The White Elephant Mystery (19 page)

“Did you have any idea what they were?” Socker asked Djuna.

“Not until later, when I remembered how Mr. Pindler at the store in Edenboro showed me how to open his safe one time,” Djuna replied. “But I knew there was something awful happening, and when Cannonball took us by the big iron elephant on Mr. Grant’s lawn, on the way into Riverton, and we saw that it had been opened with an acetylene torch—then, I knew Spitfire’s luck charm was the solution to everything,
if
I could just figure it out.

“The next thing we learned,” Djuna continued, “was that Socker’s newspaper
hadn’t
sent him to Farmholme. So I knew he was in danger, because I remembered what Mr. Ciro had said the night before about dunking him in the London River. But then, when we got back to the circus grounds, I ran into Mr. Grant and Mr. Ciro in the menagerie. They had me sort of cornered. They kept asking me questions and they kept pushing me back and I couldn’t see where I was going.”

“What were they asking you?” Socker asked.

“Whether I’d helped you and the police in some other cases, before this,” Djuna said. “I was trying to figure out how to get away from them when an animal man knocked me down to save me from being hit with a mad elephant’s trunk and then stomped on!”

“What did you do, Djuna?” Trixie cried and her face was horror-stricken.

“Do?” Djuna said, and he snickered. “As soon as I was sure I was alive I got out of there! I was
sure
that Mr. Grant was dangerous, now, and I was
almost
sure that he had tried to have Spitfire killed. I went to the performers’ dressing tent and asked for Trixie. When she came out she said she’d take me to see Spitfire. She said no one was supposed to see him except herself, and I suggested that they’d probably let me in if she said Spitfire was my father.

“And they did!” Djuna went on. “I had a chance to talk to Spitfire. That is, I asked him questions and he answered them by nodding or shaking his head. He told me just what I wanted to know. So, I—”

“So you stuck your chin out!” Cannonball said. “Why didn’t you come and get
me
, Djuna, instead of walking into the thing alone?”

“I couldn’t!” Djuna cried. “When I left the hospital in a taxi I
intended
to come and get you, but when I got as far as the hotel I knew I was being followed. I told the taxi driver, and he checked it for me and found out for sure that someone was following me. I didn’t dare go back to the circus grounds, for fear Mr. Grant or Mr. Ciro would see me, and I knew that the man who was following me would catch up to me if
they
didn’t. So, I told the taxi driver to take me nearly up to old man Grant’s house and let me out, and I gave him a note to take to you.”

“Yeah; lemme read it to all you folks,” Cannonball said. He took a piece of paper from a pocket of his uniform blouse, unfolded it and read:

Cannonball refolded the note and stuck it back in his pocket with a solemn shake of his head.

“Did you know why you were going to old Mr. Grant’s home at this time, Djuna?” Joy Maybeck’s father asked him.

“Oh, yes!” Djuna said. “You see, I’d sort of guessed that the numerals on the little white elephant made up the combination to the safe that was hidden someplace in Mr. Grant’s house and had his will in it. That’s why I went to talk to Spitfire. He told me that’s what it was. You see, the elephant had a zero scratched on its stomach. I remembered, from watching Mr. Pindler open
his
safe, that you had to have a starting number in a combination. So, I figured the starting number was zero. Then the elephant had 8 on its left leg, 5 scratched on the right. Then 3 on the left, and 9 on the right. And that
was
the combination that opened the safe in the cellar!”

“But,” Socker said, “before Djuna got to the safe, he found
me!
That is, he was met at the front door by a grifter with a gun in his hand. The grifter brought him upstairs to the room where they were holding me, but while he had been gone I’d been able to bend down and unfasten the knots that tied me to the chair I was in, by the ankles. While the grifter was trying to bat Djuna on the head, I dropped down behind him on my hands and knees. Djuna was half groggy from a swat on the head, but he co-ordinated perfectly. He butted the guy in the stomach and when the guy fell over me the automatic he was holding flew out of his hand.
We
got the automatic, tied him up—and went searching for the safe where Spitfire had told Djuna he’d find it.”

“We found it all right,” Djuna said excitedly; “but just then, Mr. Grant and Mr. Ciro came in, and they pointed guns at us and we couldn’t do a thing! Socker couldn’t reach the automatic we’d taken from the man upstairs. It looked pretty bad for us—you bet—until Cannonball tiptoed in with these other two troopers. Golly! They looked awful good!”

“Golly, they did!” Socker echoed. “But the biggest surprise is yet to come,” he added. “I might explain that Djuna by then had already grabbed old man Grant’s will from the workbench where we’d dropped it, and stuck it in his basque shirt. Later he gave it to me, and after a little investigating—you’ll pardon me for that, Mr. Webster—I turned it over to Mr. Webster. Mr. Webster will now be heard from.”

All eyes turned on the white-haired old gentleman who had been sitting behind the little table at the end of the sun parlor quietly listening to the thrilling story of what had happened during the past two days. Now, he smiled and rose to his feet with a sheaf of foolscap paper bound with a light blue binder in his hand.

“I think,” he said solemnly, “that if I read the Last Will and Testament of Alvah O. Grant, or rather parts of it, that you will all understand more fully just what has happened and why.”

He began to read in a sonorous voice:

Mr. Webster’s voice ceased and he looked up and smiled at the astonished faces in front of him. “That’s all of any importance,” he said. “I wish to congratulate all of you who are so fortunate. I might say that old Mr. Grant kept his son’s disgrace very much of a secret, and no one in Riverton ever knew that Sonny had been in jail.”

“He was in under another name,” Cannonball said. “He was paroled just before his father died. Incidentally, he jumped his parole and now will go back to Yarwell. Along with about a half-dozen more of the grifters he gathered together to take over his father’s circus and rob the public from coast to coast.”

“What about Ned Barrow?” Djuna asked. “He didn’t seem like a—”

“Unfortunately for him,” Cannonball answered, “Sonny Grant recognized him when he took over the circus. Ned Barrow had been in Yarwell for a short stretch. He was ‘going straight’ with the circus, when Sonny recognized him and forced him to take his orders, on threat of exposure. He’ll go back to Yarwell now, for his attempt on Spitfire’s life, if we can prove it, for a much longer stretch than he had before.”

And then, that was as long as anyone present could contain himself any longer. Merry Andrews yelled “Yippee!” and turned a standing back somersault; and Trixie Cella, in spite of the tears in her eyes that were almost blinding her, grabbed Spitfire when he moved his feet and looked as though he were going to try to do the same thing. Joy Maybeck’s father began to hug his wife and Joy and her sister, while he said over and over in a dazed voice,
“We own one third of the circus!”

Everyone was so excited that they all began to talk at once—until Socker Furlong did an imitation of a drum ruffle, the way he had heard Trixie and Spitfire do it from the pedestal board when they were practicing their flying; and when everyone stopped talking for two or three seconds he shouted, “Ah, heebie, hebby, hobby, holey, go-long! La-ay-dies an’ gen-n-n’men! At the t-a-able at the fa-a-a-ar end of the room is arranged the gr-r-r-e-ates-st a-s-sortment of delicate delicac-i-ie-es ever before as-s-sem-bled under one tent! Crisp, br-r-rown turkey from the pl-l-ains of Guatemala, j-u-u-icy ambrosial ham from the mountains of Tibet, spiced peaches from the lowlands of Poland, and delicious i-ces from the polar circle! Move up a li-ittle closer, la-ay-dies an’ gen-n-n’mun!”

“Jiminy crimps!” Djuna said to Joy Maybeck, who was laughing happily beside him. “He ought to be with the circus!”

“He’s going to be, if I have anything to say about it!” Joy leaned down to whisper in Djuna’s ear. “Can you keep a secret?” she added.

“Oh,
sure!
” Djuna said. “I should say so!”

“Well, I
think
that if I can persuade him to give up that awful newspaper job, he’s going to be the press agent for the whole circus!”

“Hoddy-doddy!” Djuna said and his face beamed. “And he’d travel right with the circus all the time?”

“All the time,” Joy whispered gleefully.

“Could Tommy and I—” Djuna started to say, when the superintendent of the hospital came bustling in to interrupt him by saying, “Mr. Peters must go back to his room now. He—”

“Hey, Djuna!” Spitfire shouted as she started to turn his wheel chair around. “How would you and Tommy like to travel along with the circus for a couple of weeks when we start on the road next week?”

“Great glittering glories of Golconda!” Miss Annie exclaimed. “I—I—”

“Could we, Miss Annie,
could
we?” Djuna shouted joyfully. “Could we,
please?
“

“Well, I suppose so,” Miss Annie said doubtfully—but her eyes were twinkling—“now that you’ve made it safe!”

Merry Andrews turned another standing back-flip, and said, “I’ll teach you both how to do that while you’re with us!”

“Jiminy crimps!”
Djuna and Tommy said together, because that was all they could say.

But the little black terrier, Champ, danced around them on his hind legs, barking like mad. It was plain that he intended to lead every other animal in the next circus parade, including the
real
white elephant.

And everybody, while Socker marked time, joined in the chant that the circus men always sing as they drive the tent pegs into the ground:

“Ah, heebie, hebby, hobby, holey, go-long!”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Ellery Queen Jr. Mystery Stories

T
HE BOY
named Djuna peered anxiously out the window of the big, gray bus as the door opened and the driver called, “Dolphin Beach! Dolphin Beach!”

Djuna picked up his heavy suitcase, took a firmer grip on the leash of his little black Scotty, Champ, and scrambled down the steps to the Federal Highway. The door clanged shut behind him, the overhead light turned green and the big bus rumbled into the northbound traffic.