The White Elephant Mystery (14 page)

A very few minutes later Cannonball parked near the entrance to the Brewster House and they all went inside. Cannonball went up to the desk and asked if Mr. Furlong had come in.

“Not yet,” the clerk told him. “I’ll give him your message as soon as he comes in.”

“Never mind that message,” Cannonball said. “Tell him I’ll be over at the circus lot, and tell him to contact me through the radio telephone at the State Police station.”

“Yes sir,” the clerk said. “I’ll tell him, Mr. McGinnty.”

“Now, kids,” Cannonball said, “do you want to go over to the circus with me or wait here for Socker?”

“I’d like to go over to the circus,” Tommy said.

“So would I, I think, if you’re sure Mr. Furlong will get in touch with you the minute he comes back,” said Djuna.

“He will,” Cannonball said. “Let’s take these bags up to your room and then we’ll be on our way.”

When Cannonball put the key in the lock of their room they could hear the telephone ringing inside. Cannonball threw the door open and crossed the room to pick up the phone.

“McGinnty speaking,” he said.

“Oh, Mr. McGinnty,” the hotel telephone operator said, “a man named Canavan from the
Morning Bugle
is trying to get Mr. Furlong on the telephone. I thought you might know where he could reach him.”

“He ought to know how to reach him better than I ***do,” Cannonball said.

“Well, I just thought—”

“Put him on. Let me talk to him,” Cannonball said.

There was a silence for a moment and then Mr. Canavan, Socker Furlong’s boss on the
Morning Bugle
, said, “What’s the matter with Furlong, McGinnty? Is he still in bed? Can’t you wake him up?”

Cannonball laughed and said, “He’s been up since six o’clock when your night editor called him and put him on a story over in Farmholme.”

“Farmholme!” Mr. Canavan shouted. “No one around here put him on any story in Farmholme!”

“Are you sure of that, Mr. Canavan?” Cannonball asked. “He telephoned me at six this morning and said he’d just had a call from the night editor assigning him to a story over in Farmholme. He asked me to do an errand for him this morning because he wouldn’t be here to take care of it.”

“Wait a minute!” Mr. Canavan snarled.

Cannonball waited and in a few moments Mr. Canavan came back on the line and said, “That’s a lot of eyewash, McGinnty. No one called him from here.”

“But—”

“Besides,” Mr. Canavan broke in sarcastically, “we wouldn’t call him at that time in the morning because we’d be sure we couldn’t wake him up.”

“But someone did call him, I tell you,” shouted Cannonball, because he was getting a little irritated now, too.

“Look, McGinnty,” Mr. Canavan said. “You’re supposed to be working with him on this grifter story, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Cannonball said.

“Well, why don’t I get some copy?” Mr. Canavan roared. “You tell Furlong I want—”

“We got our first break yesterday,” Cannonball interrupted. “I don’t want to talk about it over the telephone. You probably would have had some copy over the wire this morning if you hadn’t sent Socker to Farmholme. He—”

“We didn’t send him to Farmholme!” Mr. Canavan screamed. “You tell Furlong to call me the minute he gets out of bed!”

Cannonball heard a loud click in his ear and he knew it was caused when Mr. Canavan slapped the telephone into its cradle.

“Jeepers! He’s something, that Mr. Cana—” Djuna said, and then his voice trailed off and he didn’t say anything more because he had been able to hear everything that Mr. Canavan shouted over the telephone, and he wondered where Socker had gone at six o’clock in the morning if he hadn’t gone on an assignment for the
Bugle
.

Then Djuna heard the man named Ciro saying to Sonny Grant, “Maybe a good dunkin’ in the London River with some lead fastened to his feet would teach him a lesson.”

Djuna looked up and started to say something to Cannonball but Cannonball was staring out the window and
he
was hearing the short-change man named Weasel Macassar, whom they had picked up the afternoon before and taken to the substation, saying to Socker, “Did you ever hear about that nosy newspaper man out in Ohio who got himself filled with little lead pellets because his nose was too long?”

Neither Djuna nor Cannonball gave voice to their thoughts, but anyone who knew them could have told that they were worried about the same thing now—Socker Furlong.

“Hey!” Tommy said, because he hadn’t paid any attention to Cannonball’s conversation with Mr. Canavan, “I thought we were going over to the circus.”

“What are we waiting for?” Cannonball boomed heartily, although he didn’t feel that way at all. “Do you have your passes, and everything you want to take with you?”

“Oh, sure!” Tommy and Djuna said, and they all went out into the hallway. After Cannonball had locked the door they took the elevator down to the lobby and Cannonball left their key at the desk.

Becaue Cannonball knew that it made Tommy and Djuna feel important when they were riding in the police car with him he kept his finger on the siren button almost all of the way from the Brewster House to the circus grounds.

“That big fathead, Cannonball McGinnty!” all the ordinary Riverton traffic policemen said to themselves as Cannonball snarled up traffic for them. But they all highballed him along with a wave of the hand and a wide grin, because they liked him.

Cannonball parked his car between the chow tent and the tent in which the performers dressed, and opened the door. “You kids run along and have fun,” he said. “I’m going to stay near the car to pick up any messages that come in. But how about some food? Do you want to go in the chow tent and get some?”

“I don’t think so, Mr. McGinnty,” Djuna said slowly. “I—I don’t feel at all hungry.”

“Hey! I’m starved!” Tommy said.

“Why don’t you go in and get something to eat?” Djuna said.

Cannonball looked at the watch on his wrist. “I’ll meet you here in, say, in half an hour.”

“I don’t like to go in there alone,” Tommy said doubtfully.

“Come on. I’ll go in with you,” Cannonball said. “You wait here until I come back, Djuna. If you get a buzz on the telephone just throw this switch and find out who is calling. Tell ’em I’ll call them right back, then come and get me.”

“Okay,” Djuna said, and he climbed into the driver’s seat of the police car and pretended not to notice all the kids, and grown-up people, too, who stared at him. They’re probably thinking I’m someone pretty important, Djuna thought.

And then he thought about other things, too, and when he had turned everything over in his mind he knew that he, or someone else beside Sonny Grant, had to find old man Grant’s will. He decided that if the will was found and turned over to someone like Cannonball then the people who were supposed to inherit the circus would get it and Sonny Grant wouldn’t have anything to do with it, and the danger would end.

It was just that simple in Djuna’s mind. “But how,” he asked himself, “is anyone going to find out how to find the will when Spitfire can’t move, or talk, or even see anyone?”

Then Djuna’s thoughts were distracted by the same barker he had heard the day before shouting:

“Now-w-w-w, Ladies and Gentlemen-n-n-n, there are yet fortay-y-y-five minutes before the big show begins. Fortay-y-y-five minutes. A long time to wait, Ladies-s-s-s and Gentlemen. So-o-o, we have arranged for your benefit a special exhibition in the Grand Annex and Museum of Wonders to delight the eye, please the brain and sharpen the intellect. If you will just step a bit closer-e-r-r-r-r!”

“Okay, Djuna!” Cannonball said loudly, to make his voice heard above the chant of the barker’s loudspeaker. “Tommy will meet you here in a half hour, he said.”

“That’s fine,” Djuna said as he slid out of the driver’s seat. “I’m just going to wander around.”

“Right, Djuna,” Cannonball said, and then as he scrutinized Djuna more closely he added, “Are you sure you feel okay, Djuna?”

“Oh, yessir,” Djuna said, and then he added to divert Cannonball’s attention, “Do you suppose if I asked the man at the entrance to the performers’ dressing tent if he’d call Trixie Cella, Spitfire’s wife, he’d pay any attention to me?”

“Sure, I think he would, Djuna,” Cannonball told him. “Tell him you’re a friend of Spitfire’s. She’ll probably be with Joy Maybeck.”

“Okay, Cannonball,” Djuna said and he moved away.

Cannonball, watching him as he disappeared into the crowd, said to himself, “Now, what the—what’s eating that kid, anyway?”

Djuna wandered down across the circus grounds, hardly seeing the happy children and grownups all around him, who for a day were living in a world of spangled make-believe, ready and willing to laugh at a clown’s faintest gesture or to look at a giraffe and say, “There
ain’t
no such animal!”

He could not recapture the feeling of joy and utter abandon that he had had the day before, because he was constantly oppressed with a feeling of danger, not only for himself, but for Socker Furlong and Spitfire and Spitfire’s wife, Trixie Cella, and even for Joy Maybeck. He couldn’t analyze his thoughts and feelings as he would have liked to be able to analyze them, but he knew from past experience that there was something dreadful taking form and menacing the people he loved.

He showed his pass to the man at the menagerie ticket gate, and the man nodded him inside. He strolled along not seeing the bearded yak Socker had told them about yesterday, or Angel, the trained chimpanzee, or any of the rest of the animals that were caged and staked inside the ropes, until he came to the elephants.

He was staring at the two baby elephants, who were still practicing their act without a trainer to direct them, when he heard a voice behind him say, “Hello there, Djuna.”

Djuna jumped, because he had been so deep in his thoughts, and then he whirled around. Something climbed up into his throat that made him swallow convulsively and then he wet his lips before he tried to speak as he saw Sonny Grant and Tony Ciro standing behind him.

“H-hello, Mr. Grant. Hello, Mr. Ciro,” Djuna said and he smiled to see if the two men who stared down at him so grimly would also smile.

But they didn’t. And Djuna suddenly had a feeling that they hadn’t just chanced to meet him there. He had a feeling that they had been following him and had selected this spot to speak to him.

They edged up a little closer to him and Mr. Grant said, “Have you seen your friend Mr. Furlong around any place, Djuna?”

“No,” Djuna said. “I haven’t. I don’t think he’s around, because his newspaper called him this morning and put him on an assignment over in Farmholme.”

Djuna watched Tony Ciro’s eyes very carefully as he spoke and he was sure that he saw a faint gleam of amusement in them as Ciro nodded and looked away. But even as he turned his head to gaze around Ciro moved in closer to Djuna and Djuna took a couple of steps backward without looking where he was backing.

“Say, Djuna,” Mr. Grant said, conversationally. “You’re an old friend of Mr. Furlong’s, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes,” Djuna said. “That is, I’ve known him well for two or three years. He’s a very good newspaper man.”

“So I understand,” Mr. Grant said and nodded, and for some reason he pushed against Djuna again so that he had to back up several more steps. “Didn’t you work with Furlong on a couple of his feature stories?”

“No,” Djuna said. “I should say not. He writes all his own stuff. He—”

“No, that isn’t what I mean,” said Mr. Grant. “I mean, didn’t you work with Furlong and a Secret Servie man on a counterfeiting job? As I heard it, you were the one who turned up the counterfeiter for the Secret Service. Is that right?”

“Well,” Djuna admitted uncomfortably. “I had a
little
bit to do with it.”

“And didn’t you help the cops recapture a couple of escaped convicts and find some valuable jewels they’d stolen and hidden ten or twelve years before?” Mr. Grant said insistently. It was Tony Ciro who forced Djuna to step backward this time and when Djuna took a quick glance behind himself he saw that they had forced him around the end of the rope behind which the elephants were staked.

“Why, yes,” Djuna said again, “I had a
little
bit to do with that, too. I—”

“You and the cops are like that, eh, Djuna?” Tony Ciro said, and he held up two fingers side by side.

“Say!” Djuna said in alarm. “Isn’t it dangerous to get too close to these elephants? What if—”

Djuna’s words were driven out of his mouth with a half scream as Mr. Grant and Tony Ciro lunged backward. At the same instant something struck Djuna in the chest and an elephant’s trunk slashed above his head as he fell.

He heard men shouting and heard the trumpet blast above him as bull hooks beat on the trunk of the gigantic elephant that stood almost above him.

“Roll out of there, kid!” a voice screamed in Djuna’s ear and Djuna opened his eyes and scrambled out of danger as fast as he could. All around him there were people scurrying away.

Then hands that were far from gentle seized him and he was swung to his feet and out of danger, although other elephants had begun to mill and trumpet. The animal trainers went among them, quieting them down, while they assured the frightened people in the menagerie tent that there was nothing to be afraid of.

The menagerie superintendent came hurrying up to the man who was standing with his arm around Djuna’s shoulder as Djuna recovered his wind.

“What’s the matter here, Klesh?” the superintendent demanded. “Who got Jumbo excited again?”

“It was this kid,” the man with the pockmarked face replied. “But I don’t think it was his fault.”

“What do you mean, Klesh?” the superintendent shouted. “What happened?”

“This kid was talkin’ to Mr. Grant and another man here at the end of the elephant picket line,” Klesh said. “I was watchin’ an’ it really wasn’t the kid’s fault because they were nudgin’ him back toward Jumbo. I was watchin’ old Jumbo, too, account of that ulcerated tooth she’s got, an’ when I seen her raise her trunk I knocked the kid out o’ the way. She’d have tramped the life out o’ him after she knocked him down. I—”