Motor Matt's Mariner; or, Filling the Bill for Bunce Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  THE GREEN PATCH.

  Distracted by their mental speculations, the motor boys presently foundthemselves back on the porch of their hotel, occupying the same chairsthey had left a little while before. Once more Matt was looking down onthe river lights, coming and going across the broad stream like so manyfireflies.

  "Am I locoed, I wonder?" inquired McGlory, as though speaking tohimself. "Did I see that moving picture, with Grattan and Bunce in itand stealing the 'Eye of Buddha,' or didn't I?"

  "You saw the picture, Joe," returned Matt, "and so did I."

  "I reckon I did; and jumpin' tarantulas, how it got on my nerves! Buthow does it happen that the picture is being shown like it is? Grattantold you, Matt, just how the ruby was stolen from the Honam joss houseby himself and Bunce; he told you how he went to Egypt after the glassballs that were more than two thousand years old, and had been dug upat Karnak. He didn't get the balls from Karnak just exactly in theway the picture shows it, but he did steal the ruby in exactly thesame fashion those films brought the tinhorn trick under our eyes. Notonly that, but Grattan hid the ruby in the head of his cane. Right upto that point the whole game is a dead ringer for the yarn Grattanbatted up to you. The rest of the pictures are pure fake. It was youwho helped recover 'Buddha's Eye,' and it happened right here in theCatskill Mountains, near the village of Purling, and not in China. Butit was the smashing of the head of the cane that revealed the ruby."[A]

  [A] The thrilling adventures of the motor boys in recovering the Eye ofBuddha were set forth in No. 30, Motor Stories.

  "We know," said Matt, his mind recovering from the shock occasioned bythe strange series of pictures so suddenly sprung upon him and McGlory,"we know, pard, that Grattan was in the motion-picture business at thetime he conceived the idea of stealing the ruby. He was traveling allover the world with his camera apparatus. Probably his line of work hassomething to do with his putting the robbery into the form we have justseen it."

  "But why should Grattan want to publish his criminal work all overthe country in moving pictures? And he put himself into the pictures,too--and that old sea dog, Bunce."

  "That part of it is too many for me, Joe," answered Matt. "However, Ican't see as the moving pictures of the robbery cut much figure now.The mandarin, Tsan Ti, has recovered the ruby, and is on his way to SanFrancisco to take ship for China. Grattan and Bunce made their escape,and are probably getting out of the country, or into parts unknown,as rapidly as they can. So far as we are concerned, the incident isclosed. But it was certainly a startler to come face to face with a setof pictures like those--and so unexpectedly."

  "First nickelodeon we struck, and the first picture shoved through thelantern," muttered the cowboy.

  "Are you positive, Joe," went on Matt, "that the two thieves whofigured in the picture were really Grattan and Bunce?"

  "It's a cinch!" declared McGlory. "There can't be any mistake. Inever saw a clearer set of pictures, and I'd know Grattan and Bunceanywhere--could pick 'em out of a thousand."

  "That's the way it looked to me, and yet there's one point I can'tunderstand. It's a point that doesn't agree with your assertion thatBunce was really in the picture."

  "What point is that?"

  "Why, it has to do with the green patch Bunce wears over his eye."

  "The patch was in the picture, all right."

  "Sure it was! But which of Bunce's eyes did it cover?"

  "The right eye!"

  "Exactly! The green patch was over Bunce's right eye, in the picture ofthe robbery, which we just saw; but when we had our several encounterswith Bunce, a few days ago, the patch was over the mariner's left eye."

  McGlory straightened up in his chair and stared at his chum through theelectric light that shone over them from the porch ceiling.

  "Glory to glory and all hands round!" he exclaimed. "You're right,pard. When we were trotting that heat with Bunce, here in theCatskills, it was his left eye that was gone. Now, in the picture, it'shis right eye. How do you explain that?"

  "The explanation seems easy enough," answered Matt. "Bunce must havetwo good eyes, and he simply covers up one for the purpose of disguise.Either that, or else some one represented him when the moving pictureswere taken, and got the patch over the wrong eye."

  "What good is a green patch as a disguise, anyway?" demanded McGlory.

  "Give it up. The difference in the position of the patch merely led meto infer that Bunce might not have really been in that moving picture.And if Bunce wasn't in it, then it's possible that Grattan wasn'tin it, either. Two men might have been made up to represent the twothieves. I can't think it possible that Grattan and Bunce, as you saida moment ago, should want to publish their crime throughout the countryby means of these moving pictures. The films are rented everywhere, andtravel from place to place."

  McGlory heaved a long breath.

  "Well, anyhow, I don't want to bother myself any more with the Eye ofBuddha," said he. "It's a hoodoo, and I never went through such a lotof close shaves, or such a series of rapid-fire events, as when we werehelping Tsan Ti, the mandarin, recover the ruby. Let's forget aboutit. We can't understand how those pictures came to be shown, and we'recompletely at sea regarding the green patch. But it's nothing to us,any more. We're for New York by the night boat, and then it'll be 'Upthe river or down the bay, over to Coney or Rockaway' for the motorboys. Sufferin' cat naps! A spell of pleasure in the metro-polus is allthat brought me East with you, anyhow. It's us for the big town, andwith you along to see that no one sells me a gold brick, I reckon I'llbe able to pan out a good time."

  The prospect of a week or two in New York, with a little rest and alittle motoring, was also appealing powerfully to Matt. He had not beenin the big town for some time, and he longed to renew his acquaintancewith its many "sights" and experiences.

  "We'll be there in the morning, Joe," Matt answered. "As you say,we need not bother our heads any longer about the Eye of Buddha, orGrattan, or Bunce, or Tsan Ti. We'll take our toll of enjoyment out ofManhattan Isle, and we'll forget there ever was such a thing as the bigruby."

  "You don't intend to think of business at all while you're there, eh?"

  "No. We'll just knock around for a couple of weeks and enjoy ourselves.Of course we'll be more or less among the motors--I couldn't be happymyself if we weren't--and then, when we've had enough of that, I wantto take a run up to my old home in the Berkshire Hills."

  Great Barrington had been very much in Motor Matt's mind for severalweeks. He felt a desire to go back to the old place, and revisit thescenes of his earlier life. There was a mystery concerning his parentswhich had never been solved. He did not have any idea that a return toGreat Barrington would settle that problem, but, nevertheless, it hadsomething to do with luring him in the direction of the Berkshires.

  "Speak to me about that!" murmured McGlory. "You've always been a gooddeal of a riddle to me, pard. You've never let out much about yourearly life, and I come from a country where it's a signal for fireworksif you press a man too closely about his past, so I've just taken youas I picked you up in 'Frisco, and let it go at that. But there are afew things I'd like to know, just the same."

  "I'll tell you about them sometime, Joe," Matt answered. "Just now,though, I'm not in the mood. When we're ready to start for theBerkshires----"

  He paused. The night clerk of the hotel had come out on the porch andwas standing at his elbow, a small package in his hand.

  "Motor Matt," said he, in a voice of concern, "here's something thatcame for you by express, about five-thirty in the afternoon. It's beenlying in the safe ever since. The day clerk couldn't find you, whenthe package came, so he receipted for it. He didn't tell me anythingabout it, when I went on duty, and he just happened to remember and totelephone down from his room. I'm sorry about the delay."

  "We're taking the ten-o'clock boat for New York," spoke up McGlory. "Itwould have been a nice layout if we'd got away and left that packagebehind."

 
; "I'm mighty sorry, but it's not my fault."

  "Well," answered Matt, taking the package, "no great harm has beendone. It's an hour and a half, yet, before the New York boat gets here,and I have the package."

  The clerk went back into the hotel and Matt examined the package underthe light.

  "What do you reckon it is, pard?" queried McGlory curiously.

  "You can give as good a guess as I can, Joe," Matt answered. "I'm notexpecting anybody to send me anything. It's addressed plainly enough toMotor Matt, Catskill, New York, in care of this hotel."

  "And covered with red sealing wax," added McGlory. "Rip off the coverand let's see what's on the inside. Sufferin' tenterhooks! Haven't yougot any curiosity?"

  Matt cut the cord that bound the package and took off the wrapper. Asmall wooden box was disclosed, bound with another cord.

  The box was opened, and seemed to be filled with cotton wadding.Resting the box on his knees, Matt proceeded to remove the wadding.Then he fell back in his chair with an astounded exclamation.

  A round object, glimmering in the rays of the electric light like asplash of blood against the cotton, lay under the amazed eyes of themotor boys.

  "Buddha's Eye!" whispered McGlory.

  Around the end of the veranda, in the wavering shadows, a face hadpushed itself above the veranda railing--a face topped with a sailorcap and fringed with "mutton-chop" whiskers--a face with a green patchover one eye.