Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1947

by The Sleuth Patrol (v1. 1)

  The gun waggled warningly, and Sherlock stood still as he was commanded. He managed to keep talking, and not to sound desperate.

  “Your toes went deeper than your heels, into that soft mud,” he explained. “Ordinarily, tracks left in walking have deep heelprints, because the heel comes down first, and takes the weight of the body. When a man runs, his toes hit first and dig in—”

  “Yeah? How did you figure my tracks weren’t made by running?”

  “Because,” said Sherlock, “those last tracks we found, next to that log across the stream, had more water in them than the first. So I knew the tracks by the stream were the oldest. I backtrailed you to where you’d left what would look like the trail’s beginning. Since there were no more tracks beyond, I figured that you’d climbed into that big maple.”

  “Sure,” agreed Corey James readily, “I was up in it, listening, when you and your talky little pal passed underneath. I could hear and see you all the way to the stream and the log. You did some good guesswork, Sherlock.”

  “Something else took the guesswork out of it,” went on Sherlock. “Your tracks were so close together. A man takes a shorter stride backward than forward.”

  “Like I said before, I’m glad it was you came on me here,” said Corey James. “I doubt if any other Scout boy, or any other Scout man either, would figure out things as smart as you did. So I’m safe and sound, with you quiet and helpless in front of this pea-shooter I’m holding right at your solar plexus.”

  “Are you going to shoot me?” asked Sherlock, and his voice shook in spite of himself.

  “Not if you’re friendly and helpful. Now then, those tracks of mine will point to the stream. Everybody thinks I’m almost dead in this swamp. I dropped my hat, and managed to kill a squirrel and shed so much blood back yonder from here that they’ll think I was barely able to crawl. I’ve been watching this blanket search they made for me, and it’s moved on past. You and I are together behind the line of searchers. Your pals will be led back to the log at the stream, and they’ll figure what you figured at first, that I fell in and maybe drowned, right? They’ll waste the rest of the day trying to find me.”

  “And trying to find me,” added Sherlock confidently, secure in the knowledge that a search would be made.

  “Sure, sure. But you and I are back here, in a place they’ve already combed over. If they don’t find us in the water, they’ll keep heading outward. Once they’re spread out so far that they can’t watch everywhere at once, you and I will slip through by a path I know—”

  “We?” repeated Sherlock.

  “Didn’t I say you were going along with me? Well, you are, and I’m going to keep the nose of this gun right in your ribs, ready and with my finger dancing on the trigger. If you make a noise, the gun will make another noise, and that’ll be all, Scout boy.”

  “Where are you going to take me?” Sherlock asked. “Quite a ways from here. I know a right guy who’ll hide us both tonight, and by tomorrow we’ll be more than a hundred miles off.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that, you and I will be pals. Real pals. You’ll have helped me get away. That makes you my accomplice, as guilty as I am. That’s law, Sherlock.”

  Sherlock had studied law for his merit badge in civics. Corey Jarnes’s explanation sounded false, but he did not argue the point with that gun threatening him.

  “Maybe,” said Corey James, “a smart kid like you would make a hand in my little automobile business. Hefty was strong and willing, but he was stupid. Ypu’re ten times as smart as he ever was, and in a few years you’ll be as strong. I kind of think you’re going to throw in with me, Sherlock.”

  Sherlock tried not to look at the gun. “I won’t do it.” “You’d better.”

  “I won’t.”

  As he said it, he felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life.

  “Look here, Scout boy,” said Corey James, “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.” His thumb drew back the hammer with a cold clicking sound.

  “Let me quote you something that you yourself said,” argued Sherlock. “Many and many a good guy’s gun- smoked himself right into a jam—”

  “You heard that, too? You’ve been just about everywhere. But if I finished you right here, I’d hide you when I left. And you wouldn’t be found for days, weeks, maybe never. Understand ? Now I’m giving you ten seconds to change your mind. One—two—three—”

  There was a deafening crash of breaking twigs as a figure bounded in upon them.

  Corey James turned and his gun went off. Then Sergeant Palmer had an armlock on him, grimly applying scientific pressure. The criminal yelled loudly in pain, and his weapon dropped into the mud.

  THE CASE IS CLOSED

  “Are you all right, Sherlock?” demanded the sergeant, still clamping his prisoner’s arm but turning his anxious eyes on the Scout.

  “I am now,” said Sherlock thankfully. There were more noises in the foliage, and Doc appeared, then Max.

  “Hey, have a heart!” Corey James was pleading in a voice that had changed to a pitiful whine. “Ease up on that arm you’ve got hold of or you’ll break it.”

  “I heard most of what you were saying,” Sergeant Palmer told him coldly, “and I’d half welcome an excuse to break your arm clear off. You’re pretty brave in your own mind, aren’t you, James? With a gun in your hand you have all the courage in the world to threaten and insult a boy. But now you’re in the hands of a man.” Letting go with one hand, he produced his handcuffs and snapped them upon Corey James’s wrists. Then he stooped, picked up the revolver that his captive had dropped and slid it into his own waistband.

  Sherlock looked at Doc and Max. “We’ve got a job to do, too. Remember the smoke signals they ordered back at central command point? Help me get some dry firewood; nothing off the ground, it’ll be as soggy as wood from the bottom of a pond. Here,” and he broke a branch from a dead tree. “Get stuff like this, up high enough to stay dry.”

  “We were just in the nick of time,” said Doc.

  “But I was counting on you, even when he was counting on me, counting away ten seconds for me to change my mind,” said Sherlock. “I knew you’d show up. You must have seen the same thing about the tracks that I did.”

  “We figured out nothing,” said Max. “It was your hat that led us here.”

  “My hat?” repeated Sherlock, staring blankly.

  “Right,” and Max held out the Scout hat. “You’d stuck it up in the tree to give us a clue to—”

  “That was chance,” said Sherlock. “Just plain chance. Anyway,” and he sighed thankfully, “it was a chance that worked out all right.”

  Doc heaped an armful of gathered wood on an open space that was a trifle less watery than the surrounding territory. “We can build one fire here,” he said, “and the other yonder. After they’re going, we’ll throw on wet leaves and weeds.”

  “And talk about the business later,” added Sherlock. “Just now I feel my teeth chattering a little.”

  It was night again, at Troop Fifteen’s woodland camp under the trees. A bright, rosy council fire burned cheerfully and cast ruddy lights on the two assembled patrols, their Leaders, and a whole host of visitors. There were parents from Hillwood, eager youngsters who had come to see the Scouts who had undergone such ordeals and achieved such victories, and a considerable representation of local farmers from the Oatville neighborhood. Just now the sturdy figure of Police Chief Hamilton stood by the fire, in the midst of speaking to the assembly.

  “I could go on forever about law and order and how well these Scouts have helped as they should,” he summed up, “but I’m going to stop talking in my official capacity, and speak as chairman of the committee of Troop Fifteen.

  “The town of Hillwood has been buzzing all day with the news of how our search in the swamp ended. The most remarkable thing, and yet I don’t find it so remarkable, is that boys, one boy after another who hadn’t thought seriously about Sc
outing, seem to have decided suddenly and emphatically to apply for admittance and training with Troop Fifteen. We have enough applications to fill out both our present Patrols to full strength, and also to form another Patrol. I’m glad to welcome such new Scouts into the movement, and now I’ll stop talking. Because here’s someone else who wants to talk.”

  He waited for applause to die away, then motioned for one of the men of the locality to step into the firelight. “Let me present Mr. Ezra Rickerby,” he said. “That’s all I’ll say. He’ll say the rest.”

  Mr. Ezra Rickerby was a middle-aged farmer, broadshouldered and sunburned. He grinned at his neighbors, at the visiting adults, and at the group of Scouts who sat near by.

  “I own this piece of woods where you boys are camping,” he said. “When first I gave your Scoutmasters permission to bring you here, I thought I was doing you a favor. Now,” and he chuckled deeply, “I realize it was the other way ’round. I was doing myself and my neighbors a favor. You rooted a dirty crime plot right out of the heart of our home township. I want to say that when I was young there wasn’t any Scouting hereabouts. Now I wish there had been. I’d like to have been a Scout myself, and enjoyed the advantages and benefits that come from Scout training.

  “I can’t do much to show my appreciation besides saying that you or any other Scouts can come and camp on my land, any time and for as long as you want. I speak for the town of Oatville and for the neighboring farmers and landholders when I say that we’re glad to have you for friends, and I want this to be only the first of our long friendship.”

  He stepped back into the shadows, among more hand clapping and cheers. His place was taken by Mr. Palmer, no longer the grim-faced police sergeant on the trail of a fleeing criminal, but again a Scoutmaster, proud of his young charges.

  “It’s my time to make introductions,” he announced. “First, one of our Patrol Leaders has asked to make a public statement. Here he is, from the Eagle Patrol, Ranny Ollinger.”

  Up bobbed Ranny, a little diffident in facing so many hearers, but determined and serious.

  “What I say may not need to be said,” he began. “When this camp was first set up, there seemed to be a question as to who should be Senior Patrol Leader of the new Troop. Well, as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t any question any more. I was the only suggestion other than Sherlock Hamilton of the Hounds, and here and now I want to announce that I’m not a candidate for the post. Not that I think I’d have any chance, but why beat around the bush any more? There’s nobody else in sight or hearing or thought who’s better fitted to be Senior Patrol Leader than Sherlock Holmes Hamilton, and I move he gets the nod right here and now!” Applause started, but Ranny lifted his hand. “Wait. I’m going to sit down, and I think Sherlock himself ought to get up and say something.”

  The night was rent and shaken with yells, cheers, whistles and hand clapping. Sherlock found himself struggling in the grip of hands, Doc on one side of him, Max on the other. They pushed him bodily out from where he sat, and he found himself upright in the light of the fire, being cheered from all sides.

  “Yay, Sherlock!”

  “The prize crime-buster of the country!”

  “Speech! Speech!”

  “Say something, Sherlock,” urged Mr. Palmer. “They want to hear you. How do you feel about all this?” Sherlock swallowed and gazed around.

  “I feel dead lucky,” he said. “And likewise dead tired.”