THE EMPTY GRAVE
My chums got me out of bed the following morning.
“We can’t find Cap’n Tinkertop,” says Scoop, excited. “His store’s
closed, too.”
I told the others where the old man was.
“Why weren’t you on guard in the alley last night?” says I, feeling a
little bit sore toward them for not being on hand when I needed them.
Scoop laughed sheepishly.
“Jerry, I hate to admit it. But in a scrap last night the Strickers
got the best of us.”
“They locked us in a barn,” says Red, “and kept us there till
midnight.”
“So that’s where you were when I needed you, hey?”
“Did you need us?”
I told them my story. They were excited, I want to tell you.
Poppy pressed me with eager questions. Had I heard anybody in the
store?--had I noticed if any doors or windows were open?--had I
searched the store after Doc’s arrival?--and was I _sure_ about the
tattooed parrot on the Cap’n’s chest?
I couldn’t answer “yes” to the first three questions, but I could,
and did, to the last one. Not only was the chest design a black
parrot, I declared, but it was a duplicate of the one in the dead
sailor’s picture.
“And moreover,” says I, “old Caleb’s got the same thing tattooed on
him. For Doc told me so.”
Visiting old Caleb’s house that morning, in the hope of finding the
old man there well and unharmed, we came upon a yardful of excited
people. For some wag had started the story that the vanished man
had committed suicide. And what led the neighbors to take stock in
the story was the known fact that the old man himself, on Monday
afternoon, had ordered a grave dug in the Tinkertop lot in the old
Scotch cemetery. He had told the sexton, so it was said, that a body
was being shipped to the lot owner for burial. But to date no body
had been received at the local express office. And everybody in
Caleb’s end of town was now saying that the vanished man, in planning
his intended suicide, had ordered the grave dug for himself!
We took no stock in this story. Caleb wasn’t dead, we said. He was
hiding. But _why_ he was hiding, and where, was a complete mystery to
us. Yet we believed that the black parrot was in some way associated
with the old man’s disappearance. And we further believed that if we
could find him we undoubtedly would get the key to the mystery that
surrounded the strange parrot.
Could it be, we then considered, that old Caleb had something to
do with the Cap’n’s scare? Was he creeping out of his hiding place
nights, to some secret purpose? This was an exciting thought. And
as we were convinced now that the Cap’n’s store--the death parrot’s
home--was the center of the mystery that involved the unusual black
bird, it became our decision to work in the store that night instead
of in the alley.
Meeting us at the store at dusk, Poppy fixed five matches. I drew the
long one, which made me the “Cap’n.”
“What am I supposed to do?” says I, uneasy in my prominent part in
the night’s coming adventure.
“Your job,” says the leader, grinning, “will be to get into the
Cap’n’s bed in a perfectly natural way and pretend that you’re sound
asleep.”
“And then what?” says I.
“Something is trying to get the Cap’n. We know that. It was here last
night. And who can say that it won’t come back again to-night to
finish its job?”
I shivered.
“It may grab me,” says I.
“If it does,” says Peg, laughing, “kiss it and kill it.”
“I don’t want to kiss it,” says I, turning up my nose, “if it’s old
Caleb.”
“I _hope_,” says Poppy, serious, “that it’s the spy.”
Scoop was puzzled.
“How can it be a man?” says he. “That would be a ‘him,’ as Jerry
says, and not an ‘it.’”
“Maybe it was a man dressed up like a ghost,” says Peg.
“_Good_ night!” says I, motioning for them to clear the track for me.
“I’m going home.”
But I was joking, of course. I hadn’t the slightest intention of
going home. Even if I was to have a very risky part in the night’s
coming adventure I was determined to stay and see the thing through.
Peg’s last remark had given us something to think about. A ghost was
an “it,” all right. But what could be old Caleb’s object, or the
spy’s, in playing ghost in the Cap’n’s bedroom? And, further, how had
the “ghost” gotten into the store?
It seemed to me that the mystery became more confusing every minute.
Instead of solving it step by step, as we had done in other detecting
jobs, we were walking further and further into the darkness.
“Let me get this straight,” says I to Poppy, when they talked of
putting me to bed. “You say I’m to let you fix me up to look like
the Cap’n, to make the whatever-it-is think that I’m the old gent
himself. Is that correct?”
“You’ve got the right idea.”
“And then what?”
“You’re tucked into bed. See? The thing comes. It’s after the Cap’n.
Creeping up to the bed, it takes a peek at you. It thinks you’re its
victim. And then--”
“_Hey!_” says I, cutting him off. “I thought you said you were going
to grab it before it grabbed me?”
He laughed.
“Don’t worry, Jerry. We won’t let it harm you.”
“Just the same,” says I, shivering, “I’ve had jobs I liked better.”
First they ruffled my hair and powdered it with flour to make it
white. Then they penciled “wrinkles” into my cheeks with a burnt
match. A wad of chewing gum made a neat wart for the side of my nose.
For chin whiskers I was given a whisk broom, held in place with a
string tied to my ears. I was even made to get out of my clothes and
dress my bare legs in the absent householder’s long white nightshirt.
A nightcap was the finishing touch, after which, having put me to bed
with a great deal of joking attention, the four crooks stepped back
to view the results of their dirty work.
“Hi, Cap,” says Peg, saluting.
“If you b’ys don’t quit pesterin’ me,” says I, mimicking the old man,
“I’ll run you out of here on the end of my peg-laig.”
Poppy grinned.
“Jerry,” says he, “you ought to go on the stage. For you’re a born
mimic. Honest. Why, you sound more like the Cap’n, and look more like
him, than the old man himself.”
“If I don’t look like a corpse before the night is over,” says I,
“I’ll consider myself lucky.”
When told to get into a hiding place in the room Red parked himself
behind the dresser. At Poppy’s orders Peg and Scoop wedged themselves
into the clothes closet. The fourth one flattened himself pancake
fashion under the bed.
“Now,” says the leader, turning out his flashlight, “let’s have
silence and lots of it.”
My heart started to thumping in the sudden darkness. And detecting a
slight noise in the alley I quickly turned my eyes to the window. Was
it the spy? Or was it a ghost?
The alley sounds dying away into a deep silence, I started breathing
again.
“If you fellows keep me here very long,” says I, shivering, “I’ll be
a nervous wreck.”
“Sh-h-h-h-h!” says Poppy.
“Why don’t one of you get in bed with me?”
“You poor fish!”
“You can pretend that you’re my wife. See? We’ll hang a sign on the
foot of the bed saying that we’re newly married. So the ghost won’t
be surprised when it sees you here.”
“Keep still, I tell you.”
I saw a chance to have some fun. And reaching for my clothes beside
the bed I searched the pockets for my ventrilo.
“B-b-blood!” says I, in imitation of the death parrot. “Gu-gu-give me
a bucket of b-b-blood!”
“You aren’t funny,” says Poppy.
“I killed H-h-ham!” says I, in further fun. “I b-b-bit a hunk out of
his liver and v-v-voodooed him.”
“I’ll come up there,” says Poppy, “and bite a hunk out of your liver
if you don’t dry up.”
“B-b-blood!” says I. “Gu-gu-give me a bucket of b-b-blood!”
“B-b-blood!” came the echo from under the bed, only Poppy said it so
faintly and so muffled-like that I hardly caught the word.
“Golly Ned!” says I. “You can do it better than I can.”
“Do what?” says he.
“My, but you’re innocent!”
“I didn’t do anything. Honest.”
“Some one said, ‘B-b-blood!’”
“It was you.”
“It wasn’t either. It was _you_.”
“All right,” says he, “have it your own way. I’ll agree to anything
you say if you’ll just shut up.”
I had been told by the leader that I could actually go to sleep if I
wanted to, instead of pretending. But you can bet your Sunday shirt
that I had no intention of doing that. Not so you can notice it!
Everything was deadly still now. And in the continued silence my mind
picked up the voodoo story. In imagination I saw the temple from
which the death parrot had been stolen by the two sailors. I could
see the building’s woven grass walls and thatched roof. At the altar,
where a fire was sputtering and snapping, was the parrot in its
glittering cage. The smoke from the altar fire had a stinking smell.
It made me think of Red’s sweaty feet. Half awake and half asleep I
got my chum’s feet mixed up with the parrot. A pair of feet in a gold
cage! What a funny sight! And where was the parrot? Oh, yes, it had
been stolen. I could see a jungle now ... a drifting raft ... a coral
island ... a dead man ... glassy, staring eyes....
Ker-_choo-o-o-o_!
Golly Ned! A gunshot directly in my ear couldn’t have startled me any
worse than the sneeze that came out from under the bed.
“For the love of mud!” says I. “Why don’t you kill a guy outright
instead of scaring him half to death?”
“Keep still,” says Poppy.
“Yah,” snickered the closet, “if you don’t quit talking you’ll loosen
your chin whiskers.”
Here the dresser came to life.
“Now what?” says Poppy, in disgust.
“I can’t find my club.”
“You and your club! We ought to use it on your head.”
The dresser pranced around.
“For the love of Pete!”
“I’ve got to find my club.”
“Why don’t you knock the house down?”
“Did I make any noise?”
“Oh, no!”
“I’m awfully cramped in here.”
“Come and get in bed with me,” says I quickly.
“Stay where you are,” says Poppy.
Dong!... dong!... gurgled the sitting-room clock in eleven mouthfuls.
“Now, fellows,” says Poppy, earnestly, “let’s get down to business
and quit our nonsense. For this is a serious matter with me. Don’t
forget that Pa’s in jail, and the only way I can get him out is by
solving this mystery. So let’s be quiet, as I say.”
In the silence that followed I heard a young mosquito clatter up and
down the window pane in search of human blood. Tick! tock! tick!
tock! chattered the lively clock. Tick! tock! tick! tock! I nodded
under the monotonous sound. Tick! tock! tick! tock! I nodded again.
Suddenly my dozing mind was jerked awake. Like a powder flash.
Something soft and feathery had touched my bare feet. Under the
covers. Gee-miny crickets! You can believe it or not, but I was out
of that bed, sheets and all, in one jump.
“B-b-blood!” came a shrill stuttering voice. “B-b-blood! Gu-gu-give
me a bucket of b-b-blood.”
Getting my voice, I yipped at the top of my lungs.
“The parrot!” says I. “It’s in the bed!”
My chums sprang to life. I heard the closet door fly open; and from
the noise in the corner where the dresser was I could imagine that
Red had turned that piece of furniture upside-down. Then there was
another sound--a crash of broken glass.
Having dug me out of the mountain of bedclothes, my chums told me
that the screaming parrot, in escaping from the room, had gone
through the window pane.