Virtuously, Sam quickened his pace to go upon this honourable errand, his attitude, as he went, eloquently expressing the conviction that whoever else might be in grave trouble he wasn’t in any whatever, himself, and ought not to be.
Penrod went into the house.
A few minutes later, his mother stood at the foot of the attic stairway. “Penrod!” she called. “Penrod!”
There was silence. She mounted to the top of the stairway and looked about her. “Penrod!” she called again; then, listening intently, followed a very faint noise — the noise made by a button gently rubbing upon a board — and found her son unostentatiously crawling along the floor between some trunks and the wall. “Good gracious!” she cried. “I almost thought there was a burglar up here. What on earth are you doing?”
“I lost sumpthing,” he said thickly.
“What was it?”
“Ma’am?”
“What are you looking for?”
“Well — it’s a top.”
“You couldn’t have lost it up here. How absurd! If that isn’t just like a boy — to come looking for a lost top in the attic! Get up, Penrod!”
“Ma’am?”
“Get up! You can’t play up here; the heat’s enough to give you a sunstroke. Get up at once and—” But as he obeyed her, rising to his feet, she uttered a cry of dismay. “Penrod! You’re nothing but dust and cobwebs! It’ll be a mercy if your clothes aren’t ruined! Go down to the bathroom this minute and wash your face and hands in hot water. Then get a whisk-broom and a clothes-brush and come to me, and I’ll see what can be done! Run!”
Penrod ran; at least, he made haste. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned in the direction of a bathroom but paused not at its door. Instead, he went down the back stairs, out through the kitchen to the back yard, thence to the woodshed. Hurriedly he climbed the side of the tall sawdust box and disappeared from the sight of man and the light of day.
Two minutes later, he climbed out again, holding something concealed in his hand. Cautiously peering from the woodshed doorway, he reconnoitred the horizon, then ran to the cistern, near the back porch, removed the iron cover, and dropped within the orifice that small object he had held clenched in his fingers. There was a faint splash, and, sliding down beneath the surface of the brown water, a silvery streak descended — and vanished. It was the shield of Pvt. Detec. No. 103, belonging to Gray Bros. Ag’cy, and thus it disappeared forever — or at least until that cistern should be renovated.
Then the former George B. Jashber, now no more than a small boy pale beneath cobwebs and coatings of dust —
Penrod Schofield, in fact — scurried back to the woodshed and again hastily concealed himself in the sawdust box.
Calamity was upon him. On the instant when Marjorie spoke the words, “I told Papa every bit you said”, prophetic fear had seized him. And as she so blithely went on with her artless narrative, she and the whole world became terrible to Penrod. He was sick.
His instinct was for flight; but flight through a town where he might anywhere encounter a policeman was impossible to consider. Therefore, he concealed himself. The sawdust box was his final refuge, and in it — having disposed of the incriminating badge — he burrowed beneath the surface of the sawdust, and heaped it over him as bathers by the sea pile sand upon themselves.
Having become, in the shock of Marjorie’s revelation, only Penrod Schofield, with not one whit of George B. Jashber or No. 103 remaining, he had found his situation more desperate than any he had ever been in before. Lovely Marjorie, herself, had become dreadful to him; his inwards shuddered as he thought of her prattling out his imaginings to her father. For the stricken Penrod now saw those imaginings of his in a terrible light; they appeared as inexplicable lies that had brought about deadly results. He was unable to account for his conduct but could only review it fragmentarily and in agonized bewilderment. Only once did any palliating excuse come to his mind, and that but feebly. “Anyway Papa and Mamma both said he was a horse-thief, and I heard ’em say it.” But Marjorie’s father had said that this must have been spoken in jest, and Penrod now recognized the probable correctness of such an explanation. In fact, he had long since realized within himself the fallibility of the theory that Mr. Dade made any part of his living by stealing horses. After this, no alleviating thought whatever was able to enter his mind.
What would they do to him? He had visions of a frightful Dade, tall as a tree, coming in vengeance, accompanied by Mr. Paoli Jones, Mr. Montgomery Jones and august policemen. He pictured such a group looking over the side of the sawdust box and bellowing at sight of him. He burrowed deeper, squirming.
At a sound from the street, he started violently; and there was sufficient cause, for it was the sound of an automobile gong, recognizable instantly as that of an ambulance — or a police car. It sounded closer, and Penrod was unable to remain in suspense. Trembling all over, he climbed out of the sawdust box and gazed forth from the woodshed door, allowing only his hair, his forehead and his eyes to be visible from outside.
A violently red open car came into sight upon the street, gonging passionately, and he was but little relieved when it passed by and whizzed away into inaudibility without having drawn up at the curb to let Mr. Dade, Mr. Paoli Jones, Mr. Montgomery Jones and the Chief of Police descend to search for him.
He returned to the box and burrowed again. Time elapsed. It was a great hollow time of silence, hot as the Sunday after Judgment Day. Penrod was wet with perspiration, and sawdust was thick inside his collar and down his back, upon his eyelids and in his shoes, and he itched poignantly; but his other troubles were immeasurably greater.
From afar, muffled by the sawdust, came the call of Della: “Penrod! Musther Penrod! Penrod! Come in the house! Yer mother wants you to git washed fer dinner. Musther Penrod!”
Silence.
“You better come, Musther Pen-rod!” The kitchen door slammed; Della gave over.
Then, for another awful, hollow time, there was silence.
CHAPTER XVIII
PROTECTIVE COLORATION
MEANTIME, SAMUEL WILLIAMS sped the gilded hours of the long summer afternoon by occupying himself in meritorious industry. He began this unusual procedure immediately after his self-defensive abandonment of Penrod; he requested a slight loan from his brother, Robert, in order to make a purchase of “dog-soap” at the grocery. Robert proved to be amiable in the matter, produced the sum of money required but offered an oblique comment.
“I didn’t suppose anybody ever washed that sort of a dog, Sam.”
“What? Why, John Carmichael deserves washing just as much as any dog does, and he needs it terribly. You can’t hardly lead him anywhere, because he spends all his time trying to sit down and scratch behind his ear. He’s got so that’s almost the only thing he thinks about, and you can’t get him to pay attention to anything else. I’m goin’ to give him the finest bath any dog ever got in his life!”
This promise appeared to be perhaps a little over-liberal; but later it seemed to Robert that Sam was being as good as his word. The bath lasted two hours, as Robert was able to observe from the library bay-window, which commanded a view of the back yard, and Robert, seated near this window, found his attention frequently wandering from his book to the elaborate ablutions of John Carmichael. Sam bathed John Carmichael first by turning upon him a lively stream from the garden-hose; then he soaped John Carmichael heavily with the “dog-soap” and turned the stream from the garden-hose upon him again, until the soap surely must have disappeared, no matter how strongly it clung. After that, John Carmichael was placed in a wash-tub full of hot water brought from the kitchen in buckets; here, he was lathered again and rinsed pure again. Then the garden-hose was used upon him yet another time; he was soaped, then sprayed, then replaced in the tub, re-soaped, re-rinsed and once more sprayed. Robert began to fear that John Carmichael would be entirely washed away, for the astonished and obviously plaintive pup, in his wetness, looked unnaturally s
light; but the drying was as thorough as the bathing. Sam brought forth from the house several torn bath-towels, and, with a protracted vigour of rubbing, restored John to his usual size and a better than normal appearance. The pup’s spirits revived brilliantly, and, released, he placed his nose upon the ground between his forepaws, showed the whites of his eyes in wanton mockery, growled jocosely, then, leaping up suddenly, tore round and round the yard in apparently ferocious pursuit of a hundred phantoms.
Robert laughed, observing these high caperings; then, as his eye fell upon what his young brother was doing, his mouth opened and he sat in amazement. Sam, with a conscientious expression, carefully rinsed out the wash-tub, lugged it back into the cellar whence he had brought it, and reappeared with a large mop. With this implement, he soothed away the water from the spot upon the brick walk where the bathing had taken place; but he did not stop there. Evidently he thought that all of this walk needed cleansing, for he followed it, mopping the bricks slowly and carefully until he came near the bay-window, when Robert, addressing him through a fly-screen, interrupted his labours.
“What’s the matter, Sam?”
“Matter? Nothin’. Why?”
“All this industry,” the older brother explained. “Mopping up the walk when nobody’s told you to.”
“Well, there’s a good deal of dust blows in from the street on this walk, and I’m goin’ to give it a good moppin’ cleai around to the front gate.”
“Voluntarily, Sam?” Then Robert had an afterthought as a relief to his sheer incredulity. “I see. Probably somebody did tell you to do it.”
“They did not!” Sam returned with indignation, and, in the same tone, he marvellously added, “I guess I like to feel I’m doin’ some good in this world, don’t I?”
“What!”
“I guess I’d like to be a little use once in a while before I die, wouldn’t I?” Sam said, and he renewed his mopping with such honest vigour that he would have passed out of easy conversational distance if the astounded Robert had not again detained him.
“Sam, I’ve never seen anything like this before. Wait a minute! What have you been doing?”
Sam paused in his work to stare plaintively. “I been givin’ my dog a bath and moppin’ up our walk. Haven’t you got any eyes?”
“Yes; that’s what’s puzzling me. You aren’t looking for any special trouble when father comes home this evening — or anything like that, are you, Sam?”
“No, I am not!”
Robert’s perplexity continued to be profound; but he tried a guess at random. “Nothing’s gone wrong with that little matter we were talking about a couple of weeks ago, has it, Sam?” he asked, lowering his voice confidentially.
“What little matter?”
“You know. About Penrod Schofield’s being a detective, and—”
“Penrod?” Sam interrupted, as if in surprise; but, even as he spoke, he looked away evasively and seemed to be interested in the upper branches of a young maple tree that grew flourishingly not far from the bay-window. “Penrod? I don’t know anything much about Penrod and all that stuff you’re talkin’ about. I got my own business to ‘tend to, so I don’t know anything much about all that ole stuff.”
“What!” his brother exclaimed. “Why Sam, you told me, yourself, that Penrod was really a detective!”
Sam continued to be interested in the top of the maple tree. “I b’lieve there’s some ole bird or sumpthing got a nest up in the top of this tree,” he said.
“Sam! Didn’t you tell me that Penrod has a badge, and that—”
Sam allowed his gaze to descend from the supposititious bird’s nest, and seemed to become interested in polishing the handle of the mop with a corner of his jacket. “I guess maybe he did have some ole badge or sumpthing; but I don’t expeck it amounts to much. Maybe he kind of thought he was a detective — but just pretending, of course.”
“But you said—”
“Me? Well, anyhow, if I kind of maybe did think so a little, it was just pretending, mostly, because he isn’t one, and I guess he knows that much, himself. Anyhow, I guess he ought to by this time!” Sam spoke with cold severity, thus to detach himself still further from complications involving his friend. Moreover, he could not have explained, even to himself, how it happened that he had previously believed (at least to some extent) in the genuineness of Penrod’s status as a detective, and now completely disbelieved that his comrade and leader had ever possessed any such official qualification. For Sam as well as for Penrod, Marjorie Jones’s innocent communications had been shattering; from the moment when she had told them that her father spoke admiringly of Mr. Dade, and that her own unspeakable indiscretion in placing upon the adult plane George B. Jashber’s revelations to her was causing Mr. Jones to begin actual grown-up investigations, the fiction that had seemed almost a reality to both boys instantly and hopelessly lost every vestige of substance. “I guess he hasn’t got much sense,” Sam added, speaking thus critically of his late chieftain. “But anyhow he ought to have enough to know that much.”
To Robert, his small brother’s tone seemed highly significant. “Is Penrod in trouble, Sam, about something or other?”
“Penrod? Not that I know anything about.”
“Ah — about that matter, Sam—” Robert hesitated, and his tone became more confidential. “Have you four boys been keeping up the ‘shadowing’ you told me about?”
“Me?” Sam said reproachfully. “Why, you know, yourself, Mamma wouldn’t let me go out on account of the rain yesterday evening. I was right here in the house, and you know it as well as I do.”
“Yes; but how about up to last night, Sam? How about when Mr. Dade has been at Mr. Schofield’s in the evenings before last night? Haven’t you all—”
“He hasn’t been there,” Sam said, with less caution. “He’s only been there once since that Sunday afternoon you saw us and gave me fifty cents, and the next day you gave me a dollar more, but I had to give half of it to Penrod, and two dimes for Herman and Verman. That’s about all you ever did give me, too,” Sam added unnecessarily, “except on my birthday, maybe, or Christmas or sumpthing.”
Robert disregarded this change of subject. “How do you know?” he asked. “How do you know Mr. Dade only came once after that?”
“Because it was the very next night,” Sam informed him. “He and Margaret went in the house; but they left the window open, and she was talkin’ kind of cross; but anyway he didn’t stay long, and that’s the last time he’s been there yet, because — because—”
“Because what?” Robert inquired, as Sam hesitated.
But Sam felt that he might betray too much knowledge of Mr. Dade’s movements. Robert had proved himself to be sympathetic; nevertheless, Robert was an adult and therefore might at any time suddenly hold inexplicable and punitive views; so reticence became advisable. “I don’t know,” Sam said, frowning. “I got this walk to clean up, Bob; I can’t stand around here talkin’ all afternoon.”
“Yes; but listen—”
“I got to get this walk cleaned up the right way,” Sam mid, and applied the mop with earnest industry. “I got too much to do to stand around jibber-jabberin’ with everybody day in and day out!”
Rebuffed and full of wonderment, Robert watched his brother’s amazing performance of the unbidden task. Sam mopped the walk thoroughly all the way round to the front gate; then, with incredible thoughtfulness, he restored the mop to the cellar, and, emerging, brought the garden-hose to the front yard and began a systematic sprinkling of the lawn. He was thus engaged when his father returned home for the evening, and, after receiving words of surprised commendation from both of his parents, he quietly mentioned the fact that he had given the full length of the brick walk a careful mopping, and added, to their increased mystification, that he liked to feel he was doing some good in this world.
At the dinner-table his expression was dignified and modest, though perhaps a little self-consciously upright; possibly
he might have blushed had he been aware how continuously he was the object of his older brother’s inquiring, if furtive, scrutiny. Mr. Robert Williams’s puzzlement (to which was naturally added some elation) increased with the passing hour, and so did his conviction that mysterious calamity threatened the band of sleuths of which his brother had been a member and Margaret’s brother the chief. And when, after dinner, Sam went quietly into the library and sat down meekly with a book he had frequently been urged to read, Robert perceived that the pointed questions he wished to ask would be of little avail; yet he could not forbear some comment.
“I thought you had a prejudice against ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, Sam.”
Sam looked up reproachfully, though it was observable that with the tail of his eye he noted the effect upon his father and mother, who sat near by, looking at him seriously over sections of the evening newspaper. “Did you?” he said gently. “Well, anyhow, I’m reading it. I like to feel—”
“Yes, I know,” Robert interrupted. “Of course you like to feel you’re doing some good in this world, Sam.”
Sam did not like his brother’s tone, which seemed to suppress with difficulty emotions of hilarity; but, before an exemplary retort could be devised, the telephone bell rang. The instrument was in another room and Robert went to answer it. Margaret Schofield’s voice responded to his “Hello!”
“It’s Mr. Williams, isn’t it?” Margaret inquired, and Robert replied truthfully yet deceitfully, for he deepened and muffled his voice as he spoke:
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 447