When the boys went into his office they found the chief painfully writing in a huge notebook and confronted by three excited figures. One of these was Ike Harrity, the old ticket seller at the city steamboat office. The others were Detective Smuff, of the police force, and Policeman Con Riley, both trying their best to look important and composed.
Ike Harrity was frankly frightened. It was plain that something very much out of the ordinary had happened. Harrity was a timid and inoffensive old chap who had perched on a high stool behind the wicket at the steamboat office day in and day out for as many years as anyone in Bayport could remember.
“I was just countin’ up the mornin’s receipts,” he was saying, in a frightened and high-pitched voice, “when in comes this fellow and he sticks a revolver in front of my nose—”
“Just a minute,” interrupted the chief grandly, as the boys entered. He dipped his pen in the inkwell and poised it in the air, as he peered at the lads over his spectacles.
“What are you boys doing here? Can’t you see we’re busy?”
“I came to report a theft,” said Chet Morton. “My roadster has been stolen.”
“Why, it was a roadster this fellow drove up to my office in!” cried Ike Harrity. “A yellow roadster.”
“Ha!” said Detective Smuff. “A clue!” He immediately fished a notebook out of his pocket and began rummaging around for a pencil.
“Never mind, Detective Smuff,” observed the chief heavily. “I’ll take any notes that are needed.”
Detective Smuff, duly squelched, put back his notebook in confusion.
“What fellow?” Frank asked. “Who drove up to your office in a yellow roadster?”
“The holdup man,” declared Harrity. “I was held up this morning. A fellow tried to steal the steamboat money on me.”
“Now just a minute. Just a minute!” demanded the chief. “Let me say a word here. The situation is this. A man drove up to the steamboat office a little while ago and tried to hold up Mr. Harrity. But a passenger happened to come into the office just then and the fellow got frightened and ran away. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” said Harrity.
“I’ll make a note of it,” said the chief, suiting the action to the word. When he had scribbled industriously for some time he raised the pen again and pointed it at Chet.
“Now you,” he observed, “say that somebody stole a yellow roadster on you this morning.”
“Yes, sir! From our farm. He was seen driving into Bayport just a little while ago.”
The chief made a note of it.
“And you,” he said, pointing the pen at Ike Harrity, “say the holdup man drove up to the office in a yellow roadster?”
“That’s right, chief. That’s right. A yellow roadster, it was. And now that I come to think of it, I’ve seen Chet Morton’s car before and it was the spittin’ image of it.”
“Then,” declared the chief, putting down his pen with the air of one making a momentous discovery, “it looks to me very much as if the holdup man and the fellow that stole the car is one and the same man.”
Detective Smuff wagged his head solemnly in admiration of this feat of deduction. “I believe you’re right, chief,” he declared.
“Of course he’s right,” said Frank. “It couldn’t be anyone else. The point is this—where did the holdup man go? Did he leave in the car? Did anyone follow him?”
“He left in the car all right,” said Harrity. “But nobody followed him. I telephoned for the police.”
“Did you notice the color of this man’s hair?” asked Frank suddenly.
“What’s that got to do with it?” asked Detective Smuff.
“Never mind. It may have a great deal to do with it. Did you notice the color of his hair?” repeated Frank, turning to Harrity.
“It was short,” said Harrity firmly. “Short and dark.”
Frank and Joe looked blankly at one another.
“Are you sure?” asked Joe.
“I’m positive,” declared Harrity. “I was face to face with him. He was a dark-haired man, and his hair was cut awful short. I noticed that.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t redheaded?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“What’s all this about?” asked Chief Collig suspiciously. “What has the color of his hair to do with it?”
“Well,” admitted Frank, “we were pretty sure that the man who stole Chet’s car had long, red hair.”
“Hum!” muttered the chief doubtfully. “Then if that was the case, the man who stole the car and the man who tried to hold up the office isn’t one and the same fellow after all.”
“I don’t know what to make of it,” confessed Frank.
Just then a short, nervous little man was ushered into the office. He introduced himself as the passenger who had gone into the steamboat office at the time of the attempted holdup, and he presented himself in answer to a call from the chief.
In reply to questions, the newcomer, who gave the prosaic name of Henry J. Brown and said he was from New York, told of entering the office and seeing a man run away from the wicket with a revolver in his hand.
“What color was his hair? Did you notice?” asked Frank eagerly.
“I can’t say I did,” answered the little man. “It all happened so quickly I didn’t realize that it was a holdup until the man was out the door. Then I saw him jump into the roadster and drive away. But—wait a minute. I did notice the color of his hair. Just as the car was disappearing down the street. You couldn’t help notice. He was redheaded. He had long red hair.”
Detective Smuff looked blankly at the chief and the chief looked blankly at everybody else, particularly at Henry J. Brown of New York.
“I knew it!” declared Joe exultantly. “It’s the same man!”
“It can’t be the same man!” said the chief wearily. “You boys don’t know what you’re talking about. Mr. Harrity says he had short, dark
