The Case of the Musical Cow

Chapter 18

Rob felt that he would never be able to sleep but the relaxing effect of the warm bath, the glass of hot milk Linda Mae brought him, and the sheer mental and nervous fatigue, caused him to sink into deep slumber within ten minutes of the time he placed his head on the pillow.

He was wakened in the morning by sunshine filtering through lace curtains, striking his eyelids and bringing him back to blurred consciousness.

For a few moments he lay in the delightful warmth of the bed, wondering vaguely where he was, and then suddenly, with realization dawning upon him there was a sense of apprehension as he wondered how he could ever have slept so well with so much at stake.

His head felt heavy from the effects of the beating he had received.

Lobo, who had been lying in the corner with his head on his paws, watching Rob’s eyes with unwinking scrutiny, waiting for his master to waken, whimpered with eagerness, got to his feet and moved over to the bed, nuzzling Rob’s hand.

The realization of the dog’s presence there in the room suddenly brought Rob back to a sense of his obligations. He looked at his watch, saw that it was past eight o’clock and jumped out of bed. Instantly his muscles, sore from the kicks he had received, registered a protest, but he managed to dress, ran regretful fingers over the growth of stubble on his face and opened the door. The aroma of bacon and coffee came up from the lower floor.

Rob ran stiffly down the stairs and in the kitchen found Linda Mae, attired in her house dress, glasses well down on the tip of her nose, frying bacon.

She heard Rob walk in, pushed the glasses back up on her nose with the tip of her right forefinger and surveyed him speculatively.

“Well!” she said.

Rob said, “I haven’t any razor. I’m afraid I look disreputable, and I’m hungry.”

“Don’t tell me your symptoms,” she snapped. “There’s a dozen eggs over there. Break them into that bowl and add half a cup of cream, then beat them all up. We’re going to have scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. You can get busy and help things along.”

“I thought we were going to get an early start,” Rob said. “I’m afraid I overslept.”

“Nothing to break our necks about,” she said.

“That car,” Rob said. “Despite the fact that...”

“Don’t you worry about that car, young man. After you went to bed, I had Merton Ostrander drive it up the street half a dozen blocks and leave it in a parking place in front of the Midget Market. It won’t attract any attention there. Last place on earth anyone would think of looking for a car. Besides, as Ostrander pointed out, those crooks aren’t going to claim the car was stolen. And it may have been their car. Come on, now, get busy with those eggs. What are you going to do with the dog?”

“I’ll let him out in the back yard, if I may.”

“He won’t run away?”

Rob smiled and shook his head.

“All right. Go ahead then.”

“How about the others?” Rob asked.

“Linda’s up and I heard Merton Ostrander stirring around up there. What do you think of him, young man?”

“Who?”

“You know who. Merton Ostrander.”

“He seems to be very... very competent,” Rob said.

“He seems to have a way of taking everything for granted — and getting away with it,” Linda Mae said. “You’d get along better if you weren’t so anxious to be fair all the time. Why don’t you try a masterful approach some time? Come on now, put your dog out, and get those eggs broken... and if you handle that dog, wash your hands over there in the sink before you start cooking. I don’t want dog hairs all over my food.”

Rob let Lobo out the back door for a few minutes, returned, washed his hands at the sink and started helping with the breakfast.

Linda joined them a few minutes later and then Merton Ostrander came in to say affably, “How’s everything this morning with all the conspirators? I have a safety razor up there, Rob, if you want to remove the disguise.”

“That’ll be swell,” Rob said.

“After breakfast,” Linda Mae said, “we’re leaving. We won’t stop to clean up.”

“I understand you moved the car,” Rob said to Merton Ostrander. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“No bother at all,” Merton told him. “Just ran it down to a parking place at a market Linda Mae told me about and left the keys in the ignition. I was back here while you were still in the tub. I think Linda Mae is a pretty good conspirator. The fact that the keys are still in the car will make it appear the owner has just dashed into the market.”

Linda Mae pointed her sharp nose at him. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, young man, I’d be a lot smarter than some of the people I read about if I should decide to commit a crime. You read the newspapers and see the dumb things they do. It makes me tired to hear the way police brag in the papers, when anybody with any sense can see it was the crooks who were dumb.”

She kept her nose pointed at Merton Ostrander. “I might even turn out to be a better detective than I would a mastermind crook. Don’t be so glib when it comes to putting women in a classification. You might get fooled.”

Her eyes seemed to mock him, but Merton Ostrander’s assurance evaporated under her steady gaze. He became plainly embarrassed. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said, with exaggerated deference.

“You’re inclined to have things altogether too much your own way with women,” Linda Mae went on. “It makes you conceited, which doesn’t hurt you a bit, and sure of yourself, which irritates me to death. It’s a good thing I’m not younger and you were making passes at me. I’d take you down a peg or two.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Merton repeated, coloring slightly, and winking at the others.

“We’d better get started,” Rob pointed out. “Do we have a car?”

Linda said, “I have my convertible here.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on at my place,” Rob said. “I know for sure there were people there last night watching it.”

“Sure. The police want to nab you,” Ostrander said. “And the crooks want you. You can’t angle with a bunch of crooks like that without expecting them to do something about it.”

They made a lark of starting out on the trip. By daylight things seemed far more reassuring to Rob Trenton. Linda drove her convertible. Her aunt sat on her right in the front seat. Rob Trenton and Merton Ostrander occupied the rear seat, with Lobo over in a corner on a blanket which had been carefully tucked into the cushions.

Merton Ostrander from time to time gave Rob low-voiced advice, apparently trying to keep Rob’s spirits up. “Just sit tight,” he said reassuringly. “Absolutely tight. Don’t tell anyone anything. Don’t admit anything. We’ll get Linda’s car back and we’ll look over the place where they kept the houseboat. There’s no need for you to tell the police anything at all about being kidnapped, about your adventures on that boat or anything of the sort. We’ll get that houseboat located, and then we’ll phone in an anonymous tip to the police.”

“Suppose someone should remember me at the pay station? Suppose...”

“They won’t,” Merton Ostrander said. “We’ll pick out one of those booths that are out by the side of the road and I’ll do the telephoning.”

It took them less than an hour to reach the big drawbridge across the river, then another two or three minutes brought Rob to the side road which led to the landing where the houseboat had been moored.

“See,” Ostrander said easily, “There’s nothing to it. We’re in another state. They don’t even have a State Police system here. All we’ll have to do is ring up the sheriff’s office. Now let’s not drive clean down to the landing, Rob, unless...”

The car rounded a curve and Rob saw the group of curious spectators gathered by the pier.

“It’s okay,” Ostrander said reassuringly. “The fire has attracted a lot of people. Drive right up, Linda. We’ll pretend we’re just curiosity seekers wondering what it’s all about. Everyone remember now, we were looking for a place to have a picnic. We saw the group of spectators and came over to see what was causing the excitement.”

Linda parked the car alongside dozens of others. They opened the doors, piled out and joined the fifty or sixty spectators who were surveying the scene in idle curiosity.

Ostrander, genial, affable and a good mixer, circulated around and in a short time had the story. Police had baulked the efforts of a gang of smugglers. The houseboat which they used as a headquarters had been burned and the badly charred body of one unidentified man had been found aboard the burned boat. Police had apprehended at least one member of the gang and the sheriff and coroner were out on the boat making an inspection.

The boat, charred and blackened, was aground on a sand spit on the opposite side of the river. While Rob was watching, men appeared on the boat, climbed into a rowboat and started rowing across the river, back towards the place where the houseboat had been moored.

“Here comes the sheriff, the coroner, the deputy and the dope smuggler now,” one of the local men said.

Rob watched them rowing towards the shore. When they were thirty or forty yards away he recognized the handcuffed man as one of his captors, the man who had posed as the contractor at the bus station and lured him into the automobile.

“Look here,” Rob said to Ostrander, “I can identify that man. I’m really a material witness who would tie him up with the smugglers...”

“It’ll keep,” Ostrander assured him in a low voice. “Don’t be so damn civic-minded. Later on your testimony may be necessary. Not now. You don’t want to drag Linda into a mess of this sort. Just keep quiet. They haven’t anything on you.”

Rob nodded dubious acquiescence.

“Well, I’m not so sure,” Linda Mae said thoughtfully. Then after a moment she nodded her head, and said, “Yes, I guess you’re right, Merton. We can’t afford to have Rob sacrifice himself just to make an identification.”

“The way I see it,” Ostrander said, “the police have started off on the right trail now. They have one of the smugglers and they’ll get a story out of him. They’ve located the houseboat and in no time at all now they’ll have the whole story. If Rob can only keep out of circulation for a while he’ll be sitting pretty. If he can’t, why then his name will be smeared, and Linda’s name will be dragged into it.”

Linda Mae’s lips clamped in a thin, straight line of firm determination. “You’re right. We’ll keep out of it.”

The rowboat landed at the pier. The coroner jumped ashore with a rope and made the boat fast. The sheriff and deputy assisted the solemn, handcuffed man to the little pier and started towards the official car with its red spotlight.

Rob started to turn away so that his eyes could not meet those of the prisoner.

Suddenly he heard a voice saying, “There he is now. That’s the man. The one with the dog.”

Rob turned and saw a young woman pointing directly at him, saw people staring with curious, gaping interest.

For a moment there was no motion. It was as though some strip of moving film, running smoothly through the machine, had suddenly run off the track and stopped, and the action had suddenly frozen into immobility.

The young woman said, excitedly, “I’d know him anywhere. I saw him with that other man at the bus depot in Falthaven yesterday. They drove off together.”

Then the big sheriff was coming towards Rob. His right hand dropped ominously to his holster.

“All right, young fellow,” he said. “We want to ask you some questions. Now you can either fix it so that dog doesn’t make any trouble, or else he’s going to get hurt. Just take your choice.”

Rob felt Linda’s hand reaching for the leash. “I’ll take him, Rob,” she said, a catch in her voice.

“Not a word,” Rob heard Ostrander caution him in a low voice. “Clam up. Don’t talk. I’ll get you a lawyer. One of my fraternity brothers is practicing near here. You can trust him.”

“Down, Lobo,” Rob said, and stepped forward to meet the sheriff.