Mad Scientists' Club (7 page)

"You can laugh if you want to," said Homer, "but I think we found out where there's a whole bunch of money hidden."

"Where?" asked Jeff.

"Inside that old cannon out at Memorial Point," said Homer.

The cannon he was talking about is a big old Civil War monster that sits on the south slope of Brake Hill about five miles outside of Mammoth Falls. It points right down the valley where Lemon Creek flows toward the river. It was put up there to protect the town from an attack from the South, but as far as anyone knows it never fired a shot. After the war it was just left there because it was too heavy to move. Eventually the town made a little park around it and erected a couple of statues of Civil War soldiers. Nowadays everyone calls the place Memorial Point, and it's a great place for family picnics.

Homer and Daphne had spent many evenings in the library going through old issues of the Mammoth Falls
Gazette
to trace the history of the old cannon. They managed to find out where the gun had been cast, how many horses it took to haul it up the hill to where it sits now, how far it could fire a fifteen-inch ball, and all sorts of interesting stuff like that.

After the Civil War there wasn't much written about the cannon. Daphne and Homer went through hundreds of copies of the weekly
Gazette
before they found any mention of it again. Then it cropped up in the news in 1910 when the Town Council voted to have the barrel plugged up with concrete to keep kids from crawling inside it. There was a big hullabaloo in town at the time, because somebody's kid had disappeared and a lot of people thought he had been inside the cannon when they plugged it up. They were just about to chip all the cement out of the barrel when the kid turned up in Cairo, Illinois. Seems he had fallen asleep in a box car down in the railroad yards and got all the way to Cairo before he could get anybody to let him out. Funny thing! His name was Alonzo Scragg, and now he's the mayor of our town.

That was an exciting week for Mammoth Falls. And for the Scragg family, too. Just before young Alonzo disappeared, somebody with a bandanna tied around his nose held up the Mammoth Falls Trust and Deposit Company and got away with $75,000 in cold cash. He rode off on a horse down the Old South Road, and nobody ever saw him or the cash again.

A lot of people thought they recognized the horse, though. They said it looked like one that belonged to Elijah Scragg, Alonzo's grandfather. It was a strawberry roan with a white splash on its nose, and there wasn't another one like it for miles around.

Old Elijah was in high dudgeon, according to the newspaper accounts. He swore up and down that the horse had been missing for two days, and he figured somebody stole it just to pull off the bank job and throw suspicion on him. There was a big investigation and a regular court hearing. Elijah had two of his hired men to back him up on his testimony, but nobody was ever sure whether the three of them weren't in cahoots on the robbery.

Elijah Scragg had been running for his tenth term on the Town Council. The judge ruled that there wasn't enough evidence to bring him to trial; but the mere fact he was suspected of being connected with the bank robbery ruined his chances for election. Emory Sharples, who was running against him, made a lot of the incident, and he got elected in Elijah's place.

The Scraggses and the Sharpleses are two of the oldest families in Mammoth Falls, and they have always been great rivals; but after the bank robbery they were sworn enemies. They carried on a political feud that still goes on today. Whenever a Scragg runs for some town office, the Sharpleses always make sure they have somebody to run against him.

This year was no exception. Mayor Scragg's term of office was due to expire, and Abner Sharples had announced himself a candidate. Abner is a young fellow, but he's one of the smartest lawyers in Mammoth Falls, and everybody figured he might get a few votes if he worked hard.

Daphne and Homer had come up with a theory about the robbery. One witness had seen a rider heading up Brake Hill on the strawberry roan. They figured he must have cut off through the countryside, because he wasn't seen going through any other town. And if Elijah Scragg's horse was returned to his pasture the next morning, he couldn't have gone very far. He must have lived somewhere nearby, and he probably would have hidden the money somewhere until the affair blew over. The old Civil War cannon out at Memorial Point seemed like a good hiding place. They got more suspicious about it when they discovered three more stories in the
Gazette
complaining about vandals who kept trying to chip the concrete out of the barrel.

"What makes you think there's any money hidden in the old cannon?" Jeff asked.

"Just a hunch," said Homer. "It seemed like such a coincidence that it got plugged up the same week the bank was robbed."

"You mean you think the bank robber hid the money in the cannon, and then before he could get it out again the Town Council sent a crew out there to plug up the barrel with cement?"

"That's what we figure," said Homer, not so sure of himself now. "The money has never been found. We checked on that with old Mr. Willis down at the bank. Daphne's gonna do a story on the whole thing for the school paper and she figures she's got a real scoop."

"It'd make a better story if somebody could prove the money was really there," Mortimer chipped in.

"Bet that old robber was mad when he got back and found that cannon full of cement," Freddy observed.

"He sure put it in a safe place," said Dinky. "I wonder if it's been earning interest?"

"Just historical interest," quipped Mortimer.

Jeff rapped his gavel on the packing crate again.

"Maybe some of you geniuses can figure out how we're going to find out if the money's there!"

As soon as he said "genius" everybody turned and looked at Henry Mulligan. Henry was just sitting there on the old piano stool, leaning back against the barn wall and staring up at the rafters. There was a reverent silence in the clubhouse. Nobody ever spoke when Henry was doing his thinking.

Finally Henry let his stool come forward again and looked slowly around the clubhouse. "What kind of gun is it?" he asked.

"My old man said it was a Parrott gun," said Freddy.

"It isn't a Parrott gun," Dinky interrupted. "It's a Rodman. I can show you in a book I got at home. It tells all about the Civil War."

"You're nuts," Freddy argued. "My old man ought to know."

"A Parrott gun is a lot different," Dinky persisted. "This one's a Rodman."

"I think I know how we can find out what's in it," Henry said quietly.

Then everybody shut up. Because Henry was looking up at the rafters of Jeff's barn and had tilted his stool back to the thinking position again.

Just then somebody burped. Everybody looked around at Freddy Muldoon. He's the champion burper in the Mad Scientists' Club, and everybody naturally looks at him when someone uncorks one. But this time Freddy was looking around too. His face wore a frown.

"I think that came from outside," he said.

Mortimer and I made a rush for the door. Sure enough, there was Harmon Muldoon, Freddy's sneaky cousin, just disappearing down the alley and rounding the corner into Vesey Street. We went back inside.

"Harmon Muldoon's been spying on us again," said Mortimer.

"I'll bet he heard everything we said," chirped Dinky.

"That means he probably knows all about the old cannon and the money," groaned Homer. "Now it'll be all over town. Harmon's a big blabbermouth."

"We'd better get moving if we're going to do anything," Mortimer urged.

All eyes automatically turned toward Henry Mulligan. Henry was still leaning back against the wall, wiping his horn-rimmed glasses. He stood up and said, "Jeff, I think we'd better go see Dr. Hendricks at the university."

Dr. Paul Hendricks is head of the Medical School at the State University, and one of the best friends of the Mad Scientists' Club. He was the one who helped Henry figure out where to hatch the dinosaur egg last year.

"Are you sick, Henry?" Jeff asked. "How can Dr. Hendricks help us find out what's in that cannon?"

"I'll tell you on the way there," said Henry. "Do you think your mother would drive us over to the university?"

"I'll ask her," said Jeff. "What do you want the other fellows to do?"

"I'd suggest they plan to be at Memorial Point about eight o'clock tonight," said Henry, "just after it gets dark. And let's not have a gang-rush out there! Wander out there one at a time, like nothing special was going on. If anybody sees Harmon Muldoon, lead him off the scent somewhere on a wild-goose chase. The less he knows from here on in, the better."

"O.K., Major Mulligan!" said Dinky Poore, throwing Henry a highball signal.

We met that night at the foot of Brake Hill. Everybody was there early except Henry and Jeff.

"Why do we have to come out here at night?" asked Freddy Muldoon. "It's kind of spooky!"

"Not so loud!" Mortimer cautioned in a whisper. "We don't want anybody to know what we're doing. And besides, we gotta think about Elmer Pridgin. He's always roamin' around these woods with that old squirrel rifle. I heard he takes pot shots at people."

"I don't believe it!" whispered little Dinky. "Elmer's all right. People just don't understand him, that's all."

"He's a little soft in the head, but he wouldn't hurt anybody," said Freddy in a hoarse croak, pushing his pudgy face up close to Mortimer's.

"Oh yeah! How come he never comes into town? And what does he live on, out there in the woods?" Mortimer hissed.

"He does, too, come into town!" Freddy argued, his voice getting a little louder. "He comes in every year to vote on Town Meeting day -- and he gets a haircut then, too."

"Glory be!" said Mortimer. "Is that when he buys his groceries?"

"He doesn't need any groceries," Dinky chimed in. "He raises his own vegetables out by his cabin. He can snare rabbits with just a piece of string, and he'll skin one faster shall you can tie your shoes. He's smart, Elmer is."

"Very elucidative!" said Mortimer. Mortimer always likes to use big words.

"Jiggers!" Homer warned. "Somebody's coming."

We all dove into the bushes by the side of the road. There were two bicycles coming from the direction of town. Freddy, who's a little slow on his feet, was the last one to get under cover, and when he hit the ground he burped a real loud one.

"Is that you, Freddy?" came Jeff's voice.

"No! It's my uncle," Freddy answered. "We brought him along for laughs."

"All right, let's cut the comedy," Jeff cautioned. "We've got lots of work to do."

Henry and Jeff pulled their bicycles into the brush and we started up the hill. As usual, Henry had brought along a lot of mysterious-looking apparatus that we all had to carry, and he kept telling us to be careful with it because it was very delicate.

"Has anybody seen Harmon Muldoon?" Jeff inquired.

"No sign of him anywhere," Dinky puffed. "Maybe he gave up the ghost."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Henry observed. "He might be up by the old cannon. Maybe we'd better send scouts up first, and stake out some security, too. What do you think, Jeff?"

Jeff agreed. We all put down our loads, and Mortimer and Homer went on ahead to scout out the area around Memorial Point. They came back in a few minutes and reported everything clear. We went on up the hill then, with all our gear. It was misty that night, and there was a pale moon darting in and out behind the clouds. The little clearing around the old cannon had an eerie air about it. The tablet the town had erected at the mouth of the clearing, and the statues of the Confederate and Union soldiers, cast long shadows on the sloping hillside. The monstrous gun itself looked like some fat-bellied, prehistoric reptile, squatting on its haunches in the shadow of the trees, waiting to devour any unsuspecting victim that wandered within its reach. In the misty moonlight, the thing looked three times as big as it ever had before.

"Gosh! I wonder what this thing weighs?" Mortimer gulped.

"The barrel alone weighs forty-nine thousand pounds," Homer explained, "but they made some that weighed twice as much as this one." All of a sudden Homer had become a real expert in such matters.

Jeff sent Mortimer and Dinky out to stand security guard at points where they could watch the approaches to the clearing from the road and from the path that wound along the ridge of Brake Hill. They were to give the hoot-owl signal if they saw anyone coming. The rest of us got to work setting up Henry's infernal apparatus.