The White Elephant Mystery (5 page)

Then they were inside the marquee that led to the big top, and a moment later were staring up at the great space around them as they stood in the shavings on the hippodrome track and looked up at the flying rig that was being erected in the ring nearest to the main entrance to the tent.

The net underneath the flying rig had already been set up and a man in tights, who was testing it, waved a hand at Spitfire. He was testing its tautness and making sure that all the spreader ropes, or guys, were properly anchored. In a few minutes he came over to the edge, grasping it firmly, and then did a slow somersault over the edge to the ground.

“Hi, Ned!” Spitfire said to him. He raised his eyebrows as he looked at Ned Barrow, his catcher, to ask him if the net was too taut. He knew, only too well, that if the net was too tight it might inflict rope burns, and if a flyer fell into it and struck it at an awkward angle it might throw him up in the air and out on to the ground.

“It’s okay,” Barrow said to Spitfire.

“Where’s Trixie?” Spitfire wanted to know.

Ned Barrow pointed and both Djuna and Tommy turned to see a slim, dark-haired girl with a lovely oval face and large Irish-blue eyes coming toward them. She wore a cape over her practice tights and walked with the ease and grace of a well-trained athlete.

“Oh, Trixie,” Spitfire said as she came up to them. “I want you to know my two pals here, and you, too, Ned. Djuna and Tommy Williams, Ned Barrow and Trixie Cella. Djuna and Tommy are friends of Socker Furlong’s, and offered to come down and give us a few pointers on how to do a ‘flifus’ and a double with a half-twist.”

Djuna and Tommy shook hands with both of the slim performers, although they couldn’t have said anything if their lives had depended on it. They were both wondering what a “flifus” might be.

“Let’s shove!” Spitfire said. Ned Barrow walked around the flying net, because flyers and catchers both have an unbreakable rule never to walk under the net, because it is supposed to be bad luck. He walked around the net and started to take himself up the rope that led to the catch bar, hand over hand.

When he got up to the catch bar, or trapeze, he first just hung by his knees from it, but before he got ready to catch the flyers he circled the ropes that held the trapeze with his legs so that when he caught the flyers by the wrists or the ankles he wouldn’t be pulled off.

“All right, Trixie, let’s go,” Spitfire said to the blue-eyed girl beside him.

“Right, Bill,” she said to Spitfire, and she winked at Djuna and Tommy as she threw off her cape and said, “Want to come along?”

“Oh, no, thank you, ma’am,” Djuna said and when he looked up and saw Ned Barrow swinging back and forth and going higher and higher in the top of the tent he got a little dizzy, and then he felt faint as he stared at Barrow and thought he remembered where he had seen him before.

Trixie Cella walked daintily over to the slender rope ladder with wooden rungs that led upward fifty-five feet to the pedestal board, from which the flyers took off.

At the bottom of the ladder she scraped the dirt off the soles of her cloth pumps and then went up it, grasping only one of the side ropes as she ascended. At the top, when she was on the pedestal board, she took the tiny bag of rosin that was hanging there from a rope and beat it on the palms of her hands, while she kept one arm around a guy for support.

“Swing a little higher, Ned,” Spitfire shouted to Barrow.

Barrow arched his back and thrust his shoulders forward to lengthen the arc of his swing. Trixie Cella stood poised on the end of the pedestal board, holding the bar of her trapeze in both hands.

“All right. Let’s give ’em a double, Trixie,” Spitfire called.

Ned Barrow picked up his swing; and Trixie Cella, when Spitfire called
“Go!”
stepped off into space, swinging outward and upward on her trapeze. When Spitfire called
“Go!”
again, she released the trapeze bar, clasped her knees with her hands and spun over and over in two back somersaults, and then straightened out so that Ned Barrow, hanging head down, caught her wrists. He shifted his grip slightly and then Hip Edwards, another flyer of Spitfire’s troupe who had gone up to the pedestal board to assist Trixie, caught the fly bar with a wire hook after Trixie released it. Hip dropped the fly bar as he watched Ned Barrow’s swing. Trixie did a half-trun as she left the catcher to face the bar. Her hands closed around it and she made several rapid motions with her feet, motions that were known as “cuts,” to lengthen her swing. Then she swung her feet up and came to an easy, relaxed landing on the pedestal board as Hip caught the bar again.

“Jeepers!”
Djuna and Tommy said together as they saw the trim, blue-eyed aerialist land back on the pedestal board safely. That was all they could say. They just stared in speechless admiration until Spitfire brought them out of their trance when he called up to Trixie, “Do a pirouette.”

Trixie, standing on the pedestal board, flung out one hand in a mock appeal for applause, and then, as she grasped the fly bar from Hip, she simulated a drum ruffle to announce that she was going to do a pirouette.

When Spitfire shouted,
“Go!”
she swung out on the bar and brought herself up to a sitting position on it. As he shouted
“Go!”
again she slid off, her legs together, her toes pointed downward, and met Ned Barrow’s hands. Their hands fastened around each other’s wrists and held until Ned was at the end of his forward swing. He let her go and she whirled, holding her hands gracefully near her sides, around once and half, with her body erect and stopped of all vertical movement, and then she took the bar that Hip had dropped.

“Beautiful!” Spitfire called and Djuna and Tommy let out their breath with what sounded like a moan of pain.

The blue-eyed aerialist swung high on the bar, rising within a foot or two of the canvas of the big top, then after putting the bar at her waist, she pushed it away from her and did two slow somersaults on her way down into the net. She dipped her head under, at the last moment, so that she landed on her back, bounced high and climbed down to the ground.

“Jiminy crimps, Mr. Peters,” Djuna said. “This is as good as a whole circus.”

“Glad you like it, Djuna,” Spitfire said as he stepped out of his slacks and revealed the tights he was wearing underneath them. As he pulled off his sweater over his head he was bending over and Djuna couldn’t help seeing a small black object that looked something like a marble, dangling from a stout cord which Spitfire wore around his neck. It had popped out of the top of his tights as he bent over.

When he saw Djuna staring at it, Spitfire, said, “My good-luck piece, Djuna. Some people carry a rabbit’s foot; but I prefer this, because I’ve never had a fall that injured me since I’ve been wearing it.”

He held the little black charm out for Djuna’s closer inspection. When Djuna took it in his hand he saw that it was oblong rather than round, and had a little gold eyelet fastened in the top through which the cord was threaded.

“Golly! That’s a funny luck charm, Mr. Peters,” Djuna said. “But if it brings you good luck I suppose it’s all right.”

“I suppose it is, Djuna,” Spitfire said and he laughed. “Watch me do this triple now, and you’ll believe it brings me good luck.”

He ran over to the slender rope ladder and went up it carefully to the pedestal board. Ned Barrow was sitting up on his trapeze, getting a rest until Spitfire reached the pedestal board, when he swung down again to hang with his legs twisted around the ropes of the catch bar.

Spitfire timed himself this time and as Barrow reached a certain point in his swing he shouted
“Go!”
to himself as he went off the pedestal board on the fly bar. At the top of his own swing he shouted
“Go!”
again and released the bar. Just as Trixie Cella had done, he clasped his knees with his hands and did three rapid somersaults before his hands slapped on Ned Barrow’s wrists as Ned caught him.

Cheers and applause filled the big tent as the two performers swung back and forth. All work in the big top had stopped as they watched Spitfire do his triple somersault.

Spitfire swung back to the pedestal board as gracefully as he had gone off it and called to Ned Barrow, “That’ll be all for today, Ned.”

Then he dove straight off the pedestal board into the net below, dipping his head under a moment before he reached it. There was a sigh of relief from the workers this time as he bounced high in the air, grasped the edge when he landed, and turned a slow somersault to the ground.

“Gee whitakers, Mr. Peters,” Tommy Williams said when Spitfire came over beside them to slip back into his sweater and slacks, “that was just wonderful!” He hesitated for a moment and then he blurted, “Do you suppose
I
could ever learn to do those tricks?”

“Why not, Tommy?” Spitfire wanted to know. “I had to learn ’em. But you’d have to start pretty quick or you’d be too old. I started when I was three years old. It just takes knowledge and skill. That’s all.”

“Jeepers, Mr. Peters,” Djuna said. “I guess that’s enough. I don’t think I could learn to do those things in a million years. I—” He broke off and added: “Here comes Mr. Grant, the man who owns the circus.”

Spitfire had been grinning at the two boys while he talked to them but as Djuna announced that Mr. Grant was coming he couldn’t help noticing the way Spitfire’s grin vanished, to be replaced by an expression that was far from pleasant.

He bent his head, took off the cloth pumps he was wearing, stuck them in his pocket and put on a pair of brogues. He didn’t look up as Mr. Grant stopped beside them and said, “Everything going all right, boys?” to Djuna and Tommy.

“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” Tommy exploded. “If I see very many more such—such
wonderful
things, I’ll prob’ly gust a basket!”

Mr. Grant looked puzzled for a moment and then he threw back his head and roared with laughter as Djuna explained, “He intended to say he’ll prob’ly bust a gasket.”

“I—I know what he intended to say,” Mr. Grant said. He burst into laughter again and Djuna saw that Spitfire had relaxed the set expression on his face and was smiling at Tommy’s outburst, too.

“Well, have a good time,” Mr. Grant said, and he motioned at the man with him and started to go on.

“Oh, Mr. Grant,” Spitfire said suddenly as he straightened up. “Could I speak with you for a moment?”

“What’s on your mind, Peters?” Mr. Grant asked in a cold voice as he stopped and measured Spitfire with equally cold eyes.

“The last time we played Riverton,” Spitfire said hesitantly, “I left some things at your father’s house. Some personal things and some papers. I know where they are, in an upstairs closet. If you’ll let me know when you’re going to be there sometime during the week I’d like to get them.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be there, Peters,” Mr. Grant said. “I don’t know whether I’ll be there at all. I don’t even have a key to the place. My father’s lawyer is coming to see me this evening and he’ll probably have a key to the house. I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Mr. Grant,” Spitfire said, and then as though encouraged by Mr. Grant’s friendly reply he added, “I wish you’d reconsider your decision to skip those five towns we were supposed to play this week. They’ve all been billed and the people in those cities, the kids and the grownups, expect us to play there. It’s going to give us a black eye all through the profession if we don’t play them. The show always goes on, Mr. Grant. It’s a sort of a sacred thing with circus people. Unless you have a major catastrophe, you stick to your billing. I—”

“All right, Peters,” Mr. Grant snapped. “I’m running this show now. Because my father made you an assistant manager when he was getting too old to handle things himself doesn’t give you any authority now. I’m going to run this show
my
way, and the first thing I’m going to do is lay over here for a few days to get the hang of the thing and know how to do it. If you want to cancel your contract and get out, go ahead and do it. I’ll give you a release. But I don’t want to hear any more advice from you. I’ll run this show my way or I won’t run it at all.”

“Maybe, Mr. Grant,” Spitfire said quietly, “in a few days you
won’t
be running it!”

“What do you mean by that, Peters?” Mr. Grant snarled. “Are you threatening me?”

“No,” Spitfire said through clenched teeth. “I’m not threatening you, Mr. Grant. I’m just telling you.”

“See you later, boys,” Mr. Grant said to Djuna and Tommy, and in spite of the anger that had flared in his eyes a moment before he waved a jaunty hand at them and smiled as he walked away without answering Spitfire.

“That big swine!” Ned Barrow, the catcher, said as Mr. Grant moved away.

“Forget it, Ned!” Spitfire said sharply. “It’s my battle.” Then he smiled at Ned Barrow and added, “That was nice catching this morning, Ned. What was the matter with you last night? You had me worried.”

“I think it was the light,” Barrow said slowly. “There was a reflection that caught me right in the eyes and I couldn’t see you. I’ll check it before the performance tonight.”

An electric organ blared from somewhere in the big top and drowned out Spitfire’s reply.

“Hey! Where’s that guy Socker?” Spitfire asked when he could make himself heard. “He said he’d come along and pick you boys up.”

“Oh, he’ll be along, Mr. Peters,” Djuna said. “Don’t you wait here because of us. We’ll stay right here and he’ll be along soon.”

“You won’t go away?”

“Oh no, sir! We’ll just wander around the tent and keep out of the way. We’ll see him when he comes,” said Djuna.

“All right, boys. I’ll pedal along then,” Spitfire told them. “I’ll see you later.”

Djuna and Tommy said good-by to Mr. Barrow, the catcher, also, and looked around to say good-by to Trixie Cella, but she had already disappeared.

After Spitfire had disappeared, too, they wandered down the hippodrome track and watched a powerful man with bulging muscles practice on two stationary horizontal bars, doing giant swings and other things that made their eyes bulge, while workmen swarmed through the big top, each with his own appointed task.