Course, I was sayin' it mostly to kid Vee along. I expect I'm nearly as strong for this suburban life stuff as she is, but whenever she gets a bit gushy about it, which she's apt to such nights as we've been havin' recent, with the moon full and the summer strikin' its first stride, I'm apt to let on that I feel different.
You see, she'd towed me out on the back terrace to smell how sweet the honeysuckle was and watch the moon sail up over the tall locust trees beyond the vegetable garden.
"Isn't it a perfectly gorgeous night, Torchy?" says she. "And doesn't everything look so calm and peaceful out here?"
"May look that way," says I, "but you never can tell. I like the country in the daytime all right, but at night, especially these moony ones,--Well, I don't know as I'll ever get used to 'em."
"How absurd, Torchy!" says Vee.
"Makes things look so kind of spooky," I goes on. "All them shadows. How do you know what's behind 'em? And so many queer noises. There! Listen to that!"
"Silly!" says she. "That's a tree-toad. I hope you aren't afraid of that."
"Not if he's a tame one," says I. "But how can you tell he ain't wild? And there comes a whirry-buzzin' noise."
"Yes," says she. "A motor coming down the macadam. There, it's turned into our road! Perhaps someone coming to see us, Goosie."
Sure enough, it was. A minute later Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ellins were givin' us the hail out front. It seems they'd come to pick us up to make a call with them on some new neighbors.
"Who?" asks Vee.
"You couldn't guess," says Mrs. Robert. "The Zoscos."
"Really!" says Vee. "I thought they were----"
"Yes," chimes in Mrs. Robert, "I suppose they are, too. Rather impossible. But I simply must try that big pipe organ I hear they've put in. Bob thinks it's an awful thing to do. See how shocked he looks. But I've promised not to stay more than half an hour if the movie magnate is in anything more startling than a placid after-dinner state, or if the place is cluttered up with too many screen favorites. And I think Bob wants Torchy to go along as bodyguard. So won't you both come? What do you say?"
Trust Vee for takin' a dare. She'll try anything once. I expect she'd been some curious all along to see what this new Mrs. Zosco looked like. "What was it you said she used to be called, Torchy?" she demands.
"'Myrtle Mapes, the Girl With the Million Dollar Smile,' was the way she was billed," says I. "But them press agents don't care what they say half the time. And maybe she only smiles that way when the camera's set for a close-up."
"I don't care," says Vee. "I think it would be great fun to go."
As for me, I didn't mind, one way or the other. I'd seen this Andres Zosco party plenty of times, ridin' back and forth on the train. He'd even offered to pick me up in his limousine and give me a lift once when I was hikin' up from the station. And I must say he wasn't just my idea of a plute movie producer.
Nothin' imposin' about Mr. Zosco. Hardly. Kind of a dumpy, short-legged party, with a round smooth face, sort of mild brown eyes, and his hair worn in a skinned diamond effect. You'd never take him for a guy who'd go out and buy a Hudson River steamer and blow it up just for the sake of gettin' a thousand feet of film, or put on a mob scene with enough people to fill Times Square like an election night. No. He was usually readin' seed catalogues and munchin' salted peanuts out of a paper bag.
It was early last spring that he'd bought this Villa Nova place, a mile or so beyond the Ellinses, and moved out with the bride he'd picked out of his list of screen stars. I don't know whether he expected the Piping Rock crowd to fall for him or not. Anyway, they didn't. They just shuddered when his name was mentioned and stayed away from Villa Nova same as they had when that Duluth copper plute, who'd built the freak near-Moorish affair, tried the same act. But it didn't look like the Zoscos meant to be frozen out so easy. After being lonesome for a month or so they begun fillin' their 20 odd bedrooms with guests of their own choosin'. Course, some of 'em that I saw arrivin' looked a bit rummy, but it was plain the Zoscos didn't intend to bank on the neighbors for company. Maybe they didn't want us crashin' in either, as Mr. Robert suggests.
You couldn't worry Mrs. Robert with hints like that, though. She's a good mixer. Besides, if she'd made up her mind to play that new pipe organ you could pretty near bet she'd do it. So inside of three minutes she had us loaded into the car and off we rolls to surprise the Zoscos.
Villa Nova, you know, is perched on the top of quite a sizable hill, with a private road windin' up from the Pike. As you swing in you pass an odd-shaped vine-covered affair that I suppose was meant for a gate-keeper's lodge, though it looks like a stucco tower that had been dropped off some storage warehouse.
Well, we'd just made the turn and Mr. Robert had gone into second to take the grade when I gets a glimpse of somebody doin' a hasty duck into the shrubbery; a slim, skinny party with a plaid cap pulled down over his eyes so far that his ears stuck out on either side like young wings. What struck me as kind of odd, though, was his jumpin' away from the door of the lodge as the car swung in and the fact that he had a basket covered with a white cloth.
"Huh!" says I, more or less to myself.
"What's the matter?" asks Vee. "Seeing things in the moonlight?"
"Thought I did," says I. "Didn't you, there by the gate!"
"Oh, yes," says she. "Some lilac bushes."
And not being any too sure of just what I had seen I let it ride at that. Besides, there wasn't time for any lengthy debate. Next thing I knew we'd pulled up under the porte cochère and was pilin' out. We finds the big double doors wide open and the pink marble entrance hall all lit up brilliant. Grouped in the middle of it, in front of a fountain banked with ferns, are about a dozen people who seem to be chatterin' away earnest and excited.
"Why, how odd!" says Mrs. Robert, hesitatin' with her thumb on the bell button.
"Looks like a fam'ly caucus," says I. "Maybe they heard we were coming and are taking a vote to see whether they let us in or bar us out."
I could make out Andres Zosco in the center of the bunch wearin' a silk-faced dinner coat and chewin' nervous on a fat black cigar. Also I could guess that the tall chemical blonde at his right must be the celebrated Myrtle Mapes that used to smile on us from so many billboards. To the left was a huge billowy female decorated generous with pearl ropes and ear pendants. Then there was a funny little old guy in a cutaway and a purple tie, a couple of squatty, full-chested women dressed as fancy as a pair of plush sofas, a maid or so, and a pie-faced scared-lookin' gink that it was easy to guess must be the butler. Everybody had been so busy talkin' that they hadn't heard us swarm up the steps.
"I say," whispers Mr. Robert, "hadn't we better call it off?"
"And never know what is going on?" protests Vee. "Certainly not. I'm going to knock." Which she does.
"There!" says I. "You've touched off the panic."
For a minute it looked like she had, too, for most of 'em jumps startled, or clutches each other by the arm. Then they sort of surges towards the doorway, Zosco in the lead.
I expect he must have recognized some of us for he indulges in a cackly, throaty laugh and then waves us in cordial. "Excuse me," says he. "I--thought it might be somebody else. Mr. Ellins, isn't it? Pleased to meet you. Come right in, all of you."
And after we've been introduced sketchy all round Mr. Robert remarks that he's afraid we haven't picked just the right time to pay a call. "We--we are interrupting a family council or something, aren't we?" he asks.
"Oh, glad to have you," says Zosco. "It's nothing secret, and perhaps you can help us out. We're a little upset, for a fact. It's about my brother Jake. He's been visiting us, him and his wife, for the past week. Maybe you've seen him ridin' round in the limousine--short, thick-set party, good deal like me, only a few years younger."
Mr. Robert shakes his head. "Sorry," says he, "but I don't recall----"
"Oh, likely you wouldn't notice him," goes on Zosco. "Nothing fancy about Jake, plain dresser and all that. But what gets us is how he could have lost himself for so long."
"Lost!" echoes Mr. Robert.
"Well, he's gone, anyway," says Zosco. "Disappeared. Since after dinner last night and----"
"Oh, Jake, Jake!" wails the billowy female with the pearl ropes.
"There, there, Matilda!" put in Zosco. "Never mind the sob stuff now. He's all right somewhere, of course. He'll turn up in time. Bound to. It ain't as if he was some wild young sport. Steady as a church, Jake. No bad habits to speak of. Not one of the kind to go slippin' into town on a spree. Not him. And never carries around much ready money or jewelry. No holdup men out here, anyway."
"But--but he's gone!" moans Matilda.
"Sure he is," admits Zosco. "Maybe back to Saginaw. Something might have happened at the store. Or he might have got word that some cloak and suit jobber was closing out his fall goods at a sacrifice and got so busy in town making the deal that he forgot to let us know. That would be Jake, all right, if he saw a chance of turnin' over a few thousands."
"Would he go bareheaded, and without his indigestion tablets?" demands Mrs. Jake.
"If it was another bargain like that lot of army raincoats, he'd go in his pajamas," says Zosco.
But Matilda shakes her head. She's sure something awful has happened to Jake. Now that she thinks it over she believes he must have had something on his mind. Hadn't they noticed how restless he'd been for the past few days? Yes, both the squatty women had. And the funny little guy in the long-tailed cutaway brought up how Jake had quit playing billiards with him, even after he'd offered to start him 20 up.
"But that don't mean anything," says Zosco. "Jake never could play billiards anyway. Hates it. He's no sport at all, except maybe when it comes to pinochle. He's all for business. Don't know how to take a real vacation like a gentleman. I'm always telling him that."
Gradually we'd all drifted into the big drawin' room, but Jake continues to be the general topic. We couldn't help but get kind of interested in him, too. When a middle-aged storekeeper from Saginaw gets up from dinner, wanders out into a quiet, respectable community like ours, and disappears like he'd dropped from a manhole or been swished off on an airplane it's enough to set you guessin'. By askin' a few questions we got the whole life history of Jake, from the time he left Lithuania as a boy until he was last seen gettin' a light for his cigar from the butler. We got all his habits outlined; how he always slept with a corner of the sheet over his right ear, couldn't eat strawberries without breaking out in blotches, and could hardly be dragged out to see a show or go to an evening party where there were ladies. Yet here on a visit to Villa Nova he goes and strays off like he'd lost his mind, or gets himself kidnapped, or worse.
"Why," says Mr. Robert, "it sounds like a real mystery, almost a case for a Sherlock Holmes."
I don't know why, either, but just then he glances at me. "By Jove!" he goes on. "Here you are, Torchy. What do you make out of this?"
"Me?" says I. "Just about what you do, I expect."
"Oh, come!" says he. "Put that rapid fire brain of yours to work. Try him, Mr. Zosco. I've known him to unravel stranger things than this. I would even venture to say that he has hit on a clue while we've been talking."
Course, a good deal of it is Mr. Robert's josh. He's always springin' that line. But Zosco, after he's looked me over keen, shrugs his shoulders doubtful. Mrs. Jake, though, is ready to grab at anything.
"Can you find him?" she asks, starin' at me. "Will you, young man?"
Also I gets an encouragin', admirin' glance from Vee. That settles it. I was bound to make some sort of play after that. Besides, I did have kind of a vague hunch.
"I ain't promisin' anything," says I, "but I'll give it a whirl. First off though, maybe you can tell me what youth around the place wears a black-and-white checked cap?"
That gets a quick rise out of the former Myrtle Mapes, now Mrs. Zosco. "Why--why," says she, "my brother Ellery does."
"That's so," put in Zosco. "Where is the youngster?"
"Ellery?" says Myrtle, givin' him that innocent baby-doll look. "Oh, he must be in his room. I--I will look."
"Never mind," says I. "Probably he is. It doesn't matter. Visiting here, too, eh? How long? About two weeks. And he comes from----"
"From my old home, Shelby, North Carolina," says she. "But he isn't the one who's missing, you know."
"That's so," says I. "Gettin' off the track, wasn't I? Shows what a poor sleuth I am. And now if I can have the missing man's hat I'll do a little scoutin' round outside."
"His hat!" grumbles Zosco. "What do you want with that?"
"Why," says I, "if I find anyone it fits it's likely to be Jake, ain't it?"
"Of course," says Matilda. "Here it is," and she hands me a seven and three-quarters hard boiled lid with his initials punched in the sweat band.
That move gave 'em something to chew over anyway, and kind of took their minds off what I'd been askin' about Ellery. For after hearin' about him I knew I hadn't been mistaken about seein' somebody down by the lodge. That's right where I makes for.
As I gets to the bottom of the hill I slips through the hedge and walks on the grass so if there should be anyone at the gate they wouldn't hear me. And say, that was a reg'lar hunch I'd collected. Standing there in the moonlight is the youth in the checked cap.
Near as I can make out he's a narrow-chested, loose-jawed young hick of 19 or 20 and costumed a good deal like a village sport. You know--slit coat pockets, a high turn-up to his trousers, bunion-toed shoes, and a necktie that must have been designed by a wall-paper artist who'd been shell-shocked. On his left arm he has a basket partly covered by a napkin. Also he's just handin' something in through a little window about a foot above his head.
Course, it don't take any super-brain to guess that there must be another party inside the lodge. What would Ellery be passin' stuff through the window for if there wasn't? And anybody inside couldn't very well get out, for the only door is a heavy, iron-studded affair padlocked on the outside and the little window is covered with an ornamental iron grill. Besides, as I edges up closer, I hears talking going on. It sounds like the inside party is grumblin' over something or other. His voice sounds hoarse and indignant, but I can't get what it's all about. When the youth in the checked cap gave him the come-back though it was clear enough.
"Aw, shut up, you big stiff!" says he. "You're lucky to get cold chicken and bread and jam. Where do you think I'm goin' to get hot coffee for you, anyway? Ain't I runnin' a chance as it is, swipin' this out of the ice-box after the servants leave? It's more'n you deserve, you crook."
More grumbles from inside.
"Yah, I got the cigars," says the other, "but you don't get 'em until you pass out them dishes. Think I can stick around here all night? And remember, one peep to your pals, or to anyone else, and my trusty guards will start shootin' through the window. Hey? How long? Until we get 'em all into the net. So you might as well quit your belly-achin' and confess."
It was a more or less entertainin' dialogue but I thought I'd enjoy it more if I could hear both sides. So I was workin' my way through the bushes with my ear stretched until I was within almost a yard of the window when I steps on a dry branch that cracks like a cap pistol. In a flash the youth has dropped the basket and whirled on me with a long carvin' knife. Which was my cue for quick action.
"'Sall right, Ellery," says I. "Friend."
"What friend?" he demands, starin' at me suspicious.
"You know," says I, whisperin' mysterious.
"Oh!" says he. "From Headquarters?"
"You've said it," says I.
"But--but how can I tell," he goes on, "that you ain't----"
"Look!" says I, throwin' back my coat and runnin' my thumb under the armhole of my vest.
Sure it worked. Why, if you flash a nickel-plated suspender buckle quick enough you can pass it for a badge even by daylight.
"I didn't think you'd get my letter so soon," says Ellery. "I'm glad you came, though. See, I've got one of the gang already. He's the ringleader, too."
"Fine work!" says I. "But what's the plot of the piece? You didn't make that so clear. Is it a case of----"
"Hist!" says Ellery. "I ain't told him how much I know. Let's get off where he can't hear. Back in the bushes there."
And when we've circled the lodge and put some shrubbery between us and the road Ellery consents to open up.
"They're tryin' to do away with Sister Maggie," says he. "You know who she is--Mrs. Andres Zosco?"
"But I thought she was Myrtle Mapes," says I.
"Ah, that's only her screen name," says Ellery. "It was Maggie Bean back in Shelby, where we come from. And she was Maggie Bean when she went to New York and got that job as a stenog. in old Zosco's office. It was him that gave her a chance to act in the movies, you know. Guess she made good, eh? And then Zosco got so stuck on her that he married her. Well, that was all right, too. Course, he's an old pill, but he's got all kinds of dough. Rollin' in it. Maggie's done a lot for the fam'ly, too. Gave me a flivver all for myself last Christmas; took me out of the commission house and started me in at high school again. She's right there with the check book, Maggie.
"That's what makes them other Zoscos so sore--that Brother Jake and his wife. See? They'd planned all along comin' in for most of his pile themselves. Most likely meant to put him out of the way. But when they comes on and finds the new wife--Well, the game is blocked. It would go to her. So they starts right in to get rid of Maggie. I hadn't been in the house a day before I'd doped that out. I knew there was a plot on to do Maggie."
"You don't say!" says I. "How?"
"Slow poison, I expect," says Ellery. "In her coffee, maybe. Anyway, it had begun to work. Maggie was mopin' around. I found her cryin'. I spotted Jake Zosco right off. You can tell just by lookin' at him that he's that kind. Besides, he acts suspicious. Always prowlin' around restless. Then there's the butler. He's in it, too. I caught him and Jake whisperin' together. I don't know how many more. Some of the maids, maybe, and most likely a few men on the outside. They might be plannin' to stage a jewel robbery with a double murder and lay it all onto unknown burglars. Get me?"
"Uh-huh!" says I. "But how much have you got on Brother Jake? And how did you come to get him locked up here?"
"Oh, I had the goods on Jake, all right," says Ellery. "After I saw him confabbin' with that crook butler the other night I shadows him constant. I was on his trail when he sneaks down here after dinner. I saw him unlock the lodge house. I heard him fumblin' around inside. Then I slips up and locks him in. Half an hour later down comes the butler and two others of the gang, but when they sees me they beats it. I expect they'd try to rescue him, if they thought he was there. And they may find out any minute."
"That's right," says I. "Lucky I came out just as I did. There's only one thing to do."
"What's that?" asks Ellery.
"Lug Jake up to the house, confront him with the butler, tell 'em they're both pinched, and give 'em the third degree," says I. "You'll see. One or the other will break down and tell the whole plot."
"Say!" gasps Ellery. "Wouldn't that be slick! Just the way they do in the movie dramas, eh?"
I had to smother a chuckle when that came out, for I'd already recognized some of the symptoms of a motion picture mind while Ellery was sketchin' out this wild tale.
"Go to the movies much down in Shelby?" I asks.
"Most every night," says Ellery. "I used to even before Maggie got into the game. Begun goin' when I was 'leven. At first I was strong for this Wild West stuff, but no more. Give me a good crook drama with a big punch in every reel. They're showin' some corkers lately. I've seen 'em about all. That's how I come to get wise to this plot of Jake Zosco's. Come on! Got your wrist irons ready for him?"
"Oh, I never use the bracelets unless I have to," says I. "I expect he'll toddle along meek enough when he sees the two of us."
I hadn't overstated the case much at that. Course, Jake Zosco has developed more or less of a grouch durin' his 36 hours of solitary confinement, but when Ellery orders him to march out with his hands up he comes right along.
"What foolishness now, you young rough necker?" he demands.
"You'll soon find out how foolish it is," says Ellery. "You're in the hands of the law."
"Wha-a-at!" gasps Jake. "For such a little thing as that? It--it can't be. Who says it of me?"
"Isn't this your hat?" says I, handin' him the hail-proof kelly. "It is, eh? Then you're the one. Come on, now. Right up to the house."
"It's a foolishness," he protests. "In Saginaw it couldn't be done."
All the way up the hill he mutters and grumbles but he keeps on going. Not until he gets near enough to get a glimpse of all the people in the drawin'-room does he balk.
"Matilda and all!" says he. "Why couldn't we go in by the back?"
"Nothing doin'," says Ellery, flourishing his knife. "You're goin' to face the music, you are."
"That's the way to talk to him, Ellery," says I. "But if you don't mind I think I'd better take charge of him from now on."
"Sure thing," says Ellery. "He's your prisoner."
"Then in you go, Jake," says I. "And don't forget about keepin' the hands up. Now!"
Say, you should have seen that bunch when our high tragedy trio marches in; Ellery with his butcher knife on one side; me on the other; and leadin' in the center Mr. Jake Zosco, his arms above his head, his dinner coat all dusty and wrinkled, and a two days' stubble of whiskers decoratin' his face.
It was Mrs. Jake who got her breath first and swooped down on her little man with wild cries of "Oh, Jake! My own Jakey at last!" And in another second his head is all tangled up with the pearl ropes.
Next Andres Zosco comes to. "What is it, a holdup act?" he asks. "Ellery, what you doing with that knife? What's it all about, somebody?"
That seems to be my cue, so I steps to the front. "Sorry, Mr. Zosco," says I, "but Ellery has discovered a deep laid plot."
"Eh?" says Zosco, gawpin'.
"To do away with you and your wife," I goes on. "He says your brother Jake is in it, and Mrs. Jake, and the butler, and maybe a lot of others. Isn't that right, Ellery?"
"I heard 'em plottin'," says Ellery. "Anyway, I saw Jake and the butler whisperin' on the sly. And they planned to meet down at the lodge with the others. I think that dago chauffeur was one. But I foiled 'em. I followed Jake when he sneaked into the lodge house and locked him in. Then I wrote to the chief detective at Headquarters and they sent out this sleuth to help me round 'em up." He finishes by wavin' at me triumphant.
And you might know that would get a chuckle out of Mr. Robert. "Oh, yes!" says he. "Detective Sergeant Torchy!"
Meanwhile Andres Zosco is starin' from one to the other of us and scratchin' his head puzzled. "I can't get a word of sense out of it all," says he. "Not a word. Jake, let's hear from you. Where have you been since night before last after dinner?"
Jake pries himself loose from the billowy embrace and advances sheepish. "Why--why," says he, "I was locked in that fool lodge house."
"You were, eh?" says Zosco. "But how did that happen? What did you go in there for?"
"Aw, if you must know, Andy, it--it was pinochle," he growls. "It ain't a crime, is it, a little game?"
"What about the butler, though, and the others?" insists Zosco.
"Why," says Jake, "they was goin' to be in it, too. Can't play pinochle alone, can you? And in a place like this where there's nothing goin' on but silly billiards, or that bridge auction, a feller's gotta find some amusement, ain't he? Saginaw they comes to the house 'most every night--Hoffmeyer and Raditz and----"
"Yes, I know," breaks in Zosco. "So that was the plot, was it, Ellery?"
Ellery registers scorn. "Huh!" says he. "Don't let him put over any such fish tale on you. Ask him about the slow poison in Maggie's coffee, and stealin' the jewels, and--and all the rest."
"Why, Ellery!" gasps Mrs. Zosco.
"Didn't I catch you snifflin'?" demands Ellery. "And ain't you been mopin' around?"
"Oh!" says she. "But that was before Andy had promised to let me play the lead in his new eight-reel feature, 'The Singed Moth.' I've been chipper enough since, haven't I, Andy, dear?"
"Slow poison!" echoes Zosco. "Jewel stealing! Murder plots! Boy, where did you get such stuff in your head?"
But Ellery can only drop his chin and scrape his toe.
"I expect I can clear up that mystery," says I. "As a movie fan Ellery is an ace."
And then it was Zosco's turn to stare. I don't know whether it got clear home to him then or not. He was just about to separate himself from some remark on the subject when Mrs. Jake cut loose with another squeal.
"Why, Jake Zosco!" says she. "Look at you! Like a tramp you are."
"Well, why not?" says Jake. "Didn't I sleep last night in a wheelbarrow?"
And when the folks you're callin' on get to droppin' into intimate personal remarks like that it's time to back out graceful. I guess even Mrs. Robert decides this wasn't just the evenin' to play the pipe organ. Before we'd got out they'd opened up the subject of what to do with young Ellery Bean and the prospects were that he was due for a quick return to Shelby, N. C.
"I don't see what good that's going to do," says Vee. "I should say that he needed some kind of mental treatment. Why, his poor foolish head seems to be filled with nothing but crime and crooks. I don't understand how he could get that way."
"You would," says I, "if you'd take a full course of Zosco films."
