The Case of the Musical Cow

Chapter 17

The big sedan glided into smooth speed. Rob turned his eyes to the illuminated instruments on the dashboard and found that the car was full of petrol, that the oil was circulating, that the generator held the needle poised at zero even with all the lights on, and that the speedometer showed the car had been operated only some seven thousand miles.

There were eager horses under the hood and at a slight pressure on the accelerator Rob felt the car fairly shoot ahead.

He came to an intersection, saw a road sign, learned he was on the right road, and started giving the car the gun.

Looking out to the right on the river he could see a huge red glow in the low-flung clouds. He heard the wail of a siren, saw the red blaze of a spotlight, as a rural fire-extinguishing apparatus came rocketing down the side road, turned back to the north and raced valiantly away in the direction of the roaring flames.

Rob settled the car down to legal speed.

It took him something more than an hour to get to Noonville, and then, on impulse, he parked the car by the side of the road, some four hundred yards from the place where he had his little house and kennels.

He locked the car, slipped the key in his pocket, and started groping his way towards the house, taking the precaution to move quietly over familiar back paths, picking his way so that he could approach his kennels from the rear.

He saw them first as a long, low line of buildings looming against the scattered stars, heard the throaty growl of one of the dogs, the restless stirring of others.

Rob spoke to them quietly, trying to keep them from breaking out in a pandemonium of barking. “Steady boys, quiet.”

The dogs recognized his voice. One dog barked gladly, a single short yelp of welcome, and then, under the influence of Rob’s command, lapsed into silence.

The other, older dogs remained quiet, but Rob could hear the sound of motion and knew that tails were wagging. Occasionally he heard a low whining. The dogs sensed the tension in his voice.

Rob stood up, walked directly to the kennels, and stood by the meshed wire, speaking reassuringly to the dogs.

He started to walk boldly to the house but checked himself as he heard a low whine on his right.

It was too dark to see but there was a peculiarly urgent something about that whine, and Rob moved slowly through the darkness until he heard the rattle of a chain. A moment later he made out the form of a dog pulling against a chain, straining every muscle to reach him. The dog’s muzzle was out-thrust, and a series of low, all but inaudible, whimpering whines came from the animal’s throat.

Rob moved a step forward, put out his fingers to touch the dog’s cold nose, then as he stepped closer, said, “Why, it’s Lobo! What are you doing chained up, Lobo?”

Lobo pushed his muzzle under Rob’s face, then crouched, waiting to be released.

Wondering what had caused Joe to tie Lobo out in the open with a chain, Rob released the catch, and the dog came forward, burrowing his head in Rob’s hands.

Then, even as Rob petted him, the dog straightened and sniffed.

“Well, come on, old fellow. We’ll go to the house.”

He made a couple of steps in that direction.

Lobo held back and growled.

“What’s the matter, fellow?” Rob asked, instantly suspicious.

Lobo stood motionless, his tail slightly elevated and straight out behind him, his nose forward, and every muscle tense, pointing directly towards the house. Again the dog gave a low, all but inaudible, growl.

Rob suddenly realized that, in tying Lobo up by a chain out in the vicinity of the kennels, Joe had tried to convey a message.

In the event Rob approached the house cautiously, knowing at once that something was amiss. There could only have been one reason why Joe would have chained the dog outside, not under any shelter, but on the ground, with only the sky overhead. Someone had ordered him to chain the dog up. Someone who dared not have the dog running loose. Someone who was for the moment in a position of authority.

Rob crouched, keeping close to the ground. He moved silently towards the house, which was completely dark save for one light which was on in the kitchen. The kitchen blinds were drawn, but there was enough light coming through the high pantry window for Rob to tell the location of that single kitchen light.

Inching his way forward cautiously, Rob became rigid when a silhouetted figure moved between him and the illuminated oblong of the pantry window. There was something square-shouldered and official about that figure and as it moved, Lobo, his every hair turned into stiff wire, crowded against Rob and growled ominously.

Instantly Rob Trenton revised his entire plan of procedure.

“All right, Lobo,” he whispered, and turning, retraced his steps to the kennel, then around the back of the kennel to the dirt road which paralleled the highway some three hundred yards back from it and on which Rob quite frequently exercised his dogs.

He turned at right angles, came at length to the main highway and then walked cautiously down to the place where he had left the car.

He kept his hand on Lobo’s neck in order to see if there was any danger ahead, if any tightening of the muscles or any low, warning growl should indicate that the darkness held some potential enemy.

But Lobo, stalking along quietly at Rob’s side, his nose questing the mysteries of the deep shadows, gave no indication that anyone was ahead. He did not stop abruptly as he saw the parked sedan, raised his head and sniffed the air cautiously, then, convinced that there were no hostile odors in connection with the car, he permitted Rob to move forward. As he detected Rob’s scent in the vicinity of the sedan, the dog’s tail started wagging slowly, indicating that he now knew the danger had been passed.

Rob unlocked the front door and said, “All right, Lobo.”

The dog instantly jumped into the front of the car, hesitated only long enough on the front seat to leap gracefully over to the back seat, where he settled down with a deep sigh of contentment.

Rob closed the door, fitted the key to the ignition but didn’t turn on the lights until he had swung the car in a complete circle and was headed back towards Falthaven. Then he switched on the lights and once more settled into steady speed.

A glance at the clock on the dashboard told him that his maneuvers in connection with the surreptitious approach to his house had cost him approximately forty-five minutes of precious time. He knew that his hours of liberty were numbered. Soon he was going to be called upon to make some convincing explanation, and at the moment he realized all too painfully that any explanation he could make would be far from convincing.

Once he took the borrowed automatic from his hip pocket, lowered the window of the car, and started to throw it out at the side of the road. Then he thought better of it.

The police were undoubtedly looking for him on the one hand, and the members of the smuggling ring were looking for him on the other. He could expect short shrift, as far as his liberty was concerned, from the State Police, and he could expect still shorter shrift, so far as his life was concerned, from the smugglers. He was operating what in all probability was a stolen car, and since the .32 automatic was a confiscated weapon, he felt he might as well keep it for his own protection as go soft at this stage of the game and throw it away.

Fully conscious of the fact that the license number of the car he was driving might even at that moment be listed on a general broadcast to all police cars, he turned once more into Falthaven and slid past the store fronts, now dark and silent.

At the intersection, the traffic signal was adjusted to blink merely an orange warning sign in both directions. Rob turned into Robinson Street, and slid the car to a stop in front of the big two-story old-fashioned house.

The luminous dial on his wristwatch said that it was five minutes past one o’clock in the morning.

Rob opened the door of the car and said to Lobo, “All right, boy, come on out.”

The dog bounded to the pavement, then stood to attention, ears cocked forward, waiting for his master’s orders. He sensed with canine telepathy the extent of the emergency and the tension in Rob’s voice.

“Come on,” Rob said. “At my side.”

They walked up the wooden steps to the porch, crossed over to the door and Rob held his finger against the doorbell.

He could hear the sound of chimes.

Four or five times Rob passed his finger against the bell button. Finally lights came on in one of the downstairs windows and a moment later he heard slippered feet moving towards the door.

The porch light clicked on and Rob blinked in the brilliance.

Abruptly the voice of the sharp-nosed woman on the other side of the door said, “What are you doing back here?”

“I have to see you,” Rob said. “It’s important. Terribly important.”

“To whom?”

“To me. To you. To... Linda.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m not crazy. I have to see you. I have to talk with you. Do you want me to stand here and shout the news through the door so that the neighbors will all hear it?”

The last argument turned out to be a masterpiece of strategy. It resulted in a silence of some five seconds, during which the person on the other side of the door contemplated the possibilities of the situation, then a bolt shot back, the door was opened to the limits of a heavy chain which after a moment’s manipulation dropped to one side.

The Linda Carroll whom Rob had met earlier in the day, with her glasses on the bridge of her sharp, inquiring nose, a heavy flannel wrapper thrown around her, said, “Well, come on in. I guess you’re harmless enough. You... good heavens, what’s that?”

“Merely a dog,” Rob said.

“He’s big enough to... will he bite?... look out!”

Rob took advantage of her momentary panic at the sight of the dog to push on through the door. Lobo walked in at his side, stately, dignified, plume erect and waving very gently, very slowly as an indication that he was open to overtures of friendship but was as yet definitely not committing himself.

“Now then, young man, what do you want?” the woman said.

Rob caught the eye of the dog, moved his hand in a gesture of release, indicating that the animal was to go out on a search.

For a moment Lobo looked dubious, as though he might have misunderstood the signal, but Rob repeated the motion with his hand and Lobo padded out into the room.

Rob said, “I’ve become convinced that I was given a run-around this noon. Things have happened since that...”

“What do you mean?” she interrupted.

“I think someone traveled on your passport and I think you know a great many facts which are vital to me and which you haven’t told me.”

“Well, I don’t know why I have to tell you everything I know, and I certainly don’t like the idea of being hauled out of bed at almost two o’clock in the morning to answer a lot of questions.”

Rob said, “The State Police are working on this thing. There’s a question of dope smuggling, and there’s a question of attempted murder.”

“Attempted murder? What are you talking about?”

“Someone very definitely tried to take me for a ride.”

“Oh, good Lord! All the gangster jargon and all of that sensational stuff. What do you think I am? You come here and spout off all this stuff and...”

Rob interrupted. “I want a definite answer to the question. Is there or is there not another Linda Carroll whom you know?”

“And you get me up out of bed at two o’clock in the morning to answer a foolish question like that, young man? I’m going to call the police if you don’t get out of here immediately.”

Lobo, who had been moving around the room sniffing more and more excitedly with his nose to the floor, suddenly raised his paw and scratched on a door which opened from the studio.

Rob Trenton pushed his way past the robed figure of the artist, and stole across the studio to join the dog.

The woman completely misunderstood his intentions.

“That right,” she said. “You get that dog out of here. He’s scratching up the place. Make him go lie down. Put him out on the porch. That’s where a dog belongs.”

Rob reached out and jerked the door open.

The Linda Carroll whom he had known on the boat, attired in housecoat and slippers, was crouched on the inside of the door, her ear to the keyhole.

For a moment, sheer surprise held her motionless, and as Rob jerked the door open she retained that half-crouched position.

Lobo, whining eagerly, placed his muzzle within a fraction of an inch of her face.

“Oh!” she cried, and straightened.

Lobo thrust his head against her hand and the fingers mechanically rubbed the fur between his ears, but her eyes, startled and apprehensive, were fixed on Rob Trenton.

“I thought you’d be here,” Rob Trenton said with calm satisfaction.

The older woman, striding across the room, shrilled, “What do you mean coming in here like this? You listen to me, young man, you get out of here! Don’t think you’re going to be jerking open bedroom doors and...”

Rob kept his back turned to her, his eyes locked with Linda Carroll’s.

“Do you,” he asked, “have any explanation to make before I call the police?”

“Before you call the police? Well, I like that,” the older woman said. “I’m going to call the police. I...”

“Aunt Linda, please,” the younger woman said. “Please don’t. Let’s go at this thing on a reasonable basis.”

“Did you know,” Rob asked, “that your car was being used as a vehicle for the smuggling of dope?”

“Rob Trenton, what on earth are you talking about? What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. Your car was used for the purpose of smuggling a lot of dope into this country.”

“Why, Rob! I don’t know a thing about it. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You owe me an explanation,” Trenton said, “and you might begin by explaining all this masquerade.”

“All right,” she said, her voice sharp with indignation, “I’ll explain it, and then I’ll ask you to leave here, and I don’t care if I never see you again.”

“Go ahead and explain it.”

She said, “For reasons which I don’t need to go into here, I didn’t want anyone whom I met on the boat to know where I lived and...”

“Exactly,” Rob said. “Reasons which you don’t want to go into here. Those are the reasons that I’m interested in, that I have a right to be interested in — under the circumstances.”

The older woman, watching Rob with twinkling eyes, said, “You’re certainly leading with your chin, young man. You’re in for it now. But since you’ve made your play, you’ll either have to go ahead and master her now, or be thrown in the ash can.”

“Auntie! You keep out of this!” the girl stormed.

“I’m still waiting for an explanation,” Rob pointed out.

Linda looked scornfully contemptuous. “I hardly expected all these dramatics from you, but since you choose to burst into the house with your trained-dog trick and all the rest of it, I’ll tell you the story — and then you can leave and, so far as I’m concerned, never come back.

“Aunt Linda is my father’s sister. We both have the same given name. Her middle name is Mae and in the family she’s always been known as Linda Mae. I’m simply Linda. After my father died we went abroad last year and we each had our passports. At that time I was living with Aunt Linda, so the address on my passport was this same address here at Falthaven. Since that was still the address on my passport I used it as my address in traveling this summer. Now, does that explain matters?”

“It doesn’t explain why your aunt deliberately lied to me this afternoon,” Rob said.

“I didn’t lie to you, I... I swapped words with you. I didn’t tell you all I knew and I didn’t have to. I told you that I hadn’t been abroad and that no one had been using my passport and that no other Linda Carroll was living here, and that’s the honest truth — even if I did embellish it a little.”

“She seems to be living here now,” Rob said.

“She’s visiting here. After I telephoned her about your visit and what you said about the stolen car, she came down to talk with me. If you want my opinion, young man, you’re making a spectacle of yourself as well as being a fool. You’ve let her put you on the defensive now. That licks you.”

“I don’t want your opinion,” Rob said. “I’m trying to get the facts. As soon as I get at the facts so I can protect myself I’m going to call the police and tell them the whole story.”

“What story?” Linda asked.

“About the fact that your car was used for the smuggling of dope. I can’t believe that you were a party to anything like that, but if you weren’t, then Merton Ostrander...”

Lobo suddenly growled.

“Well,” a man’s voice said from the staircase, “if you’re going to talk about me, Rob, suppose you say it to my face.”

Rob whirled, and Merton Ostrander, fully dressed in tweeds, a faintly cynical smile on his face, came down the stairs.

“All right,” Rob said, “I will say it to your face. Someone has used Linda’s car for the purpose of smuggling dope into this country and an attempt was made to make me the fall guy. I resent it... Lobo, come over here and lie down.”

“I don’t blame you,” Ostrander said, “if your facts are right. If they’re not, you deserve to be thrown out in the street.”

“My facts are right,” Rob said grimly. “Only too right. And if there’s going to be any throwing out, you’d better start calling in help because you’ll need it. I discovered the cache of dope myself and buried it, thinking that would give me an opportunity to find out what it was all about.”

“Did it?” Merton Ostrander asked mockingly.

“It did to this extent,” Rob said. “Someone stole the car, and then when I started to investigate someone kidnapped me. I was taken to a place up the river and imprisoned on a houseboat. Now then, I want an explanation.”

“I don’t blame you,” Ostrander said. “Only you’ve come to the wrong place to get it, but since you’re here, there are a few things you should explain to us, Rob. How does it happen that you were turned loose and come wandering around here at this hour of the night with what quite evidently is a gun in your hip pocket?”

Rob pulled the gun from his pocket. “I confiscated this from one of my captors. I had to shoot twice to keep from being overpowered and recaptured.”

“Kill anyone?” Linda Mae asked almost casually.

For the first time that possibility occurred to Rob. “I doubt it. I just shot in his general direction.”

“But you don’t know whether you hit anyone?” Ostrander asked.

“Frankly, I don’t. And at this point, I don’t much care.”

Ostrander’s look of amused tolerance gave way to friendly laughter. “All right, Rob,” he said, his voice natural for the first time, “let’s have your story of what happened. Then we’ll see what’s best to be done.”

Rob resented having Merton Ostrander act as master of ceremonies. He wondered how Ostrander happened to be there, but he realized there was little he could do except tell his story. It had been one of the basic principles of his dog training to order a dog to do something just when the animal was about to do it anyway. Now Ostrander, by insisting that he tell his story, was turning the tables on Rob. Yet, standing there with the gun in his hand, with all three of them waiting, Rob saw no alternative but to tell what had happened, starting with the time he drove away in the Rapidex sedan.

When Rob had finished, Ostrander, his face grave, said, “But this is serious, Rob.”

“Of course it’s serious.”

“You made your escape from that houseboat and cut the rope that held it?”

Rob nodded. “I cut one rope, cast the other loose.”

“And as I understand it the boat started drifting down the stream. That was when you saw the figure on the deck and fired two shots?”

“That’s right.”

“Why did you shoot, Rob?”

“I wanted them to know I was armed and that it wouldn’t be healthy to rush out after me, trying to hunt me down. And I wanted to keep this man from jumping to the pier.”

“Did you shoot directly at him?”

Rob said, “Of course not. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t even see the sights. I just shot in the general direction of the boat. I don’t think the bullets came within a mile of the man.”

“You don’t know who this man was?”

“The one who was running on deck when I shot?”

“Yes.”

“No. He was just a figure, a dim figure.”

“But your shots caused him to quit trying to jump to the pier?”

“That’s right, he flung himself down on the deck.”

“And when you dropped those shafts on the leader of the gang, you knocked him out, but his lighted cigar rolled out to one side?”

“Yes.”

“It continued to burn?”

“Yes, I remember seeing the smoke spiral up from it.”

“That’s probably where the fire started,” Ostrander said, “some gasoline must have been leaking and the lighted cigar...”

Linda said with sudden feeling, “Well, I think Rob was wonderful! Only... only I don’t like the way he thought that we... that I...”

She blinked back sudden tears.

“I didn’t, Linda,” Rob said.

“You did so,” she charged.

“Well?” Linda Mae asked. “Wouldn’t you have done the same thing in his place?”

“No,” her niece said. “If you have friends you must have confidence in them.”

Ostrander nodded. “Now, you say the boat continued to burn, Rob?”

“It continued to burn for a while, but I don’t think the fire got much worse. They may have controlled it. It made a red glow in the sky for a while. I think they deliberately started the fire.”

Ostrander glanced at Linda Carroll.

It was the older woman, however, who stepped in and took charge of the situation. “We’ve got to do something about this,” she said.

“I’ll say we have,” Ostrander said. “If anyone has discovered where Rob buried that dope... Well, we’ve got to stand by him, and we’ve got to find out how the dope came to be concealed in the car in the first place.”

Linda Carroll moved forward, put her hand on Rob’s arm. “Rob,” she said, “please forgive me... I tried to keep you from finding out where I was... I wanted to call on you, not have you call on me, and that was the reason Aunt Linda...”

“I see,” Rob said, stiffly. “If you wanted to take Merton into your confidence, but arrange with your aunt to have me kept in the dark, I suppose that’s your privilege.”

“But Rob,” she said miserably, “I didn’t take Merton into my confidence. Merton did the same thing you did, only he... well, he had more luck than you did. When he came here... well, it was shortly after you had left here, and Aunt Linda had telephoned me and told me all about you being here and about the fact that you had said the car had been stolen and... well, I was nervous and upset and I decided to come here and talk with her, and Merton happened to get here shortly before I did. Aunt Linda made short work of him. She told him the same story she’d told you, but as Merton went out he...” She laughed and said, “Well, he had a break, that’s all. He met me coming in.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Rob said with dignity.

“Rob Trenton, don’t you dare be like that!” she flared. “Naturally, having been caught red-handed we owed Merton a sort of explanation.

“I had a dinner date for this evening, but I told Merton that if he wanted I’d meet him here tomorrow. I told him that I’d talk with him then and explain. I arrived here about eleven-thirty and — well, Merton showed up about ten minutes after I arrived. He got Aunt Linda Mae out of bed. He came on the bus, and the last bus back had left... well, Aunt Linda offered him the guest room, and that’s all there is to tell. Oh, Rob, why do you put me in such a position that I have to tell you all these things now?

“Aunt Linda Mae had offered Merton a room for overnight, but I’d been furiously angry at him. And now you come with all this... and it seems we’re all three of us in a mess...”

Ostrander interposed with a practical suggestion. “Look,” he said, “let’s forget the personalities, and forgo the dramatics. There isn’t one chance in ten thousand that Rob Trenton has done anything that was illegal or dishonorable. And he hasn’t dragged us in. If dope was concealed in the Rapidex sedan, we’re in already. Now let’s make up our minds that we’re all going to stand together on this thing.”

“I don’t want any help from anyone,” Rob said. “All I want is to know the facts, and then I’ll paddle my own canoe.”

“The facts!” Ostrander exclaimed in surprise. “Why you told us the facts. Someone got hold of this automobile and used it as a means of getting dope smuggled into the country.”

“I’ve been reading something about schemes of this sort,” Linda said. “But I never thought I’d be mixed up in such a deal. It’s a new development in smuggling. Nowadays a great many tourists are taking their own cars over to Europe with them. It’s become quite a racket for garage employees to stand in with dope smugglers. When a car is left in a garage overnight, or perhaps stored for a day or two, the garage men get in touch with the head of the smuggling ring. From then on it’s easy.

“The smuggling gang even furnishes its own mechanics. They’re expert welders and they have receptacles that go on the car in places where no one would ever think to look. But even if anyone did look it would seem to be just a part of the car — something that had been installed when the car was built. No one even thinks that it might be a receptacle for anything. It’s just a bulge in the frame where room was made for some revolving part or something of that sort.

“Then the smugglers take the license of the car, the registration, and after that they don’t even need to follow the car around Europe. All they need to do is to wait until the car is loaded for shipment. Then they advise their accomplices in this country, who wait until the car is first put in a garage and then the drugs are removed and no one is ever the wiser.

“That’s the way it would have been with my car, only because of that blow-out, Rob found and removed the part that had the drugs before the smugglers could get to the car.”

Ostrander nodded. “Yes, we can see that all right, now. But the point is that Rob should have telephoned the State Police. That’s where he’s in bad. He should have reported finding the dope.”

“I... well, I wanted to talk with Linda before I did anything,” Rob said.

Their silence was a mute indication of their disapproval.

“Not that I thought she was mixed up in smuggling, or anything like that,” Rob hastened to add, “but... well, it was her car and... I thought she should know about it. I thought it would be a lot better if she telephoned the police.”

“Well, anyway,” Ostrander said cheerfully, “that’s all water under the bridge. Now let’s use our heads on this thing. How much have you handled that gun, Rob?”

“Why? I took it, put it in my pocket, and I fired it twice.”

“Well,” Ostrander said, “there may be a fingerprint of the smuggler on it. Something like that might well be damaging evidence. Let’s put this gun under lock and key. Then let’s back this car you grabbed into the driveway. As soon as it gets daylight we’ll drive up and locate the place where this houseboat was tied up. We’ll make a survey of the extent of the damage and then we’ll notify the police.”

“Why not notify them right now?” Rob asked.

Ostrander shook his head and smiled. “Let’s see if we can’t all keep out of it,” he said. “After all, Rob, you haven’t the faintest scintilla of proof at the present time. You’ve got to get some sort of evidence. You owe that to yourself — to Linda.”

“The police can see where that cup-shaped thing was welded on to Linda’s car.”

“Sure,” Merton said. “But where’s Linda’s car? And how are you going to convince anyone you didn’t weld that thing on?”

Rob was silent.

“Her car may be anywhere,” Ostrander pointed out. “It may be out of the state or in the bottom of the river. You’ve reported the theft to the police.”

“But,” Rob said, “my place is being watched and...”

“Sure, your place is being watched,” Merton Ostrander said. “You’re not going back there. You can’t afford to let the police grab you until you have enough evidence to clear yourself. You can’t get evidence while you’re in jail. And once the police get you in jail they’ll only look for evidence that will hook you. But if we can keep you in the clear, the police may get evidence that’ll lead ’em to this gang of smugglers.”

He turned and looked significantly at the older woman.

“Oh, all right,” she said, laughing. “There’s another spare room that has a bed in it. It’s not as comfortable as the guest room, but it’ll do.”

“All right,” Ostrander said. “Let’s lock up this gun, keep a record of the numbers, and preserve what fingerprints may be left on it. Tomorrow we’ll give the police an anonymous tip that the houseboat was the headquarters of a gang of smugglers. That’s all we can do. Rob didn’t notify the police because he wanted to protect us. Let’s now try to protect him.”

With quick competence he examined the gun, counted the shells, noted the numbers.

Linda Carroll’s eyes were grateful as she looked at Merton Ostrander. “That’s the only logical course, Merton,” she said.

“Well, young man, come on,” the aunt said. “Let’s get bedded down and get some sleep. You look as though you could use a few hours... and a good hot bath.”

“I hate to impose on you,” Rob said.

“No, it’s all right. Linda is always getting herself involved in some sort of a scrape or other.”

“This isn’t my scrape, Auntie,” Linda said, laughing.

“Come on, young man,” the aunt said. “And I’m going to call you Rob. Now you can call me Linda Mae. My niece is plain Linda. She doesn’t have any middle name. Come on, let’s try getting a little sleep.

“Merton, we’re going to lock that gun up. Here, put it in this desk. All right, now you keep the key.

“Rob, come with me. You’re going to get a good bath and then some sleep. You certainly look as though you could use both!”