The mystery of the missing eyebrows
Missing choir practice was one of Mary’s greatest horrors. In all the
fifteen years that she had sung alto in the mission church, she had not
missed one practice. And now she was planning to deliberately miss one.
But she wasn’t. The next minute she set Renfro to rights on that. “I
said I might be late,” she said severely, “I’m countin’ on us workin’
fast. I’m not going to miss nothin’ I tell you.”
But she did miss something. Then next morning at exactly five o’clock
the Horn telephone rang. Mary, calling down maledictions on the head of
whoever would call at that hour, listened to the conversation at the
other end of the wire and with a changed mien proceeded to Renfro’s
door.
It was Jimmie who called. The carrier boy whose Morning Post route was
adjoining his had badly frozen his foot the night before. His first aid
work had relieved him somewhat the night before but this morning he
could not walk. And Jimmie wanted Renfro to help him carry the other
boy’s route.
“I told him you would,” Mary was hunting Renfro’s heaviest coat. “It’s
not so cold as it was last night, Renny. And I knew you would want to
be a good scout and help a carrier out. Now that’s the way I am. When
the soprano soloist was sick and out of church for a whole week once, I
sang high soprano when it was the most important part in the songs and
then dropped right back to alto when the low parts were most important.
There’s nothin’--”
But Renfro was motioning her to the door. “I’ve got to dress in a
hurry,” he told her. “You explain to father and let him make it right
with mother. Now, Mary, for heaven’s sake keep still before mother and
don’t get her started. Let dad--”
A few minutes later he was off, buttoning his coat collar as he ran
toward the station at which Jimmie got his papers. And there he found
Jimmie waiting for him. “Hooch Horn,” he said impressively, “you’re
a good scout. I called up six fellows’ houses before I did yours and
every place I got Hail Columbia, Happy Land for waking up the family.
And you--”
“And I, Jimmie,” Renfro said impressively, “I tell you the reason you
didn’t get the same dope at the seventh house was because Mary Dugan,
good old scout, answered the phone.”
And so flustered was Mary that morning with extra breakfasts and
avoiding any mix-ups with her mistress that she forgot to read the
morning paper. Renfro in turn did not have time to even think of such a
feast. As he folded the papers he had glanced at the headlines, which
told of Judge Wier’s summoning the Chicago detectives and Mrs. Wier’s
getting another note from Helen, it also asserting that she was safe.
So she was frightened half “into fits” as she expressed it when Renfro
rushed into the kitchen in the middle of the morning. “Mary, where is
mother?” he demanded in a loud whisper.
Mary answered that she was out.
“Then I can talk,” he added, “Mary, we are lost; or our clue is--no,
I mean discovered by some one else. I borrowed a morning paper last
hour and there what do you think? Yesterday Mrs. Wier, while walking up
and down the library happened to look at the window from which most of
the ice had melted and discovered some little scratches I made with my
knife when I scraped off those eyebrows.”
He caught his breath. “Of course she doesn’t know they’re mine,” he
added. “But she showed them to the detectives and vowed they were not
there before--that the windows were put in new this fall and were
perfect and--”
His teeth chattering. Mary’s big, strong, red hand went over his
trembling ones. “Hooch Horn,” she said sternly, “You aint worrying half
so much over them finding a clue like ourn as you are because you’re
skeert they’ll think you had something to do with that kidnaping! Now
aint you?”
Before Renfro could answer she stormed on, “Well, they won’t. You and
me is too small fry to even be considered. They know you aint got sense
enough to plan such a thing. If they thought we was workin’ on a clue
they would give us the horse collar. And that’s why we got to work
this plot out. See?”
She shook him soundly. “We’ll go out there tonight as we planned. And
you git back to school. Pretty soon you’ll have that sick excuse worn
clean out. Git back, I say, in a hurry so that I can read the newspaper
and see for myself just what they do know about them winder scratches.”
CHAPTER XIII.
A TRIP TO THE CABIN.
It was exactly a quarter of seven o’clock that night and Renfro with
his paper bag almost empty had just turned the corner into South
Washington Street when he ran plump--into Mary Dugan. She was puffing
as one who had been undergoing great exertion.
“Hello, Hooch!” she managed a casual greeting and then burst straight
into a monologue on the difficulties of her journey. She had hired her
sister to come over to the Horn house to serve the dinner, and the
sister had been late. Mary had boarded the wrong car and had had to
transfer on her way out and--
“But Mary,” Renfro exclaimed, “You’re too early! Something broke down
with the press, we got our papers late. I haven’t got a single new
subscriber and I have two more blocks to deliver.”
“On both sides of the street?” Mary’s question was direct.
“Sure!” Renfro was impatient.
“Then gimme me half of them,” Mary held out her hands on which were
gray cotton gloves and which looked like veritable apparitions in the
darkness. “Now don’t say I won’t know where to leave ’em. I know I
won’t. But we kin work skilful--can’t we? I’ll start right across the
street from you and you whistle at every house where I’m to stop.”
“Some girl, Mary Dugan,” Renfro began to count out papers into her
hands, “Now where did you learn--”
“Hooch Horn,” Mary interrupted him almost dropping her papers in her
eagerness to explain. “You aint learned yet half the clues I learned in
that detective course.”
The papers tumbled again, and would have fallen had not Hooch caught
them. “It’s them gloves,” Mary was quick to realize the impediments the
bulky cotton gloves were in the paper carrying art. Her right one came
off with a dash and was thrust into her coat pocket.
“Now gimme the part of the street you know best,” she commanded. “Your
whistler will be saved some that way.”
A wave of Renfro’s hand and Mary darted across the street. Without any
sign, or any communication except the keen whistles from Renfro, they
finished the two blocks in record breaking time. And then they met at
the end of the block.
“But I haven’t got any new subscribers, Mary,” Renfro hesitated, “I
made my daily quota out several days ago and I can’t break it, you
know.”
“And I made my rule agin’ bein’ late at choir practice several years
ago,” Mary’s alto voice was very dry, “but I’m thinkin’ this here
business is worth breakin’ anything. This here affair of our goin’ down
there tonight means either you miss your subscribers or I miss my choir
practice and--”
“Mary,” Hooch’s hand went on her arm. “Since you are so good a sport, I
can make up my subscribers Saturday and Monday.”
“You ought to be gettin’ them other subscribers from our own part of
town, Hooch,” Mary offered advice, “They’d be easier landed and--”
“But it doesn’t seem fair to get into some other fellow’s territory,”
Hooch began. “Now--”
Mary interrupted him in a determined voice. “Foolishness! Them
circulars you had at home said for you to go anywhere. If you had a
good route them other boys would be a comin’ to it mighty fast. And if
you have any business sense like the Horns all have, you’ll follow my
plan.”
“All right,” Renfro was very meek. Experience had taught him that it
was folly to argue with Mary. “We go down this road, Mary, down the
middle. It’s as slick as glass and I expect we’d better hold on to each
other. We don’t want any broken arms.”
Mary clutched Renfro’s arm with her mittened hand. Together they
slipped, they slid, then fumbled, and nearly fell on their way toward
the lane which marked the turning off place for the big house, and the
little shack.
The sky was clear, there were few trees along the road, and there was a
half moon. So Mary and Hooch had no trouble finding the best place to
scale the log fence. Mary refused all offers of help. She had climbed
rail fences when she was a girl and knew the exact art with which such
a crossing was effected. Moreover she added with emphasis that she “was
not an old lady yet by any manner of means.”
Still she had not counted on the rails being coated with ice. And no
sooner was she at the top of the fence than she was at the bottom on
the other side. Fortunately it was on the opposite side of the fence
she had landed and when Renfro scrambled over and stood beside her she
was on her feet again.
She held herself with dignity and Renfro realizing that there are some
things which it would cause a calamity to discuss was silent. She was
the first one to speak. “You go to the shack and I’ll go to the big
house,” she was the general again though great had been her fall. “It
would be suspicious looking to Captain Pete for me, a single maiden
lady to come knockin’ at his door this time of night.”
“Yes,” Renfro’s voice was meek. Mary never suspected that he was
literally holding his sides to keep from bursting into gales of
laughter.
“And,” Mary was all dignity again. “I don’t want any man to be buildin’
up false hopes on me. It is not Mary Dugan who has yet brought ruin to
a man from raisin’ their expectations and she don’t begin now with an
old time soldier.”
“No, Mary,” Renfro managed another sober response.
Just then there was a crackling and half roaring sound over in the
shrubbery of the orchard. Just as Mary and Renfro stopped and clutched
at each other a dark form came out with a rush and threw itself against
Renfro’s legs.
Mary stumbled, almost fell and then ejaculated a word which she had not
used since she had become a choir singer, but Renfro patted the big dog
and soothed him. “Lang Tammy, Lang Tammy,” he crooned, and then he felt
a broken strap on the dog’s neck, “they’ve had you tied up tonight and
you wanted to see me--didn’t you?”
“Whose dog is he?” Mary demanded with asperity, thinking that Renfro
had kept something from her.
But Renfro reminded her of the dog which had been with the old man whom
he suspected of being Captain Pete’s brother, and who he was sure knew
a great deal about the affair. “Yes, I remember,” Mary was the general
once again. “You’d better get rid of him if you can. Havin’ him with us
would be suspicious.”
Lang Tammy was tugging at Renfro’s bag. For a few seconds Renfro played
with him, and while he did Mary fumbled in her pocket. She dropped
something on the ice. “Some of my peppermints,” she explained. “My
Brother Sam--he allus says if you wants to be friends with a dog just
give him some candy.”
And then Renfro uttered a short, sharp command and Lang Tammy was back
in the orchard again. Renfro was aware that the big dog would not show
up again that night. The afternoon’s tying had offended him. And he
would stay away from the big house to get even with his master.
He watched the dark form in the orchard while they went up the lane,
and he took the opposite direction from the one in which the big house
lay. A few more rods of slipping and sliding and he and Mary arrived at
their place of parting. He gave her some instructions about making her
way around the big house.
“The main thing, Mary dear,” Renfro was solicitous again, “the main
thing is not to fall, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” there was a touch of humor in Mary’s voice, “Me father
used to say that I had the most trouble in keepin’ my head but tonight
it’s a case of whin me worst trouble is keepin’ me feet I’m thinkin’.”
And then they separated.