The Yellow Cat Mystery (4 page)

“If he’s any kind of a dentist he’ll know which tooth it is,” Mrs. Pulham snapped. “It’s all swollen up. You better both take hold of the handle of the basket, because Tootler is pretty heavy. And you better leave your bicycle here. If you ever dropped Tootler with that tooth he’d come right through the basket and scratch your eyes out!”

“I guess we better,” Tommy said, and he grinned. “I don’t want to get my eyes scratched out.” They both took hold of the handle of the carrying basket and as they started down the steps Mrs. Pulham said, “I’ll give you each fifty cents when you get back, and some lemonade and cake.” Their faces brightened and they both thanked her over their shoulders as they turned on to Atlantic Avenue and started toward the town.

“How far is it down there?” Djuna asked.

“It’s over half a mile,” Tommy said, and then stopped speaking because Mrs. Pulham interrupted him. She had heard Djuna’s question across the lawn.

“What’re you worryin’ about how far it is for?” she shouted. “My husband walked down there and back twice a day until he was seventy-eight, and there ain’t either one of you over fifty.”

The boys turned startled faces toward her and they both began to giggle. When they started on, Tommy whispered, “She’s something, isn’t she?”

“It’s a good thing for Dr. Hammer
she
didn’t take Tootler down to him,” Djuna whispered back.

When the boys reached the Hamilton Block their arms were weary and the cat bag was becoming increasingly heavy. They plodded through the arcade and up the short flight of stairs in the back. They carefully looked at the names on the doors of the offices along the second floor corridor and could not find either Dr. Hammer’s or Dr. Pulham’s name.

“It’s prob’ly up on the next floor,” Djuna said. “You remember Dr. Hammer said he was right over the bank, and the bank ceiling is so high it must reach up two flights.”

“Oh, sure,” Tommy said.

They plodded up another flight of stairs and on the left of the dark, gloomy corridor they found a sign painted on a glass door that read. D
OCTOR
K
ENNETH
P
ULHAM
,
Dentist
.

“This is it,” Tommy whispered. “Dr. Hammer hasn’t had the name changed yet.”

Djuna nodded and reached forward to knock on the door. The sound reverberated hollowly down the dark corridor and then was partially drowned by the rolling rumble of a bowling ball rushing down an alley, and the resounding crash of bowling pins as the ball reached its destination. They waited for a few moments and then Tommy said, “You better knock louder. He prob’ly couldn’t hear you because of those bowling balls.”

Djuna knocked louder this time and a few moments later they heard someone moving inside the room. Then there was silence again. Djuna and Tommy exchanged glances and then Tommy whispered, “Jeepers, what’s the matter with him? I heard him in there.”

“So did I,” Djuna whispered back. His lips came together a little tighter and he lifted a hand and knocked even harder. After another brief silence, broken only by the rumble of bowling balls and the crash of pins, the lock was turned in the door and it opened a crack and a single eye peered out the narrow slit.

“Just a minute, boys,” Dr. Hammer’s voice said. He closed the door again and they heard him move across the room and back to the door to throw it wide. He was wearing his dark glasses now, as he had been when they saw him in the bank.

“Hello, hello,” he said. “Who are you looking for?”

“We’re looking for you,” Tommy said. “Don’t you remember us? We met you with my father and Mr. Hamilton down in the bank this morning.”

“Of course, of course,” Dr. Hammer said. “Excuse me, boys. I didn’t recognize you. What’s on your minds? Come in.”

The boys entered the reception room of Dr. Hammer’s offices still carrying the cat bag between them. Dr. Hammer looked down at the cat bag and then at both of the boys and although they couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses his face didn’t look any too pleasant. He was wearing a work shirt with the collar open and an old pair of dungarees. There was a cot in a corner of the room and on one of the reception room chairs there was a saw. Beside it was a small pile of sawdust and a number of short pieces of wood that he had evidently sawed across the chair. When neither of the boys spoke he said impatiently, “I’m pretty busy here. What do you want?”

“Mrs. Pulham sent us down,” Djuna said. “She came down yesterday and brought her cat, but you weren’t here. She’s pretty old, so we offered to bring the cat down this morning.”

“Cat!”
Dr. Hammer exploded. “What do
I
want with her cat? If that old—” He bit off what he was going to say and looked at them in speechless exasperation.

“She wants you to lance its tooth,” Tommy said hurriedly. “She said her husband always took care of her cat’s teeth, and she said there was some kind of a leather harness around here that Dr. Pulham made to keep the cat from scratching him.”

“Oh, she did, did she!” Dr. Hammer said and the color of his face almost matched the color of his dark glasses. “A cat with an ulcerated tooth …” He broke off to get his breath and said, “You tell that old bag of …” Again he broke off. After he had swallowed a few times he seemed to gain control of himself and began again.

“Look, boys,” he said, and now they could tell he was smiling. “Let’s look at this thing sensibly. I work my way through college for four years and then work my way through two more to go to dental school, and half starve to death doing it, and that old—and Mrs. Pulham wants me to begin my practice—after six years of study—she wants me to begin my practice by lancing her cat’s tooth! Does that make sense? After you’d worked all those years to get ready, would you want to begin by lancing the molar of some feline quadruped?” Dr. Hammer paced across the room in righteous indignation and whirled at the other end to shout, “No! Of course you wouldn’t. Nor will I!”

Both Djuna and Tommy were watching him with astonishment in their eyes and amazement stamped on their faces. Then Dr. Hammer laughed and said to himself, “Now take it easy, Hammer. Take it easy! The first thing you know, you’ll blow a tank!”

Neither of the boys could think of any reply to make to a man who was talking to himself, so they didn’t say anything. They just continued to stare at him.

“I’ll tell you what, boys,” he went on in a moment. “I don’t know where to find that harness Mrs. Pulham told you about, and”—He stopped speaking to peer in the window of the cat’s carrying bag and as he did it the cat spit at him with a ferocity that caused him to jump backward about four feet. After he had wiped the startled expression from his face he continued—“and if I did,” he said vehemently, “I wouldn’t lance that cat’s tooth for a month’s rent. But don’t tell Mrs. Pulham that. Tell her I don’t have my instruments sterilized and I’d be afraid, for the cat’s sake, to touch it without sterilized instruments. You explain it to her in a nice way for me and I’ll be very much obliged. And suggest to her that she take the cat to a vet.”

“But there isn’t any vet in Dolphin Beach,” Djuna said. “That’s why Mrs. Pulham sent the cat to you. She said she couldn’t afford to take the cat to Fort Laurel to a vet.”

“You tell her to take the cat to a vet in Fort Laurel and I’ll pay her expenses,” Dr. Hammer said. “Tell her just to add whatever it costs to the amount I owe her for her husband’s instruments and equipment. Now, do you think you can remember that? Tell her I’m terribly sorry. Oh, heck, tell her to go soak—Tell her I’m sorry!”

“Yes, sir,” Tommy said, but he continued to stare at Dr. Hammer in amazement because of his outburst. Djuna didn’t say anything. He was looking at Dr. Hammer with a great deal of wonder in his brown eyes.

“Good-by, now,” Dr. Hammer said, and he managed to maneuver the boys out the door and had closed and locked it behind them before they were quite aware of what he was doing.

They were both silent as they went back down the stairs to the arcade. When they were out on the street, Tommy said,
“Jiminy crimps!
What’s the matter with him, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Djuna replied, “but he certainly acts awful funny.” Then he began to laugh. “For one thing, I think he was awful scared of Tootler.”

When they arrived back at Mrs. Pulham’s she was waiting on the front porch for them again. They both hated to face her wrath when they told her that Dr. Hammer wouldn’t lance Tootler’s tooth. But they had to do it, so they told her, each helping the other, while they watched the storm clouds gather on her face. When she had asked them a couple of questions Mrs. Pulham said wrathfully, “So, I’m to add my expenses to Fort Laurel to what he
already
owes me? I’ll probably never see
any
of it! Why, I have a good notion to go down there and use some of those instruments to yank out
his
teeth—all of them—every single one!” Then she got control of her anger and said, “But I promised you some lemonade and cake. Here’s a fifty-cent piece for each of you and the cake and lemonade are all ready. I’ll get them. What’s the matter?”

Both Djuna and Tommy drew away from the half dollars she was extending to them and Djuna said, “No, ma’am. We’d rather not take them, because he wouldn’t lance Tootler’s tooth. We—”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Pulham exploded. “Take ’em or I’ll turn Tootler loose on you!”

Djuna and Tommy each took one of the half dollars reluctantly and a few moments later they were eating some very fine chocolate layer cake and washing it down with cool, refreshing lemonade. While they ate it, Mrs. Pulham told them she would get a taxi and take Tootler to Fort Laurel that afternoon, and if Dr. Hammer didn’t repay her, she said, she would skin him alive.

“Now drop in tomorrow to see me, if you get time, and I’ll have some more cake and lemonade for you and tell you about Tootler,” she said as Tommy pushed off from her front steps with Djuna on the handlebars.

“Hoddy doddy!” said Tommy when they got down the street. “That was swell cake! I hope it won’t interfere with what Mom is going to have for lunch.”

It didn’t. By the time they arrived at the Williams home their appetites were as good as new. After they had washed, Mrs. Williams said Mr. Williams wouldn’t be home for lunch and they could eat any time they were ready.

“Any time,”
they said eagerly and in unison.

“It isn’t anything special,” Mrs. Williams said. “Except I wanted you to try a new sauce I’ve learned how to make, Djuna. I know Miss Annie is an awfully good cook, so—”

“So are you an awfully good cook, Mom,” Tommy said.

“Thank you, Tommy,” said Mrs. Williams. “This is a fish sauce. I learned how to make it because every time you ask anyone how to cook fish down here they say ‘pan-fry it.’ I’m so sick of pan-fried fish that I can’t stand the sight of it. They fry everything down here until the whole state smells like a fish fry.”

“What kind of sauce is it, Mom?” Tommy asked.

“Mornay,” Mrs. Williams said as she took two poached fish fillets out of the oven and put them on two plates. “It’s just a plain cream sauce with Gruyère and Parmesan cheese mixed with it, and a little butter, while it’s very, very hot.” She poured some of the sauce over the two poached fillets and then gave them each a salad made of tender hearts of cabbage palms and put her own special dressing on them.

Both of the boys tasted the fish fillets with the Mornay sauce on it and their eyes opened almost as wide as they had while they listened to Dr. Hammer’s outburst. Then they smacked their lips and Tommy exclaimed, “Jeepers, that would make a turkish towel taste good!”

“I bet I could even eat a leather belt if it had this sauce on it!” Djuna declared.

“Well, I’m glad you like it,” said Mrs. Williams, “because now I’ll never spoil another fish by frying it.”

D
JUNA
was pedaling Tommy’s bicycle and Tommy was riding on the handlebars when they reached the business section of town on the way to the beach. Mrs. Williams had made them rest for a half hour after luncheon so that there wouldn’t be any danger that they would get cramps when they went swimming. “Maybe it’s an old-fashioned idea,” she told them, “but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Phew!” Djuna puffed as they reached the Hamilton Block, “I’m bushed. Do you want to pedal for a while?”

“Sure,” Tommy said, and Djuna came to a halt beside the curb across from the Dolphin Beach Bank. “But let’s go over and see Bobby Herrick first.”

“Who’s he?” Djuna wanted to know.

“A kid I go to school with,” said Tommy. “He’s my best friend down here. He’s making some extra money during vacation as a pin-boy over at the bowling alleys.”

“Okay with me,” Djuna said. “Can we go in to see him? I’ve never been inside a bowling alley.”

“Oh, sure,” Tommy said. They parked Tommy’s bicycle at the curb and darted across the street while the light on the corner was red.

Djuna was dazzled by the streamlined chromium trim and the fluorescent lighting as Tommy led him into the bowling alleys. Only two of the eight alleys were being used at the moment and on one of them the bowlers were using duckpins, so the noise was not too great.

“Hi, Bobby,” Tommy called to a sturdy, good-looking boy of about his own age who was sitting where the pin-boys sat when they weren’t working.

“Hi,” Bobby answered as he rose and came toward them with a fetching smile on his face.

“This is my friend, Djuna, from Edenboro,” Tommy said, and then politely added, “Robert Herrick.”

Both Djuna and Robert mumbled something as they shook hands and then Djuna said, as he watched one of the bowling balls strike the pins and send them crashing into the pit, “I should think those pins would knock your head off when they come flying back there.” Bobby laughed.

“Oh, there’s a padded thing where they land and we hop up on a shelf above it,” Bobby said. “Nobody ever gets hit. Do you know how to bowl?”

“No,” Djuna admitted. “This is the first time I’ve ever been in a bowling alley. I’ve looked in at the windows but I’ve never been inside one. Is it hard to learn?”