by Helen Wells
“Tell me about this old formula book,” Cherry said. “What about the homemade remedies?”
The old lady rattled off the names of several time honored favorites: mustard plaster; sassafras tea; asafetida worn in a bag around your neck for a spring tonic; ginseng to both soothe and stimulate.
“I’d say these things do good as far as they go—”
“Oh, I don’t hold much with ginseng,” Mrs. Barker said. “Mostly people used to value it because the root is forked and shaped like a human figure, but that’s only legend, superstition. Ginseng just makes you feel better temporarily. So would a cup of hot tea. I do believe there’s at least one ginseng formula in my book! You grind up the dried ginseng root into a powder, and then you add—let me see—Oh, dear, I forget.”
Cherry kept silent. She did not want to put answers into Emma Barker’s mouth.
Mrs. Barker was not interested in ginseng and rattled on about something else. Cherry saw that she was not going to learn anything more about ginseng remedies here today. But there was another way she might find out! A plan took shape in her mind. It was growing late, yet not too late, not too rainy and dark—
“Mrs. Barker, this has been a delightful tea party. Now, I’m afraid I must go.”
“Can’t you stay and visit a little longer? Maybe Jane can join us now.”
“I wish I could stay. Thank you ever so much!” Cherry was grateful to her for more than tea and cookies. Mrs. Barker had provided her with an important new lead.
Cherry said a hasty good-bye to Jane, got into her car, and headed for the river road. She almost regretted what she was going to do. She’d rather not discover anything about Floyd that would distress his mother. But she wanted that old formula book.
Getting out at the old farmhouse, Cherry realized it was dangerous for her to have come here alone. She should have waited until Hal could come, too.
“Well, I’m here now. I’ll be quick—and cautious.”
She picked her way through patches of ginseng and of weeds, and reached the front door of the empty house. Cherry opened the door quietly, and stood there listening, looking. The house was so still she could hear the nearby river flowing. It must be swollen by the rain. This wet afternoon the sour moldy odor in the house was stronger than ever. Cherry took a deep breath of it, but was not sure whether or not it smelled like the remedy.
If someone was making the worthless remedy here, where in the house was that likely to be? Where should she look first for the ancient formula book? Or for jars of the medicine, or ginseng roots, or any telltale clue she could find? Cherry was not eager to spend any more time searching alone in this deserted place than necessary—and she preferred not to come face to face with—whom?
“If I knew the layout of the rooms—”
She peered in. Straight ahead of her was the staircase and the long, narrow hall. To her left was the empty sitting room, with only a threadbare carpet left in it. Also on her left and farther down the hall was—apparently—a dining room. Although it was next to the sitting room, Cherry noticed there was no door connecting the two rooms.
The odor came from deeper inside the house. Cherry started noiselessly down the hall. After three paces a floor board creaked. She caught her breath and halted.
“Was that someone moving around in here? Or was it my own footfall?” She listened and heard only the wind and river. “Oh, an old house is full of creaking woodwork, and on a windy, rainy day—”
She started on tiptoe again. The odor grew stronger. At the doorway of the dining room, she cautiously looked in. Along one wall—the other side of the sitting-room wall—stood a heavy, old fashioned oak buffet. It stretched along nearly the length of the wall, standing a little askew. Except for a few worn-out dining room chairs and the buffet, there was nothing to see.
“Maybe what I’m looking for is in the kitchen,” Cherry thought. “There’d be a sink and a stove and running water, at least a pump, in the kitchen to use in making the remedy.”
She hesitated. Did she hear someone in the kitchen? How warm it was in here! Had someone lighted the stove? Did she smell a kerosene stove? Well, there was only one way to find out. Go and look. But if someone was in there—Cherry felt the back of her neck tingle with fear.
“I won’t turn back,” she told herself. “I’ll just take a quick look into the kitchen. I can always run for it.”
The kitchen, she saw, ran across the width of the house. She was faced with a choice of whether to enter the kitchen by continuing down the hall, or by crossing through the dining room. But fading daylight streamed through the dining room windows—she could be seen from the kitchen if she crossed through. If someone was in here—Cherry decided to stick to the shadowy hall. She crept past the dining room, lifting and slowly setting down one foot on the old floor boards, shifting her weight, waiting a second, then taking the next catlike step. She moved almost soundlessly. It took her close to four minutes to reach the kitchen.
As she came to the kitchen door, Cherry heard a grating, scraping noise. She was so startled, she thought her heart would fly out of her chest. She whirled around in time to see a man’s shadow running swiftly in the dining room. His shadow fell through the dining room doorway and across the hall for an instant. She hesitated for a few moments, too scared to move. Then Cherry ran back up the hall to the dining room and peered around the doorway’s edge.
The dining room was empty. Cherry was trembling. The man, whoever he was, knew that an intruder—she—was here. His stealth proved that. She had to get out immediately! And by another route, so he couldn’t see and stop her. Through the kitchen? Out the back door, and then around the far side of the house? Yes, that should do it. She could go through the trees and reach her car unseen.
She didn’t waste any time trying to be silent. Cherry ran through the kitchen for all she was worth. She remembered to touch the stove as she ran. It was stone cold. Not being used, then! Fleetingly she thought there must be another stove in the house, but her concern now was to escape. Thank heavens the back door of the kitchen opened at her touch.
She fled across the big back porch, down the steps, and around the back of the house.
She stumbled through a cluster of gnarled fruit trees. The tangle of ginseng plants slowed her. It seemed like an eternity until she finally reached her car and jumped in.
Cherry started the car, pulling out of that place as fast as she could. She took one look to see whether anyone had followed her. No one was in sight. That didn’t mean no one was watching her! The man hiding in the house could have seen who she was. He didn’t want to be seen, either—of course. She headed the car along the weed filled roadway and out onto the highway, and stepped hard on the gas. She didn’t want anyone to follow her and catch up with her.
“What an experience!” she thought. “What a narrow squeak! Not worth the risk. I didn’t find a single thing I was searching for—not the book nor ginseng roots nor the remedy. Only a shadow.”
But she knew now that someone—very likely Floyd or some pal of his—was up to something in the house Jane hoped to live in. The next thing was to prove his identity.
“Unless it was just a tramp, taking cover on a rainy day?” Cherry speculated. “I haven’t a scrap of proof about who the man was or what he was doing. No, no, a tramp is too easy and random an explanation.”
Where had the man disappeared to? He had run into the dining room, evidently from the kitchen. Once in the dining room, where had he gone to? Not back into the kitchen, or she would have seen him a few seconds later when she ran through there. Not out the dining room windows, they were closed. Not into the hall, either, for when she saw his shadow, she was still standing in the hall. Yet when she had collected her wits and peered into the dining room, the man was gone. He had vanished, it seemed, into the wall. That certainly didn’t explain anything.
CHAPTER IX
The Search
THAT EVENING CHERRY TRIED SEVERAL TIMES TO REACH Dr. Hal
by telephone, but he was out on emergency cases. At ten o’clock she reached him.
“Hal, I know it’s late,” Cherry said, “but I’d better tell you this immediately. I think someone is making that fake medicine at the abandoned farmhouse.”
“Why do you think so?” Hal sounded tired, but he was not too tired to discuss this question. “Because the ginseng patch grows there?”
“That’s not the only reason,” Cherry said. “I went to the old house late this afternoon, and somebody was in there. … Yes, I went alone. Now don’t scold me, Hal—” She told him about Mrs. Barber’s old formula book, which was missing, and how Floyd had lied about working at the cannery. “I thought I might find Floyd or the formula book, or both, at the old farmhouse.”
“Don’t you go there by yourself again!” Hal said.
“Someone will have to go back there. I was so scared I left before I had a chance to search.”
“Never mind that now,” Hal said. “Listen, I have a lot to tell you. Is it all right if I come over this late?. … Fine, I’ll be there in five minutes.”
They sat on the porch so as not to disturb Aunt Cora. The rain had stopped and the moon shone. In low voices they discussed their difficulties in finding a sample of the remedy for the Food and Drug man.
“Did he come today?” Cherry asked.
“Someone is coming tomorrow.” Hal sighed. “Federal Food and Drug in Des Moines wanted to send a man who’s versatile and skilled enough for this case, and that would be their resident inspector, a Mr. Collinge. But he’s away on official business.”
“Oh, no,” Cherry groaned.
“Oh, yes. However,” Hal said, “I was advised not to wait for him, but to get in touch with the next nearest resident inspector. He’s in Omaha, a Mr. Short. I finally was able to make contact with him at his home in Omaha this evening. And he promised to be in Sauk tomorrow.”
“Thank goodness!” Cherry said. “Is he flying?”
“Driving. It’s fastest because most direct. He has a staff car. He said he’d start tomorrow morning at six, and arrive around two in the afternoon.
“Now look, Cherry.” Hal leaned forward, thinking. “I’d like to be able to tell Mr. Short where the drug is being manufactured, or distributed from, and find him a sample of it. Seems to me that you and I ought to hunt up the pedlar at his shack in the woods and try to buy a jar of that concoction from him—that is, if he’d sell it to us. And maybe, for all we know, Snell or someone else is making the remedy at the shack, or distributing it from there.”
“Yes, we might at least learn something at the shack,” Cherry agreed. “We’d have time to go there before the Food and Drug man arrives at two.”
“Where in the woods does Snell live?”
“Somewhere around Muir, I heard,” Cherry said.
They compared notes and found they both had patients to see tomorrow morning not far from Muir. They arranged to meet each other around ten thirty the next morning at the Muir grocery store, and fit in the visit to the pedlar between their professional calls.
The rain started again the next day. As she made her rounds Cherry found the farm families worried about the heavy showers.
“ ’Course, it’s the twenty-first of September, so we’re due for fall rains,” one farmer said to her. “But my Indian corn and oats are going to be ruined if this rain don’t let up.”
Cherry hoped the rain would not delay the Food and Drug inspector.
A little before ten thirty Cherry drove on to the village of Muir and waited in the general store for Dr. Hal.
As she waited, she sat on a box and chatted with the storekeeper who was willing enough to talk about Old Snell.
“That old backwoods character!” the storekeeper said. “He cuts into my business a little bit, with the wild berries and salad greens he gathers. But his main business is herbs. He says he got the folklore from his ancestors. Some folks call him a regular old time herb doctor.”
“Is he?” Cherry asked. “Maybe Old Snell was the one who concocted the ginseng remedy.”
“I wouldn’t put any faith in a herb quack like him. I heard he concocts a brew of toadskins and cherry wine.” The storekeeper made a face. “Though some folks believe he has a lot of old fashioned know-how about herbs. Been living in the woods by himself, all these years, so they figure he’s bound to’ve learned something.”
Cherry shrugged. “How can he learn about medicine out in the woods? It takes years of study and training.”
“Exactly so! It’s just as well for everybody’s health that Snell only peddles now and then.”
“He’s a recluse?”
“Yep. A real odd character.”
“Do you know an acquaintance of mine, named Floyd Barker?” Cherry asked the storekeeper.
“Sure, everybody knows Floyd. He drifts all over the countryside. Haven’t seen much of Floyd lately, though.”
Cherry wondered why not. “Do Floyd and Old Snell ever do business together?” she asked.
“Not as far as I know of. Floyd ain’t one to work.”
“Well, do Floyd and Old Snell know each other?”
“Pro’bly, but I can’t swear to it.”
The conversation lagged. Hal arrived. He asked the storekeeper for directions to Snell’s shack.
The storekeeper told them. He was curious about what the county medical officer wanted with Old Snell.
Dr. Miller did a quick, terse job of health education right there in the general store. The storekeeper listened and shook his head.
“That’s awful,” he said. “I’ve known Snell a long time, but I wouldn’t shield him. I’ll pass the word along, Doc.”
“Good. Thanks.” Cherry said thanks, too, and good-bye, and went outdoors with Dr. Hal.
They decided to take Cherry’s car, since it was smaller and could negotiate the woods more easily than Hal’s heavier car. Cherry drove.
The rain had stopped. Still it was dim on this dirt road through the woods. They watched for the turn-off among the trees which led to where Old Snell lived. The rain had washed away any tire tracks, so they could not tell whether he or anyone else had driven through recently.
After the turnoff it was slow, bumpy going along a rough trail. The woods were silent except for birds darting over their heads. Then the pedlar’s shack came into view.
“Why, it’s not much more than a woodshed,” Cherry said.
“He’s probably got it fixed up comfortably.”
The shack was dark inside. They got no answer to their repeated knocking. They tried the door. Locked. Cherry remembered having seen the pedlar on that one occasion drive off in a ramshackle car, but his car was nowhere among these trees. Hal walked around the shack, looking in its closed windows.
“He’s not here,” Hal said. “The place is closed up and locked up. He knows we’re after him, so we’re wasting our time here.”
“Any sign that he’s making the ginseng remedy in there?” Cherry asked.
They peered in the windows. The one room was dusty and deserted. They could dimly make out a cot, kitchen chairs and table, a cookstove, a pump. Nothing more, no jars or utensils or ginseng roots.
“I still think Snell or Floyd—or whoever it is—may be making the stuff at the abandoned farmhouse,” Cherry said.
“In that case let’s stay out of there, at least until Mr. Short arrives,” Hal said.
“Why? You think whoever’s in that house may be armed?” Cherry said. She had thought of that yesterday, but had pushed the idea out of her mind.
Dr. Hal hooted at her. “What do you think? He—or they—are building up a lucrative trade out of this Nature’s Herb Cure. One patient admitted to me it costs five dollars a jar. The ginseng and eggs they put into it cost them nothing, or next to nothing. Five dollars a jar! And they’ve been selling plenty of it around here and across the state line in Missouri. These fellows aren’t going to let you and me stop their racket if they can help it.”
“I
can’t picture that lazy, easygoing Floyd being armed,” Cherry said. “If it is Floyd.”
“He owns a shotgun for hunting, doesn’t he?” Hal reminded her. Cherry nodded. “Probably the pedlar does, too. You know, I haven’t yet met this Floyd. Come on. Let’s get out of these woods.”
Cherry took a last look at the deserted shack. “Do you suppose the pedlar’s hiding out in the old farmhouse?”
“Anything is possible. Come on. Get in the car.”
Hal drove back to the grocery store where he had left his car. He wanted to stop at the Barkers’ and meet Floyd if possible. Or perhaps Jane would have some new information about Floyd. They still had plenty of time to spare before Mr. Short’s arrival, even allowing time for their patients.
Hal said to Cherry, as he drove, “Maybe we should leave it to the Food and Drug man to search the abandoned farmhouse. He’s a specially trained kind of detective—he’ll know better than anyone else how to obtain evidence and how to trap this medical kind of racketeer. The more I think about it, the more I feel we should leave it to experts.”
It was necessary for the Food and Drug Administration to analyze the remedy in order to determine whether it violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
Cherry said, “For all we know, Food and Drug might inspect the old farmhouse and not find a sample there, either.”
At Muir they stopped, Hal got into his car, and Cherry followed in hers. Presently they pulled up in front of the Barkers’ cottage. Floyd’s jalopy was not anywhere around.
They conferred for a moment before going in. They agreed to talk with Jane privately, out in the yard. Mrs. Barker might just repeat something to Floyd, in all innocence. Even the parrot might repeat something.
Jane told them that the old pedlar had not once come by the Barkers’ cottage with his doubtful wares. She was puzzled about this until Cherry and Dr. Hal told her more about Old Snell. Of course the last place Snell would come would be to a friend of the doctor and nurse! Jane was relieved to hear that the Food and Drug inspector was due today. They told her this in confidence.