The Blue Herring Mystery (18 page)

“He knew it because he had checked all the records of Scapping Day in the
Brookville Advocate!
” Bobby put in excitedly. “They showed that you and Olin and Dolan were
always
at the Kill on Scapping Day! That’s how he knew you wouldn’t be home! And we saw an announcement of your sister Maud’s marriage to Hinckley Dingley that had been checked with a
blue
pencil.”

“That’s right,” said Djuna, eagerly. “But I still didn’t know, then, whether it was Doc Perry or Professor Kloop — excuse me, I mean Mr. Britt — who had made those marks. But do you remember what you told me three or four days ago, Aunt Candy, when I asked you about
red
herrings? You said that was just an old saying, and ‘a red herring’ just meant a trick to fool somebody and make them go off in the wrong direction. And it just struck me, all of a sudden, that if anybody wanted a fine chance to go and search your house, why, he wouldn’t have to
make up
any red herring — there would be a
million
herring, all in one place, that would take you away from home on Scapping Day! Of course,” Djuna ended with a grin, “they were blue, not red, but the color wouldn’t make a bit of difference. As far as
he
was concerned, they were
all
red herring!”

“W’al, I declare!” said Aunt Candy.

“But I don’t see why you were suspicious of
me
, Djuna,” Chester Britt interrupted. “Of course Aunt Candy and I pretended not to know each other, but —”

“Because I thought you knew where the pearls were, too!” Djuna said.

“Oh! oh!” Socker Furlong said. “Here it comes!”

“Pearls!” Aunt Candy said. “What pearls?”

“The pearls Captain Jonas brought back,” Djuna said as calmly as he could.

“Rubbish!” Aunt Candy said and looked up at her two scowling sons, who were glowering at Djuna.

“He wouldn t even tell
me
where they were,” Bobby put in breathlessly, “because he said it would be too dangerous for me to know if Professor Kloop found out — I mean, Mr. Britt!”

“All right, Djuna!” Socker Furlong said and his face was alive and grinning. “Give!”

“What made both Bobby and me think there
were
some pearls, or something, Aunt Candy,” Djuna said, “was when we read that entry in Captain Jonas’s log that said he had traded all his trade-goods for two little baskets — with some chief, out in the Pacific. And you remember how he was always writing down something from the Bible, in the logbook?” Aunt Candy nodded. “Well, I copied down the numbers of the verse and chapter he wrote down after he said he had made a trade for two baskets. I couldn’t guess what they meant, to save my life! But Bobby helped me — he knows all about books — and we found that it was the thirteenth chapter and forty-sixth verse of St. Matthew, the first book in the New Testament.”

“Boy, would my old Aunt Matilda enjoy this!” said Socker Furlong.

“That verse was about a man ‘Who, when he had found one
pearl
of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.’” Djuna went on. “And there was another entry farther back in the log — all by itself — that I copied down, too. It read: ‘Called at 550 Broadway. Let go one anchor. Made good bargain, I think. Am holding best bower in case of squalls.’”

“F’r heaven’s sake, what’d
that
mean?” asked Aunt Candy, with a little awe in her voice. “I’ve read that entry a hundred times an’ it didn’t mean nothin’ to
me!
”

“I figured out that Captain Jonas had gone to someone who was a dealer in jewels and had sold one of the baskets,” Djuna went on, “because I looked up ‘bower’ in the dictionary and found that it meant, among other things, an anchor. I thought he might mean that he had sold one basket and was holding the other for a rainy day.”

“I’ve got to take lessons from this kid!” Chester Britt muttered, as he stared at Djuna.

“So, then you called me up,” said Socker, encouragingly.

“That’s right,” Djuna said eagerly. “I called Socker up and asked him to find out what sort of a store was at that number on Broadway in New York City in that year. He looked it up and found out it was Tiffany and Company, the jewelers, and then I was almost certain Captain Jonas had brought back something valuable. And that he had sold some of it, but brought the best part of it home with him.”

“And you know where it is?” Socker asked.

“I — I think I do,” Djuna said. “That’s why I called you up last night and asked you to come over today. I wanted you to help me figure out how to find out if they were there and how to get them.”

“Well, let’s go!” said Socker. “Where are they?”

“Over in Professor Kloop’s — I mean, Mr. Britt’s — museum — or do I mean Doc Perry’s?” Djuna said with confusion.

“Why don’t you call it Beekman’s Museum?” said Socker.

“That’s a good idea, Socker,” Chester Britt said, “because I’m going to finish up that job before I go back to learn detecting! But if you can find anything really valuable in that place, Djuna, I won’t go back to detecting. I’ll let
you
do it and I’ll run the museum!”

“I — I’m not
positive
I can,” Djuna said.

Two minutes later Aunt Candy and her two sons took off in their car. Cannonball McGinnty, Socker, Djuna and Bobby rode in Cannonball’s white car; and Lieutenant Scott, with a husky State Trooper, Mr. Boots and Chester Britt, rode in another Trooper’s car. They pulled up in front of old Captain Jonas Beekman’s house a few minutes later and all hurried inside after Mr. Britt had unlocked the door.

Djuna led them into the large front room on the right and stopped when they were all in the middle of the room. Djuna stood there tongue-tied for a moment because the awful thought had come to him that now he
might
be wrong!

“Come on, kid,” said Socker Furlong. “If you’re wrong, no one is going to blame you. You got the spook out from under Aunt Candy’s bed, anyway.”

“Well,” Djuna said after he had gulped a couple of times. “The first day Bobby came, Mr. Boots brought us up here to the museum and Mr. Britt showed us around. Among the other things, he showed us that snowy egret over there in the case.”

Like clockwork, everyone turned to stare at the white bird in the glass case.

“After all those other things had happened,” Djuna resumed, “I kept thinking about that snowy egret. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So I got a bird book of Miss Annie’s and looked up snowy egrets in it. It didn’t have much about them except that it said the herons known as snowy egrets were the most famous because women would pay so much money for their feathers for hats, and stuff.

“Then it said that other herons found in North America were the reddish egret, the Louisiana heron, and
the little blue heron
. When the little blue heron is young, it can hardly be distinguished from the snowy egret,” Djuna added. He took a deep breath and went on:

“So that day Bobby and I came back here to the museum and I asked Bobby if he’d study that bird over there and see if it really
was
a snowy egret. He didn’t know at first, and then he remembered that a snowy egret had no bluish feathers in the wings, the way this one has.”

They all moved over to the case that was labeled “S
NOWY
E
GRET
” and saw the bluish tinge at the tips of the wings of the long-legged white bird inside. Chester Britt was now watching Djuna with an expression of astonishment and disbelief written on his face.

“After Bobby discovered that, we went back to the Brookville library and I looked up the snowy egret and other herons in a fine bird book there,” Djuna went on.

“And he found out just what he wanted to know and wouldn’t tell me!” Bobby said indignantly.

“Because, as I told you,” said Djuna, “I thought Mr. Britt must know and had put the wrong name on the bird purposely. I was afraid if he found out you knew, something awful might happen to you.”

“What about yourself?” Bobby protested. “
You
knew!”

“Yes, but —” Djuna began.

“Listen, kid!” Socker shouted. “We can’t stand this much longer. What did you find out?”

“I found out that this bird
isn’t
a snowy egret,” Djuna said. “They look awful much like one, when they’re young and immature, except for the bluish tinge in the blue heron’s wings and a difference in the color of their legs and feet. This one is a blue heron. A
Little
Blue Heron!” said Djuna firmly.

Chester Britt looked embarrassed. “This seems to be my day to eat crow,” he said unhappily. “I’ll have to admit that I don’t really know much about birds — not even jailbirds — and the only kind of heron I had ever heard of was the snowy egret, so I just put that label on the glass case. But what difference does it make, anyway, Djuna? Has it got anything to do with the pearls? For Pete’s sake, hurry up, before I go off my rocker entirely!”

“Well,” Djuna said with maddening deliberation, “I remembered then about the first time Aunt Candy showed me Captain Jonas’s logbook. We were talking about herring that day because Miss Annie and I had had kippered herring for breakfast. And when Aunt Candy told us about Captain Jonas, she said her grandmother had told her that the last thing old Captain Jonas said before he died was: ‘Lift the blue herring! Lift the blue herring!’”

Socker Furlong turned around and stared at the glass case that was labeled “S
NOWY
E
GRET
.”

“And you think he meant, ‘Lift the blue
heron!
’” said Socker in a whisper.

Djuna gulped and managed to whisper back, “Yes!”

Three minutes later Lieutenant Scott, Cannonball and Socker had pried the glass case off its pedestal. There, nestling in a bed of cotton that had turned yellow with age, were a half hundred pearls of varied sizes, still lustrous with all their priceless, virgin beauty!

R
ED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS
were singing their welcome to nightfall the next evening, Friday. They were darting among the bulrushes and cattails in the pond beside Aunt Candy Barnes’s handsome old house as the last guest for the dinner party entered the cheery front room. Electric lights had given way to soft candlelight and a bright fire danced merrily in the high stone fireplace. The whaling harpoons and lances on the walls cast long shadows in the leaping firelight.

Seated at the head of the long mahogany table was Aunt Candy Barnes, dressed in her prettiest Sunday-go-to-meeting dress. On her right and left sat her guests of honor, Djuna and Bobby Herrick. Sitting across from each other, on down the table, were the bright-eyed Miss Annie Ellery and Mr. George Boots; Lieutenant Scott and Cannonball McGinnty of the State Police; Mr. Chester Britt (alias Karl Kloop) and another State Trooper; and, facing each other at the end of the table, Aunt Candy’s sons, Olin and Dolan. At the other end of the table, facing Aunt Candy, sat Socker Furlong. His round, good-natured face was still beaming because the story he had telephoned to the
Morning Bugle
in Philadelphia the night before, about Djuna and the lost pearls, had “scooped” every other newspaper.

Behind Socker, with his leash fastened to a doorknob, was Champ, Djuna’s little black Scottie. He was lying on a newspaper, spread out on the floor, giving his undivided attention to a large bone and oblivious to the noise in the room.

Aunt Candy tapped on her water glass with a silver spoon to get the attention of all the jabbering people at the table.

“Mr. Furlong is a-goin’ to be Master o’ Ceremonies,” she announced. “But before he starts, I want t’ tell y’ what you are goin’ t’ be fed, so iffen y’ don’t like it you can go out in th’ kitchen ’n’ make yerself a san’wich!

“On all your plates right now is three kinds o’ herrin’. One’s marinated herrin’. One’s herrin’ in wine sauce. An’ t’uther is herrin’ in cream. Iffen y’ don’t like one, you can eat t’uther!

“My boys Olin an’ Dolan are goin’ t’ wait on the table an’ this is what they’re goin’ to bring you: baked shad, with roe, an’ tartar sauce; big, baked, stuffed p’tatoes; pickled beets ’n’ canned beets I put up m’self; an’ strawb’ry shortcake!”

Everyone shouted that it sounded wonderful; and Aunt Candy, beaming, tapped on her glass again and said, “Mr. Socker Furlong will now take over!”

Socker rose, bowed, and held up his hand for silence as everyone began to cheer and jabber again.

“Ladies and gentlemen— and you, too, Cannonball —” he said, “unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I am going to begin, like all speakers, with a story. Perhaps I should say that this is a story
about
a story, and also a story about two people who can’t be with us tonight, although I wish they could; but I solemnly promise that I’ll make the whole thing very short, because I know you’re all dying to start in on all the good things Aunt Candy has got ready for us. Shall I go ahead?”

“Go ahead!” yelled everybody.

“Very well,” said Socker, smiling broadly. “This story is about the story I telephoned to the newspaper I work for, the
Morning Bugle
, last night,
about
the wonderful job that Djuna did with Bobby’s help,
about
the story that had been hidden in Captain Jonas Beekman’s logbook for nearly a hundred years. The first person I got on the phone was the editor of the
Bugle
, my boss, old Mike Canavan. Djuna has heard me talk about him, many a time. He’s the most even-tempered guy I’ve ever known — he’s
always
mad.”

“He’s fired Socker three separate times that I know of,” whispered Djuna, to Aunt Candy, “but he always hires him back on the paper again.”

“As a general thing,” Socker went on, “old man Canavan has a tongue that can sting worse than a tarantula. When you’re all excited about a piece of news that you’ve picked up, and kid yourself with the thought that he will tell you to write at least a column about it, he just snarls, ‘Keep it down to a stick!’ and that means to practically nothing at all. All your work wasted! So, last night, after I’d given him an outline of what Djuna had done, I fully expected him to say, ‘Keep it down to a stick.’ But what he actually said was, ‘Well, my boy, you seem to have a wonderful story there! I’ll put my best rewrite man on the phone to take it from you, and tell him to let it run to two full columns. And I’ll tell the night desk to give you a by-line on it. Okay?’