ADMIRAL PEPPER
The mystery 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--he _guessed_ he had one
minute, and the next minute he _guessed_ he 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 he _been_? Why, he had _been_ on the road
headed for home, of course. But we knew better. He had _been_ some
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’s _him_. 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 naturally _dumb_.”
“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 further command. “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.”
“But _he_ got 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 I _did_ hear from her.”
“Hot dog!” cried Poppy. “That’s an idea. Why don’t _you_ telephone,
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 the depot 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 I _did_. An’ the next minute it seems to me I _didn’t_.”
“Laws-a-me!” came kindly, showing that the woman didn’t make a habit of
jumping on the dumb old 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 fellow _should_ be 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 a _green_ necktie,” 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, _I_ think, 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 for _him_. 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, “what _do_ I mean, anyway?”
“I guess,” supplied Poppy, staring at the flat-footed newcomer, “you
mean _Admiral_ Pepper.”
“Admiral Pepper!” the wrinkled face cleared up. “That’s it. That’s it.”