographer, however, had struggled to his feet. He stood unsteadily, staring down at his torn clothing.

“Are you all right?” Penny asked anxiously, running to his side.

“Yes, I’m okay,” he said, gingerly touching a bruised jaw. “Boy! Is that lad a scrapper? Did you see me push him out of the boxcar?”

“We certainly did, and we were frightened half to death! We thought you would be killed.”

Hobbling over to the fence, Salt confronted his assailant. Webb’s face was a sorry sight. His nose was crimson, both eyes were blackened and his lip was bleeding.

“You may as well come along without making any more trouble,” Mr. Parker told him grimly. “Professor Bettenridge has been taken into custody, and the entire fraud has been exposed.”

“I figured that out when I heard the mine go off,” the man returned sullenly. “Okay, you got me, but I was only carrying out orders. I worked for Professor Bettenridge, but any deals he made were his business, not mine.”

“That remains to be seen,” replied Mr. Parker. “We’ll let you talk to the sheriff. Move along, and no monkey business.”

Having no weapon, Salt and the publisher walked on either side of the prisoner, while Penny brought up the rear.

“You don’t need to hang onto me,” he complained bitterly. “I ain’t going to try to escape.”

“We’re sure you won’t,” returned Salt, “because we’ll be watching you every step of the way.”

At first, as the four tramped down the tracks toward the station, the prisoner showed no disposition to talk. But gradually his curiosity gained the better of him. He sought information about Professor Bettenridge’s arrest, and then tried to build up a story that would convince his captors he had only been an employee hired on a weekly basis.

“I suppose you know nothing about the Snark either,” Penny observed bitterly. “After Ben Bartell and I pulled you out of the river, you repaid us by stealing his watch.”

To her astonishment, the man reached in his pocket and gave her the timepiece.

“Here,” he said gruffly, “give it back to him. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

“Why did you take the watch when it didn’t belong to you?” Penny pursued the subject. “Especially after Ben risked his life to pull you out of the river.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the man answered impatiently. “I needed a watch, so I took it. Quit askin’ so many questions.”

“Why were you pushed off the Snark?” Penny demanded, refusing to abandon the subject.

She did not expect Webb to answer the question as he had refused to explain at the time of his rescue. To her surprise, he replied grimly:

“They tried to get rid of me. We had a disagreement over a job they wanted me to pull.”

“What job was that?” Mr. Parker interposed.

“Dynamiting the Conway Steel Plant.”

The words produced a powerful effect upon the publisher, Salt, and Penny. At their stunned silence, Webb added hastily:

“You understand, I didn’t do it. They got sore because I refused to pull the job.”

“Why, that doesn’t make sense,” Penny protested. “Evidently, you are mixed up on your dates, because the Conway Plant explosion took place before the night we rescued you from the water.”

“Sure, I know,” the man muttered, trying to cover his slip of tongue. “They were afraid I’d squawk to the police and that was why they pitched me overboard.”

“Who pulled the job?” Salt asked.

“I don’t know. Someone was hired to set off the explosion.”

Webb’s story was accepted but not believed. Penny knew from previous experience that the man was more inclined to tell a lie than the truth. Convinced that he might have been implicated in the explosion, she suddenly recalled his visit to the office of Jason Cordell. Could his call there have any hidden significance?

“You’re a friend of Mr. Cordell’s, aren’t you?” she inquired abruptly.

The question caught Webb off guard. He gave her a quick look but answered in an indifferent way: “Never heard of him.”

“I’m certain I saw you in his office,” Penny insisted.

Realizing that his loose talk was building up trouble for himself, Webb would say no more. At the sheriff’s office, he repeated practically the same story, insisting that he had been hired by Professor Bettenridge on a wage basis, and that he was in no way implicated in the plot to defraud Mr. Johnson.

“Your story doesn’t hang together,” Mr. Parker said severely. “Naturally you knew that the professor’s machine was worthless?”

“Not at first,” Webb whined. “He only told me he wanted a mine exploded at a certain time. It was only by chance that I learned he intended to cheat Mr. Johnson.”

“Considering the conversations I overheard between you and the professor, that is a little hard to believe,” Penny contributed.

“It might go a little easier with you, if you come through with the truth,” a deputy sheriff in charge of the office, added. “Anything you want to say before we lock you up?”

Webb hesitated a long while, and then in a subdued voice said: “Okay, I may as well tell you. Sure, I knew the professor and his wife were crooks. They offered me a split on the profits if Johnson bought the secret ray machine.”

“Where did you obtain your mines?” Salt asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” Webb answered, and for once spoke the truth. “Professor Bettenridge had a friend hooked up in a munitions plant who supplied him with a few which were defective.”

“Now tell us the truth about the Snark,” Penny insisted. “You said those men were mixed up in the dynamiting of the Conway Steel Plant. Was that one of the professor’s jobs?”

“No, he had nothing to do with it.”

“His car was in the vicinity of the plant on the night of the explosion.”

“It was just accident then,” Webb maintained. “He had nothing to do with it.”

“Then you do know the persons involved?”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” Webb said sullenly. “Why not go to the Snark and get information first hand if you want it.”

It was evident the man would reveal no more, so the deputy sheriff locked him up. Within a few minutes Professor Bettenridge and his wife were brought in, and although they indignantly demanded release, they too were placed in jail cells.

Mr. Johnson who had accompanied Major Bryan to the sheriff’s office, seemed rather stunned by the events which had transpired. He shook Penny’s hand and could not praise her enough for exposing the professor’s trickery.

“What a fool I was,” he acknowledged. “His smooth talk hypnotized me. Why, I might have paid a large sum of money to him, if it hadn’t been for you. Now I shall prosecute charges vigorously.”

The wealthy man tried to press money upon both Penny and Salt, who smilingly refused to accept it. They assured him that knowing the professor’s trick had failed was ample reward.

By the time Penny, her father and Salt finally reached the Parker home it was nearly midnight. Somewhat to their surprise, Mrs. Weems was still waiting up.

“I’m so glad you came!” she exclaimed, before they could explain what had happened. “Nearly an hour ago someone telephoned, asking for Penny. I think the message may be important.”

“Who was it?” Penny asked.

“A man named Edward McClusky.”

“The river diver!” Penny exclaimed. “What did he want, Mrs. Weems?”

“At first he wouldn’t tell me, saying he had to talk to you personally. However, I finally persuaded him to trust me with the message. He said: ‘Tell Miss Parker that her friend Ben Bartell went aboard the Snark last night and hasn’t been seen since.’”