Sinbad and Me

by Kin Platt

  The Sheriff helped Mrs. Teska sit down again. “Try to remember,” he said patiently.

  At first she didn’t want to. But I reminded her of something that made her feel less angry.

  “At least you’ll feel better after this, knowing that you never had that phony kum curse on you. Right?”

  Her blue eyes glowed and then there were tears there. “You good boy,” she said. “You forgive Mrs. Teska for that time. No?”

  “I knew you didn’t mean it,” I said.

  So she concentrated. Then she had it. It was pretty much the way Sinbad had reconstructed it for me. This time she remembered the other man flying out of the open library door and knocking her down where she was standing in the center hall.

  I went over and kissed Sinbad right in the nose. “That’s one for your side.” I said.

  The Sheriff didn’t kiss me. He mopped his brow and looked at his watch. “Well, now we know there’s a strong possibility the other man shot Mr. Bagler. But it’s still highly circumstantial. She didn’t actually witness the crime.”

  Mr. Bagler came over to rub Sinbad’s ears a second. “Well, it’s been a long time. She may recall more details in a day or so. I think the old lady’s remembered enough for tonight.”

  So once more they got ready to leave. I put my hands on the big gleaming library table. I hated to give up now.

  “I just can’t figure out how she saw him with the gun,” I said.

  The furrows in the Sheriff’s face twitched. “What are you driving at now?”

  “She was knocked down and unable to walk. How could she see Nick Murdock in here with the gun in his hand? I was lying flat on my back out there a second ago. When you opened the door, Sheriff, I could only see you. I couldn’t see Mr. Bagler. And he was standing right here.”

  The Sheriff started to walk out of the room to check. And I remembered another thing. “It depends on which half of the door he came out of. If it was this one, she couldn’t see anything. If he came out the other, well, maybe. Unless he was in such a hurry he opened both sides.”

  Mr. Bagler smiled. “He never would have managed that. The door that’s open is the one we’ve always used. The other one is jammed and fixed.” He looked at the Sheriff. “Well, Langwell?”

  The Sheriff was lying on his back in the center hall. He got up and came back inside. He tried the other door. It didn’t budge. He was a strong man with powerful hands and he tried it again and it still was jammed. He walked slowly over to where Mrs. Teska was sitting. “Well, Mrs. Teska?”

  She really had a rotten memory. Finally and suddenly she remembered that the one door of the library opened when the man came running out. She was in his way and he knocked her flat. Then, just as he got out the front door, Nick Murdock came running. He saw her lying there and picked her up and carried her in his arms right back into the library. They got there just in time to see the mayor slump off his chair with blood all over his white shirtfront and fall to the floor. Dead. She finally remembered!

  “Then Big Nick take gun off table. He bend down and put gun in dead mayor’s hand. I scream and cry and ask why he do that. He look up mad. He say mayor dead anyway. It not matter how he dead. He warn me not talk.”

  She got it all out and was crying like crazy all over again. Mr. Bagler came and patted her shoulder and gave her a little glass of wine.

  “No wonder her memory was blocked and she couldn’t remember,” he said gently. “Who would want to remember a thing like that?”

  CHAPTER 47

  The White Square

  Sheriff Landry dropped Mrs. Teska off first.

  “Remember” he said to her. “You don’t open the door to anybody tonight. And I’ll pick you up tomorrow.” Then he helped her up the stairs to her apartment over the store while Sinbad and me waited in the squad car.

  When he came down, he got the key and checked the store. Then he drove us directly to his house. I didn’t feel like arguing anymore about going home. The night was almost all shot anyway.

  Just as he pulled up in front of his house I realized Mrs. Teska in all the excitement had forgotten her cane.

  “Do you think we ought to go back?” I asked him.

  He yawned. “It’ll keep. You hold on to it and we’ll give it to her tomorrow. She’s probably asleep by now.” He opened the front door and whispered: “I’m putting you guys downstairs in the guest room. And keep it down. Minerva’s sleeping.”

  Then he blinked as yellow light flooded the hallway. “Want to bet?” she said. She wore blue checked pajamas.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked her.

  “Who can sleep?” she said. “And besides where have you people been? It’s after three.”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”

  “How come Steve and Sinbad are staying over?”

  “How come you ask so many questions?”

  He finally got her going up the stairs, though she wasn’t too happy about not finding out what happened. So I gave her a riddle: “Not in the ground, Not in the air,” and so forth.

  “That’s a good one,” she said.

  “It might be the most important one,” I told her. “Somebody lured Mrs. Teska out of her house tonight to find out where it was and she nearly got killed.”

  “Wow!” Minerva said. “Who saved her? You or Sinbad or my father?”

  “Gee, I really don’t know,” I said. “Everything seemed to happen at once.”

  “You don’t know she was lured either,” said the Sheriff, standing on the upper landing. “Did you hear her being lured? Did you see her being lured? Did she tell you she was lured?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “But—”

  “Good night,” he said. That was an official order.

  The guest room, used also as a study, was lined with books. I was dead tired, but instead of falling asleep the second my head hit the pillow I became wide awake. I guess it was the excitement and knowing I really had helped two people tonight: Mrs. Teska, out of her curse of the kum superstition and Mr. Bagler, out of wondering anymore if his father was guilty. Now he knew for sure he wasn’t.

  I switched the light on again. Sinbad stopped snoring and opened one red-rimmed eye. I got Mrs. Teska’s cane and took it back to bed with me.

  I’d been lucky with it tonight. The first time, when I noticed that the fake Captain Billy ghost on the captain’s walk wasn’t carrying it. The second time, when Mrs. Teska was leaning on it, and I realized she might have got her crippling back injury the night of the murder in Mr. Bagler’s house.

  If I hadn’t noticed it in the dining room portrait of Captain Billy, I probably would have missed those chances. Now I started to wonder why Captain Billy carried the cane himself. In the portrait he wasn’t old. His hair and beard and moustache were still jet black. Had he got shot in the leg or fallen? He might even have had the bad luck to get caught in his own Jonah jaws!

  Then I remembered that it was the fashion in those days for men to carry canes. But Captain Billy wasn’t a dandy. At least I didn’t think so. He was a pirate. A raider. Somehow, to tell the truth, that’s what I hoped.

  Sinbad wasn’t sleeping any more so I showed him the worn initials engraved on the silver head. “That’s what took me so long in trying to figure it out,” I told him. “I was so used to calling him Captain Billy, I expected his initials to be C. M.”

  Sinbad stretched out to look it over. He sniffed at the heavy silver head. Then he sniffed and smelled the length of the cane.

  “It’s either hickory or poplar,” I told him. “Take your pick.”

  I guess he thought I wanted to play because he got the lower part of it in his jaws and pulled. The way he does when we have a tug of war. But it was no time for games.

  “Forget it,” I said. “It’s late and I still got school tomorrow.” I tried to shake it out of his mouth but he only jerked his head away. “Come on,” I told him. “I’m too tired to play.”
I grabbed the silver head firmly and pulled. Sinbad held his end in viselike jaws and tugged. Then he shook his head in one of those powerful neck wrenches. That’s when the silver head of the cane came off!

  “Oh, great,” I moaned. “Now we broke it.”

  The head was hollow and fitted exactly over the top end of the thick stick. I tried to slip it back in place but now it didn’t fit. The neck was long and narrow, flaring out to the big knob-like top. I figured possibly some part of the wood had splintered and stuck in there. The stick was pretty old and chewed anyway. I held the head up to the light. I couldn’t see any wood. I ran my fingers up as far as they would go and I couldn’t feel anything either.

  Finally I shook it and slapped it down on my palm a few times. A thin piece of paper hit my hand. It was folded over several times and when I opened it up there wasn’t any writing on it. I was holding just a small white square of paper.

  Sinbad made the parrot sound. “It’s nothing,” I told him. “Just a white square—”

  The record player inside my head switched on. I heard the crazy singsong chant of the red-headed girl typist:

  Not in the Ground

  Not in the Air

  The Secret is Found

  Inside the White Square

  CHAPTER 48

  Secret Of The White Square

  In a split second I was off the bed, out the door and running up the broad staircase, flicking on light switches as I passed. Sinbad, just as excited, clattered behind me. I was yelling at the top of my lungs even before I pounded on the Sheriff’s bedroom door.

  “I found it! I found it!”

  I heard a light click and him muttering as he came to the door. Just as he opened his, Minerva opened hers across the hall and came out, her mouth wide.

  The Sheriff gave me one of his ray-blast looks but before he could say anything I thrust the paper right into his face.

  “The white square,” I panted. “Look! It was inside the silver head of Captain Billy’s cane.”

  He took it out of my hands. He looked at one side. He looked at the other. He sighed. Then he handed it back to me.

  “Don’t you get it?” I said. “Remember the riddle? Not in the ground, not in the air? That fits!”

  Minerva’s blue eyes were dancing. “That’s right, Pop.”

  He looked across at his daughter. Then down at me. “Okay. You found it. What did you find? A white piece of paper. Not only is it white but it’s also a square. I don’t see any writing on it, do you?”

  I had to admit I didn’t.

  “No secret messages even? No code? No cipher?”

  I had to agree with that too.

  “I admit it fits the riddle,” he said patiently. “But did it occur to you that it also fit the cane?”

  “Huh?” I said

  He picked up the paper again. “Isn’t it possible that a folded piece of paper was all that silver head needed to fit snugly on the stick?”

  The Sheriff’s logic always made me feel dumb. This time I felt the dumbest of all.

  He handed the paper back to me. “It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t need any sleep. I live on excitement.”

  My arm dropped lower than my spirits. Sinbad came over and started sniffing the paper square. Minerva just looked sorry.

  “Gee, that’s tough,” she said. “I thought you had it.”

  “It’s okay,” I shrugged. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with my hair,” she said. “It’s just up. I wear it up at night.”

  Actually it didn’t look too bad with that black ribbon tied in it. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I just like to. The way you like to wake everybody up over nothing.”

  “I thought I had it. Just now you even said you thought I had it.”

  “That’s before I realized what a dope you are,” she said. “You don’t even remember your own riddle. The last part was: the secret is found inside the white square.” That still didn’t penetrate my skull. “Inside!” she said pointedly.

  “It’s only a thin sheet of paper,” I said. “It was folded when I got it but there wasn’t anything inside.”

  “Maybe you dropped it.”

  I remembered nothing dropped but the paper.

  “Well, maybe it’s still stuck inside the silver head?”

  “I’ll look!”

  “I’m coming too,” she said.

  “No, you’re not,” the Sheriff yelled from inside his room. “You’re going to bed! So’s the riddle king, I hope.”

  I shrugged. That was it. So I started down. Sinbad made the whining parrot sound.

  “We were faked out,” I told him. “We got the wrong white square.” Then I saw where he had licked it. Words were appearing in the damp spot!

  I yelled, “Sinbad found it! Sheriff, come back!”

  The two doors opened again like magic. The Sheriff held out his hand. I shook it.

  “I don’t want to shake hands,” he said. “I want the paper!”

  “Oh,” I said. I handed him the paper.

  Minerva ran across the hall. “I want to see, too.”

  Greenish and faint, two words could be seen in the middle of the square:

  silver

  look

  Suddenly Minerva let out a scream. “They disappeared!”

  The Sheriff’s hands were steady. I blinked and looked again. There was nothing there. Nothing but a white square.

  “But you saw them,” I told the Sheriff.

  He nodded. “Two words,” he agreed. “Silver and look. I guess somebody wants us to look for the silver.” He held the paper closer. Then he took it over to the light on his dresser. He shook his head. “It’s gone. Not a bad trick. The invisible message.”

  “That’s it! I yelled. “Invisible!” The Sheriff took a step back and squinted at me. “I was reading about that in the code book. It’s in invisible writing.”

  The Sheriff still didn’t understand. “There are two kinds, Sheriff. One you read by applying heat. The other you read by dampening the paper. That’s the kind this is. The letters didn’t appear until Sinbad licked the paper.”

  Sheriff Landry handed the white square back to me. He pointed to the bathroom dead ahead down the hall.

  “The basin’s in there,” he said.

  There was a lot more to it than just two words. There was a message of three long lines telling where the treasure was, and underneath a roughly drawn map. It showed where the treasure was and where to dig for it:

  In Dead Man’s Cove my silver hides

  Through Scuttle Point tunnel. Look out for slides

  In Jonah Jaws, E.N.E. by E. Iron ring guides

  The map outlined Jonah’s Bay from Dead Man’s Cove to Scuttle Point. The diagram inside showed the rock that hinged the Jonah jaws. Next to it was a small circular basin, lettered Inner Pool. Above it a passage that said: Discharge drain tunnel. Left of that: Downdraw. Another: Outflow. Below, to the right, the tunnel to Scuttle Point. Steps were drawn near the inner basin. There was a post with an iron ring. Underneath it said: Dig three fathoms at neaps.

  By the time we had this much, the paper had dried up and showed nothing!

  I ran in and dampened it again. We were back in business! Even better business.

  The first time one of the folds had kept an important line from appearing. Clearly now, a line extended from the iron ring near the steps inside the inner cave, outward through Jonah jaws, past the five rocks that guarded the cave, to a point on Jonah’s Bay, and the letter N. Looking at it clockwise, it was almost a point above three.

  Downward from the iron key, at a right angle bearing, intersecting the other line, was one that led through the iron ring, past the X mark in Dig three fathoms. This line extended out past the rock of the hill to the water of Scuttle Point and the letter E. Clockwise, it was a point above six.

  “What do you think, Sheriff?”

  “I think you found Captain Billy’s treasure,” he sai
d nonchalantly. “I guess it’s time for me to make that other call now.”

  “What other call,” I asked.

  “To Mr. Gideon Pickering,” he said. “If he’s still alive, I think you found enough reasons now for Big Nick Murdock to come home.”

  Part Six

  CHAPTER 49

  Nick Murdock, Won’t You Please Come Home?

  After he made breakfast for us, Sheriff Landry drove me to school. On the way down, he explained why he was letting me keep the folded white square that held the secret of Captain Billy’s treasure.

  “Finder’s keepers. There may be a fine point of law involved here. Mr. Pickering will explain it. Then, if it falls to me, I’ll enforce it. Lawyers are servants of the court, just like sheriffs. If Murdock doesn’t return, barring the possibility of unknown heirs to the estate, or other beneficiaries, or other litigation, you’ve got it.”

  “You mean the treasure’s mine?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “I don’t know yet. If Murdock’s alive, it’s his. If he turns up he’ll probably make a deal with you. But Mrs. Teska remarried so she gave up her property rights.”

  “But I only got into this mess for her sake. To help her pay off that IOU note of Frank Teska,” I said.

  “Okay,” the sheriff said. “If you get the money, you can still do that if you want to.”

  He braked his car in front of Mrs. Teska’s store and house. “Glad we remembered this,” he said and got out of the car with her cane. He knocked upstairs and told her through the door what it was and then came back down and we got going again.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said. “If Frank Teska owed somebody five thousand dollars, how come he came around to collect it?”