Report on Vanessa Hewstone Read online

  Whipley laughed a great booming triumphant laugh.

  “Noah, ol’ puffball, all this I knew. Knew when you started. I but wanted to hear it from your dramatic lips. Yeah, I tried to buy the body of Ulysses, and the stone plate, from the trustee of Winterhouse’s estate, but no dice. It’s—it’s entailed or something to the thousandth generation. He must have loved Ulysses, all right. For he provided Ulysses should lie there during all the time his, Winterhouse’s estate, lay in trust. Which is for 99 years or so. Yeah, Noah, I know more about the whole affair than even you, you see.”

  “Damn you, Whip. I see you do. You—you made me spout all this uselessly. Well, that’s all I have to report of interest to you.”

  “Thanks, Noah. Will ring you again.”

  They hung up.

  But Noah did not leave the phone. Instead, he rattled it.

  The local phone girl answered.

  “Yes, Mist’ Quindry?”

  “Get me Gentryville. Get me Tom Huggins, custodian of the Talking Dog Mine.”

  “Yassuh, Mist’ Quindry. Right away.”

  He didn’t have to wait. A few clickings, and he had his man.

  “Tom Huggins, Mist’ Quindry?”

  “Say, Tom, I need your help—on something. To find out something. I’ll pay you—”

  “Pshaw, Mist’ Quindry. Name yo’re wants?”

  “Well, Tom, I can’t ask you to go down in the mine, because you’re a claustrophobiac—and besides—”

  “Raght, Mist’ Quindry. I have t’ opyrate the machin’ry for an’body goin’ down, from above.”

  “Yes, of course. Well Tom, I take it, somehow, nobody’s been down since—”

  “Sence yo’re bow-an’-arrow shooter went down. Raght, Mist’ Quindry. Ain’t any too many folks hanker to take a dip like that—but they do drift ’long—one—two—three a week or so—an’, seein’ the sign, some—”

  “Well, this is what I want you to do. Ask anybody who next makes the trip to bottom, to notice one single thing for you.”

  “Yas, Mist’ Quindry. What?”

  “Whether the U, in that soft, scaly burial plate over Ulysses, has been chiseled off.”

  “Chiseled—off? Tarnation, Mist’ Quindry, wouldn’t nobody do a fool thing like that. They—say, lissen, you didn’t go an’ have a fool dream, did you—like Mist’ Wint’house he did when he sunk the fool shaft?”

  “Maybe I did,” temporized Noah. “Dreams are awfully compelling sometimes. And you have to find out—anyway, Tom, will you elicit this single bit of information for me at first visitor down—and phone it—to me? Your phone-girl has our route, in case of lost articles. And I’ll give you $25 for your report, whether negative or positive.”

  “Pshaw, Mist’ Quindry—wouldn’t nobody chisel a fool U off’n a fool plate, of a fool dog—still, Ulysses wan’t no fool. Nor—however, I’ll git a report—next pussen goin’ down. Yass-suh.”

  “Good. And thank you, Tom.”

  Noah hung up.

  Went back to his comfortable ex-fat-lady’s chair. To his letter, in fact. To the point in it about Mark Vasey, his mysterious bow-and-arrow man. And who—if Noah knew anything at all—would assuredly be dropping into this trailer almost any minute now, to say goodbye—against his mysterious trip East. Yes, Mark Vasey who, if he were the twisted-minded U-stealer on this show—the potential firebug and whatnot—must have undoubtedly, while down in that mine there, and all by himself, and with the tools along the wall, have chiseled off the U from the flaking stone plate. But who, at same time, had unwittingly trapped himself as the doer—by taking a photograph of the plate before he did it, and giving his employer a print!

  And if he did—if he had—

  Noah sighed.

  If he did, Noah had lost one of the neatest acts he’d ever had. Ah me, ah me!

  CHAPTER III

  “Come In?”

  Noah resumed his letter a couple of lines or so back of where he’d broken off, first reading and then taking up writing as the writing was destined to evolve:

  Yes, he is so unerring with bow and arrow that—well, if I should tell you some of his feats—such as, for instance, actually shooting out a British thrippence from between the fingers of—but held in mailed gauntleted hand, however, as I won’t permit dangerous chances here—of his girl-assistant—however, you will naturally ask why is he hidden here in this little show, so to speak, with an act like that? Well, my dear sir, bow-and-arrow acts just don’t go over in the cities. They’re considered “corny”. But out here in the sticks—where people will actually gather by the thousands to witness an ordinary plowing contest, with an old-fashioned handles-plow—that’s where an act like his really makes the spectators yell with pleasure. And—

  Where did I get him? Out of what insane-asylum—perhaps you’ll ask? Well, I just picked him up in the North. In an amusement park. In St. Louis, to be exact. Where he was casually shooting—with a crude park-provided bow and arrow—at a doll rack or something, for gimcrack prizes of some sort. Oh my, the things he did—with that crude amusement-park bow and arrow. I—I confess I tapped him—on the spot. Knew he was Robin Hood reincarnated. Found, in a later trial, at an archery range—he was! Brought him on here. He’s part of us now. And still—a mystery! For I know nothing of him whatsoever. Actually, he doesn’t know a single thing about St. Louis—the town where I picked him up. Though does know Chicago like a book—but in which town, however, he disclaims any residence—or home.

  He’s now leaving the show—on some mysterious unstated business—unstated, that is, as to nature and object—to be gone about 18 days. Since he provides now—in face of your own information—a sort of a pivot for my suspicions, I can, while he is gone, it’s true, lay a trap or two. Involving U’s. Should the trap not be nibbled at in his absence, I am in a position then and there to—

  But it was right here in Noah Quindry’s letter-writing that a knock came on the broad door generally facing him and his chopsuey stand table. The door faced inward, of course, to the lot—not the outer roadway. And meant always—an employe only. Its questioning knock even seemed to plainly say: “Don’t want to disturb you, Chief—but I’m leaving now on that midnight rattler, and want to say goodbye!”

  Noah hastily blotted his letter. Turned over the sheet he was writing on. Put the ink bottle firmly atop the several accumulated sheets.

  “That’s him, all right,” he said. “About to leave—for 12 days—without any explanation whatsoever. I wonder why? I wonder why?”

  He had turned his head, as he spoke to himself, toward that lot-facing door on which the tentative knock had come.

  “Come in, Robin Hood,” he called sepulchrally. “The Sheriff of Nottingham is ready—and waiting!”

  CHAPTER IV

  Robin Hood the II’d

  The trailer door opened.

  Disclosing, against a background consisting of a momentary flash of the “lot”, with trailers lined up, across a murky-looking dark area, their gilt and crimson paint invisible in the dark, but light glowing cheerfully from all, a young man. A man whose body proceeded to more or less blot out the background as it rose slightly in process of ascending the two topmost steps of the short flight leading upward to the trailer door, and even more and more obscured most of the opening. Once in, moreover, the newcomer immediately closed the door behind him. He was about 28 years of age, and clad in a sprightly black and white checkered suit—but far more modest than Noah’s own, which had to be show-stuff—with a light-toned plaid shirt. He wore no square crimson derby, but did wear a rakish grey felt hat. His eyes were puzzling wells of grey, his cheeks pink and healthy, and there was sadness on his lips as well as a smile, if that sort of thing could be!

  He carried—somewhat oddly for such a sparse traveler—a square metal covered travelling bag, which made Noah Quindry’s eyes narrow a
bit helplessly.

  “Hope I’m not intruding, Chief?” the newcomer said. “But if I’m to nab that midnight jerkwater, I have to say fare-thee-well now!”

  “Of course, Mark,” greeted Noah, “I want to say goodbye—myself. Bring over that camp-chair there—yes. And set your—what on earth kind of a travelling bag is that? For a smartly dressed chap like you to tote?”

  “Oh,” Mark Vasey said, frowning, “something I picked up a town or two back. Good for heavy things—good for light things—good for all things!” He set the bag carefully against the side of the door, as though to be all able to take off with it like an arrow himself. Laid his hat atop it, as registering legal ownership. Brought over the camp-chair, and dropped into it facing his chief across the chopsuey stand. “Well, Chief,” he asked dryly, “do you think the show can get along without the Great Arrow Shootin’ act?”

  Noah did not smile at this sally.

  “Well, just don’t forget, Mark,” he said, a bit chidingly, “that it ran a long while before it ever heard of you!”

  “I know,” nodded the other, almost contritely. “I know!”

  “And always keep in mind,” said Noah troubledly, “that someday—if—if you don’t get derailed by some fluke of misfortune or something, you’ll—you’ll be marrying that so-pretty thing that sets up all the articles you pink. And then you’ll not—be part of the show. For you’ll need real salary—not board money and trailer space. For there’ll be babies—”

  “—with little bows and arrows in their hands,” said the other man unsmilingly. “Well, I’m not admittin’ nuttin’.”

  The arrow sharpshooter gazed at his chief.

  “Chief, you look worried, do you know that?”

  “Do I? I am!”

  “Is—it is money?”

  “No, no, no, nothing like that. Purely some—ah—personal matter.”

  “Yes, I see. Well I can tell you somep’n to do—when you’re worried. If you won’t laugh?”

  “No, I won’t laugh. I’ll—okay—I’ll bite? What, Mark?”

  “Visit a dog graveyard. They do occur along the route, you know. The realization that all those little tykes lying down there under marker stones and all registered even themselves enough on the living world, that somebody thought to commemorate them—”

  Noah felt himself grimace.

  The other man did likewise.

  “Okay, Chief! I won’t attempt to make further sale. But, looking at a tyke whose folks won’t let him be forgotten, does do something to you about raising your own sense of importance in the scheme of things.”

  Noah grimaced again. “Last time you visited a dog graveyard—consisting of one single dog!—you darned near never got back into the world again!”

  Mark Vasey laughed. “Oh, you mean the bottom of that mine-shaft at Gentryville? When I paid my buck, and went down, down, down into Mother Earth to see all? Well I—I didn’t go down there, Chief, to see a dog’s grave. I really went down to see how far a man’s dream could induce him to dig. A fact! And—but you’re referring, of course, to how the custodian had to phone down to the car that the fuses on the switchboard up there were blown—and I’d have to make myself to home down there till some more were obtained from town nearby.”

  Noah nodded.

  “You weren’t in much danger, Chief, of losing an archer that time. Unless of course perhaps my dying of sheer boredom sitting down underneath there gazing at that flaking soapstone plate with Ulysses chiseled in it—or on it—those old rusty tools about the place—the—”

  “You really,” pleaded Noah, “went down solely to see how far a man’s dream would carry him? Not—not at all—to see the burial site of a dog—that is, the plate over him—”

  Mark grimaced. “Oh well, you know—two birds with but a single pellet. Sure I did want to see both the interment spot of a little dog made far, far below the surface of Mother Earth. And regardless of the mere fact that he could talk—or utter some words. Sure, I wanted to commune with myself a bit—on that, too, if—if I hadn’t thought ’twas worth the looking at, I—I wouldn’t have snapped a pic of it, and given you a print, would I? Or—satisfied now, Chief? That I’ve tooken down my hair and all?”

  “Yes, I suppose you have,” said Noah unsmilingly. Adding, “At going down into a shaft where most people don’t particularly like to go. Whooie!” He shook off his own touch of claustrophobia, at this juncture. “What did you think about all alone down there? Cut off by electrical fuses and all? What did you do—to keep from getting the jitters? What—”

  “Do?” took up the other. “Do?” he repeated. “Oh, twiddled my thumbs. Contemplated the soapstone burial plate. Tried out the edges of the old chisels a bit—on the walls. You know? Just to see how they take life down there? Walked around in the extremely limited space. Recited Mother Goose. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know,” lied Noah. “I just wondered—what a man does—when he’s all alone in the bowels of the earth—with the grave of a dog named Ulysses. That’s all.”

  And he lapsed into silent, helpless gloom. Not remotely dreaming that, in one second, he was going to get a report from Tom Huggins, caretaker of the Talking Dog Mine.

  And a strange and startling report—to say the least!

  CHAPTER V

  Report

  For it was here, as Noah Quindry sat in gloom that was cuttable by a butter knife, that the phone over on the bookkeeping table desk tinkled asthmatically again. And believing it to be but some unimportant matter concerning the show, he rose gravely. Saying glumly, “’Scuse me a minute, Mark. Stay where you are.”

  He waddled over to the bookkeeping desk; the phone on it.

  Raised the instrument.

  “Your chief talking,” he said dignifiedly.

  But, to his surprise, came the tone of no other than the man he’d been talking with, some minutes before, at Gentryville.

  “This’ Tom Huggins, Mist’ Quindry.”

  “Oh—Tom? Well, what can I do for—did one of us forget someth—”

  “Mist’ Quindry, I got so’thin’ t’ report t’ you that tetches on yo’re little c’mmission to me. Makin’ it—”

  “You have? What is it?”

  “Wa-all, Mist’ Quindry, whilst we ’uz talkin’ a while back here, a mine-inspector was checkin’ the cables in the shaft—yep, just by runnin’ the car up an’ down a bit an’ all that—feller ’at had to stop over atween trains, an’ done his chore in the night, like’s now—wa-all, he come in here jest as I hung up, an’ repo’ted t’ me—”

  “Yes? Reported—what?”

  “Repo’ted he couldn’t git th’ car down fu’ther than two-thirds down.”

  “Well meaning—meaning what, Tom?”

  “Meanin’ that—wa-all, he swung up the trapdoor in the car floor, an’ looked down, with his beam-torch. An’ you know what?”

  “Heavens no. What?”

  “Wa-all, they’d b’en a cave-in o’ the lower-third o’ the shaft. Musta tooken place las’ night durin’ th’ tremblor we had. Th’ shaft run th’ough queer shale-like stuff down thar, an’ it’s all cracked in all d’rections by disintygration an’ what an’—”

  “Cave-in?” ejaculated Mr. Noah Quindry, just coming alive.

  “Yes, Mist’ Quindry. The whole bottom third is a mess o’ shale an’ loose rock lyin’ atop ev’thing on the bottom, clear up to—well so fur up ’at it’ll be months an’ months afore it kin ev’ be cleared out.”

  “Months—and months?”

  “Yas. An’ll require co’te-orders an’ what f’m the Wint’house Estate, then impo’ted minin’-machin’ry, an’—”

  “Well that—settles it!” said Noah Quindry, helplessly. “I mean—so far as what I specifically wanted you to do. I am sorry though, Tom. About you. About your fees and all for—”


  “I’m a’ right, Mist’ Quindry,” came Tom’s assurance on the wire. “The will o’ Hogate Wint’house pervides ’at I git a ’llowance w’en the shaft ain’t in workin’ order. Ah’ll be a’right. Jest wanted for you to know ’at I cain’t fin’ out fer you now of any monkey-foolin’ has b’en did on that dog grave-stone down thar. Fac’ is, w’en the place does git dug out someday, the dog-plate’ll prob’ly be foun’ shivered t’ smithereens,”

  “Yes—of course,” nodded Noah. “Naturally. Well—” He shook his shoulders helplessly. “Thank you, Tom. Thanks for calling me.”

  And with a sigh, Noah hung up. And went back to his chair.

  And sighed again. The heaviest sigh on earth probably.

  And Mark Vasey, “U”-stealing suspect in this trailer, and very, very much so, asked the natural question:

  “What on earth, Chief, are you sighing—about?”

  CHAPTER VI

  Cross-Examination

  Noah answered this unanswerable question as so many such are answered in this life: By a quite penetrating question of his own.

  “Well, speaking of communing with oneself and all that, whilst looking at gravestones and what, was that what you were doing—at Shelby’s Bluff, on the Mississippi, day before yesterday? I mean when you rented a launch from Pop Starkweather and chugged out to that island—oh, the spit of land, I’d probably better call it!—where that retired millionaire who’d lived there in Shelby’s Bluff—Philaster McCorniss—had himself interred a year or so before, and—well, did you go out there to commune with yourself over things?”

  Mark Vasey frowned.

  “Well—no, Chief. I chugged out there to—to Island 46 VII/b as it appears to be called officially and—and navigationally!—alias also Bleeker’s Island!—chugged out there, at top speed, incidentally, because of the way they said the river was rising every hour and on the hour, and would submerge the lower half of the burial vault—I chugged out there to really see a tomb made of imported Tibetan marble in the Tibetan manner, that was all.”