Well, there she was, standing on an ice cube—like Eliza crossing the ice in Uncle Tom’s Cabin—and she couldn’t possibly reach to the rim of the glass. She tried jumping, but the ice was too slippery and she just slid and fell into the root beer.
Cousin Clifford’s wife was not very strong-minded. She pulled herself out of the root beer, and instead of trying again, she just sat down on the ice cube and burst into tears. Cousin Clifford didn’t see her; he had climbed up the wall to admire Mr. Anderson’s high school diploma, which hung over the fireplace. But Mr. Webb had seen, and he hurried down from Mr. Anderson’s coat collar.
At first he thought perhaps he could hang onto the rim of the glass and let himself down inside so that she could catch hold of his hind legs. But she was too far down. He stood there thinking, on Mr. Anderson’s cuff—and just then Mr. Anderson opened his eyes and his fingers tightened on the glass, and Mr. Webb knew that he was going to take another drink of root beer. If he did that, Cousin Clifford’s wife would be swallowed, and that would be the end of her. With Mr. Webb, to think was to act. Without a moment’s hesitation he walked down onto Mr. Anderson’s wrist and bit him hard.
Spiders don’t like to bite people—not so much because they are kind-hearted as because they don’t like the taste. But if it was a question of saving a life, no real spider would hesitate. Mr. Webb did not specially like Cousin Clifford’s wife; he thought she was pretty tiresome; but he supposed that Cousin Clifford would miss her if she was swallowed. So he bit. And, as he had foreseen, Mr. Anderson’s arm gave a hard jerk and the glass flew out of his hand and landed on the carpet without breaking. And Cousin Clifford’s wife scampered off and hid under the table, where Cousin Clifford, who had at last seen what was going on, found her and comforted her and helped dry her off.
Mr. Anderson swore and rubbed his wrist, and he looked around for Mr. Webb, but the spider was back on his coat collar again. So he got a dishcloth and mopped up the root beer. Just then the phone rang and he went into his office to answer it.
“Yes,” he said. “This is Ed.… Yes. Is he getting along all right?” For several minutes, Mr. Webb couldn’t hear what was said. Then: “Sure, Herb, I should think he could have all he wants. But maybe I ought to buy ’em.… I’ll bring ’em to your office.… Oh, those—yes, I want to see you about them.… Eh? Yes, I suppose we’d better not be seen together. I’ll come out tomorrow.” And he said good-by and hung up.
“Not much in that,” Mr. Webb said to himself. “Some business deal, I suppose.… Aha, this is more like it!” For Mr. Anderson had gone over to the big safe in the corner and begun to turn the dial.
Mr. Webb knew something about safes and their combinations, as he did about most things, and he noted carefully: three left, eighteen, four right, seven, two left, twenty-four. Then he gasped and nearly fell off Mr. Anderson’s coat collar as the door swung open and he saw that the safe was nearly half full of a glittering mass of jewelry, flashing with rainbow hues of diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and rubies. He jumped to the floor and hurried off to find his wife.
Mrs. Webb, in the meantime, had searched the entire first floor and the cellar without finding any sign of Squeak-squeak, and she had gone up to the attic, leaving word with Cousin Clifford where she could be found. Cousin Clifford’s wife was still very weak from her terrible experience on the ice cube, and her husband had helped her up the wall to a safe place behind Mr. Anderson’s diploma. He spun her a sort of hammock so she could lie down, and then he stayed beside her and fanned her. “I’m so weak, Clifford,” she kept saying. But she wasn’t too weak to talk.
He spun her a sort of hammock.
The door to the attic stairs was closed, but there was a crack above it wide enough for a spider to go through. Mr. Webb started across the ceiling toward it. Then he stopped. Down on the carpet where the root beer had been spilled he saw a fly. He spun down on a long strand of web and landed within a foot of the fly. “Hey,” he said, “come here a minute, will you?”
The fly looked up. “Uh-uh,” he said, and shook his head.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Mr. Webb. “I just want to ask you something. About Mr. Anderson.”
“My mother told me never to talk to strangers,” said the fly, and giggled.
“Very sensible advice,” Mr. Webb agreed. “But all I want to know is—has Anderson had a prisoner here in the house, or has he said anything about a Martian named Squeak-squeak?”
“Did you say Squeak-squeak?” the fly asked. “What a silly name!” And he giggled some more.
“Look,” said the spider, “be a little helpful, can’t you?”
“Sure I can,” the fly said, “but I’m not going to. Why should I? Help a spider? Ha! What did spiders ever do for me? Ate fourteen of my immediate family, that’s what they did. And you’ve got the gall—”
“All right, all right,” said Mr. Webb. Over the fly’s shoulder he had seen Mrs. Webb creeping slowly toward him. She motioned to him to keep the fly occupied. “I suppose you’re right,” he went on. “There are, I believe, some spiders that eat flies—more shame to them, I say. I am, I am happy to assert, not numbered among them.”
“Oh, yeah?” said the fly. “What do you eat?”
“Oh, this and that. Whatever happens to be handy. This root beer, now.” He took a sip from a drop that had escaped Mr. Anderson’s rag. “Delicious! Really, it makes me feel quite gay.” He skipped a few dance steps, first to one side, then to the other, and behind the fly he could see Mrs. Webb put a forefoot up to her mouth to keep from laughing out loud as she crept closer. “But of course I don’t suppose you know how to dance?” he said.
The fly knew perfectly well that he had no business even talking with a spider. But he was too vain and silly to let anyone suggest that he couldn’t dance. “Pooh, that’s nothing!” he said, and he duplicated Mr. Webb’s steps.
“How about this one?” Mr. Webb leaped in the air and clapped all eight feet together.
Whether the fly would have attempted this Mr. Webb never found out, for Mrs. Webb was close now, and she jumped and caught him by the neck. “Tie him up, Father,” she said, and while Mr. Webb spun several threads around him, she said: “Now, my smart young friend, perhaps you’ll talk.”
So of course he did. He told them that he had seen Squeak-squeak brought in the night he was kidnapped. Mr. Anderson had kept him for some time locked in the attic, but a day or two ago—the fly couldn’t remember just what day it was—Anderson had taken him away somewhere in a car. “It can’t be far,” the fly said, “because he was only gone a couple of hours.”
This, however, was the extent of the fly’s information. Whether Mr. Anderson had gone out late at night in the saucer he didn’t know, because he always went to sleep at dark. He didn’t know anything about the safe and its contents either, because he never went into the office, where there were no crumbs.
When they had released the fly, Mrs. Webb told her husband that she had seen a lot of peanut shells in a room that was finished off in the attic, and it was apparent that someone had been staying there. “But we know now anyway that it was Squeak-squeak,” she said. “But good gracious, Father, it’s beginning to get dark. We’d better get ready to leave when Mr. Anderson goes out to his dinner. Freddy will be looking for us.”
So they rounded up Cousin Clifford and his wife, who was feeling better, but still weak, and stationed themselves over the front door, where they could drop on Mr. Anderson’s hat when he went out.
And Mr. Anderson went out the back door.
CHAPTER
13
Freddy came back for the spiders at seven, the time when he knew that Mr. Anderson would be having supper at Dixon’s Diner. But the spiders weren’t on the gatepost, where they had agreed to wait. While he was standing there, wondering what to do, Rabbit No. 23 came out of the shrubbery and hopped up to him.
“The Webbs are still in there,” he said. “They have been trying to attract my
attention. Look, you can see ’em now.” And he pointed at the office window. A black speck was swinging like a pendulum back and forth across the glass in the office window. When Freddy went closer, he could see that it was a spider hanging to a strand of web that was fastened to the top of the window.
“You can go up on the porch,” said 23. “Anderson’s a heavy feeder, he won’t be back for a good three-quarters of an hour.”
Close to the window, Freddy saw that it was Mrs. Webb swinging. Mr. Webb, on the side of the window, would push her when she swung back toward him. They seemed to be having fun, and he thought they were smiling at him—though it is pretty hard to tell with a spider unless you have a magnifying glass.
After a minute Mrs. Webb stopped, and both spiders ran to the corners of the window and scrabbled with their forefeet, as if trying to get out. Then they looked at Freddy and shook their heads.
“You mean you can’t get out?” Freddy said in a loud voice.
They could hear him, but of course they knew he couldn’t hear anything they said with the window between them. So they nodded. Then Mrs. Webb pointed at Mr. Webb, who hopped to the floor and started toward the safe. She kept pointing at him as he climbed up onto the dial and went around it in first one direction then the other.
“You mean you know the combination?” Freddy asked, and she nodded.
“What good does that do?” he asked.
Well, the Webbs tried every way they could to tell Freddy about the jewelry. They hung imaginary necklaces around their necks, and imaginary bracelets on their legs; they held imaginary jewelry out and shaded their eyes to show how blindingly it glittered—but Freddy just shook his head hopelessly. Then they tried to show him by gestures that he must break the window and come in. Freddy understood that, but when he had asked them if Squeak-squeak was there, and they had shaken their heads, he said no, he wasn’t going to break in. “You stay by the back door, after Anderson gets back,” he said. “I’ll get you out.”
He knew that Jinx was at Mrs. Peppercorn’s and he hurried over there. The cat often came into town in the evening to go to the movies, and he usually stopped in for a chat with the old lady beforehand. They had been friends ever since they had taken the famous trip around the solar system together in the Benjamin Bean Space Ship. Jinx never tired of listening to Mrs. Peppercorn’s terrible poetry, although Freddy’s verses, which really rhymed, just put him to sleep.
When he reached the house, Jinx and Mrs. Peppercorn were coming down the steps. “Ah, good evening, Frederick—good evening,” said the cat. He always put on a good deal of manner when he was escorting a lady. “Lovely evening, is it not?”
“Hello, Mrs. P.,” said Freddy. “Look, Jinx, I’ve got a job for you. Will you—”
“Tut, tut, my dear fellow,” said the cat. “Don’t you see that I am occupied? Mrs. Peppercorn has consented to accompany me to the cinema. Another time, dear chap; another time.” And to Mrs. Peppercorn: “Madam, if you please,” and he stood aside for her to pass out through the gate, then paced along beside her, his tail waving genteelly.
Mrs. Peppercorn tried to match Jinx’s dignity, but she was unable to suppress a faint cackle of laughter, which she tried to smother behind her hand.
But Freddy didn’t give up. “I’m sorry to intrude,” he said, “but this is really very important, Jinx. The Webbs are in trouble. I’m sure Mrs. Peppercorn will excuse you. You can join her at the—the cinema in half an hour.”
“My dear old pig,” said the cat, “you don’t understand. I see that you are unaccustomed to polite language. If I must descend to your own vulgar level, why I must. You will forgive me, madam,” he said to Mrs. Peppercorn. Then to Freddy: “Beat it, you dope!” he yelled. “Scram!”
There wasn’t much to be done with Jinx when he was in this mood, but fortunately Mrs. Peppercorn came to Freddy’s rescue. “Oh, come along, Jinx! Do as Freddy asks you to. The Webbs are friends of yours, aren’t they? I’ll go to the movie and you come later.”
Jinx stood up on his hind legs to make her a courtly bow, with a paw over his heart. “Your wish is my law, madam,” he said. “But I insist on escorting you as far as the cinema.”
So Jinx and Freddy walked with her to the movie theater, then went on to Mr. Anderson’s.
“What’s with old Webb?” the cat asked. “I’ve always told him he ought to lay off this chasing flies. Some of these flies around here are tough customers. What happened—one bite him in the leg?”
Freddy explained, and then told Jinx what he wanted him to do. As he had expected, the cat was delighted. “Golly, I’m glad you came for me. The movie wasn’t anything special—just one of those corny super-enormous-colossal riots with Cleopatra and Henry the Eighth and a lot of elephants.… There’s Anderson, sitting at his desk. Do you suppose it’s dark enough to go to work on him?”
Freddy thought it was, and they sneaked down past the side of the house into the back yard. Freddy hid in some shrubbery at the side of the back porch, and Jinx climbed up on the back fence. “Too bad there ain’t a moon,” he said. “I always put more feeling into it in the moonlight.” Then he threw back his head and began to yowl.
“Golly,” Freddy said to himself, “if he put any more feeling into it, they’d call out the National Guard.” And indeed those who heard it said afterward that they were shaken to the depths of their souls. It brought heads to back windows all down the block; it brought Mr. Anderson dashing out of his back door, so that the spiders walked out without being noticed; unfortunately for Jinx, it brought Dr. Wintersip, who lived directly back of Mr. Anderson, dashing out of his back door. And both Dr. Wintersip and Mr. Anderson had snatched up the first thing that was the right size for throwing, and they both threw. Jinx, caught between two fires, was unable to dodge. Mr. Anderson’s frying pan missed him by an eighth of an inch, sailed over the fence and grazed Dr. Wintersip’s left ear. But Dr. Wintersip’s bottle of ketchup whizzed past the cat’s nose and hit Mr. Anderson square on the chin, knocking him flat and drenching him with ketchup.
Jinx, caught between two fires, was unable to dodge.
Dr. Wintersip heard Mr. Anderson yelp. He came to the fence and looked over, and in the light that streamed from the back door, saw Mr. Anderson lying there, covered with ketchup. He didn’t realize that the cap had been off the ketchup bottle when he picked it up. “Blood!” he said. “Oh, my goodness! Oh, my gracious!” and he scrambled over the fence.
Mr. Anderson sat up as Dr. Wintersip bent over him. “Wha-what are you doing in my bedroom?” he demanded shakily. Then he put his hand to his face and brought it away dripping with ketchup. He stared at it a moment, then fell back with a groan and apparently passed out again.
“Oh dear!” said Dr. Wintersip. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!”
In the meantime, Freddy and Jinx had sneaked around and up on the porch, where the spiders were waiting. Freddy had a bad sneezing fit when all four of them dropped onto his nose, but Dr. Wintersip was still wringing his hands over the apparently unconscious Mr. Anderson and didn’t even look up.
Mr. Webb quickly told Freddy about the jewelry in the safe. “If you want to get it, I’ve got the combination.”
“The back door’s open,” said Jinx. “What are we waiting for?”
If Freddy had thought about it a minute, he probably wouldn’t have gone in. But here was a chance, and probably the only chance, to solve at one stroke the mysterious burglaries that had baffled the police of nearly every big city in the state. By the time Mr. Anderson, groaning and leaning heavily on Dr. Wintersip’s shoulder, had been helped into his living room and made comfortable on a couch, Freddy had the safe open and was piling the jewelry into a waste basket that stood beside the desk.
Dr. Wintersip went out into the kitchen and got towels and a pan of warm water. But when he started to clean up Mr. Anderson, he stopped suddenly. In the lighted room it was plain that the red liquid which hid Mr. Anderson’s features was not out of Mr. Anderso
n’s veins but out of a ketchup bottle. He hesitated. “Dear me,” he said to himself. “Mr. Anderson is going to be angry when he finds out that I hit him with a bottle. Also, he is going to feel very silly when he realizes that he fainted away because he had ketchup all over his face. An angry man who has made a fool of himself is not really very good company. I think I will leave.” And he quietly put the pan of water down on the floor, dropped the towels beside it, and tiptoed out.
And Freddy and Jinx tiptoed out after him. Nobody saw them. Nobody passed them on the street as they carried the wastebasket down to Mrs. Peppercorn’s, and nobody, Freddy said, could possibly know that the jewelry was now in the bottom drawer of the dresser in Mr. Arquebus’s room.
“Why don’t you sign up old Wintersip to pitch for your Martians,” Jinx said. “He sure throws a mean ketchup bottle.”
“I wish we’d found Squeak-squeak instead of the jewelry,” said Freddy. “Of course it’s nice to have pinned all those burglaries on Anderson. And there are big rewards offered for some of the stuff, too. But we still don’t know where Squeak-squeak is.”
“Anderson will probably have an alibi for every one of those burglaries,” said Jinx. “With that saucer to travel in, he could get to Buffalo and pull a job and be back home in half an hour. Nobody’d believe that he’d have had time to do it.”
“Maybe not. But how’s he going to explain having the stuff in his safe? We could take it right to the sheriff tonight. But I think we ought to get Squeak-squeak back first.”
“I guess you’re right,” said the cat. “Well, Webb has told us about the phone conversation he overheard. Somebody named Herb, and they ought not to be seen together. Well, how do you like Herb Garble for the guy that has Squeak-squeak?”
“I like him fine,” Freddy said. “I like him so much that—” He stopped. “Hey, Webb,” he said. “How’d you like to search another house tonight? Where Mr. Garble lives?”
Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars Page 8