“Nonsense!” said Mr. Bismuth. “You saw me dig up the jewelry. But I did it to help that What’s-his-name,—Wesley. I didn’t keep it.”
“So you say,” Freddy replied. “Did anyone see you give it to him? Can you produce Uncle Wesley, and have him back up your statement? My friend, you are on a spot.”
“Ha, ha!” said Mr. Bismuth. “You think being on a spot worries a Bismuth? Sir, Bismuths are always on spots. They revel in spots. There’s nothing you could prove. Let me tell you, sir—”
“Let me tell you,’’ Freddy interrupted. “I say that I could tell Mr. Bean, but I do not say that I will. If you were to give me—h’m, there was a string of matching pearls, among other things, with a ruby clasp. If you were to detach that clasp, and slide it into my pocket tonight at supper—well, then I will agree to forget everything I know about you. And I will go back to investigating the case I came here to investigate.”
Mr. Bismuth was thoughtful for a minute, and Freddy thought: “I guess I’ve got him.” But then he laughed again. “Dear me,” he said, “you make me almost wish I did have that stuff. Pearls, hey? My Ambrosia would look nice in ’em—make her very happy, which is always the aim of a Bismuth—make folks happy. But I guess it can’t be done. You see, mister, I ain’t got the jewelry.”
“Very well,” said Freddy. “Then watch yourself, Bismuth.” And he turned and walked away.
CHAPTER
16
Although there had been a good deal of excitement about the flying saucer which had been seen to land in the Big Woods, most of the talk had been in the neighborhood. Even in Centerboro people dismissed the story with a shrug. “Just another of these stories,” they said, and only a few even came out to try to see it. Mr. Dimsey, the editor of the Centerboro Guardian, had written a piece about it, and about Captain Neptune, who was visiting at the Bean farm, but even he thought it was all just a hoax, for Mr. Bean had refused to allow him to come out and interview the Captain. A few people did drive out and looked at the rocket from a distance, and one or two remarked that it looked a lot like the one in which Uncle Ben was exploring the solar system. But when they were told that all space ships had to be built on much the same plan, they didn’t think any more about it.
The only visitors at the house were Mr. Margarine and the local farmers, and Freddy had had to talk to them. This he did with such a queer accent, and using such strange words, that they soon got tired of trying to make sense out of the nonsense that he fed them, and went away. They did what most people do when they can’t understand anything—they pretended that the whole thing wasn’t there.
Mrs. Bean had wanted Captain Neptune to give a lecture in Centerboro. “It would be very interesting,” she said, “to hear about the Neptunians—what they wear and what they eat and so on. And about your fishing trips.” Freddy had made up quite a long story about how at home he was captain of a space ship on the regular run between Neptune and Mars. He also took parties of Neptunians on fishing trips in the Martian canals. But Mr. Bean said no, Captain just wanted to go around quietly for a while, seeing how people lived on earth, so that he could take back a report to his employers. “He thinks maybe they can start a regular service between earth and Neptune,” Mr. Bean said. “Says eventually they’re goin’ to work up regular cruises around the solar system—like these South American cruises they have now, visitin’ a day or two on each planet. Make a nice vacation for us, Mrs. B. maybe next summer.”
“Very nice,” said Mrs. Bean, and didn’t say any more.
Freddy had hoped to scare off the Bismuths with his death ray, and when that failed and Mr. Bismuth had threatened to expose him as an impostor, he had hoped that by threatening in his turn, he could get the thief to take him into partnership. When that too failed, a less persistent detective might have given up. But Freddy was sure that if he hung on long enough and left nothing to chance, but kept a complete twenty-four hour watch on Bismuth, chance itself would turn in his favor. And indeed it was chance, or a piece of luck, that gave him in the end the clue he needed.
In the meantime he was like a juggler who has to keep half a dozen balls in the air at once. One of them, or maybe several, was the crew of the space ship. He talked with them two or three times daily, and they were getting restless.
“You’re having all the fun, pig,” Jinx said. “How long do you think we’re going to stay up here? Besides, Mrs. P.”—he lowered his voice—“is making up more poetry. Yours isn’t so bad just puts people to sleep, but hers—golly! She reads it to us. We can’t take much more. Even Uncle Ben breaks out into a cold sweat when she says: ‘Listen to this!’”
“I can’t help it,” Freddy said firmly. “You’ll just have to stand it. I give you my word, Jinx, it will mean disaster for the Beans if you come down. Give me one more day.”
When he left Mr. Bismuth Freddy took off all his false hair and his uncomfortable space suit and washed the blue off his face. There was no point in keeping it on any longer. He went up past the now flooded garden. Alice and Emma were sitting on the bank. They were watching something, and he stopped and stared, for out in the middle of the pool something was plunging along, and smoke was puffing out of it and sparks were flying, and there was a great flailing of the water. Through the spray it looked like a small model of a Mississippi steamboat, ploughing along under forced draught.
Freddy came closer, and then he saw that it was Mr. Bean, pipe in mouth, swimming across the new pool on his back. Mr. Bean saw him at the same moment and stood up, for the water was only four feet deep. He had on the old fashioned striped bathing suit with pants that reached below the knees, and sleeves that reached below the elbows. “Good morning, Captain,” he said. “Just thought I’d take a dip, water looked so nice. ‘Tain’t everybody that can swim in his own vegetable garden.”
“I’m not Captain any more,” Freddy said.
And he told Mr. Bean of his talk with Mr. Bismuth.
“Maybe it’s best this way,” Mr. Bean said. “You wa’n’t getting anywheres, I guess.” He looked across the pool at Alice and Emma, who had each put up a webbed foot to hide their smiles, and were tittering genteelly at the old bathing suit. “You ducks stop giggling at me,” he said with mock severity, and when they just giggled louder, he splashed water at them. Then they giggled so delightedly that Alice choked and had to be slapped on the back.
“You ducks stop giggling at me!”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bean, “I believe I’m going to keep this swimmin’ pool. Handy to the house in hot weather, and what’s the use of my raisin’ vegetables anyway; the Bismuths only eat ’em right up.” He came ashore and they talked for a while, then Freddy went on.
A little distance up the new stream John came trotting toward him. “Look, Freddy,” said the fox; “you know that queer sort of walking toadstool I saw the other day, that I thought was some creature that had come in the flying saucer? Well, I’ve been wondering about it ever since, what it could be, and—golly, I just saw it again. Up here a ways. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Freddy had been puzzled about this creature too. They went up along the fence that separated the woods on the west from Mr. Margarine’s property. From it a stone wall ran west, and from behind the wall came voices. They sneaked up quietly.
“Why, yes ma’am, it’s lovely,” a little anxious voice was saying, “but I’m afraid my mother will be wondering where I am. I guess I’d better—”
A second voice interrupted. “I guess you’d better stay right here. I’ll explain to your mother if necessary. Now listen—I think this is one you’ll like:
“O goodness me! O goodness gracious!
How large the universe! How spacious!
How large it is I greatly fear
That you have no distinct idear.
It really quite surprises us
To find it is so enorm-u-ous.
It just goes on mile after mile;
To reach its end’s impossibile.
&nbs
p; And you could travel weeks and years
And never come out anywheers.
Because for all your haste and rushing
When you get there, there isn’t nusshing
There isn’t nusshing there at all,
And you feel pretty miseraball,
For though you holler bloody murder
You simply can’t go any furder,
And if—”
“Oh, please excuse me,” the other voice interrupted, “but I really must get back home. My mother—”
“I thought we’d settled about your mother,” said the first voice. “Now listen:
And down on the United States
Shine all the stars and satellates.
Above the trees, above the house,
The stars they shine all tremulouse.
Like little lamps they brightly shine,
A-burning high grade kerosine.
Each star in all the constellations
Winkles and twinks. My goodness gracions!
My goodness me! How truly beauteous
They are! And kind of cuteous,
The way they hide behind the moon
So you can’t see just what they’re doon’.”
“What’s ‘cuteous’ mean?” asked the smaller voice.
“Don’t pretend to be any more stupid than you are,” said the first voice severely. “You know quite well what it means.”
“Yes, ma’am,” was the doubtful reply. “But my mother says—well, she says I’m not very bright, and so there’s a lot of words you use I don’t understand. Like ‘impossibile.’ Is that really the way to say it?”
“How else could you rhyme it with ‘mile’? That’s what a good poet does—makes words rhyme that haven’t ever rhymed before. Land of love, any fool can use the regular rhymes—smile, style, file, bile. It’s real poetry when you get a new rhyme that there ain’t anybody ever thought of before.”
The voices were just across the wall. John whispered to Freddy. “Not bad, hey, those poems? Guess you’re running into a little competition. Who is it?”
“Mrs. Peppercorn,” Freddy said. “Darn it, she’s supposed to stay in the rocket; she hadn’t ought to be down here. Come on.” And he climbed up on the wall.
John hopped up after him—then, catching sight of Mrs. Peppercorn, sitting there with her umbrella over her head to keep the sun off, he yelled in a frightened voice: “The Neptunian!” and hopped down again and ran off. For of course it was the old lady in her space suit, with her umbrella up, whom he had seen the other day and taken for one of those who had landed here in the flying saucer. And beside her was a young chipmunk who, when she took her eye off him, saw his chance and scuttled away.
“Well!” she said indignantly when she saw Freddy. “How long do you intend to keep this foolishness up, young man? It’s just as I thought—this whole affair is nothing but a practical joke of some kind. And in very poor taste, let me tell you. Instead of taking me to Mars, after I’d paid for my ticket and gone to considerable trouble and expense to prepare for the journey, all your fine Uncle Ben has done is jump this rocket thing a mile or so up into the Big Woods. We’ve never left the surface of the earth!”
“Oh, yes we did,” said Freddy, and tried to explain what had happened. But Mrs. Peppercorn didn’t listen. She put her umbrella down and shook it at him. “Don’t you talk to me! You and your precious Uncle Ben! I should think you’d be ashamed of yourselves!” She went on at some length.
Freddy didn’t see that he would gain anything by arguing. And now that Mr. Bismuth knew that he wasn’t Captain Neptune, her wandering away from the ship didn’t make much difference. He said: “Excuse me,” and Went on into the woods.
Old Whibley’s tree had escaped the fire; Freddy went and knocked on the trunk, and presently the owl’s deep voice said: “Good heavens, can’t I get a little peace? What is it now?” He came out of his hole and looked down at the pig. “For anybody that’s been to school and had all your advantages,” he said, “you certainly do manage to come out in the darnedest costumes. What are you disguised as today?”
Freddy of course wasn’t disguised at all now. But before he could think of any good answer, the owl said: “No, no; don’t tell me. Let me guess.” He put a claw to his beak. “Let me think; let me think! Though, dear me, it’s pretty hard to think with that idiotic face gaping at me. Whoever made that mask was a genius; it has the most empty, brainless expression I’ve ever seen. Are you Simple Simon today? Or—that little Bismuth boy? Or—”
“Oh, cut out the funny stuff,” Freddy said crossly. “I thought you wanted to help Mr. Bean, but if you’re just going to be comical—”
“Why it’s Freddy!” Whibley exclaimed. “Of course, how stupid of me! I beg your pardon, Freddy; it’s so long since I’d seen you that I’d sort of forgotten how much you look like something that nobody has ever seen before except in dreams. Not very pleasant dreams, either. Well now, what can I do for you?”
It was no good getting mad at the owl; he would always have the last word. Freddy said: “I haven’t got my walkie-talkie, and I thought maybe you’d go up and tell Uncle Ben and Jinx and Georgie they can come down now. And I want to know if Charles and Uncle Wesley are here. You could let them go now.”
“Glad to,” said the owl. “Glad to. They’re no addition to a quiet home. Argue, argue, argue—from morning to night. Listen!” And from the hole in the tree Freddy could hear voices. Apparently they were arguing about their appearance.
“An elegant appearance, my dear sir,” Uncle Wesley was saying, “is naturally what I have aimed at, and I fancy that I have acquired it. Though of course dignity and—ah, a certain graciousness of manner are natural to me. I cannot feel but that the red hat you wear is slightly on the—let us not say vulgar—but rather on the juvenile side.”
“My good duck,” Charles replied, “that is not a hat, it is a comb, it’s part of me. And I see no harm in a touch of color. Look at my tail-feathers. They have been greatly admired, let me tell you. For my money, that little spike you call a tail is strictly for laughs. Waggle, waggle; and then down you go under water and stick it straight up in the air. Ha!”
“Indeed!” said Uncle Wesley huffily. “Well, I’d rather be finished off with a neat white spike than with a ratty looking old feather duster.”
“Don’t you ‘indeed’ me,” Charles retorted. “Maybe you don’t like the looks of my tail, though better people than you have considered it very handsome and dashing. I don’t have a bow-legged waddle, either. I walk along gracefully, my wife following three steps behind, as is seemly …”
Whibley gave his hooting laugh. “How Henrietta would enjoy that, eh, Freddy? I can just hear her.”
“Does she know he’s here?” Freddy asked.
“Yes, I told her. She said keep him as long as I liked: it was nice and peaceful in the henhouse. But I suppose now I’ll have to let him go.”
A robin flew down and lit on the ground in front of the pig. “Say, Freddy,” he said, “Mr. Webb wants to see you. Better hurry up—he says it’s important.”
Whibley said: “Go along, pig. I’ll go up to the space ship and tell ’em. Wait a minute—you can take this with you.” He went into his nest and there was a scrabbling and a squawking, and a feather or two floated down. And then Charles came tumbling out. He got his wings spread before he was halfway to the earth, but like all roosters he was a clumsy flier, and he hit the ground with a bump.
He shook his feathers angrily into place. “I fail to see the need for all this rough stuff,” he said. “After all I was a guest in Whibley’s home; when you say goodbye to a guest you don’t usually kick him downstairs.
“However,” he said, “I’m glad to be out of the place. Whibley’s all right. If you care for owls—I can’t say I do. But that Wesley! Golly!” He continued to complain about the duck all the way back to the farm.
CHAPTER
17
Mr. Webb was waiting for Fredd
y up in the bedroom. He dropped down on the pig’s nose and walked up to where he could shout in his ear. “We caught a fly a while ago, Freddy,” he said, “and I think you ought to hear what he has to say.” He shinned back up his rope and then he and Mrs. Webb lowered the fly down on to Freddy’s nose. The captive had the use of his legs, but his wings were tied so that he couldn’t escape.
“Just tell the detective what you have told me,” said Mr. Webb. “There’s no need to be frightened; we’ll let you go if you’ll do as we want you to.”
“Well, sir,” said the fly, “you know that heap of stones up in the corner of the lower pasture? I’ve got an aunt that lives up near there, and she’d found a lot of crumbs—fruit cake crumbs, and fresh ones—around that rock pile.”
“Fruit cake?” said Freddy. “What would they be doing up there? Did your aunt know who dropped them?”
“No, sir,” said the fly. “She was kind of puzzled how they got there because she knew about fruit cake, but she hadn’t seen any in a long time—not since my grandfather brought her a piece from that Miss McSomebody who lives down the road.”
“McMinnickle,” said Freddy. “Yes, she’s the only one that makes fruit cake that I know of. But she wouldn’t be eating it up in our pasture. Where is your aunt?”
“Yes, where is she?” said the fly angrily. “Ask these spiders. I told her about the good rich crumbs these Bismuths strew all over the Bean house, and she came down with me. She was a good kind soul—never harmed anybody, and never suspected that anybody would harm her. She was sitting on the edge of a glass of water on the bedside table, eating a piece of cheese-goodness sakes, it was only a crumb; nobody ought to grudge her a little piece like that! And these big brutes jumped her. Pushed her into the glass and she drowned.” The fly sniffed, and wiped a tiny tear from his left eye with one foot.
Freddy and the Space Ship Page 11
