DETECTIVE POODLE
Lieutenant Adeler and Poodle Darby had not received a single word
from Hike, even by noon of the day after his disappearance.
General Thorne grew alarmed. The police were quietly notified,
without letting the newspapers know; and two police detectives were
put on the case. Besides them, two operatives from a good private
detective-agency were employed. The great Poodle had to box his
own ears, to keep from feeling conceited at the way in which these
private detectives consulted him; and the anxious respect with which
they hinted that they knew how Poodle had aviated with Hike across
the country.
Poodle talked the case over with Lieutenant Adeler; suggesting that
Captain Willoughby Welch must have something to do with the matter;
but this the Lieutenant, good army-man as he was, refused to listen
to. Then Master Poodle took a long walk with himself, and thought the
whole thing over thoroughly. He decided: “Here’s where I become a
grand little detective.”
He felt very certain that Mr. P. J. Jolls and Captain Welch knew a
great deal about the matter. He found, by telephoning, that Captain
Welch, who was staying at the New Willard, had been seen loafing
about the lobby, talking to acquaintances and reporters, all day.
That, Poodle decided, was for the sake of appearances. Captain Welch
was not, he believed, so clumsy a rascal that he needed to be doing
mischief himself, in order to get it done; and, anyway, it was good
Mr. Jolls who was likely to be causing the real trouble.
Where was Mr. Jolls? He was supposed to be in Chicago. There his
factories were located. But suppose he were in Washington? His name
had not been mentioned in the newspapers; he had not been seen about
the State, War, and Navy Building, where the Board of Aviation had
been holding its meetings. But Poodle felt sure that the man was
here; that his fat hand had something to do with the disappearance of
Hike.
He described Jolls to one of the private detectives. He had seen the
airship magnate at Captain Welch’s house, in Monterey. He mentioned
Jolls’ sausage-roll neck, his red little eyes, the four gaudy rings
he wore.
The detective started his search, without confiding in any one except
Poodle. He searched through several of the larger hotels.
Poodle waited in the anteroom of General Thorne’s office.
There was a telephone call for him. Over the wire, he heard the
detective reporting, “Hullo. Darby? Well, there’s a guy here at the
Hotel de Suisse that—”
“Hotel de Suisse?”
“Yuh, it’s a small hotel but very swell—lot of rich people that are
here lobbying use it. Well, there’s a guy here named Jolls. He ain’t
registered. But I got wise to him through a bell-hop. And he looks
just like you said the right Jolls did.”
“A’ right. Be right there. Meet me in lobby. Say, just kill Jolls for
me, while you’re waiting, will you?” exclaimed Poodle, and, jamming
the receiver on the hook, dashed out of the telephone booth.
“Call me a taxi!” he shrieked at an orderly. The soldier jumped to
obey. Poodle waited for the taxi on the walk, and swung into it
before it had stopped.
“Hotel de Suisse—quick—big tip if you hustle!” he hissed at the
chauffeur, slammed the door to himself, and was off.
Though he had just been the busy detective, it was the real Poodle
that curled up on the cushions in a most undignified way, and poked
fun at himself for the way he had been ordering people about. And
he grinned. “Gee, I sure am glad Papa Darby is rich—but I don’t
know’s he will be, for long, if he has to back his little Poodle
in this search for Hike.” Rejoicing at being able to pay bills at
this important time, he clinked the gold coins he had brought from
California (where very little paper-money is used).
As the taxi whirled up to the Hotel de Suisse, Poodle jumped out,
threw a gold piece to the astonished chauffeur, then sauntered
into the hotel as though he were bored to death and wishing he had
something to do.
The detective was seated in a big leather armchair in the lobby,
looking oh! so lazy and careless. But there was no laziness in his
sharp whisper to Poodle:
“Jolls upstairs. In his room. Ain’t been out since he came—two,
three days ago—but gets lots of ’phone calls. He’s ordered an early
breakfast for to-morrow—six o’clock; in his room. And a touring car
for six-twenty.”
“Do you know any of the night-clerks here?” asked Poodle.
“Yuh. Sure. A little. Why?” The detective threw out the four remarks
as though they were so many hard rocks.
“Look here. I’ll watch here till midnight. Then you watch till
morning, and get me up at a quarter to six—I’ll get a room here, you
know. Will you?”
“Yuh. Sure. Quarter to six.”
“And say,” added Poodle, “get me a suit of clothes so’s I can make up
as a kind of a tough kid.... Now you look here—if you say, ‘You won’t
need much disguise for that,’—why, I’ll bite you.”
“You’ve got me,” grinned the detective. “I was going to make some
fool crack like that!”
Poodle hastened out to get a couple of sandwiches and a cup of
coffee, engaged a room, and settled down for his six-hour wait till
midnight, in the lobby, telephoning his whereabouts to the Lieutenant.
He did not expect to see Mr. P. J. Jolls that evening, but he
did—once. The man came down in an elevator, crossed the lobby, bought
some papers, and returned to his room. He went quickly, as though
he were in hiding. He glanced about the lobby, with an anxious
expression in his fat, mean face, but he didn’t notice the cheerful
youngster who was so deep sunk in the big chair nearest the elevator.
Next morning, at a quarter to six, one Poodle Darby was very busily
engaged in sleeping, with his head deeply buried in a pillow. The
detective, entering by means of a pass-key, stood by the bed,
grinned, then began to tickle Poodle’s happy red ears till Poodle
awoke and stared up, wondering why and where and what.
“Hawlf awfter steen, me lud, and the bawth waits,” announced the
detective.
Poodle’s first reply was a remarkable combination of a yawn, a
stretch, a sigh, and “Gee, I’m sleepy,” all of which, taken together,
sounded very much like “Ughff—F!” Then he regarded the detective with
extreme disfavor and added, “You talk like a little green wagon. Oh,
say, has the motor car come yet?”
“No. It ain’t due yet. Jolls didn’t order it to come till six-twenty.”
“I mean the one for me.”
“For you? You didn’t say anything about that.”
“GEE! Did I forget it? I’ve got to have one—to follow him.”
“Yuh. That’s what I thought. So I ordered one for you—a touring-car.
Now who talks like a little green wagon?” The detective smiled
infernally.
While hastily dressing in the rough coat, trousers and shirt of his
“disguise,” Poodle reflected that he hadn’t the best of it, for once.
So he loved the detective. Poodle was built that way—he liked people
who could do things better than he.
Poodle was in the tonneau of his car, waiting in front of the hotel,
when Mr. P. J. Jolls pompously came down and entered a second
automobile. Poodle was wilted down in the corner, with a large
steamer-rug concealing nearly all of him except an extra large and
ferocious pair of goggles, and the tip of his merry upturned nose.
He ordered his chauffeur to follow the Jolls car; and away they
hustled, out through old Georgetown, across the Aqueduct Bridge into
Virginia, then northeastward, through little towns and past farms,
in which Poodle took about as little interest as a sailor would in a
horse. For he was attending strictly to this question: did Mr. P. J.
Jolls know that his car was being followed?
At first, so many cars were touring that Jolls noticed nothing. But
as Poodle’s car kept on taking the same turns as he did, even after
they had left the highroad, Jolls began to look back, anxiously.
Finally, they reached a hilly country, and from hilltops Jolls looked
down on the pursuing car anxiously.
They approached a great hill, and Jolls’ car slowed down.
Poodle ordered his chauffeur, “Pass that car, and take me just over
the top of the hill. I’ll jump out there, but you go ahead, and wait
for me at the next town. You may have to wait all day.”
The chauffeur had been told by the detective that this lad was really
a great young sleuth, and there was keen respect in the “Yes, sir”
with which he answered Poodle.
They shot by the Jolls car, Poodle keeping way down in the tonneau.
As soon as the car passed the top of the hill, where it was hidden
from the Jolls car for an instant, Poodle sprang out. He looked like
a jolly country-boy, certainly not like a motorist who followed other
people’s cars. He strolled to the top of the hill, and over it,
toward the approaching Jolls car, without attracting the slightest
attention from Jolls.
He ambled down till he was just behind the Jolls car, which was
taking the hill very slowly. Poodle was sure that Jolls would never
go to his real destination, where Hike was, unless he got rid of the
car that seemed to be pursuing him. He had been sure that Jolls would
slow up, to let the other car get ahead. He chuckled cheerfully to
find that he had guessed right.
Once behind the car, the loafing country-boy suddenly changed to a
panting runner. Poodle dashed up behind the Jolls car, caught at the
back-thrust hood, and swung up beneath it, clinging to the springs
and back of the car with his toes. As the car, passing the top of
the hill, increased its speed a little, Poodle settled himself, not
into a comfortable position, but into a safe one, crouching on the
trunk rack. As he had expected, the Jolls car took a side road at the
bottom of the decline, to escape the “pursuing car” ahead; then let
out speed.
They rode about seven miles, with Poodle swaying behind, then, in a
small town they stopped. Poodle dropped from behind, and vaulted
upon a fence, looking as rustic as he could.
Mr. P. J. Jolls climbed stiffly out of the car, his fat legs
objecting to exercise; and said to Poodle:
“Say, boy, where’s Smith’s Livery-Stable?”
“I dunno, sir; I don’t belong in this here town,” Poodle drawled as
ignorantly as possible.
Mr. Jolls looked at him with haughty scorn, and trotted down the
street. To Jolls’ chauffeur Poodle said:
“What’s the trouble with you and the old man? What’s he dropping you
for, and taking to a livery-stable? My, you must be a bum shuffer. If
I was driving a man and he ditched me—”
“Ditched nobody,” growled the chauffeur. “I’m to wait. I suppose if
_you_ was chauffeur you’d be so good he just couldn’t lose you,”
Jolls’ driver sneered in a highly superior manner.
“You go eat your hat,” ordered Poodle, very impudently perhaps, and
dropped on the further side of the fence to escape the wrench which
the chauffeur was going to throw at him.
He strolled through the little town, and watched Mr. Jolls groaningly
hoist himself up on horseback, and ride painfully away.
Then Poodle’s loafing manner disappeared. Holding out a gold piece,
he said to Smith of Smith’s Stables, “Give me your best saddle-horse.
Quick. But without a saddle. And I want that big straw-hat, there on
the wall.”
The proprietor started to quiz him, but Poodle abruptly, curtly,
cried, “Quick, I said. This five bucks is for you.”
As soon as he was out of the stable-yard, Poodle pulled off his shoes
and socks and tucked them under his coat. He pulled his straw-hat
down on his head. Then he loped round a corner, and was soon going
at a lazy country pace, along the dusty, hot road, behind Mr. P. J.
Jolls. He stuck out his bare feet, and slouched all over his horse’s
back. Jolls took only one look back at him, then paid no further
attention.
Poodle rejoiced to see from the way Jolls shifted in his seat that
the manufacturer was good and uncomfortable. He needed a little cause
for rejoicing like that, for Poodle was not any too comfortable,
himself. He had got used to the hard slippery McClellan army-saddles,
at Monterey. But this clinging to the sides of a sweating horse,
without a saddle, was not pleasant.
He rolled and slid, but he followed closely enough, till Jolls turned
in at a private road, which led by a marsh up a wooded hill, where
stood a lonely old shack.
Poodle rode by, round a bend, slid off his horse, hitched it back in
a thicket, and darted across the road into a field of the abandoned
farm which Jolls had entered. He slipped on his shoes and hid the
huge straw hat. Running with his head and shoulders low, taking
shelter behind shrubs, he approached the hill from behind. Suddenly,
his feet sank in mud. A marsh was before him. He ran along its edge,
and found that the boggy land surrounded all the hill, except where
the road entered, in front.
He jerked off his shoes and rushed into the marsh on the jump. Mud
soaked through his socks. Briers scratched him. But he went at the
bushes as though they were open doors. He didn’t have time to notice
he was being scratched and soaked.
He reached the hillside and sneaked up it on hands and knees. For
he had been startled by the sight of a tall, vicious-faced man,
strolling about the top of the hill, with a rifle under his arm, as
though he were guarding the cabin toward which Poodle was heading.
Once he had to lie flat for three minutes, while mosquitoes covered
him. But he didn’t care. Hike must be up there in the cabin!
The guard passed out of sight. Poodle rushed to the cabin. He found
a rubbish heap—old shoes, bottles, a couple of boards, damp straw—at
the back of the house, and slipped under this ill-smelling but
concealing heap. Putting his ear against a crack in the old logs, he
almost cried out with joy, for he heard Hike’s voice within. Hike was
saying:
“There’s no use talking to me, Mr. Jolls. I haven’t got anything to
say about the Priest aeroplanes. You ought to know that. All I do is
to drive them. And if you did anything to me, you’d have just as much
trouble.”
“Now I _know_, my boy—” came P. J. Jolls’ greasy voice, soothingly.
“Now I know,” Poodle heard Hike interrupting, in there, in the cabin,
“I know that you and Captain Welch are trying to steal Priest’s
rights from him and get the army-appropriation for your old machines.
I’m sorry I haven’t got any final say about the thing, because if I
did have I’d fight you to the end. But I haven’t got the least bit to
say. So you’re only wasting your time trying to get me to keep away
from Priest. Why, can’t you see for yourself, I’m only a kid, and—”
“Yes, my boy, I can see you’re ‘only a kid.’ Not so much because of
your appearance, but because you won’t listen to reason. Now you
listen to me.” Poodle felt that Mr. Jolls was getting rather angry.
“I _know_, from inside sources, the Army Board is going to throw out
the Priest aeroplane entirely, because it isn’t practical for use in
war.”
“You’re a liar,” Hike was heard to state, wearily and most impolitely.
“Will you listen to me, or not?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose I’ll have to—tied up like this. And it was you
that made ’em tie me again. I won’t forget that.”
When he heard the words “tied up,” Poodle’s flesh prickled coldly all
over. Hike—_tied up_! He felt that any punishment he could devise
for Jolls would be too easy. Well, he’d try to hit Jolls in the
pocketbook. That would hurt more than anything else! Meanwhile, Jolls
was continuing:
“I wish you could understand me, Griffin. I don’t believe I’ve ever
admired any young man so much as I admired you when I heard of the
magnificent way in which you handled that rotten Priest tetrahedral
in your cross-country flight. Why, I want you to be one of my chief
aviators, my boy. At a great big salary. I’ve met your father—I have
the keenest—”
“You let my father alone, will you?” snapped Hike.
“—the keenest admiration for him, and I hate to see his son mixed
up with a swindler and fake inventor like Priest. Why, my boy, what
few things there are that’re good about Priest’s tetrahedral are
_stolen_! Stolen from other devices that are patented. Mr. Priest
will land in jail inside of one week—”
“That’s another lie,” Hike remarked.
“It is, eh? Well, do you want to go to jail with him? Er no, I’ve got
something better for you. Now listen.” Mr. Jolls made his voice to be
very soft and purring. “If you’ll just sit down and write a little
note like this, I’ll give you a thousand dollars—in coin. Write like
this: ‘My _dear_ Mr. Priest: I have decided that the tetrahedral is
taking up too much of my time, and I shall have to drop it. You can
run the thing yourself. Also, I know that you have stolen all your
patents, and I don’t want anything to do with you, or your thefts, I
might add.’
“Now a note like that won’t hurt anything—you must see that
yourself—if he _hasn’t_ stolen them; and, if he has, why it will be
only just. If the cap fits, let him put it on.”
“Sure,” Hike could be heard sniffing, “it won’t hurt him—merely break
his heart—just when he’s getting over the feeling that the whole
world is conspiring against him. He’s pretty fond of me. All that
note will do will be to send him out into the mountains again, and
probably make him give up the game entirely.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Jolls snarled, the politeness in his
nasty voice wearing very thin. “That isn’t the only way we’re going
to get at your precious Priest. There’s plenty of other strings that
we’re pulling, already. Your note won’t be more than a drop in
the bucket. It won’t hurt Priest a quarter so much as some of the
other things we’re going to do. Don’t let that hurt your sweet young
conscience. You might just as well take the thousand dollars I’m
giving you, and be easy.
“Think, son, just think of the things you can do with that thousand.”
Jolls’ voice was soft again, in there. “Why, you can make aeroplane
experiments of your own. See here. I haven’t stated the other side,
yet. If you _don’t_ write that note, there’ll be two less boys by
to-morrow night—not only you, but your young friend Torrington
Darby—what is it you call him? Poodle, is it? I won’t tell you what
will happen to him, except that we have him in a trap, too. But as
for you—”
“You make me tired,” Hike could be heard yawning, apparently not much
impressed.
“I’ll make you much tireder before I get through with you if you
don’t write this note,” Jolls roared. “Look here. You ought to know,
by this time, after the way you were brought here, and the way you’re
guarded, that I can do whatever I want to with you. I might as well
admit that I won’t stop short of anything, to land this contract for
aeroplanes. I’m going to have it, and if you think a brat like you
can put any hindrances in my way, you might just as well get over
that idea right _now_! You might as well take this thousand dollars
that I’m simply _giving_ you, and be easy.
“And if you _don’t_ write that note, let me tell you what will happen
to you. I’ll let you have till to-morrow to make up your mind. If
you won’t write this note—which I’ll telegraph to your dear friend
Priest, signed with your name, in any case, whether you write it or
not, so you might just as well—”
“Gee, you’ve got a nice little brain,” Hike could be heard laughing.
“You just thought of that, didn’t you? Why didn’t you think of it
before? You can go ahead and telegraph, all right—so what’s the _use_
of my writing the note? Course you were going to send it by mail,
with my writing but—”
“Well, the note will be handy for proving _you_ sent the wire,” Jolls
declared. “I want it, that’s all you need to know. And if you don’t
write it, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll have my men dig out a nice little
hole in the marshes below here. You know what they’re like—my men
told me about that fool attempt to escape that you made last night.
You may remember that there’s one or two mosquitoes there. Well,
you will be tied there, and left—without a drop of water to drink.
Nothing to eat—your stomach will draw up its sides, you’ll feel
faint—oh, you’ll have a nice time. You’ll get weaker and weaker till
you can’t lift a finger to chase away the mosquitoes. They will cover
you!”
In his hiding place, Poodle was raging, but he kept quiet, as Jolls
went on:
“And you’ll keep sinking—I don’t know which’ll get you first, mud or
starvation or mosquitoes. You’ll enjoy it. Just think of last night,
and how much you liked the mosquitoes, in the marsh.... Now will you
write that note? Or, maybe, do you think I’m just talking to hear
myself talk? Do you think that I wouldn’t be glad to have you tied
up, down there in the marsh?”
Poodle waited with painful eagerness for Hike’s answer. Hike had seen
what Jolls’ men could do—what did he believe—did he think that Jolls
would really do this thing, or not? He was so anxious for the answer
that he half withdrew himself from the concealing pile of rubbish;
then plunged down again, and listened from below the crack in the
wall, for he heard the leisurely step of the guard with the rifle.
“Well,” Hike could be heard saying, after a pause, “I guess you’re
just about enough of a skunk to do that. It won’t do you any good
though. I won’t write that note, and that’s all there is to it.
Besides, a great uncle of mine died in the swamps during the Civil
War.... I don’t see where I’m any better than he was.... I’m sleepy
now. I don’t think I’m very anxious to talk to you, any longer.”
Poodle heard Hike pretend to snore. Jolls swore. Then the cabin door
slammed. Some one yelled, “Come here, you fellows, Mr. Jolls wants to
talk to you.”
Poodle was frightened. He believed that Hike thought he was going to
be killed. Never had he loved and admired Hike so much as he did then.
He crawled near a corner of the shack, and saw a group of five
toughs, surrounding Jolls and listening to him. Their voices were not
loud. They were talking things that men do not want heard, ever. The
droning burr of the locust in the golden haze of noon was louder.
In a few minutes, Jolls stalked off, down the hill, and the thugs
took their former places, two of them on guard, the others loafing
under the trees, smoking, laughing, carelessly talking.
Poodle wasn’t doing any of these three things. He hastened back to
his rubbish heap, to get hidden before the guard came ’round back of
the cabin.
He pulled the damp straw as far up over him as it would go, and
slanted a couple of stray boards over the pile, so that it hid him.
Making himself as small as he could, under the rubbish, he picked at
the crack at which he had been listening.
The mud-filling between the logs had never been put on very well,
and now it was crumbling badly, dry and flaky. He worked at it with
his fingers till they bled, then poked it with his little penknife.
Gradually, he made a hole clean through. Twisting about, he could
look into the cabin.
He was startled, at first, for he was looking right at a guard, who
stood in the open doorway, across from him. Then he saw the dirty
floor, the broken window, and the heap of old furniture. Finally, he
located Hike, lying not over five feet from him, on the floor. Hike’s
ankles and wrists were tied, and a rope bound about his waist was
hitched to a ring in the wall. He looked very tired, but his lean jaw
was firmly set. He seemed to be going off to sleep again, instead of
worrying.
“_Hike!_” whispered Poodle, after two or three minutes, when the
guard for the back and sides of the cabin had passed by, and the
guard in front had moved out a little from the door. “Hike! It’s
Pood’!”
Hike started up, then lay back, with closed eyes. Hadn’t he been able
to believe his own ears? Did he think he had dreamed that whisper?
But Hike crossed his fingers, twice. It was the sign of the Santa
Benicia fraternity to which the two boys belonged! And Poodle was
sure that Hike had heard, and was making the signal for him.
“Out back,” whispered Poodle, a word at a time, cautiously, peeping
out from his rubbish heap now and then, to be sure the guard was not
near him. “I’ll come in _Hustle_—rescue. When’s Jolls coming back?”
Suddenly a strange sound came from within the cabin. Hike was
singing, as though to amuse himself. Poodle wondered, as he heard:
“Santa Benicia, Santa Benicia,
Santa Benicia Acada_mee_.”
Hadn’t Hike heard him, then, after all?
He saw the guard in front look into the cabin, and heard him sneer,
“Call that singing? I’d kill my dog, if he howled that way.” The
guard strolled still farther out from the cabin.
Hike sang on, through two verses, mumbling the words badly. Poodle
started, as he made out words among the mumblings. He listened
intently, and got this message out of what sounded like nonsense:
“To-night. Meeting here. Heard Jolls. Heard him talking. In front
of cabin. Captain Welch will be here. Have him arrested. Come in
_Hustle_. God bless you, old Poodle!”
“I’ll be here,” whispered Poodle. As the guard, passing the back of
the cabin, turned the corner, Poodle slipped out of his rubbish
heap, and crept toward the nearest bushes.
Running, stumbling, hurrying till his panting heart pained him, he
rushed down the hill, toward the marsh, bound for Washington.