CHAPTER XIII
AT THE INFIRMARY
Where was the copper collar?
When we excitedly questioned Professor Stoner he seemed not to comprehend what we were talking about. A dazed look clung to his wearied face.
“Collar?” he repeated dully, regarding us in turn with vacant blue eyes.
Scoop nodded and put a hand on Tarvia’s furry neck.
“It ought to be right here,” he followed up. “A copper collar,” he explained, “with a small steel buckle. Where is it?”
Removing his spectacles the bewildered old gentleman bent over the cat until his long nose almost touched its ears. Then he silently lifted his blank eyes to the level of ours and waggled his head.
Scoop lost patience with the other.
“You ought to know about the collar,” he pressed more sharply. “Where did you get the cat?”
“Dear me!” the professor murmured, trying unsuccessfully to replace his spectacles upside down. “I do believe it is long past my usual hour for retiring. So if you will excuse me I will immediately seek my repose.”
Here he pottered across the room to the connecting doorway, still fiddling with his contrary spectacles.
There was a dead silence among us as the stooped form vanished into the side room. Then Red shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed:
“Gosh! I don’t know as I care to bunk in the same room with him. He might try to play a tune on his razor in the middle of the night and whittle us into noodles.”
“Don’t worry,” Scoop spoke up sourly. “He probably isn’t half as loony as he lets on.”
“All the same,” Red persisted uneasily, “I’d just as soon be home. I never did have a hankering for crazy folks.”
We looked on as Scoop reflectively returned the black cat to its box.
“I imagine,” he said slowly, “the infirmary guards will be around to-morrow morning looking for their escaped patient. But before they come we’ll make him talk up and tell us where he got the cat.”
“Like as not,” put in Peg, “he picked it up at the home of the lady who bought the eggs.”
Scoop’s forehead went corrugated.
“Um—— I think that you’re right. And that being the case she must live somewhere between here and the infirmary.”
There was more excited conversation; then Peg helped himself to a glance at Scoop’s watch.
“Nearly three o’clock! Wough! Here’s where I hit the hay,” he yawned. “With the professor ‘reposing’ on cot number one there’s only two beds left, and bu-lieve me I’m going to cop onto the big half of cot number two. Good night, you would-be sleuths!”
Here he darted for the door of the side room, the rest of us one jump behind. When he landed on the cot the springs gave a rasping metallic squeak. Turning in his sleep the professor murmured:
“Pretty pussy. Nice pussy.”
Scoop scowled uncertainly at the sleeper and shook his head.
“Nobody home,” he muttered.
I can’t say did I crawl into bed beside Red without apprehension. And the fact that the latter kept raising his freckled face above my shoulder to squint anxiously at the long form on the nearby cot didn’t help to keep the fidgets out of my nerves. But I finally got to sleep. Then I had a crazy dream about a barking cat. The barking got louder and louder. I awoke to find myself sitting up in bed. The professor was snoring to beat the cars. Another such gurgling and snorting I never heard. But I listened to the music with silent satisfaction. Certainly no harm would come to us at his hands if he continued his solo into daybreak.
He was still sleeping soundly when we returned from breakfast. Scoop said we should awaken him and find out what he knew about the copper collar before the guards appeared to take him away.
So Peg gave the sleeper a shake and yipped:
“Last call for breck-fast. Now being served in the dining car in the rear.”
The blue eyes came unsealed in a blank stare. Then they went closed again and remained closed.
“Well, if he isn’t the champion sleepy-head,” growled Scoop in disgust.
Bending low, Red put his ear to the thin lips.
“S-h-h-h! He’s talking in his sleep.”
“Better look out,” grinned Peg. “He may start dreaming of a ham and egg breakfast and bite a hunk out of your ear in the thought that it’s the sunny side of a fried egg.”
“If you guys’ll keep still I may be able to find out something about the cat collar.”
But the laugh was on Red when the sleeper again vacantly murmured something about his “pretty, pretty pussy cat.”
Scoop gave a grunt and turned away.
“Suppose we borrow your pa’s delivery wagon,” I suggested, “and drive over to the infirmary?”
“What for?”
“It was between the infirmary and town that the professor picked up the black cat,” I explained, “so the other end of the route is the logical place to start in on the collar’s trail. If we can find out what time he left the infirmary we likely can make short work of locating the farmhouse where he got the cat. Maybe he stopped there for supper, or to get a drink of water.”
“Jerry,” Scoop complimented, “that idea is worth a million dollars. Come on,” he concluded, starting briskly for the door.
Red chased after us.
“I’m going, too.”
Scoop paused and glanced inquiringly at Peg.
“It’s all right,” the latter nodded. “I’ll stay here with the cats and the professor.”
“If the guards come,” instructed Scoop, “try and make the old boy talk before they take him away. I have an idea he knows more about the collar than he tries to let on.”
“Leave him to me,” Peg returned grimly.
So we got one of Mr. Ellery’s delivery outfits and started out—only Scoop had to do some tall coaxing to win his father’s consent. I suspect we wouldn’t have been able to borrow the horse and wagon for such a long trip if it had been a busy day like Wednesday or Saturday.
Our tongues ran in time to the lively clatter of the horse’s hoofs on the stony roadbed. For the most part our talk was about the copper collar. We now had a clew to its whereabouts. Within an hour or two we likely would recover it. Then, of course, we would learn its secret.
“And get the reward,” was the concluding thought I contentedly supplied.
Red straightway wanted to know what reward.
“It was printed in the Chicago newspaper last Sunday,” Scoop scowled. “Jerry read it to you. Don’t you ever remember anything?”
“I must have been asleep,” grinned Red.
“You usually are,” I put in, “except at meal-time.”
“Anyway,” he laughed, “I’m awake now. Tell me about it.”
“The reward,” Scoop explained, “is one hundred dollars. And it’s ours if we help recover the stolen pearls or get the thief arrested.”
“Hot dog!” yipped Red. “Let’s figure how we’ll spend the money.”
“Of course,” Scoop reminded thoughtfully, “we can be dead wrong in our suspicions. There may be no connection at all between the copper collar and the pearl robbery. But I like to think that there is. Anyway, it won’t take us long to find out once we get our hands on the collar.”
“How can we tell?”
“We’ll search the collar inside and out for code marks. And if the marks are there we’ll know we’re on the right track. If not—— Well, we’ll be out of luck, that’s all.”
I knew what a code mark was, but Red didn’t. Scoop had to explain it.
“Any kind of secret writing,” said he, “is a code. For instance, we’ll suppose you’re a thief and I’m your confederate. You know what a confederate is, don’t you?”
“Sure thing.”
“Between us we have made up a set of secret signs or marks, one for each letter of the alphabet. By using this code we can write to each other and no one else can read our letters. See? Well, you steal Mrs. Kepple’s pink pearls and hide them. You want me to know where the hiding place is, so you take your knife and scratch a lot of code marks on the flat surface of a new copper cat collar. Then you put the collar on a yellow alley cat——”
“And send it to my cat farm that you seen advertised that day in a Chicago newspaper,” I put in, wanting to help out with the illustration.
“Exactly,” nodded Scoop. “And I come to the cat farm in the middle of the night to steal the cat so I can read the message on its collar and find out where the pearls are hid. I don’t dare come in the daytime to ask for the cat because I’m afraid some one will spot me for a crook and put me in jail.”
Red looked dizzy.
“But why should I hide the pearls after stealing them? Why don’t I keep them?”
Scoop grinned at the other’s earnestness.
“Being your confederate,” said he, “I ought to know, but I don’t. Nor can I tell you why you put the code on a cat collar instead of writing it in a letter. You had a reason, of course.”
“And you really believe there are code marks on the collar?” I put in.
Scoop nodded.
“But how can we read the writing?” I followed up. “We know less about secret codes than a hog does about grand opera.”
“Mrs. Kepple has detectives hunting for her pearls. We’ll let them work on the code.”
I saw then it was his intention to take the collar to the Chicago woman. And I went confused.
“But you said last night Mrs. Kepple brought the prowler to town with her. Can we trust her?”
“How else can we get in touch with the Chicago detectives and claim the reward? Um—— We’ve got to trust her.”
“It’s risky,” I concluded, wagging my head. “If she’s up to some crooked work we’ll likely get cheated.”
“Not if we use our wits,” he returned shortly.
Just before the infirmary’s tile roof came into view we overtook a girl in a blue dress. I put her age down at twelve or thirteen. And I grinned as I took note of the braided pigtail that hung down her back It was the same fiery color as Red’s topknot.
“Must be your cousin,” I joked, fibbing him in the slats with my sharpened elbow.
“Shut up,” he growled in sudden confusion. A girl is the one thing that puts Red under his shell.
Scoop chuckled.
“Um—— Here’s where we show a little class.” Cocking his cap on one ear he punched out his chest and reached for the whip. “Step lively now, Sir Galahad,” he chirped throatily, tickling the old skate’s ribs with the whip lash.
It was fun to act up that way for the girl’s benefit. Even Red put aside his bashfulness long enough to join Scoop and me in our important pose. I guess we looked like lulus, all right. Three in a row. Then, as I debated in my mind whether or not I should wink at the girl as we clattered by, what do you know if a front wheel didn’t come off of the blamed old delivery wagon! Down went the axle. And in the time that it takes to say “Jack Robinson” the three of us did a “skyrocket” into the air, landing on our necks in the roadside ditch.
It was a dry ditch. But that fact gave me no contentment as I crawled up the bank. Not so you can notice it! I sort of staggered into the road. And I scowled at the girl. I wanted her to know I was good and mad, so she would think twice before daring to laugh at me.
“You better look after Sir Galahad,” she snickered. “He’s trying to back up and roost on the dash of your three-wheeled cart.”
I yipped sharply to Scoop to come quick and take care of his blamed old nag. Two heads popped into view over the weeds fringing the ditch. I couldn’t tell which was which, their faces were so dirty. They were lots worse off than me. Just to look at them put me to laughing.
“I’m glad,” said the girl, as the others came sheepishly forward, “that no one is hurt.”
Scoop collected his wits.
“Oh,” he said glibly, “we do this for exercise. We’re used to it. Only we got mixed up in our signals and came out on the wrong side.”
“Well,” the girl returned with twinkling eyes, “if you really want to do it over again I’ll stand out of your way.”
“I guess,” shrugged Scoop, “we better get busy and repair our taxicab.”
It wasn’t much of a trick putting the wheel on, though we went tuckered from lifting the heavy wagon. Just one corner of it weighed a million pounds.
“Have you boys been down the road very far?” the girl inquired, as we worked.
“Four-five miles,” informed Scoop, tightening the axle nut.
“Did you meet an old man?”
Red and I caught Scoop’s wink.
“We met two old men,” he joked. “They were riding in a flivver. The driver’s long whiskers blew in front of his eyes, and, thinking he was in behind a load of hay, he honked his horn for us to get out of the road.”
The girl never caught on that this was a made-up story.
“But the old man I am talking about was walking,” she persisted. “He ran away from the infirmary with my black cat. I thought maybe he would drop the cat along the road, so I have been searching for it.”
The wrench fell from Scoop’s hands into the dust and he stared.
“Are you talking about a man named Professor Ellsworth Stoner?”
The girl nodded and further explained:
“I live at the county infirmary. My daddy is the superintendent. We have many poor people and some crazy people. Professor Stoner is one of our almost crazy ones. He talks of nothing but cats. And when I missed my black cat this morning I went directly to his room to get it. But he wasn’t there. So I knew he had run away again. And now I have no kitty!”
Well, in the short silence that followed I told myself that the ditch accident was the luckiest thing that could have happened to us. Yes, sir-e! Had we not been dumped out of the wagon we would have swelled past this girl without making her acquaintance. And plainly she was the one person who could help us the most.
“Don’t worry about your cat,” Scoop spoke up. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“Sure thing,” put in Red. “We’ve got it shut in a box.”
The girl clapped her hands.
“Goody! goody!” she exclaimed.
“And the box is in the mill where we have our cat farm,” I further supplied.
Here a light of new interest came into her twinkling eyes.
“Oh!” she cried. “Are you the boys?”
I knew then that she had heard all about the feline rest farm. Everybody had, I guess. All the people in the county, at least. And like the others she could see only the funny side of our adventure. That is what put the twinkle into her eyes.
Scoop was alive to the course of her thoughts.
“Yes,” he admitted without enthusiasm, “we’re it.”
Here a roadster came along and stopped beside us.
“Why, Betty!” cried the woman at the wheel. “Where have you been all morning? I’ve searched the whole neighborhood.”
The girl ran forward.
“Oh, mamma! These are the Tutter boys who have all the cats. And my Blacky is shut in a box in their cat farm.”
The expression on the woman’s face invited a more complete explanation of things. So Scoop stepped forward and did the talking.
“I know where the collar is,” the girl cried, when Scoop concluded. “It’s in my room. I wouldn’t let Blacky wear it because I thought it was much too heavy.” She paused and looked into her mother’s face. “Shall we give them the collar, mamma?”
The woman met our eager glances with a warm smile.
“I think we should,” was her decision. “It would appear from their story that we have no just claim on the collar.”
Here the girl danced up and down on the running board.
“Oh, let’s hurry home and get it! I want to see the code marks.”
So we touched up “Sir Galahad” with the whip and followed in the roadster’s dust till we came to the infirmary, where we were invited onto a porch to wait while the girl made the trip to her room.
“Professor Stoner is indeed a queer old gentleman,” the woman laughed, when we were seated. “Every one here loves him dearly, but it is a fact we do get tired at times listening to his endless cat theories. He is perfectly harmless and no attempt is made to guard or confine him. When we missed him this morning we rather felt he had returned to his cat farm. I imagine the guards will come for him some time this afternoon.”
Presently the girl came dancing through the doorway with the copper collar. In that moment I held my breath. Now we would learn the collar’s secret and solve the mystery! I was so eager to get a squint at the code marks that my nose almost pressed against the woman’s hands as she turned the collar this way and that to complete her inspection of its metal surfaces.
“Here are some scratches,” she spoke up, “but they look very ordinary and meaningless to me.”
The indicated marks were on the inside of the copper band. Just a few scattered scratches. Scoop promptly declared the marks to be a secret message. I didn’t argue the matter. But I was disappointed.
“It certainly is a very peculiar looking collar,” the woman continued. And she definitely commented on the bumps that appeared at regular intervals in the outer surface. These bumps were somewhat larger than a bean. The collar, I noticed, was made of two copper strips riveted together and formed.
Scoop tucked the collar into an inside coat pocket and motioned us to the wagon.
“Let me know,” called the woman, “if you solve the mystery.”
“And don’t forget to return my cat,” reminded the girl.
“We’ll give it to the guards,” Scoop promised.
Anxious to get home, we urged the horse into a brisk trot. But we had proceeded not more than a mile when a fearful screeching and rattling told us that something was out of kilter with our wagon.
“It’s the front wheel,” cried Red, pointing. “Lookit! It ain’t going ’round. It’s stuck.”
Scoop pulled sharply on the lines. Getting out, we tried unsuccessfully to turn the wheel on its axle. The hub was so hot we could scarcely touch it.
The sound of distant factory whistles came faintly to our ears.
“How in Sam Hill are we going to get home?” I inquired, going uneasy in the thought that it was dinner time.
“Guess we’ll have to walk,” said Scoop with a sickly smile.
“Walk nothin’,” retorted Red. “We’ll ride the horse.” Then he lifted his freckled nose into the air and sniffed. “Do I smell beefsteak?”
I pointed ahead to a farmhouse.
“There’s where your beefsteak smell comes from,” I told him.
“Let’s ask them for a hand-out,” he promptly suggested.
Scoop again tried the wheel. But its teeth still gripped the axle. So we put the horse to grazing in a grassy spot and approached the farmhouse.
The closer we came to the kitchen door the hungrier we got. Oh, boy, such grand smells! Steak and cabbage and onions. Scoop rapped on the screen. Peering into the large kitchen over his shoulder, I pretty nearly fell off of the porch when Mrs. Maloney come into view and beamed at us. I told myself that luck certainly was coming our way!
“Well, well,” said she in a high-pitched voice, “if it ain’t the cat farmers! An’ what the divil be ye doin’ here?” she inquired sharply. “Lookin’ for more cats?”
“No,” I grinned, “we’re looking for a free dinner,” and I told her about our tight wheel.
“Um—— Mebby ye better talk with my sister. Sure, I’m only visitin’ here for the day; an’ I can’t say is she in the habit of feedin’ tramps or not. Maggie! It’s some Tutter b’ys beggin’ a dinner. Come an’ talk to ’em.”
Here Mrs. Maloney’s sister came forward.
“We don’t feed tramps,” she laughed, “but we always have a meal for a hungry b’y.”
“How about three hungry boys?” grinned Scoop.
“We have plenty. So if ye want to set up, wash your hands an’ come in.”
“There’s the pump an’ wash basin under the mornin’-glory vine,” pointed Mrs. Maloney. “An’ you’ll find soap an’ a towel. Git busy.”
I was the last one into the kitchen. And as I paused in the doorway I took note of a man in the road on a bicycle. He turned into the farmyard and I saw who it was.
“There’s a man coming,” I told Mrs. Maloney excitedly. “But don’t let him in. He’s a crook.”
The two women neglected the cooking dinner and ran breathlessly to the door. Then they gave a hearty laugh as the cat buyer came whistling onto the porch.
“Sure,” said Mrs. Maloney’s sister, “it’s our Danny. Come in, Danny,” she called. “A b’y in here says you’re a crook.”
I felt pretty foolish when the young man came in and was introduced to us as Mrs. Maloney’s nephew. This was his home.
“I made a mistake,” I fumbled, my face going hot. “But you do look like a man who advertised in the Tutter newspaper for cats.”
“I’m the guy,” the young fellow admitted. And his quizzical grin seemed to add: “How did you find out about it?”
Here Mrs. Barnes patted me on the head.
“The poor b’y,” she murmured sympathetically. “See, Danny, you’ve got him all muddled. Go ahead an’ tell him about your cat scheme. By the time you’re through your pa’ll be here an’ we’ll set up.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” the young man began. “I’m a medic in the university. In our surgical work we do considerable practicing on dead cats, so I thought I’d make some jack this summer buying cats and embalming them for use during the coming semester. I knew I could sell the embalmed cats for a dollar each.”
Here he paused and grinned warmly at his mother who was putting steaming dishes onto a long table by the door.
“Ma said she’d disown me if I had people lugging cats here, making her and dad a neighborhood laughingstock. So I conceived the idea of boarding at another farmhouse where no one knew me. In that way I could buy up all the cats I needed and no one would be the wiser. But just as I was nicely started, some member of the state humane society got hip to the scheme through seeing my advertisement in the Tutter newspaper——”
“And was it an officer of the humane society who sent you a telegram from Springfield?” I cut in excitedly.
He nodded.
“How did you know about the telegram?”
“The lady where you boarded told us about it. It’s a nine days’ wonder to her where you disappeared to.”
“I guess I’ll have to go over to her house some day and explain the situation. But I’ll confess I felt pretty cheap the evening I got the telegram. You see I was threatened with arrest. The officer suspected what I was up to. It’s against the law. So there was nothing for me to do but to pay my board and come home.”
Well, that part of the mystery was cleared up. But I experienced disappointment. Scoop had contended there was a connection between the cat buyer and the prowler. Now we knew differently.
Here the farmer came in. We were introduced to him and everybody sat up to the table and had dinner. During the meal Mrs. Barnes told her husband about our locked wheel and he laughed.
“Why didn’t you fan the hub and cool it off?” he inquired. Reading the doubt in our eyes he added: “Sure, lads, I’m not joking. In putting on the wheel you must have got dirt in the bearing. This made the wheel run hot. When you heat a piece of steel it expands. That is what happened to your axle. It is the expansion that made it lock. I dare say you’ll find the wheel loose when you go back to the wagon.”
He was right.
I don’t like to recall the trouble we had getting home that afternoon. Every six minutes or so the wheel put on a case of paralysis. And then we had to get out and fan it with our caps. Scoop came to the conclusion that the axle was bent; and I could see he was uneasy in the thought of what his father would say.
It was well after five o’clock when we came slowly into town. Right away we realized that something out of the ordinary had happened. The kids in the street were talking in excited groups. And when we passed the fire station the red truck was out in front.
Scoop stood up and pulled on the lines.
“Where was the fire?” he yelled.
“The old mill,” a kid yelled back.
This brought Red and me to our feet.
“You mean,” inquired Scoop, “the old cement mill where we have our cat farm?”
The kid laughed.
“You ain’t got no cat farm no more. The old mill’s all burnt up.”
Well, it took us a minute or more to realize our good fortune. Then we let out some crazy yips. At last we were rid of the cats! They were burned up. Pretty tough on the poor cats, but we should worry.
Scoop whipped up the horse and drove directly to the brickyard. The ruins still smouldered. Peg came through the smoke to meet us, his face streaked with grime.
“You missed it, fellows. It was a peachy fire.”
I thought of the prowler who touched a match to Dad’s oil house and inquired of Peg if the same man were responsible for this fire.
He shook his head.
“The professor tipped over the oil stove. I was outside at the time. When I saw the flames I ran and turned in the alarm. In no time at all the brickyard was full of people. Everybody was yelling: ‘Save the cats! Don’t let the cats burn up!’”
Scoop took on a sick look.
“You—you don’t mean to say the cats are alive?”
Peg nodded wearily.
“They saved every one.”
Scoop gave a shriek.
“Oh! oh! oh! I thought the cats were burnt up.” He made a wild gesture and clawed at his hair. “Take me quick and lock me up. I’m goin’ dippy.”