Mox

CHAPTER XVI CARDONA’S TEST

AT dusk the next day, a coupe pulled up in front of Hollis Harman’s hunting lodge. From the car stepped Detective Joe Cardona. Clyde Burke clambered from the driver’s seat. The detective had arranged with the reporter to bring him to this place. He wanted Clyde Burke to be on hand to see what might develop.

Cardona knocked. The door of the lodge opened. The detective strode into a large room where he found Junius Tharbel seated before a fire with his host, and Harman’s friend, Wade Hosth. The three showed surprise when they recognized the New Yorker.

“What brings you here, Cardona?” inquired Tharbel.

“Something that will interest you,” returned Joe. “Some time, ago, you received a note signed ‘S’ — and it enabled you to capture Hoyt Wyngarth. I want to ask you a question. Was the note the only reason for the test that you gave to Wyngarth?”

“The test with the Dalmatian? Certainly. The dog’s response proved that the sender of the note had given me reliable information.”

“All right. Was that the only note you received?”

“With the signature of ‘S’? Certainly. Why should there have been another, after Mox had been betrayed?”

“There is a second note,” rejoined Cardona, “but you did not receive it. The note came to me. Here it is.”

Cardona pulled the paper from his pocket, and handed it to Tharbel. The county detective frowned as he read the scrawled lines. He passed it back to Cardona.

“A hoax,” he decided. “Some one playing a joke on you, Cardona. When did you get this? Where?”

“Never mind the questions,” retorted Cardona, with a grim smile. “I saw your note; this one resembles it in every detail. It’s not a fake.”

“We can compare them tomorrow,” announced Tharbel, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I intend to stop in at my offices. If you bring your note there, we can lay it along with the one that I received.”

“I’m not thinking of tomorrow,” challenged Joe. “I’m thinking of to-day. What are you going to do about this fellow, Irving Salbrook. Try to grab him?”

“There would be no purpose in that,” returned Tharbel, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I have satisfied myself that Wyngarth is the dog’s master. Wyngarth must be Mox. Give him time, and he’ll confess. Why cloud it by going on a blind trail.”

“So that’s the way you feel about it,” snorted Cardona. “There’s a story for you, Burke. Junius Tharbel refuses to apply the famous coach-dog test to a new suspect. He’s out to frame Hoyt Wyngarth—”

“Don’t print that!” shouted Tharbel angrily, as he leaped to his feet. “I never said that I would not use the dog for another identification. Cardona wants me to start after a fake suspect. Why should I bother to do so? Let him find this Irving Salbrook if he wants. When he brings him to Darport, I’ll let the dog see the man.”

“You will?” Cardona’s query showed triumph to come. “That’s just what I’ve come to learn. If I bring in Salbrook—”

“I’ll give him the dog test, any time you ask it.”

“Great.” Joe Cardona grinned. “We’ll start for the county jail right now, Tharbel. Detective Sergeant Markham arrived on the last train with Irving Salbrook accompanying him as his prisoner.”

Dumfoundment spread over Tharbel’s sharp features. Cardona’s declaration had stumped the county detective. He saw that Clyde Burke sided with Cardona; when he stared toward Hollis Harman and Wade Hosth, he saw that his hunting friends were of a similar mind.

“A sporting proposition, Tharbel!” exclaimed the fat-faced host. “By Jove! That’s fair enough. Cardona has brought the suspect here—”

“And if the dog recognizes Salbrook,” interrupted Cardona, speaking to Tharbel, “you can keep the man along with Wyngarth.”

There was nothing for Tharbel to do but agree to these terms. The county detective realized that the test with Wyngarth would not stand if he were unwilling to try the dog with others. Reluctantly, he donned hat and coat, and motioned to his friends to come along.

PEOPLE were awaiting them at the jail. Scudder was there, with Joel Neswick and Cuthbert Challick. Cardona announced that Markham was in the warden’s room, guarding Irving Salbrook.

Without a word, Junius Tharbel drew the shades of the front room where he had formerly stationed watchers. He turned on the lights in the rear room of the pair, and extinguished the lights in the front.

Behind the blackened glass of the partition, the gallery looked on to view the approaching test. Tharbel appeared in the smaller room. A few minutes later, Markham arrived, bringing Irving Salbrook from the rear entrance.

The new prisoner was not quite so tall as Hoyt Wyngarth. He wore the same hunted expression, however, and his face was pale. He seemed to be as determined a type of man.

He glowered as he faced Tharbel. The county detective applied a few quiet questions.

“I don’t know anything about Darport,” retorted Salbrook, in answer to a query. “Never heard of the burg before.”

“And Mox?”

“I don’t know anything at all about him.”

Tharbel repeated the actions that he had used with Wyngarth. With spectators watching him, and Joe Cardona demanding a fair trial, the county detective went to the further door and signaled with the knob. He crossed the room, entered the front apartment, and waited with the others.

Salbrook glared suspiciously. He heard the further door click. He scowled as the brown-spotted dog was shoved into the room. He showed his antagonism at once.

“Get away, hound!” he shouted. “Get away!”

At the sound of Salbrook’s voice, the Dalmatian looked up. With a happy yelp, it bounded across the room, and began to paw Salbrook as it had pawed Wyngarth. The man fought with the beast, but to no avail. The dog’s endeavors to be friendly merely made the recognition more emphatic.

The jailer hurried in when Tharbel called from the dark room. He dragged the dog away. Its growls commenced as soon as the jailer had taken charge. Salbrook sat panting in a chair. Tharbel opened the door when the dog was gone. With Cardona, he entered to take charge of Salbrook.

“You’re going to hold this man,” said Cardona, as though taking it for granted.

Tharbel nodded. He ordered Scudder to take the prisoner to a cell. Irving Salbrook was led away.

Joe Cardona was triumphant. Tharbel, however, took some of the edge from the New Yorker’s elation.

“I’ll treat Salbrook exactly like I’m treating Wyngarth,” asserted the county detective. “Wyngarth was brought in from Albany; Salbrook from New York. That’s the only difference. If either one wants to talk, he can. But there’ll be no third degree. I don’t work that way.”

“Salbrook was hooked up with some rackets in New York,” explained Cardona. “We haven’t got anything on him — enough to matter — but Markham didn’t have any trouble grabbing him. He was easy to locate, once we had his name.”

“Come over to my office,” suggested Tharbel. “I want to look at the note I have there.”

WHEN they reached the county detective’s office, Tharbel opened the desk drawer and brought out the note which he said had been found beneath the front door of his home. Cardona laid his note on the desk. The comparison indicated that they must have been written by the same person.

Tharbel was rubbing his chin in a perplexed fashion. Seeing that the county detective was apparently at a loss about the matter, Cardona propounded his theory.

“One of these fellows may be Mox,” he asserted. “Maybe the other was a friend he got the dog from. Some guy may be sore at them both.”

The theory was weak, but Junius Tharbel did not criticize it. He seemed to be considering a countermove now that Cardona had triumphed. The rivalry between the two detectives had reached its highest pitch. When Tharbel did speak, it was to choose the easiest way out of the dilemma.

“Wyngarth is due to talk soon,” he commented. “When he does, we’ll know the story. There’s nothing to do until the break comes.”

The county detective arose from his desk and turned to Hollis Harman and Wade Hosth, who were standing within the door. There was a note of decision in the words that Tharbel spoke.

“Let’s start back to the lodge,” he said. “We’ll need some sleep tonight. We’ll be starting out with the dogs at daybreak.”