The Cape Cod Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

Author:Phoebe Atwood Taylor [Taylor, Phoebe Atwood]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

At the Hermit’s Hut

We stopped as before on the pine bordered path. Asey untied the bundle he had bought at the dry-goods store. To my joy it proved to be a complete policeman’s outfit, child’s size, which I knew had been a part of the window display for at least fifteen years.

“What on earth,” I asked him, “do you expect to do with that fancy dress? You’re not going to put it on, are you? It wouldn’t fit on your little finger.”

“Nope,” he returned composedly. “I ain’t aimin’ to put it on, but I needed the badge as goes with it. I thought it would make too much talk if I went an’ asked for that alone, so I had to buy the whole dum thing. They thought I was plumb crazy. But badges don’t grow on bushes like beach plumbs, an’ I couldn’t very well ask Sullivan for the loan of his.”

“Do you suppose that Schonbrun, if it is he, is going to be taken in by that toy?”

“Dunno. I cal’late maybe he will. This’ll shine an’ flash easy as anything else will, an’ I don’t have to let him examine it close. Rider burns candles anyhow at night an’ that’ll help some.”

“But will he come if you just show that to him?”

“Can’t never tell the fear of the law a feller’s got till you flash a badge on him. I remember readin’ about a man who captured a train robber once out West just by drawin’ his coat back a little an’ lettin’ his suspender catch gleam in the sun for a second. An’ besides, a badge kind o’ adds dignity. I ain’t got no uniform like Slough,” he chuckled, “but I got a badge an’ I guess I look’s much like a sheriff as he does, even if I ain’t got a bay window. Shouldn’t wonder if there wasn’t a pistol in this outfit, too.”

He thrust the badge into his pocket and started off.

“If I don’t get to come back in a reasn’ble time, you take that car an’ go after some one.”

“Do you think that there’s any danger?”

“Nope. But I don’t want you to come philanderin’ after me.”

I wrapped the robe about me and proceeded to wait. I repeated Mr. Milton’s poem about those also serving who only stood and waited. I counted to four hundred and ninety-four by thirteens. As I am very dull about figures that took up time beautifully.

A rabbit scampered through the underbrush. I caught a fleeting glimpse of his tail by the vague light of the dimmers Asey had left on. I turned on the radio, but the same newspaper broadcaster I had heard before was gloating over the discovery of a hammer in the possession of William Hendricks Porter, arrested for the murder of the famous novelist, Dale Sanborn. I wondered if every newspaper broadcaster was engaged in shouting unpleasant news about Bill to the world at large. I fished in the pocket of my jacket and found an aged candy bar.

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