The Purple Bird Mystery (8 page)

“There’s a mahogany secretary desk down by Miller’s Creek Crossing,” Djuna said, reading from his notes. “It’s supposed to be a John Goddard.”

“M-m, that sounds like an excellent piece,” said Mr. Swift absently. “Where did you say this John Goddard lives?”

“Gosh, Mr. Swift, it isn’t John Goddard who owns it. It’s Mrs. Anstruther. John Goddard
designed
the desk, Miss Annie says, a long time ago.”

Mr. Swift gave Djuna an uneasy smile. “Of course. I’m afraid I wasn’t listening too closely, Djuna. I can’t get your friend Jimmy’s chest off my mind.” He put out a hand. “If you’ll just leave your slip of paper with me—”

He was interrupted by a soft whistle that floated clearly up to them through Mr. Swift’s open window, almost as if the whistler had deliberately aimed it to reach Mr. Swift’s ears. And although it was a perfectly ordinary whistle, it sent a jingle of alarm through Djuna. He looked out the window from where he sat. The first faint stars of twilight were visible in the sky.

Mr. Swift stole a glance at his wristwatch. To Djuna’s surprise, he rose and made for the bedroom door. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” And without further explanation he went down the stairs to Mrs. Carstairs’s front door, out onto the porch, and down the porch steps to the ground. Djuna could follow him by his footsteps—muffled on the thin carpet of the stairs, echoing hollowly on the front porch, thudding on the path that led around the house.

Djuna jumped up and looked out the window again, but he could see nothing except the trees and bushes in the front yard and Mr. Swift’s car parked at the curb. He was about to lean out the window and try to locate the antique dealer when a sound behind him made him whirl around in alarm.

The bedroom door, which Mr. Swift had left a bit ajar at his exit, was slowly opening, swinging inward as somebody in the corridor pushed lightly against it. Djuna’s heart began to beat very fast; he wasn’t exactly scared, he told himself, but it certainly was funny that somebody should be sneaking into Mr. Swift’s room the minute Mr. Swift left it. Who could it be? The person who had whistled a few seconds ago? Mr. Swift returning more silently than he had gone? Mrs. Carstairs, perhaps, on some housekeeping errand?

Djuna kept his eyes fixed on the slowly opening door and felt his muscles tightening … Then he sighed with relief! A bushy black snout came cautiously around the edge of the door; two beady black eyes regarded him anxiously, expecting a reprimand, and Champ sidled into the room, waving his stump of tail gayly at his young master, as if to say, “Wasn’t I clever to find you up here?”

“Champ!” said Djuna in a low voice. “I told you to stay on the
porch
. Mr. Swift doesn’t like you, don’t you know that? And here you are, pushing into his bedroom.” Djuna thought he knew what had happened. When Mr. Swift opened the front door to go outside in response to the whistle, Champ had undoubtedly sneaked through in search of his master. And here he was.

Champ put his front paws on Djuna’s knees and panted happily. Djuna patted his rough head. “Well, I guess Mr. Swift won’t mind you if you let his briefcase alone.”

Champ, feeling himself forgiven for trespassing, began to explore Mr. Swift’s room, nosing at the foot of the brass bed, at the chair, at the briefcase on the stool. Djuna was ready to seize his collar should the briefcase engage his interest again, but Champ merely sniffed indifferently at the handle, then wandered over to Mr. Swift’s open suitcase, lying on the floor under the window.

There, however, Champ’s indifference suddenly vanished. The short hairs on the back of the little dog’s neck rose; he began to growl; he made pawing, digging motions at the suitcase. Before Djuna could stop him, he brushed aside the shirts and neckties, burrowed deep into the case, and brought triumphantly forth a striped object which he held in his jaws and shook bravely back and forth as if it were a rabbit.

“Stop that, Champ!” Djuna cried, and quickly took the striped object from Champ and held it up out of reach. “You can get into more trouble for one dog …!”

His words trailed off as he saw what it was that Champ had found in the bottom of Mr. Swift’s suitcase. It was a book. But the most unusual book Djuna had ever seen. For its binding was not of linen, paper, wood or ordinary leather, like that of most books, but of something that looked (and smelled!) like tigerskin! The black stripes were only faintly defined now on the faded buff-colored background of hair, but Djuna knew he couldn’t be mistaken. It was tigerskin, all right. Motheaten, old and worn, but tigerskin. Champ’s continued growling as he kept his eyes on the book in Djuna’s hand confirmed it.

Djuna couldn’t help grinning at his little dog’s cocky courage. “It’s a good thing for you this isn’t a live tiger,” he said, “or you’d make just half a mouthful for him, Champ. Now keep quiet!”

He examined the book, strongly tempted to open it. He couldn’t imagine what such a book, bound in tigerskin, could possibly contain. It would be awfully interesting to find out, he thought. But his duty was plain. He should return the tigerskin book to the suitcase at once, without even a peep inside. Yes, sir, that was the right thing to do. Djuna knew it. His conscience knew it. His will power knew it.

But his will power was not as strong as his curiosity. For almost automatically he found himself turning back the tigerskin cover, staring fascinated at what was inside.

He was looking at some kind of diary, or journal. There were date headings, with short entries after each. The entries were handwritten in faded violet ink on thick rough paper. The penmanship was cramped and wavery, as though whoever had done the writing suffered from a tremor which he was trying to control.

Djuna turned rapidly through the pages of the old book, not pausing long enough to read any of the uncertain script except an occasional date heading. These dates, he noticed in passing, extended over more than a single year. Perhaps the book represented a record of five years, or ten, or even more, he thought.

Anyway, it certainly wasn’t Mr. Swift’s own diary, he was sure of that, because the handwriting was too old-fashioned to be the work of a modern penman. It was full of curlicues and flourishes that made it very hard to read, Djuna thought—even if he had wanted to read it. Then he came to the very last page with writing on it, which was halfway through the book. Here the first sentence of the last entry under a date heading caught his eye, and to save his life Djuna couldn’t have resisted reading the whole paragraph:

Twice Djuna read this entry through, startled at the suggestion of drama contained in those few faded words. Then, hearing Mr. Swift’s footsteps on the stair carpeting, he quickly deposited the tigerskin book once more in the bottom of the suitcase. On top of the tigerskin book, he replaced the shirts and ties disarranged by Champ.

When Mr. Swift came back into the room, Djuna was standing by the window with Champ in his arms.

“Djuna, I must ask you to forgive me for deserting you …” Mr. Swift suddenly became aware of Champ in Djuna’s arms, and he looked angry.

Djuna hastened to explain. “Champ must have slipped by when you went out the front door just now. He hasn’t hurt anything this time. I made sure of that.”

“Well, hello there, Champ,” said Mr. Swift, recovering himself quickly. He shot a swift glance at his suitcase.

“I’ll hold onto him,” Djuna said. Then, innocently, he asked, “Who was whistling to you, Mr. Swift?”

Swift shrugged. “Just the boy from the service station about my tire. I developed a slow leak in one this afternoon, and called him to come out and change it for me.”

“Oh,” Djuna said. He squeezed Champ so hard that the little dog looked up into his face questioningly. “Well, I guess that’s all, Mr. Swift. Miss Annie says she’ll try to think of some more stuff around here you might want.”

“Thank her very much for her thoughtfulness,” Mr. Swift said. “And you for bringing me the message. I shall certainly look into it.” Mr. Swift held his bedroom door open. “Good night, Djuna.” With an effort at cordiality, he added, “Good night, Champ.”

Champ sneezed and said nothing.

“Good night, Mr. Swift,” said Djuna. The next moment, he and Champ were going down the staircase to the front door.

Once outside the house, Djuna released Champ, who ran in dizzy circles for a few seconds, then went gamboling and playing ahead as Djuna turned his steps toward Mr. Pindler’s store.

As he walked through the dusk, Djuna’s mind was crowded with questions. He wondered about that strange diary bound in tigerskin that Mr. Swift kept in his suitcase. Was it something that Mr. Swift had owned for a long time, or was it merely an antique that he had picked up in the last day or so, something he had bought to sell in his shop at Philadelphia? It certainly qualified in age, appearance and smell as an antique, Djuna thought.

And what, he wondered, had finally happened to the poor man who was locked up at the mercy of thieves when he wrote that final entry in the journal? And how did it happen the book was bound in tigerskin in the first place?

But that, Djuna decided, wasn’t as strange as some other things he’d noticed while calling on Mr. Swift. For instance, who ever heard of a service station boy coming to change a tire for a customer, and summoning the customer out of his room by a whistle that surely had been a prearranged signal? And if one tire on Mr. Swift’s car had needed changing because it was flat, why had all four tires on the Chevrolet been plump and fully inflated when Djuna had passed it only half an hour ago?

Who had the whistler really been?

Equally puzzling was the indifference with which Champ had treated Mr. Swift’s briefcase tonight after his vicious attack on it earlier in the day. Whatever had been in that briefcase this afternoon, to arouse Champ’s fiercer instincts, had no longer been in it tonight, that was plain. Did that mean that, considering Champ’s similar savage reaction to the tigerskin book tonight, it was the tigerskin book that had been in the briefcase when Mr. Swift visited Grandma Douglas earlier?

Perhaps queerest of all was Mr. Swift’s surprising ignorance. How could he, an antique dealer, not know who John Goddard was? Or not be able to describe cabriole legs?

And there was one more question for which Djuna, search his brain as he might, could find no reasonable answer. If the antique dealer’s name was Anthony Swift, as his business card proclaimed, why didn’t Mr. Swift’s briefcase carry the initials
A
. S.?

When Champ had sniffed at the briefcase tonight, Djuna had seen quite plainly the initials C.
D
. stamped on it.

T
HE
next morning, Jimmy left the breezeway as Djuna rode up on his bicycle, and walked around with him to the rear of the caddy-house where the bike racks were. “You know what, Djuna?” he said with disgust. “Today is Ladies’ Day! When I got here three minutes ago, all these other kids were already signed in with Mr. Jonas ahead of us. How do you like that?”

“What’s the difference? We’ll just have to wait longer, that’s all.”

Jimmy shook his head. “Maybe we won’t get even one job all day, Djuna! On Ladies’ Day, of course, most of the golfers are ladies. At least, until late afternoon.”

“I’d just as soon caddy for a lady.”

“You don’t understand. Most of the lady golfers use
carts.”

“Oh. So they don’t need many caddies.”

“Hardly any, Joe Morelli told me. That’s why those other kids came so early today … to make sure of getting whatever jobs there are. You think we should take a vacation today, Djuna? And maybe practice our putting, or something?”

“I never thought about a day off,” Djuna reflected. “Weekends are when we’ll be busiest, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Saturdays and Sundays are the biggest golf days of all. So maybe we should take Thursdays off, huh? Like today?”

Djuna thought for a minute. “I’d like to, Jimmy, but Miss Annie packed a lunch for me today so I might as well use it. And last night I spent almost all of that three dollars I earned yesterday on a new leash for Champ. And I want to earn some money as soon as I can to start saving up for a birthday present for Miss Annie. So let’s wait in the breezeway for a while. Maybe some of the ladies will want to walk today.”

“Okay with me,” said Jimmy, shrugging. “Go sign in with Mr. Jonas. I’ll see you in the breezeway.”

Djuna put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Why don’t you wait here instead, Jimmy? I’ve got something to tell you.” Djuna went around to the caddy-house entrance and signed in. Then, returning, he sat down beside Jimmy, out of earshot of the other caddies, and proceeded to tell Jimmy about his visit to Mr. Swift’s room the night before. The recital was frequently interrupted by exclamations and questions from Jimmy.

When Djuna finished his account, Jimmy’s eyes were wide. “Jeepers!” he breathed. “It
is
a real mystery after all, isn’t it? Have you figured anything out about it, Djuna?”

Djuna grinned. “Nothing much. All I can figure for sure is that there’s something mysterious about Mr. Swift.”

“I’ll say! Who do you suppose was whistling for him last night if you don’t think it was a service-station guy?”

“I wish I knew. And I wish I knew why Mr. Swift doesn’t know anything about antiques except for your chest, Jimmy.”

“Boy, that old chest of mine is right in the middle of things!”

“Why do you suppose Mr. Swift got so mad when Champ chewed his briefcase yesterday? If it
is
his briefcase. And how about that old tigerskin book? And oh, there are a lot more things I wish I knew about Mr. Swift.”

“And how about Mr. Martin and Joe Morelli?” Jimmy sneaked a look at Djuna’s serious expression out of the corner of his eye, convinced that he was watching a real detective at work. “You said yesterday you thought there was something funny about them, too.”