CHAPTER IXNO AUTOMOBILES ALLOWED
“Jerry,” says Poppy, as we sort of hurtled down the sandy country road at the hair-raising speed of six miles an hour, or less, “that lawyer is a crook.”
“He almost got his nose crooked,” I grinned, remembering the fracas on the porch of the big stone house.
“He hates Ma Doane, of course—we could easily see that—but there’s more than spitework back of his threat to get the sheriff.”
“You think he’s got areasonfor wanting to kick the others out of the house?”
“Absolutely. He talked big about hisdutyto the dead man. But that was all bluff. ‘Dollars’ is a bigger thing in his mind than ‘duty.’ You wait and see if I haven’t got the right line on him.”
“The dope about the granddaughter’s visit didn’t seem to tickle him for two cents.”
“I’ll tell the world it didn’t. And right there is where we pick up a clew, kid. He doesn’t want her to come here and use the house. Furthermore, he doesn’t want Ma Doane or anyone else living there. See? That’s why he’s getting the sheriff.”
“He knows what’s in the will—Ma said so.”
“Sure thing. And if he’s actually trying to keep the family of the dead man out of the house, as we think, it’s a pretty safe bet that he’s doing it to line his own pockets. For, as I say, he struck me as being an old money grabber. You know what I mean—the ‘Shylock’ kind. And I don’t think he cares a whang whether he gets his money honestly or not. Men of his stamp usually show in their faces what they are. And the rogues’ gallery never held a crookeder face than his.”
“Maybe,” says I, “he’s back of the granddaughter’s disappearance.”
Poppy considered that for a moment or two, then slowly shook his head.
“I hardly think so, Jerry. For you must remember that he was dumb on her trip here until Ma spilt the beans over the telephone. And to that point, it may have been information that he was after this morning more than anything else.”
“Information about the girl?”
“Sure thing.”
“He didn’t get much out of Ma.”
“He knows that she’s coming.”
“Gee! I wish we could find her.”
“I haven’t much hopes that we will.”
“But you said we would,” I reminded.
“We’ll try, of course. But we haven’t much to work on—you can see that. If we do find her, or get the slightest trace of her, it’ll be more luck than anything else.”
“I always was lucky,” I grinned. “One time I found a horseshoe in Main Street, and when I was picking it up Mr. Kaar’s hearse came along behind me and wrecked my back porch.”
But this clever little skit was wasted on old sober-sides.
“Say, Jerry,” came thoughtfully, “do you suppose the spy is a tool of the lawyer’s?”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“But you said the spy and old Ivory Dome are in cahoots.”
“Yes,” he nodded, “I did say that—but it was just a rough guess.”
“You’re doing too much rough guessing,” I told him. “You’re getting me all mixed up. For if old Ivory Dome and the spy aren’t working together, and the old man didn’t sneak out of bed last night to let the other in, whatdidhe go downstairs for? When I first saw him he was trying to open the kitchen door.”
“That’s so,” says Poppy thoughtfully.
“What gives you the idea,” I then inquired, “that the lawyer and the spy are mixed up together?”
“As I say, the lawyer doesn’t want the granddaughterin the house. There’s something in the will, I think, that favors him if he can keep her away. So, learning from Ma that the girl was coming, he may have sent some one out to the big house to stop her.”
“Then the storm came up and the spy got his shirt tail wet, huh?”
“Yes, and a certain other guy whom you hang around with more or less gothisshirt tail wet, too.”
“You’re sure,” I pinned him down, “that the spy wasn’t old fatty, himself?”
“Jerry! Don’t you suppose I can tell a hippopotamus from a rat?”
“All right,” I laughed. “We’ll take it for granted that the spy was Lawyer Chew’s hired man and not old hippo himself. And we’ll further take it for granted that the spy saw you in the storm and got scared out.But—as the goat says, how about old Ivory Dome? Where doeshecome in? We know about some of his tricks; and we know that he’s fooling his wife. I can’t make myself believe, though, now that we’ve talked it over this way, that he’s on Chew’s side.”
“Nor me,” says Poppy quickly. “I’d sooner think that he was workingagainstChew on the granddaughter’s side, though what his game is in playing ghost and slamming doors I can’t imagine. Itseems to me, too, that he ought to be able to trust his own wife. And to that point, you’d naturally think that the woman would be at the head of any secret plans to help the granddaughter, instead ofhim.”
“Half the time,” says I, “I think he’s D-U-M-B, and nothing else but.”
“Here, too. Yet we caught him in tricks. So it’s all right for us to be suspicious of him. That dumb look of his may be just a sort of mask.”
“Say, Poppy,” I then laughed.
“Well?”
“I’ve got an idea about that gander.”
“Youwith an idea! Be good to it, kid, for it’s in a strange place.”
“The old man was sent to the Pardyville depot to get the granddaughter. See? Butheknew it was dangerous for the girl to come here. Old Chew was liable to cut her throat, or something. And so—”
“For the love of mud!” squeaked the listener. “What have you been reading?—a dime novel?”
“Anyway,” says I, “old Chew was liable to do something to her. So Ivory Dome tells her to hide in Pardyville. See? And then she gives him her pet gander. And she says: ‘You take the gander home with you. And as soon as it’s safe for me to come tie a note to its tail—’”
“It’stail!” whooped Poppy.
“I mean its hind foot,” I corrected. “She tells him that. See? And the scheme is for the gander to take to the air and carrier-pigeon the note to her.”
Bang!Something under the hood sneezed its shirt off. And jumping for my life, I landed on my snoot in the middle of the sandy road.
“That’s what you get for your crazy talk,” the driver laughed at me, when I got up, rubbing my skinned nose.
“What was it?” says I, letting out my neck at the smoking car. “A bomb?”
“Carburetor trouble,” says old monkey wrench, jabbing as unconcerned as you please at something or other with a screwdriver.
So far in this chapter I haven’t said more than a mouthful or two about the old junk-pile that we were escorting around. Nor have I said anything to speak of about the road over which we were traveling, or the general lay of the country. As a matter of fact, in carrying on our gab, as I have written it down, we didn’t “say” this and that—we yelled it. We had to in order to get our words into the other’s ears. But I thought it might get kind of tiresome to you to have us yelling back and forth like a couple of loud speakers. So I wrote it down the other way—asthough we were carrying on a very polite parlor conversation.
As for the road, if you can imagine a pair of wheel ruts across the most forsaken part of the Sahara Desert, that’s the kind of stuff we had to travel over. Sand, sand and nothing but sand. The only place where it wasn’t deep was where it was deeper. It’s a wonder the old car navigated the road at all. And I didn’t blame it now for wanting to lay down and rest—only I could have saved some skin on my nose if it hadn’t used its sneezer on me. That was kind of unfair, I thought. For I hadn’t picked on it.
As I have explained in an earlier chapter, this side road was a sort of forgotten connecting link between C. H. O., the highway that was closed, and C. H. P., the other east-and-west highway on the south side of the river. According to our map there was a burg up ahead of us by the name of New Zion, a community of “religious fanatics,” according to Ma Doanes’ line, and it was here that we were to cross the river. Two more miles of soft road beyond the river and then we would strike Neponset Corners, the town that Lawyer Chew owned—only it wasn’t as big as he was—two hundred population, I think. Yah, you can see now how he came to be mayor and everything. All the voters owed him money, andwhether they wanted to vote for him or not they didn’t dare do otherwise.
Well, to pick up my story, I bravely got back in my seat when Poppy hung up the screwdriver and crowbar. Then away we went again ... almost!
“What’s the matter now?” says I, necking through the brass windshield frame to see where the engine had gone to.
“I killed it,” confessed the chauffeur.
“Well,” says I, ready to overlook the crime, “it deserved it. But you might have waited until we got home. For this is an awfully hot place to hold a funeral.”
“Get out and wind ’er up, you bag of nonsense, and shut up.”
“Use the self-starter.”
“Say, what do you think this is?—a Rolls-Royce?”
“Yah, a Rolls-Rough.”
“Well, show your stuff, varlet. And when you get through, fold up the crank and hang it on the radiator neck.”
“Don’t let the old tub run over me,” I cautioned.
“Trust me, kid,” bragged the driver.
“Have you got the brake set?”
“I’ve just been wondering, Jerry, if thereisa brake. There ought to be one. But I haven’t been able to find it.”
“Goodnight!” I yipped. “Suppose we came to the top of a hill?”
“Oh, we can go down the hills, all right.”
“Yah, I guess we can!—seventy miles an hour.”
“Say,” he threw out his chest, “don’t you suppose I know how to handle this old bus?”
“My life isn’t insured.”
“Anyway,” came the grin, “you aren’t doing anything useful except rattle around in the seat. So when we go down the hills you can jump out and hold us back.”
“The human brake, huh?”
“And when we’re going up the hills,” was the further job that was shoved at me, “you can get out and push.”
“One thing in my favor,” says I, “it isn’t a hilly country.”
Poppy and I have a lot of fun gabbing back and forth that way. It’s crazy stuff, I know. But we get a kick out of it.
At ten o’clock we came within sight of a flock of dingy-looking houses. According to our map this was New Zion. The road that we were on seemed to be the town’s main street.
A big weather-beaten sign jumped up in front of us. And reading it, we were made to understand why there were no other automobiles on the roadexcept us. We understood, too, why Lawyer Chew had driven over from his own town in a horse and buggy.
I made a copy of the crazy sign. Here it is:
NO AUTOMOBILES ALLOWEDOur streets are privately owned, so we have the legal right to prohibit the use of automobiles within our corporation limits. Nor do we permit dancing, the use of any intoxicating drinks, card playing, the smoking or chewing of tobacco, or the playing of any musical instrument except the harp. Our laws and ordinances will be strictly enforced.NoahbracketJonahAdamCommittee on Civil AffairsMosesGoliath
NO AUTOMOBILES ALLOWED
Our streets are privately owned, so we have the legal right to prohibit the use of automobiles within our corporation limits. Nor do we permit dancing, the use of any intoxicating drinks, card playing, the smoking or chewing of tobacco, or the playing of any musical instrument except the harp. Our laws and ordinances will be strictly enforced.