Poppy Ott and the galloping snail

We found Poppy in the big bedroom, doing detective stuff with a yardstick. But whatever his job was, he dropped the work in a hurry when I told him about the whispering voice on the telephone.

Everything was dark inside of the big floor clock. So we got the flashlight, which was working again, the leader having cleverly touched it up. The light helping us to see, we found a leather-covered book in the very bottom of the clock, sort of tucked away in a dark corner. It had D-I-A-R-Y printed on it in gold letters, and under the printing was the dead man’s name.

“Corbin Danver’s diary!” cried Mrs. Doane, acting as though she was afraid to touch the book. “Is it right for us to read it?” she held off, in her nervous way.

“From what Jerry tells us,” says Poppy, “I take it that we’ve got to read it. For if Miss Ruth is liable to lose out on getting this property, as Dr. Madden said, we want to help her—that really was his idea in calling us up. And how can we help her unless we know what the mix-up is all about?”

That was talking horse sense, all right. So we took the diary to the window, for better light, and got busy on it, finding that it went back more than twenty years.

The most of the writing, we found out, in skimming through the book, was sort of unimportant. So, instead of telling you everything, word for word, I’ll pick out just the mystery stuff.

Stopping in Africa on a trip around the world, a traveling companion of the millionaire’s had picked up a fatal jungle disease, like leprosy, and had been buried there.

“I find myself wondering,” the rich man wrote in his book, “if I, too, might not contract this fulsome disease. Poor Travis! Would that I had been able to trek his body back to civilization.... I shall watch my hands carefully for any sign of those fatal white blotches.”

Then, shortly after the globe trotter had come back to America:

“In Boston I met Dr. Arthur Madden, as fine a young gentleman, and as ardent a scholar in his chosen work, as was his father before him, than whom I probably never will have a dearer or more trustworthy friend. Out of medical college less than a year, young Madden is specializing in diseases of the skin and flesh. So, thinking it might interest him, I told him the story of poor Travis. Readily placing the disease in his mental catalog of human ailments, domestic and foreign, and much concerned over the fact that I had been over the same ground with Travis, he examined my hands so searchingly as to first make me nervous. But when he asked to see my feet, my native humor asserted itself. More than a year having passed since Travis’ death, does this young scholar imagine that I still am liable to come down with the disease? He talked so learnedly of latent germs, that I was inwardly amused, the more so as I contrasted his rather flowery science with that of his father, a staid practitioner of the older school of medicine.”

We skipped two years here.

“I had a letter to-day from young Madden, who has buried himself (along with his germs!) in a little country town by the name of Neponset Corners. In his research work, he is eager to build a country sanitarium, for patients of ‘incurable’ skin diseases. This letter, I fancy, is somewhat of an invitation for me to back his scheme financially. Well, I shall see what the young man is doing down there when I visit him next month, as he has urged me to do. Lately I haven’t been feeling at my best, and I shall enjoy the quiet of the country.”

A skip of two months.

“These have been hours of the deepest mental torture to me. Nor has Madden incorrectly diagnosed my case, as I had so hoped in the beginning. The white blotches on my right leg, that meant nothing to me when I first came here, have daily become more pronounced.”

Another skip.

“I feel that I owe my life to Madden. There can be no doubt of the miracle that his drugs have worked in me. My end is not to be as tragic as poor Travis’! Madden’s faith in germs is more profound than ever. My malady is under medical control, he tells me, but the germs are still in my system, as they have been since Travis and I were simultaneously infected in the jungle. They may forever lie dormant in my blood vessels, if I keep myself physically fit, as I was abroad. Yet to-morrow, if I let myself run down, they may take a deadly grip on me. Of necessity, I shall remain very close to this good friend of mine, so that he may ever be quickly available, in case I need him, which, of course, I pray that I shall not. Then, too, he is not without hope that a drug may be compounded that will completely exterminate the germs. So, as anxious as I am to remain here, it also is something of a duty to science for me to stay.”

A skip of three years here.

“My son, Harold, is quite incensed over this country building project of mine. It is his fear, I think, that I am getting childish, and thus proving incapable of managing my own affairs. Yet, could he but know the truth, how different would be his attitude toward me! I feel, though, that the isolation that the country place will afford is highly advisable, notwithstanding the fact that Madden has repeatedly assured me that the communication of this disease, except at its native source, is possibly only through blood transfusion. How fortunate that I am not a peril to those around me! Yet, even so, I shrink from having my malady known. And having pressed Madden to secrecy, it is my plan to keep even my own son in ignorance of my condition until I can go to him completely cured.... This place that I am planning to build is going to cost heavily. But in the three years and more that I have been living here with Madden, both to my own welfare and in the possible interests of science, the money from my wide investments has been accumulating far beyond my ability to use it. So it is well, all things considered, that I proceed with my plans.”

Another skip of two months.

“It seems that my recent purchase of the sandy tract north of the river, where extensive building operations are already under way, has earned for me the local reputation of being ‘cracked!’ Yet I smile at these stories. Only Madden and I know the truth! Harold, I understand, has a baby girl. But he has not written to me. I rather prefer, though, to have our quarrel stand. And to that point I dare say my daughter-in-law, after what I purposely said to her, will forever bear me malice, that being her nature.”

A skip of a month.

“My granddaughter’s name is Ruth Louise. I find myself longing to see this new mite of humanity, in whom, some day, will be vested the combined fortunes of our entire household.”

A skip of two years.

“At last I am in my new home. And knowing how advisable is the isolation, very peaceful and contented I find myself here. Yet, to that point, what do I lack to complete my earthly happiness, unless, possibly, reconciliation with my son and his family? I have, I think, a very beautiful and not ordinary home here; nor have I neglected the immediate surroundings. As I look down from my window, my eyes are greeted by a gorgeous growth of foliage that almost would do credit to the tropics. What wonders fertilization and re-soiling have worked here! The results far outweigh the expense. Madden still dreams of his sanitarium. And what more suitable place than this! My remaining years may not be many, and he is still a comparatively young man. I can understand his great joy to learn, by the terms of my will, that this mammoth place (a ‘white elephant,’ Harold calls it) will be placed at his disposal.... I owe it to him.”

A skip of five years.

“Kept in bed by a return of the dreaded symptoms, I was unable this week to attend my son’s funeral in Minneapolis, and thus, no doubt, am further estranged from my unbending and now independently-wealthy daughter-in-law. Would, though, that the granddaughter might take a less harsh view of me.”

Another skip of five years.

“This has been an amazingly joyful week. My granddaughter has been here—not, however, with her mother’s consent or even to her mother’s knowledge! What a wonderful child Ruth is, and how great will be my joy to make her my heir. In this house of an ‘an old man’s fancy,’ I showed her to-day the hidden staircase behind the moon. She calls this desert home of mine ‘Aladdin’s Palace,’ though innocently dropping a remark the while to the effect that her mother calls it the ‘Ogre’s Den.’ So I am an ‘ogre’ in the eyes of my daughter-in-law! Ruth undoubtedly has had to unlearn a lot of things about me in the few days that she has been here. And she admits now that it was largely curiosity to see the ‘ogre’ that brought her here. Her evident affection for me, as she has come to really know me, is a joy beyond words. To-morrow she goes on to visit my cousin Samantha Doane, where she is supposed to have been during the past week. May it be that Samantha, good woman that she is, does not implant in the younger mind the seed of too vigorous conversation.”

“Laws-a-me!” burst out Mrs. Doane, looking at us in turn with her big eyes. “What does he mean?—that I talk too much?”

Poppy grinned, but didn’t answer.

“Again taken to my bed,” the millionaire wrote, shortly before his death, “I have repeatedly tried to get in touch with my granddaughter, through Alonzo Chew, my lawyer, but she pays no attention to my letters and telegrams. Is this the work of her mother? I have tried to believe so. Yet the child, with a mind of her own, found a way of coming here last summer. So common sense tells me that she could write to me if she wished. Can it be true, as Chew says, that all she came for a year ago was to fawn on a senile old man and thus insure her heritage? She wants my money, he says, and getting it, less than ever will she want to come to this isolated home of mine. Chew is wiring her again to-day, that I am on my deathbed, and that may bring her. We had another long talk when he was here about those poor people in the religious colony by the river. I was surprised at his deep interest in them, and his evident desire to help them to happier homes and more productive surroundings. Rather than have my wealth dissipated by a thankless younger relative, how much finer, he has urged, that I might invest it in the lives of these deserving people. I could do for them, on their rather barren land, what I had done for myself here. And the result, in their greater happiness and added prosperity, would be a lasting monument to my memory. I find myself so easily led on by Chew, that I wonder at times, and anxiously, if my mind is inhabited by its usual keenness.... To think that I should even consider disinheriting my own grandchild!”

A skip of two days.

“Still not a line from Ruth. And this indifference of hers, so heart-breaking to me, has led to the making of a new will, though it isn’t the will that Chew tried to urge on me. But I cannot bring myself to disinherit my kin outright. Maybe, when I am gone, Ruth will be filled with remorse over her present conduct. And how tragic then that my fortune should have passed into strange hands! No, I have let the disposition of my property stand for a year. And I can only hope that my grandchild, in getting the keys of my home, as I intend sending them to her through Dr. Madden, will understand that I want her to come here. If she does come, any time within a year after I am gone—and she has until midnight of the last day—then the entire estate will be hers, with the exception of this place, which I want Dr. Madden to have, along with the necessary endowment. If she doesn’t come, proof to me that she has no happy recollection of the hours that she spent here, the bulk of the estate will be left as a religious trust fund, the money to be disbursed locally by Chew as he sees fit.”

The diary ended here. It had taken us about two hours to go through it, though it hasn’t taken you ten minutes to read what we picked out—only we didn’t write it down at the time: I borrowed the diary and did that afterwards.

We knew now why the big house had been built here, a secret in itself, and why the body had smelt of drugs. Every part of the dead man’s secret was spread out in our understanding minds. We saw into the lawyer’s scheme, too. He hadn’t written to the granddaughter, at all. And probably he had done everything he could to keep her away from the closed-up house until the year was up. A lot of religious interest he had in the New Zion gang! If they got anything at all out of the fortune, it would be pennies that slipped through his greedy fingers. In the diary, Mr. Danver had said something about his head being on the bum. It sure had been on the bum, all right, to make a will like that!

Oh, if only we could knock the props out from under old fatty! It was an awful thought that he was liable to win out. It fairly made us sick. But what could we do? Certainly, it was too late to go to Pardyville, even if we had known for sure that the granddaughter was hiding there.

Another thing that put weight on our gloom was Dr. Madden’s death. We had figured on him doing something to-night to help the granddaughter. Now he was gone. And unless he had made a further confession at the hospital, before I talked with him, we might never know why he had been hiding in the closed-up house.

That he had “found” the diary, proved, though, even more than the box of drugs in the barn, that he had been hiding here. Reading the book, and thus getting wise to old Chew’s dishonest scheme, he had sent for the granddaughter, who, in turn, had written to the two Doanes, asking them to come on ahead and open up the place for her.

But why had the “druggy” hider slammed the door so mysteriously? Where did the gander come in? And why had the granddaughter dropped out of his sight as well as everybody else’s? Finally, and most important of all, where was she?