Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Seventy-Five
I looked about for a means of
crossing the river. There were no small boats available, and the only person who
stood on the opposite shore was Jack Bancroft. The other reporters and
photographers, evidently tiring of their long vigil, had gone away.
I cupped my hands and shouted to
Jack: “How am I going to get over there? Can you lower the bridge?”
“The mechanism is locked,” Jack
called back. “And the watchman won’t be back for an hour.”
I walked a short distance up the
shore searching for a boat. The only available craft was the large launch,
which I could not hope to operate. I might return to the house and appeal to
Miss Furstenberg, but such a course was not to my liking.
As I considered whether or not to
ruin my clothing by swimming across, Jack called my attention to a small boat
some distance up the river. The boy who was fishing from it obligingly rowed
ashore after I waved him in.
“I’ll give you a quarter to ferry
me across,” I offered.
“I’ll be glad to do it.”
I stepped into the boat and then
asked: “Aren’t you the same lad I saw here yesterday?”
The boy nodded as he reached for
the oars.
“I remember you,” he answered.
“You fish here nearly every day.”
“Just about. I caught some nice
ones today.”
Proudly, he held up two large
fish for me to see.
“Beauties,” I said. “I take it
the motorboats haven’t been bothering you as much as they were.”
“It’s been pretty quiet on the
river today. Want to see something else I fished up?”
“Of course. What did you hook? A
mud turtle?”
The boy opened a large wooden box
which contained an assortment of rope, fishing tackle, and miscellaneous
articles. He lifted out a man’s high silk hat, bedraggled and shapeless.
“You fished that out of the
water?” I said, leaning forward to take the hat from him. “Where did you find
it?”
“Up there a ways.”
The boy motioned vaguely toward
the Furstenberg estate.
I turned the hat over in my
hands, examining it closely. I found no identifying marks, yet I thought it
could have belonged to Thomas Atwood, for he had worn a hat resembling it on
the day of the wedding. The point indicated by the boy was not far distant from
the Furstenberg lily pool.
“How would you like to sell this
hat?” I asked.
“It’s not worth anything.”
“I’d like to have it,” I said.
“I’ll give you another twenty-five cents.”
“It’s a deal.”
I offered the boy a fifty-cent
piece, and a moment later he beached the boat. Jack was waiting to help me
ashore. He looked at the hat which I hugged close but didn’t say anything about
it in the presence of the boy.
“Son, how would you like to earn
three dollars?” Jack asked the boy.
The boy’s eyes brightened.
“Say, this is my lucky day!” he
exclaimed. “What doin’?”
“It’s easy,” Jack told him. “All
you need to do is to be here for a couple of days with your boat. You’re not to
allow anyone to use it except me.”
“And me,” I added. “I’ll need
taxi service myself if I come back here.”
“That’s all right,” agreed the
boy.
“Here’s a dollar on deposit,”
Jack said. “Now remember, be here tomorrow from eight o’clock on, and don’t
hire out to any other person.”
“I won’t,” the boy promised.
Jack took my elbow and escorted
me to the press car.
“So, you found Atwood’s hat?” he
said.
“It resembles the one he wore.
The boy fished it out of the river.”
“Then that looks as if the fellow
was the victim of a plot!”
“I’ve thought so all along,” I said.
“What else did you learn? You
seemed to be very chummy with Miss Furstenberg.”
“I’ll not be from now on. I
rather overstepped myself this time.”
As Jack backed the car around in
the dusty road, I told him all about my meeting with Cybil Furstenberg.
“So Miss Furstenberg doesn’t like
questions? And she refuses to notify the police? Well, after we publish our
story in the Examiner, it won’t
be necessary. The police will come to do their own investigating.”
“I can’t believe she is trying to
deceive the authorities,” I said. “She seems to have a sincere affection for
Thomas Atwood.”
“It may be pretense.”
“She wasn’t pretending the day of
the wedding. Atwood’s disappearance was a great shock to her.”
“Well, even so, she may know a
lot more than she’s letting on.”
“I think that myself. She closed
up like a clam when I talked about her father.”
The car came to the main road and
a short time later entered the town of Sunnydale. As we stopped for a red
light, I touched Jack’s arm.
“Look over there. See those two
men standing in front of the drugstore?”
“What about them?” Jack asked.
“They’re G men who attended the
Furstenberg wedding. Shep pointed them out to me.”
“You don’t say! Maybe we can learn a fact or two from them.”
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