"You are friendly with the other members of the family?""Yes, sir; though I hardly think Mrs. Cameron likes me. She thinks her husband favors me above his own sons.""Then she would not be apt to believe you innocent of this crime if the police should arrest you? She would not come to your assistance?""With Mr. Cameron unconscious and likely to die--no, sir.""There was silence for a moment, and then Fremont asked:
"Do you think they will lock me up, sir?"
"The police will want to do something at once," was the reply. "They like to make a flash, as the boys say on the Bowery.""Suppose I send for a man high in authority, here now, and tell him the truth?" suggested Fremont. "Wouldn't I stand a better show than if the matter passed through the hands of some ambitious detective?""They are all ambitious," was the non-committal reply.
"You keep the whole matter out of the hands of the cops until you know just what you want to do," advised Jimmie. "I don't like the cops.
They pinched me once for shootin' craps."
After further talk, Fremont decided to leave the course to be taken entirely to his new friends, and that point was considered closed.
Then Nestor turned to another phase of the matter. Mr. Cameron needed immediate attention, but the office must be looked over before others were called in, so he set about it, Fremont and Jimmie looking on in wonder.
First Nestor went to the door opening into the corridor and examined every inch of the floor and rug until he came to the front of the safe.
Then he went through the big desk, carefully, and patiently. Three or four times the boys saw him lift something from the floor, or from the desk, and place it in a pocket. He spent a long time over a packet of papers which he took from a drawer of the desk.
One of the papers he copied while the boys looked on, wondering what he was about, and from another he cut a corner. This scrap he wrapped in clean paper and placed in his pocketbook. During part of the time spent in the investigation Fremont sat by the side of the unconscious man in the north room.
"Now, asked Nestor, presently, "do you know what business brought Mr.
Cameron to his office to-night?"
"Yes; he was closing up the Tolford estate."
"He asked you to come and go home with him?"
"That is the fact, but how did you know it?"
"Because he was timid about being here alone?" asked Nestor, ignoring the question.
"Yes, I think so. He was always nervous when dealing with the Tolford heirs. I believe they threatened him. He brought his gun with him to-night. You will find it in a drawer of the desk if the assassin did not take it.""Where were the Tolford papers usually kept?""At the deposit vaults. I brought them over this afternoon.""See if you can find them now."
Fremont went to the safe and then to the desk, from which he took the packet of papers he had previously seen Nestor examining. It was a sheet from this packet that the Wolf Patrol leader had copied. He passed the large envelope containing the papers over to the other.
"What occurred when these papers were last left in this office over night?" Nestor asked, and Fremont, a sudden recollection stirred by the question, replied that there had been an attempt at burglary the last time the Tolford estate papers were left there at night.
Nestor smiled at the startled face of the boy as he related the occurrence, but made no comment. He was examining a bundle of letters at the time, and ended by putting them into a pocket as if to carry them away with him.
"They concern a proposed transaction in firearms and ammunition,"the patrol leader said, in answer to Fremont's inquiring look.
"Now, it appears to me," Nestor said, after concluding his examination of the suite, "that you ought to keep out of the hands of the police until this affair can be thoroughly looked into. Nothing can prevent your arrest if you remain here. What about the proposed Black Bear Patrol trip down the Rio Grande and over into Mexico?""I wouldn't like to run away," Fremont replied. "That would show guilt and cowardice. I'd much rather remain here and take what comes.""If you are arrested," the patrol leader went on, "the police, instead of doing honest work in unraveling the mystery, will bend every effort to convict you. They will not consider any theory other than your guilt.
Every scrap of evidence will be twisted and turned into proof against you, and in the meantime the real criminal may escape. It is a way the police have.""It seems like a confession of guilt to run away," Fremont said.
"Another thing," Nestor went on, "is this. I have made a discovery here--a very startling discovery--which points to Mexico as my field of operations. I cannot tell you now anything more about this discovery, except that it is a most important one. I might hide you away in New York where the police would never find you, but you would enjoy the trip to Mexico, and I want you with me.""Mexico!" cried Jimmie. "I'll go with you, Mr. Nestor. A houseboat on the Rio Grande. Well!""Have you money enough for the trip?" asked Nestor of Fremont, not replying to the generous offer of the boy.
"I have about $300 which Mr. Cameron gave me yesterday for my Spring outfit," was the reply. "He was very generous with me.""That will pay the bills until I can get some money," Nestor said, "so we may as well consider the matter settled. This business I am going to Mexico on will pay me well, and I will share the expense of the trip with you.""Not if you go to protect me," Fremont replied.
"Not entirely to protect you," Nestor answered, "although I believe that the solution to this mystery will be found on the other side of, the Rio Grande.""It seems strange that the Rio Grande should mix in every situation which confronts me to-night," Fremont said. "What can the affairs of turbulent Mexico have to do with the cowardly crime which has been committed here to-night?"
