Читать книгу Freddy the Pilot - Walter Rollin Brooks - Страница 5

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When the Bean animals arrived at the circus, Mr. and Mrs. Bean and the smaller animals were shown to front row seats. But Hank, and the three cows, Mrs. Wiggins, Mrs. Wurzburger and Mrs. Wogus, were too big to sit on the benches, so Mr. Boomschmidt let them stand right down in the ring, beside the doorway where the performers came into the tent.

Just before Mademoiselle Rose started her trick riding, Bill Wonks came out and talked to Mr. Boomschmidt for a minute; then he came over and said to Hank: “We’re getting ready for the Roman chariot race, and the boss thinks maybe you can help us.” And when Hank said sure, he’d do what he could, Bill explained. “There’s been three white horses on one chariot, and three black horses on the other. But Mr. Huber, the middle horse on the white team, has got the hiccups. ’Twouldn’t matter with a smaller animal, but horse hiccups are pretty big hiccups, and I guess it would look pretty silly to have a horse hiccupin’ in a chariot race. The boss thought maybe you’d take his place.”

“Well, I dunno,” said Hank slowly. “I’d like to accommodate Mr. Boom, sure enough. But I ain’t as young as I was, and I got the rheumatism in my off hind leg something fierce. Makes me yell when I take a quick step. Guess a yeller would be sillier than a hiccuper. Though I dunno; maybe not. Hiccupin’s pretty silly.”

“Take me,” said Mrs. Wurzburger suddenly. “I’m mostly white, and if you harness me between the others, nobody’ll notice.”

Bill shook his head. “You couldn’t keep up. Those horses run fast.”

“So do I,” said the cow. “I won the two-twenty free-for-all at the Tushville Fair last fall, and there were two horses in it and a boy who’s on the track team at Hamilton College.” And as Bill still shook his head, she said, “All right, I’ll prove it. I’ll race you out to the gate and back.”

Bill grinned. “O K,” he said, “if you beat me you run in the chariot race.”

Most cows are slow and clumsy runners, but now and then you find one that is a real racer, and Mrs. Wurzburger was one of these. “I have to be known for something,” she used to say. “Sister Wiggins is proud of being known as Freddy’s partner in the detective business. And Sister Wogus—well, being dumb isn’t usually anything to be proud of, but she’s so dumb that—gracious, you can’t believe it. It’s a gift. But I wasn’t famous for anything. ‘She’s that middle one,’ they used to say. So I took up track work.” And indeed she was wonderful over hurdles.

So Hank said: “Ready, get set, go!” and they started. They were about even when they reached the gate, but Bill Wonks wasn’t in training, while Mrs. Wurzburger always kept herself in pretty good shape and dieted and went to bed early. So after they turned back, Bill began to fall behind. There wasn’t anybody around outside except the ostrich, who was selling tickets, and a couple of elephants whose job was to walk around the tent and pull out any little boys who were trying to crawl in under the canvas without paying admission. But when the elephants saw a cow running, with Bill in pursuit, they thought that Mrs. Wurzburger had crashed the gate, and that Bill was chasing her to make her pay up.

“Hey, you; stop! Where you going?” they yelled, and started to head her off. And then Mrs. Wurzburger did something which won her undying fame. One of the elephants was directly in her path. But she didn’t stop. She just put on a burst of speed and leaped. She leaped right over that elephant, and went on into the tent.

So Bill came panting up and explained to the elephants, and then he went in and, without saying a word, harnessed Mrs. Wurzburger between the two white horses and the two-wheeled chariots rumbled into the ring.

It was always hard to surprise Mr. Boomschmidt because he had seen a lot of queer things in his time, and also because he was one of those happy people who find almost everything queer and interesting. He blinked when he saw the cow between the two horses, and then he just climbed into their chariot, and gathered up the reins, and Bill got into the black chariot.

They were to race three times around the ring. The two white horses were pretty scornful of the cow. They laughed right in her face and said they were ashamed of being seen in such company. But they would have done better to keep still, for once the race started, Mrs. Wurzburger tore along at such a swift pace that she practically dragged them around the ring.

But the race never finished. Just as they were starting around on the second lap, with the two chariots rattling and thumping along side by side and the audience all standing up and waving and yelling, there came from high up in the air outside the tent the whine of a diving plane. The sound increased suddenly and terrifyingly to an almost deafening whistling roar; and there was great confusion in the audience, some people jumping up to try to escape and others diving under the benches. The two men pulled their chariots to a stop, and Mr. Boomschmidt jumped out and began shouting to the terrified audience. But of course nobody could hear him.

Then as suddenly as it had come the sound diminished.

But the show had been spoiled. The people had been thoroughly frightened, and their only thought was to get out as quickly as they could. They scrambled for the exits, falling over one another in their anxiety to get away; and Mr. Boomschmidt, who had stopped trying to calm them, called to Bill to tell Oscar to give all the people their money back.

Alice and Emma had been pretty scared when the plane had buzzed the tent. Emma had put her head under her wing and trembled. Alice however was made of sterner stuff. She trembled a little too, but then she looked at Mr. Bean to see how he was taking it, and when she saw him puffing away peacefully on his pipe and not even looking up at the tent roof, she stopped trembling and nudged Emma with her wing. “Sister!” she whispered. “Take your head out and stop that shaking! What would Uncle Wesley say!”

“I know what old Wes would do,” said Jinx. “He’d tremble so that he’d loosen half his tail feathers.”

The sisters knew it too, but they always pretended that their pompous little uncle was a sort of mixture of George Washington and Wild Bill Hickok. Dignified but dashing; the bravest of the brave. “You wouldn’t dare say that to his face!” Alice said, and Emma pulled her head out to say: “I guess you wouldn’t.”

Mr. Bean turned to look up at the rapidly emptying benches behind him. “Well, Mrs. B.,” he said, “guess that concludes the show.” He got up and walked down to speak to Mr. Boomschmidt. “Congratulations,” he said. “Fine show. Specially that there last act with the airplane. Fine way to get your audience out quick as soon as the show is over. Don’t see how you ever thought of it.”

Mr. Boomschmidt said: “I didn’t. That isn’t our plane. Good gracious, we try hard to scare our audiences. That’s what a lot of ’em come for—to be scared by ferocious wild animals. But we don’t want to scare ’em right out of the tent—so bad we have to give ’em their money back.”

“Didn’t scare me,” said Mr. Bean. “Didn’t scare Mrs. B. either. Thought it was part of the show.”

“My goodness gracious me,” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “That gives me an idea! Maybe we could advertise it as part of the show. Gracious, it really is part of the show anyway. Even though I don’t know whose plane it is. It has followed us all the way up from the South. Does that dive on the tent in the middle of every show. Then everybody runs and I have to give their money back. Another month of it and the show will have to fold up.”

“Well who is it—whose plane is it?” Freddy asked.

But Mr. Boomschmidt paid no attention. “New added feature,” he said. “That’s the way we’ll advertise it. Never before presented by this or any other circus. Thrilling sensation! Be dived at by bomber! Oh golly, what an idea! Eh, Leo, isn’t that a wonderful idea?”

“’Twon’t work, chief,” said the lion. “Can’t be done.”

“Oh, Leo!” said Mr. Boomschmidt disgustedly. “What is the matter with you? Why do you always have to throw cold water on my ideas?”

“Because you’ll be in hot water if I don’t,” Leo said. “Ha, not bad, eh? No; look, chief, suppose you advertise it and the guy comes and drops some of those dummy bombs full of flour on the audience the way he did in Altoona last week. Or suppose you advertise it and he doesn’t show up at all?”

“We must be gettin’ along, Mrs. B.,” Mr. Bean said. He looked at Mr. Boomschmidt. “Dilemma,” he said, and then turned and pointed his pipe stem at Freddy. “Better let him tackle it.” Then he turned and led the animals out of the tent.

“Well, Freddy; Mr. Bean’s right,” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “That’s my dilemma. Do you suppose you can help me?”

Freddy didn’t answer at once. He put on his Great Detective expression. He stuck out his chest and pulled in his chin and looked down his long nose at Mr. Boomschmidt. “I have no doubt we can solve this case, which does not seem to offer much difficulty. Whom do you suspect?”

Mr. Boomschmidt looked puzzled. “Whom?” he inquired vaguely. Then he said: “Oh, I see. Well, good gracious, whom do we suspect of what?”

“Why, of annoying you, of course,” Freddy said. “Of trying to put the show out of business.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Boomschmidt again. “Good gracious, we don’t suspect anybody, do we Leo? Because we don’t know who’s doing it. So how would we know who to suspect—I mean ‘whom,’” he added.

“Oh, come on, chief,” said Leo. “Quit kidding around. Tell him about old Condiment.”

Mr. Boomschmidt could talk straight and to the point when he wanted to. Usually he didn’t want to. He pretended to be a lot more simple-minded than he was so as to mix people up—which was fun for him. It was also useful, for if someone came to him with an objection or a complaint, he could mix them up so thoroughly that usually they forgot what they wanted to say. Indeed, often they turned right around and disagreed with themselves.

So now he laughed and said: “Well, well, Leo, perhaps you’re right. You see, Freddy, this Mr. Watson P. Condiment wants to marry our Rose.” And he told how Mr. Condiment had tried to buy the circus and how mad he had got when he was informed it wasn’t for sale. “He wants to put the circus out of business,” Mr. Boomschmidt said, “and my goodness, what better way is there to do it than to drop bombs on it?”

“H’m,” said Freddy importantly. “Ha. I see.” He thought for a minute, then said: “I gather, then, that you think the airplane belongs to Mr. Condiment?”

“Oh, we’re sure of it, aren’t we, Leo? But we can’t prove it. We complained to the police in several towns, and they checked up on all private planes, and watched, but they can’t find out whose plane this is or where it comes from. We figure he must have a secret landing field somewhere. If you could only find it—”

“We’ll find it,” said Freddy. “Just leave everything to us, Mr. Boom. You have nothing further to worry about.”

Freddy called this sort of talk “building up your client’s confidence in you.” It didn’t mean that he had any plan or knew what to do, it just meant that he wanted Mr. Boomschmidt to think that he did. Of course it didn’t fool Mr. Boomschmidt any. But he knew Freddy pretty well, and he felt sure that the pig was smart enough to think up something.

So he said: “Why, Freddy, that’s fine. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re going to take this case.—Now, why do I say that? Why shouldn’t I be able to tell you? Leo, do you know any reason why I can’t?”

“Sure, chief,” said the lion. “Maybe you don’t think he’s smart enough to solve it.”

Freddy didn’t bother to answer him. He walked off to consult his partner, Mrs. Wiggins.