“Say, look here!” said Freddy sharply. “Are you trying to make fun of me, or what? If you’re a good law-abiding rabbit, as you seem to be, I can understand your being sorry that you’d done wrong and thinking that you ought to be punished. But I don’t believe that anybody, animal or human, ever thought that he ought to be punished a lot. Come on, now, tell me the truth!”
At this the rabbit broke down and began to cry. “Oh dear!” he sobbed. “I thought it would be so easy to get into jail! I thought all you had to do was steal something. And I wanted to go to jail—the animals there all have such a good time, and don’t have to work, and they play games and sing songs all day long, and other animals are sorry for them and bring them lots of good things to eat! Oh, please, Mr. Freddy, take me to the judge and get me a good long sentence.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Freddy crossly. “And, what’s more, I’m not going to arrest you at all. I’m going to give your ears a good boxing”—which he did while the rabbit submitted meekly—“and then you can go. Only let me tell you something. Don’t go stealing any more lettuce in the hope that you’ll be sent to jail. Because you won’t. You’ll get something you won’t like at all.”
“Wh—what’s that?” sniveled the rabbit.
“I don’t know,” said Freddy. “I’ll have to think up something. But you can bet it’ll be something good.”
Then he went back to where Mrs. Wiggins was waiting for him. “Can you beat it?” he exclaimed. “Did you hear that?”
“I certainly did,” said the cow. “I tell you, Freddy, something’s got to be done, and done quick. Let’s go have a talk with Charles. Maybe he can suggest something.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE JUDGE DISAPPEARS
They found the hen-house in a great state of excitement. A flock of young chickens—Henrietta’s gawky, long-legged daughters—were crowding about their mother or dashing in and out on errands, and the older hens were running round distractedly, squawking and clucking, some of them bringing water in their beaks to sprinkle over one of their sisters, who had fainted, others merely hurrying aimlessly out of the door to stop and give several loud squawks and then hurry as aimlessly inside again.
At first the two detectives could get no answers to their questions in the general hubbub, but at last Freddy, losing patience, squeezed his way inside, seized Henrietta by a wing and pulled her over into a corner. “Come, now; what’s the trouble here?” he demanded. “Pull yourself together, hen, and tell me what’s wrong.”
Henrietta glared at him for a moment without seeming to see him. Then suddenly she seemed to recognize him, and burst out wildly: “You!” she cried. “You dare come here, you wretched pig, with your fine airs and your lordly ways—you that’s to blame for all this, you and all your smart friends that told him how fine it would be to be a judge! You are the one that got him into this, you imitation detective, you; you big chunk of fat pork!”
Freddy backed away a little. “Come, come, Henrietta,” he said soothingly. “Let’s not talk about me. I may be everything you say, but that doesn’t get us anywhere, does it? I don’t even know what’s the matter yet.”
But Henrietta’s rage was quickly spent. She broke down and began to cry. “He’s gone!” she sobbed. “My Charles, the finest husband a hen ever had! They’ve got him, my good, kind, noble Charles!”
Serious as the situation seemed, Freddy had to repress a grin. When Charles was around, Henrietta did nothing but scold him and tell him what a silly rooster he was. Outside the hen-house there was a strange whining, grumbling sound, and Freddy recognized it as Mrs. Wiggins’s giggle. But fortunately the hen did not hear it and went on with her story.
There wasn’t very much of it. Charles had been missing since late the previous afternoon. None of the animals on the farm had seen him.
Freddy suggested the only thing he could think of. “He may have gone visiting,” he said, “and been invited to stay all night.”
“He wouldn’t dare stay out all night!” flashed the hen. “Just let him try it once!” Then she began to cry again. “No, he’s gone. It’s one of those animals he sentenced to jail. There were a couple of them that said they’d get even with him when they got out. And now they’ve gone and done it. And I shall never see him again! Oh, my poor Charles! My noble husband!” And she flopped round in a violent fit of hysterics.
Freddy shook his head dolefully and went outside. “Come on,” he said to the cow. “Nothing more to be got out of her. We’d better get busy right away. Now, where in the world do you suppose he can be?”
“Off somewhere having a good time probably,” replied Mrs. Wiggins. “Though it is funny. Henrietta would peck his eyes out if he stayed out a minute after ten o’clock.”
“Yes,” said Freddy, “and none of the animals he has sentenced to jail have got out yet, so it can’t be that. Of course, he might have been carried off by a hawk, or had a fight with a stray cat. But, for all his bluster and boasting, Charles is too clever to be caught like that. I expect we’d better put the whole force on it to go round and find out all they can.”
So they got all their helpers together and sent them out in different directions to ask questions and look for signs of the missing rooster. Both Freddy and Mrs. Wiggins went out too. But when they met again late that evening, nothing had been found. Charles had vanished without leaving so much as a feather behind.
The next morning Freddy was up and out before the dew was off the grass, for this, he felt, was a case on which his reputation as a detective rested. It wasn’t just an ordinary disappearance. Charles was the judge, an important personage, and if he wasn’t found, and quickly, nobody would bring any more cases to the detectives.
He was on his way down to the cow-barn to get Mrs. Wiggins when he heard a loud moo behind him and, turning, saw that animal galloping toward him as fast as she could come.
“Come with me over to the jail,” she panted. “I’ve got something to show you. I went over there when I got up, to check over the prisoners and see that they were all there, because I thought some of them might have escaped and perhaps murdered Charles—though, goodness knows, none of ’em are mad at him for sentencing them. Quite the contrary. Just listen to them.”
The sounds of shouts and laughter and songs greeted them as they approached. Hank, from his stall, turned a weary eye on them as they entered. “I do wish you would do something about this,” he said. “I thought it was going to be company for me, having the jail here, but, my land! nobody wants company twenty-four hours a day! They just keep it up all night. I haven’t had a wink of sleep for ten days.”
Freddy nodded. “Yes, we’ll have to make some other arrangements. This jail isn’t a punishment any more at all. But we’ll talk about that later. What was it you wanted to show me?” he asked the cow.
Without speaking she led him to the door of one of the stalls, hooked the wooden pin out of the staple, and opened the door. Inside, some twenty animals and birds were crowded together. One group was in a circle, watching two rabbits doing gymnastic stunts. Another group, with their heads together, were singing “Sweet Adeline” with a great deal of expression. Mrs. Wiggins raised one hoof and pointed dramatically at a third group. In the center of it was the missing judge, declaiming at the top of his lungs.
“On with the dance!” declaimed Charles.
“Stop! Silence!” shouted Freddy, and Mrs. Wiggins stamped on the floor to get attention.
“Let joy be unconfined!” went on Charles dramatically. Then he saw the visitors, and his voice flattened out into a whisper.
Heads turned; the song died down; the groups broke up and surrounded the detectives.
Freddy pushed his way through them and confronted Charles. “What on earth does this mean?” he demanded. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know that Henrietta is half crazy with worry?”
“Why I—I’m in jail,” explained Charles a little hesitantly; then, gaining courage at the immed
iate applause which this remark drew from his fellow prisoners: “Tell Henrietta I’m very sorry,” he went on, “but I’m serving a six weeks’ sentence, and I can’t come home until my time’s up.”
“A sentence!” exclaimed Mrs. Wiggins. “But how can you be serving a sentence? You’re the judge. Who can sentence you?”
“The judge!” said Charles triumphantly. “I’m the judge, and I sentenced myself!”
“What for?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Charles, now thoroughly at ease. “You see, two or three years ago I stole something. It doesn’t matter what it was. Well, then, when I was elected judge, that old crime worried me. Here I am, I thought, sentencing other animals to jail for crimes no worse than the one I committed, and yet I never served any sentence for it. It got on my nerves after a while. It didn’t seem right, somehow. What right had I to set myself up as better than these other animals and punish them for things when I was no better myself? The only fair thing, it seemed to me, the only just thing, the only honest thing, the only noble thing, was to punish myself. And so I did. I’m serving my sentence now.”
The other prisoners set up a cheer, but Freddy scowled. “Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “I’ll tell you why you’re here. You’re sick of being nagged at by Henrietta. I don’t blame you there—I shouldn’t like it either. And so you thought this would give you an excuse to stay away from home and have a good time. But you can’t get away with it, Charles. This jail isn’t a club. It—”
“But I stole something, I tell you,” insisted the rooster. “I’m only getting the punishment I deserve. I can’t get out.”
“You can and you’re going to,” said Freddy. “You never stole anything in your life. And how are you going to be of any use as a judge when you’re in jail yourself?”
“I don’t see why I won’t,” protested Charles. “Bring the prisoners down here and I can sentence ’em just the same, can’t I?”
“No, you can’t,” put in Mrs. Wiggins. “Come along, now. Henrietta’s waiting for you.”
“I’m not going,” said Charles.
Freddy turned and winked secretly at the cow. “Oh, all right, then,” he said. “Let him stay here. We’ll just have to elect another judge, that’s all. We’ll get Peter. There’s a lot of the animals thought he would be a better judge anyway, and there’ll be plenty more now, when this gets out.”
But this didn’t suit the rooster either. “You can’t do that!” he shouted, hopping up and down in his excitement. “You can’t do that! I was elected, and you can’t put me out that way.”
“Oh, can’t we?” said Freddy. “Don’t you know that a judge loses his job when he goes to jail? We don’t have to put you out. You’re just out, anyway. Unless, of course, you decide that there was some mistake about it and take back your sentence.”
For a few minutes the crestfallen rooster thought this over in silence. He was having a very good time in the jail. On the other hand, in jail he was really just one of the prisoners. And outside he was a judge, looked up to and respected by the entire community. Still—there was Henrietta. He knew that no story he could fix up would go down with Henrietta. And what she’d say—he shivered to think of it.
“Come on,” said Freddy. “Henrietta is taking on terribly. You don’t want her to feel badly, do you? She misses you, Charles.” And he repeated some of the things Henrietta had said, about how good and noble he was.
Charles looked up quickly. “She said that!” he exclaimed.
“She certainly did,” said Mrs. Wiggins.
“Well, then, I guess—I guess I’d better go back,” said the rooster. And he walked dejectedly out of the door and reluctantly took the path toward the hen-house.
That evening Freddy and Mrs. Wiggins were strolling down through the pasture, talking over the new problems that confronted them in their detective work. From the hen-house came the angry clucking and gabbling of Henrietta’s voice, going on and on and punctuated occasionally with Charles’s shrill squawks. They listened for a few minutes, then grinned at each other and walked on.
“It’s really a swell joke on us,” said Freddy. “We were looking for a missing rooster, and there he was in jail all the time—the one place nobody’d ever look for him.”
“We find ’em,” said Mrs. Wiggins complacently. “Wherever they are, we find ’em.”
Freddy grinned more broadly as a particularly agonized shriek came from the hen-house. “We’d have no trouble finding the judge tonight,” he said. “I bet that’s the last time he stays out all night.”
“He won’t have a tail-feather left by morning,” said the cow.
CHAPTER IX
JINX IS INDICTED
Although Freddy had been successful with nearly all his detective cases, there were two things that bothered him a good deal. The rats were still in the barn, for one thing, and though they couldn’t get to the grain-box any more without running the risk of being caught by Jinx, who was always on guard, they had stolen enough grain while they had the train of cars to keep them all the next winter. And, for another thing, the two robbers were still living in the hermit’s house, and Freddy hadn’t yet thought up a way of bringing them to justice. One of the mice, Cousin Augustus, had volunteered to go live in the house with them, and the reports he brought back were disturbing. They spent the day sleeping, or shooting at the chimney, or mending their clothes. But every night they went out and got in an automobile and drove off, coming back in the early morning with big packages of dollar bills, which they kept in an old trunk in the attic. They did all their own work—even made their own clothes—but the house, said Cousin Augustus, who was used to Mrs. Bean’s neat housekeeping, was a disgrace. “Dirty,” he said, “isn’t the word for it! Crumbs all over the floor, and the stuffing coming out of the sofa, and the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes. And the window-curtains simply black! You’d think they’d have some pride!”
Cousin Augustus had succeeded in gnawing a hole through the back of the trunk and in pulling out a package of the dollar bills, which he had brought to Freddy. Nothing would be easier, he said, than to take a gang of mice up there some night and get all the bills; but Freddy decided that there wasn’t much point in this, as they didn’t know whom the money had been stolen from, and so couldn’t give it back to its owners. And certainly a pig-pen was no place for it. But he kept the package Cousin Augustus had brought, hoping that some day he might get a clue which would lead to the arrest of the robbers and the return of the money.
And then one morning, when Freddy was in his office, he heard a buggy draw up in the road opposite it, and, looking through the window, he saw two men lean out and read the sign he had printed. The man who was driving was the sheriff, who lived up near Centerboro. He was in his shirt-sleeves and had a tuft of thin gray whiskers on his chin and a silver star on his vest, and Freddy knew him well because he owned some pigs who were distant relatives of Freddy’s. The other was a rather cross-looking man with a hard face, who had the stump of a cigar so firmly clamped between his teeth that it looked as if it was a part of his face.
“It may seem funny to you,” the sheriff was saying, “you being from the city an’ all, but I tell you these animals are different. They take trips to Florida in the winter, and they do all the work round the place without anybody tellin’ ’em what to do, and there ain’t one of ’em, so Mr. Bean tells me, that can’t read.”
“Bah!” exclaimed the hard-faced man so disgustedly that he almost lost his cigar stump. “I never heard such nonsense! You country hicks will believe anything. You can’t tell me any animal can learn to read, to say nothing of setting up in the detective business and hanging out a sign. Who printed that sign for ’em? I suppose you’ll tell me the animals did it!”
“Sure, they did it!” replied the sheriff. “I tell you, these animals are a lot smarter than some folks I know.”
“Meanin’ me?” said the other threateningly.
“I name no names,” said
the sheriff. “But I ain’t goin’ to quarrel about it. All I’m tellin’ you is, if I had the say-so, I’d get these animals to help me catch those robbers. Of course, you’re the boss, since you’ve been put in charge of the case. But you’re a city detective. I don’t mean nothin’ against city detectives, nor against you, personal. I don’t know nothin’ about you, but you must be a good man or they wouldn’t ’a’ sent you. But detectin’ in the city and detectin’ in the country is two different things. I’m a pretty good sheriff in the country, I guess, but in the city I wouldn’t be worth much, because I don’t know city ways. And you don’t know country ways, and that’s why I’m tellin’ you—”
“Oh, you talk too much,” interrupted the detective rudely. “Why don’t you catch these robbers if you’re so smart?”
“Same reason you don’t,” replied the sheriff calmly. “I ain’t smart enough. Only I’m willin’ to say so, and you ain’t. And I’m willin’ to take help where I can get it. If a pig can help me, I call on a pig.”
“A pig!” exclaimed the detective. He was so disgusted that he chewed a big piece off the end of his cigar. But he did not say anything more, for at that moment Freddy, who had been listening all the time, decided that he would show himself. He came slowly out of his office, walked over to the fence, and, getting up on his hind legs, leaned his forelegs on the upper rail as a man would have done, and looked inquiringly at the two in the buggy.
The detective gave a gasp of surprise and swallowed his cigar, and although he had chewed up so much of it that it wasn’t very big, it hurt quite a lot going down and it was several minutes before he could speak. Then he pointed at Freddy and said hoarsely: “What’s that?”
“That’s one of ’em,” said the sheriff, “the pig I was tellin’ you about.” He leaned out of the buggy. “Eh, Freddy? You’re a detective, aren’t you?” he said.
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