The Case of the Musical Cow

Chapter 6

The big ship glided majestically past the Statue of Liberty, up into the harbor, and slowed its pace until it seemed barely to maintain headway, yet the two tugs which were racing alongside were pushing great waves of water under their bows, churning the ocean behind them into milky confusion as they tried to keep up with the liner.Then the tugs nosed in, lines were passed and gradually the ship eased its way in to the dock where friends waved handkerchiefs and hats in a frenzy of happy greeting to returning travelers. Immigration officials had been busy examining passports, and Rob Trenton, his baggage all stamped with placards bearing a big letter ‘T”, was preparing to go ashore when two men, smiling without cordiality, stepped up to him. “You’re Robert Trenton?”

“That’s right.”

“You own a dog, I believe, you want to take ashore?”

“That’s right. The dog was given to me while I was on the ship.”

“I understand,” the spokesman said. “I wonder if you would mind stepping back down to your cabin for a moment, Mr. Trenton?”

“Why?”

“We’d like you to.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m planning to go ashore immediately.”

As though they had rehearsed the action, the two men simultaneously raised left hands to the lapels of their coats, moved the garments slightly aside and showed gold badges which loomed importantly large.

“We’re with the Customs,” one of the men said.

“But my baggage is all down on the pier.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t,” one of the men said. “It’s in your stateroom, and if you don’t mind, we’ll make the examination there. I think it will be less embarrassing to you if we examine you there.”

“Well, of course, if you insist,” Rob said reluctantly, looking to where Linda Carroll was going down the gangplank. “I thought...”

“I’m sorry, but this happens to be official,” the larger man said curtly. “Let’s go back to your stateroom if you don’t mind.”

They searched him to the skin. They searched his garments. They unpacked everything in his suitcases. They searched the baggage itself for false bottoms. They even inspected the heels of his shoes, and went so far as to remove the bottoms from the tubes of his toothpaste and shaving cream and squeeze out all of the contents.

Rob Trenton, white-faced with indignation, realized there was nothing he could do. The men went about the job carefully, painstakingly and efficiently.

“Will you please tell me why I am singled out for this sort of treatment?” Trenton asked, his voice cold with fury.

One of the men reached into the inside pocket of his coat, took out a typewritten letter.

“Of course,” he said, “it’s anonymous. Like to read it?”

The letter was dated two days earlier, was sent to the United States Department of Customs, and read:

The letter was signed merely A FRIEND.

“Good Lord,” Rob Trenton said. “You don’t pay attention to anonymous letters of that sort, do you?”

“You can bet your bottom dollar we don’t ignore them.”

“But that’s absurd...”

“It seems to be absurd,” the Customs man said, and then added grimly, “However, we’re not finished yet.”

“Why, as a matter of fact,” Rob said angrily, “anyone could write a letter of this sort. It could be a practical joke...”

“Sure it could be a practical joke,” the Customs man said, “but Uncle Sam doesn’t like the idea of playing practical jokes of that sort through the mail. It wouldn’t be healthy to try it.”

“Or, on the other hand,” Trenton stormed, “just in case you wanted really to shake down some passenger and wanted an excuse, you could write that letter right in your office and drop it in the mail and use it to show the passenger to...”

“Sure thing, Mr. Trenton, so we could,” the big Customs man interrupted, “but in case we wanted to shake him down, we could do it without any letter. So cool off and sit down over there. We’re not finished yet.”

It was three-thirty in the afternoon before Rob Trenton was cleared. Thoroughly indignant, he came down the gangplank, the ship’s stewards behind him carrying his luggage, which had been completely examined even to the last pocket in the lining of the coat. A portable X-ray machine had even been used to penetrate the padding in the shoulders of the coat to make sure that no packages were concealed therein.

Lobo, securely muzzled to comply with municipal regulations, was on leash at Rob’s side. The dog was glad to leave the cramped quarters of the ship and to be on land again. He had by this time completely accepted Rob Trenton as his master.

The Customs shed was deserted. The last of the travelers had long since identified their baggage, checked over their declarations with an inspector, had stamps and chalk marks affixed, and been swallowed up in the big city.

For a moment, Rob had a fleeting hope that Linda had been delayed somewhat in connection with the unloading of her car, and that he might still catch her, but on inquiry he learned that the cars were handled expeditiously, that Linda had driven away hours ago, and that she had left the necessary documents and instructions to enable Rob to pick up the little car.

In Rob Trenton’s pocket was the anonymous letter which had been turned over to him at length, together with the apologies of the Customs officials.

So thorough had been their search, they had even found the two white capsules Merton Ostrander had taken from his medicine chest and given Rob during that long nightmare in the Paris hotel.

The men were interested in these capsules and kept them for ‘further examination”, asking Rob’s permission to do so. Rob told them as far as he was concerned they could throw them in the ocean. They were simply some sort of a soda compound to be used in settling an upset stomach. They had, he explained, been given him by Merton Ostrander.

Rob Trenton was halfway across the Customs shed when he found himself gazing at a familiar pair of broad shoulders, a tall loose-jointed figure, clad in tweeds.

As though feeling the impact of Trenton’s gaze, Merton Ostrander turned.

For a moment, when he saw Trenton, his face set in hard lines of anger, then there was a flash of curiosity which caused him to ask guardedly, “Hello, what are you doing here this late?”

Trenton, a sudden suspicion crystallizing in his mind, whipped the anonymous letter from his pocket. “I’m going to ask you a question,” he said, “and be damned careful how you answer it because I’m not going to take your word for it. I’m going to do some independent checking up. Do you know anything about this?”

Trenton shoved the anonymous letter under Ostrander’s face.

For a moment, Ostrander looked curiously at the letter, then a quizzical frown appeared on his forehead. Abruptly he laughed.

Trenton, enraged, deliberately folded the letter, put it back in his pocket, doubled his right hand into a fist, picked out a place on Ostrander’s jaw, and stepped forward.

“Hey, you little bantam,” Ostrander said, backing away. “Come down to earth. Here, take a look at this.”

He was still laughing as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a typewritten letter. “For a minute,” he said, “I was dumb enough to think this was some of your work.”

He held the letter out at arm’s length so that Trenton was forced to look at it, yet keeping Trenton at a distance as he did so.

Trenton saw a letter which, save for names, was the exact counterpart of the letter which had been delivered to him by the two Customs officials after they had finished their search.

Slowly the anger left Rob Trenton. “But who could have written two such letters as this?”

Ostrander laughed mirthlessly. “I think I know the answer now,” he said, “but I was too dumb to realize it until just now.”

“A practical joker?”

“Could have been,” Ostrander said, “but I think the Customs wanted some good excuse to tear us apart, and wanted to get our co-operation in doing it. A letter of this sort makes it very, very easy for them.”

“I pointed that out to them,” Trenton said. “They told me they didn’t need any such excuse.”

“They don’t really need it,” Ostrander said, “but it’s a lot better if they have something which makes their actions look reasonable. You know how it is. If they just started picking on passengers without ostensibly having some excuse they’d get a terrific protest. A letter of this sort comes in very handy. I dare say the Customs officials didn’t expect we’d compare notes. Who was that Harvey Richmond who was your cabin-mate?”

“A real estate operator from the Middle West.”

“You sure?”

“Well, that’s what he told me.”

Ostrander’s eyes narrowed. “He worked a little deal with the Purser to arrange a transfer so he’d be in your cabin. The man who was in there was moved out and the Purser made some rather elaborate explanations to him and Richmond moved in. My baggage was searched twice while I was on shipboard. I rather expected I’d be running into something like this when we docked, but I’ll confess that letter made me plenty mad.”

“Your baggage was searched?” Trenton asked.

“I’ll say it was searched. I have no idea who did it, but I know that on at least two occasions it was given a thorough ransacking. Nothing was taken, but things were arranged a lot differently from the way I’d left them. Little things which ordinarily I wouldn’t have noticed. The shirts were folded differently, the socks had been unrolled... so I got rid of every single thing I had that could have caused the faintest comment.”

“Perhaps that’s what made them suspicious,” Trenton said. “I heard you threw the cowbells overboard.”

“I had the boxes sent up from the baggage-room and dumped every blessed one of them over into the drink,” Ostrander said. “I cut down every bit of surplus baggage I had, so I didn’t have one darn thing left except wearing apparel, and a few curios that no one could question.”

“But why on earth did you do that?”

“If they were going to get tough I wanted to have the situation simplified. I have an idea that your friend and cabin-mate, Harvey Richmond, is either a spotter for the Government or a freelance informer. I understand some of the fellows who want to stoop that low make a good thing out of traveling on the ocean liners. They strike up an acquaintance with as many passengers as possible, size up the men who may be smuggling something in and then see that the Government is given a tip. They don’t stand to lose anything if things go wrong and in case things are right they make a killing. Some day I’ll run across Mr. Harvey Richmond again when I can ask him a little more about this real estate business of his in the Middle West. I’m free to confess that I thought you’d done some talking about something and... well, the fact that he singled you out for an identical letter seems to cover the situation. Where’s Linda? Did you see her?”

“I saw her going down the gangplank just before the Customs men asked me to walk back to the stateroom.”

“You don’t know what hotel she’s staying at, do you?”

“I don’t think she’s staying. I think friends met her and are driving her to her... er... home?”

“I wanted to say good-by to her.” Ostrander said, and then added casually, “Oh well, I’ll drop her a note. I have her address in Falthaven. It was certainly a great trip. How about sharing a cab?”

“No thank you... I have a few things to attend to here,” Rob said, some strange feeling causing him to refrain from mentioning the matter of the car. If Linda hadn’t told Ostrander, Rob certainly wasn’t going to tell him. Yet Ostrander apparently had Linda’s address and...

“Hang it,” Ostrander answered. “I wanted to see Linda. Oh well, that’s all water under the bridge. Well, Rob, it was a great trip. Thanks for being so generous as to share it with me.”

And Ostrander gripped Rob Trenton’s hand, his eyes smiling and friendly. “Sorry you were so darned sick there in Paris.”

That recalled a situation to Rob Trenton’s mind. “Say,” he said, “you remember those capsules you gave me?”

“Sure. They’d have fixed you right up if they’d stayed with you. They must have bounded off your stomach like a tennis ball off a cement court and...”

“I didn’t take them,” Rob confessed. “I had a particularly violent spell of retching and dropped them in the pocket of my bathrobe. The Customs men searched every...”

“Where are they now?” Ostrander interrupted.

“The Customs men took them.”

Ostrander stood frowning, his face masking his feelings from Rob Trenton. Abruptly he turned, said, “Oh well, they’ll probably be dumb enough to analyze them. Well, so long, Rob. I’m on my way.”

He walked off, his long legs taking great strides — a big man going some place in one hell of a hurry.