Chapter 7

LEO'S WORKSHOP.

When the banker and the detective reached the barber's house, the supper table was waiting for Andre and Leo. Perhaps Mr. Checkynshaw wondered how even a poor man could live in such a small house, with such "little bits of rooms." It had been built to fill a corner, and it fitted very snugly in its place. Andre thought it was the nicest house in Boston, and for many years it had been a palace to him.

It contained only four rooms, two on each floor. The two rooms up stairs were appropriated to the use of Maggie and Leo. The front room down stairs was required to do double duty, as a parlor, and a sleeping-room for Andre; but the bedstead was folded up into a secretary during the day. In the rear of this was the "living room." In the winter the parlor was not used, for the slender income of the barber would not permit him to keep two fires. In this apartment, which served as a kitchen, dining and sitting room, was spread the table which waited for Andre and Leo.

The barber almost always came home before six o'clock; for, in the vicinity of State Street, all is quiet at this hour, and the shop was closed. Maggie sat before the stove, wondering why Andre did not come; but she was not alarmed at his non-appearance, for occasionally he was called away to dress a lady's hair, or to render other "professional" service at the houses of the customers. Certainly she had no suspicion of the fearful truth.

She was rather startled when the unexpected visitors were ushered into the room by Leo; but the detective was gentle as a lamb, and even the banker, in the presence of one so fair and winning as Maggie, was not disposed to be rude or rough. Mr. Clapp asked some questions about the man who had come to the house that afternoon, and gone up to Leo's room. She had seen him, and her description of his appearance and his movements did not differ from that of her brother. No new light was obtained; but Mr. Clapp desired to visit the apartment which "Mr. Hart" had used.

Leo conducted the visitors to this room. It was possible, if the robber had changed his clothes there, that he had left something which might afford some clew to his identity. The detective searched the chamber, but not very carefully. As he did so, he told Leo that he desired to clear him from any connection with the crime.

"I hadn't anything to do with it, and I don't know anything about the man," replied Leo, blushing deeply.

"I don't think you had, my boy," added the officer, candidly. "But this man may have hidden something in the house, without your knowledge."

"I hope you will find it if he did. You may search the house from cellar to garret, if you like; but he didn't go into any room but this one."

"How long was he in this room?"

"Not more than twenty minutes, I guess; I don't know."

"Where were you while he was here?"

"I was down cellar."

"Down cellar!" exclaimed Mr. Checkynshaw. "All the time he was in the room?"

"Yes, sir."

"What were you doing there?"

"I was at work there. When I heard Mr. Hart, or the man, whatever his name is, coming down stairs, I went up and met him in the entry. You can go down cellar, if you like."

"I think we will," said Mr. Checkynshaw.

The detective looked into the bed, under it, in the closets, drawers, and into the seaman's chest which contained Leo's wardrobe. He did not expect to find anything, and his search was not very thorough. He examined the till, and felt in the clothing; but he did not put his hand down deep enough to find the papers the robber had deposited there. If the rogue had left anything, he had no object in concealing it; and Mr. Clapp reasoned that he would be more likely to leave it in sight than to hide it.

When the search had been finished in the room, and the result was as the detective anticipated, Leo led the way to the cellar. Here was presented to the visitors a complete revelation of the boy's character and tastes--a revelation which assured the skilful detective, deeply versed as he was in a knowledge of human nature, that Leo was not a boy to be in league with bad men, or knowingly to assist a robber in disposing of his ill-gotten booty.

The cellar or basement was only partly under ground, and there was room enough for two pretty large windows at each end, the front and rear of the house, and in the daytime the apartment was as light and cheerful as the rooms up stairs. Across the end, under the front windows, was a workbench, with a variety of carpenter's tools, few in number, and of the most useful kind. On the bench was an unfinished piece of work, whose intended use would have puzzled a philosopher, if several similar specimens of mechanism, completed and practically applied, had not appeared in the cellar to explain the problem.

On the wall of the basement, and on a post in the centre of it, supported by brackets, were half a dozen queer little structures, something like miniature houses, all of them occupied by, and some of them swarming with, _white mice_. In the construction of these houses, or, as Andre facetiously called them, "_Les Palais des Mice_," Leo displayed a great deal of skill and ingenuity. He was a natural-born carpenter, with inventive powers of a high order. He not only made them neatly and nicely, but he designed them, making regular working plans for their construction.

The largest of them was about three feet long. At each end of a board of this length, and fifteen inches in width, was a box or house, seven inches deep, to contain the retiring rooms and nests of the occupants of the establishment. Each of these houses was three stories high, and each story contained four apartments, or twenty-four in the whole palace. The space between the two houses was open in front, leaving an area of twenty-two by fifteen inches for a playground, or grand parade, for the mice. The three sides of this middle space were filled with shelves or galleries, from which opened the doors leading into the private apartments. The galleries were reached by inclined planes, cut like steps.

Monsieur Souris Blanc passed from the gallery into one room, and from this apartment to another, which had no exterior door, thus securing greater privacy, though on the outside was a slide by which the curious proprietor of the palace could investigate the affairs of the family. Madame Souris Blanche, who considerately added from four to a dozen little ones to the population of the colony every three or four weeks, apparently approved this arrangement of rooms, though it was observed that three or four mothers, notwithstanding the multiplicity of strictly private apartments, would bring up their families in the same nest, cuddled up in the same mass of cotton wool.

Over the "grand parade" was a roof, which prevented the mice from getting out over the tops of the nest-houses. Though this space was open in front, and the play-ground protected only by a fence an inch high, the little creatures seldom fell out, for it was five feet to the floor of the cellar, and this was a giddy height for them to look down.

This establishment contained fifty or sixty white mice--from the venerable grandfather and grandmother down to the little juveniles two weeks old, to say nothing of sundry little ones which had not appeared on the "grand parade," and which looked like bits of beef, or more like pieces of a large fish worm. Other establishments on the wall contained smaller numbers; and, though it was impossible to count them, there were not less than a hundred and fifty white mice in the basement.

When Leo conducted the visitors to the cellar, all the tribes of mice were in the highest enjoyment of colonial and domestic bliss. Though most of them scampered to their lairs when the gentlemen appeared, they returned in a moment, looked at the strangers, snuffed and stared, and then went to work upon the buckwheat and canary seed, which Leo gave them as a special treat. Squatting on their hind legs, they picked up grains or seeds, and holding them in their fore paws, like squirrels, picked out the kernels.

In other houses, they were chasing each other along the galleries, performing various gymnastics on the apparatus provided for the purpose, or revolving in the whirligigs that some of the cages contained. It was after dark; and, having reposed during the day, they were full of life and spirit at night. The detective was delighted, and even Mr. Checkynshaw for a few moments forgot that his valuable papers had been stolen. Both of them gazed with interest at the cunning movements and the agile performances of the little creatures.

"I see why you remained down cellar so long," said the detective, with a smile.

"I was at work on that mouse-house," replied Leo, pointing to the bench.

The palace in process of construction was somewhat different from the others. Instead of being open in front of the "grand parade," it had a glass door, so that the occupants of the establishment could be seen, but could not fall out.

"What is that one for?" asked Mr. Clapp.

"I'm making that for Mr. Stropmore," answered Leo. "I gave him one lot, but his cat killed them all. The cat can't get at them in this house, and they can't fall out."

"Elinora would like to see them," said Mr. Checkynshaw, graciously.

"I should be very glad to show them to her, or to give her as many of them as she wants," replied Leo.

"Perhaps she will come and see them. But, Mr. Clapp, we must attend to business."

The detective was in no hurry to attend to business, so interested was he in the performances of the mice. He was quite satisfied that a boy whose thoughts were occupied as Leo's were could not be implicated in the robbery. The banker led the way up stairs, and Leo was questioned again. He described the rogue once more, and was sure he should know him if he saw him again. The banker said he would call and see Mrs. Wittleworth and her son, while the detective was to take the night train for New York, where "Mr. Hart" was supposed to have gone. The officer, who knew all the rogues, was confident, from the description, that the thief was "Pilky Wayne," a noted "confidence man." The theft was according to his method of operation.

"Where do you suppose father is?" asked Maggie, as Leo was about to leave the house to show Mr. Checkynshaw where Mrs. Wittleworth lived. "It is after seven o'clock, and he is never so late as this."

"I don't know," replied Leo. "I haven't seen him since one o'clock."

The banker was disturbed by the question. It would be annoying to tell such a pretty and interesting young lady, poor girl though she was, that her father was very ill. It would make a "scene," and he would be expected to comfort her in her great grief.

"Your father--Is he your father, miss?" asked he, doubtfully.

"He is just the same. He adopted both Leo and me," replied Maggie.

"He went to my house, this afternoon, to dress my daughter's hair," added Mr. Checkynshaw; and there was something in his manner which disturbed the fair girl.

"Is he there now?"

"Yes, I think he is. My people will take good care of him."

"Why, what do you mean, sir?" demanded Maggie. "Take good care of him?"

"He had an ill turn this afternoon."

"My father!" exclaimed Maggie.

"I sent for the doctor, and he has had good care," added the banker, as soothingly as he could speak, which, however, was not saying much.

"What ails him?"

"Well, it was an attack of apoplexy, paralysis, or something of that kind."

"My poor father!" ejaculated Maggie, her eyes filling with tears. "I must go to him at once."

Maggie took down her cloak and hood, and put them on.