A WHISPERING VOICE
“It’s Lawyer 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.”
“And _acts_ like 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 your _grandfather_, 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 he _afraid_ to come himself?”
“Afraid? Of _you_?” 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’t _afraid_. 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’t a case of _smallpox_, 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 some more of his mean gab.
His father would see about _this_ and his father would see about
_that_. 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.
[Illustration: HE TOOK TO HIS HEELS AS TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION HORNETS
SWOOPED DOWN AT HIM.
_Poppy Ott and the Galloping Snail._ _Page 192_]
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 so _appropriate_, in all my life. And those _hornets_!” 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 have fixed him up O. K. As for acting worried over the “lost”
granddaughter, that could have all been put on. Or even if he _didn’t_
know 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
tell _why_ he 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 out
_why_ the 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. Madden
_what_?... 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 I _think_ it’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 call _is_ from
Pardyville, no doubt the doctor has found Miss Ruth. And certainly
_that_ isn’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 had _dreamed_ that 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.