Cherry Ames Boxed Set 9-12

by Helen Wells

  “Yes, I’m always willing to listen.”

  Vernie said suddenly, “I’m glad you’re going to tell the truth, after all these awful weeks! Maybe if a fair-minded person like Miss Cherry believes you, then you’ll—”

  “Maybe Miss Cherry will even help me,” Mac said. “Telling the truth isn’t going to be enough to solve the mystery.”

  “But now you must tell me the truth, Mac,” Cherry said gently hut firmly.

  “So help me, I’ll tell you the truth! My name is Jack Waldron. Mac Cook is just a name I made up. Though by this time even Vernie and Fred call me Mac. Fred Epler and I are half brothers.”

  “So that’s it!” Cherry exclaimed. “I thought when I first came to Blue Water that you two men looked rather alike, but I didn’t—Wait a minute! Jack Waldron is the name of a loan company cashier who’s suspected of robbery.”

  “Yes. I’m the man who went off on vacation on a camping trip, and never came back. Because of Purdy. I can’t tell you how—how bowled over I was to find Pep Purdy, of all people, around here.”

  Cherry’s head was reeling. “Maybe you’d better start telling your story at the beginning,” she said.

  “You were with me, Miss Cherry, when I first saw Purdy around here—that day at the Model Farm’s greenhouse, remember?” Mac Cook—or rather, Jack Waldron—smiled a curious smile. “All right, I’ll begin at the beginning.”

  He told a strange story. It dated back to when he was three years old, when his father died. His young mother soon married again. Fred was born a year later when Mac was four. Mrs. Epler tried to be a good mother to both boys, but she never regained her full strength after a siege of pneumonia. Mr. Epler found a home for them all with a family which had its own children, but where Mrs. Epler would get proper care. In the crowded house, Mac was—or he felt—neglected, perhaps because Fred, who was younger, required more attention. Sometimes, in his unhappiness as he grew up, he was difficult. By the time he was eleven, his stepfather threatened to place him in an orphanage whenever Mac misbehaved.

  Somehow, throughout all this strain at home, Fred and Mac managed to be loyal friends. Fred looked up to his older half brother, and Mac always cared for and looked out for the younger boy.

  Then their mother died, and Jacob Epler did place Mac, at twelve, in an orphanage. After paying Mac a few halfhearted visits, Mr. Epler moved away and took Fred with him. Mac did not see or hear of his stepfather and half brother again.

  He was trained in the orphanage to earn his own living, and graduated at eighteen. Then Mac made his way alone. He had always been a lonely person, and despite a few friendships he remained so. He did not marry. He was not sure whether Fred would want to see him again, even after the orphanage authorities told him that Mr. Epler had died.

  He had one lead about where to find Fred. An old uncle in Mr. Epler’s family had owned a small farm in northeastern Pennsylvania, which would eventually belong to Mr. Epler and then to Fred. Mr. Epler had boasted a great deal about the farm and had taken the boys to visit it one time. Little Fred and Mac had talked about and dreamed about the farm when they were children. Mac never forgot it.

  “That’s why, when I was in trouble,” he said to Cherry and Vernie, “and didn’t have a soul to help me, I headed for this farm.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “You think I robbed the loan company, don’t you? So do the police. They’re looking for me.”

  Cherry stiffened. She looked inquiringly toward Vernie. This time Vernie looked straight back at her.

  “Fred and I wouldn’t harbor a criminal, Miss Cherry. Half brother or no half brother, we just don’t do things like that!”

  “Now wait, wait,” Mac pleaded, “before you judge me. Let me tell you the facts about Purdy.”

  “I don’t see what a photographer has to do with the loan company robbery,” Cherry said doubtfully. “The newspapers didn’t even mention his name.”

  “Sure they didn’t. Oh, Purdy’s a clever one! I wish I’d never met that man.”

  Mac had run into Pep at a quiet little restaurant in New York City where both of them ate their dinners regularly every evening. Presently the photographer spoke to Mac and struck up an acquaintance. He told Mac that he was a photographer, and showed Mac some of his commercial pictures which were signed Pep. He never told Mac that his full name was Paul E. Purdy; he avoided giving Mac his address. Once or twice he casually mentioned his cottage somewhere in the country not far from New York; Mac got the impression that it was in Connecticut.

  Mac was grateful for the man’s companionship. He was too sensitive about his unhappy past to talk about that, or about his half brother and the farm, so Mac kept the conversation in the present, and quite naturally told the photographer his name and the name of the loan company where he worked.

  “I didn’t need to tell Purdy,” Mac said dryly. “He already knew, he must have, that’s why he spoke to me in the first place. But he didn’t let on, and I didn’t figure out the truth until it was too late. He seemed like such a nice man.”

  Gradually, over their dinners, Pep confided to Mac that his photography studio was not doing very well. He needed money, soon, pretty urgently. He half joked about his troubles, as if embarrassed. He teased Mac about the big sums of currency a cashier handled every day, and, not at all incidentally, he pumped the lonely, unsuspecting young man for certain information: the layout of the office; where the bulk of the money was kept; on what days and hours the largest sums were in the loan company office, when business was rushing and the most clients were around.

  “One evening, just before my vacation, which I’d mentioned was coming,” Mac said, “Pep made another joke about all that money lying around at the loan company. He said it ought to be no trouble at all for a fellow to help himself to some of it. Well, I didn’t think that joke was so funny.”

  “You see, Miss Cherry,” Vernie said earnestly, “he was trying to get Mac to go in with him on the robbery. Mac’s already told Fred and me the whole thing,” she added.

  “Yes, I see,” said Cherry.

  “Oh, Pep insisted he was only joking as usual. When he saw I didn’t go for his idea, he just laughed it off and didn’t mention it again. But I realized he’d led me into talking too much.”

  Very soon after this, Mac had left on vacation, starting off alone on his camping trip. He had been gone a little more than a week when the story of the robbery broke in all the newspapers and radio newscasts.

  “The first I heard of it was when I bought a New York newspaper on Saturday, June fifteenth, in some little mountain burg—and I read that I was suspected of doing the job just the day before! Why, it was next to impossible! I was camping and fishing in the woods by myself all that week! Try and prove it, though! I had no alibi. Well, the first thing I thought of was Pep’s joke about robbing the loan company. But according to the newspapers, nobody suspected him—they suspected me.”

  Mac was so stunned that all he could do was take cover and try to think what to do next. If he went back to his job, he would be taken into custody, on charges of robbery, and probably locked up. He had only a little money with him; besides, a hunted man could not camp out indefinitely.

  “I didn’t know which way to turn—didn’t know whether I had a friend left in the world—and Fred is all the family I’ve got. So I decided to look up my half brother. Secretly. By back roads. We’d been good friends as kids, I figured I could talk things over with Fred. Maybe he’d know what to do, or maybe he’d at least help me to hide out for a while. What I hoped was that the police would catch the thief pretty quickly.”

  “And you think the thief is Purdy?”

  “Wouldn’t you, Miss Cherry? You see what Purdy did, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t,” Cherry said.

  “Purdy waited for a few days after I’d gone. Then, on June fourteenth, he dressed himself up in that big, loose raincoat of his—he and I are about the same height, five feet six, and i
n that raincoat you can’t see whether Purdy is plump, or slim like me. Besides the flowing raincoat, he pulled his hatbrim down low, and used a rubber mask.”

  Cherry caught her breath. “You mean the mask I found in the lake? But how do I know it wasn’t you who threw the mask in the lake?’“

  “If I’d thrown the mask in the lake, why would I want it back? Why, asking for it back would only throw suspicion on me,” Mac pointed out.

  “The mask isn’t proof,” Cherry told Mac gently,

  “I know. I wanted the mask to find out if it was the same kind of mask I’d seen in his barn as a prop—to make sure in my own mind whether he’d framed me!”

  Cherry accepted this explanation but another question arose. Why had Purdy—if it had been Purdy—gone to all the trouble of rowing out to the middle of the lake to dispose of the mask? He could have destroyed it in other ways. Yes, but did a man in panic, as Purdy might well have been after his barn was invaded—did he think rationally of all the possibilities? Cherry remembered that even the most cunning of criminals always make at least one mistake which sooner or later is their undoing. She concluded that Purdy chose the lake in a moment of panic for getting rid of the mask.

  “You aren’t listening to me,” Mac said. “Please listen. This is important—”

  In their conversations at dinner Mac had used his pet expression, “Great balls of fire!” Mac insisted now that Purdy had deliberately used those words to make the two women employees believe he was Mac.

  “It’s plausible,” Cherry said, “and I’m inclined to believe you. But the police would say it’s still possible that you sneaked back from vacation, in disguise, and robbed the safe. And that you could be trying to pin the blame on Purdy. Isn’t that true?”

  She waited. There was no answer.

  “If you’re innocent, Mac,” Cherry said, “why haven’t you gone to the police?”

  Vernie said something confused and distressed; it was lost. Mac ran his hands through his streaked hair. Then he painfully explained:

  When he was in his teens, he had gone along for a ride with some young friends of his. Mac did not know, when he accepted the ride, that one boy, for a prank, had stolen a car. The police had recovered the abandoned car and picked up one boy who talked. Though Mac had not taken the car, he had always felt guilty about the episode and still did not feel easy about approaching the police now. It made him uncomfortable that the incident might be uncovered. The whole moral question worried him a great deal.

  There was a ring of truth and regret in what he said, Cherry admitted to herself. Even without this incident in his past, Mac might well want proof of his innocence before he returned to his job—or went to the police who suspected him.

  “You want proof against Purdy, Miss Cherry? I believe the proof of his guilt, and my innocence, is right there in his storage barn. I’ll tell you why I think so—”

  “Then you are the one who broke into his barn!”

  “Yes,” Mac said, unblinking. “I have to get the proof.”

  “Is that connected with why you moved from here to the Model Farm, and then moved to Blue Water?”

  “I moved from here because I didn’t want to involve Fred and Vernie any deeper. They were good to me, took me in.”

  Vernie said, “We urged Mac to go to the police right away, and report how Mr. Purdy had wanted him to collaborate. But Mac kept pleading with us for time to think.”

  “I had to think how I might track Purdy down, and clear myself,” Mac explained to Cherry. “But as far as staying with Fred and Vernie, why, it wasn’t fair to them! I didn’t want any suspicion cast on them.”

  Mac realized that the police would check the histories of all loan company employees, past and present. If the police investigations led to Mac’s half brother, he didn’t want the Eplers involved by being found at their house.

  “That’s why I went to work at the Model Farm. I had only a few dollars left to exist on, and I was unable to get out what little money I have in a New York bank. I wouldn’t live off Fred, and I didn’t have enough money to return to New York to trace Purdy, or keep watch on him. All I knew was that I needed time to think, and a job to live on, and I wanted to keep in touch with Fred. Then, you remember, Miss Cherry, that day at the Model Farm—”

  “Purdy showed up at the greenhouse, to your surprise, and you—”

  “—realized that with Purdy living around here, I had, a—it was almost like a miracle—a chance to find a way to clear myself.”

  It was then that Mac decided to search Purdy’s barn for the proof he felt sure must be there. The Model Farm was an awkward distance from Purdy’s, so Mac got himself a job at Camp Blue Water, which was very close to Purdy and his barn.

  “Then this is why you dodged Purdy at every turn—why you fled when Purdy was within inches of meeting you! But when did you dye your hair and change vour name?”

  “As soon as I got here to Fred’s. I had to disguise myself, until I could get hold of proof that I’m innocent.”

  Mac still needed to get that proof. On his first invasion of the barn he failed to find what he was after. After that, Purdy hardly ever left his place. He had placed heavy locks on the doors and windows, and he kept all the lights burning.

  “Well, I figured I had to keep on trying to get into that barn until I did find proof. When Camp Blue Water became too unsafe for me, I hid in the woods waiting for my chance to try again.”

  “We found your fishing rod and your red calico handkerchief,” Cherry said.

  Mac nodded in a despairing way. “I can’t go on living like this. It’s iust a stroke of luck that the police haven’t come here so far.”

  “That night when the state police whizzed by, siren wailing,” Cherry said, “and you ran for all you were worth—”

  “I’d been down at the lake’s edge with Fred—it wasn’t fair to keep going to his house—discussing what I ought to do. Sure, when I heard the siren, I thought the police had come for me, and I ran. This isn’t fair to Fred and Vernie, either. I’m about ready to give myself up, even with the proofs a stone’s throw away.” His voice trembled. “Hiding out in the hills, in all that rain—it was pretty awful. I would have starved if Fred and Vernie hadn’t given me food when I came over here twice in the middle of the night.”

  “Last night, Miss Cherry,” Vernie said, “he came to us. We made him stay the night with us. We saw he was half sick, and at his wit’s end—”

  “You didn’t have to persuade me much, Vernie. I’m—I guess I’m at the end of my rope. I have no hope left.”

  Cherry was stirred. Suppose this young man were innocent—suppose proof actually existed in Purdy’s barn? She recalled how nervous Purdy was about his barn, and, above all, how he had refused to ask for police protection.

  “What is the proof, Mac?”

  “Why, it’s the money Purdy took from the loan company, of course! Haven’t you noticed that the newspaper reports didn’t say a word about it?”

  “That’s right. Apparently the money hasn’t turned up anywhere,” Cherry said. “But what makes you so sure it’s in Purdy’s barn?”

  “Because Purdy wouldn’t be such a fool as to try to spend or deposit that money until after the case cools off. He’s a clever man.”

  They heard the jeep driving in very fast, too fast, brake to a sharp stop.

  Fred burst into the kitchen. “I just saw Purdy at the garage—trying to borrow something—I don’t know what, but the garageman was pretty sore! I tell you, Purdy’s up to something!”

  Then Fred saw Cherry. “A friend, I hope?”

  “Yes,” said Cherry. “Now let’s see what we can plan. I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER X

  Cherry Lends a Hand

  “I CAN’T IMAGINE WHAT’S BECOME OF MAC,” SUE FRETTED. It was early Thursday morning and Sue, counting back, figured, “It’s six days since we saw that man running in the forest, and it’s nearly two weeks since Mac ran away from Blue
Water.”

  Cherry pretended to concentrate on pinning her white starched cap to her black curls. She wished she could tell Sue that she had seen Mac Cook only yesterday at the Eplers’. Sue caught her eye in the cabin mirror.

  “Aren’t you worried about him, Miss Cherry?”

  “There’s plenty to be worried about,” Cherry admitted.

  She thought to herself that Sue would be still more concerned about Mac if she knew about the danger he was in.

  The girls’ camp was at breakfast when Reed Champion drove in to see Uncle Bob Wright. A traveling circus was coming to town, and Reed was on his way to purchase tickets for the two camps. He had stopped to check on the number of tickets needed.

  Reed caught up with Cherry for a moment at the Mess Hall door.

  “Are you going to be free this evening? There’s a chance—just a chance—of some of us going over to Tall Man’s Island for a picnic supper.” Reed smiled. “Now that the summer is nearly over, Thunder Cliff is running like clockwork. That’s how I can get away.”

  The same thing was true at Blue Water, Cherry told him; the infirmary was completely idle. “I’d love to see Tall Man’s Island.”

  “Well, it’s a maybe. So long for now.”

  Cherry waved to him as he drove off but she was not thinking of Reed Champion. Her mind was on Mr. Paul E. Purdy, with whom she had some special business today.

  The plan was simple—the plan which she, Mac Cook, and the Eplers had decided on—simple and dangerous. What Mac had to do, now that he had tracked down Purdy, was to prove Purdy’s guilt. Evidence, he felt sure, was in Purdy’s barn. But Mac dared not let Purdy catch sight of him; Mac would remain in hiding upstairs in the Eplers’ farmhouse.

  Fred Epler was willing to make some contact with Purdy, but there was a risk that the photographer, with his trained vision, might observe the likeness between Fred and the young loan company cashier, even though he apparently had not noticed it yet. Still, they didn’t want to take any chances, and since Vernie had declared she was afraid of Purdy, that left Cherry as the only go-between. Purdy would not link her in any way with the Eplers or Mac Cook or with the robbery in New York.