CHAPTER XV

A WILD NIGHT

Well, we had something to think about now. While we didn’t share the Cap’n’s crazy belief that his old friend had been “voodooed” by the escaped death parrot, it was a fact that we had no other explanation to offer of the old townsman’s sudden disappearance. And it did give us a kind of queer feeling to know that the old man had vanished on the heels of the parrot’s attack. His disappearance seemed to bear out the voodoo story, all right.

But, even so, we steadily refused to take any stock in the crazy voodoo belief. The Cap’n’s talk about his dead brother’s “glassy eyes” was all bunk, we said. As for old Caleb, he would turn up all right. We were sure of that. So instead of wasting our time searching for him we would give our immediate attention to capturing the escaped parrot. That was the most important job, we concluded.

It was our intention to secretly return the recovered parrot to its cage in the wall hole. Later on, when Red had squared himself with his aunt, we would tell the parrot’s owner the truth about his bird’s unknown escape and its later supposed “theft.”

We put in a busy forenoon. Covering the small town, we separately searched the trees and housetops. But, as before, we met with no success. Solomon Grundy was nowhere to be seen.

Nor did we see anything of Caleb Obed, though we inquired for him at different homes where he was known to drop in occasionally. No one with whom we talked, even his closest friends, could tell us where he was.

It was now brought home to us that the townsman’s disappearance was a more serious matter than we had imagined. So we gave his case our main attention. Searching the still open house for possible clews bearing on his disappearance, we found a bloody towel in the kitchen. There were dried blood spots, too, in the kitchen sink. The sight of blood always gags me. Like castor oil. So I kept away from the nasty towel. Nor did I touch the sink where the bleeding man, after his attack from the parrot, had plainly washed himself and dressed his head wound.

In an old sugar bowl in the cluttered cupboard we found a handful of silver coins and six dirty five-dollar bills. This was proof to us that Caleb hadn’t left town. For certainly, we reasoned, he wouldn’t have gone away without his money, or without locking it up.

But to make sure that the vanished one was still in town we went to the depot where we inquired of the ticket agent if the missing townsman had spent any of his money in the past two days for a railroad ticket. The agent shook his head. He hadn’t seen anything of Caleb for a week, he said.

The Cap’n was all broken up at our failure to get track of the vanished one. He was unable now to cook his own meals or otherwise wait on himself. So it became our job to take care of him. When I explained to Mother at the supper table that my old friend wasn’t feeling well and needed me at his store that night to wait on him she readily consented to the plan. And getting my pajamas I headed for down town.

Dusk came and I had seen nothing of my four chums. Still, I knew they would be in the alley later on. That was their plan. So I had no fear of the spy.

The clock struck nine; then nine-thirty. And having helped the weary old man out of his clothes and into his nightshirt, I went to bed myself, on the sitting-room couch, settling in comfort for the night.

Suddenly I was awakened by a piercing scream.

“Jerry! Jerry! Hel-up! Hel-up!”

It was the Cap’n! And from the terror in his screaming voice I could imagine that he was being murdered in his bed.

To reach his bedroom I had to cross the sitting-room. There was a puddle of moonlight on the floor. I waded through it. My eyes picked out a cane. I got it, wrapping my fist around the small end. With its heavy gold head the cane made a swell club.

But I had no occasion to use it. For there was no one in the moonlit bedroom except the old man himself, who was now sitting up in the bed.

“Jerry! Jerry!” the terrified voice rang through the house.

I ran forward.

“Here I am,” says I.

I could see a pair of wild eyes in the moonlight.

“Jerry, I saw it. It was right thar by the foot of the bed. An’ it--it----”

Here the voice broke. There was a sudden dead silence. Gee-miny crickets! Maybe you think I wasn’t scared. I thought sure the old man was dead. And I was all alone with him!

“Cap’n!” says I, shaking him. “Cap’n! It’s me--Jerry. _Cap’n!_” But he never moved!

Well, you can see what an awful situation it was for me. An “it” had scared the old man to death. And for all I knew to the contrary the “it,” whatever it was--human or otherwise--might still be lurking in some dark corner of the house to get a crack at me.

I got a light first of all. Then I looked under the bed and in the clothes closet. Nothing oozed at me. In the conclusion of my search a groan came from the bed. I knew then that the old man was still alive. So I wet a towel and mopped his face as a quick way of bringing him back, to his senses.

And right then I got a shock. I almost stared my eyes out, I guess. For there on the unconscious one’s naked breast, visible to me in the “V” of the unbuttoned nightshirt, was a tattooed black parrot.

Well, I stood there staring, as I say, my thoughts jumping up and down. And then the old man got his voice again.

“Jerry! Jerry! Hel-up! Hel-up!”

“Here I am,” says I, bending over the bed.

“Jerry! I saw it. Jerry! Hel-up!”

I got Doc Leland on the telephone then. For I could see that something was out of kilter in the frightened one’s head. He kept calling my name. Yet he didn’t seem to realize that I was standing beside his bed.

I had urged Doc to come in a hurry. And when he got there I explained to him how I happened to be in the house. The Cap’n hadn’t been feeling well, I said--his nerves had gone back on him. So, in friendly service, I had agreed to stay with him and wait on him.

The listener was puzzled at my story.

“Um.... He must ’a’ had a bad dream.”

I shivered.

“It was something worse than a dream, Doc.”

“You think he actually saw somethin’?”

“I’ll tell the world! Gosh, Doc, you should have heard him. I thought at first that he was being murdered. So I ran into his room. He was sitting up in bed. His eyes were crazy. ‘Jerry! Jerry!’ he screeched at me. ‘I saw it!’”

“It,” repeated Doc, holding me with his puzzled eyes.

“He said ‘it.’ But I don’t know what he meant.”

“It,” says the other again, working his thoughts. “Um.... Couldn’t ’a’ bin a man, or else he would ’a’ said ‘him’ instead of ‘it.’”

In the excitement my mind had been too jumpy to permit of clear thinking. But somehow I had held to the belief that the spy was at the bottom of the Cap’n’s scare. Now I was more at sea than ever. For, as Doc had said, if the spy had been in the house, and the Cap’n had seen him, certainly the old man wouldn’t have said he had seen “it.”

I was completely bewildered. What was it that the frightened one had seen? What was the nature of the peril that had visited him in the dead of night? And, further, where had this “peril” vanished to?

_It!_ Could it be that a ghost had wandered into the store? I shivered in the thought of it.

Doc was working on the unconscious man now.

“Poor piece of tattooin’,” says he, pointing to the chest design. “Amatoor work. Ol’ Caleb Obed’s got the same kind of a Tom-fool thing tattooed on him.”

Three black parrots! One on the chest of a dead sailor; another on the chest of a man who was strangely missing; the third on the chest of a man who had just had the wits scared out of him. And on top of all this a real black parrot--a living parrot of weird secrets. No wonder I was befuddled in the mystery.

In the next hour the stricken man was removed from his store to the emergency rooms. He was a very sick man, Doc said. It would take a week or two for him to get back on his feet. And in the meantime he needed complete rest and careful nursing.

In all this excitement, to my wonder, I had heard nothing from my chums in the alley. And the fear now came to me that something had happened to them. So I hurried outside to find them. But they weren’t there! Nor could I find any trace of their ropes.

Br-r-r-r! The dark alley gave me the creeps. And of no desire to stay alone in the store I lit out for home. If my chums were in trouble they would have to paddle their own canoe, I told myself. For the night had already given me more than my share of adventure.

It was two o’clock when Dad opened the front door for me. At sight of me he wanted to know if I had lost my mind in coming home at that hour. I told him that the Cap’n had been taken worse and had been removed to the hospital rooms. He asked me several sleepy questions. But I didn’t tell him everything.