Mad Scientists' Club (9 page)

Jeff and Henry and I were just about a hundred yards from the clearing when we heard the thump of a rifle shot and the twang of a bullet ricocheting off metal. We froze in our tracks, not daring to move or breathe. Finally Henry whispered, "That sounded like a big-bore rifle."

We fell flat on our stomachs in the brush as two wild-eyed figures came dashing pell-mell down the path from the clearing. In the lead by a good margin was Harmon Muldoon, using his best running form. Thumping behind him came the ponderous form of Abner Sharples, his tie fluttering wildly in the breeze and his hat clapped to the back of his head by a pudgy hand. They passed within three feet of us, but they were so intent on getting down off Brake Hill in record time that they didn't even see us. Harmon was right out of sight in no time, and the last we saw of Abner Sharples was his coattail flying through the air as his feet went out from under him on a sharp turn, and he went rolling down the hill like a barrel of lard. His hat flew off his head and landed on a bush.

"I'll bet he beats Harmon to the bottom," said Henry, as he scrambled over to retrieve the hat.

"He sure took a short cut," Jeff snickered. "I wonder what Abner was doing up here?"

"I imagine Harmon has told him everything, and he's hoping to find some evidence connecting Mayor Scragg with the stolen money," said Henry.

"They've got to get it out of the cannon first," Jeff answered. "Let's see if we can find out what happened up there."

We crept forward through the brush, trying to be as quiet as possible. When we got up close to the clearing we stopped and peered out through the bushes. A tall, gaunt man was standing beside the cannon, shading his eyes from the morning sun as he looked down the hill toward the road. A long and ancient-looking squirrel rifle was grasped in his right hand.

"Elmer Pridgin!" Jeff whispered. "He must have fired that shot."

"I guess Mortimer was right," I said. "I wonder why he's so cranky about that old cannon?"

"I don't know, but I think we'd better clear out of here," Jeff hissed back. "He must be the one that was out here at midnight."

We skirted the clearing, picked up the other guys, and beat it back to town. "I think things are going to pop wide open now," Henry told us as we pedaled along the Old South Road. "We've got to work fast."

Henry was right. Daphne Muldoon was waiting for us at the clubhouse when we got back. She'd been looking all over town for Homer, and her pretty face was all screwed up into a worried frown.

"Abner Sharples knows all about the old cannon and the money," she complained. "He's going to tell it all to the newspaper, and there goes my story!"

"You can thank your blabbermouth brother for that," said Freddy Muldoon.

"He doesn't know everything," Homer put in. "I bet he'd like to see this picture," and he waved a copy the photograph of the inside of the cannon in front of Daphne's face.

"Maybe it would be a good idea if he did!" came a voice from the corner.

We all turned around to look at Henry, who was leaning back on his piano stool, looking up at the rafters again. There was a look of evil genius on his face.

Two hours later, Daphne and Homer just happened to be among the tiny knot of curious spectators gathered outside the door of the Town Council meeting room when Abner Sharples appeared to urge the Council to investigate the mystery of the old cannon. Homer just happened to drop the photograph out of the folder he was carrying, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Harmon Muldoon pounce upon it and scoop it up. A moment later he was in excited consultation with Abner Sharples in a corner of the room.

When Homer took off to join the rest of us, Abner Sharples, sweating and puffing, was in the midst of one of his spellbinding political harangues. He was waving the photograph in the faces of the Council, and claiming it represented clinching evidence that the grandfather of Alonzo Scragg had been implicated in the unsolved bank robbery.

Meanwhile the rest of us were bouncing along through the dust and ruts of Turkey Run Road in Zeke Boniface's decrepit old junk truck. Turkey Run Road winds around behind Brake Hill, and Henry figured we'd attract less attention if we went that way. Zeke sat at the wheel of Richard the Deep Breather and wrestled it manfully around the curves of the winding road. The crunched black derby that he always wore over the bald spot on his head bounced up and down, and the ashes from his cigar dropped unheeded onto the front of his grease-stained undershirt. We always admired the way Zeke could shift that cigar from one side of his mouth to the other without using any hands.

Henry and Jeff had decided to take Zeke into our confidence. We needed some heavy equipment for the job Henry had in mind, and Zeke always had plenty of block-and-tackle kicking around his junk yard, as well as an overhead crane for lifting engines out of junk cars. Besides, Zeke has a strong back and always keeps his mouth shut.

Zeke brought Richard the Deep Breather to a puffing halt on a signal from Jeff, and Dinky Poore and Freddy Muldoon scrambled off the tailgate. Jeff gave them some last-minute instructions and then sent them scampering off through the woods to find Elmer Pridgin. Their job was to keep Elmer busy showing them how to skin rabbits, so he wouldn't be around taking pot shots at us while we were up at Memorial Point.

"You'll have to keep him busy for two or three hours," Jeff told them, "so make like you're real dumb and can't understand how he skins these rabbits so fast."

"Just act natural and you'll be all right!" Mortimer shouted after them as they disappeared into the edge of the woods.

The rest of us stayed on the truck until Zeke brought it to another sputtering stop at the crest of a little knoll deep in the woods on the back side of Brake Hill. The dirt trail that Zeke had followed off of Turkey Run Road brought us a lot closer to Memorial Point than the Old South Road on the other side of the hill, and we had only about a hundred feet to climb up to where the cannon sat. But it took us two trips to lug all our equipment up there. This was when we were glad we had Zeke with us. He was strong as a bear. He could stand two railroad ties upright, throw a carrying-strap around them, and tote 'em for ten miles balanced on his back. If he didn't have a strap, he'd use the dirty white galluses he always wore over his woollen undershirt.

On our second trip down to where the truck was parked, Homer came riding up on his bicycle and told us what was going on at the Town Hall. "I think Abner Sharples will talk the Council into having the cement plug chipped out of the cannon barrel," he said. "They seemed to be pretty interested in his story."

"That's great!" said Henry. "Just what we want."

"I doubt if they can get a crew up here before tomorrow," said Jeff, "but we'd better hurry, just the same. Give us a hand with the rest of this stuff, Homer."

We struggled up the hill with all the parts to Zeke's overhead crane and assembled the stanchion at the mouth of the old cannon. Then we all took our hatchets and scoured the woods for good, hard ash that would make a hot fire and not too much smoke. Meanwhile, Zeke drilled a couple of diagonal holes in the end of the cement plug, and fashioned an iron clamp that would bite into the holes like a pair of ice tongs. He hooked one end of a set of block-and-tackle to the clamp and lashed the other end to a tree.

Getting the cement plug out of the barrel was easy, since we were able to use Henry's brains. We built a big bonfire under the cannon, and Mortimer and Jeff heated up the muzzle end with blowtorches. Henry sat on a rock off to the side, making calculations on a pad of notepaper and keeping one eye on a battery of voltmeters he had set up on the ground beside him. The voltmeters were wired to thermocouples Henry had placed at various points along the huge barrel with asbestos tape. This way he could get a picture of the distribution of heat along with barrel and calculate how much it was expanding. From time to time he would give Jeff and Mortimer directions about where to aim the blowtorches.

"I think we're ready," he said, finally. "Give her a slow, easy tug, Zeke!"

Zeke coiled the free end of the rope around one hamlike wrist, dug his left heel into the earth, and gave a long grunt. You could see the muscles bulge through the back of his undershirt as he heaved on the rope. There was a creaking and grinding noise, and the plug started to inch slowly out of the cannon mouth.

Everybody started to cheer and shout advice and encouragement to Zeke at the same time. He coiled more of the rope around his arm, set his feet again, and bent his back to the task once more. He chomped down on his cigar so hard that he bit clear through it, and the stub end fell on the grass beside him. But a good six inches of the plug was now showing out of the mouth of the cannon.

"Put more wood on that fire," said Henry. "And keep those torches going. That barrel will cool fast, once the air gets in there."

Homer and I piled more branches on and fanned up the blaze. Then we ran to the front of the cannon to adjust the slings on Zeke's hoisting crane. We wheeled the stanchion right over the cannon until we could slip the sling of the front pulley under the exposed end of the cement plug. Then, as Zeke strained on the block-and-tackle, we eased the stanchion forward with each pull, keeping the tension on the front pulley adjusted so the plug could ride free. It wasn't long before we could cinch up the rear sling under the plug, and then we practically walked it the rest of the way out of the barrel.

Zeke Boniface trudged up and stuck his head into the mouth of the cannon "Watch out!" cried Henry. "That barrel's hot enough to fry you."

We kicked out the bonfire and raked dirt over the embers. Jeff ran up with the hose from the toolshed, and we sprayed water on the barrel until we figured it was cool enough to take a look inside.

Jeff handed Homer a flashlight. "We'll boost you up through the mouth, Homer. You snake inside and see what you find in the breech."

"I wish Dinky was here," said Homer. "This is his type of work."

"You scared?" asked Mortimer.

"How do I know what's in there?" Homer said. "I might run into an old body or something."

"You'll scare him more than he'll scare you, with that skinny frame of yours!" said Mortimer, as he grabbed Homer around the legs.

We all helped stuff Homer into the cannon, and he wriggled out of sight down the black bore. This was a fifteen-inch Rodman, so there was plenty of room for Homer. He could almost crawl on his hands and knees. We could hear him scraping his way along the barrel, and his voice boomed out with a hollow, echoing sound whenever he shouted something back to us. When he got all the way back to the breech he shouted like a maniac.

"I got the bag! But pull me out before I suffocate. It's hot as blazes in here!"

The sound of his voice boomed all the way down the valley, and we could hear it echo back from the hills across Strawberry Lake. Jeff and Mortimer pulled on the rope we had tied to one of Homer's feet and helped him shinny backward out of the bore. He was dirty and sweaty, but he was clutching the handle of a mildewed leather satchel that looked as if it was about to fall apart.

"Was there anything else back there?" asked Henry.

"Yes!" said Homer, rubbing his eyes and spitting through his teeth. "About a dozen old squirrels' nests and two thousand spiders."

We tried to open the leather satchel, but it was locked. Henry turned to Zeke Boniface, who was leaning against the barrel of the Rodman, choosing a fresh cigar butt from an assortment he had wrapped in a piece of cloth.

"You can open this, can't you, Zeke?"

Zeke looked a little offended, but he shuffled over to where we were squatting around the bag and probed with his fingers through the thick, matted hair over his right ear. From it he drew a sharp, pointed instrument about the size of a hairpin, with a right-angled hook on the end of it. He bent over the satchel and examined the small lock. Then he inserted the hook, and with two deft movements of his fingers the lock snapped open.