Iris stopped. Her hand crept to my knee and clutched it.
“Listen,” she breathed.
I listened. From somewhere at some distance to our left in the impenetrable darkness had come a sound—the cautious, blundering sound of something moving.
It wasn’t the sort of noise a rat could make, unless it was vastly larger than any rat I had ever met. The sound came again—a scuffle, then a sharp, explosive swear word.
That settled it.
We were not the only people in the cellar.
While Iris’s fingers pressed into my knee, I sat very still. The Rose brothers could easily have returned and come down to the cellar without our hearing the door open. We were that far away from the steps. But if the Rose brothers had returned, their only object would be to kill us. They certainly would not warn us of their approach by blundering around and swearing.
The chances were good that the third person beyond us in the darkness was a potential friend.
I whispered to Iris. “Wait here. I’ll go see.”
My wife’s hair brushed against my cheek. “Let’s both go. It can’t be the Roses.”
Off to our left, there was a splintering crash as something toppled to the ground. It was followed by a bellow of indignation.
“That certainly isn’t the Roses,” said Iris.
We slipped from the overturned crate. Hand in hand, to keep contact, we started cautiously through the blackness. There was some more grunting and cursing ahead.
I called: “Who’s there?”
The grunting and cursing stopped. My voice echoed eerily and faded away.
Iris called: “Please, who is it?”
A woman’s voice seemed to reassure that invisible person, for a reply came: “Where are you? I’m lost and I unfortunately have no matches.”
“Stick right there,” I said. “We’ll come to you.”
I lit one of my few remaining matches. By its light Iris and I threaded our way through a forest of stacked wooden chairs, relics, presumably, from remote political meetings. We emerged at the other end. The match burned down to my finger and I shook it out.
I could hear the unknown man quite close to us. To save matches. I started to grope toward him. I stretched one hand ahead of me to guide me. Suddenly, my fingers gripped something soft and hairy, and an irascible voice said: “Pah!”
I pulled back my hand, struck a match, and held it up. The fluttering light played on a man who stood squarely in front of us between an ancient upright piano, of all things, and a pile of threadbare tennis nets.
He was a large man in a meticulous grey suit with a sprightly white carnation in his buttonhole. Dignity enveloped him like an opera cloak. And below a pair of dark, outraged eyes sprouted a magnificent growth of black beard.
For a second I felt this must be some hallucination born of the poisonous cellar vapors. But the vision was real enough.
There we were, lost in the Stadium’s catacombs, face to face with Mr. Emmanuel Catt.
CHAPTER XIV
Mr. Emmanuel Catt stared straight at us. He obviously didn’t recognize us in the uncertain matchlight. Obviously, too, he had recovered his sobriety, although patches of grimy dust stained his immaculate pants and a curl of straw peeped rakishly from behind his left ear.
He said in a voice of thunderous admonition: “Sir, you pulled my beard.”
“I’m sorry,” I said meekly.
A regal gesture of the head accepted my apology. He turned to Iris, giving her a formal bow. “You must excuse me, young lady. A misadventure has—ah—locked me in this cellar. I would be most grateful if you would direct me to an exit. I have pressing business that requires my immediate attention.”
He spoke as if it were perfectly natural to find a naval lieutenant and a girl in the cellar. Presumably he thought we lived there.
Iris, who seemed to have been stunned into speechlessness, gave a little gasp. The match went out. Then in unison my wife and I said: “Mr. Catt.”
He r’rumphed in the darkness. “You—ah—have the advantage of me. I do not believe I have the pleasure …”
“You certainly have the pleasure,” said Iris. “You slept in our bathtub last night.”
“Your bathtub, madam?” He gave a pained cough as if Iris had been guilty of a hideous impropriety. Then, with the faintest tinge of embarrassment, he added: “I regret to say that I—ah—was not quite myself last night. A slight indisposition. It is a malady which—ah—affects me periodically. Most tiresome. If I caused you any inconvenience, I take this opportunity to extend my apologies. And now, if you will be so kind …”
I had never heard an orgy of drunkenness and goatishness called a slight indisposition before.
Sarcastically I remarked: “Don’t think for a moment that you inconvenienced us, Mr. Catt. You just threw us headlong into a couple of murders. That’s all.”
“Murders!” echoed the Beard. “You—ah—surely you are not this Lieutenant Duluth and his wife of whom I have read in my afternoon newspaper?”
“Of course we are,” said Iris. “You’ve got to remember us. Hatch and Bill—our friends have been searching for you all over the city. The red rose … the white rose … the elephant… page eighty-four… buriful girl … pussy. Oh, what does it matter if you remember us or not? You know about everything and we knew just enough to drive us crazy. You must help us save Zelide.”
“Well, well. Lieutenant and Mrs. Duluth!” Emmanuel Catt’s voice had lost its frigid formality and was purring now with satisfaction. “I must confess that I recall nothing of making your acquaintance last night. My malady frequently brings slight lapses of memory. If I slept in your—ah—suite, I must have been sufficiently well to return to my own hotel, for I distinctly awoke there this afternoon.”
So all the time that Hatch and Bill were chasing false beards to Oakland, Mr. Catt had been sleeping off the champagne in his own bed.
Emmanuel Catt purred on: “What a happy accident to come upon you, Lieutenant. I have as yet only the sketchiest knowledge of these terrible tragedies. Poor Eulalia; poor Lina. I foresaw such an event and warned them of their danger in a most specific manner with roses and a copy of my essay. I even made a special trip from my work in Hollywood as psychological consultant at Continental Studios to make sure they came to no harm—a trip which, unfortunately, was rendered ineffective by my indisposition. You seem to have taken a prominent part in the drama. Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me …”
I could see his mind working. America’s foremost criminologist was already thinking in terms of his second essay on the Rose brothers. So far as he was concerned, the Roses and the mortal danger to Zelide were forgotten. Ludwig and Bruno could merrily go on making data for the end of the essay while Mr. Catt took time out for a cosy little chat plumbing the depths of Lieutenant Duluth’s psychology in the cellar under the circus. (A delicious locale. I could see it in print already.)
I said: “Right now, Mr. Catt, I’m going to be so kind as to tell you exactly one simple fact. The Rose brothers are here at the circus. They’re planning to murder Zelide, probably during the Bird Ballet. Heaven knows how you got into this cellar. That doesn’t matter either. The only thing that matters is—how to get out.”
“Yes, yes.” The Beard sounded a trifle crestfallen. “You are indeed right. How thoughtless of me. I was so stimulated by meeting you that for a moment … But it was with the very intention of aiding Madame Zelide that I hurried from my hotel the moment I read of the tragedies. Since the other two ladies seemed so imprudently to have ignored my warning, I was determined to see that Madame Zelide—an admirable woman—should be safe. I arrived at the circus a short time ago and made my way to Madame Zelide’s dressing room. I was about to enter when a pair of clowns with—ah—a revolver …”
“So that’s it,” I said. I might have guessed that the Beard, who seemed to. know so much, was an even graver menace to the Roses’ plan than we. It was only natural that they shou
ld have committed him to our exclusive cellar concentration camp.
“A most colorful and ingenious disguise,” he was saying. “I must confess I would not have recognized either brother, although, of course, they recognized me.” Mr. Catt, after having denied all knowledge of us, was now talking as if we were intimate friends and fellow crime experts with all the facts at our finger tips. “A rather titillating sensation to be held up at the point of a pistol, Lieutenant. Although I was alarmed at the time, I am most gratified now to have had the experience.” He giggled. I could imagine the beard bobbing up and down in the darkness. “I have always had a great partiality for this case and to have encountered the protagonists in so—well, so intimate a way. Most absorbing!”
I tried to stem that tide of words. I knew how the little Dutch boy must have felt with his finger in the broken dam wall.
Mr. Catt went on: “And I feel you are correct in your assumption that the Rose brothers will attempt to murder Zelide in some fashion which approximates to the death of the Purple Rose. You have interpreted their psychology with penetration. Revenge is sweeter when it can conform to an aesthetic pattern. And with their particular type of monomania … dear me, I am off again, am I not? Yes, you are perfectly right. We must think out some method of escaping from this somewhat malodorous cellar.”
I said: “Did the Rose brothers bring you here down a passage and through a steel door?”
“Yes. A most solid door. They also took the precaution of locking it. I am afraid we shall not be able to break our way through it. Dear, dear, time is short. I could wish that I had sought aid from the police instead of coming so impetuously to warn Zelide myself. This is vexing, most vexing.”
Vexing was at least one word for it. While Emmanuel Catt chattered on, I ran my fingers over the remaining matches in the book. I had five left. We could still go back and try banging on the door, with the slender chance of attracting attention. Or we could use up the matches investigating the rest of the cellar. I decided to gamble on finding a second exit. Iris agreed. Emmanuel Catt was too busy telling us how he differed with the late Alexander Woollcott on some nice point of criminal psychology to express an opinion.
I stood for a moment, remembering the layout of the cellar as I had seen it in the light from the last struck match. Behind us stretched the way back to the steel door. In front of us was the part of the cellar which Iris and I had already explored. There was an unpromising-looking wall on our left. I decided to strike boldly out to the right into the unknown.
I led the way with Iris behind me and Mr. Catt volubly bringing up the rear. The matches had to be saved for an emergency. I kept my hands stretched in front of me and progressed cautiously through the darkness with a kind of slow-motion goose step to avoid tripping over any invisible hazard.
We had gone some distance when Iris’s voice broke into Mr. Catt’s learned monologue with a sharp: “Hush, Mr. Catt!”
America’s foremost criminologist obediently broke off in the middle of a sentence.
“Listen, Peter,” said Iris.
Until then the cellar had been completely silent except for the sounds we made ourselves. But now, as I listened, I heard a vague, rumbling noise from the darkness ahead. It came from somewhere above us and sounded like the throb of heavy traffic.
“What is it?” said Iris.
I didn’t know. I started forward again toward the sound. It grew more distinct—a ponderous, rhythmic thumping. It certainly wasn’t traffic. There were no automobile noises. It was as if gigantic dancers were pounding out a saraband above us. Even the boards of the invisible ceiling creaked and groaned.
As I strained my ears, the Beard suddenly exclaimed: “Ha! We know now where we are.”
“What do you mean by ha?” said Iris.
“Surely, Mrs. Duluth, you are enough of a circus lover to recognize the nimble footfall of the elephant.”
“The elephants!” echoed Iris excitedly. “You’re right. We’re under the elephant pens. They must have just come back in from the ring.”
While she was speaking, a faint, new smell trailed to my nostrils. It was quite unlike the sour odors that had so far dominated the atmosphere. It was a sweet, nostalgic smell, a country smell, and I recognized it at once.
It was the smell of hay.
I said: “Wait here a minute. I’ll be back.”
Following my nose like a hound-dog, I groped toward the unlikely fragrance. After several steps, my hands, extended in front of me, made contact with something that was unmistakably hay.
Above us, the confused rumble of moving elephants continued. I called: “Iris, Mr. Catt. Come over here. It’s O.K. Nothing in the way.”
In a few moments, they were at my side.
“What is it, Peter?” said Iris.
“Hay,” I said. “Fresh hay. Elephants upstairs. Hay here. Elephants eat hay.”
“Hay has to be got to elephants,” broke in Iris enthusiastically. “There must be an exit Strike a match—quick.”
I lit a match. The hay was there all right, a great stack of it reaching to the ceiling. I swivelled around, holding the little flame out To our right a ladder stretched from the floor and was attached to hooks in the ceiling.
With a most undignified whoop, Mr. Emmanuel Catt ran toward it. I saw his broad figure scramble on to the lowest rung. Then the match went out.
Iris and I hurried to the ladder. By the wheezing grunts that issued from the darkness I could tell that the Beard was climbing. I stared up to the ceiling and made out faint cracks of light.
Iris saw them too and called: “There’s a trap door up there, Mr. Catt. Right above you.”
Mr. Catt’s majestic voice boomed down to us. “I had already observed the chinks of light, Mrs. Duluth. I trust I will find it unlocked.”
The elephants were having themselves a time above our heads. The prospects of escape from that abominable cellar made me lightheaded. It suddenly seemed quite absurd that America’s foremost criminologist, beard and all, should be scaling a ladder into a pen full of elephants.
A particularly emphatic grunt came from the darkness above us. Then, slowly, the cracks widened. Light streamed in, revealing Mr. Catt’s hands clutching a wooden trap door and pushing it upward. His face came into view, peering through the aperture he had made in the ceiling. Straw was on his hair and in the beard. He looked like Pluto about to issue from his subterranean palace.
Suddenly an expression of alarm spread over his face. He dropped the trap door shut, exclaiming: “Mercy!”
With incongruous agility he scrambled down the ladder again and was at our side.
Iris said: “What’s the trouble?”
Mr. Emmanuel Catt was panting from his exertion. “The trap door seems to be in perfect order, Mrs. Duluth. But it is unhappily situated. When I peered into the stall above, I found myself staring straight into the—ah—rump of a large elephant with a pink ribbon around her neck. I am virtually convinced that this elephant is Edwina. As I pointed out in my essay, her temper is notoriously uncertain. I do not feel she would relish strangers suddenly appearing from the bowels of the earth, as it were. Before we proceed, I suggest that we attract the attention of a keeper to—ah—restrain her.”
“Oh, we don’t want to call a keeper,” said Iris. “We’ll have to explain what we’re doing in the cellar. There’d be delays. He’d be suspicious. We’ve got to get to Zelide quickly. I’m not afraid of Edwina. I think she’s sweet. Let me go first, seeing we’re both ladies.”
The Beard clucked in alarm. I said: “No, baby. I agree about not getting a keeper. But I’m going first.”
I moved to the ladder and started up it.
Mr. Catt’s voice broke into anxious life: “But, Lieutenant, Edwina has a career of violence behind her. As you may know, she—ah—broke the collar-bone of Bruno Rose.”
I didn’t know, of course. Half of what he said was gibberish, anyway. “Maybe she didn’t like Bruno Rose,” I said. “And, if she
didn’t, I don’t blame her. She’s got nothing against me.”
I felt above my head for the trap door and pushed it forward. I climbed another rung of the ladder. Blinking at the unaccustomed light, I stared into the stall. Edwina was there, all right. She was standing very close to the trap door. This time it was not her—ah—rump that confronted me. She was head on, gazing directly at me from small, unblinking eyes. The ribbon had slipped around her neck and the large pink bow dangled behind one ear.
“Hello, Edwina,” I said feebly. “That’s a good girl. How’s tricks, Edwina?”
I didn’t know how to talk to elephants. I could only assume that you treated them like dogs. She flapped her ears and, picking up hay with her trunk, showered it over her head. She still watched me.
Feeling self-conscious, I wriggled up out of the trap door on to the hay-scattered floor of the stall. Edwina suddenly whistled. I jumped. I wondered whether elephants were like dogs and smelled the adrenalin or whatever it is that glands give off in moments of crisis. Edwina didn’t seem interested in my glands or my collarbone. She merely picked up more hay and tossed it over her shoulder.
“Good Edwina,” I said sycophantically. “Good girl, Edwina.”
The bars around the stall were not high. They would be easy enough to scale. No keeper was in sight. In the other stalls the rest of the elephants, relaxing after their act in the ring, thumped and weaved about. I took a step closer to Edwina. She didn’t appear to mind.
I called back over my shoulder then: “O.K., Iris.”
In a few seconds, my wife emerged from the trap door. Although there was hay in her hair, too, she was very beautiful. She was holding a wisp of hay in her hand. She joined me, giving Edwina a bright, social smile.
“Good afternoon, Edwina.”
She held out the hay as if it had been a Boston teacup. Edwina looked at it and then half turned away, immeasurably bored. She watched Iris, though, out of the corner of her eye with the tolerant intolerance of a very old lady.
Soon Mr. Emmanuel Catt progressed through the trap door and closed it. He cast Edwina an uneasy glance and said: The sooner we leave this stall, I feel, the wiser it would be.”
Puzzle for Puppets Page 14
