"ArkCovenantPart4" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacClure Victor)

about it, son?"
"Seems to be a craze for weight-lifting sprung up."
"Looks like it," he murmured. "Now, here's another funny story--"
He pointed to another paragraph tucked away on the same page. This reported the
abstraction of a large amount of eatables from a big provision store, also in
New Jersey, during the night, but here gold dollars had been left to pay for the
goods taken away.
"You're not connecting those two things up with the Wall Street affair, are you,
Dan?"
He took out his watch.
"It's now twenty minutes to four," he said calmly. "We can be over beyond Newark
inside the hour with my roadster, if you'll drive. We'll see if the things do
connect up."
At the gasoline station we got little information. Nobody could tell how thefuel
had been taken. The station had been closed on the Sunday night, and had been
left in charge of a watchman, the manager informed us, and thewatchman had sworn
he knew nothing about it.
"Did the watchman by any chance confess to having fallen asleep?" I asked
themanager.
"He swore he hadn't," said that official, "but I expect he did. If he didn't,
he's in league with the crooks, and the police have got him."
"Stop a bit," Dan Lamont interposed. "You're perfectly certain that thegasoline
has been stolen? Isn't it possible that some mechanical device in the tank has
failed, that the oil has slipped back to supply?"
"We thought of that," said the manager, "and the mechanism has been thoroughly
overhauled. But there isn't any doubt that the outlet pipe was opened in the
night and the gasoline taken away."
"The watchman is unshaken in his statement that he did not fall asleep?" Iasked.

"Oh, yes. He's fixed on that--but he might be lying, don't you see? He's
supposed to be awake all night, and to make his rounds at definite intervals.If
he had fallen asleep, he wouldn't like to confess it."
"Where has he been taken to?" asked Dan.
"He's at the local station."
"Right," said Dan. "Let's go there, Jimmy."
The watchman was an elderly Irishman, and just the type one would expect to find
at the job. He was stubborn to begin with and refused to talk at all. It was the
merest chance that Dan addressed me by my surname, and at that the old boy's
attitude changed.
"Are ye Mr. Boon, the flyin' man?" he asked.
"That's me," I admitted, "unless there's another of the name."
"But are ye the Mr. Boon that has the works out at the top end av LongIsland?"
"That's me."
"Well, ye've got a son av mine workin' for ye--name av McGinty!"
"McGinty your son?" said I. "Well, he's a good fellow, Mr. McGinty, and one of
my best mechanics."
"Ye make me proud to hear it, sorr," said the old man. "He swears by you, so he
does."
After that, everything was easy. The old man admitted that he'd fallen asleep
about one o'clock in the morning, but that he didn't understand how it happened.