The Case of the Musical Cow

Chapter 1

Several large cities now boast that a person standing on this or that corner will eventually meet everyone he knows. Originally intended as an index of cosmopolitan background, this specious claim has degenerated into the advertising slogan of a dozen chambers of commerce.

But one thing is certain: any American tourist in Paris who sits at the sidewalk tables of the Café de la Paix sooner or later will meet every fellow passenger who has not as yet taken off on one of the beaten paths of tourist travel to Switzerland, England or Italy.

Rob Trenton, occupying a sidewalk table for the second consecutive afternoon, consuming Cinzano at intervals carefully spaced so that he could maintain perpetual occupancy of his table, realized, to his disgust, that the law of averages is a treacherous thing. Every one of the shipboard bores he had avoided on the trip across insisted on dropping into the vacant chair beside him, telling him at length what he should see in Paris. But the one person Rob wanted desperately to see failed to show up.

Linda Carroll had been shrouded in mystery from the start. On shipboard she had been friendly and cordial, yet he had never been able to get her to talk about herself or her background. She had casually mentioned the Hotel Lutetia in Paris, but when Rob called at the hotel he found that she was not registered, had not made any reservations, and, so far as could be ascertained, had not even attempted to get a room.

So Rob, having made a fruitless canvass of the different hotels where she might be stopping, had resorted to the expedient of waiting at the Café de la Paix, his eyes restlessly searching with such singleness of purpose that even the generous display of legs by the French girl cyclists failed to hold his attention for more than a fleeting glance.

And then, in the second afternoon, she suddenly appeared with Frank and Marion Essex, a couple they had met on shipboard, and said, “Oh, there you are! I’d heard you were spending most of your time warming a chair here. Would you like to make a fourth?”

Robert Trenton’s head began nodding involuntarily as he was getting to his feet. “A fourth at bridge, poker, or what?” he asked. “Won’t you sit down?”

He pulled out a chair for Linda, and the four sat around the table. Trenton caught the eye of a waiter and gestured.

Linda Carroll said, “A fourth for a tour in my car. I brought it over with me, you know. Frank and Marion are coming along, and I find that by installing one of those roof racks so we can carry all our baggage on top I’ve room for a fourth. We’re going all through Switzerland, then back to Paris, and will catch the boat at Marseilles. It’ll be a four weeks’ trip.”

“We’ll split expenses four ways,” Frank Essex added. “Only it’s understood that the three of us are to pay all the car expenses — gasoline, repairs, tires, and I’d like to make an allowance to Linda of so much a mile...”

“You can’t do that,” Linda interrupted, “without making me a common carrier, and then the insurance wouldn’t be any good.”

The waiter stood respectfully silent, and Rob hoped no one noticed the eagerness in his voice as he accepted the invitation and asked them what they wanted to drink, all in one breath.

While the waiter was taking their orders, Linda regarded Rob with thoughtful speculation. “What on earth have you been doing here all this time?” she asked.

“Watching people, looking for... well, just watching.”

Linda turned to Marion Essex. “Don’t pay any attention to what he says,” she warned. “I had a chance to sound him out on the ship. I didn’t get anywhere. He’s a dog trainer, and he’s over here to investigate foreign methods.”

“How interesting,” Marion Essex said. “Aren’t you rather young for that, Mr. Trenton?”

It was Frank Essex who answered the question, gazing at Marion with that look of amused superiority with which husbands sometimes regard their wives. “What does age have to do with it?”

“Well, I thought... I thought, you know, the training of animals takes experience, and...”

“He’s older than the dogs,” Frank Essex said.

They all laughed.

As the waiter brought their drinks Linda observed, “I think it would be a swell idea to train a dog to carry a pouch containing passport, vaccination certificates, customs declarations and all the red tape. My bag is bursting at the seams.”

“Swell idea — a pooch with a pouch,” Frank Essex said. “Or you might get the St. Bernards to carry mint juleps in summer instead of the usual keg of brandy.”

“What do you do with the dogs after you train them?” Marion Essex asked, quite apparently trying to draw him out.

“Oh, he probably trains them to retrieve and things like that,” Frank commented.

“I give my dogs basic training for more serious things than that,” Rob said, trying not to seem curt. He was embarrassed at being discussed so freely.

“You mean hunting?” Marion Essex asked.

“Hunting men,” Linda Carroll explained. “He’s told me all about it. He’s close-mouthed and probably won’t tell you a thing, but I’ll give you the high spots. State police use bloodhounds to trail persons, but a bloodhound with a really good nose is very valuable. He’s not what you’d call expendable in a military sense. So when a criminal has been run to earth and the trail begins to get hot, they use dogs like German Shepherds or Doberman pinschers to go in for the kill. Those dogs are expendable and they move like a streak of greased lightning.”

Frank Essex regarded Trenton with new-found respect. “Sounds interesting. Perhaps you’ll tell us more about it while we’re on the tour.”

“It’s hard to get him to talk,” Linda said. “It took moonlight, an hour’s silent contemplation of the wake of the ship, and two cocktails before he loosened up for me. Well, here’s to a swell trip.”

All four raised their glasses, touched them lightly together and drank.

There followed dream days filled with a variegated panorama of rolling green plateau country and ridges covered with thick conifers; winding roads and breath-taking vistas of mountains white with snow and studded with glaciers; quaint farms and towns roofed with pink tile; lakes which varied their moods with the sky, laughing and blue or dark grey with mystery.

Marion and Linda sat together in the front seat. Rob and Frank Essex occupied the rear, an arrangement which was definitely distasteful to Rob but which had been initiated by Frank Essex on that first day. It had thereafter acquired the force of custom, so that any change would have been an innovation.

Rob Trenton tried to find some clue to Linda’s feeling — and tried in vain. He felt certain she hadn’t invited him to come along on the trip simply for the purpose of sharing expenses. On the ship he had been drawn to her as by a magnet. So had a dozen other young men, of course, yet Rob felt she had been particularly interested in him and in his theories of animal training. And she certainly must have hunted him up there at the Café de la Paix with a definite purpose in mind. Yet as time passed, Rob was forced to admit to himself that Linda Carroll became even more mysterious than ever.

One day, when he had seen her intent over a sketchbook while Frank and Marion Essex were in a nearby cocktail bar, he had asked her a direct question, “Do you paint for a living?”

She turned to regard him with quizzical eyes. “I didn’t hear you coming along the pathway behind me.”

“The question,” Rob said, smiling so that his insistence would not seem impertinent, “was, ‘Do you paint for a living?’”

“My painting is definitely not important,” she said.

Then, suddenly something clicked in Rob Trenton’s mind. “Wait,” he said, “I remember one of the most unusual paintings I ever saw. It was on a calendar, and was the picture of a lake in Switzerland with snow-capped peaks and wisps of clouds. It was early in the morning and there was a lake deep down in the valley in the shadows. There was a campfire on the shore of the lake and the smoke went almost straight up for two or three hundred feet and then suddenly dispersed laterally, just as you sometimes see it in the early morning on a lake. That painting was signed Linda Carroll.”

For a moment her eyes seemed to have something akin to panic in them. “You... you’re certain of the signature?” she asked as though sparring for time.

“That picture made a tremendous impression on me,” Rob said. “I’d been wondering where I’d heard your name before. I think that was one of the most wonderful paintings I’ve ever seen. It caught the spirit of early dawn. And now to think that I’d meet you... to think that I’d be traveling through Switzerland with you, and...”

“Rob,” she said, “I didn’t paint that picture.”

“Linda, you must have. It’s exactly the way you would have seen the country. It was a completely unconventional approach. It...”

She suddenly snapped her sketchbook shut, closed the package of crayons, and said firmly, “Rob, I did not paint that picture, and I dislike people who ask intimate personal questions. Now would you like to join me for a cocktail?”

There had been such sudden, bitter finality in her voice that Rob had not dared to press the matter further.

In fact, from that moment on, it seemed that she erected a barrier so far as any matter pertaining to her background was concerned. She was cordial enough otherwise, but her attitude indicated a cold determination to keep from any discussion of her personal affairs; nor would she let anyone see the inside of her sketchbook. Several times Rob saw her in the distance, sketching, and there was that in the swift motions of her hand, the smooth pivoting of her wrist, which indicated a mastery of her subject, a sure control and a deft touch. But the subject of her work and the sketchbook were both definitely closed.

They breezed along through Switzerland, a gay and friendly foursome, discussing matters of general interest, taking pictures, commenting on the different exposure speeds and diaphragm openings, and for the most part keeping the conversation on an impersonal plane, and filled with light banter.

Nevertheless, underlying this casual association, there was a consciousness of growing intimacy. Frank and Marion Essex had the bond of marriage, and rapidly Rob and Linda were developing a bond of their own, a sense of belonging which ripened without the aid of words and filled Rob with happiness.

At Lucerne there was an unexpected development. A cablegram caught up with Frank and Marion Essex which necessitated their taking the first plane out from Zurich, and Linda Carroll and Rob Trenton found themselves confronted with a dilemma.

“I’m afraid I don’t know any other people to ask,” Linda said slowly.

“Well, after all,” Rob replied, “we were a little cramped, and we had quite a bit of baggage on the roof.”

Her steady hazel eyes regarded him with a slight twinkle. “Are you suggesting,” she began, “that we...”

“Definitely,” Rob Trenton concluded.

She mulled the situation thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t look good. The Garden Club in Falthaven wouldn’t approve — if it knew.”

“But it would be fun,” Rob insisted, hopefully. “We could pretend Frank and Marion were here with us, and, as you pointed out, the Falthaven Garden Club wouldn’t need to know a thing about it.”

“I didn’t point out anything of the sort.”

“Well, you pointed out the way for me to point it out.”

Linda considered the matter for several seconds. “No funny business,” she said at length.

Rob pretended to debate the matter with himself. “No funny business,” he promised at length and with such exaggerated reluctance that Linda burst out laughing.

And so they had embarked upon the second stage of an idyllic holiday, stopping at little taverns where the showing of two passports and the request for two rooms at the time of registration invariably provoked voluble protest and shrugs of despair.

Linda made sketches, which only she ever saw, and planned an itinerary which gave Rob the chance he wanted to find out about methods used in the training of dogs for military purposes — as much as was permitted for a civilian to learn.

Shortly after they left Interlaken, Linda told Rob that there was a little inn which she wanted to visit. Some relative of hers had been there the year before and had asked Linda to look in and say hello and present a letter to the owner. “Do you mind?” she asked.

Rob Trenton shook his head. He would cheerfully have stayed days, weeks, or months at any place. In the back of his mind he was serenely aware that, despite the barrier of mystery concerning Linda’s personal background, their companionship was daily growing and maturing with time, just as fruit hanging on a tree sweetens and ripens.

The inn turned out to be a neat little place and the proprietor, René Charteux, sad-eyed, quiet and courteous, took the letter Linda presented to him, seemed greatly moved by it and extended to Linda the hospitality of the place.

The little car, which had done so bravely during the journey, developed a leak in the radiator while standing in front of the inn, and René Charteux agreed to have a mechanic come and repair the car, while Rob and Linda looked around and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

There had, he explained as he unloaded their baggage, been a tragedy in the family very recently. His good wife, who had been so friendly with Linda’s aunt when she had been at the inn for several days during the preceding year, had passed away.

René Charteux paused in carrying the baggage. He looked as though he might be ready to cry, but after a moment picked up the baggage again and carried it to their rooms. Then he was back to see that his guests were made comfortable and to see about getting the mechanic.

There was one other American guest, the proprietor told them. He showed the name scrawled on the register in forceful, masculine handwriting, Merton Ostrander, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. There was no street address.

Rob Trenton made friends with the dachshund that waddled about the inn with droll indignity, while Linda Carrol looked around at the pictures, at the old dishes, then finally suggested a stroll.

M. Charteux, in his sad-eyed way, became enthusiastic over a very fine vista which he said was to be viewed by taking a trail which wound along the plateau, then ascended in zigzags to a wooded peak. It was, he explained in his perfect English, an easy climb and well worth it. Merton Ostrander frequently walked up this trail and made sketches.

So Rob and Linda started up the trail, and some half mile from the inn came on a tall blond, clad in serviceable tweeds. As Rob saw the sketch-book under the man’s arm, he said to Linda, “No chance of muffing this one, is there?”

Ostrander showed surprise suddenly faced by the two Americans.

Trenton extended his hand. “Mr. Livingstone, I presume.”

“Stanley!” Ostrander exclaimed, grabbing the outstretched hand and pumping it up and down. “How the devil did you ever locate me?”

“Looked on the register of the inn,” Linda Carroll said, laughing. “Despite the fact that you had registered under the alias of Merton Ostrander, we knew you, Mr. Livingstone.”

“And do I have to look at the register to find out your aliases, Mr. and Mr.s Stanley?” he asked

“Not Mr. and Mr.s,” she said. “I’m Linda Carroll, and this is Rob Trenton.”

She noted the swift questioning glance as Ostrander shifted his gaze to Rob, and she went on hurriedly, “We’re the sole survivors of a foursome which was shattered on the rocks of business. My friends, Mr. and Mr.s Essex, were suddenly called back to the States.”

She flushed as she realized she had emphasized the Mr. and Mr.s, and that Merton Ostrander had been quick enough to understand and to smile a little at that emphasis.

“You’re an artist?” she asked abruptly.

“Not an artist,” Ostrander told her, “but I find I can capture what I want with a sketchbook better than with a camera. I like to be able to recall things that I’ve seen and I’m a very indifferent photographer. I always have a tendency to move the camera, or forget to turn the film. Even when I watch myself and take a really perfect picture, it always turns out I’ve missed the exposure and the thing is drab and grey. Now with my sketchbook I can pick out the things I want and put them on paper.”

He gestured to the sketchbook under his arm but made no offer to show them any of the sketches.

“If you’re interested in scenery,” Ostrander went on affably, “I’ll be only too glad to turn around, act as guide, and show you one of the most beautiful little glades in the world.”

“We’d love to be guided,” Linda said.

Merton Ostrander, turning back up the trail, swinging along with the easy stride of a man who is accustomed to hiking, commented on the tragedy at the inn. “The proprietor lost his wife just a few days ago. A most tragic occurrence. The woman had been picking native mushrooms all her life; but of late her eyes had been getting bad, and you know how these people are; they wouldn’t pay out the money for glasses. Madame Charteux considered them an extravagance — that’s the only way we can explain it.”

“A toadstool?” Linda asked.

“Apparently a toadstool, and apparently only one, because she was the only one who felt any ill effects.”

Ostrander was silent for a few seconds, then made an uneasy motion with his shoulders. “I ate with them; had some of the same food. There weren’t many mushrooms, you understand, just a few, but I keep thinking of what would have happened — or what might have happened.”

“Just the two of them in the family?” Linda asked.

“No, there’s a daughter, Marie. I’m surprised you didn’t meet her. She’s a beautiful little thing, and, of course, she’s in something of a daze. She’s only sixteen, but you’d think she was twenty... dark, well-developed, smoldering eyes that seem to reflect an inner fire. How long are you intending to stay?”

“Just overnight.”

“Oh.” Ostrander’s face showed a faint flicker of disappointment.

“You’ve been here long?” Trenton asked.

“Several weeks,” Ostrander said, laughing. “I can’t remember whether it’s six or eight. Up here, time passes as smoothly as the running of a jeweled watch — but the inn is different now, of course. Living in that atmosphere of grief is... well, in a way I’m one of the family and I’ve hesitated to leave because I know how they’d feel. They’ve come to depend on me. However... well, let’s go on up to the plateau and look at the scenery from there. Are you by any chance an artist?” he asked Linda Carroll.

“Why on earth did you ask that question?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just wondered.”

She shook her head firmly. “Like you, I sometimes try to catch scenery with a sketchbook, just to help recall some of the various beautiful lighting effects I’ve seen but...” She laughed nervously and said, “The sketches are so crude that they couldn’t possibly convey meaning to anyone except me. I never let anyone see them... anyone.”

Merton Ostrander regarded her with smiling eyes. “I take it,” he said, “that definitely includes me.”

“Everyone means everyone,” Linda said.

“Fair enough,” Merton Ostrander told her, and started piloting the way up the trail.