CHAPTER IVADMIRAL PEPPER
Themystery that hung over the big stone house, like a bat’s shadow, was a strange tangle. We could see that, all right. And now, to help things along to even greater mystery, had come the disappearance of the granddaughter.
Was there, we wondered, some hidden tie-up between the girl’s disappearance and the unusual gander? We looked to the old man for an answer to that, but he could tell us nothing. The more we questioned him, when we got him in the house, the dumber he acted. Had he seen the granddaughter in Pardyville? He didn’t know—heguessedhe had one minute, and the next minute heguessedhe hadn’t. Nor could he tell us where he had gotten the gander, which we had left on the front porch.
Another thing—the old man had passed us in his rickety car at six-thirty, headed for home. Yet we had beat him here by at least three hours. Where had he been in that three hours? When we asked him, he just stared at us. Where had hebeen? Why, he hadbeenon the road headed for home, of course.But we knew better. He hadbeensome place else ... to more mystery! Instead of turning to the left at the sandy crossroad, where we had turned, he had kept on down the concrete. But why? What had taken him past the turn? Where had he been? Finding it did no good to question him, we gave up, hopeful that his head would clear up over night.
After the long day, with its ups and downs, Mrs. Doane was done up, as her face showed. But it would do her no good to go to bed, she told us, nodding wearily. For how could she sleep with the awful picture in her mind of the missing granddaughter lying unconscious beside the deserted concrete highway?
“She could have jounced out of the car and Pa never would have missed her. That’shim. Oh, at times I feel as though I could take him and shake his pants off. He isn’t foolish—don’t deceive yourself on that point. He’s just naturallydumb.”
“Now, Ma—” came whiningly, as the blank-eyed old man pottered around the kitchen, feeling of his head as though it was some connected part of him that he had just discovered.
“Keep still!” came the impatient command. “I’m disgusted with you.”
“Please, Ma—”
“And quit rattling your teeth,” was the furthercommand. “For that’s the way you chipped them last Christmas. And goodness knows we haven’t any money to fool away on unnecessary dentist bills.”
Poppy and I were grinning. Maybe it wasn’t the best of manners, but we couldn’t hold in.
“Oh, dear!” the woman went on in misery, sort of wringing her hands. “What wouldn’t I give to know at this minute where Miss Ruth is. I’ll forever feel guilty if any harm has befallen her through Pa’s stupidity.”
“Maybe,” Poppy spoke up, “he missed her in Pardyville.”
“But where did he get that gander? And why hasn’t she followed him in a rented car?”
“The road’s closed.”
“Buthegot through. And there’s the telephone. If Miss Ruth is in Pardyville, and can’t get here except on the south road through Neponset Corners and New Zion, why doesn’t she telephone? She might know I would worry until Ididhear from her.”
“Hot dog!” cried Poppy. “That’s an idea. Why don’tyoutelephone, Mrs. Doane? You can call up the Pardyville depot. See? And the garages, too. You ought to get track of the girl in that way.”
The woman was too much worked up to use the telephone herself, so we did the job for her. But to no success. The night operator hadn’t been at thedepot when the Chicago train came in—we’d have to talk with the day operator, he said. There was no one registered at either of the two hotels by the name of Miss Ruth Danver. Nor had any of the garages, or the taxicab company, been approached by a girl of that name, or for that matter any girl of any name, wanting to go into the country.
Our failure to get good news over the telephone completely upset the woman.
“What will Miss Ruth’s ma say?” she cried. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
Poppy remembered that the granddaughter had planned to come here on the sly.
“If I were you,” he advised, “I’d wait a day or two before I telephoned to the mother. For you don’t know as yet that anything really has happened to the girl. She may have hired a private car to drive her here.”
“Sure thing,” I put in, wanting to make the woman feel better. “We may hear her drive in any minute.”
The old man was still pottering around the room.
“Ma, did I have my supper? I—I jest kain’t remember. One minute it seems to me Idid. An’ the next minute it seems to me Ididn’t.”
“Laws-a-me!” came kindly, showing that the woman didn’t make a habit of jumping on the dumbold man all the time. “Of course you haven’t had supper, Pa. And you must be pretty nearly starved, too. So come over here to the table right away. The boys ate all the sandwiches, but I guess I can make some more for you.”
Poppy and I were sort of silent during the sandwich making, each doing stuff in his own mind. Nor did the woman talk as much as usual. Maybe her tongue was tired. I wondered if it wasn’t!
“Jerry,” the leader said at length, “do you know what we ought to do?”
“What?” says I, hoping that he would stick to schemes that weren’t too blamed risky. Ghost-catching was my limit. Absolutely. Anything beyond that I’d balk at.
“If the girl isn’t here by morning I think we ought to go to Pardyville and look her up. We’ve got time. And to tell the truth I’d like to talk with her and get at the bottom of this mystery.”
“I’ll let you be the hero and rescue the fair damsel in distress,” I grinned, feeling kind of silly. “For you’re the best lady killer of the two.”
“I’m serious.”
“A fellowshouldbe serious,” was my further nonsense, “when he gets ready to fall in love.”
“You poor fish!”
I sort of brushed myself off.
“I wish now I’d worn my red necktie,” I primped. “I might have stood a better chance.”
“What you need is agreennecktie,” he fired at me.
“Jealousy!”
“Are you with me, Jerry?”
“Sure thing I’ll stand up with you,” I purposely tangled up his meaning. “What do you call it?—the best man, huh?”
“I mean, will you go back to Pardyville if I do?”
“Kid, I’d go to the North Pole, if you led the way—but that’s a blamed co-old place,Ithink, for a honeymoon.”
“Oh, you dumb-dora!” he gave up in despair.
“Say, Poppy,” I snickered, “look at old Ivory Dome. He’s scratching his sandwich and sprinkling pepper on his bald head.”
“Ivory Dome!” the other laughed, thinking, I guess, that I was pretty clever. “Ivor Doane—Ivory Dome! That’s a good one. He’s an ‘Ivory Dome,’ all right.”
Suddenly there was a wild volcanic eruption at the table. Over went the pitcher of water and the spoon holder. There was water and spoons all over the kitchen floor.
“For land’s sake!” cried the housekeeper, grabbing a sandwich out of the air. “Pa, I ought to take a stick to you. Just look at my clean floor!”
“Ker-r-choo!” exploded the volcano anew. “Ker-r-CHOO!”
“Stop it!” as the table rocked more madly than ever. Then by quick work the housekeeper saved the sugar bowl.
“I—I—ker-r-choo! I kain’t stop it—KER-R-CHOO-O-O!”
“He sprinkled pepper on his head instead of the sandwich,” grinned Poppy.
“Laws-a-me! That isn’t anything surprising forhim. One time he put a bunion plaster on his jaw and cleaned his toes with the tooth brush.”
Having lived through the eruption, the old man was staring now, as though the sneezing and its cause had jarred loose some corner of his memory.
“Pepper,” came in a mumbling, unsteady voice. “Pepper.Admiral Pepper.That’s it.”
Admiral Pepper!What crazy thing was he talking about? It was our turn to stare now.
Suddenly there was a faint tap! ... tap! ... tap! ... on the outside kitchen door. And scared out of her wits, Mrs. Doane ran screaming into another room.
“Who is it?” says the leader, tiptoeing to the door, his right ear shoved out ahead to catch every possible sound.
Tap! ... tap! ... tap!... That was the only answer.
Well, I don’t mind telling you that this was another moment in my life when I didn’t have to overwork my imagination to believe in ghosts. I guess not. The thing that was doing the tapping, I told myself, was a ghost, probably a long, lean, hungry-looking ghost with two or three hideous heads, and nothing else but.
Then, as though unlatched by some unseen hand, the door swung open. A gust of wind swept in. And in walked—not a three-headed ghost—but that blamed spotted gander!
“Why—why,” fumbled the old man, acting sort of tickled as he got his eyes on the gander. “It’s jest Mr. Pepper. I mean Mr. Salt an’ Pepper. No, I mean—I mean—Now,” came blankly, as the feeble brain got completely tangled up, “whatdoI mean, anyway?”
“I guess,” supplied Poppy, staring at the flat-footed newcomer, “you meanAdmiralPepper.”
“Admiral Pepper!” the wrinkled face cleared up. “That’s it. That’s it.”