_ CHAPTER VII. THE MISSING MAN FOUND
The Bradys kept Ronald Mason closely shadowed for several days. They saw that he was living the mechanical life of a sober business man.
He was at his desk every morning at nine o'clock, and departed at five in the evening for home, in a cab. He did not depart from the house during the night, and received no callers there.
But the detectives did not relax their vigilance.
They had a deep-rooted suspicion that Mason had been working a plot to get rid of his uncle so he could inherit part of Mr. Dalton's money, and win the broker's daughter for his bride without any opposition.
Old King Brady figured that he was bound to show his hand sooner or later.
Nor did his judgment err.
At the end of the week a telegraph boy delivered a message at the broker's residence, about nine o'clock at night.
Within a few minutes after the lad departed the front door opened and a man in shabby clothes, with a beard on his face, cautiously emerged.
He carried a big bundle under his arm.
He glanced up and down the deserted street and seeing nobody, he hastily ran down the steps and stole rapidly away.
Safely hidden in the area of an empty house opposite, the Bradys observed him, and a smile crossed Harry's face as he nudged his partner and whispered:
"There's Mason, now!"
"Very clumsily disguised!" Old King Brady commented.
"If he were not up to some mischief, he would not be so careful to conceal his identity," Harry remarked, drily.
They let the young man get some distance ahead before they ventured out in the street. Then they separated, to avoid attracting special attention.
Mason walked down Eighth avenue to Thirty-fourth street and boarded a horse-car going east. The detectives followed it afoot until they reached Broadway, and at Herald Square they secured a cab.
The chase then became comparatively easy.
Mason rode to the East river before he alighted and finally made his way afoot along the river front until he reached a pier.
The detectives were close behind him, as yet unseen.
Going out on the pier, Mason paused and whistled.
Instantly a man climbed up over the string piece from a rowboat in which sat a solitary individual, close to the piles.
As it was a clear night, the detectives had no trouble to see that the man who joined Mason was a negro.
And then they recognized him as Sim Johnson, the valet.
For a few moments the pair held a whispered conversation, and then climbed down the piles and got into the rowboat.
Creeping nearer, the Bradys now caught a good view of the boatman.
He was a little old man, in a blue blouse and felt hat, and his face was covered by a gray beard.
When Mason and the negro were aboard, the boatman rowed out on the river, shipped his oars and let the skiff drift with the tide.
The Bradys reached the end of the pier and watched them keenly.
There was something towing behind the skiff by a rope.
As the skiff paused, the three men pulled it into the boat.
It was a large object, but the detectives could not make out at that distance what it really was.
They saw the three men working over it for a while, and finally push it overboard again so the boat could tow it.
When this was done the light craft was rowed down the river and the detectives lost track of it altogether.
They felt rather disappointed.
"What the deuce were they doing?" Harry asked.
"Blessed if I could tell," replied Old King Brady, in perplexity.
"Let's go back to Mason's house and wait for him to come back."
Old King Brady assented.
They returned to the West Thirty-sixth street residence.
An hour later, as they stood on the corner, the man they suspected as Mason came along, and Old King Brady stepped in front of him.
"Hold on there, my friend!" he remarked.
"Let me pass!" growled the other in low, ugly tones, as he shot a savage glance at the old detective, and made an effort to go by.
"Wait a moment!" persisted the officer.
"I ain't got any time."
"Tut-tut!"
"Well, what do you want?"
"I've taken a violent interest in your whiskers, sir."
"Come, now, none of your guying----"
"Oh, I ain't fooling. I've taken such a huge interest in your whiskers that I'd like to have a handful as a keepsake."
And so saying the detective grabbed them.
A slight pull dislodged them from the man's face, causing him to recoil, giving utterance to a smothered cry of alarm.
Old King Brady chuckled.
Holding up a false beard, he glanced at the man.
"Why," exclaimed Harry, "it's Mr. Mason!"
"Bless my heart, so it is," added the old detective, feigning to be very much astonished at the discovery. "How strange! Why, Mr. Mason, what in the world are you going around masquerading this way for, at such a late hour of the night?"
The broker's nephew was furious over his exposure.
He knew it was useless to pretend he was not the man they mentioned and he swore at them, and cried, fiercely:
"That's none of your infernal business."
"How angry you are. My! My! Keep cool, Mr. Mason. Wrath isn't going to mend matters for you in any way."
"Get out of my path, you old meddlesome fool!"
"Now, don't get excited," laughed Old King Brady. "You must know, sir, that we are engaged upon very important business. Some time ago we saw you come out of that house, and thinking you were a burglar we followed you down to the East river."
"You followed me?" gasped Mason, with a guilty start.
"Oh, dear, yes. And we saw you meet Sim Johnson on the pier, and we saw you get into the rowboat with your bundle, and we saw the little old man with the gray beard row you out on the stream, and then we saw you all pull up the object you had towing astern, take it into the boat, work over it a while, toss it back, and row away."
Mason's face had grown deathly pale.
He eyed the detectives with such a vindictive look that they could see he would have knocked their heads off if he dared.
Finally, though, he regained his composure a little and asked:
"What object did you see us pull out of the water?"
"Really, I can't say. You were too far from the dock for us to distinguish exactly what it was. But it looked something like the corpse of a man."
"You must be crazy, Brady!"
"Do you think so? We don't. But you've aroused our curiosity about that mysterious trip on the river and we'd like to know what it all meant."
"You'll never learn from me."
"Oh, I suppose not--voluntarily. Anyway, you ought to tell us why you are so intimate with your uncle's negro valet----"
"You make me sick!" exclaimed Mason, wearily. "Sim told me all about your looney suspicions about he and I making away with my uncle. But I defy you to prove any of your crack-brained theories. You are on the wrong trail, Brady. And I advise you to leave me alone, or by jingo, I'll defend myself and make it very warm for you."
"Got a big political pull?" laughed the old detective.
"No, but I carry a gun in my pocket!" hissed Mason, furiously.
"Oh, pshaw! That don't scare me a bit, my boy. Then you won't confess----"
"I'll tell you nothing of my personal affairs!" roared Mason. "Clear out! Mind your own business. Leave me alone! I don't want to have anything to do with you fellows! Do you understand?"
And he scowled and stamped his foot on the pavement and rushed past them and hastily entered his house.
The Bradys laughed and walked away.
"He's getting afraid of us," said Harry.
"Yes. We are wearing on his nerves. He knows we are watching him, and it makes him very uneasy. However, when we get good proof of his guilt, we'll nail him, and that will end his rascality."
They felt confident that Mason would not come out again that night and therefore went home.
On the following morning a great surprise awaited them.
Harry was reading the daily paper and caught view of this item:
"The missing man found. Oliver Dalton, the well-known Broad street broker, found drowned in the East river. At ten o'clock last night Martin Kelly, an old junk dealer, picked up the mutilated corpse of a well-dressed man in the East river off the foot of East Forty-second street. He towed it behind his skiff to the morgue, and turned the corpse over to the authorities, with an account of his ghastly find. The body had been in the water so long it would have been unrecognizable if it were not for some private papers found in the pockets, by means of which the man's identity was established. A reporter was the first one to bring the news to the dead man's daughter, etc."
When Harry read the item aloud, Old King Brady cried:
"Harry, had Mason's trip on the river anything to do with finding that corpse?"
"Let us go down to the morgue and get the facts."
Old King Brady nodded and they hastened across town. _