Sinbad and Me

by Kin Platt

  “A four-door prune,” she said. “Why does a hippopotamus have such a short tail?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “So you can tell them from mice. Why do hippos stand in the river all day?”

  “I give up.”

  “Because it holds more water than tea cups,” she said. Why do so many hippos get caught in spider webs?”

  “I don’t know, Minerva. Listen, is your father home?”

  “Because they’re nearsighted.”

  “That’s very good, Minerva. Can I talk to your father?”

  “What’s green and lies on its back? He hates this game, too. You give up? A tired watermelon.”

  “I’d like to ask him something.”

  “Just one more. But if it’s about us getting married. I think he’s against it,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “That’s okay.”

  “I’m getting prettier everyday,” she said.

  She’s one of those blue-eyed blondes you keep hearing about.

  “What’s long and green and travels distances?”

  I tried to guess that one but couldn’t.

  “What?” I asked.

  “An intercontinental cucumber missile,” she said. “Don’t you know any?”

  “I’ve been too busy,” I told her. “Can I talk to your father now?”

  “Hold on. I’ll ask him.”

  I held on. She was back in a second. “He said ‘No,’” she said.

  “Tell him it was an orange license plate and ask him if there was anybody in the Lincoln when they picked it out of the bay. Will you, please?”

  Are you working on that case too?” she asked

  “Sort of,” I told her.

  She was back in a flash. “He said to tell you quote nobody and quote if they don’t find those two men you’re going to get a kidnapping rap hung on you besides unquote.”

  “Oh, boy,” I said. “Your father really has a keen sense of humor.”

  “Did you really do it, Stevie?”

  “Are you kidding? How could I kidnap two grown men?”

  “That’s what papa wants to know,” she said.

  “Goodbye and thanks a lot,” I said

  “Want to come over for a swim tomorrow? I’ve got a new bathing suit.”

  I told her I didn’t think so.

  “Okay. Pop says to tell you when you’re ready to make a full confession he’ll take a statement from you.”

  “Ho ho,” I said. “Tell your father I’ll give him a free clue. Frank Teska owed somebody five thousand dollars.”

  “Owed who?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Tell him to ask those two men.”

  “The one they didn’t find in the car?”

  “Yeah,” I said. And I hung up.

  Sinbad was looking at me, his head cocked. “The orange

  plate meant the car came from Florida. Mimi meant Miami. I’m also wanted for kidnapping.”

  This news didn’t seem to bother him. He turned and trotted inside, back to the TV set, which I’d left on. I went over to shut it off and saw it was some old-time newsreel about famous fires of the past. It had just finished showing the San Francisco one. Now came the big Chicago fire and then one from a theater in New York City that looked real bad. The pictures were old and scratchy and hard to see. But the announcer was saying something that made me pay closer attention. “The big one of 1920…. The mysterious fire at Hampton, Long Island.”

  “Hampton,” I said, “when did we have any big fire?”

  It was a big one all right. But not in the town. On the water. There was a big white ship blazing away in the night, one of those old-time side paddle-wheel steamers that used to run up and down the Mississippi. What was it doing here?

  The ship was burning on the port side aft, high into the sky. People on deck, wearing those old-time clothes, were screaming and running around like crazy, diving or jumping into the bay, or being pushed in by the panicky crowd behind them. They weren’t too far from the landing and those that weren’t such good swimmers were being picked up by small boats. The light was so intense it seemed almost daylight. There was a big explosion, then a smaller one. I guess the steam boilers blew up. The big white ship tipped starboard side, then careened the other way, dipping port. It suddenly broke its moorings and moved off into the night and the dark sea, screened by the billows of smoke.

  The announcer was excited and talking a blue streak. “There it goes! What a sight! The fabulous floating palace, the River Queen, the million dollar gambling casino, that folks hereabout said would make another Saratoga out of the sleepy little Long Island town of Hampton! There it goes, the fire helplessly out of control, drifting off to sea, to be swallowed up in the murky fog banks of the Sound, never to be seen again. A million dollars up in smoke!”

  I’d never heard of the River Queen, or anything about Hampton once nearly being a gambling town. Something did look familiar, though. The section where the big paddle wheeler was when it caught on fire.

  It wasn’t too far around the Point from our house. A place called Steamboat Landing and around the bend a better name, Dead Man’s Cove.

  There was a big old house high up on the cliff there. One of the oldest around, built by a famous sea captain around 1750. Captain Billy Murdock. The house was called Captain Billy’s castle. Nobody had lived there for a long time. It was supposed to be haunted by Captain Billy’s ghost. On account of he was murdered there!

  I wasn’t thinking about Captain Billy then. I was thinking about the River Queen, the famous gambling ship that disappeared so mysteriously and was never seen again.

  “Hey, Sinbad,” I said. “A million dollars, right here!”

  Sinbad sat up and made the weird parrot sound. Well, I had the same idea he did. Mrs. Teska could use the money.

  CHAPTER 12

  Captain Billy’s Riddle

  Neither one of us slept too well that night.

  There was a full moon. Sinbad kept waking up and staring out the window at it. Not howling but thinking. I kept having a real wild dream.

  I was chasing the River Queen. Whenever I drew close enough to make out the gold letters of RIVER QUEEN, the ship would suddenly disappear. Then I would disgustedly head off in another direction only to have it reappear, helplessly yawing on a glassy sea, the fire out. Or when I lost it after a big swell it would come around Dead Man’s Cove, with a man on the deck waving at me. I started to wave back once, when the telephone rang.

  It was my mother calling from Westport, Maine.

  “We may not be home tomorrow night,” she said. “Your father fell off a ladder trying to save me.”

  “Were you falling?”

  “No. I was leaning out an upstairs window. Well, perhaps I leaned a little too far. I’m sure I wouldn’t have fallen.”

  “Is Pop hurt?”

  “He wrenched his back and his ankle. Can you and Sinbad get along for a few more days? The doctor thinks it would be best if he didn’t move for a while.”

  “Sure. There’s still some stew left. And Mr. Maytag said Sinbad and me can eat over at his house if we want.”

  “Mr. Maytag?” she said. “Isn’t that nice of him!”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Don’t bother them with Sinbad, though.”

  “But Mr. Maytag invited him, Mom.”

  “All right,” she said, still sounding mystified.

  I went back to sleep. But this time the River Queen had sunk for sure and I never found who was waving.

  Minerva Landry called up early Sunday morning.

  “If you wanted to come over and use the pool maybe I could help you study science so you wouldn’t be such a dope,” she said.

  I told her I’d promised to take Sinbad for a walk.

  “All day?” she wanted to know. I said I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t that I was trying to avoid her so much as that I just had something on my mind.

  “Do you think Sidney Beller can
swim?” she asked me.

  “How should I know?”

  “Maybe I’ll invite him over,” she said.

  “Tell him the one about nearsighted hippo,” I said. “He wears glasses. Maybe he’ll think it’s funny.”

  She was about to snap an answer when somebody there asked her something. “Just a second,” she said. “My father has something to say to you.”

  He always sounded as if he was talking through his teeth, like a ventriloquist. “That you Steve?”

  “Yeah, Sheriff,” I said. “Did you find those two guys yet?”

  He ignored my question. “How do you know Frank Teska owed somebody five thousand dollars?”

  I was sorry I’d mentioned it without Mrs. Teska’s permission, though she didn’t know I knew.

  “Do I have to answer that, Sheriff?”

  “We can charge you with withholding information pursuant to lawful investigation.”

  “What does that mean?” It sounded bad.

  “It means you better tell me how you know Frank Teska owed somebody five thousand dollars.

  “I saw the IOU note in Mrs. Teska’s icebox.”

  “That’s good place for it,” he said drily.

  “But before that I think I saw her holding it.”

  “‘Think’ doesn’t count.”

  “Well it looked like it. Only it was folded and I couldn’t see what it said.”

  He sounded like he was choking over a bone in his throat. “That’s fine,” he said finally.

  “But the note was gone from the icebox after the store was ransacked,” I told him. “I think those two men took it.”

  “Did you see them take it?” he asked. He sounded kind of tired for so early in the morning.

  “No, but I think—”

  He interrupted me. “Remember what we said before. Thinking’s not admissible as evidence.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Was there anything on the note that indicated the name of the person or persons Frank Teska owed this money to?”

  “No,” I said. “But I feel pretty sure—”

  “Forget it,” he said. “Was there a date on the note?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t remember seeing any.

  “Do you know how old Frank Teska is?”

  “No,” I said.

  “He’s almost as old as I am,” he barked. “And he’s been in trouble since he was practically your age. Now do you know what that means?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I mean, not exactly.”

  “It means that Frank Teska could have signed a note that he owed somebody five thousand dollars any time within the past thirty years. You want to know something else?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like you for a son-in-law,” he yelled and hung up.

  A second later the phone rang again.

  “Hello Steve,” she said. “This is Minerva.”

  “What’s tall and thin, walks on two feet and barks?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Your father,” I told her. Then I hung up.

  Sinbad beat me to the door.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “You’re coming along. We’re in this thing together.” He was so happy he even let me slip the choke collar leash on him without giving me a dirty look for not trusting him.

  The sun was shining but with a lot of clouds drifting over it didn’t look like it was going to last. Being Sunday and before noon, things were quieter than usual. I didn’t want to get involved in any more dumb mistakes so we cut through the woods. I let Sinbad snuffle along, investigating and trying to track down every new scent. It was good training for him in case Sheriff Landry sent me up the river and he had to find me.

  I thought we were going to have a good long private walk, but who came running up like a deer? You guessed it. Minerva Landry.

  “Hey, wait up,” she yelled. She was wearing her blue denims and running so fast her sneakers blurred. She really is a very good athlete, especially for a girl, and can outrun almost every kid I know including fellows, even me. She plays good ball and she’s got a mean punch. Nobody starts a fight with Minerva Landry. And it’s not because her old man is the Chief of Police, either.

  So, anyway, this great girl athlete came running up. It’s a little over a quarter of a mile from her house to mine, and I’d practically just finished speaking to her on the phone, but she wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “I decided I’d join you two,” she said when she got up to us. Her long blond hair that comes down to her shoulders, covered one side of her face and she flipped it back so she could see better. “That was a pretty good riddle about my father, I thought. He didn’t seem too crazy about it.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  “I thought you were going swimming. In your new bathing suit. With that Sidney Beller.”

  She tossed her head and bent down and patted Sinbad on his thick white neck. “I like mysteries better,” she said happily.

  Actually that’s one very good thing about Minerva Landry. She’s always in a very merry mood and her mind works fast so she’s not boring, at all.

  “What mysteries?” I asked.

  “Well, to name one,” she said, “how come you’re so dumb about that note?”

  “What note?” I asked.

  “The one Mrs. Teska was supposed to have had. I heard what you told my father. At least I heard enough from what he was telling you.”

  “What’s so dumb about it?”

  “You’re thinking that two strange men want to collect five thousand dollars from Mrs. Teska because her son, Frank, signed an IOU note for that amount. Right”

  “So what about it?” I asked. She had the facts right.

  “No wonder you flunked science,” she said and stopped to pick up a stone in the path and throw it at a tree. She missed a squirrel but hit the three. I didn’t know which she was aiming at. “You said that Mrs. Teska had the note, right?”

  “So?”

  “Well, if she had the note, then she didn’t owe the money any more. She’d already paid it. Or somebody had.”

  I could see in a flash that she was right.

  “But what was it doing in the icebox? With the ice cubes? And why was it missing after those men, or whoever it was, raided the store?”

  “That’s another pair of mysteries,” she said merrily.

  “You’re telling me,” I groaned.

  “Maybe she took it out of the icebox and hid it some other place,” Minerva suggested.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “What if those two guys said: ‘Look here, Mrs. Teska. This son of yours, Frank, owes us five thousand dollars. Here’s the proof. And when they showed her the note she grabbed it away from them.”

  “Mrs. Teska?” From those two big men?” Minerva asked scornfully.

  “She’s pretty strong,” I said. “She works a lot in that garden.”

  “Somebody ought to work a lot in your head,” Minerva said.

  I looked down at Sinbad. But he wasn’t paying any attention to this discussion. He was pulling hard, his nose close to the ground, chasing those scents. When he lost one he picked up another. He didn’t let it bother him. There was always another scent. In a way it was like the clues I was following.

  “Where are we walking to?” Minerva said.

  I looked up and saw the low dry-wall of stones covered with shining green moss. “We’re here,” I said, for no particular reason.

  “A graveyard?” Minerva said.

  “Why not?” I started to climb over the wall. Sinbad made the top stone in one big leap and then turned around, his big dark mouth open, and waited for Minerva. Then he scrambled down over the other side.

  In Hampton, just like our new and our old villages, we have a new and an old graveyard. This one was the old one. It’s at the north end of town, not too far from the water, and the path we’d skirted through the woods brought us right alongside of it. I h
adn’t been in it for a long time, not since I was a scary little kid.

  I wasn’t sure, even now, of not being afraid. But with Sinbad along I can always afford to be a little braver. Minerva didn’t act like she was scared. She even picked up a rock and threw it at one of the old tombstones.

  Then I tripped and fell. Right on Captain Billy’s grave!

  “Hey, that’s a good one,” I heard Minerva say.

  “Anyone can trip,” I said but then I saw she wasn’t looking at me at all. Her eyes were fixed on Captain Billy’s tombstone. And her mouth hung open. I saw right away why. There was something unusual here.

  It was a very old tombstone but the carving of the letters on it was clear enough to read. Usually inscriptions said: “Here lies So and So. Beloved something or other of whoever it was.” With the dates and sometimes a REST IN PEACE at the bottom.

  Captain Billy’s was different. On the top it said:

  CAPTAIN BILLY MURDOCK

  Underneath it were two dates. For when he was born and died.

  1711-1800

  Then came the interesting part, in four lines:

  FIRST DOGWATCHERS

  FOLLOW ME

  TWO BEATS FOUR

  THE LAST IS THREE

  Minerva jabbed me in the inside with her elbow. “What does that mean?”

  “How should I know?” I said.

  “It’s a better riddle than any of mine,” she said, happily, her blue eyes actually sparkling.

  Part Two

  CHAPTER 13

  Regards From Dead Man’s Cove

  We went over that crazy riddle maybe fifty times in the next hour but even Minerva, the Riddle Queen herself, couldn’t figure it out.

  I fitted the line about FIRST DOGWATCHERS, because I was certainly a dog watcher, all right. When it came to the second line, FOLLOW ME, that let me out. I didn’t care about following Captain Billy where he was just then, thanks.

  I wrote it all down in the little memo book I carry with me, anyway. I figured it would give me something to occupy me at night. I looked at the last two lines again.