The Purple Bird Mystery (12 page)

“Hi, Joe,” Jimmy greeted him heartily. “Nothing’s wrong, but …” He was on the point of telling Joe about the burglar and the writing on the chest drawers when he felt Djuna’s elbow against his side, nudging him. He finished lamely. “We were just wondering when my father’ll get through with his golf-committee meeting.”

Joe strode to the terrace steps where they were sitting and his sharp eyes busied themselves with the two pieces of wood in Jimmy’s hands. “A dumb lady golfer I’m caddying for says she left her six iron out along the woods by this fairway. She sent me back from the ninth to look for it. You haven’t seen a stray iron around, have you?”

“No,” Djuna answered. “So you did get a carry after all, Joe? The other caddies said you left for home before lunch.”

“I did leave,” said Joe. “But my ride into Brookville washed out, so I went back. And I got a carry not long after you kids left the breezeway.” Joe’s close-set eyes regarded them for a moment more. Then he asked abruptly, “What you got there, Jimmy? What are those boards?”

“Nothing but the pieces of my chest drawer that the movers broke. You saw it happen the other day, Joe.” Jimmy pretended indifference.

“Is that writing on them?” Joe asked. Roughly he snatched the pieces of wood out of Jimmy’s hands, fitted them together quickly. “It
is
writing!” he said, as though astounded. “Writing!
le bird
, eh? What bird?”

“We don’t know,” said Djuna.

Joe handed the boards back to Jimmy. “Some guy’s idea of a screwy joke, I guess,” he said. “Well, I better get cracking and find that six iron. Dumb woman!” Joe ambled off toward the fairway.

“Where’d
he
come from?” Djuna inquired in a low voice. “I was sure he went home.”

Jimmy said, “He missed his ride …”

“The heck he did. Do you really think Joe was coming from the fairway where he said the lady lost the iron?”

Jimmy thought back. “He came around the right side of the terrace.”

Djuna nodded. “He could just as well have been coming from the woods behind your house as from the edge of the fairway. Remember how your back door was wide open to those woods as though the burglar has escaped that way?”

“Jeepers!” said Jimmy, aghast. “You mean Joe Morelli might be the burglar? Instead of Mr. Martin, or Mr. Swift?”

Djuna said, scowling, “This is one mystery with too many suspects in it to suit
me
!
”

J
IMMY
tapped the two pieces of wood together. “You know what I told you,” he said, “and I still think I was right. It’s just crazy to think that
everybody
around here is suspicious.”

“But Jimmy, Joe
could
be the burglar. We’ve got to think of all the possibilities. He could have heard Mr. Martin ringing the doorbell, and escaped through your back door into the woods, and hidden there until Mr. Martin left, and then come out and walked around here to talk to us. He could have made up that story about the lady’s six iron.”

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Joe’s nothing but a caddy at Fieldcrest. He’s got a steady job. He makes a lot of money. Why would he want to steal from my house? Besides, he knows all about golf and caddying—he really does—so he
couldn’t
be a burglar, for Pete’s sake! And he’s been nice to us, Djuna.”

“I know he has.”

“Old Joe’s all right. He was just mad at that lady golfer. But that’s the way lots of women are when they play golf. Careless as anything.”

Djuna refused to be diverted from the mystery. “Maybe you’re right about Joe,” he conceded, “but, boy, what I think is that Mr.
Martin
is the queerest-acting one of all. What if
he
was going through your chest and then pretended he heard somebody else, the way we figured out?”

“Well, I think he’s a lot more suspicious than Joe is. But I don’t know why Mr. Martin would be interested in my chest, either.”

“What if he’s Mr. Swift’s confederate?”

“Mr. Swift’s what?”

“Confederate. That’s like a helper or partner. Confederate is what they always call somebody like that.”

“And you think Mr. Martin might be old Mr. Swift’s partner?”

“He might be. Mr. Swift sure wants your chest, we know
that
. So maybe he’s got Mr. Martin to help him steal it, or something that’s in it, since you wouldn’t sell it to him.”

“I never thought of that!” said Jimmy. “Jeepers, no wonder you’re so good with mysteries, Djuna. That’s a slick idea! I bet it’s right, too. Because Mr. Martin isn’t even a member of Fieldcrest. He could be a crook!”

“If he’s not a member, how can he play golf here all the time?”

“He said he was a guest. A member of the Club can sponsor a guest, and get him a guest card to play golf, even if the member isn’t with him. At least, that’s how it was at the Three Willows Club, where Pop was before.”

“I wonder where Mr. Martin comes from?” Djuna said. “Where he lives, I mean?”

“What difference does that make?”

“I have a feeling it might help us if we knew more about Mr. Martin.”

“Pop could find out in a minute.”

“But he’s in a meeting now. Can’t we find out for ourselves, some way?”

“You mean make a real investigation like real detectives?”

“Why not? Whom can we ask about Mr. Martin?”

Jimmy pondered. “Well, I guess the best one to ask next to Pop would be Mr. Jonas. Maybe Mr. Martin’s golf bag has a tag on it from his own club, if he belongs to one.”

“Then let’s go ask Mr. Jonas!”

Jimmy jumped up with alacrity. He was about to toss the broken pieces of drawer bottom aside when Djuna said, “Put them in your bike basket. We might need them.”

The two boys hastily mounted their bikes and set out for the caddy-house. Jimmy was boiling with excitement at this real detective mission. “What’ll we tell Mr. Jonas?” he asked eagerly. “Won’t he just say it’s none of our business?”

“We can’t be sure till we try. I caddied for Mr. Martin yesterday. So I could be asking about him just out of curiosity, couldn’t I?”

When they arrived at the caddy-house, Mr. Jonas greeted them with a gruff, “No more carries today, boys. I told you to go home.”

“We aren’t here for that, Mr. Jonas,” Djuna explained. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you look at Mr. Martin’s golf bag and see where he’s from, please? He told Mr. Douglas he wasn’t a Fieldcrest member.”

Mr. Jonas squinted at Djuna in surprise. “Why on earth do you want to know where Mr. Martin comes from, Djuna? It’s none of your business, you know. He’s a guest of the Club.”

“That’s just it,” Jimmy spoke up. “Djuna and I wonder where he’s from because if he lives close enough to Fieldcrest, maybe he’d want to apply for a membership of his own. Djuna caddied for him yesterday and he said he liked our course very much.”

“Oh,” Mr. Jonas said, grinning. “And since when have our caddies been spearheading our membership drives at the Club?”

“Well,” said Jimmy, “after all, Pop’s the new pro, and the more members we have, the more money he can make from giving lessons and selling equipment.”

“Does your father know you’re being so curious about a Club guest?” Mr. Jonas was looking suspicious now.

“No, because he’s in that golf meeting, Mr. Jonas, and we can’t bother him there. That’s why we decided to ask you about Mr. Martin instead.”

Mr. Jonas weighed this statement. “I guess it can’t do any harm to tell you,” he said at last, “since you’re the pro’s son. There isn’t any tag on Mr. Martin’s bag, so I don’t know where he’s from. But he’s been playing here for the past week as the guest of Mr. Karl Monkton. Mr. Monkton is one of the charter members of Fieldcrest.”

“Where does Mr. Monkton live, Mr. Jonas?” asked Djuna.

“In Northport.”

“That’s thirty miles away,” Djuna told Jimmy. “Do you suppose Mr. Martin comes from there, too?”

Mr. Jonas washed his hands of the whole affair by saying, “All I know is, Mr. Martin is Mr. Monkton’s guest for as often as he wants to play golf here this week. I did hear Mr. Martin telling his caddy the other day that, during this golfing vacation, he’s staying at the Millstream Motel in Brookville.”

Djuna pressed Jimmy’s arm. “Thanks, Mr. Jonas. Then I guess he’s not such a good prospect for membership after all.”

Mr. Jonas again grinned as they turned toward the door. “Get us enough new members, boys,” he said as a parting shot, “and we’ll have caddying jobs for everyone, even on Ladies’ Day!”

In the doorway, Djuna paused. He asked casually, “Is Joe Morelli around, sir?”

“No. Joe went out about lunch time.”

Djuna and Jimmy hurried around to where they had left their bikes behind the caddy-house. “See?” Jimmy exclaimed. “I told you Joe was okay. Mr. Jonas said he went out about lunch time. That means he
was
looking for that lady’s six iron, and not hiding in our back woods!”

Djuna got on his bike and stood thoughtfully with one foot on the ground. “Not for sure, it doesn’t. Mr. Jonas could have meant that Joe went out of the caddy-house, or out of the breezeway, about lunch time, and not out on the golf course at all.”

“I’ll go ask him.”

Djuna restrained him. “Don’t do that. As it is, Mr. Jonas think’s it’s funny we’re so interested in Mr. Martin.”

“You’re right,” Jimmy nodded. “It wouldn’t do to make him mad at us.”

“Here’s what I think,” Djuna said. “I think we ought to ride into Brookville and find out about Mr. Martin from that motel he’s staying at.”

“But if his sponsor’s from Northport, wouldn’t Mr. Martin probably be from Northport, too? You said he would.”

“Maybe not. Maybe he just
forged
that guest card from Mr. Monkton in Northport. Maybe he’s not even
named
Mr. Martin.”

“Wow!” said Jimmy, deeply impressed. “We’ve got to think of all the possibilities, isn’t that what you said?”

“I’d rather tell your father all about this suspicious stuff, of course, Jimmy. But the next best thing is to find out for ourselves.”

Thus reminded of his conscience, Jimmy hastened to agree. “You bet! If Pop knew all about Mr. Martin and Mr. Swift and Joe and that crazy inscription on the chest, he’d know what was going on in a minute!”

“Let’s ride into Brookville. I know just where that Millstream Motel is.”

Riding at a steady clip along the highway to Brookville, Djuna explained to his companion some of the finer points of detective work. “The thing is, Jimmy, you never know anything for sure until you get a lot of facts together and figure out what they mean. You can tell easy when somebody is acting suspicious or doing things that don’t seem right for them to do, but you can’t be sure they’re crooks until you learn enough about them. Then you match it up, and sometimes you’ll find there’s a connection between one bunch of facts and another, or between one person and another. And if there is, then it means the chances are better than ever that, whoever it is, he isn’t as honest as he might be. Do you see what I mean?”

“No,” said Jimmy. “I don’t.”

Djuna said patiently, “It’s important to learn as much as you can about suspects, that’s all. That’s why I phoned Socker Furlong this morning, so he could find out all about Mr. Swift for me. When I know about Mr. Swift, then maybe I can figure out why he wants your chest so bad. And what he’s doing with that old tigerskin book. And whether he and Mr. Martin are confederates. Stuff like that, see?”

Jimmy nodded. “I guess so.”

They pedaled along briskly. The traffic was light on the Brookville road, but they stuck closely to the right-hand edge of the pavement, riding side by side only when no cars were coming. When they were about halfway to Brookville, Jimmy heard Djuna muttering to himself.

“What did you say?” Jimmy asked.

“I was just saying something to myself.”

“What?”

“That inscription.
Fowl Relief in Purple bird.”

Jimmy laughed. “Every time you say it, it sounds more stupid.”

Djuna said, “Sometimes in secret inscriptions they use a word that means the same as some
other
word. If there were other words we could put into the inscription that mean the same thing, maybe then the sentence would make sense.”

“You mean like, say,
rooster
instead of
Fowl
for the first word?”

“Yes. Or
pullet
, or
hen
or
turkey
or
pheasant.”

“Rooster relief in purple bird,” Jimmy intoned. “Turkey relief in purple bird. That’s just as stupid as
Fowl Relief.”

“Pheasant relief in blue bird,” Djuna chanted. “Hen relief in lavender bird.” After that, he fell silent, with a very thoughtful look on his face.

He didn’t speak again until they coasted down the grade that dropped from the highway to the Millstream Motel. The motel was set in a grove of black oaks and copper beeches beside a small creek that everybody in Brookville called Millstream, for no apparent reason, since there was no mill on the stream, nor had there ever been. The motel consisted of a single sprawling one-story building whose architecture Miss Annie sometimes referred to acidly as “Neon-Colonial.”

Djuna and Jimmy leaned their bikes against the pillars of the covered driveway entrance, and walked with a certain amount of trepidation into the office. A pretty girl with red hair and a green checked dress rose from behind a desk to greet them. In a singsong, false kind of voice she said, “What can I do for you, please?” before she noticed that her visitors were so young and had ridden up—as a quick glance through the office window informed her—on bicycles. She blushed, furious. But then she relaxed.

“Well,” she said, “I thought you wanted a room for the night.” She examined their anxious and unsmiling faces, and burst into laughter. “But I guess you don’t, do you? What
do
you want, boys?”

“Please, Miss,” said Djuna politely, “we wondered if you could tell us if a Mr. Martin was staying at your Motel?”

“Mr. Martin? What’s his first name?”

“We don’t know. But he’s been staying here for almost a week, we believe.”