The White Elephant Mystery (2 page)

“Strangest critters you ever see,” Mr. Boots said. “Now, run along.”

Djuna nodded his head, ducked out on the road and then went across Miss Annie Ellery’s front lawn and in the front door of her house as though he were being chased by wolves.

Miss Annie, who was putting up preserves in the kitchen, said “Glittering glories of Golconda! What’s that?” as Djuna bounced into the kitchen. She looked up and pretended to be very severe.

She was a little bit of a woman, hardly taller than Djuna, and she had gray hair and wore spectacles, behind which her eyes were always twinkling.

“Excuse me, Miss Annie, for making so much noise,” Djuna said. “But it’s pretty exciting…. Mr. Boots has got tickets …
free
tickets for all of us for the circus when it comes to Riverton … and right now Mr. Boots is going to take Tommy and me over to Riverton with him to get some lumber and show us the iron animals on the front lawn of Mr. Grant’s home. He’s the man that used to own the circus … and—” Djuna stopped to get his breath and while he gulped Miss Annie spoke.

“If I were you,” she said, “I’d take it easy before you get your tongue tied up in your mouth and choke to death. You’re going to Riverton with Mr. Boots now?”

“Yes, if it’s all right with you, Miss Annie. He said he’d show us the—”

“Iron animals on the front lawn of Mr. Grant’s home,” Miss Annie supplied as Djuna stopped to gulp for breath again. “Run along, but don’t be late for supper.”

Djuna let out a bloodcurdling shriek that caused Miss Annie to knock over a bottle of vinegar, and then the screen door banged shut behind him as he raced back to climb into Mr. Boots’s truck.

A few minutes later, with Mr. Boots, Djuna, Tommy and Champ all riding in the seat, the old truck sped through the little village of Clinton on the way to Riverton.

“You said you used to know Mr. Grant, the man who owned the circus?” Djuna asked Mr. Boots.

“Certainly did,” Mr. Boots answered. “A mighty nice man, too. Built that little dinky circus into a big thing.”

“Did he start it?” Djuna asked.

“No,” Mr. Boots said. “His father started it. It was just a sort of carnival when Alvah took ahold of it. After his father died he built it up into a big organization. Built this big mansion, kind of a castle, I’m a goin’ to show you this afternoon, from the money he made on it.”

“Who owns the circus now?” Tommy asked.

“I don’ know,” Mr. Boots said. “Old man Grant has a son, boy everybody used to call Sonny, but I don’t know what happened to him. He hasn’t been around these parts for a long, long time. I suppose, if he’s still alive, that the circus will go to him. He used to be gettin’ himself in trouble every once in a while afore he left Riverton. The old man was a pretty strait-laced old fellah and wouldn’t take no nonsense from the boy. I heerd they never did hit it off very well.”

“Imagine owning a
whole
circus,” Tommy said with a sigh. “You wouldn’t have to worry about going to see it because you’d be
at
it all the time. Why—”

“You get purty sick of it after a spell, I’m afraid,” Mr. Boots said. “Enough of anything is too much, as some fellah said,” he added with a nod of his head.

It was a warm afternoon and far off to the west black thunderclouds were hovering on the horizon, but Djuna and Tommy weren’t even aware of the heat or the threatening storm. They were looking forward with eager anticipation to seeing old man Grant’s home and the iron animals on the front lawn. Champ wasn’t so happy as they sped by grazing cows and white-painted farmhouses, because at almost every farmhouse there was a barking dog that almost drove him crazy when it came rushing out at the truck.

When they arrived at Riverton Mr. Boots circled the little city and said, “Old man Grant’s place sits up on a hill all by itself. It’s got a beau’ful view down the valley for nigh on to twenty miles on a clear day. He used to call it Sky Meadows but one of the fellahs around here began to call it Sidi-something-or-other because it looks jest like one

o’ them forts the French built for their Foreign Legion out in the Sahara Desert.”

“Sidi-bel-Abbès!” Djuna said excitedly. “I’ve read about it—and I saw it in a movie one time. Jeepers! It must be an exciting-looking place!”

“Don’t look excitin’ to me,” Mr. Boots said dryly. “Looks kinda dreary, if you ask me.”

They skirted around the outskirts of the town, passed a small park in which there was a monument of a Union soldier, in memory of the War Between the States, and then sped up a long hill.

When they reached the top they could see rolling, wooded countryside on the other side of the hill, and then Mr. Boots brought his truck to a halt and said, “There you are, boys!”

Because Mr. Boots had been sitting on the left-hand side of the truck in the driver’s seat Djuna and Tommy couldn’t see off to the left until Mr. Boots drew back and pointed.

They leaned forward and their eyes flew open wide as they stared at the immense, old, square stone house that stood some sixty or seventy feet back from the high iron fence that surrounded the lawn.

The house was three stories high and the third story consisted of battlements at each corner, with a series of parapets indented between them. In the very center was a smaller battlement that rose up from the roof like a watchtower and it had a series of parapets indented all around it, too.

It was surrounded by gigantic elms, copper beeches and maple trees whose long branches reached out over the edge of the battlements to shade the house and give it a dismal, foreboding appearance. The shades were drawn in the windows that were clustered under the battlements. It made the old house look like some huge ogre squatting there with its eyes closed.

“Say! That’s the funniest-looking house I ever saw!”

Tommy said when he could speak. “I betcha it’s got ghosts in it.”

Djuna snickered and said, “It
is
funny-looking, but it looks awful inter—interest—awful exciting, too. I’d like to go in it.”

“Jeepers!” Tommy said. “You can have it.
I
don’t want to go in it.”

“Won’t nothin’ in there hurt you none, I guess,” Mr. Boots said. “But it seems to me you boys have missed what you come here to see.”

“The iron animals!” Djuna said. “Where are they?”

“Right in front of your eyes,” Mr. Boots said with a chuckle. “They’re kinda rusted up but they’re marchin’ along right in front of that hedge back there.”

Both Djuna and Tommy stared as hard as they could stare, and saw that there were two stone gateways to the grounds of the place, and that the driveway swept up in front of the house; and directly in front of the house there was a square parking place, about sixty feet long and just as deep, covered with blue gravel.

Directly in front of the parking place was a box hedge that had not been trimmed for a couple of years and cast long shadows across the lawn. But after Djuna had stared into the shadows for a moment he said, “Golly, Tommy, can’t you see ’em?”

“Yes!” Tommy said after a moment, as Djuna pointed. “There’s a man marching in the front with a torch that is painted yellow at the top to look like it was burning. An’—an’ right behind him is a
white
elephant with a man in a turban riding on his head. And—”

“That’s right,” Mr. Boots chuckled. “It’s quite a parade old man Grant had there. He—”

“Then next is a giraffe,” Djuna said excitedly, “and then a camel, with a man leading it, and then some kind of a funny wagon with pipes coming out of it. It—”

“That’s supposed to be a steam calliope,” Mr. Boots said. “It’s got everything but the steam.”

“And then there’s a lion and a tiger, and another elephant, only this one isn’t white,” Tommy said. “And then there’s another man carrying a torch, to end the parade.
Chattering chimps!
Did you ever see anything like that in your life before?”

“No, I guess I didn’t,” Mr. Boots said. “That’s quite a parade, boys!”

“I wonder why he had all those animals made?” Djuna said as he squinted his eyes to peer at them again. “It seems sort of peculiar for a man to have a lot of animals out on his lawn like that.”

“He was kind of a funny old coot at times,” Mr. Boots said. “He was a great fellah for advertisin’, always tryin’ to get his name an’ the name of his circus in the papers. Maybe that’s one of the reasons. Guess he wanted people who drove by to know what profession he was in. An’ I guess they couldn’t help knowin’ when he used to keep that hedge trimmed and kep’ the animals all painted up so you couldn’t help seein’ ’em. Publicity and press-agentin’ was what kep’ a circus goin’, he told me once.”

“I read someplace that the clowns an’ elephants are the most important things in a circus,” Tommy said.

“Oh, sure, sure!” Mr. Boots agreed. “But there ain’t no sense in havin’ clowns an’ elephants if people don’t
know
you have ’em. You got to get people to come to look at ’em. That’s where the press-agentin’ comes in.”

“Jiminy crimps!” Djuna said suddenly as he stared at the top of the old stone house. “What’s that, Mr. Boots?”

“Eh?” Mr. Boots said sharply. “What’s
what?
“

“
A man
just swung out of one of those trees that hang over the top of the house!” Djuna exclaimed. “He swung out on a limb. I just saw him for a second or two, and then he let go of the limb and shot right into the house, feet first, and disappeared!”

“Now wait a minute, Djuna,” Mr. Boots said, and he bent his head a little to look into Djuna’s face. “What are you doing, stringin’ us again?”

“No, Mr. Boots. Honest!” Djuna said. “
I saw him!
He—he was hanging on a limb, away up in the top of that maple tree—that long limb that reaches out to that central watchtower. He—he swung on it, just like one of those aer—aerial trapeze performers on the circus poster. He swung way out and then he let go and disappeared—right into the watchtower!”

“Now, look a-here, Djuna!” Mr. Boots said, quite severely. “I don’t mind you seein’ elephants, even white ones, an’ giraffes, an’ camels, even if they are only iron, because I know they’re there. But when you begin to see men swingin’ around in the trees, like some kind of an ape, an’ he ain’t iron—that’s goin’ too far!”

“But I
saw
him, Mr. Boots!” Djuna protested. “He—”

“Now, now, Djuna,” Mr. Boots said, and he chuckled and stepped on the starter of the truck. “You’re always seein’ things other people don’t see, but you can’t pull my leg thataway. Anyway, we got to be gettin’ along to pick up my lumber, ’cause I think we’re in for a storm.”

Mr. Boots was still chuckling as he clashed the gears together and the truck started to roll.

At the same instant Tommy Williams leaned over and whispered in Djuna’s ear. “Did you
really
see a man up there?” he asked.

Djuna nodded his head up and down without speaking, to tell Tommy that he had seen a man, but at the same time he pushed himself back on the seat and stared straight ahead, because, after what Mr. Boots had said, he wasn’t so sure himself that he had seen a man swing into the watchtower.

It was four o’clock in the morning, just ten days after Mr. Boots had taken Djuna and Tommy to Riverton, when Miss Annie stole into Djuna’s bedroom, turned on the light and gently shook him.

“Djuna! Djuna!” she said, shaking him again. “It’s time to get up.”

Djuna opened one eye, closed it again, turned over and went back to sleep.

“Djuna!” Miss Annie said—and she didn’t shake him so gently this time— “I can see a light in Tommy Williams’s window, and Mr. Boots is getting his truck out. They’ll—”

“Whassama’er?” Djuna wanted to know as he rolled over and opened his eyes.

“You’re going to Riverton to see the circus come in,” Miss Annie said and she smiled, no doubt remembering the time when she had got up at such an hour to see a circus come in, many years before.

“Jeepers!” Djuna said, and he swept back the sheet and bounced out of bed all in one motion. “Why’n’t you tell me? They haven’t gone, have they?”

“No, they haven’t gone. But you’ve got to have some breakfast.”

“Golly, I don’t believe I could eat anything, Miss Annie,” he said. He was fully awake now, and making a very good imitation of a fireman getting into his clothes. He had laid them all out carefully the night before so that they would be ready and waiting.

“You’ll eat something or you won’t go!” Miss Annie said firmly.

“I could prob’ly get some peanuts over at the circus grounds,” Djuna said and he hid the smile that twisted his lips because he knew just what Miss Annie was going to say in reply.

“Peanuts!” she said. “Glittering glories of Golconda, Djuna! Don’t you go over there and put a lot of trash in your stomach. You’ll be sick and—”

“Oh, I don’t expect to eat a lot of trash,” he said. He was smiling as he stood with his back to Miss Annie. “I thought I’d have just some peanuts and root beer, and maybe some lemonade and popcorn; and, if they have them, some of those taffy kisses, and—”

“Djuna!” Miss Annie snapped. “Unless you promise me you won’t eat a lot of indigestible
junk
, you can’t go.”

“I promise,” Djuna said, and Miss Annie’s eyes began to twinkle as Djuna turned around and she saw the smile on his lips. “I’m going to save what money I have for the side shows.”

“Hurry along, now,” Miss Annie said. “I want you to have some cereal and fruit and a couple of eggs and toast and some milk.”

Djuna had just finished the last of his glass of milk, under Miss Annie’s urging, when Mr. Boots blew his horn out in the road.

“‘By, Miss Annie!” he said as he bounced up and started for the door.

“Now be careful, Djuna,” Miss Annie warned him as he disappeared into the still night, that was broken only by the wheeze of Mr. Boots’s motor.

“Take it easy now, sonny,” Mr. Boots said when Djuna’s foot slipped on the running board and he said, “Ouch!” as he barked his shin.

“Yes, sir,” Djuna said. “Good morning. Is Tommy here? I can’t see.”

“We’ll pick him up over at his house,” Mr. Boots said, and added, “It’s a fine mornin’ for seein’ the circus come in.”