Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars

by Walter R. Brooks

  After a moment Mr. Kurtz’s voice answered.

  “Is this you, Herb?” asked Mr. Boomschmidt.

  “Yes. Who’s this?” Mr. Kurtz demanded.

  It suddenly occurred to Mr. Boomschmidt that, while he’d found out what he wanted to know, he didn’t know what to say next. He covered the transmitter with his hand and threw an appealing look over his shoulder at the others.

  Freddy didn’t know what to say either. But he had a theory that had been very successful in his detective work: when you don’t know what to do, do the first thing that comes into your head—the crazier the better. For if you stir things up, something useful is likely to come to the top. And at the worst, you thoroughly confuse the enemy.

  So he pushed Mr. Boomschmidt’s hand aside, and leaning forward, said into the transmitter: “Help, Herb! Help!” and ended up with a hoarse and terrible screech, before dropping the instrument with a crash onto its cradle. “There,” he said. “That ought to unsettle him some.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  If the mysterious “Herb” to whom Mr. Anderson had spoken over the phone was really Mr. Kurtz, then it was certain that he would have to be investigated, and quickly. Freddy got in touch with Mr. J. J. Pomeroy, who at once alerted the A.B.I. Early next morning they had set up their headquarters in an abandoned mill on the outskirts of Tushville, and Mr. Kurtz was already under observation. Bumblebees were buzzing around his windows, wasps and beetles and lesser bugs were searching for cracks and crevices through which they might get into his house, and Mrs. Pomeroy was directing local operations from the top of the chimney.

  Freddy had wanted to go to Tushville, to be near the field of action, but he felt that he shouldn’t go either as himself or as Mr. Arquebus. He decided to sleep on it. He was sleepy anyway, “and when I’m as sleepy as this,” he said, “I ought not to make important decisions.”

  Mrs. Peppercorn had gone downtown after breakfast, and Freddy was sitting on the porch, when Mr. Anderson came up the walk. Freddy didn’t have time to retreat; he hardly had time to be scared, before Mr. Anderson was standing over him. But the man seemed to be in a good mood. “Well, Arquebus,” he said, “you’re certainly a slick operator. You sure had me fooled. Not that I believed in that hick talk, and those phony whiskers. But I didn’t guess that you were onto my racket, nor that you were out to hijack any of my stuff. It was just luck I searched your room. I was looking for something else.”

  “Looking for that ’ere wallet of mine, I expect,” said Freddy. “There wasn’t no wallet, mister.”

  “You don’t have to talk bad English to me any more, Arquebus,” said the other. “I think you and me can do business together. I got a proposition to make you.” He dropped into a chair. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re doing hiding out in a little country town like this; I don’t know and I don’t ask why you’re posing as a baseball coach, nor how you got the job with old Boomschmidt. I won’t even ask how you knew I had that stuff in my safe. But that was a slick job, opening that safe. I need someone like you. Look, Henry.” He leaned forward and tapped Freddy impressively on the knee. “I’ve got a secret way of getting into any house in the country. I can get in, and I can get out, without anybody seeing me or knowing anything about it. Furthermore, I can get into a house in, say, Cleveland, and if anybody should see me there, I can prove that I was here in Centerboro within five minutes of the time at which they claim they saw me. I have a perfect alibi. And I can do the same thing for you.

  “Now let’s get down to cases. Up in Rochester there’s a Mrs. Hubert Van Snarll. She’s got jewelry that would make that stuff you hijacked out of my safe look like a sockful of broken glass. Only trouble is, she keeps it in a safe in her bedroom, and I ain’t any good at safes. I’ve read books on safe-cracking, and I’ve taken lessons in it; but it’s no good. Last teacher I had, he could drill a little hole in the lock and put some nitroglycerine in and touch it off, and there’d be just a little pop and the door would fly off. But when I tried it—boy, what a bang! The whole building came down on us. They got me out, but I never did see that teacher again.”

  “But I don’t know how to blow open a safe,” said Freddy.

  “Don’t want you to,” Mr. Anderson replied. “Job’s got to be done quietly. House is full of butlers and housemaids and watchmen and cooks and stuff. That safe, it’s the same kind mine is, only it’s set in the wall. Anybody that could open mine without knowing the combination won’t have any trouble. And there it is, boy, just waiting for us. Fifty-fifty, and the stuff’s worth hundreds of thousands. What do you say?”

  Freddy had been thinking, and an idea had come to him. It was a terrifying idea, because it meant going burgling with Anderson, and if he was caught in Mr. Van Snarll’s bedroom by the butlers and watchmen … well, he’d just go to jail. And after he had served his sentence—what would he get, five years?—he pictured himself, met at the jail door by Jinx and Mrs. Wiggins. Yes, those two he could count on to remain his friends. But how could he face their reproachful looks. And how could he go back and face Mr. Bean? Mr. Bean would probably let him live in his old home, but what would it be like, living there, stripped of his honors, fired from the presidency of the First Animal Bank, shunned by old comrades, snickered at by rabbits.…

  “Well,” said Mr. Anderson impatiently, “what do you say?”

  Freddy braced himself. “Sounds all right,” he said. “But I’d like to know more before I decide. How do we get there? How do we get in without being caught? How do you happen to know so much about the safe and what’s in it?”

  “Now, Henry, you just leave all that to me,” said Mr. Anderson. “I’ll guarantee to get you in and out again without being seen or heard by anyone. As for how I know about the jewelry: I was there the other night—on the roof outside the window—and I saw her put the stuff away But that safe had me licked. Until I found out about you. Well, how about it?”

  So after bringing up a few more objections, Freddy agreed to go.

  He spent the day in Centerboro, in conference with Leo and Mr. Boomschmidt—and, it must be confessed, in sleep. The reason he gave himself for this was that he would have to be on his toes that night. Of course that was so. But it is also so that while asleep he wasn’t scared at the possibility of being arrested as a burglar.

  Freddy was lucky that way. His worries never kept him awake. Danger actually made him sleepy. He sometimes wondered if he wouldn’t be able to go to sleep right in the middle of a battle.

  And of course he was sure that Mr. Pomeroy was quite capable of handling the situation in Tushville. Until something more had been learned as to where Squeak-squeak had been hidden, there wasn’t much he could do there.

  At ten thirty that evening, as he was sitting in his room, hoping that Mr. Anderson had fallen downstairs and broken his leg—not seriously, but just enough so the Rochester trip would have to be put off—there was a tap at the window. He opened it, and there was Mr. Anderson, beckoning to him from the open door in the turret of the flying saucer, which was hovering so close that he could step right out onto the rim and right into the door.

  Besides Freddy and Mr. Anderson, only Two-clicks, who was driving, was in the saucer. And Freddy had no time to say anything to the Martian, for within two minutes, as he looked out through the window, the lights of Rochester swept up from the western horizon and spread out beneath them, and the saucer slackened, dipped, and swung along slowly at treetop level to stop within a foot of a third-story back window in a large brick house. Mr. Anderson said to Two-clicks: “Hover a couple of hundred feet up. When you see two flashes from this window, come down and pick us up.” Then he stepped out, raised the window, and Freddy followed him in.

  The room was a bedroom, furnished but evidently unused. Mr. Anderson explained in a whisper that the room below was Mrs. Van Snarll’s bedroom. “She’s out at a party tonight, and won’t be home before midnight,” he said. “We’ve got over an hour to go down a
nd get into that safe.”

  “And where are all the butlers and housemaids?” Freddy asked.

  “The maid has tidied up her room and turned down her bed. None of ’em will come up again tonight. Come along.”

  They went out and down the stairs and into a bedroom below, guided by Mr. Anderson’s flashlight. There was a dim light burning in the room, which was luxuriously furnished. Curtains and upholstery were in red damask; the bed was turned down and a red-plush nightgown was laid out on it, and below on the floor was a pair of matching red-plush slippers.

  “My goodness, she sure must be rich!” Freddy exclaimed, as he peered around under his glasses. He went over to examine the gold toilet articles on the dressing table.

  Mr. Anderson had gone over to a large wall mirror; he took hold of it and pulled, and as it swung away from the wall, Freddy saw the door of the safe behind it.

  “All right, boy—go to it,” said Mr. Anderson, and stood back, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

  Freddy went across and looked at the safe. He spun the dials experimentally a few times, then began feeling in his pockets. First in one, then in another, becoming more and more agitated, until at last he said: “It’s gone! I’ve lost it! I must have dropped it in that there flying machine.”

  “Must have dropped what?” Mr. Anderson demanded. “You don’t need anything but your fingers to open that safe. Come on—get going!”

  “That’s just it,” Freddy said. “My fingers. I always have to sandpaper ’em down a little before I go to work on a safe, so they’ll be sensitive enough for the job. And I lost the sandpaper.”

  Well, Mr. Anderson had quite a lot to say about Mr. Arquebus’s carelessness, and he said it in a savage whisper. But Freddy didn’t listen. He was edging toward the door. And just as he reached it, Mr. Anderson said: “Well, wait here and I’ll get it. And don’t lose your fingers while I’m gone.”

  But Freddy had the door open, and from outside he said: “I’ll get it. I think I know where I dropped it.” He was gone before Anderson could say any more.

  He guessed rightly that Mr. Anderson wouldn’t try to stop him, once he had started. After all, the man had no reason to believe that he would do anything but try to find the sandpaper and come back with it. But Freddy had other ideas. In the third-floor room he went to the window and with his own flashlight flashed twice at the sky. In a few seconds the saucer was hovering at the window sill, and he stepped into the turret.

  In a few seconds the saucer was hovering at the window sill.

  “Where Andyson?” Two-clicks inquired.

  “He stay; we go,” said Freddy. And as Two-clicks hesitated: “He say tell you, go quick! He coming bimeby next week on train.”

  The Martians had naturally found a good deal in earth people’s behavior that was impossible to understand. To Two-clicks, this was just another instance of it. He shrugged his four shoulders, slid the turret door shut, and five minutes later Freddy was back at Mrs. Peppercorn’s. He went to the telephone, called the operator, and said: “I want to talk to someone in police headquarters in Rochester, New York.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  Early the next morning Freddy had another talk with Mr. Boomschmidt, and then Mr. Hercules drove him over to the A.B.I. headquarters on the outskirts of Tushville. The old mill was buzzing with activity. Every minute or two bumblebee couriers were arriving with reports of the latest developments at the Kurtz house, and others were taking off, with instructions as to what should be done next.

  A great deal, Mrs. Pomeroy told him, had been accomplished. Squeak-squeak was definitely in the house. There was an old wine cellar back of the regular cellar, which had a heavy wooden door, strongly padlocked. The Martian had been heard talking through this door to Mrs. Kurtz. “Our operatives, however,” said Mrs. Pomeroy, “have not yet been able to establish communication with him.”

  She said that Jacob, the wasp, and a dozen of his relatives were in conference with Mr. Pomeroy; they had proposed a direct attack on the house. They felt that a company of wasps could drive the Kurtzes out of the house. A rescue party of animals could then enter the house and set the Martian free.

  But several of the wasps reported that Mrs. Kurtz had a spray gun believed to contain DDT, and that she was uncivilized enough to use it, even against harmless gnats and flies who were only minding their own business. Mr. Pomeroy, therefore, had felt that while the scheme might be successful, the casualty rate would be too high. So he vetoed the plan and the conference broke up.

  “Quite right,” said Freddy. “We can find some other way, I’m sure.”

  They were discussing this when a bumblebee returned with news that Mrs. Kurtz and her cook had had a fight and the cook had left.

  “That doesn’t help any,” said Mr. Pomeroy.

  “Perhaps it does,” said Freddy. “Just what happened?” he asked the bee.

  It seemed that the cook was not very bright and it had taken her a long time to find out that there was a prisoner in the cellar. It wasn’t indeed until she got to wondering what became of all the peanuts that Mr. Kurtz brought home, and why it was that he took them down-cellar and always returned empty-handed, that she began to put two and two together. She went down, rapped on the wine-cellar door, and when someone or something returned her rap from the other side, she demanded an explanation.

  Well, Mrs. Kurtz said, they were keeping a vicious dog there.

  The cook said she never heard of a dog being fed exclusively on peanuts, and anyway it was a crime to lock up an animal that way.

  So then Mrs. Kurtz said it was a dangerous criminal they had captured, and they were waiting for the police to come and get him.

  The cook said she thought the police were pretty slow, and she said anyway she didn’t like it and she was going to leave. Mrs. Kurtz begged her to stay until she could get somebody else, but the cook said nothing doing, and went.

  “H’m,” said Freddy. “Ha!” And he put on the Great Detective expression.

  Almost immediately he wished he hadn’t put it on, for he had got an idea—a dangerous idea—such an idea as a Great Detective would at once put into action, at no matter what risk to himself. And he didn’t want to. But with that expression on he had no choice. “Here,” he said, “drive me out to the farm right away.”

  A little over an hour later he was back in Tushville. But you wouldn’t have recognized him. Or, if you did, it would have been more polite not to say so. For he was in disguise. He had on an old gingham dress of Mrs. Bean’s, a sunbonnet, and a pair of black mitts, and he carried a shopping bag. Two handsome chestnut curls were pinned into the sunbonnet and hung down on either side of his face.

  This disguise was a favorite with Freddy, because when he wore it he pretended to be an old Irishwoman, and he spoke an imitation Irish brogue which he thought very convincing. It wasn’t; it was dreadful. But as Freddy didn’t know that, and considered it to be the real thing, he sometimes got away with it. It is often the case that if you believe in anything enough, you make other people believe in it too.

  Freddy had Mr. Hercules drop him at the corner nearest the Kurtz house, then he walked slowly down and turned in at the gate. He stopped, looking up at the house, took a piece of paper from his pocket and appeared to consult it, then went up the steps and rang the bell

  After a minute a big, hard-featured woman came to the door. “Well,” she said crossly, “what is it?”

  “The top of the mornin’ to ye, ma’am,” said Freddy. “And do I be speakin’ to Mrs. John B. Anguish?”

  “No, you do not!” snapped the woman, and slammed the door.

  “Dear me,” said Freddy, and rang the bell again.

  The door flew open. “Say, what’s the matter with you?” the woman stormed. “Now get away from this door and stay there!”

  She started to slam the door again, but Freddy quickly dropped down into a porch chair, and she came back out and stood threateningly over her visitor. “I sa
id, get away from this door!”

  “I said get away from this door!”

  “Ah, sure,” said Freddy in a wheedling voice, “ye’d not grudge me a bit of rest, ma’am? I dunno is there a Mrs. Anguish on this block, and she after hiring me for the cooking and general housework and then givin’ me the wrong directions for finding her home, the way I’ve tramped the livin’ legs off me huntin’ it—”

  “You mean you’re a cook?” the woman demanded suddenly. “Come in, come in, I want to talk to you.”

  This of course was what Freddy had hoped for, but he was smart enough to raise some objections, so that he found himself seized by the arm and forcibly propelled into the house. He continued to raise objections when Mrs. Kurtz tried to hire him, and she was so determined to argue them down that half an hour later he had been engaged as a cook, paid a week’s salary in advance, and given a comfortable room on the second floor—all without even being asked for his references.

  Freddy’s career as a cook lasted only five days, and they were not happy ones. The very first dinner he served to the Kurtzes was anything but a success: the steak had been cooked until it was about as easy to chew as the side of an old boot, while the potatoes were raw. As for the pie, the less said the better.

  “Throw this stuff out,” Mrs. Kurtz said angrily. “I thought you said you were a cook!”

  Mr. Kurtz was feeling his jaw. “I bent all my front teeth trying to bite into that pie,” he complained.

  “Ah, well now, and maybe it was a bit too well done,” said Freddy. “’Tis O’Halloran—me late lamented—you’d best be blamin’ for that. ‘Ye cook things too soft, Bridie,’ he’d say. ‘I like somethin’ I can get me teeth into.’ But sure ’tis a terrible thing to bend a tooth. I remimber—”

  “We’re not interested in your reminiscences,” said Mrs. Kurtz. “Take that sunbonnet off and go on back and wash the dishes. Come along, Herb, we’ll go down and get something to eat at the lunchroom.”