Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1947

by The Sleuth Patrol (v1. 1)

  The first of the three trials had gone to Ranny by the narrowest of margins. Sherlock returned to position, and all watched breathlessly. He borrowed a leaf from Ranny’s book, flexing himself more deliberately, relaxing several times and testing his balance. As he crouched again, there came to him the moment of awareness that he was ready for a mighty effort, and instantly he co-ordinated himself, jumped and whipped into the cast all his strength from the ankles upward. The shot soared like a bird, while the spectators yelled like Indians. Still poised in follow- through position, Sherlock saw Lew Sheehan run hurriedly sideways to avoid the cast, then run back to measure.

  “Forty-four feet eight inches!” Lew called out.

  Again yells and howls from the exultant Hounds. Max and Doc flung themselves upon Sherlock, pummeling him affectionately. The Eagles were suddenly quiet as their leader came soberly forward, stooping to catch the shot on its return roll.

  Sherlock was elated. His cast had outdone his previous puts at school. He watched while Ranny, slowly and somewhat glumly, set himself for his second put. As before, Ranny was methodical, and seemingly put all he had into the launching of the shot, but it fell far short of Sherlock’s try. Lew Sheehan measured, and made his report. “Thirty-four feet three inches!”

  “You’re ten feet better than he is,” crowed Max as Sherlock returned for the final trial. “It’s in the bag, Sherlock, in the bag!”

  Sherlock permitted himself to grin as he lifted the shot, poised it, and sent it away. It was nothing like his second fine score, but it was measured at thirty-eight feet ten inches, well past either of Ranny’s tries. Sherlock almost swaggered away while Ranny addressed himself for his own last chance. Ranny put the shot before Sherlock could turn to watch, and at once the air was rent by the triumphant yells of the Eagles.

  “Thirty-nine,” Lew Sheehan was trying to make himself heard above the clamor. “Thirty-nine feet two inches. Ranny Ollinger wins, two out of three!”

  Sherlock conquered his own disappointment and met Ranny with his hand out.

  “It was a trick, really,” said Ranny at once.

  “And a good one,” replied Sherlock generously, pumping Ranny’s arm up and down. “Your second put was a fake, wasn’t it? Thirty-four feet something. You purposely put short, you could have done lots better.”

  “But if I had, I couldn’t have beaten your second try,” reminded Ranny, “and you’d have come up the third time ready to throw that shot clear out of Garroway Township. So I called on what brains I have. You were—were—” “Overconfident’s the word,” admitted Sherlock. “I thought I could beat you without half trying. So I only half tried. Now the score between patrols is two even.” They separated. Doc and Max offered Sherlock their condolences.

  “Tough luck, Sherlock,” Doc ventured. “But—”

  “But it’s a key to at least the outer door of what we’re trying to do tonight,” said Sherlock at once. “I learned something, and not only about putting the shot. It matches something else that we can take from Max’s smart trick that almost worked against Ranny in the swimming event.”

  “My smart trick that didn’t work,” said Max.

  “That’s what I mean,” pursued Sherlock. “There’s a reason, and the same reason, why your scheme didn’t work, and Ranny’s did. I’ll tell you later, but let’s listen to what the final deciding contest is going to be.”

  BEHIND THE GHOST HOUSE

  Mr. Brimmer was blowing a whistle and signalling—hand up and revolved in a circle—for assembly . of all Scouts to hear the final arrangements for settling the rivalry between the Patrols. From two directions came the groups, Hounds and Eagles, to listen.

  “We’ll have noon dinner,” directed the Assistant Scoutmaster, “and wash dishes and spruce up camp afterward, to give the chow a chance to settle down. Then we settle this contest with a final event, a double hare-and-hounds race.”

  “Hare and hounds!” muttered Max behind Sherlock’s elbow. “We’re the Hounds. We’ll catch those Eagles by the hair and twist it into a braid.”'

  “Quiet, comedian,” said Sherlock out of the side of his mouth. “Let’s hear how it’s going to be worked.”

  Mr. Brimmer had paused, and now began fuller explanation. “You’ve played hare and hounds, most of you, and the rules as we’ve roughed them out are fairly simple. Two men chosen from one Patrol are the hares. They get a five-minute start, and a bag of grain. No paper scraps, we won’t leave any litter in these woods that the birds and squirrels can’t clean up for us within a day or so after we’ve finished. The hares trickle the grain behind them as they go, to leave a track for the pack of hounds, made up from among the Scouts of the other Patrol. One of the two hares will have a pedometer strapped to his knee, and the chase the hares work out for the hounds to follow, away from camp and back, must register no less than four thousand on the pedometer, or more than forty-five hundred. That will make the total run in the neighborhood of four miles. Does everybody understand?”

  “Not quite,” said one of the Eagle tenderfeet. “What’s a pedometer?”

  “We’ll show you one in a moment, and explain its workings,” replied Mr. Brimmer. “Now, here’s how the event will be won or lost: The two hares must stay within ten yards of each other, the bag of trail grain must remain in the possession of one of them, and the same one, at all times. They must complete their four-mile run, without crossing their trail at any time, because that will confuse the hounds too much. And they must return to their Patrol camp and touch the Patrol flagstaff, both of them, without being run down. If they do that, the hares win. But if either hare is overtaken by any one of the pursuing hounds, and that pursuing hound can catch him by the arm or leg or clothes and hold on long enough to say ‘Caught, caught, caught!’ the hounds win over the hares.” He paused. “Do you all understand these rules ?”

  “We do,” said Ranny Ollinger. “Which patrol furnishes the hares, and which the hounds? We Eagles will be glad to take either side of it.”

  “Both Patrols take both sides,” replied Mr. Brimmer. “Didn’t I say it was a double race? Each Patrol will choose, while eating, two hares. The rest of each Patrol will make up the hound pack to follow and try to catch the hares of the other Patrol. Junior Leader Lew Sheehan and I will place ourselves in a position where we can observe both finish points—the flags of the two Patrols— and judge any last-minute flurries. And the senior hare of each team will wear a wrist watch, the two wrist watches to be synchronized. Time of a hare being captured along the trail, if that should happen, will be noted by all concerned, and reported. When it’s all over, Lew and I will judge both chases on all points of performance, and name the winner. Is that clear, now ? Any questions about anything I’ve said?”

  There were several questions, and the Assistant Scoutmaster answered and explained to the satisfaction of all. Then Lew Sheehan handed him a round metal object like a watch, slung on a strap. Mr. Brimmer held it up for the Scouts to see.

  “This is a pedometer,” he announced, “the kind used in walking tests and measurements. The strap buckles tightly around the leg below the knee, like a garter. Whenever the foot of the leg wearing the pedometer strikes the ground, it jars the mechanism of the pedometer, which registers a click and moves up a point. The turning figures on the dial increase themselves by one, like a speedometer registering distance on an automobile. That means an increase of one on the dial for every forward movement of both feet, something around five feet, what the old Romans called a pace. Milia passuum. Remember your high school Latin, any of you? A thousand paces comes to approximately five thousand feet, a Roman mile. We have two of these pedometers that I brought along for just this type of contest.”

  “And here is the grain,” added Lew Sheehan, coming forward with two linen bags slung on broad shoulder- bands of cloth. “In this one,” and he pulled out a handful to exhibit, “is shelled corn. In the other,” and Lew Sheehan produced a sample from the second bag, “is dried beans. There
won’t be any confusing of the two trails, will there?”

  “Not by the Eagles,” said Ranny for his following, and Sherlock added, “Any Hound that can’t tell them apart doesn’t know his succotash.”

  “As I said,” repeated Mr. Brimmer, “one hare of each team will start out, continue through the four miles or so, and return with the bag of trail grain. One grain at least will be dropped for each two steps along the way, a grain every five feet, or one click of the pedometer. Now, for the last time, any questions ? No ? I hope you’re all half as wide-awake and intelligent as you’re trying to look. Very well, we’ll have chow, clean up, and then report back for the start at my whistle. Dismiss!”

  The Scouts separated into their two Patrols and sought their cooking fires. Doc Watson again supervised the preparation of the meal for the Hounds. It consisted of grilled frankfurters, boiled canned sauerkraut, potatoes which had roasted all morning in the hot ashes, and bananas.

  “I’m going to have another refill,” said Max Hinkel. “That swimming I did streamlined me around the tummy.”

  “You’ve had two helpings,” spoke up Sherlock. “Take it easy, or you’ll founder halfway along the trail this afternoon. Don’t chew so loudly, you hungry Scouts. Let’s make our appointments for this hare team, and a leader for the leftovers that make up the hounds.” “You’ll naturally be the senior hare, Sherlock,” said Max, scraping his plate. “Your ears are just about the right length, and nearly fuzzy enough. What about it, fellow Hounds, am I right?”

  A murmur of approval went up, for Sherlock was by now the unquestioned leader of his Patrol. “And I think Pete Criley had better be the other hare,” added Max. “He can run like one. No hound the Eagles can produce will get close enough to him to hand him a roast apple.”

  “Wait a moment,” interposed Sherlock. “A fast runner is just as important, or more so, to our hound pack. Pete had better go into that part of the enterprise. Then, once the opposition hares are in sight, he’s almost a sure thing to run one of them down.”

  “That’s our great brain talking,” applauded Doc, peeling a banana. “How about letting Sherlock name his junior hare?”

  All looked expectantly at the Patrol Leader. Doc’s eyes shone with eagerness for the second hare assignment, but Sherlock made a quick decision otherwise.

  “Doc, as assistant Patrol leader, you command the hound pack. You’re a good trailer, as I found out at and around Sig Poison’s shop. Max runs with me, if he’ll keep quiet and not give away our position at the top of his voice.”

  “Me talk?” Max almost squealed in his protest. “Me, the dark, silent, mystery man of the Hound Patrol? I’m hurt, Sherlock. Anyhow, since I’m to be a hare, maybe you’ll tell me what kind of noise a hare makes.”

  “Something like the evening song of a clam, with a touch of sleeping angleworm,” Sherlock told him. “At least, for the purpose of this run.”

  They finished eating and washing dishes. Doc met Sherlock at the garbage disposal pit.

  “All right,” he said, “what did you mean this morning about learning a trick of mystery solving from those contests with Ranny Ollinger?”

  “Wait until we’re alone and have time to talk,” Sherlock urged as he scraped his plate into the hole.

  At Mr. Brimmer’s whistle, the two patrols assembled as before in front of the tent of the Leaders.

  “Hares for the Eagle Patrol reporting,” said Ranny, stepping forward. “Myself and Dade Coleman.”

  “Patrol Leader Hamilton and Scout Hinkel are hares for the Hounds,” said Sherlock in turn.

  Mr. Brimmer handed each Patrol Leader a pedometer and a bag, Sherlock drawing the dried corn. Ranny stooped and girded his left knee with the pedometer, while Dade assumed charge of the bag of beans. Sherlock turned to his companion, holding out both bag and pedometer.

  “Put these on, Max,” he directed.

  “Are you loading me down with everything?” complained Max. “I ought to write a letter to my Congressman.”

  “Put ’em on,” repeated Sherlock. “I have reasons. Doc, step aside here a moment and confer with Max and me.” The three made it a short conference. Sherlock did practically all of the brief talking.

  “We’ll lay a trail toward the haunted house,” he told Doc and Max. “I want a few free seconds to look at that joint again. I think we can afford to lag a bit at one point, because the Eagles have their two fastest men as hares and won’t press us too closely.” He tapped Doc’s sturdy arm. “You’re the best trailer of our pack, as I judge, so keep in the lead. Try to work things by quiet signals. If you get in sight of Ranny and Dade, don’t make any sound to show them how close you are. Wave for Pete Criley to lead the charge after them. Get it?”

  “Roger,” said Doc, air-force fashion.

  “Then here we go.”

  They turned back to Mr. Brimmer, and at his word Sherlock and Max returned to their patrol camp and stood by the Hound flag. With them came the Eagles who made up the pursuing pack, eager and a little nervous, but competent looking. Ranny and Dade took their starting positions by the Eagle flag, with Doc and his companions ready to follow. Midway between stood Mr. Brimmer and Lew Sheehan.

  “Both hare teams will start on the sound of my whistle,” Mr. Brimmer called out, in a voice loud enough for both groups to hear. “I’ll give them the five-minute start by my watch, then alert the two hound packs, and start them off with a second whistle blast. Ready, both you hare teams? On your marks! Get set!”

  The whistle sang shrilly in the bright air. Sherlock and Max slogged purposefully away in the direction of the haunted house. Fifty paces, twenty-five clicks on Max’s pedometer, took them out of sight among the trees.

  “Scout pace, Max,” said Sherlock. “Fifty at a trot, fifty more at a walk.”

  They began to jog, Sherlock leading by his own height, and Max listening to his pedometer and dropping a grain of corn at every click. Sherlock doubled around one big tree to the left, then around another to the right, stooped low to wriggle through brush so as not to disturb too plainly the higher, thicker foliage. When they had finished fifty trotting paces and resumed a walk, they conferred.

  “We’re staying off the road?” suggested Max.

  “And likewise out of any paths,” replied Sherlock. “Let those Eagles use their eyes and earn their Patrol designation. I want us to gain enough of a lead so that we can have a trifle of time to spend at the you-know- what.”

  “Then we’ll have to go pretty direct,” reminded Max. “It’s nearly two miles there, and we have to keep the round trip around four miles.”

  “Right. Now let’s save our breath.”

  Sherlock hurdled a log, and Max stooped as he followed, to drop the trail grain close to the log, where their pursuers might be delayed for a precious instant before spotting it. Ahead the two went, keeping to the mile-devouring Scout pace, but cannily doing what they could, within the spirit and letter of the rules, to make their trail baffling. Sherlock veered a trifle from the straight line to lead Max through a pine thicket where many seasons’ fall of needles made a carpet on the ground and the telltale grains of corn would be hard to see at first glance. Again, he snake-danced through some closely grown young birches, under which the ground was more than commonly hard and would take no clear footprints to supplement the line of kernels. In twelve minutes they had completed their first mile. Eight minutes more passed, and they came to a low wall of unmortared stone, partially tumbled down during years of neglect. Sherlock vaulted nimbly over, and Max after him.

  Max and Sherlock dropped flat, peering through the bushes.

  “We’ve nearly used up our first two thousand clicks on this cement mixer I’m wearing,” Max warned his companion.

  “Let’s stop for a moment.” Sherlock leaped up and stood on the highest point of the stone wall. “Success, Max! This wall marks the property line of that bogeyman’s mansion. Come on forward a little. Look, we’re just behind the house.”

  Th
ey went a few paces, and Max stopped.

  “We’ve got barely enough clicks left to take us back,” he said. “If I go much farther, we won’t get home inside the forty-five hundred. And we’ll have to stop short of the flag and wait while they catch up and grab us.”

  Sherlock pulled a bush aside. “Look,” he said again. “Here’s a trail, and a wide one, leading right up there to the back of the house. I can see the way it’s built up —the house, I mean—from ground that isn’t so high as at the front. It has a basement that’s almost as high as a regular first story at the rear wall, and a big double door—closed.”

  “You said we were going to stay off of trails and paths,”

  Max reminded him. “And I’m not going to waste another pedometer click if it’s carrying me any nearer to Count Dracula’s week-end hide-out.”

  “Now hold on,” said Sherlock quickly. “Didn’t Mr. Brimmer tell us that the two hares must stay ten yards from each other?”

  “They can’t separate any more than that,” agreed Max.

  “But they can go at least that far apart. So stand where you are. I’m going the ten yards alone.”

  From Max’s side he paced it off, through the bush clump and to the trail beyond. He looked at the wide opening through the trees, and down at the ground. He saw something that made him exclaim and kneel down quickly.

  “Quiet, Sherlock,” called Max softly. “I heard somebody yelling on the trail behind us. Let’s get started back.”

  Sherlock rose from where he had knelt to look and hurried to rejoin his friend. He too could hear noise on the way they had come, a crashing among bushes where the Scouts of the Eagle pack were apparently pulling aside twigs and leafage to examine the trail. They had moved fast, those Eagles, faster than Sherlock and Max had expected them to move.

  Sherlock did not dare speak, for the human voice carries far. He only tapped Max, beckoned, and headed away, on a line toward the camp and parallel to their outward course at a distance of perhaps twenty yards. Crouching down, Max faithfully dropping his corn, they loped along until they came to a tangle of thorn bushes. Here, at Sherlock’s gesture, they both dropped flat, peering through beneath the bushes in the direction of their former path.