The Yellow Cat Mystery (14 page)

Bobby Herrick was standing in the doorway of the bowling alleys when Djuna suddenly appeared around the corner. Bobby’s eyes grew so wide that they were in imminent danger of popping out and rolling across the tiled floor as he saw Djuna. “Hey, where have you been, Djuna?” he gasped. “They’ve been looking everywhere for you! What—”

“Back in a minute!” Djuna gasped in turn and kept on running. He went up the stairs at the back of the arcade with dragging feet. At the top he turned to the left, and for a brief instant he stopped outside the door to Dr. Hammer’s offices and listened. Then he quietly turned the knob. The door was unlocked and he slipped inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

The door to the inner office was closed. Then he saw the coat of the tropical suit Dr. Hammer had been wearing the afternoon before, hanging over the back of a chair. He hurried over and jammed his hand into the inside pocket. There was a wallet there and with it a flat red case. Djuna’s fingers were trembling as he opened the red case. He pulled out the little folded packet inside—and the first thing that greeted his gaze was the round gold seal stamped on it and around the seal were letters that read: PASSPORT … UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Djuna had just slipped the red case with the passport in it into his pocket as the door to the inner office opened.

Dr. Hammer’s eyes were incredulous as he stared at Djuna and Djuna stared back at him.

Then a vicious little blue-nosed automatic pistol appeared in the doctor’s hand and he glided across the room to lock the door to the hallway before Djuna could summon his exhausted faculties.

“Well, well!” Dr. Hammer said with a deadly smile. “How you do get around!”

D
R. HAMMER
’
S
eyes glittered behind his dark glasses as he advanced on Djuna with his finger tight on the trigger of the little automatic in his hand. But the automatic didn’t look small to Djuna. The hole in its blue nose looked as large as the mouth of a cannon.

“Get inside there,” Hammer snarled as he waved the gun toward the doorway of his inner office. Djuna backed into the other room with Dr. Hammer pressing after him. When they were both through the doorway the doctor slammed the door and snapped the automatic lock.

“Where’s Pedro?” he demanded furiously. “How did you get away from him?”

In the few seconds that had passed since Dr. Hammer had so suddenly made his appearance, Djuna had not spoken a word. Everything had gone wrong, so dreadfully and so completely that his head whirled. He knew now, too late, that he had allowed himself to make the worst mistake he had ever made in all his life. He knew now, when it was too late, that he should have gone, first of all, to the police, instead of blundering into Dr. Hammer’s hands.

For there was no question as to the deadly hatred in the doctor’s eyes. Djuna knew that his own life was hanging by a thread, and that the only possible chance he had to escape death was to talk and go on talking, in the wild hope that in the next few minutes Rilla’s father might discover what was in the bag, and bring the police at once, or that Tommy might get worried. He quite forgot, for the moment, that the pigskin bag was locked, and that there was no chance that Mr. Hamilton could open it. But as these wild hopes whirled through his head, Dr. Hammer took a step toward him. Djuna wet his dry lips as Dr. Hammer jabbed the gun at him and again snarled: “Where’s Pedro?”

“I don’t know!” said Djuna desperately. “All I know is that when he woke me up this morning he told me he had thought up a better way of killing me than by drowning me, the way you told him to. He said he was just going to let me lie there, all tied up, until I starved to death, because that would give me plenty of time to think about how smart I had been, to mix into something that wasn’t any of my business. And then he went out and I heard the boat engine start up and then the boat went off somewhere and I couldn’t hear it any more, and I guess I fainted, or something.”

“Then who untied you?” Dr. Hammer snarled.

“Nobody,” Djuna gasped. “Pedro didn’t come back, so I crawled along the floor on my knees, and I found a rusty knife lying under the stove. And I wedged the handle into a crack and rubbed the fishing-line that was tied around my wrists against the blade until—”

“You’re lying!” snapped Hammer, interrupting him. “Pedro helped you! Now, for the last time,
where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Djuna repeated stubbornly. His gaze locked with Dr. Hammer’s as he answered him. He had never lost the courage to look him boldly in the eyes. From the moment he had first been taken prisoner, the day before, he had been hoping that Tommy would tell his father what Djuna had told him about the connection between Pedro and Dr. Hammer, and that somehow he would be rescued. But he was fast losing that hope…. Had Tommy forgotten what he had told him?

Djuna hadn’t dared to take his eyes from Dr. Hammer’s face, when the man was making him back into the inner office at the point of the gun. But now, chancing the doctor’s next move, he turned his head and glanced behind him.

He saw exactly what he had expected to find! Hardly more than another step away, he saw a hole, two feet square, that had been cut through the floor; and, fastened over two blocks of wood that Dr. Hammer had nailed to the floor at the edge, were the metal ridge-hooks of a ladder that hung straight down into the vault below!

Dr. Hammer had done just what Djuna had suspected he was going to do: he had cut down into the vault, unheard, although the police station was just around the corner. And Mr. Hamilton, the bank cashier, never guessing what was in the pigskin bag that his daughter Rilla had brought to him,
had
actually helped Rilla take it to a place where Dr. Hammer would safely pick it up and then escape!

As Djuna faced him again, Dr. Hammer caught the gleam of triumph in Djuna’s eyes, but although a new fit of demoniacal fury seized him he managed to control his voice.

“So,” he said softly, after a moment, “you figured out what I was going to do, eh?” And as his eyes measured the slight, wiry body of the small boy who faced him so defiantly, an expression almost of wonder crept into them. Then they hardened again. “You told Pedro, and Pedro has taken it on the lam. You’re right about one thing—Pedro
is
yellow. But he isn’t a yellow cat, he’s a yellow
rat
. I’m going to fool you both, my little friend!” He snapped the fingers of his left hand and continued—as if talking to himself—“I’ll take a taxi over to Captain Jackson’s boat yard and pick up that bag, and—” Again he broke off suddenly, as his rage at Djuna’s interference swept over him uncontrollably.

“But first,” he snarled, as he lifted the automatic and brought its muzzle level with Djuna’s heart, “first, my little pigeon, I’ll—”

Djuna didn’t give him time to finish the sentence. Like lightning, his hand darted into his own pocket and brought out the passport that he had taken from Dr. Hammer’s coat. He held it up to Hammer’s gaze.

“Don’t move!” he screamed shrilly.

Hammer stood frozen. “What—what—” he babbled, his eyes fairly starting from his head. Slowly he lowered his lifted hand.

A single bound took Djuna to the edge of the square hole cut in the floor. Holding the passport directly over the hole, he turned it so that Hammer could see the seal of the United States stamped upon it.

“You can’t get out of this country without it!” he shouted. “If you lift your hand again, I’ll drop it! If you shoot, they’ll hear it! If you kill me, they’ll get you for murder as well as robbery! Get out, do you hear?”

Dr. Hammer’s eyes were like the eyes of a madman as he took a step toward Djuna.

“Keep away!” Djuna said sharply.

Dr. Hammer took another step. Djuna opened his fingers and let the passport drop. It fell like a plummet into the hole, and, an instant later, struck at the foot of the ladder with a dull thump. For that instant, Dr. Hammer had stood transfixed; then, with a strangled cry, he sprang at Djuna like a man insane and struck at the boy’s head with the automatic clutched in his hand. But Djuna was even quicker than the man. He had started to duck as he saw the blow coming, and the gun barrel hit him only a glancing blow, but a painful one. Dazed though he was, he did not lose consciousness. Dr. Hammer, seeing Djuna’s knees buckle under him, gave a snarl of satisfaction as the boy crumpled to the floor and lay motionless.

Bending over the prostrate figure, the man seized the boy’s cutflung wrist and jerked him cruelly over on his tack. Djuna, his eyes closed, let his head roll as if he were unconscious; and, as soon as Hammer released his hold on the boy’s wrist, let his arm drop as if lifeless.

Sure that the boy was completely unconscious, Dr. Hammer’s mad gaze swept the room; then he leaped for the washbowl in a corner and grabbed the hand towels that were hanging there. His fury hampered his speed as he ripped the towels into lengths and tied Djuna’s hands and feet. Djuna kept his eyes closed and remained limp.

It was while the doctor was working feverishly over Djuna’s bonds that Mrs. Pulham’s yellow cat came stalking nonchalantly out of the combination kitchen, storage and sterilizing room. The cat stood there watching Dr. Hammer for a moment and then it yawned and stretched its powerful body. As Dr. Hammer lifted his gaze he saw the cat and it seemed to add to his fury.

“You again!” he snarled at the cat. “When I catch you I’ll give you a shot of the same needle I’m going to give
him!”
He stood erect and moved across the room to the medicine cabinet over the washbasin and took out a hypodermic syringe. He made a lunge at the big yellow cat and the cat slipped around him and glided back into the kitchen.

“I’ll get you both when I come back,” he snarled as he started to go down the ladder into the vault below.

The instant Dr. Hammer’s head disappeared from view Djuna rolled over on his stomach. At the same time the big yellow cat stuck his head around the storeroom doorway and gazed at him with speculative green eyes. Djuna rolled over and over until he reached a corner of the room, and the cat continued to watch him with increasing interest. When Djuna managed to push Dr. Hammer’s heavy 16-pound bowling ball off the canvas carrying case on which it had been standing in the corner, Tootler took an active interest. His green eyes brightened and he was beside Djuna in two great leaps. Standing on his hind legs he put his forepaws on the heavy ball as if he wanted to help Djuna roll it.

Between them they rolled the ball to the edge of the hole. Djuna balanced it delicately on the edge between the two ridge-hooks of the ladder as he pulled himself forward and looked down. The big yellow cat stretched and looked down with him.

Dr. Hammer had one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, twenty feet below, when he looked up. Fear raced into his eyes as he saw Djuna and the yellow cat looking down at him. He reached for the automatic he had stuck in the waistband of his trousers, but he was too late.

The great black bowling ball plummeted down at him. He jerked his head back, but the heavy 16-pound ball struck him full on the chin.

There was a terrifying scream, then a thud as Dr. Hammer dropped to the floor. Then there was silence.

Djuna had rolled over and lay gasping on the floor as that horrible scream beat on his ears. He lay inert for a moment until the dizziness had passed and then he lifted his head and peered downward. Hammer’s body, sprawled on the floor below, was silent and motionless.

The room began to whirl as Djuna closed his eyes, and Tootler began to purr.

The big yellow cat nudged Djuna with its nose and then sat down beside him. Djuna was aware of faraway noises beating in his ears and a constant pounding that wouldn’t stop. He wished that it would stop, so that he could go to sleep. His whole body ached and he wanted only rest. He tried to shut out the voice and the pounding but it persisted. As it grew louder and more audible he opened his eyes because he recognized the voice. It was Rilla’s voice and now she was screaming.

“Dr. Hammer! Dr. Hammer!” she was saying in a high-pitched shrill voice. “Let me in! Open the door! My father’s waiting for me and I’ve got to go home!” She pounded on the door a dozen times and the thump of her sturdy fists came through the two doors to Djuna. “Let me in! Let me in!” she screamed. “I took the bag of shells over to Captain Andy and he wasn’t there. He was out with everyone else, looking for Djuna. I’ve got the bag here and I’ve got to go home. I want my doll! Let me in, Dr. Hammer!”

Suddenly her voice stopped and there were a lot of other noises outside the door and a tumult of voices. Djuna managed to roll over as glass broke in the outer office door and then there were voices inside it.

The yellow cat stood up poised for flight. Djuna reached out his bound hands and stroked it. Tootler walked around him rubbing against his body and purring happily.

Then there was a crash on the inside door and a panel cracked and shattered. An instant later a hand came through the broken panel and unlocked the door.

The door swung open and Socker Furlong, hatless and with his round face unshaven and his eyes bloodshot, burst into the room. Right behind him came Dan Forbes of the Border Patrol, three Dolphin Beach policemen, Bobby Herrick, and Tommy Williams and his father. Behind them were Mr. Hamilton and Rilla, and Rilla still had the pigskin bag Dr. Hammer had given her, grasped tightly in her fat little hand. No one noticed the hole in the floor of the office because they were all looking at Djuna’s prostrate body.

Socker Furlong was across the room with one long stride to drop on his knees beside Djuna. He slipped one arm under Djuna’s shoulders and lifted him to an upright position. Right behind him was Tommy Williams’s father, with the long blade of a clasp knife open in his hand to cut the strips that bound his hands and feet.

“What have they been doing to you, kid?” Socker asked with a voice that was not steady.

“Jeepers, I’m glad to see you, Socker,” Djuna said weakly. “I—I’ll be all right in a minute. Honest!”