CHAPTER III

THE STUTTERING PARROT

We were crazy to begin work on the mystery that had bobbed up in front of us. But we had no chance to do any regular detecting that morning. For we had to scour the town in search of Red’s aunt’s escaped parrot.

At noon we were ready to give up the search. We were tuckered out. It’s no fun, let me tell you, traipsing around in the hot sun for hours at a time. I had a crook in the back of my neck from squinting into treetops.

At the store Peg told us that the milliner had been called into Chicago on sudden important business. She wasn’t likely to be back for several days, he said. So we decided to discontinue our parrot hunting for the day. Anyway, as the leader said, the parrot would probably come home of its own accord when it got dark. So why chase our legs off in the hot sun trying to find it?

Peg then told us that the Cap’n and old Caleb had gone fishing in the Illinois River. So we gave the parrots their usual dinner of boiled corn, after which we did some house-cleaning in the rooms in the back part of the store. We have to do that for the Cap’n. Having a peg-leg, it’s hard for him to get around. Anyway, to come right out with the truth, he isn’t very particular about keeping his store and living rooms clean. He’s right-down lazy.

Red was swishing the broom in the sitting room. Suddenly he gave a yip.

“Lookit!” says he, holding up something in his hand.

Scoop laughed.

“What’d you find?” says he. “A three-dollar bill?”

“A black feather,” says Red.

That made the leader jump.

“What’s that?” says he, excited.

“It’s a parrot feather, too,” says Red. “I picked it up on the floor.”

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” says Peg. “And where there’s a black feather there’s a feather duster.”

“Or a mino bird,” says I quickly.

We were sure now that the black parrot, as we called it, was hidden in the store. And determined to find it, we went through the place from top to bottom. We looked in all the cupboards. We looked in the stuffy attic, too, and in the drygoods boxes in the dark cellar. But we didn’t find anything. I could see that Scoop was stumped.

It came supper time and the Cap’n hadn’t come home yet. So we fed the parrots some more boiled corn and closed the store for the night. There was an Indian medicine show on the public square. We took it in, stopping at our old friend’s store on our way home. But to our surprise he wasn’t there.

Scoop had planned to stay all night with the Cap’n to sort of watch for Mrs. Biggle’s parrot in case it came to the bird store instead of going back to the millinery store, as it was his idea that our parrots might attract the stray one. And now he begged us to keep him company. It wouldn’t be any fun, he said, staying in the store all alone. So I telephoned to Mother, to let her know where I was, then we turned in, two of us sleeping in the old man’s bed and the other two on a folding couch in the sitting room.

Red and I had the couch. He’s a mean kid to sleep with. He kicks like a mule. About the time you get set in a nice cozy dream he cranks up his number eights and, bingo! you get a wallop in the slats.

“Cut it out,” says I, growling, when he had awakened me for the third time. “What do you think this is?--a pile-driving contest?”

“Jerry,” says he in a hollow whisper, sort of hanging to me in the dark, “I heard something.”

“So did I,” says I. “I heard my slats crack when you rammed your foot into them. Have a heart, kid. I ain’t made of cast-iron.”

“I heard a voice,” says he.

“It was me,” says I. “I was warbling canary stuff in my sleep. I get that way from being in the bird business.”

“_You_ don’t stutter,” says he.

I sat up then.

“Hey!” says I. “What’s that?”

“It was a stuttering voice,” says he.

“Probably Scoop and Peg,” says I. “They’re trying to act funny with us and scare us.”

He shimmied around under the covers.

“Say, Jerry,” says he in a graveyard voice, “don’t you feel scared?”

“Scared?” says I. “What is there to be scared of?”

“I feel that way, kind of. Like something _spooky_ was going to happen. Gee! Ain’t it _dark_!”

[Illustration: “H-H-HAM! IT’S T-T-TIME TO E-E-EAT!” CAME THE VOICE LOW AND GASPING LIKE.

_Poppy Ott and the Stuttering Parrot._ _Page 34_]

“Something _will_ happen, all right,” says I, “if you don’t dry up and let me go to sleep.”

“I don’t _think_ it was a dream,” says he, sort of checking up on his thoughts.

“What?” says I, yawning.

“The voice.”

“Oh, for the love of mud!”

“It said H-h-ham! H-h-ham!”

“Ham and eggs,” says I.

“No, just ‘H-h-ham!’ Like that. It was a queer voice, too. Like some one choking.”

“You’re a cheerful guy to sleep with,” says I. “Don’t you know any stories about ghosts or murders? Let’s have a good one--one with a lot of blood in it.”

“Jerry, there’s something queer about this store.”

“Yah,” says I, “you’re in it.”

“About the Cap’n, I mean--putting that ad in the newspaper, and everything. Wonder where he is.”

“Fishing,” says I, with another yawn.

“Why didn’t he come home?”

“Maybe a big bullhead bit his peg-leg off.”

“Do you suppose he’s really got the stolen parrot here?”

“You’ll have a real black eye,” says I, “if you don’t dry up.”

“Maybe,” says he, “it was the parrot I heard.”

I hooted.

“A stuttering parrot!” says I. “You’re good.”

Suddenly the other ducked under the covers and tried to wind himself around me like a grapevine.

“_Jerry!_ Did you hear it?”

The blamed calf! He had _me_ scared, too.

“Hear what?” says I. And the rattle in my back teeth sounded like a Ford on a rocky hill.

“The voice.”

I listened.

“H-h-ham!” came a voice in the darkness. “H-h-ham!”

I got a grip on myself.

“I bet it’s Scoop and Peg,” says I. “I’m going to get up and find out.”

“Oh!...” shimmied the grapevine, tightening its hold on me. “Don’t get up.”

But I did. And going into the bedroom, I found my two chums sound asleep.

“H-h-ham!” came the voice again, sort of low and gasping-like. “H-h-ham! C-c-cut out his heart and f-f-fry it in butter. It’s t-t-time to e-e-eat.”

I was right-down scared now. There was something spooky about that stuttering voice. Weird is the word to use, I believe. And giving Scoop and Peg a shake to wake them up, I told them to pile out.

We got a hand lamp. And when the voice came again we traced it to a large picture on the sitting room wall. It was a picture of the dead sailor. Remember that! We took the picture down. There was a hole in the plastered wall. And in the hole was a coal-black parrot in a wicker cage.

Besides being black all over, like a crow, it was a funny-looking parrot. It was pretty big in its body, with an awfully big curved bill. And it had bleary eyes. That is, as we held the lamp up to the hole the big black bird sort of leered back at us as though it was half full of gin. You know what I mean. And when it talked it weaved back and forth like a drunken man. I began to wonder what kind of a woman this Mrs. Strange was, to bring up a parrot like this! It acted like a barroom parrot to me.

As can be imagined, we were excited in the black parrot’s discovery. And gathered around it, our eyes fastened on it, we were kind of depressed, too, in the knowledge that our old friend was indeed a thief. We could not doubt that now. For here was the stolen parrot in his home.

Peg had been studying the bird with puzzled eyes.

“What do you call it?” says he.

“It’s a mino bird,” says Red.

The big one grunted.

“It looks like a common old parrot to me.”

“Parrots are green and yellow,” says Red, acting as though he knew all about it. “And mino birds are _black_. See?”

Peg loves to argue.

“Is a white hen a hen?” says he.

“Of course,” says Red.

“And what is a black hen?--a dickey bird?”

“It’s a hen,” says Red.

“Of course,” says Peg. “A hen’s a hen whether it’s black or white or brown or green. And so is this bird a parrot. The color doesn’t make any difference in its name. It’s a _black parrot_. Get me?”

“H-h-hello,” says the parrot, blinking at us in the lamplight, its head cocked on one side. “H-h-hello, you dirty b-b-bums.”

That tickled Red.

“It’s looking at you, Peg. It’s got _your_ number, old hardhead.”

Scoop bent down.

“Hi, old shoe polish,” says he, grinning.

That set the parrot to laughing. Say, it could laugh just as good as anybody. And it looked funny, too, with its bleary, blinking eyes and cocked head. Pretty soon we were laughing as hard as it was.

We got it an apple. And all the while it was eating the apple it kept blinking at us, sort of, and saying funny things. It was a peachy parrot, all right. We wished we owned it.

“What’s your name?” we inquired.

“S-s-solomon.”

“King Solomon,” says Scoop, bowing.

“S-s-solomon Gu-gu-gu----” says the parrot, stuttering to beat the cars.

“Look out there,” says Peg, laughing. “You’ll gag yourself to death.”

“Gu-gu-gu----” says the parrot. It stopped and turned around three times. “Gu-gu-gu----”

“Here,” says Peg, “have another apple.”

“Gu-gu-GRUNDY!” says the parrot, sort of screeching out the full name. “S-s-solomon Gu-gu----”

“Never mind,” says Peg. “We know you can say it. So don’t kill yourself.”

That seemed to make the stutterer mad.

“H-h-ham!” it screeched. “H-h-ham! Put ’em in irons.”

Here the clock struck twelve. I don’t know why it is, but when a clock strikes twelve at night a fellow always thinks of ghosts. At least I do. So you can imagine the scare I got when Red suddenly let out an old gee-whacker of a scream.

“The window!” says he, pointing.

We looked quick. But we were too late to see anything.

“What was it?” says Scoop, getting his voice.

“A man’s face.”

“Was it the old detective?”

“No-o,” says Red, shaking his head. “It wasn’t him. First I saw a pair of eyes. Sort of _burning_ eyes. Then I saw the full face. It was a man’s face. But it wasn’t the detective. I’m sure of that.”

There was an alley along-side the bird store on the west side. The sitting room had a door and two windows opening into this alley. And it was at one of these windows that Red had seen the mysterious face.

As I say, I was scared stiff. I was kind of rattled, too. I get that way when I’m scared. But I wasn’t so rattled but what I could put two and two together and make four. The spy was after the black parrot. I could see that, all right.

Scoop had tiptoed to the door.

“Listen!” says he, with his ear to the panel.

We could hear some one in the alley. Just outside the door. And suddenly there was a scream. Then we heard something fall.

“Let me in,” says a voice.

It was the Ott kid!

“What do you want?” says Scoop.

“My father has been hurt. Help me--_please_!”

When a kid is in trouble, and begs for help, you can’t go back on him even if you have to run risks in helping him. So we did what was right and unlocked the door.

Our hand lamp made a puddle of light in the alley. And there in front of the open door lay the old detective. There was blood on his forehead. He looked dead to me. I shivered at sight of him.