The White Elephant Mystery (23 page)

Both Djuna and Tommy were watching him with astonishment in their eyes and amazement stamped on their faces. Then Dr. Hammer laughed and said to himself, “Now take it easy, Hammer. Take it easy! The first thing you know, you’ll blow a tank!”

Neither of the boys could think of any reply to make to a man who was talking to himself, so they didn’t say anything. They just continued to stare at him.

“I’ll tell you what, boys,” he went on in a moment. “I don’t know where to find that harness Mrs. Pulham told you about, and”—He stopped speaking to peer in the window of the cat’s carrying bag and as he did it the cat spit at him with a ferocity that caused him to jump backward about four feet. After he had wiped the startled expression from his face he continued—“and if I did,” he said vehemently, “I wouldn’t lance that cat’s tooth for a month’s rent. But don’t tell Mrs. Pulham that. Tell her I don’t have my instruments sterilized and I’d be afraid, for the cat’s sake, to touch it without sterilized instruments. You explain it to her in a nice way for me and I’ll be very much obliged. And suggest to her that she take the cat to a vet.”

“But there isn’t any vet in Dolphin Beach,” Djuna said. “That’s why Mrs. Pulham sent the cat to you. She said she couldn’t afford to take the cat to Fort Laurel to a vet.”

“You tell her to take the cat to a vet in Fort Laurel and I’ll pay her expenses,” Dr. Hammer said. “Tell her just to add whatever it costs to the amount I owe her for her husband’s instruments and equipment. Now, do you think you can remember that? Tell her I’m terribly sorry. Oh, heck, tell her to go soak—Tell her I’m sorry!”

“Yes, sir,” Tommy said, but he continued to stare at Dr. Hammer in amazement because of his outburst. Djuna didn’t say anything. He was looking at Dr. Hammer with a great deal of wonder in his brown eyes.

“Good-by, now,” Dr. Hammer said, and he managed to maneuver the boys out the door and had closed and locked it behind them before they were quite aware of what he was doing.

They were both silent as they went back down the stairs to the arcade. When they were out on the street, Tommy said,
“Jiminy crimps!
What’s the matter with him, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Djuna replied, “but he certainly acts awful funny.” Then he began to laugh. “For one thing, I think he was awful scared of Tootler.”

When they arrived back at Mrs. Pulham’s she was waiting on the front porch for them again. They both hated to face her wrath when they told her that Dr. Hammer wouldn’t lance Tootler’s tooth. But they had to do it, so they told her, each helping the other, while they watched the storm clouds gather on her face. When she had asked them a couple of questions Mrs. Pulham said wrathfully, “So, I’m to add my expenses to Fort Laurel to what he
already
owes me? I’ll probably never see
any
of it! Why, I have a good notion to go down there and use some of those instruments to yank out
his
teeth—all of them—every single one!” Then she got control of her anger and said, “But I promised you some lemonade and cake. Here’s a fifty-cent piece for each of you and the cake and lemonade are all ready. I’ll get them. What’s the matter?”

Both Djuna and Tommy drew away from the half dollars she was extending to them and Djuna said, “No, ma’am. We’d rather not take them, because he wouldn’t lance Tootler’s tooth. We—”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Pulham exploded. “Take ’em or I’ll turn Tootler loose on you!”

Djuna and Tommy each took one of the half dollars reluctantly and a few moments later they were eating some very fine chocolate layer cake and washing it down with cool, refreshing lemonade. While they ate it, Mrs. Pulham told them she would get a taxi and take Tootler to Fort Laurel that afternoon, and if Dr. Hammer didn’t repay her, she said, she would skin him alive.

“Now drop in tomorrow to see me, if you get time, and I’ll have some more cake and lemonade for you and tell you about Tootler,” she said as Tommy pushed off from her front steps with Djuna on the handlebars.

“Hoddy doddy!” said Tommy when they got down the street. “That was swell cake! I hope it won’t interfere with what Mom is going to have for lunch.”

It didn’t. By the time they arrived at the Williams home their appetites were as good as new. After they had washed, Mrs. Williams said Mr. Williams wouldn’t be home for lunch and they could eat any time they were ready.

“Any time,”
they said eagerly and in unison.

“It isn’t anything special,” Mrs. Williams said. “Except I wanted you to try a new sauce I’ve learned how to make, Djuna. I know Miss Annie is an awfully good cook, so—”

“So are you an awfully good cook, Mom,” Tommy said.

“Thank you, Tommy,” said Mrs. Williams. “This is a fish sauce. I learned how to make it because every time you ask anyone how to cook fish down here they say ‘pan-fry it.’ I’m so sick of pan-fried fish that I can’t stand the sight of it. They fry everything down here until the whole state smells like a fish fry.”

“What kind of sauce is it, Mom?” Tommy asked.

“Mornay,” Mrs. Williams said as she took two poached fish fillets out of the oven and put them on two plates. “It’s just a plain cream sauce with Gruyère and Parmesan cheese mixed with it, and a little butter, while it’s very, very hot.” She poured some of the sauce over the two poached fillets and then gave them each a salad made of tender hearts of cabbage palms and put her own special dressing on them.

Both of the boys tasted the fish fillets with the Mornay sauce on it and their eyes opened almost as wide as they had while they listened to Dr. Hammer’s outburst. Then they smacked their lips and Tommy exclaimed, “Jeepers, that would make a turkish towel taste good!”

“I bet I could even eat a leather belt if it had this sauce on it!” Djuna declared.

“Well, I’m glad you like it,” said Mrs. Williams, “because now I’ll never spoil another fish by frying it.”

D
JUNA
was pedaling Tommy’s bicycle and Tommy was riding on the handlebars when they reached the business section of town on the way to the beach. Mrs. Williams had made them rest for a half hour after luncheon so that there wouldn’t be any danger that they would get cramps when they went swimming. “Maybe it’s an old-fashioned idea,” she told them, “but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Phew!” Djuna puffed as they reached the Hamilton Block, “I’m bushed. Do you want to pedal for a while?”

“Sure,” Tommy said, and Djuna came to a halt beside the curb across from the Dolphin Beach Bank. “But let’s go over and see Bobby Herrick first.”

“Who’s he?” Djuna wanted to know.

“A kid I go to school with,” said Tommy. “He’s my best friend down here. He’s making some extra money during vacation as a pin-boy over at the bowling alleys.”

“Okay with me,” Djuna said. “Can we go in to see him? I’ve never been inside a bowling alley.”

“Oh, sure,” Tommy said. They parked Tommy’s bicycle at the curb and darted across the street while the light on the corner was red.

Djuna was dazzled by the streamlined chromium trim and the fluorescent lighting as Tommy led him into the bowling alleys. Only two of the eight alleys were being used at the moment and on one of them the bowlers were using duckpins, so the noise was not too great.

“Hi, Bobby,” Tommy called to a sturdy, good-looking boy of about his own age who was sitting where the pin-boys sat when they weren’t working.

“Hi,” Bobby answered as he rose and came toward them with a fetching smile on his face.

“This is my friend, Djuna, from Edenboro,” Tommy said, and then politely added, “Robert Herrick.”

Both Djuna and Robert mumbled something as they shook hands and then Djuna said, as he watched one of the bowling balls strike the pins and send them crashing into the pit, “I should think those pins would knock your head off when they come flying back there.” Bobby laughed.

“Oh, there’s a padded thing where they land and we hop up on a shelf above it,” Bobby said. “Nobody ever gets hit. Do you know how to bowl?”

“No,” Djuna admitted. “This is the first time I’ve ever been in a bowling alley. I’ve looked in at the windows but I’ve never been inside one. Is it hard to learn?”

“It takes practice, just like anything else,” Bobby said seriously. “You have to learn how to swing the ball right and remember to follow through, so you will have control and accuracy—they’re the most important.”

“Does everyone bowl alike?” Djuna asked.

“Oh, no,” said Robert. “Some people throw a straight ball but most
good
bowlers throw a hook ball because it’s the easiest to throw. A straight ball carries away the pins in front of it and whatever pins happen to be knocked over; but a hook ball hits the pins at a better angle and its spin knocks over more of them.”

“I guess it does take a lot of practice,” Djuna said in an awed voice.

“Sometimes Dr. Hammer—he’s a dentist upstairs—comes down and practices for an hour at a time to smooth out his swing. He has me just set up the Five pin and throws at that. He throws a hook shot, and oh boy, can he hook them in there between the One and Three pins!”

“Which pins are they?” Tommy asked.

“One is the first pin and Three is the next one on the right,” Bobby explained. “If you hook the ball in between them it is aimed right at the Five pin—that’s the center pin in the third row. If your ball goes in the One-Three pocket you usually knock over
all
the pins and get a strike.”

“You certainly know a lot about it,” Djuna said with proper respect. “How much does a strike count?”

“Ten points, plus all the pins you get on your next two balls in the next frame,” Bobby said. “If you don’t get all the pins with your first ball but get the rest of them with your second ball you get what they call a spare. For a spare you get ten, too, plus all the pins you get with your
first
ball in the next frame. Dr. Hammer comes in and practices for spares, too. He has me set up the Seven pin and throws at it for a while and then switches and has me set up the Ten pin and throws at that. They’re the corner pins in the last row and the ones that you usually need to get on your second ball for a spare.”

“Dr. Hammer must be a bowling nut,” Tommy said.

“He is, kind of,” Bobby said. “He told me he took an office in this building so he could be right close to the bowling alleys. He has his own special ball he had made.”

“Is it here now?” Djuna asked with interest. “Could we see it?”

“Sure,” Bobby said. “It’s over here on the rack. But be sure you don’t drop it.”

He led them over to a rack on which there were several canvas bags holding private bowling balls. He took down the one that had Dr. Hammer’s name on a tag attached to it and opened the zipper. First he took out a pair of elkskin bowling shoes and said, “He has his own special shoes, too.” Then he inserted his fingers in the holes of the composition ball inside and pulled it out of its carrying bag. The eyes of all three of the boys were shining with admiration as they inspected the mottled jade-green beauty of the ball.

“How much does it weigh?” Tommy asked.

“Sixteen pounds,” Bobby said.

“And it’s made special, just to fit him?” Djuna asked.

“Sure,” Bobby told him. “Its drilling—the finger-holes— are curved and matched exactly to his grip. And see,” he added, indicating a number on the ball, “it has a registered number for identification.”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” Djuna said. “How do they measure it so it just fits his grip?”

“In that grip-fitter over there,” Bobby said, pointing. “C’m’ere, I’ll show you.” They moved over before a composition grip-fitter ball that stood on a special rack. “You put your thumb in this place here,” Bobby explained as he handed Dr. Hammer’s ball to Djuna, “and then spread your fingers until you find the right holes for your two middle fingers. Then they measure with those round gadgets down to one thirty-secondth of an inch. It
has
to be right when they’re through with it.”

“I’d hate to drop this on my toe,” Djuna said, as he hefted Dr. Hammer’s heavy ball.

“I guess I better put it back,” Bobby said. “Dr. Hammer might come in.” He took the ball back and put it in its canvas bag with Dr. Hammer’s elkskin bowling shoes, and put the canvas bag back on the rack.

“Hey, what about coming over to the beach with us for a swim?” Tommy asked Bobby.

“I can’t, this afternoon.” Bobby grinned. “But maybe I can tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Tommy said. They flipped their hands at one another and Tommy and Djuna departed.

“Jiminy crimps,” Djuna said. “Bobby certainly knows a lot about bowling.”

“Yeah,” said Tommy. “He knows a lot—period. He’s the best student in my grade.”

There were two men dressed in work clothes standing in front of the directory on the wall as the two boys came out of the bowling alleys. Between them stood an upright hand truck that contained a metal cylindrical tank. They were staring up at the building directory and as Djuna and Tommy came opposite them one of the men turned and said, “Hey, bud, do you know is there a Dr. Hammer in this building?”

“Yes, there is,” Tommy said. “He’s on the top floor, on the left-hand side.”

“Whyn’t they put his handle on the direc’ry, then?” one of the men said peevishly.

“I wouldn’t know,” Tommy answered as he and Djuna started toward the street. Djuna was frowning as he looked back over his shoulder at the two men, now making their way toward the stairs at the back of the arcade with the tank for Dr. Hammer. Then he turned to stare at them, until Tommy, who had walked on ahead, called back, “Come on, for Pete’s sake! It’ll be time to go home before we even get to the beach!”

“That’s
funny,”
Djuna said to himself, and then he ran after Tommy.

Ten minutes later they left Tommy’s bike on the beach parking lot. Down on the beach they shed their Basque shirts and sneakers and a few moments later they were at the edge of the surf. The waves were about three feet high as they came crashing in on the beach. When Djuna saw a woman come up gasping after a wave had rolled her over and over he looked back over his shoulder at the tanned life guard who sat in his little tower back from the water’s edge, and then he looked at Tommy. “How do you get out where you can swim, without getting rolled around like that?” he asked.