CHAPTER XVI

THE EMPTY GRAVE

My chums got me out of bed the following morning.

“We can’t find Cap’n Tinkertop,” says Scoop, excited. “His store’s closed, too.”

I told the others where the old man was.

“Why weren’t you on guard in the alley last night?” says I, feeling a little bit sore toward them for not being on hand when I needed them.

Scoop laughed sheepishly.

“Jerry, I hate to admit it. But in a scrap last night the Strickers got the best of us.”

“They locked us in a barn,” says Red, “and kept us there till midnight.”

“So that’s where you were when I needed you, hey?”

“Did you need us?”

I told them my story. They were excited, I want to tell you. Poppy pressed me with eager questions. Had I heard anybody in the store?--had I noticed if any doors or windows were open?--had I searched the store after Doc’s arrival?--and was I _sure_ about the tattooed parrot on the Cap’n’s chest?

I couldn’t answer “yes” to the first three questions, but I could, and did, to the last one. Not only was the chest design a black parrot, I declared, but it was a duplicate of the one in the dead sailor’s picture.

“And moreover,” says I, “old Caleb’s got the same thing tattooed on him. For Doc told me so.”

Visiting old Caleb’s house that morning, in the hope of finding the old man there well and unharmed, we came upon a yardful of excited people. For some wag had started the story that the vanished man had committed suicide. And what led the neighbors to take stock in the story was the known fact that the old man himself, on Monday afternoon, had ordered a grave dug in the Tinkertop lot in the old Scotch cemetery. He had told the sexton, so it was said, that a body was being shipped to the lot owner for burial. But to date no body had been received at the local express office. And everybody in Caleb’s end of town was now saying that the vanished man, in planning his intended suicide, had ordered the grave dug for himself!

We took no stock in this story. Caleb wasn’t dead, we said. He was hiding. But _why_ he was hiding, and where, was a complete mystery to us. Yet we believed that the black parrot was in some way associated with the old man’s disappearance. And we further believed that if we could find him we undoubtedly would get the key to the mystery that surrounded the strange parrot.

Could it be, we then considered, that old Caleb had something to do with the Cap’n’s scare? Was he creeping out of his hiding place nights, to some secret purpose? This was an exciting thought. And as we were convinced now that the Cap’n’s store--the death parrot’s home--was the center of the mystery that involved the unusual black bird, it became our decision to work in the store that night instead of in the alley.

Meeting us at the store at dusk, Poppy fixed five matches. I drew the long one, which made me the “Cap’n.”

“What am I supposed to do?” says I, uneasy in my prominent part in the night’s coming adventure.

“Your job,” says the leader, grinning, “will be to get into the Cap’n’s bed in a perfectly natural way and pretend that you’re sound asleep.”

“And then what?” says I.

“Something is trying to get the Cap’n. We know that. It was here last night. And who can say that it won’t come back again to-night to finish its job?”

I shivered.

“It may grab me,” says I.

“If it does,” says Peg, laughing, “kiss it and kill it.”

“I don’t want to kiss it,” says I, turning up my nose, “if it’s old Caleb.”

“I _hope_,” says Poppy, serious, “that it’s the spy.”

Scoop was puzzled.

“How can it be a man?” says he. “That would be a ‘him,’ as Jerry says, and not an ‘it.’”

“Maybe it was a man dressed up like a ghost,” says Peg.

“_Good_ night!” says I, motioning for them to clear the track for me. “I’m going home.”

But I was joking, of course. I hadn’t the slightest intention of going home. Even if I was to have a very risky part in the night’s coming adventure I was determined to stay and see the thing through.

Peg’s last remark had given us something to think about. A ghost was an “it,” all right. But what could be old Caleb’s object, or the spy’s, in playing ghost in the Cap’n’s bedroom? And, further, how had the “ghost” gotten into the store?

It seemed to me that the mystery became more confusing every minute. Instead of solving it step by step, as we had done in other detecting jobs, we were walking further and further into the darkness.

“Let me get this straight,” says I to Poppy, when they talked of putting me to bed. “You say I’m to let you fix me up to look like the Cap’n, to make the whatever-it-is think that I’m the old gent himself. Is that correct?”

“You’ve got the right idea.”

“And then what?”

“You’re tucked into bed. See? The thing comes. It’s after the Cap’n. Creeping up to the bed, it takes a peek at you. It thinks you’re its victim. And then--”

“_Hey!_” says I, cutting him off. “I thought you said you were going to grab it before it grabbed me?”

He laughed.

“Don’t worry, Jerry. We won’t let it harm you.”

“Just the same,” says I, shivering, “I’ve had jobs I liked better.”

First they ruffled my hair and powdered it with flour to make it white. Then they penciled “wrinkles” into my cheeks with a burnt match. A wad of chewing gum made a neat wart for the side of my nose. For chin whiskers I was given a whisk broom, held in place with a string tied to my ears. I was even made to get out of my clothes and dress my bare legs in the absent householder’s long white nightshirt. A nightcap was the finishing touch, after which, having put me to bed with a great deal of joking attention, the four crooks stepped back to view the results of their dirty work.

“Hi, Cap,” says Peg, saluting.

“If you b’ys don’t quit pesterin’ me,” says I, mimicking the old man, “I’ll run you out of here on the end of my peg-laig.”

Poppy grinned.

“Jerry,” says he, “you ought to go on the stage. For you’re a born mimic. Honest. Why, you sound more like the Cap’n, and look more like him, than the old man himself.”

“If I don’t look like a corpse before the night is over,” says I, “I’ll consider myself lucky.”

When told to get into a hiding place in the room Red parked himself behind the dresser. At Poppy’s orders Peg and Scoop wedged themselves into the clothes closet. The fourth one flattened himself pancake fashion under the bed.

“Now,” says the leader, turning out his flashlight, “let’s have silence and lots of it.”

My heart started to thumping in the sudden darkness. And detecting a slight noise in the alley I quickly turned my eyes to the window. Was it the spy? Or was it a ghost?

The alley sounds dying away into a deep silence, I started breathing again.

“If you fellows keep me here very long,” says I, shivering, “I’ll be a nervous wreck.”

“Sh-h-h-h-h!” says Poppy.

“Why don’t one of you get in bed with me?”

“You poor fish!”

“You can pretend that you’re my wife. See? We’ll hang a sign on the foot of the bed saying that we’re newly married. So the ghost won’t be surprised when it sees you here.”

“Keep still, I tell you.”

I saw a chance to have some fun. And reaching for my clothes beside the bed I searched the pockets for my ventrilo.

“B-b-blood!” says I, in imitation of the death parrot. “Gu-gu-give me a bucket of b-b-blood!”

“You aren’t funny,” says Poppy.

“I killed H-h-ham!” says I, in further fun. “I b-b-bit a hunk out of his liver and v-v-voodooed him.”

“I’ll come up there,” says Poppy, “and bite a hunk out of your liver if you don’t dry up.”

“B-b-blood!” says I. “Gu-gu-give me a bucket of b-b-blood!”

“B-b-blood!” came the echo from under the bed, only Poppy said it so faintly and so muffled-like that I hardly caught the word.

“Golly Ned!” says I. “You can do it better than I can.”

“Do what?” says he.

“My, but you’re innocent!”

“I didn’t do anything. Honest.”

“Some one said, ‘B-b-blood!’”

“It was you.”

“It wasn’t either. It was _you_.”

“All right,” says he, “have it your own way. I’ll agree to anything you say if you’ll just shut up.”

I had been told by the leader that I could actually go to sleep if I wanted to, instead of pretending. But you can bet your Sunday shirt that I had no intention of doing that. Not so you can notice it!

Everything was deadly still now. And in the continued silence my mind picked up the voodoo story. In imagination I saw the temple from which the death parrot had been stolen by the two sailors. I could see the building’s woven grass walls and thatched roof. At the altar, where a fire was sputtering and snapping, was the parrot in its glittering cage. The smoke from the altar fire had a stinking smell. It made me think of Red’s sweaty feet. Half awake and half asleep I got my chum’s feet mixed up with the parrot. A pair of feet in a gold cage! What a funny sight! And where was the parrot? Oh, yes, it had been stolen. I could see a jungle now ... a drifting raft ... a coral island ... a dead man ... glassy, staring eyes....

Ker-_choo-o-o-o_!

Golly Ned! A gunshot directly in my ear couldn’t have startled me any worse than the sneeze that came out from under the bed.

“For the love of mud!” says I. “Why don’t you kill a guy outright instead of scaring him half to death?”

“Keep still,” says Poppy.

“Yah,” snickered the closet, “if you don’t quit talking you’ll loosen your chin whiskers.”

Here the dresser came to life.

“Now what?” says Poppy, in disgust.

“I can’t find my club.”

“You and your club! We ought to use it on your head.”

The dresser pranced around.

“For the love of Pete!”

“I’ve got to find my club.”

“Why don’t you knock the house down?”

“Did I make any noise?”

“Oh, no!”

“I’m awfully cramped in here.”

“Come and get in bed with me,” says I quickly.

“Stay where you are,” says Poppy.

Dong!... dong!... gurgled the sitting-room clock in eleven mouthfuls.

“Now, fellows,” says Poppy, earnestly, “let’s get down to business and quit our nonsense. For this is a serious matter with me. Don’t forget that Pa’s in jail, and the only way I can get him out is by solving this mystery. So let’s be quiet, as I say.”

In the silence that followed I heard a young mosquito clatter up and down the window pane in search of human blood. Tick! tock! tick! tock! chattered the lively clock. Tick! tock! tick! tock! I nodded under the monotonous sound. Tick! tock! tick! tock! I nodded again.

Suddenly my dozing mind was jerked awake. Like a powder flash. Something soft and feathery had touched my bare feet. Under the covers. Gee-miny crickets! You can believe it or not, but I was out of that bed, sheets and all, in one jump.

“B-b-blood!” came a shrill stuttering voice. “B-b-blood! Gu-gu-give me a bucket of b-b-blood.”

Getting my voice, I yipped at the top of my lungs.

“The parrot!” says I. “It’s in the bed!”

My chums sprang to life. I heard the closet door fly open; and from the noise in the corner where the dresser was I could imagine that Red had turned that piece of furniture upside-down. Then there was another sound--a crash of broken glass.

Having dug me out of the mountain of bedclothes, my chums told me that the screaming parrot, in escaping from the room, had gone through the window pane.