CHAPTER X
A SURPRISE
It was our leader’s theory that the spy was a brother of the murdered puzzle maker’s. That would make him a relative of Mrs. Kelly’s. A mysterious boy, from Mrs. Kelly’s house, had been in the old mill where the soap man was living.
What was the connection between Mrs. Kelly and the mysterious boy and the queer old peddler?
Was there a blood relationship between the man and the woman, as Scoop suspected? Were the two working together to some hidden purpose? What was the man doing in the upper part of the mill? Was he drilling a hole in the thick stone wall? Did Mrs. Kelly know what he was doing and why he was doing it? And, in conclusion, was she in league with the spy in his unworthy scheme to steal Mr. Ricks’ talking frog?
We had pledged ourselves, as Tom’s loyal, [96]chums, to stand by him and help him save the talking frog from thieving hands. And now that Mrs. Kelly had become involved in the tangle, seemingly on the spy’s side, it was highly important for us, in our campaign against the enemy, to have an early talk with her, to pump her, and to thus find out if she were related to the soap man. Also we would pump her, Scoop said, to find out who the boy was who was wearing my old corduroy pants.
“The more we learn about the enemy’s plans,” he told us, when we talked the matter over at the breakfast table, “the better chance we’ll have of winning out.”
Our plans completed, he and I headed into the country immediately after breakfast, leaving Tom and Peg to wash the dishes and take care of the house.
“Sure,” Mrs. Kelly cried, when our knock had brought her to the kitchen door, “it’s the Ellery boy and the mayor.” She gave me that nickname the time that Dad was elected mayor of Tutter. Opening the screen door, she brushed out some flies with her apron and took my arm. “Come right in,” she invited, making a fuss over me. She is that way with everybody. That is why she is so well liked. She frequently comes to our [97]house. Mother buys eggs from her and gives her dresses to make over for herself. She is kind of poor, I guess.
We sat down in the chairs that she brought for us and answered the questions that she asked us about our folks—how well they were and what they were doing. And, of course, she had to tell me what a big boy I was getting to be. She does that every time I see her.
All the time that we were talking, Scoop was squinting around the kitchen. I knew why. In a house where a boy lives one usually expects to see a cap or a shoe or a baseball or something like that laying around on the floor. But there were no boy’s things in this room.
“It must be kind of lonesome for you,” said my companion, “living here by yourself.”
He was starting to pump the other to find out whether she was on our side or the spy’s.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Kelly.
“I don’t suppose,” the smooth one followed up, “that you keep a hired man.”
“People on three-acre farms,” the woman laughed, “don’t usually keep hired hands.”
“I should think, though,” said Scoop, “that a boy would be a big help to you in running your little farm.” [98]
“I had a boy last year,” said Mrs. Kelly. “But this year I have managed to do the work myself.”
It was plain to us that she didn’t intend to say anything about the boy who was living with her. So Scoop cleverly shifted the conversation to the murdered puzzle maker.
“It doesn’t seem possible,” he said, “that old Mr. Matson has been dead three years. How the time flies!”
“Two years,” corrected Mrs. Kelly.
“No,” said Scoop, acting sure of himself, “he has been dead three years.”
Well, they argued back and forth, and finally, to prove that she was right, she brought out the family Bible.
“There,” she said, in an I-told-you-so tone of voice, laying the Bible on the kitchen table. “ ‘Born in 1850; died in 1920.’ ”
“Where do you see that?” inquired Scoop, putting his nose down close to the page. I knew that he wasn’t looking where her finger pointed. Not at all! Having worked her into bringing out the family Bible, the one that the puzzle maker had owned, he was squinting all over the page, taking in everything, births and deaths and marriages.
Finally he straightened. [99]
“You’re right, Mrs. Kelly,” he waggled, giving in.
The woman beamed in her victory.
“Sure,” she said, in her kindly way, “you lads both have a hungry look. Let me bring out my cookie jar,” and she bustled into the pantry.
No sooner was she out of sight than Scoop hissed at me:
“There’s a twin brother, Jerry. Peter Matson. It’s the soap man, all right.”
“Jinks!” I said, keeping my eyes on the pantry door.
“The last record on the page is what stumps me.”
I could hear Mrs. Kelly coming.
“Yes?” I said, breathing hard.
“ ‘Frances Matson, granddaughter, born 1910,’ ” recited Scoop. “I never heard of a granddaughter. Did you, Jerry?”
Before I could reply Mrs. Kelly came into the room with a brown jar in her hands.
“Help yourselves,” she invited, setting the cookie jar on the table.
I ate ten cookies and Scoop ate eleven. He made a pig of himself I thought.
“We’re peddling beauty soap,” I told Mrs. Kelly, bringing out a pink box. “The regular [100]price of the soap is ten cents a cake or three cakes for a quarter. But I want you to have a free cake,” I told her, “to sort of pay you back for the cookies.”
“Beauty soap?” she repeated. And I had the sudden feeling that something queer was happening in her head.
“It’s a very wonderful soap,” Scoop picked up. “It makes women beautiful. The homelier they are the more beautiful they become. And we have been told further that it removes warts and blemishes; turns wrinkles into dimples. Of course,” he said, in pretended earnestness, “I realize that you haven’t any use for the soap yourself. But maybe you have a friend who is homely and who wants to become beautiful. And in your kind-hearted way——”
“What is the name of your soap?” Mrs. Kelly cut in.
“Bubbles of Beauty,” recited Scoop.
“Here it is,” I said, opening my pink box and handing her a cake.
She turned white—a sort of scared-looking, yellowish white, like the keys of an old piano.
“So he’s in the neighborhood, is he? The ould scoundrel! When did you meet him? This mornin’?” [101]
“Yesterday morning,” informed Scoop.
“And did he send you here?”
“Oh, no,” Scoop said quickly.
“Where is he now?”
“In the old Matson mill.”
She gave a low cry, as though something pained her on the inside where her heart was.
“Howard,” she inquired earnestly, calling Scoop by his given name, “are you a friend of mine?”
“You bet I’m your friend, Mrs. Kelly.”
“Will you help me?”
“Tell me what to do,” he waggled, “and I’ll do it as best I can.”
“Me, too,” I put in, excited.
It was plain to us now that Mrs. Kelly wasn’t on the soap man’s side. We were glad.
“I’m in trouble,” she told us, a worried look on her face. “And some one that I think a great deal of is in deeper trouble than me. We’re likely to be cheated. It’s the soap man. Sure,” and her eyes flashed, “I know the ould villain! He’s Mr. Matson’s twin brother. And he’s here to git the ould gintleman’s money.”
“What?” cried Scoop, jumping up. “Money? What money do you mean?”
“For two years I’ve kept to myself what I [102]know, wantin’ to carry out the ould gintleman’s last wishes. And now, at the last moment, the shyster brother turns up! Sure, ’tis enough to drive me crazy.”
Scoop was dancing in front of her.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Kelly, in saying that the soap man is here to get old Mr. Matson’s money?”
Instead of answering, the disturbed woman went to a door that opened into a back bedroom.
“Come out, Frances,” she called in a quiet voice. “These boys are your friends.”
Scoop excitedly clutched my arm.
“That’s the kid, Jerry,” he hissed in my ear.
I suddenly wondered if my chum was crazy. For he had told me that the strange kid was a boy. And here was a girl!
I was told later that I blushed like a beet. Well, I won’t deny that. What boy wouldn’t blush, let me ask you, to learn suddenly that a girl he never had seen before had been wearing his corduroy pants around the country, leaving telltale patches in barbed-wire fences?
I had good occasion to blush, let me tell you! [103]