The Blue Herring Mystery (16 page)

Djuna stood there, with bleak eyes watching Kloop’s car disappear. What, he asked himself, can I do by myself? Then he thought of Mr. Boots! He must have forgotten the time and was still working in his shop in Edenboro. And, if he hadn’t, and was on his way with their net, he would most certainly take the Old Mill Road to get to the scapping grounds. They would be bound to meet.

Djuna jumped on his bike and pedaled furiously down the hill, crossed the bridge, and took the right turn into the Old Mill Road, too. He could hear the roar of the rapids and the high-pitched screams of the women and children below the cliff on his right. He wished now that he had taken the time to tell Bobby where he was going, so that Bobby could tell Socker and Cannonball McGinnty when they arrived. But it was too late now. He pedaled on as fast as he could, and in his anxiety the gloomy old pines on each side of the road seemed to be sighing, “Be careful, be careful, be careful!”

He took a right turn where the paved road into Edenboro crossed the Old Mill Road and was able to make better time on the macadam. He flew by Miss Annie’s house and Pindler’s store and then he gulped with dismay as he saw that Mr. Boots’s truck was not parked in the driveway leading to his shop! Djuna let his bike slide out from under him and ran to the door to pound on it. Only a hollow echo came back to him.

If anyone had said a word to him at that moment he would have started to cry. Nothing, he told himself, is going right! He shook his head angrily and tried to think. What could he do?

He thought of the telephone in Pindler’s store, and then he remembered that he had seen both Mr. and Mrs. Pindler on the beach at the Kill. He knew the store would be closed and locked. But that reminded him that Aunt Candy Barnes had a telephone in her kitchen — the only other telephone, besides Mr. Pindler’s, in Edenboro. If he could ride his bike over to Aunt Candy’s and hide it behind the shed across the driveway from the house he might be able to slip into Aunt Candy’s kitchen and use the telephone, even while Kloop was ransacking the front of her house!

He didn’t want to do it. It was foolish and dangerous. It was just about the most foolish and dangerous thing he could do, Djuna knew — letting himself be alone in a house with Kloop while everyone was at the Kill. But he told himself that he
had
to do it. And then he was pedaling up the road toward Aunt Candy’s.

He stopped a hundred feet from the house and scurried across the unfenced field on his right to lean his bike behind the red painted shed. Then he stole behind a long shed that was used to store farm machinery. At its end he was opposite the kitchen door.

Now, he saw that there were two cars parked in Aunt Candy’s driveway. One was a moderately new blue coupé — he supposed it belonged to one of Aunt Candy’s sons — and the one behind it was Professor Kloop’s battered old sedan. He gazed at them with apprehension for a moment. But there was no sign of life around the house. All the doors were closed and as he stared at the old house the windows seemed to stare back at him with a foreboding warning.

Then he gathered his courage and went scurrying across the driveway. He avoided the flagstones that led up to the kitchen door and stayed on the soft grass until he had his hand on the knob. He turned it slowly and cautiously and inched the door open. He tiptoed quietly up on the stone block that formed the step, and then into the kitchen, closing the door behind him without a sound.

Djuna could hear someone moving around in the front room where Captain Jason’s harpoons and lances hung on the wall. He tiptoed across the kitchen and he could feel his heart pounding as he reached for the telephone on a shelf below the window. He turned his back to the door leading into the front room, hoping that it would help to deaden the sound of his voice. Then he lifted the receiver and put it to his ear. And as he waited for the operator to answer, the squeak of a floor board behind him warned him that Professor Kloop was sneaking out of the front room and into the kitchen!

He whirled around. What he saw gave him such a shock that he nearly dropped the telephone.

The man in the kitchen doorway was
not
Professor Kloop. It was Doc Perry!

Doc Perry was gazing at him with venomous eyes. Evil was written all over his face!

Djuna stared, hardly believing his eyes.
Doc Perry!

“What are you doing here, you snoop!” Doc Perry shouted and pointed a forefinger at Djuna. When he pointed the finger his coat flopped open and Djuna saw the black frame of a double-action revolver protruding from his belt.

And Djuna knew in that split fraction of a second that if he was going to get out of there without being hit over the head with the revolver, or being shot with it, he had to move fast. And he did! With one motion he slapped the telephone receiver back on its hook and rushed straight at Doc Perry with the fury of a wildcat!

Instinctively, Doc Perry dropped back a step and half cowered before his hand shot down to close over the butt of the gun he had shoved inside his belt.

That moment was all that Djuna needed to swerve towards the kitchen door, yank it open, and race out onto the lawn.

He had reached the driveway and was racing toward the big barn as Doc Perry came out of the kitchen door, brandishing his revolver.

“Stop or I’ll cut you down!” Doc Perry bellowed; and the threat, if he heard it, only gave speed to Djuna’s flying feet. Djuna heard the revolver bark behind him, twice, and he heard the two bullets thud into the barn as he leaped over the heavy timber that formed the sill of the wide doorway.

Doc Perry was running, too — close at his heels.

Back at the scapping beach, it was some time before Bobby missed Djuna. As Djuna faded into the crowd to follow Professor Kloop, Bobby had edged his way through it in a different direction, so that he could watch the young Hercules with the five dogs scap without a hoister.

After he had tired of watching that young giant, Bobby made his way back through the crowd to find Djuna. When, after fifteen minutes of searching, he could not find him, something that was kin to panic seized Bobby. He continued to search for Djuna and at the same time kept an eye out for Professor Kloop and Mr. Boots. None of the three could he find anywhere!

The only other person he knew well enough to speak to was Aunt Candy Barnes. When he found her, seated on a campstool at the edge of the water, watching Olin and Dolan scap, she told him she hadn’t seen Djuna since he greeted her when she first arrived.

Bobby was ready to burst into tears when he happened to glance up and see a lean, well-built young man, wearing the uniform of a State Trooper, standing on the brow of the hill above the beach. Beside the Trooper was a roly-poly young man with a genial face; and they were both laughing at the antics of the scappers and the spectators.

His heart gave a bound. He was almost sure that the plump young man was Socker Furlong, although he hadn’t seen him for a long, long time; and of course the State Trooper talking to Socker must be Cannonball McGinnty, whom Djuna had talked about so often!

He wriggled and ducked his way through the crowds until he was at the foot of the path, and then he ran up to them.

“Are — are you Mr. Furlong?” he gasped as he reached the roly-poly man’s side.

“That I am, my young blowfish!” Socker Furlong said as he looked down at Bobby with his eyes twinkling. “And who might you be?”

“Bobby Herrick,” Bobby gasped. “Don’t you remember? I met you down at Dolphin Beach.”

“Of course I remember,” said Socker. “I just like to hear you talk when you’re all out of breath.” He put out his hand and said, “How are you, Bobby?” And he added as they shook hands, “This big glut of Gorganzola beside me is Cannonball McGinnty. He’s a friend of Djuna’s, too.”

Bobby had never shaken hands with a State Trooper before and he took the hand that Trooper McGinnty extended rather shyly. But when he saw the big grin on McGinnty’s face his own smile answered it and they were friends, too.

Then Bobby could contain himself no longer. “Have you seen Djuna?” he blurted.

“No,” said Socker, his eyes roving over the crowd below again. “We were standing here trying to locate him. Where is he?”

“Jeepers, I don’t know!” Bobby half sobbed, and Socker looked down quickly to search his face. “He just disappeared and that man Kloop that Djuna told you about, he disappeared, too. He tried to run over us and kill us last night!” Bobby added.

“Now,
w-w-wait
a minute!” Socker said and he looked around for a place where they could sit down. There was an unoccupied bench made of a board nailed between two trees behind them and all three of them moved toward it under Socker’s leadership.

“Now,” Socker said as they sat down, “who tried to kill whom, and what’s it all about, Bobby?”

When Bobby started off with a torrent of words that were badly jumbled and almost incoherent Socker put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Whoa, Bobby! Take it easy. Let’s try to keep this under control! You know what’s happening, don’t you?”

“I think so,” Bobby said. “Only Djuna wouldn’t tell me where the pearls are!”

“Pearls!”
said Socker, and he closed his eyes and shook his head before he looked at Cannonball and said, “He’s stuck his chin out again!” Cannonball nodded; he wasn’t grinning now.

“Let’s begin at the beginning, Bobby,” Socker said. “From the minute you got here, or before that, if there is anything Djuna told you that happened before you came. Let’s go right down the slate and get it all on the table so we know what to do.”

“Yes, sir!” Bobby said, and he gulped as he tried to reorganize his thoughts and begin from the beginning.

“Well,” he said, “I guess it began the morning after I arrived and we went over to Aunt Candy’s and — no, it didn’t, it began the day I arrived when Mr. Boots brought Djuna down to meet me and we stopped off to see the new museum down at Beekman’s Landing. You see ——”

Socker and Cannonball seldom interrupted, except to ask an occasional question, as Bobby poured out what had happened, including the attempt on their lives the night before. When he had finished they all sat in silence for a moment. Then Socker said, “Well, I’ll be!” and rose.

“Let’s stand on the bank again and look over the crowd and be sure that Djuna and this guy that calls himself Kloop aren’t around,” Socker said.

“If they aren’t,” Cannonball said, “we better run down to the local State Police barracks and get out a teletype and a radio alarm.”

“That,” said Socker grimly, “will be the ticket!”

They stood on the brow of the hill and divided the beach into three sections. Each searched his section thoroughly. When they saw no sign of Djuna, or Kloop, they redivided the beach, each taking a new section, and searched again. When they were through, with no result, Socker said, “Let’s get going!”

They turned and were on their way to Cannonball’s white police car when a battered old truck pulled into the parking space and Mr. Boots climbed wearily from it.

“Oh, Mr. Boots!” Bobby shouted, and a moment later Socker and Cannonball were shaking hands with their old friend.

“I’m sorry I couldn’ git here sooner, Bobby!” he apologized. “But there was a piece o’ work I promised to do f’r old Missus Kettle an’ she come’n got me an’ I
had
to go. But there’s still lots of time f’r scappin’.”

“Yes and no,” said Socker, and he fixed Mr. Boots with a steady gaze. “Have you seen Djuna, Mr. Boots?”

“Djuna?” Mr. Boots repeated, wonderingly. “Why, no,” he said, as he scratched his head, “not since yes’-tiddy.”

“He’s disappeared and we don’t like the looks of it,” Socker said. “We’re going down to the State Police barracks to send out broadcasts on it and get the authorities searching. You’d better come along.”

“Now, what has that boy got into?” Mr. Boots groaned. “Certain’y I’m goin’ to come along!”

“I think,” Cannonball said, “we had better get this woman you call Aunt Candy — and her two sons, too. She seems to be the key to all this. I’m sure the lieutenant will want to talk to her.”

“Right!” said Socker. “Will you explain to her, Mr. Boots? You know her. If Cannonball or I asked her to go with us she might object.”

“Not if she knows Djuna’s in trouble!” said Mr. Boots, and he started for the beach. He reappeared in a few minutes with Aunt Candy and her twin sons, Olin and Dolan, in tow.

“I’ll wring that man’s neck,” Aunt Candy said after all three of them had been introduced to Socker and Cannonball. “Iffen he harms Djuna one least little mite, I’ll beat his head off with a belayin’ pin!”

Aunt Candy didn’t say what man she was referring to, but they all nodded their heads, because they would have wrung
any
man’s neck who harmed Djuna.

Aunt Candy and her two sons, in their red sedan, followed Cannonball, Socker, Mr. Boots and Bobby in the white police car. Cannonball put his finger on his siren as they turned into the Federal Highway; and the traffic opened up like magic before them as they sped to what they hoped would be Djuna’s rescue.

N
EVER IN
his life had Djuna been so frightened. He had reached the barn, running as he had never run before, but Doc Perry was not far behind and would corner him there, within the next few seconds. Where could he hide? Where could he hide?

There was no time to think. A dozen feet above his head, on each side of the wide door, were the haymows from which the dairy cows had been fed through the winter. Each one could be reached by the ladders nailed to the heavy handhewn upright beams supporting the timbers of the barn roof. Djuna jumped for the ladder nearest him and scuttled up with the speed of a monkey. He reached the crossbar just above the level of the hay and, twisting as he jumped, dove into the hay. From where he lay, hidden by the hay, he could peer down over the edge, unseen. But what if Doc Perry decided to climb the ladder? Djuna almost groaned aloud at that thought. And his heart was beating so loudly that it seemed as if the whole world might hear it!