CHAPTER XVIIIA WHISPERING VOICE
“It’sLawyer Chew’s rig,” says Mrs. Doane, with a puzzled look at the newcomers.
“Yes,” says Poppy, “and the sort of near-human-looking object that you see squashed on the seat behind the whip socket is Lawyer Chew’s pet son, Eggbert.”
“He looks like his father.”
“Andactslike him, too, you’ll find.”
It didn’t take young fatty as long to untangle himself from the buggy seat as his old man. And, say, did he ever strut it off as he came toward the house! The king had arrived! You tell ’em! And now, at a snap of his royal fingers, everybody and everything in the landscape, not on his side, would do a neat and obedient little loop-the-loop.
Yah, he had us licked in his own mind even before he got out of his pa’s spraddle-wheeled buggy. But don’t weep too soon over our sad fate. For you may find that there’s a laugh coming yet.
Chuckling, Poppy pulled me back out of sight.
“Quick, Jerry!—to the kitchen.”
“What for?”
“To find a pail.”
“What kind of a pail?”
“Any kind,” came the giggle, “just so long as it holds water. And the more water the better.”
“Hot dog!” says I, seeing fun ahead. “Are you going to give young fatty a shower bath?”
“Nothing else but.”
In a jiffy we had a pail. Not a skinny one, either, but a sort of robust, full-grown pail. Just fatty’s size. And filling it with cold water, we hoisted it up the stairs, for it was the leader’s scheme to do the “showering” act through an upper window.
So that we would be completely out of sight, we went clear up to the third floor. Nor did our window give us away with any squeaky stuff when he guardedly opened it.
“Reserved seats,” grinned the leader, rubbering over the sill.
Below us, the over-fed rooster was still doing his cock-a-doodle-doo stuff.
“My name’s Chew,” we heard him give out importantly in front of Mrs. Doane. “I guess you know who my father is, for he was here yesterday.”
“Yes,” says the little old lady calmly, “I know a great deal about your father. And I knew yourgrandfather, too, whom you resemble,in your actions,a great deal more than you probably realize.”
But fatty didn’t get that.
“My father has me help him, so that I can learn the business,” came importantly. “And he sent me over here to lock up this place, and see that it is kept locked up.”
“Was heafraidto come himself?”
“Afraid? Ofyou?” and the fat smart aleck gave the meanest laugh you can imagine. Boy, he sure was trying to act hard-boiled! “No,” came the further strut, “he wasn’tafraid. He had other business that was more important.... You’ve got just ten minutes to get your stuff packed. And if you aren’t ready to beat it then, the sheriff here will do a clever little trick to help you along. Savvy?”
This brought the man forward.
“The boy’s a bit blunt, ma’am,” came in a not unkindly voice. “Yet he has stated the case correctly. Unless you promptly leave here of your own accord, I’ll have to serve the papers on you that were given to me for that purpose.”
“I suppose,” says Mrs. Doane stiffly, “that in planning to move us out of here, you even brought along an ambulance stretcher.”
“An ambulance stretcher? What for?”
“My husband is sick in bed. We had the doctor for him this morning. And while it probably isn’ta case ofsmallpox, still the doctor thought it would be wise to put up a quarantine sign. You might not have noticed it.”
“I swan!” exclaimed the man, getting his eyes on the sign. Then he turned to the kid. “Guess, Sonny, this changes things considerable.”
“It’s a trick!” danced young fatty. “Don’t let her fool you.”
After a look at puggy-nose, which showed plainly enough what she thought of him, the woman turned to the officer.
“There’s a ’phone in the house,” says she. “And if you wish, you can call up Dr. Madden of Neponset Corners and verify my story. Or,” dryly, “if you care to run the risk, you can go up to the sick room and see the invalid for yourself. But if he coaxes you to scratch the purple blotches on his back, please don’t do it. For, as I just told you, it may be catching.”
The man was eager enough to get away.
“Your word’s good with me, ma’am,” says he, backing off.
But bulldog-face wasn’t going to give up his bone without a scrap.
“Dumb-bell!” he screeched. “Don’t you know your onions? It’s a trick, I tell you. And if you don’t call her bluff, and put her out of here, my father’ll fix you.”
The man didn’t like that, but he hung onto his temper.
“Servin’ papers on smallpox cases hain’t in my line, Sonny,” says he quietly.
“Smallpox, your granny!... I’m going in and ’phone, if you don’t.”
“Help yourself,” drawled the officer, giving the kid the same kind of a look that Mrs. Doane had.
Fatty had talked brave. But he backed down now. For it suddenly percolated into his thick skull, I guess, that the woman might be telling the truth, after all. Anyway, he didn’t go inside to use the telephone.
The sheriff had gone back to the buggy, as though the morning’s work was over so far as he was concerned. This gave us the very chance we were looking for. But as I grabbed the pail of water, to heave it out of the window in good aim, Poppy stopped me.
“Look, Jerry!”
He was pointing to the eaves over our heads. And what do you know if there wasn’t a hornets’ nest up there, under the roof edge, as big as a tub. It had more holes in it than Red Meyers has freckles, and there was a pa and ma hornet and nine frisky little hornets with brand new stingers and sassy tempers for every hole. Boy, were we ever in luck!
Down below, fatty was spreading around somemore of his mean gab. His father would see aboutthisand his father would see aboutthat. Quarantine sign or no quarantine sign, his father would blub-blub-blub-blub!
Poppy slid the stick out of the bottom part of the window shade.
“Get ready, Jerry. When I count ‘three,’ dump your bucket. And at the same time I’ll poke the nest loose.”
The sheriff had his eyes on us now. But though he saw what we were doing, he didn’t give us away. It tickled him, I guess, to see smarty get it in the neck.
“One, two,three,” says Poppy, and down went the water and the hornets, only the water, being the heaviest, hit the fat target first. Doused from head to foot, young fatty gave a gurgle like a staggering bull when the nest pancaked on his dome. He knew, of course, that it was a trick. And looking up to see where the water and nest had come from, he found twenty-seven million homeless hornets swooping down at him in vengeance. One old gladiator, who could pump his wings faster than the others, made a swish with his sword, ramming it clear through the upturned pug nose. Then, boy, oh, boy, did hunky ever howl! He took to his heels, swinging his arms over his bean like a drunken windmill. But he wasn’t fast enough to get away from another old lunker, who stabbed him six inches deep in the tight part of his pants. With one great and mighty howl, the runner jumped clear over a nine-foot bush. Anyway, it was a bush.
HE TOOK TO HIS HEELS AS TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION HORNETS SWOOPED DOWN AT HIMHE TOOK TO HIS HEELS AS TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION HORNETS SWOOPED DOWN AT HIM.Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail.Page192
HE TOOK TO HIS HEELS AS TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION HORNETS SWOOPED DOWN AT HIM.Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail.Page192
HE TOOK TO HIS HEELS AS TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION HORNETS SWOOPED DOWN AT HIM.Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail.Page192
Closing the window, we scooted downstairs.
“Laws-a-me!” laughed Mrs. Doane, getting her eyes on our empty pail. “Was it you boys who threw the water? I never saw anything so funny, and soappropriate, in all my life. And thosehornets!” Then, grimly: “My only regret is that it wasn’t Lawyer Chew, himself, who got it, instead of his son.”
It was going to eleven o’clock now. We had dinner an hour later, then Poppy and I fixed up the door in the barn as best we could, for we had no right to smash it down and go off and leave it that way.
We did a lot of talking back and forth as we worked. But I don’t know as I need to write it all down. You know everything that we knew. And probably the things that puzzled us are puzzling you. It was a big disappointment to us that we had missed seeing Dr. Madden. In spite of our discoveries in the barn, Mrs. Doane didn’t believe that he was deep in the mystery. But we did. It wasn’t anything that he hadn’t smelt druggy when he made his morning call. Clean clothes and a bath could havefixed him up O. K. As for acting worried over the “lost” granddaughter, that could have all been put on. Or even if hedidn’tknow where she was, that in no way left him out of the tangle. Not by a long shot. Wherever the girl was, or whatever her secret ideas were in hiding—on him, possibly, as well as on the rest of us—he had yet to tellwhyhe had hid himself in the closed house for a whole year.
He would be back in the evening, he had told Mrs. Doane. Sure thing, he would be back! Just as Poppy had said in dishing out his theory, it was the hider’s scheme, in having solved the mystery of the millionaire’s death, to spring a surprise when the will was read. So now, as you can imagine, we were crazy for night to come. For we wanted to find outwhythe dead man’s loyal friend had hid in the lonely house, with queer-smelling drugs all around him, and what he had uncovered.
Poppy took it into his head to do some more sleuthing in the upper rooms, hopeful, I guess, that he would pick up a clew in the way of a cuff link, or something like that, as usually happens in detective stories. I saw that he didn’t need me, and going downstairs to help Mrs. Doane, who was sweeping and dusting for dear life, so that everything in the house would be spick and span for the big party that night, I found her at the telephone.
“What? I can’t hear a word you say.” She jiggled the receiver hook. “Speak louder, please. What? Dr. Madden? What did you say? Dr. Maddenwhat?... No, all I can hear is ‘Dr. Madden.’ Just a minute,” and trembling like a leaf, she partly turned and motioned to me. “There’s a boy here, and I’ll let him talk. Maybe he has sharper ears than me.”
The receiver switched hands.
“It’s long distance,” she told me nervously. “And Ithinkit’s Pardyville, but I’m not certain. Oh, dear! How helpless people do get when they grow old. I hope it isn’t bad news. If the callisfrom Pardyville, no doubt the doctor has found Miss Ruth. And certainlythatisn’t bad news.”
“Hello,” says I, jamming the receiver against one ear and prodding a finger into the other, as I had seen Dad do on long-distance calls. “Who’s speaking?”
“This is the St. Elizabeth hospital at Pardyville,” came a faint distant voice. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” says I.
A hospital! That wasn’t a very favorable start, I thought, for good news. We never haddreamedthat the granddaughter, in getting into some kind of a possible accident, had been taken to a hospital.
“We have an accident case here—Dr. Madden of Neponset Corners. Do you know him?”
“Yes,” says I, with my heart thumping.
“His automobile turned turtle a mile outside of town, and he is quite seriously injured. Knowing that he might not survive the operation, he wants to talk with Mrs. Ivor Doane. It must be important, for he insists on doing the talking himself, though he is in a very weakened condition. Is Mrs. Doane there?”
“I’m taking the message for her,” I explained.
“Then listen carefully.”
There was a metal-like click at the other end of the wire; then a short deep silence. My heart was pounding. I don’t think I ever was more excited in all my life. Realizing that he was done for, the queer doctor was going to make a confession that would clear up the mystery. I was going to hear strange things. But I didn’t let my excitement tangle up my wits. I needed a clear brain now. I realized that.
“This is—Dr. Madden,” came a whispering voice over the wire.
“Yes?” says I, sort of breathless-like.
“Tell Mrs. Doane—that Ruth Danver will lose—her grandfather’s property—if she isn’t in the house—before midnight—to-night. Diary in clock—explains everything. I found it—and hid it there. Do you—hear me?”
“Yes,” says I.
“The clock—in Mr. Danver’s room. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” says I.
There was a dead silence then. The whispering voice was gone. And I knew what that meant. Without getting a chance to be operated on, the man was gone, too.
I started to shiver. I don’t know why, unless it was like having a man die in front of me, sort of. Things like that get the best of a boy. But after a minute or two I was all right again. I told Mrs. Doane about the accident and the whispering voice. Then we ran upstairs to find Poppy and get the diary out of the clock.