Cherry Ames 22 Rural Nurse (16 page)

The pedlar spoke with such conviction that Cherry wondered whether he half believed in his spiel. At least she had obtained the seller’s statement of false claims, which the Food and Drug inspector needed.

Mrs. Grisbee said loudly, “Snell makes it himself.

Don’t you, Snell?”

He said “Mmm” vaguely. Cherry knew that the Food and Drug inspector, listening from the fl oor of the car, could not count that as a statement. She leaned back as if a wave of nausea came over her.

“Look at the poor girl!” Mrs. Grisbee exclaimed. The pedlar did look. Cherry held her breath as he peered at her with the shrewd, heartless eyes of a fox. “Look at how sick she is!” Mrs. Grisbee said. “We’d better stop talking and buy some medicine.”

“Come on into the shack if ye feel sick,” the pedlar invited her.

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And face the light in the shack! Cherry shook her head and drew the scarf closer around her face. The pedlar was watching her.

“How much is the medicine?” Cherry asked, to dis-tract him. “If it’s as good as you both say, maybe I’ll take two jars back to Leaderville with me.” She said this to establish the interstate commerce part of the sale.

“Ye can do that. It’s fi ve dollars a jar, nine-fi fty for the two jars,” the pedlar said, “and a wild bargain con-siderin’ what a doctor’d charge. If ye want some more next week or so, Miss Hettie, I’ll fetch it to ye next time I drive across the river. Just let Mis’ Grisbee know ye’ll expect me. Uh—I’d appreciate it if ye’d keep mum about this, because the confounded health politicos around here are cuttin’ in on my work. Scared of their jobs, I guess. Can’t meet my competition. They ain’t fair to me,” Snell complained. “So the less ye talk, the better. After all, I’m helpin’ ye get well and savin’ ye money, so maybe ye can do
me
a favor and hold yer tongue.”

Cherry muttered “Okay,” although his lies made her very angry. One worthless man like this made many persons sick, and put the responsible house-to-house salesmen with their excellent wares in a bad light.

Snell went back to the shack to get the medicine.

Cherry and Mrs. Grisbee watched him wrap three labelled jars in old newspapers. Snell appeared to be alone in the shack. A hunting rifl e stood against the wall of his one room.

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Cherry heard a whisper from one of the three men hiding in the back of the car. She could not make out the words.

The pedlar came back to the car. He handed Cherry two jars, Mrs. Grisbee one jar.

“Here’s yer Nature’s Herb Cure, ladies, and I guar-antee satisfaction. That’ll be fourteen dollars and fi fty cents.”

As instructed by the Food and Drug inspector, they opened their purses, paid Snell, and took the fake medicine. The sale was completed.

At that instant the car’s back doors fl ew open and the three men sprang out. The sheriff grabbed and col-lared the surprised pedlar.

“Sheriff, I ask you to arrest this man on this warrant,” said the Food and Drug inspector, holding up a legal paper, “for delivering an adulterated, dangerous drug for introduction into interstate commerce.”

“Who’re ye? Let me go!” the pedlar howled. “I ain’t done nothing wrong!”

He lashed out and broke free and started to run.

Dr. Hal came on the run from the other side. He seized Snell and hung onto him.

“Snell, this man is a Food and Drug inspector whom I’ve called in,” Dr. Hal said. “Today’s the last time you ever sell that foul medicine.”

The pedlar cursed and kicked at the young doctor.

The sheriff advanced with a pair of handcuffs. “All right, Snell, you might as well give in.” He tried to put the handcuffs on him.

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“It ain’t fair!” the pedlar yelled. “I been tricked!” He made a lunge toward Cherry at the open window of the car, but Hal quickly placed himself in the way. “I been framed! Why pick on
me
?”

“You’ll get a fair trial,” the sheriff said. This time he slid the handcuffs on Snell and snapped them shut.

Then, with the other handcuff on his own wrist, the sheriff pulled the pedlar into the car. Mrs. Grisbee gasped, “Oh, me! Poor Snell!” The pedlar heard and shouted accusations at her.

“Don’t waste your pity on him,” Cherry said to Phoebe Grisbee.

“Mr. Short! Dr. Miller!” the sheriff called. “What are you doing in the shack? Making an inspection?”

“Yes, looking for evidence,” the Food and Drug inspector called back. “Just a minute—” Cherry took off the dark glasses, carefully placed the two jars of the medicine on the car seat, then went to take a look inside the shack. It held a little crude furniture and a shelf full of merchandise, chiefl y jars of the remedy.

“No sign that the concoction is brewed here,” Dr. Hal said to her.

They left the shack untouched, padlocked the door, and returned to the car. The pedlar snarled at Cherry,

“So ye’re the county nurse, Miss Hettie!” She did not answer him but got into the front seat with Hal and Mrs. Grisbee. Hal drove them back to Sauk.

On the way, the sheriff and the Food and Drug inspector tried to get Old Snell to talk. The sheriff had

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known Snell for years. “It won’t hurt you, you know, if you’ll tell us about the others.”

“What others?” the pedlar retorted. “Ye aim to fi nd out anything, fi nd it out by yourselfs.” They reached the Sauk jail in the county courthouse with their prisoner. Snell was turned over to a deputy sheriff, and locked up. The sheriff did not think they could take further action until tomorrow. He did not want to enter the abandoned farmhouse and risk a fi ght in the dark.

“Mr. Short, if you’d care to stay overnight at my house, you and I and Dr. Miller could talk over our strategy for tomorrow.” The inspector agreed. “Ladies, thank you very much, both of you.”

Mr. Short thanked them as well. Cherry handed over to him three samples. Hal pressed her hand and whispered, “You did a terrifi c job.”

“Oh-h!” Mrs. Grisbee moaned. “Now that it’s all over, I feel nervous as a fl ea.” Cherry said she would see her safely home. She did, returning on foot to her aunt’s house.

Aunt Cora jumped out of her chair when Cherry came in.

“Cherry! Are you sick? You’re so pale. What are you doing in those old clothes?”

Cherry giggled and collapsed into the nearest chair.

“I’m perfectly healthy. Phoebe lent me her clothes to disguise myself.”

The whole story came tumbling out. Cherry apologized to her aunt for not having been able to tell her 154
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sooner. She emphasized that it was still necessary to keep the situation a secret, since Floyd and the two St. Louis men still remained to be apprehended.

“Yes, by tomorrow Floyd will realize the peddler is missing—” Aunt Cora hesitated.

“That’s it. Floyd may try to fl ee with all the evidence.

The two St. Louis men may try to vanish, too. We’ll have to move fast. And boldly.”

c h a p t e r x i i i

Bad News

they had been waiting for twenty minutes now in the county health offi ce—Hal pacing up and down, Cherry slumped down in a chair, both of them watching the clock’s hands creep toward eight.

“He said yesterday he’d be here really early this morning,” Cherry fretted. “He knows Floyd and those two men may run off at any minute.” Hal answered, “Maybe he’s still with the sheriff, since he stayed at Mr. Steeley’s house last night.” The telephone rang. Hal answered it on the fi rst ring. He listened, said, “Oh, I see…. We didn’t know that.”

He motioned to Cherry to come and listen, too.

Mr. Short said: “I’m just leaving Sheriff Steeley’s house to go talk to the newspaper editor.” Sauk, the county seat, supported a weekly newspaper. “I have to talk with him about printing a warning to the public 155

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against the fake remedy. Persuading the editor often is the toughest part of this job.”

It would require courage on the editor’s part to attack a medicine that many people believed in. They would resent being told they were wrong, and the newspaper might or might not be able to convince them that the remedy was dangerous. Many were old friends of the pedlar and would take Snell’s side out of blind loy-alty. In other FDA cases, editors had lost subscribers and had been sharply attacked. Mr. Short expected he would need a little time to explain the whole problem to the newspaperman. The Food and Drug inspector would rather go after Floyd fi rst, but early this morning was the only time he could see the editor; he had tried in vain yesterday, and today the editor was leaving for the state capitol to stay several days.

“The warning simply has to be published as soon as possible,” Mr. Short said. “Too many people still have the medicine on hand from what you medical people tell me.”

“Yes, they do,” Hal said. “I see that a little delay is unavoidable.”

“I expect to be at the editor’s offi ce for the next half hour or so,” Mr. Short said.

“All right, sir,” said Dr. Hal. “Where can we reach you after that?”

They decided Hal and Cherry should keep telephoning back to the county health offi ce, to make contact through the clerk with Mr. Short.

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NEWS

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Cherry sighed. Hal, hanging up, said to her, “No use worrying about the delay. Mr. Short will meet us as soon as he can. Let’s go about our day’s work.” Starting out each in his own car, Cherry suggested to Hal that they stop fi rst to see Jane. “I’d like to tell her that we nabbed the pedlar, and fi nd out anything we can about Floyd’s moves.”

“Good idea.” Dr. Hal consulted his list of patients.

“Luckily, I haven’t any urgent cases today. Let’s go.” They covered the ten miles to the Barker cottage in record time. On the way they passed the abandoned farm too fast for Cherry to have more than a glimpse.

Reaching the Barker place, she noticed that Floyd’s jalopy was not in the yard, but that did not prove he was not here on the premises.

They knocked, and when no one answered except the parrot, fi nally went in. The parrot was all excited.

The bird hopped around in its cage and squawked:

“Never come back! Never come back!”

“What has that bird heard?” Hal said.

“Now, Mike,” Cherry said soothingly to the parrot, but it fl ew at her against the bars of its cage.

“Won’t tell where! Never come back!” it shrieked.

Something must have happened to send the bird into such a state. Where was Jane? Or Mrs. Barker?

They heard sounds of weeping from the kitchen.

Cherry went in there, Hal following her. Mrs. Barker was seated at the kitchen table, crying as if her heart would break.

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“Why, Mrs. Barker!” Cherry bent and put her arm around the old lady. “You mustn’t cry like that.”

“You’d cry too, if—if—your son—behaved—” Dr. Hal took her hand and said, “Now control yourself, Mrs. Barker, and tell us how we can help you.” Emma Barker sniffl ed, wiped her eyes, put her glasses back on, and sat up straight.

“Floyd—my son … I never thought he’d just go off someday and leave me! Yes, sir, that’s what he’s done! This morning just before daylight I went into his room—I heard a lot of noise and banging around in there. There he was, packing his old suitcase in an awful hurry. When I asked him ‘Where you going, Floyd?’ he wouldn’t tell me. Wouldn’t tell me where or what for or—or for how long. He was putting everything he owns in the suitcase.”

“Didn’t he say anything?” Cherry asked. She felt terribly sorry for the old lady.

“All he said was—was— ‘Kindly get out of my way, Ma, I’m in a hurry.’ As if I couldn’t see with my own eyes that he was running around like the devil was after him! And—and then when I kept pestering him with questions, he only said, ‘I’m going a long ways away and I’m never coming back.’ ” Mrs. Barker broke into tears again. “Never coming back! Why? What’s he got to run away for?”

Cherry and Hal stood beside Mrs. Barker in silence.

They dared not tell her anything, not yet. Not with Floyd at large. Cherry wished fervently that they did not have to treat Emma Barker’s son as if he were a
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public enemy. But apparently Floyd Barker was exactly that—and his running away pointed up his guilt.

From the look on Hal’s face he, too, was sorry to hurt Mrs. Barker, but he asked:

“What time did your son leave, Mrs. Barker?”

“He was up early and out of the house before sunup.

Jumped into his car—didn’t even stop to kiss me goodbye until I ran after him—”

It was useless to ask where he had gone. Cherry could guess: he’d probably gone to the abandoned farm with its supply of ginseng plants. Those were too rare and valuable to leave behind. He needed them to continue his racket elsewhere. The reason he was in such a hurry to go away and never come back was all too obvious.

“Mrs. Barker,” Dr. Hal persisted, “did anything happen, or did you or Floyd hear any news, that could have precipitated his going off?”

The old lady looked at him sharply. “That’s a peculiar question. Nothing happened that I know of, except that Floyd went out for a long walk in the woods last evening and came home in an awful bad temper.” Cherry and Hal exchanged glances. Did this mean that Floyd had gone to the woods to see the pedlar, and found the shack deserted and padlocked?

“What else happened last evening, Mrs. Barker?” Hal asked.

“Well, after Floyd came home from the woods, he hung around here for a few minutes. First he started to telephone somebody, then he changed his mind and 160
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hung up.
Then
he lit out again. I don’t know for certain where he went, but I think he drove into town—”