“What’s going on over there?” said Frank suddenly. “There’s a state trooper and three men over in that farmyard.”
“And a big car, too,” said Chet.
“Why, I know this place,” Joe declared. “This is Dodd’s farm.”
“Not Jack Dodd? The chap who goes to Bayport High.”
“Sure. This is where he lives. I remember the place was pointed out to me once.”
“I knew Jack Dodd lived on a farm but I didn’t know it was this far out,” said Chet. “Let’s drop in and see what’s up.”
With Frank in the lead the three boys turned down the lane leading in to the Dodd place.
“I wonder what that trooper is here for,” he said. “They all seem to be having an argument over something.”
“Perhaps the trooper met the auto thieves!” conjectured Chet.
When they drove into the barnyard they saw a boy running toward them and they recognized him as Jack Dodd, a quiet, likable lad who was in their class at the Bayport high school.
“Hello, fellows!” he called to them, but they saw that there was a worried expression on his face. “What brings you away out here today?”
“Hunting trip,” said Chet, with a curious glance toward the state trooper, who was standing over by the fence with Mr. Dodd and two burly strangers. Their voices were raised in a loud argument, in which Mr. Dodd appeared to be opposed to the others.
“Hunting trip?”
“Hunting for auto thieves,” Frank explained. “Isaac Fussy’s car was stolen a little while ago. When we saw that trooper here we had an idea that perhaps he might know something about it.”
“What’s that?” shouted the trooper, a broad-shouldered young chap. “A car stolen?”
“Yes, sir. We were chasing it. A big Cadillac.”
“Didn’t see it,” replied the trooper. “It didn’t pass this way, I’m sure of that. We’ve just found one stolen car, anyway.”
“I tell you I didn’t steal it!” declared Mr. Dodd heatedly. “I haven’t the least idea how that car got there.”
“That’s all right,” interposed one of the other men gruffly. “You can tell that to the judge. The fact is, we’ve found the car behind your barn and it’s one of the cars that were stolen in the past couple of weeks.”
The chums glanced questioningly at Jack Dodd.
“These men are detectives,” he said, in a low voice. “They came out from the city with the trooper a little while ago.”
“Did they really find a stolen car here?” asked Chet.
Jack nodded.
“They found one all right, but how on earth it got here, I don’t know. It’s a Packard and somebody must have driven it in and left it among the bushes behind the barn. We never noticed it.”
“Well,” the state trooper was saying, “I’m going to drive the car back to Bayport and return it to the owner. You don’t claim it’s yours, do you?” He gestured toward a splendid touring car near by.
“Of course it isn’t mine,” said Mr. Dodd. “I’ve never seen it before and I never want to see it again—”
“I guess you don’t,” growled one of the detectives.
“How it got here, I can’t tell. I certainly had nothing to do with stealing it.”
“People don’t leave perfectly good cars hidden behind other people’s barns,” said the other detective. “You’d better tell us a straight story, Dodd. It’ll be easier for you.”
“I’ve told you all I know about it.”
“Well, then, if you don’t know any more about it, perhaps your son does.”
“I don’t know any more than Dad,” declared Jack stoutly. “I’ve never seen the car before.”
“Never?”
“No.”
One of the detectives stepped swiftly over to the automobile and produced an object from the back seat. He held it out toward the boy.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Jack gasped.
“My fishing rod!”
“It’s yours, is it? How did it get there if you’ve never seen the car before?”
III
Under Suspicion
For a moment after the detective’s question there was dead silence. Jack Dodd stared at the fishing rod as though stupefied. Then, mechanically, he took it in his hands.
“Yes, it’s mine, all right,” he admitted. “I lost it.”
“Oh, you lost it, did you?” said the detective unpleasantly. “That’s very likely. You lost it in that car.”
“I didn’t! I’ve never seen the car. I left my fishing rod out by the front fence about a week ago and when I came to look for it the rod was gone.”
The other detective snickered incredulously.
“It’s true,” protested Mr. Dodd. “Jack told me at the time that he had lost his rod.”
“You’d back him up, of course. But that story won’t go down. If he never saw the car before, how does his fishing rod happen to be in it?”
Jack and his father looked blankly at one another. Clearly, they were utterly astounded by this unexpected development, and at a loss to account for it.
“I think this pretty well clinches it,” declared the trooper. “The rod couldn’t have got there unless the boy was in the car—that’s certain.”
“But I wasn’t in the car. I lost the rod a week ago.”
“You’d say that, anyway,” declared one of the detectives roughly. “Bring the car back to town, Jim.” He turned to Mr. Dodd. “This isn’t the end of the matter. There’s not much doubt in my mind that you and your boy took that car. You certainly haven’t been able to give us much of an explanation of how it came to be on your property, and the boy has told a pretty thin story to explain away that fishing rod.”
“You’re not going to arrest me!” exclaimed Mr. Dodd.
“No,” said the detective reluctantly. “You don’t have to come back with us. I guess you won’t go very far away. But we’re going to lay charges against you and your son.”
“For what?”
“For stealing that car. What else do you think? And we’re going to do a little more investigating about those other cars that were stolen, too.”
Mr. Dodd said nothing. He realized the futility of objection. Nothing he might say would swerve the detectives from their determination to charge
