CHAPTER VI. ROCKWELL’S SCHEME.

Hibbard sputtered wrathfully while Rockwell led him across the street and to a bench in the city hall plaza. The bench was partly screened from passers-by by a clump of tall oleanders.

“Sit down, Hibbard,” said Rockwell. “I want to talk a little sense into that foolish brain of yours, if I can.”

“I don’t want to do any chinning,” protested Hibbard. “I lost a good job, and I want to get even with the chap that stole it away from me. Pembroke paid me seventy-five a month, but the ’coms’ and--er--other things brought me in a hundred and fifty, and sometimes two hundred. I ain’t a-going to be pried loose from that snap without makin’ that red-headed robber smart for it!”

“Oh, hush!” returned the garage owner impatiently. “You’re talking at the top of your voice, and it would be easy for some one to overhear you. That wouldn’t do, Hibbard; you know pesky well it might get you into trouble.”

“Me?” was the grim response. “I allow there are some others that would get into trouble, too.” He peered at Rockwell significantly. “Eh?”

“Never mind about that,” was the uneasy response. “Just cool off, will you, so we can talk sensibly.”

Hibbard seemed to get himself better in hand. His voice dropped, his manner changed, and he sank down on the bench.

“Did you give that red-headed buttinsky a job?” he asked resentfully.

“Yes.”

“If you’ve got any jobs to throw around you might toss one my way. Why in blazes did you want to hire that other yap?”

“I hired him to keep him away from Pembroke. The judge was waiting when we got back to the garage. But he was too late. I had already taken Clancy into my employ at fifty dollars a month.”

“Didn’t the judge offer him what I was getting?”

“Yes,” chuckled Rockwell, “but the fellow has got peculiar ideas about business. He wouldn’t accept the judge’s offer of seventy-five a month when he had hired out to me for fifty.”

“I thought he was a fool!” grunted Hibbard.

“He’s easy. He wants to be straight and square, he says, and----”

“And work for you!” struck in the other significantly.

“No comments, Dirk. I do as legitimate a garage business as I can, but, with the commissions demanded by you drivers, I have to figure close and use tact in order to make a living. If chauffeurs would play fair, garage keepers wouldn’t have to scheme so confounded hard to make both ends meet.”

“Piffle!” sneered Hibbard. “Everybody knows you’re a skinner, Rocks, and if the drivers didn’t make you whack up with them you’d stuff all the ‘velvet’ into your own pocket.”

“That’s your way of looking at it,” Rockwell answered patiently, “but you’re wrong. That has nothing to do with this case, though.”

“That red-headed chump beat me out of a big commission on overhauling the judge’s machine, didn’t he? I was to get twenty-five per cent of the bill you ran up on the judge, in addition to ten and five on extra parts for repairs. Whose scheme was that, eh? You hatched it up and asked me to work it out for you. Your new employee got next to the crossed wires. Now I’m out of a job, and the judge don’t even suspect that you had a hand in putting the car out of commission! Is that right? You ought to find a place for me, Rockwell.”

The garage owner did not reply at once. He appeared to be turning something over in his mind.

“Why didn’t you let Pembroke take him on?” continued Hibbard. “Then I could have had this place you’ve given him.”

“I had to give Clancy a job,” Rockwell answered.

“Why?”

Rockwell peered around cautiously. There was no one on the graveled walks of the plaza, in their vicinity.

“There’s something you can do for me, Hibbard,” he proceeded. “I’ll give you a couple of hundred if you pull it off. If you have a grouch against young Clancy, you can wipe it out at the same time.”

Hibbard was profoundly interested on the instant.

“Tell me about it,” said he. “I’d do anything to play even with Clancy.”

Rockwell’s face grew stern and uncompromising as he went on:

“If I let you in on this, and you betray my confidence in any way, you’ll get yourself into a peck of trouble, Hibbard.”

The chauffeur looked at him curiously.

“When it comes to handing out trouble, Rocks,” he returned grimly, “I allow two can play at that game. We know too much about each other to do any double-crossing. Play square with me and I’ll do the same with you.”

“You’ve got such a blooming temper,” the garage man hesitated, “that I don’t know whether it would be wise to trust you. The minute you lose the whiphand of yourself, you fly all to pieces, and blurt out everything you know.”

“Don’t you believe it! I never blurt out anything that’s liable to get me into hot water. But why did you bring this matter up, if you think I can’t be trusted?”

“Well, I’m going to take a chance. You’re about the only one that fills the bill for this particular piece of work, and circumstances have shaped themselves so that you are the logical man. I’ll have to explain a few details so that you’ll get the matter straight. This Owen Clancy, the fellow I have just hired, is the son of a man named John Clancy. John Clancy hired cars from the garage a good many times, and we got to know each other pretty well. He’s a mining engineer, and picked up a pot of money. I understand, though, that he has lost most of it in Mexico, and that he has now gone back to his home in the East, a physical and mental wreck. Young Clancy is taking care of the family.”

“What has all that to do with my work?”

“It has a bearing on it. Several months ago I was pretty hard pressed, and needed a thousand dollars to see me through. I got the money of John Clancy, giving him my plain, unendorsed note. The note became due, but was not presented for payment. I heard Clancy had been killed by Mexican revolutionists, and I naturally believed I never would have to pay that note. Now,” and the sharp lines gathered in Rockwell’s face, “young Clancy turns up with the paper, and wants the money.”

Hibbard laughed softly.

“And you don’t want to cough up, eh?” he asked.

“Not just at present. What’s more, Hibbard, I don’t want any trouble on account of that note.”

“You’ll not have any trouble. Everybody knows that all your property is in your wife’s name. She didn’t sign the note with you, did she?”

“No.”

“Then let Clancy whistle.”

“I can’t do that. If young Clancy sues and tries to collect, the publicity would be a bad thing for the business.”

“Why didn’t Clancy’s father deposit the note in the bank before he went to Mexico?”

“I don’t know. The thing that concerns me is that young Clancy is here with the note, and demands payment. I have told him that I would try and give him the money in a couple of weeks.”

“So,” remarked Hibbard, “in order to keep him quiet and comfortable, you have given him a job. Is that the way of it?”

“That is partly the way of it. So long as he has the note, he possesses a weapon which he can use against me at any time. Frankly, Hibbard, I don’t see how I can get the money together in a couple of weeks.”

“Borrow it of Mrs. Rockwell.”

The garage owner winked.

“That is out of the question,” he answered. “I borrowed the money of Clancy to pay a gambling debt, and I want to keep the whole thing quiet.”

“Where do I come in? What do you want me to do?”

“Here’s the way of it,” returned Rockwell. “If I had that note in my possession--if I could get hold of it without young Clancy’s knowledge--I could----”

“You could tear it up, and save yourself a thousand dollars, plus the interest,” said Hibbard, with an evil grin. “I get you, old Rocks!”

The other frowned.

“No, you don’t get me,” he growled. “You’re too ready to think me crooked. If I had the note in my own hands, and if it got to me without young Clancy’s knowledge, I could hold it until I was ready to pay over the money. And, while I was getting ready, Clancy couldn’t make me any trouble at all. He’d simply think he lost the note, see? I’d be white with him, too. While I was getting the money together to take up the note, I’ll let him work for me at fifty a month.”

“Then, coming down to cases,” observed Hibbard, “you want me to steal that note from young Clancy, turn it over to you, and get a couple of hundred for my trouble.”

“I’m not interested particularly in how you secure the paper from Clancy. The moment you put it into my hands I will give you two hundred dollars. It will be worth that to me to have two or three months’ extension of time on the obligation.”

“Does Clancy carry the note around with him?” asked Hibbard, already beginning to figure on ways and means for his rascally exploit.

“Yes. It is in a black wallet in the breast of his flannel shirt.”

“Where does he hang out nights?”

“He’ll be in the little room back of the garage,” was the significant rejoinder. “I’m having him sleep there to help out the night man in case there is a rush of work. You know all about the garage, Hibbard. The trick ought to come easy for you. All I want is a little more time on that note--and this is about the only way I can get it.”

Hibbard, knowing Rockwell so well, felt positive in his own mind that the note, once in the signer’s hands, would be destroyed. The garage man had a way of giving a plausible touch to his rascally undertakings that fooled very few of those who understood his character.

“Are you going to help me, or aren’t you?” demanded Rockwell.

“I’m going to earn that two hundred, and get even with Clancy, providing----”

Hibbard paused, looking at Rockwell out of the tails of his eyes.

“Providing what?” the other asked.

“Providing you give me young Clancy’s job, or another where the chance of a rake-off is as good, after the thing is over. I’ve got to live--and where, in this burg, can I get another job as chauffeur without a recommendation from Pembroke?”

“I’ll take care of you, Hibbard,” said Rockwell.