Читать книгу Patty and Jo, Detectives: The Case of the Toy Drummer - Janet Knox - Страница 4

YOU REALLY ought to have another pair of warm slacks,” Mavis remarked the following morning, as she helped the twins unpack their luggage. “My goodness, what is this?” she exclaimed, holding up a large ball of socks tied around the middle with string.

“That’s our head,” Jo explained. Seeing the puzzled look on Mavis’ face, she said, “You know, the mummified one Welty gave us for Christmas last year. We didn’t want it to be smashed.”

“Now I remember. But you can’t blame me for thinking it an odd way to pack socks. Where shall I put it?”

“I’ll take it,” Jo said, holding out her hand. “How I shuddered the first time I saw this on the little table in the living room! To think of some long-dead jungle headhunter prizing this as a sign that he had killed one of his enemies seemed horrible to me. Now I’m rather fond of it.” As she talked Jo carefully untied the string and separated the socks. From this gaily colored nest the shriveled human head seemed to grin incongruously up at her. Smiling to herself she laid it on the top of the chest of drawers.

“It might not be a bad idea to wrap your own head in that fashion, Jo,” Patty called from the closet where she was hanging up blouses. “Conserve what precious little brains you have.”

“Funny thing that so few people can really tell us apart,” Jo remarked to no one in particular. A snort from Pat told her, however, that the remark did not go unnoticed.

“Getting back to the slacks I mentioned, the mornings are cold up here, even in July. One pair apiece will hardly be enough.” Mavis fingered the pair she was arranging on a hanger. “Pat, find me a piece of paper and a pencil, please, and we’ll start making a list of things you need. Welty must have some in his den.”

“These winter things I’ll just pile here on the bed, Mavis. Oh, dear, I wish they hadn’t delivered our trunks so promptly. Here is everything we own all to be stowed away somehow or other.” Jo sighed and picked up another dress from the trunk before her while Pat went in search of paper and pencil.

Tapping gently on the door, Pat went into the study at Welton’s sign of recognition. She knew he didn’t like to be interrupted at work and intended to make her mission as brief as possible. Welton, his wide brow furrowed in concentration, was bending over a large walnut desk.

“Sit down, child, sit down. I’ll be finished here in just a moment,” he said, without raising his eyes.

Patty glanced around the room quickly. Following his orders in this particular case was not easy. To anyone who did not know Duer’s habits it would have seemed impossible for him to think among the confusion that surrounded him. The desk itself was littered with scraps of paper, some of them crumpled, and with boxes of rock specimens, reference books and several stub-ends of pencils. The rest of the room was equally cluttered. In front of the windows stood a chest, equipped with special drawers to hold the samples of his collection. Some of the drawers were pulled far out and left sagging precariously toward the floor; others were pushed in beyond the face of the chest. One whole wall was lined with bookshelves—the only orderly section in the study.

Yet, were you to ask Welton how he managed to accomplish any work in the room he would have insisted that he could put his hands on anything he wanted and heaven help the person who disturbed his mess! Mindful of this, Patty gingerly lifted a sheaf of papers from the only remaining chair and held them in her hand as she waited, making a mental note to replace them when she left.

At last Welton looked up from the object in his hand. “What would you think of this, my dear?” He held out toward her what looked to be an ordinary slab of stone.

“Why, I don’t know, it looks like just an old rock to me,” she answered. “That’s not a very scientific answer, I admit.”

“I quite agree.”

“I’m sorry, but we didn’t learn too much about your branch of science in school, Welty. Mostly chemistry and biology, you know.”

“To be a daughter of mine, you’ll have to do better than that.” Patty smiled happily at the relationship he had implied. “Now,” Welton cleared his throat and assumed the voice of a platform lecturer, “this is a specimen of petrified wood. You know what that is, don’t you?”

“No, sir,” came the answer in a small voice matching that of a timid schoolgirl.

“Petrified wood is wood that—I—well—that is petrified, of course. Everyone knows that.”

“Do you mean wood from a tree that has had the small particles of cellulose replaced by grains of minerals until gradually, over a period of thousands of years, the tree has turned to stone?

A hearty laugh reverberated in the room and reached even Mavis and Jo in the bedroom beyond. “Well, well, the joke’s on me this time.” Welton pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

“To be honest with you, Welty, it only just happened that I found one of your books fallen behind the radio last night and after I had fished it out I started to leaf through it. Then I got so interested that I read quite a lot of it after I went to bed. You can ask Jo about that, because she was mad at me for leaving the light on so long.”

“Hmmm, so you found the subject interesting, eh? Well, we’ll see about that. Now, to what do I attribute the honor of this visit? In short,” he added pompously, “what did you want?”

“Oh,” Pat answered hastily, “Mavis needs some paper and a pencil. She said you’d have some we might use.”

“Of course, here you are.” And, confidently opening the top drawer of the desk, he felt around for the desired articles. He took his hand out again after pushing a few things around and looked bewildered. Then his eyes roved the desk top. “Ah.” He picked up one of the pencil stubs and reached under the tallest stack of papers for a torn piece of an old manila envelope. “Will these do?”

“Okay for a shopping list, I guess. Thanks.” Pat blew him a kiss as she retreated to the doorway. “Oh, gee, I almost forgot. Here.” She returned and laid the papers she was holding in her hand back on the chair.

“Ten minutes to find these?” Jo asked Pat, wrinkling her nose at what she considered shameful tardiness.

“We got to talking about something else,” Pat retorted vaguely.

“This will be fine,” Mavis laughed. “I know what happened. Welty got off on his favorite subject. Maybe I had better head this list with a set of scratch pads for myself!”

“Sometimes I wonder how he got along so long without us, don’t you?”

“Stop thinking so hard and help me with this load of your sweaters,” Jo chided her.

Pat fell to work with a will and soon order was again restored. Mavis finished her list and was rechecking it when Welton looked in from the hallway.

“Anyone here interested in a little tramp through the woods? Can’t seem to settle down to work today. Nothing clears the mind like a good walk in fresh air.”

“That’s for me,” Jo said, groaning a little as she straightened up. “All morning that glorious sunshine has been fairly begging for a sympathetic soul like mine to take advantage of it.”

“Maybe we could help you, Welty.” This came from Pat. “That is, if you’d let us. Wouldn’t we, Jo?”

“Gee whiz, sure. The only trouble is we don’t know one fossil from another. At least, I don’t. Here, catch.” She picked up a sweater for herself from the bed and tossed another one over to Pat.

The two girls just stood for a moment on the top porch step when they first went outside. The garden was ablaze with color, intensified by the bright sunlight, but a cool wind blew across the lake and they were glad they had remembered to wear sweaters. The breeze gently pushed the branches at the tops of the tall trees overhead, as the party of four walked along through the woods. It was the same trail that the Faradays had followed six months before, although then it had looked quite different. Had it not been for the hunting shack which they both recognized as Welton’s “hideout” the girls would have found it difficult to believe. Squirrels and many varieties of birds put forth a noisy chatter high over their heads. At the level of their feet they could detect the scurrying sounds of what were undoubtedly rabbits and other small game.

Presently the group came to the banks of a small river and stopped. “Since you’ve expressed such an interest in my work, we might just as well have our first lesson in geology this morning. Right here beside this river is a good place to begin.”

“Why, Welty?” asked Pat, coming closer to the edge of the river bank. “I don’t see any interesting-looking rocks here.”

“Perhaps you don’t, Patty, but do you know what an important part rivers play in the formation of rocks?”

She and Jo both shook their heads.

“Millions of years ago when the earth was formed, it was hot. Gradually it cooled and shrank and in this cooling process the earth buckled in some places to form our great mountain systems. Next came the formation of water—seas, lakes and streams. These small streams at first just ran along the top of the earth until they managed to carve out beds to flow in. Next they widened the beds, taking earth from the sides and depositing it on the bottom or perhaps even carrying some of it all the way to the sea. Layers and layers of small grains of earth, or sediment, gradually came to be deposited in this way. And do you know what happened then?”

“You did say this had something to do with the formation of rocks,” Jo said slowly, “but I’m not sure I see the connection yet.”

“Yes, it does have a great deal to do with rock formations. You see, after the winter snows melted, sometimes these streams we are talking about became swollen and overflowed their banks. When that happened the stream often did not go back into its old course, but, instead, it carved out a new bed. As a result the banks of the old stream were covered with earth and the sediment was pressed down hard. Years and years later rocks had been formed. That is how sandstone and limestone and shale are made. We classify them all as sedimentary rocks.”

“I see, sedimentary because they are made from sediment. Is that it?” Pat’s face wore an intent look.

“Is this same process taking place right now?”

“It is. Although it will take millions of years and just the right sort of conditions for the sediment deposited by this river to become rock.”

“What about other kinds of stone—like granite and marble, for instance? Are they formed in the same way?” Jo questioned him.

“No, those are formed beneath the earth’s surface. Have you girls ever seen a volcano?”

“Sure, once in Mexico Dad took us way up to the top of one where we could look down inside it. I remember how scared I was, looking way, way down deep into the very middle of it.” Jo hesitated a moment in concentration. Then she said slowly, “Oh, I see, when a volcano erupts, you mean, that stuff, what do you call it, lava, I think, comes out and . . .”

“Exactly. Then the air cools and solidifies it into rock. And that is what we geologists believe happened when the earth cooled after it was first formed. Great masses of molten material on and near the surface cooled and hardened. Probably, there were many volcanoes which continued to erupt for a long time afterward. Rocks formed in this way are classified as igneous rocks. The word ‘igneous’ comes from the Latin word for fire.”

“How clear it all becomes when you explain it, Welty,” said Pat. “Much clearer than it was in the book I was reading last night. Now we know that rocks are formed by layers of sediment and by fire.”

“There are variations, too, Pat. But I think we’ve gone far enough in our lesson for one day. We’d better be getting back home for lunch. Something tells me it’s time. This afternoon, if you like, we’ll look at some rock specimens I have in the study.”

“Don’t overload their minds, Welton,” laughed Mavis. “Or you’ll frighten them off.”

“Nonsense, they’re eager to learn about these things, as they should be,” was his earnest reply.

During lunch while Yamoto was serving them, he remarked, “We need food from village, Mliss Glubeh said. Shall I dlive in today, Mliss Dueh?”

“Please do, Yamoto,” Mavis answered. “And why don’t you take Pat and Jo with you? They haven’t seen much of the village—not that there is much to see.”

“Yes, Mliss. Be leady two o’clock please, Mlissy Patty and Jo?”

“But we were going to look at Welty’s rocks, Mavis,” Pat protested.

“There will be plenty of afternoons for that, my dears,” Welton interrupted, after receiving a look from Mavis that meant “let me have my way.”

“Tell Mrs. Gruber I’ll help her with the list after lunch, Yamoto, and the girls will be ready to go when you are.”

Yamoto nodded and retreated to the kitchen. Later, true to his word, he gaily tooted the horn outside the front door of the Lodge at exactly two o’clock. Jo had been watching for him from the living-room window and now called to her sister.

“The sound of that horn tells me Yamoto is getting impatient. Hurry up, Patsy!”

“I’m coming. I can’t find my red jacket. Seen it, Jo?”

Jo giggled. “I sure have. I’m wearing it.” By mutual agreement they often wore each other’s things, but it was usual to ask for them first. “You can wear my red cardigan if you must have something red,” Jo suggested.

“Okay, I’m ready.” Pat emerged from the bedroom wearing the sweater over a crisp white blouse and flared gray cotton skirt. The automobile horn tooted once again, this time even more insistently.

“We can all sit in front, can’t we?” Jo asked, as she plopped down next to Yamoto.

“Yes, Mlissy.” He grinned at his two charges as he reached across them to pull the door closed. Then he put the car in gear and they were on their way.

The drive to the village was a short one and the road they followed was lined on either side with giant shade trees. At intervals these trees arched and met in the middle, reminding Patty of an aisle in a cathedral.

While Yamoto attended to the groceries, he suggested that the girls walk around and do a little exploring. When this was settled they agreed to meet him at the car in an hour or so.

“Let me see, now, which way shall we go, Jo? Toward that sign that says ‘Telegraph Office’ or toward the one lettered ‘Gifts’?”

“Does it really matter too much?” Jo laughed. “Since this is the village square, we’ll pass them both in either case. But I think I can guess what’s in the telegraph office. Let’s walk the other way. Gifts sound more interesting.”

Off they went arm in arm. They walked slowly past the small stores, stopping now and then to window-shop. Even the window of the hardware store beckoned to them.

“It’s strange when you stop to think of it, Jo. I mean, in a large city who would bother looking at tools and things unless, of course, you were going to buy something like that? Yet, here we are with our noses pressed against the glass deciding which garden trowel is the best buy.”

“You’re right, sis. I think it’s because life goes on at a more leisurely tempo in towns like this. In bigger places everyone feels he has to rush hither and thither even if he’s just going for a walk around the block.”

“My, my, who would have expected to hear such philosophizing here in Harker’s Cove?” came a voice from behind them.

The twins whirled to see who had been eavesdropping on their conversation. Prepared to be annoyed by the intrusion, they came face to face with Dick and two strangers.

“These are the Faraday twins, Pat and Jo, that I was just telling you about, Elaine. Girls, this is Elaine Anderson and her brother, George. They’re regular summer residents here.”

Pat was sure right off that they were going to like these two. A graceful girl about their age, Elaine was a blue-eyed blonde with delicately carved, perfect features. She looked almost artificial, but the way her mouth curved crookedly when she smiled revealed that she was not merely pretty to look at. She was mischievous, too. Her brother was two years older, also blond, and had a rather sober appearance at first glance. Closer inspection, however, found that a pair of merry, brown eyes and a sprinkling of light freckles across the bridge of his nose belied his straight lips and square chin. It was evident, also, that he enjoyed the outdoors, for his face and arms were already bronzed from the sun and weather.

When they had exchanged greetings, Dick announced, “It seems as if lunch time was hours ago. What do you say we all have a soda?” Seeing they were in agreement with his suggestion, he led the way into a small, clean-looking drugstore at the corner of the square. They each climbed up on a high stool at the counter and gave their orders to a pleasant boy on duty.

When their refreshments came, George first took a long sip of his malted, then asked, “Dick seems to know a good deal about you two, yet it’s strange we never met before. In a place as small as this you’re usually bound to know everybody in ten minutes and we’ve been here nearly a week.”

Jo supplied the answer, explaining how she and Pat had been there only once before and then it was wintertime. “And we only just returned from school yesterday,” she finished.

“I see,” said Elaine. “No wonder we didn’t know you then. We’re only able to come here summers, although I’ve begged and begged Mother and Dad to come at Christmastime. But I thought Mr. Duer was a kind of an old recluse. Dick insists not, though you know what a tease he is. Like that wild tale of yours,” she stared accusingly at Dick, “that these girls had trapped a bandit!”

“That’s the honest truth, I swear it.” Dick raised his right hand above his head.

“Yes, really, it is true, not wild at all,” Pat affirmed. She then told how they had stumbled across an escaped convict in the woods when they were actually looking for their guardian. Because it fitted Dick’s version exactly, Elaine was ready to give in.

“Jeepers!” George exclaimed. “Let’s hope you don’t, as a rule, attract that sort of adventure.”

“Look out for the Faradays, George,” replied Dick, “if you don’t like excitement.”

“Say, Jo, there will be plenty of excitement if we don’t hurry back.” Pat looked aghast at the clock on the wall above. “Yamoto will be wondering what has become of us. Now, how could that hour fly by so quickly?” She shook her head as she picked up her purse.

“It’s been so nice meeting you,” Jo said as she warmly grasped Elaine’s and George’s hands.

“Yes, why don’t you stop by our house tomorrow afternoon and we’ll all go for a swim?” put in Pat.

They promised quickly to do so and the twins went flying down the street in the direction of the car.