The mystery of the missing eyebrows
The weather grew milder during the day. At noon the ice along the
curbing near the Grant School was melting a little, but when four
o’clock came it had frozen again. Renfro and Jim Noel, hurrying along
together discussed a hike and rabbit hunt for Saturday if it stayed
cold. But just as they had their arrangements about finished, Renfro
remembered the turkey contest.
“Say, Jim,” he broke in suddenly, “I bet a turkey that if I can get off
my route work to go I’ll track down more rabbits than you do.”
Jim stared at him. “Great guns!” he ejaculated, “A turkey? How come?”
He stared again when he read the card Renfro showed him. “You’ll never
get sixty subscribers on Old Grief, Hooch,” he declared. “Not unless
you pay for their subscriptions yourself. Abie Lubin had it for a while
and he didn’t make anything, so that’s sure proof it’s no good.”
But Renfro only whistled. He and Jim separated at the next corner.
Beyond the edge of the big business districts and thru the residential
part of town to his route Renfro hurried. His papers were at the
station. He swung the bag on his back, wagered to himself that it would
be heavier next week, and started on his route.
He stopped at the most promising houses and asked for new
subscriptions. One woman threatened to have him arrested. Another told
him that the last boy had been crooked and failed to mark two of her
payments, so that the company had sent a collector there; and she added
that if he wanted to be a friend of hers he wouldn’t work for a paper
which stood for such crookedness.
But Renfro persisted, and before he left her door had her subscription
and a week’s payment in advance. He also secured four other
subscriptions before he turned into his last square.
“Pretty good, old boy, considering the time you spent in getting warm,
and that you’re a new recruit,” he said and then laughed. He had been
talking out loud and the woman who was hurrying past him turned round
to stare back.
The wind whipped the tops of the trees and made them crackle and roar.
The air was so cold that flurries of frost seemed to come out of
nowhere but swirl around everywhere. And it was dark except where the
street lights or those in the houses threw long hard gleams out into
the street.
Suddenly, Renfro stopped. Lurking in the blackness ahead of him was a
low set figure, followed by a big dog--the airedale he had seen the
night before and the night before that. Renfro dropped onto his knees
so that he could be concealed behind the water plug and its shadow, and
he watched.
A sudden light from an opened door fell on the big dog, and showed it
to be with the short, heavy set man. As soon as the door was closed
Renfro was sure he heard a low growl, saw a threatening movement and
directly afterward the dog rushed past him, running as if frightened to
an unusual degree.
The light was gone again. Renfro put his hands over his eyes a minute
to accustom them to the darkness again, and then rubbed them vigorously
together. The third and fourth fingers on his left hand felt dull. He
slipped off his glove and rubbed them with snow.
A half nervous laugh shook him. Suddenly he had remembered, no doubt on
account of the cold water plug against his body, of the time he had put
his tongue against a frozen pipe.
The shadow across the street lengthened. The heavy man was slouching
down the street again, up to Judge Wier’s shrubbery and then to the
window thru which he had gazed the night before. Renfro was sure that
it was because there was no light in that part of the house.
But the rest of the house was lighted and if the door were open the
stranger could see into the other room. And he lingered long enough
and close enough to the window to be studying the features of the whole
family if they were there.
Renfro, stiff from his posture and the cold, could not move. The big
dog had been afraid of the man. He would no doubt half kill Renfro
if he discovered that the boy was following him. Besides, Renfro
reflected, if you want to unravel a mystery you have to follow a clue
to it and not burst into open opposition.
The lights in Judge Wier’s house changed at that minute. The part
which had been lighted was darkened and the front rooms became bright
instead. And then the lurking stranger again retired to the shrubbery.
As he had done the night before when he neared the Judge’s house Renfro
dropped onto his hands and knees and crawled to the shrubbery but no
one was there. Still some one had been there and that some one had had
something in mind which would do harm to either the Wier home or family
he was sure.
Judge Wier has scores of enemies. He was noted as giving the stiffest
sentences of any judge in the city. Auto speeders met with as little
mercy at his hands as did the most dangerous criminals.
“I--really--ought--to--warn--him,” Renfro chattered,
“but--still--he’ll--laugh.” But he did call a number. A tired central
informed him that she could get no one on that line. It seemed to be
out of order.
Then Renfro went back to the kitchen and Mary with a determination in
his mind. He would find some sort of an excuse to give his parents for
being very late the next evening. Then he would follow the short, heavy
set stranger. He would see if he took the same direction his dog did
every night--down toward the big house where the tin roof rattled and
made such warning noises.
An excuse. He frowned, when Mary started to speak but she talked
anyway. “Where’s them six turkeys you wanted me to cook, Renny?” she
began, “If it’s the cleanin’ of them I have to do then I better begin
now and--”
“And,” Renfro interrupted her laughingly, “Mary, you’re a peach with
the fuzz still on most of the time. But I know the quality of your
mind below.”
He could hardly keep from dancing. Mary had suggested the excuse
he wanted. The turkeys. Why he had to have them and what better
excuse could he offer his parents than that he was working for new
subscribers. His mother might object but his father would want him to
win any contest he entered.
But before he told them he wanted to talk to Mary a little longer.
“Mary” he began, “got any more rabbits?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t bring them regular.”
“Then,” Renfro, suggested, “how would you like for me to stop out
there--Captain Pete’s place is just a little distance from the end of
my route--well, let’s say about every other day and buy a couple of
rabbits from the old fellow? Put in sort of a standing order?”
“Sure Renny, you’re that thoughtful,” Mary beamed, “And speaking of
turkeys, Renny, I read another turkey story today. It has the most
beautiful plot. And romance too. The man was a detective and--”
“And, Mary, we’re going to have one too,” Renfro added, “but please,
Mary, do be a dear, and don’t call me Renny any more. I’ve got a
business name and I want my real friends to use it. After this to you,
Mary, I’m Hooch--Hooch Horn,” he imitated the route manager’s tone
exactly, “Hooch Horn, if you please, Mary dear.”
CHAPTER VI.
HELEN WIER IS KIDNAPED.
Before Renfro Horn had been awake three minutes the next morning he
heard sounds of great confusion coming up from downstairs. His father
was talking in a loud excited voice, his mother after giving a half
tone scream began asking questions and even Mary was making her share
of the confusion.
“Another bursted pipe,” Renfro saw the heavy frost on the window, drew
his conclusion and turned over to sleep until they called him.
Mary’s heavy winter shoes clattered up the stairway, crossed the hall
and came straight to his door. She peeped cautiously into his bedroom,
her head encased in a pink breakfast cap thru which were run blue
ribbons. Her mouth was half open, her eyes big and her whole face a map
of mingled surprise, interest and horror.
“Renny--Renny,” she called softly and then changed, “Hooch--oh,
Hooch--your pa just brought in the morning paper and Helen Wier was
kidnaped last night right out of her pa’s own home and she aint been
brought back or they don’t know nothin’ about it and--”
Renfro was sitting bolt upright in bed. “What did you say, Mary?” he
demanded. “Helen Wier kidnaped. When? And how did they find out? Now
answer my questions first.”
Observing directions, Mary told him. Helen Wier, the judge’s twelve
year old daughter had been studying in the little east library, as was
her custom when the family and two guests went into the back of the
house for coffee and a late lunch. She had been sitting at the table
when they left; when they came back she was gone. That was all Mary
knew.
The paper told Renfro a little more. There had been no outcry on
Helen’s part--no sound that anyone had heard. The room showed no
evidence of a struggle except that a vase of flowers on the table was
upturned and the books she had been studying, all were on the floor.
When the family had come back into the library Helen was not there. Her
mother, thinking that she had gone upstairs to bed, had commented on
her going without being told and began to talk of other things when she
noticed the books on the floor and became suspicious.
Helen Wier loved her books as she did her friends. She was very careful
of them. She never would have left them on the floor behind her, open
with their backs bent to the breaking point as were these. And the
papers out of her notebook were scattered around and under the table.
Mrs. Wier muttered something to the rest about being sure something was
wrong with Helen, rushed upstairs to her room and then had begun the
search. That she had been kidnaped was an assured fact. The problem
before the police who had been almost instantly summoned was to find
out who did it and where the child had been taken.
“Weren’t there no note wanting money?” Mary asked the question.
Mr. Horn who was reading the story shook his head. Mary in turn shook
hers tho more wisely. “Then they’ll be hearin’ from the kidnapers
before night”, she said with conviction. “They’ll be telling how
much they want for her return and where to put it and giving all the
directions. The book I studied in that home correspondence course said
that was the way it always went.”
She ended her speech triumphantly, but noticing about the same time
that no one was paying any attention to her backed thru the dining room
into the kitchen, where she talked to herself about the “ignorance of
some people”.
Renfro, after reading the short, and to him, decidedly unsatisfactory
story, followed Mary out into the kitchen. “The paper didn’t say
anything about whether or not the telephone wires were cut,” he began.
Mary’s homely fat face beamed. She liked to be taken into some one’s
confidence. “Them detectives which are huntin’ for a clue know mighty
little,” she said hotly. “Now what course have any of them ever
studied? They just happened to be in on the side of the political party
which won at the last election, and when the city hall jobs gave out
they just put them on the detective force.”
Without any doubt Renfro was in a state of confusion. He didn’t know
whether or not to go around to Judge Wier’s house and tell the Judge
what he had seen on the two successive nights when he had been
carrying his papers past their house, or to take his story to the
police. But he did know enough to keep still until he decided what
course to follow.
But he had come to the kitchen to ask a request of Mary, “For heaven’s
sake, Mary,” he begged, “don’t ever let mother know that place is on
my paper route or it would be goodbye to that route and my new turkey
customers. You won’t, will you?”
Mary shook her head. “But are you working on some clues, Ren--Hooch?”
she asked. “Now if you are, I could help you a lot with my book
learning on detective work.”