The mystery of the missing eyebrows
The man took the paper and laughed. “I’ll see,” he promised. “I’m going
to call up the grocer on the corner and see if you are the first boy
out with your papers,” he added. “My wife wants an early paper, so she
can read it before she starts getting the supper.”
Renfro turned to Merle as they walked toward the street. “After that
I have to be prompt,” he said. “We’ll carry my papers now. From now
on--I’ll carry my route before I try to get a single new subscriber.”
Merle nodded. “Yes, Hooch,” he agreed. “I’ll remember that, too.”
He reached out his arm for the papers and Renfro gave him half the
bundle. Together they traversed Old Grief, with its pawn shops, second
hand stores, lunch wagons, cheap butcher stores, army supply store and
dozens of other “imitation places of business”. Then they came into the
poorer residence district, where the children fought for the honor of
carrying the paper to the door. From this they passed into the street
on which lived the old residents of Lindendale, who would not leave
their ancestral homes.
“There,” Renfro nodded toward the big house surrounded with shrubbery
which needed trimming, “is where Judge Wier lives--Helen Wier’s father.”
Merle Riker stared. “Judge Wier helped my mother,” he said simply, “I
hope some one finds his daughter. He’s a kind man.”
Renfro laughed. “Most people don’t know it,” he added.
At one house Renfro stopped to collect. The woman had not had her money
Saturday and was inclined to show an ugly disposition because Renfro
had stopped for it in the middle of the week instead of waiting until
the next Saturday.
“It isn’t convenient for me to pay every time,” she said in a cross
voice, “and if you’re afraid to trust me, I’ll get another paper.”
Renfro looked straight at her. “I have to pay for my papers every
week,” he said. “And I come every evening thru the rain and snow and
cold, right on time, because it’s my job. And you--”
“I suppose you were going to say mine is to pay you on time too,” the
woman was still surly though she saw Renfro’s logic before he had time
to utter it all. “Wait.”
She went into the house and returned with twenty cents.
“She’ll pay next Saturday,” Merle spoke before Renfro could. “She saw
what you meant and knew you were right, too.”
The route finished, Renfro again consulted his red book, in which
all his prospective subscribers were listed. “Want to try a place of
business?” he asked, “Or, are all the people on your route families.”
Merle shook his head and explained that he had three blocks of the
east side stores in his route, though few of the merchants who kept
them were regular subscribers. “They buy the papers on the street,” he
explained, “so I don’t think it’s much difference whether or not I have
them.”
“Means more money for you,” Renfro gave the best reason first, the one
which he knew would appeal to a boy needing money. “Then, too, when
they want a paper they buy most any one. If the boy they meet doesn’t
have the Globe they may ask another boy for one, but if the second one
doesn’t happen to have one then the chances are even that they will buy
another paper. Get me?”
Merle nodded.
So back to the pawn shop, and second hand clothing store district they
went. It was a butcher shop, however, into which Renfro led the way.
He smiled at the man behind the block and waited until the customer
had been served and departed with his bundle. “Read the paper I left
yesterday?” he asked, “and how did you like the market report?”
The butcher came around from behind the block to discuss the market
report. He admitted that he had liked the report in the Globe. “But
I can buy it off the street boy who comes in every evening,” he
volunteered. “I don’t need to bother to subscribe. It wastes my time.”
“Oh, no,” Renfro shook his head but was very courteous, “It won’t take
you nearly so much time to pay me once a week as it does to pay the
boys on the street every day. And sometimes they forget to come in or
you have a customer and they can’t wait, then you have to go to the
door and hunt one up.”
The man grinned. “Oh, beat it,” he laughed good naturedly, “you want my
subscription. Is it a prize?”
“I want to save you time,” Renfro was still serious, “and money.
Sometimes you can’t get the Globe when you go out after it, because the
boys may be sold out. Then you have to take another paper and you have
a different market report. And you may lose money because the other
will not be so thorough.”
“Yes,” the butcher was serious now. “You are a good talker, and I will
subscribe to save time. It is just as you say, though I never thought
of it before. You make out a card and I’ll pay now and you bring it
tomorrow. Early!”
“Yes, sir,” Renfro began making out the card.
The next prospective subscriber was a woman, one of the
have-to-be-convinced of everything sort. Renfro had left her a paper
the evening before and she had read it but yet she couldn’t see much
difference between it and the evening paper she had taken for five
years. Renfro opened one of his papers, carried it to the library
table, showed her the Woman’s page, explained the information which it
contained, talked about the features, the editorials, and knowing the
nature of most women, ended with its strong society column.
“I’ll try it,” she agreed. “I’ll take it a week and then if every copy
is as good as your two samples, I’ll subscribe regularly.”
“Every copy is just like the sample.” Renfro was sober then.
But outside he and Merle chuckled. “She thinks we get out extra good
papers for samples,” they laughed and laughed.
“I’d like to go back to the first man you gave the sample paper,” Merle
said at the sidewalk. “I think I understand now how to get customers
but I’d like to see what he does.”
Back to the little L shaped house they went. The man was ready for
them. “The man at the corner says you are all right. What I want is an
early evening paper, so I’ll sign your subscription card.”
“That is the secret of getting subscriptions,” Renfro confided to Merle
when they were alone again. “Find out what your prospective subscribers
want and then show them that your paper is the one which gives them
exactly that--from early papers to those which are carefully folded and
put in a convenient place on the front porch.”
CHAPTER XII.
THE SCRATCHES ON THE WINDOW.
Mary was in the kitchen when Renfro stormed in the back entrance at his
home that evening. He heard her begin to rattle pans and he knew that
she was going to see to it that he got an extra good supper. “Another
turkey, Mary,” he sang out while he hung his paper bag and cap on the
hooks she had given to him.
Cautiously she came to the door. “There’s company in the living room
with your paw and maw,” she whispered sibilantly. “They’re talking
about the kidnaping. I’ve been lying down close to the door--face and
stomach to the floor,” she confided. “I crawled backwards when I heard
you comin’ and Glory be, I got clean thru the dining room without
knockin’ anything over.”
Renfro followed her into the kitchen. “Gee, but I’m hungry,” he
sniffed. “Mary, love, what have you to feed me?”
Mary became stern. “A pretty detective you are, Mr. Renny,” she refused
to use his manly nickname at the hour of his failure in her eyes.
“Aint I been throwin’ clues in the shapes of hints at you ever since
I begin talkin’? Aint I done got down off my own dignity and told you
how downcast I was on that floor? And what’s to prevent you but a empty
stomach from followin’ my example and learnin’ things your paw and maw
never would tell you?”
“Aw, Mary, don’t be so hard on a fellow,” Renfro’s voice was pleading.
“I was so hungry and I couldn’t grasp any kind of a hint. Course I’m
going to go in there. Only, for goodness sake, have my supper ready
when the talk changes to other subjects!”
But Mary seized his shoulders. “You’re goin’ to do no such thing!” she
commanded. “Your supper is in the warming closet. Take it out and eat
it with the other things on the kitchen table. It’s meself who’s goin’
back. If anybody starts into the room, distract them, Hooch.”
The next minute she was down on the floor and wriggling her way across
the dark dining room. A big red and green snake could not have made any
more twists and turns than she did in getting across the room. Renfro
knew that she was so bulky that she was afraid to try to lie down in
the dining room, so she had instead taken this way of getting to the
door.
He held his hands to his sides to keep from laughing so that she could
hear him. “Bulky but ambitious,” he laughed, “and a good pal,” he
finished soberly.
Back he went to the supper, rattling the pans and dishes unnecessarily
so that his parents knowing that he was home would be more comfortable.
Straight thru oyster soup, roast mutton and peach pie he waded. He was
just ready to venture on a second cup of coffee when he heard Mary
nearing the kitchen door.
Just outside the door she straightened. Disgustedly she spoke, “If them
Wiers aint goin’ to have some detectives from Chicago, and us with such
a good clue.”
Renfro’s face fell. This then would probably be the end of his hopes
to solve the mystery. Still there was a chance for him. No one except
himself and Mary knew of the missing eyebrows.
Then he told Mary about his visit to Captain Pete’s cabin and the
conversation. “Mary!” Renfro stood up in his excitement, “Pete’s face
was a dead give away when I mentioned the lights in the big house. His
eyes were as scared as a kid’s. He knows that somebody is there, and
I’m going to find out who that somebody is and just where the rest of
those missing eyebrows are.”
Mary nodded her head. “Our part of them, Renfro, are still in my
Bible,” she assured him. “I’ve looked at them every hour to see they
don’t fade away. And I bought me a blackboard to reproduce them as your
pa says, for our observation--so as to keep ’em in our mind night and
day.”
In the library Mr. Horn was telling the visiting lawyer about Renfro’s
experience with a paper route when the youngster entered the room. He
boasted of his new subscribers to his mother’s chagrin. “If she knew I
was working for Thanksgiving turkeys she would die,” Renfro laughed to
himself. “I’ve half a notion to spring it on her now.”
But he didn’t. He lingered long enough to be sure that they were not
going to talk about the kidnaping any more, and then he went up to his
own room. For a half hour he worked checking up on his new subscribers
and collections. This done he took up the new magazine on his desk and
tore off the cover. It had been on his desk three days unopened--a
happening which had never before occurred. And all because of his
interest in the turkey contest and the Missing Eyebrow Mystery.
He read the last chapter of the serial. And then he sought Mary again.
“It ended just the way I said it would,” he told her waving the
magazine in front of her. “The two fellows who took the jewels were
Fred and Manuel and they hid them--”
Mary’s hand was raised imperatively. “Listen Hooch,” she said. “I’ve
been making plans myself. Tomorrow night is my regular choir practice.
Before I go to it I’ll come out on Washington and we’ll both go to
them different places--one of us to the shack and the other to the big
house. Then we’ll see who is in both places at the same time. That way
they’ll have no chance to send signals or communicate to each other.”
“Fine, fine, Mary!” Renfro’s enthusiasm was all that Mary could ask.
She murmured something about the pity being that Renfro too had not
taken a correspondence course in detective work and her bosom heaved
with pride.
“But, Mary,” Renfro hesitated, “are you sure you won’t mind missing
choir practice?”