CHAPTER XXIION THE ROAD AGAIN
Well, I’m pretty close to the end of my story now. And to sort of hurry things along, I’m not going to write down, word for word, what everybody in the house said and did in the next few hours, for, as you can imagine, there was a lot of tumbling, rambling talk when we took the granddaughter to Mrs. Doane. Instead, I’ll go ahead, in my own words, and clear up the mystery for you.
To start with, Dr. Madden wasn’t dead at all. He had fainted during his talk with me on the telephone, and that is what had given me the idea that he was gone. I’m glad to say that he got well, and now is in his right mind, which hewasn’tbefore the accident, for he had something to tell the medical world that would have been a big loss if the secret had died with him. Can’t you guess now why he was hiding in the big house? It was to complete his “cure” for the fatal jungle disease. Experiments had been going on for years, and if the millionaire had lived another twelve months he would have been completely cured. Upon his death, which halted theexperiments, Dr. Madden put some of the impure blood into his own body, so that he could go ahead with his work. And, as I say, in the year that he secretly doped himself with drugs, he found a complete cure—he was bright enough on that point, but I guess thesolitudeof the big empty house got the best of him. I don’t mean he was crazy—justqueer.
It was quite by accident that he found the diary. Reading it, to learn if it was his duty, as a friend who knew its probable secrets, to destroy it, he thus had found out about the lawyer’s trickery. But instead of writing and telling the granddaughter who he was andwhyshe ought to be in the big house when the will was read, he worded his letter socrazy-like, with such queer reference to the dead man’s diary, that the letter frightened her. She knew all about the big fortune that was waiting to be divided up, and while she had no proof that her grandfather wanted her to have the most of it, still she had been told certain things by Chew, as I’ll mention later. And this mysterious, rambling letter, signed by “a friend,” urged her to do things that the lawyer had told her not to do. You can see the sort of “up-a-tree” fix that she was in. One man told her to keep away, the other told her to come. And each one hinted that if she didn’t do as he said she would cross her grandfather’s wishes. So it isn’t so strangethat she made up her mind to come to the big housesecret-like, where she intended to get the diary and find out the truth. Yet she hadn’t the nerve to come to the big house alone. And her mother being in Europe, she got the idea of having two older relatives open up the house for her. Afterwards she would beg their pardon for worrying and mystifying them. And to that point, only the woman was to be left mystified, for it was the girl’s intention to take the old man into her confidence.
As we know, the house keys had been sent to her—which was the first she knew that her grandfather was dead—and to his own ends Chew craftily “explained” that she now was the “custodian” of the house, with the duty of seeing that it was keptcompletely closed, the dead man’s last wish. It was further hinted that unless she did this she would lose her heritage. Nor did Chew intend to send for her when the will was read. By keeping her away a year, as he had kept her away from the funeral, he would practically get control of everything, and that, of course, is what he was after. Hence the girl took particular pains to caution the two Doanes not to let anybody know that they were living in the big house. How Ma spilled the beans, though, we already know.
On the train the girl got the frightened idea thata man in “green goggles” was secretly watching her. And when this man followed her from the train in Pardyville, she ran back to her seat, hurriedly writing a note to old Ivory Dome, which note was left with the ticket agent. In leaving home that morning, a boy friend had laughingly given her a pet gander, which he had fixed up in a crazy way with purple ink spots—though what the complete joke was about the gander the girl never told us! I have a hunch, though, that she was kind of sweet on the guy! Anyway, she kept the gander, which was checked to Pardyville. So old Ivory Dome got it, along with the note, when he finally rolled in, twenty minutes late.
The note said that he was to turn back on C. H. O. and keep going until he met the girl on the road, as it was her intention to go to Sandy Ridge, the next stop, and take a taxicab from there. In the meantime, a fence had been put across C. H. O., but old Ivory Dome didn’t let that stop him! Whether he went around it, or over it, we don’t know. But we do understand now how he happened to have the whole road to himself, and why he passed the sandy crossroad. The concrete having “bulged” dangerously, a mile east of Sandy Ridge, the road had been shut off for temporary repairs. The taxicab brought the girl that far, where old Ivory Dome picked herup. With his promise to keep her secret, she had gotten out of the car before the tip-up. On the east side of the stone house a vine frame cleverly hid a secret door, at the foot of the wall staircase, and going there, while we were fussing over the unconscious man, she found the dooropen! She didn’t know, of course, that Dr. Madden was living in the secret room. He had gone outside, at the time of the accident, and later was unable to get back in, for the girl had locked the door on the inside. So now we know why he watched the house that night in the storm.
He tried again the next night to get into the house, but to no success. Later that night he followed us to the barn, after the girl had put the gander in our room to get us away, so that she could clean out the desk in the hope of finding the diary. You will remember, we went into the barn first, then Dr. Madden, then old Ivory Dome. And right here I think I ought to say a few words about the old man. A queer codger, he wasn’t half as crafty as we had imagined. It is true that he had promised the granddaughter to keep her secret, but in the automobile accident everything in his thick head had been turned upsidedown. His dumbness wasn’t put on.Whyhe went to the barn, we’ll never know. But I think he remembered, sort of vague-like, that therewas asecretabout the gander, and that may have been why it attracted him. The girl came back to the barn to get the gander, for company, screaming when she saw a “ghost.” And the rest you know.
The next morning, before putting old Chew wise to the truth, Poppy went to him with a long face.
“Mr. Chew,” says he meekly, “is it possible for you to let bygones be bygones and do me a favor?”
“No, sir!” the old tub thundered, with hatred in his green eyes. “You’ll get no favors from me. To the contrary, I’m going to make you sweat for last night’s attack. You’ll suffer under the law for that.”
Poppy was crushed, and showed it.
“I was going to ask you,” he hung his head, “if you cared if Mrs. Doane took home the red-plush settee in the hall.”
“Mrs. Doane will getnothingout of this house.”
“Maybe you’ll sell it to us, so we can give it to her.”
“I wouldn’t sell it to you for a thousand dollars,” came meanly, “if I knew she wanted it.”
Some old hog, huh? Well, I’m glad to write down in conclusion that the good old ladydidget her settee—with ten thousand dollars on top of it—and all fatty got, after all of his crooked work, was what the little boy shot at. Which is the way things should be.
To show you how much “brotherly love” he hadfor the New Zion bunch, he practically put them out of business by making them pay fourteen per cent on money that they owed the Danver estate. The estate got five per cent and old grab-it-all got the rest!
And thus reminded of old Goliath, you’ll give us the horselaugh when I tell you the truth abouthim. He wasn’t married at all. Furthermore, he was the only man left in the religious camp—he was so hard-boiled and such a liar that the others, in moving away, wouldn’t even take him with them, though earlier they had tried to use him and reform him. No wonder the “town” had looked deserted the day we rode through it in state—after having coughed up two dollars for the privilege! The houses had been empty for six months. And we had swallowed that “picnic” story! Old Goliath sure worked us slick. I suppose he’s laughing about it to this day. Well, we should worry. We still have his hair!
The balance of our hitch-hike was kind of tame. So we were glad to get home. And to that point, we hadn’t been home a week before we were mixed up in the Pedigreed-Pickle business that the Tutter people are still laughing over. Can you imagine Poppy standing up to his neck in cucumber pickles? It was his job to sell the pickles—but before he couldsellthem he had tomakethem. I can still see thatmountain of cucumbers. “It’s no use,” says I, in despair. “We can’t do it.”
But we did. Andhowwe did it—bucked by a mean rich kid, and with a mystery hanging over us that gave us shivers one minute and completely tangled us up the next—is, I believe, a story that you won’t want to miss.
So tighten up your buttons for the biggest laugh of your lifetime, for we’ll soon be there in POPPY OTT’S PEDIGREED PICKLES.
—THE END—