“Utter disbelief,” Bertie said. “We told them that JJ would never have broken in and robbed a house, especially not a friend’s house. He might have had his faults but he was loyal to a T. And as for shooting someone, JJ didn’t even own a gun. I know because he made a joke about it once. He liked a girl but she was going with another fellow and JJ said, ‘I suppose I could challenge him to a duel, but I don’t own a pistol, so that wouldn’t be much use. And I don’t suppose I could shoot straight even if I had one.’ ”
“And why would JJ bother to steal things from someone’s house?” Ronnie went on. “Silver and jewelry and the like? He only had to ask his parents for money and he usually got it. They were potty about him and he was so good at getting around them.”
“So he hadn’t run up any big debts that he couldn’t tell them about?”
I saw the boys give each other a hurried glance.
“He did like to gamble,” Bertie said cautiously. “Played cards for pretty high stakes, but if he owed money, I mean a serious amount of money, he never let on to us about it.”
“I gather the house he is said to have robbed belonged to a friend of his. A Harry Silverton?” I asked. “Did you know him, too?”
“Only slightly. He was a senior when we came in as freshmen. He and JJ became pals because they played polo together. Both were potty about horses.”
“Did Halsted tell you that he was planning on visiting Harry Silverton that night?”
The boys shook their heads. “Never mentioned him,” Bertie said. “As I told you, we were both rather busy that evening and annoyed that JJ was going out when he should have been studying. Ronnie told him so. He said, ‘There are only so many classes you can flunk before they sling you out of here, you know.’ ”
“And JJ only laughed and said we were turning into stuffy, middle-aged bores.”
“So did John Jacob spend a lot of time with this Silverton?” Daniel asked. “Did they regularly spend evenings out together?”
“No, not evenings,” Bertie said. “They went to the races together on occasion, I know that, but Silverton wasn’t one of his close pals. More like an admired older brother.”
“So if he admired Silverton, that would make it even less likely that he’d want to steal things from his home,” I said.
“I told you, JJ would never steal from a friend,” Bertie said firmly. “If he was going to steal, he’d do it in a big way and rob a bank. Always one for flair, was our JJ.”
“You keep speaking of him in the past tense,” Daniel said. “So in your heart you must believe that he’s dead.”
“If he were alive, I think he’d have done the honorable thing and turned himself in by now,” Ronnie said slowly. “He wouldn’t have wanted his folks to worry.”
“Tell us about his automobile,” I said. “Because that is the only piece of evidence that ties him to the crime. It was seen driving away fast from the Silverton mansion and one of the stolen items was found under the seat after it had crashed into a tree. Was it possible that he let someone else drive his motor car?”
“Drive Myrtle?” The two boys exchanged a glance and then chuckled. “He didn’t let anyone else drive her. Myrtle was his pride and joy. If he had five minutes to spare he was polishing the damned thing.”
“He drove fast?”
“Oh, yes. He liked to drive fast,” Ronnie said. “ ‘Let’s see if she’ll do thirty-five,’ he’d say. Scared the pants off us sometimes. The number of narrow squeaks we had on country roads, coming around a corner and meeting a horse and cart.”
“So you weren’t completely surprised to find that he’d crashed the auto into a tree?” Daniel asked.
“He shouldn’t have been driving at all that night,” Bertie said. “The roads were devilish icy. I told him he was crazy but he burbled on about Myrtle being sure-footed. He talked about her as if she was alive, you know.”
“So what do you think has happened to him?” I asked.
Bertie glanced at Ronnie again. “I think he crashed the auto, wandered off to get help, got lost, and perished in the snow,” he said. “That’s the only thing that I can believe.”
TWENTY-THREE
“So what did we learn from that?” Daniel said as we came out of the building and started to walk back toward the center of town. “Not much, did we?”
“Only confirmation of what we had suspected,” I said. “He wouldn’t have robbed a friend’s house. He wouldn’t have shot anybody. He probably didn’t need money.”
“We now know he was planning to go to a theater,” Daniel said. “Too bad it’s Sunday. They’ll all be closed. We’ll have to come back again when they are operating.”
I frowned as we crossed the green. “If he was planning to take a girl to the theater, then why did he go to the Silvertons’ house? You don’t usually take a young lady to meet your pals. And what was he doing out of town with her late at night?”
“She may not have been entirely respectable,” Daniel said. “Not all young men have honorable intentions, you know.”
“But if he didn’t have honorable intentions, he wouldn’t have been interested in driving out into the countryside, would he? I’m sure the girl must have had a room in town.”
“You’re not supposed to know about such things,” Daniel said.
“Me? I’ve met my fair share of prostitutes, you know. Shared a jail cell with them once.”
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