The Blue Herring Mystery (15 page)

They stopped in awe at the top of the path. A hole had been dug in the beach, a pole had been erected, and at the top the Star Spangled Banner danced gallantly in the breeze. Underneath the flagpole, a dozen bandsmen dressed in the blazing purple and gold uniforms of the Brookville American Legion, were playing a medley of military marches. A very pretty young girl with a warming smile and wearing a tall bearskin shako, a purple and gold jacket, shorts, and high white boots was leading the band with a glistening baton, twirling it between her fingers as she marched with knees lifted high over the unsteady footing of the pebble beach.

“For Pete’s sake!” Bobby exclaimed, with what almost sounded like a sob in his voice. “I
never
thought it would be as exciting as this!”

“I didn’t either!” said Djuna breathlessly. “And Mr. Boots said nothing would happen until three or four this afternoon!”

There were dozens of people clustered around the outdoor grills that had been brought to prepare lunch and supper, and there were dozens of children of all ages racing up and down the beach, their screams of excitement rattling off the high cliff on the far side of the Kill and re-echoing up the valley above the rapids.

There was a gaily decorated little stand at which iced cold drinks, ice cream, and candy were being sold. In the center of the beach, where a roaring fire was piled high with driftwood, two or three mothers were drying off children who had fallen into the Kill.

Along the edges of the stream, men in hip boots were laying out their scapping nets, bows, hoisters, blocks, getting ready to assemble them for the scapping later on. Gunny sacks, buckets, bushel baskets, kegs and wash boilers lined the banks, indicating that the owners had staked their claim to that spot for the scapping.

The ten-piece Legion band, that would be joined later on by more of its members, swung into “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The eighty or ninety men, women, and children on the beach took up the refrain and rolled out the chorus.

Djuna and Bobby found themselves going down the steep path to the beach in a sort of daze and they also found themselves roaring out the chorus of the stirring music as they reached the bottom and began to mingle with the crowd. There were numerous boys and girls there that Djuna knew from school, and men and women he had met all over the county when he had driven around with Mr. Boots. Everyone was in a gala mood and everyone was having a wonderful time. Even the mothers who were screaming at their children not to go too near the water, and the mothers who were leaping up to pull their children out of it, seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Men and women were broiling hamburgers and cheeseburgers and hot dogs and all manner of things on their outdoor grills and over open fires, but they were saving their chickens and steaks and heavier things for the meal of the day — supper — when the silver bellies of the blue-backed herring would be flashing as they made their run up the rapids to spawn in the calmer waters above.

Djuna and Bobby wandered around silently, like two spellbound city folks at a country fair, communing only with a nudge in the ribs and a pointed finger to indicate something of interest to the other.

So they were entirely unprepared when a cheery voice behind them said, “Hi, Djuna! Hi, Bobby! Isn’t this something?”

They whirled to gaze up into the smiling face of Professor Kloop. He was wearing his dark sunglasses, and his red hair and his clothes were tangled and rumpled as usual. He was carrying a notebook in one hand and a plain lead pencil, with an eraser on the end, in the other. As they looked up at him, his attention was attracted by something behind them. He looked over their heads for a moment and then jotted something down in his notebook. By the time he was through, both of the boys had regained their composure. Bobby said, “Are you making notes for your diorama?”

“That’s just what I’m doing,” he said. “By the way, if you see any interesting little details that you think I might have missed, you might jot them down and tell me about them later.”

“Sure,” Djuna said; and he asked innocently, “Have you seen Socker Furlong around? He’s coming over today.”

“He
is?
” Professor Kloop asked with interest. He didn’t seem to be at all disturbed by the news. “I’ll keep an eye open for him. Be seeing you later, boys.”

“Not if I see you first!” Bobby said under his breath, so that only Djuna could hear.

“We’ve got to keep him in sight, or know where he is, all afternoon, until Socker gets here,” Djuna whispered. “As soon as we tell Socker and Cannonball McGinnty — he’s a State Trooper and he’s going to bring Socker over here from Riverton — they’ll know what to do.”

“Okay,” Bobby said. “Let’s go up on the bank and eat our sandwiches and deviled eggs.”

It was almost three o’clock when they had finished their lunch. They had never had a better time. Watching the antics of the people on the beach below and listening to the mellow music of the Legion band was as good as a regular show. Once they were scared almost out of their wits by a terrific bang that kept reechoing up the valley after it ricocheted off the cliff on the far bank of the Kill. They saw blue smoke drifting up through the trees off to their left and when they jumped up they saw a little brass cannon, surrounded by three or four members of the Legion band. The little cannon was still smoking from the blank charge that had been fired from it.

“Golly, there’s
everything
here!” Bobby said with joy.

A few minutes later a red sedan pulled up quite close to them and Aunt Candy and her twin sons, Olin and Dolan, climbed out.

“Hello, Aunt Candy!” both of the boys called.

A wide smile spread across Aunt Candy’s face as she saw them. She shouted, “Ain’t this the old ring-tailed monkey’s whiskers, boys? Come ’n have a bite t’ eat with us at suppertime!”

Olin and Dolan were carrying an outdoor grill and two or three large hampers of food with them, besides their scapping net; they grinned at Djuna and Bobby as they headed for the beach.

“I guess almost everybody is here,” Djuna said as his wandering eyes picked out Professor Kloop at the edge of the stream. “I wonder why Socker doesn’t come?” His gaze shifted toward the parking space.

“Oh, he’ll be along,” Bobby said. “I could watch all this forever! Look! They’re going to start scapping! I wonder what’s happened to Mr. Boots? We can’t scap without our net.”

“Oh, he’ll be along,” Djuna said, echoing Bobby’s words of a moment before. “Anyway, I want to keep an eye on Professor Kloop and this is the best place to do it from.”

“Aren’t you going to scap when Mr. Boots brings our net?” Bobby asked.

“Oh, sure,” Djuna said. “When Socker and Cannonball get here
they’ll
keep an eye on Kloop.”

A few minutes later the little brass cannon let out a terrific BANG! again and all the scappers, who had their nets rigged and ready along the edge of the stream, waded out into the water and dipped their nets, almost in unison, to get a stool to begin their scapping. Most of them came up with one or two silver-bellied herring flopping in their nets, but others, catching nothing, had to try again. So did those who had caught buck herring instead of roes. The roes that were to be used as stools were kept under water, in the nets, until a safety pin had been slipped through their noses and they were ready to be used as lures.

The whole beach became a bedlam. The women and children began to shout and scream as the nets dipped, the men with the lures played them back over the nets, the men on the hoisters heaved the poles and came up with from a half dozen to two dozen opalescent, blue-backed beauties that protested their capture with high, looping jumps above the nets. Quick hands conveyed the flopping fish from net to gunny sack, or basket, or washtub, and the net went into the roily water again.

But now the stream was rising with the tide and as it neared five o’clock and high tide the Sepasco Kill became alive with blue and silver herring. They were so thick that their black fins could be seen cutting the surface of the water and their countless silver bellies flashed below it.

The band struck up the score that had been written for “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” and men, women, and children took up the lilting melody and sang Eugene Field’s beautiful words as they had sung them for many a year along the Sepasco Kill.

Then a great shout went up from the people on the beach and even the scappers turned to look up the path from the beach where a young giant, leading five big dogs on leashes, appeared on the brow of the hill. He was over six feet tall and had a thatch of black hair that was tangled above a swarthy complexion. He wore a dark shirt, open at the throat, and a pair of dungarees that were thrust into hip-length boots. He stood there like a young god for a moment as the five police dogs on the ends of their light chains moved up beside him and nuzzled him with affection.

Glancing neither to right nor left, unsmiling, he made his way down the steep path, the chains of the five dogs in one hand and the block, bows and net of a scapping net in the other. The crowd parted to let him through as they called with friendly voices, “You show ’em, Muscles!” and “Now we’ll see some scapping that
is
scapping!”

Djuna and Bobby watched the powerful, silent young man as he made his way fifty feet above the upper reaches of the crowd on the beach. He looped the five chains together and put them between two rocks and the five police dogs curled up with their noses on their chins to watch their master with alert eyes.

He bent the bows with powerful hands and took half hitches with the sims before he fitted them into the block. He had no hoister and he had no stool. An excited murmur of voices came behind him as he picked up the net by the bows and advanced out into the rapids, where no other man present could have kept a footing. He grasped the net by two bows and dipped it in the rushing waters, bracing his feet beneath him. He held it there with the rapid waters tearing at it. And when he lifted it a few moments later there were a dozen herring dancing in the net! As sure-footed as a goat he made his way back to the shore and emptied the catch into the gunny sack he had brought.

A cheer went up from the crowd as he made his way back into the swift, clutching waters of the Kill. But the cheer broke off abruptly and turned to laughter as one of the scappers in the less rapid water slipped. His net shot into the air as he clutched at nothing with both hands and then he disappeared beneath the waters of the stream.

His head reappeared a moment later and as he brushed water out of his eyes he screamed, “There’s
millions
o’ herrin’ in there! I seed ’em!”

The brass cannon boomed again to announce that the first scapper had been dunked in the Kill and the band played a few bars of “Look Out, You’re Rocking the Boat!”

“Say!” Bobby said when all the excitement was over and the man was safe on shore. “Where did that man with the five dogs come from? Who is he?”

“He lives back up in the hills on the other side of the river,” replied Djuna. “Nobody seems to know just where. Every once in a while he appears with his five dogs on their chains and then he disappears again.”

Bobby grumbled once again that he wished Mr. Boots would hurry and show up with their scapping net, and then wandered off to watch more of the scapping. Djuna didn’t notice his departure because just at that moment, looking in the other direction, he had caught a glimpse of Doc Perry’s back as he made his way up the steep path to the parking space. Djuna ducked around several people, scuttled between some more, and reached the bottom of the path just as the drugstore man disappeared over the brow of the incline.

Djuna stood there uncertainly for a few moments, screened by the forms of a half dozen standing people from the view of anyone going up or down the path. Doc Perry was associated with Professor Kloop, and there was something about their connection that was suspicious. Djuna groaned inwardly and wished, more than he had ever wished for anything before, that Socker Furlong were there so he could tell Socker what he knew; and then Socker could assume the responsibility for everything and make the decisions.

Djuna was still trying to make up his mind what to do when Professor Kloop went hurrying past him through the crowd and made the decision for him. Professor Kloop didn’t hesitate until after he had scrambled up the steep path as nimbly as a mountain goat. At the top he stopped for a moment to look down at the crowd below; and Djuna, by climbing on a box someone had been using as a chair, saw his wandering gaze stop as it focused on Aunt Candy Barnes and her two sons. Then Kloop disappeared, too.

Djuna hesitated no longer. He went up the path even more nimbly than Kloop had managed it and he was at the top just in time to see Kloop’s battered old sedan being backed out of a line of cars and swinging out onto the circular road that led away from the parking space. Djuna ran to the spot where he and Bobby had parked their bicycles, got his own, and was close behind Professor Kloop’s car as it went down the winding road and was lost to view, momentarily. Kloop was taking the right turn up the dirt road to the Federal Highway when Djuna next saw his car. After Djuna made the turn he had to get off and push his bike, because of the steepness of the hill. He saw Kloop take another right turn onto the Federal Highway at the top. Djuna’s lungs were nearly bursting as he reached the top, but he was rewarded for his effort as he saw Professor Kloop taking another right turn on the north side of the bridge. No other car was in sight. If Doc Perry had also driven away, he must have turned left. Professor Kloop, Djuna knew, was taking the Old Mill Road that would lead him directly to Aunt Candy’s house!