The Purple Bird Mystery (19 page)

“That was my husband,” Grandma said softly.

Morell nodded. “By the time I started trying to locate him for Swift, Mrs. Douglas, your husband of course had been dead for years. But it was a cinch to find
you
three Douglases at the Three Willows Club. I wrote Swift in Scotland and told him his man was dead, but I’d found the surviving members of the family. Swift wrote back and offered me more money to find out for him if there was an antique chest in your home. He sent me a description of it.”

“My chest!” Jimmy piped.

“That’s the one, Jimmy,” Morell continued. “I verified that you had the chest and so notified Swift. This was when you’d just decided to change jobs, Mr. Douglas. I found out you were moving to Edenboro, to become the pro at Fieldcrest. I told Swift that, too, and he instructed me to go to Edenboro, establish myself, and be here when you arrived. Swift also told me to keep a sharp eye on that chest and on
you
until he arrived. He said he was coming to America personally and would join me in Edenboro in a couple of weeks.”

“So you got a job as caddy at Fieldcrest?”

“Yes, Sergeant. It seemed as good a cover as any. And when these two boys started to caddy, it was better than ever. Kept me in direct touch.”

“Did you get the impression this Swift was coming to the States with the definite purpose of investigating Mr. Douglas’s chest?”

“Yes, he said so. But until he actually got here and I met him, I thought everything was legit. Swift said he was going to buy the chest if he could. And he did try to, I’ll say that for him. Didn’t he, Mrs. Douglas? He’d had a few business cards printed up in Scotland before he came over, representing him as an antique dealer from Philadelphia. He was sure you would fall for the antique dealer gag and sell him the chest, because I’d told him you weren’t well off.”

“But we wouldn’t sell,” Grandma stated with satisfaction.

“That’s when I got in too deep,” Morell sighed. “When you wouldn’t sell Swift the chest, I could tell he wasn’t going to quit trying—he was going to get the chest by hook or crook. And I turned out to be the hook
and
the crook, worse luck!”

Mr. Martin, who had been listening closely, said, “So you
were
the burglar in Jimmy’s bedroom this afternoon?”

“That was me,” Joe nodded glumly. “You see, as soon as I told Swift about Djuna’s telephone call to Philadelphia….”

“You heard it?” Djuna asked, startled.

“Sure, I was outside the caddy-house window. I heard you asking somebody to check up on Swift.”

“We thought you’d gone home,” Jimmy said accusingly.

“No, but I did find Swift right away and tell him he couldn’t fool around trying to buy your chest much longer, because by tomorrow you were all going to know he wasn’t a real antique dealer from Philly. So Swift sent me right off to your house, Jimmy, to search your chest for the Talisman. I knew you and your father and Djuna were at the Club, and Mrs. Douglas was away marketing.”

“How’d you know about Grandma being out?” asked Jimmy.

“I heard you telling Jonas this morning at the caddy-house.”

“Oh.” Jimmy sounded crestfallen.

“I let Swift talk me into searching the chest,” Morell went on. “What a sucker I was! … I’d already found out there was nothing hidden in the chest when Mr. Martin rang the doorbell. I zipped down and out the back door after shoving the drawers back in the chest. By the time you and the kids came in, Mr. Martin, I was out.”

“And hid in the woods?” Djuna said. “Until you saw Jimmy and me find those boards in the rubbish barrel? That’s why you said the lady had lost her golf club—to give you an excuse to come out and see what was written on the bottom of that broken drawer.”

Socker Furlong groaned. He was scribbling furiously on a thick wad of copy paper he always carried in his pocket. “I’ve got to get a lot clearer story than this before old Canavan will use it in the
Morning Bugle
!
”

“Well,” Djuna explained, “when Joe was searching the chest, he saw the inscription, or part of it. And he knew the bottom drawer had been broken, and heard me offering to have Mr. Boots fix it. Remember, Joe and Mr. Martin were there when we broke the drawer, Jimmy? So Joe figured the inscription might be important to Mr. Swift, since no Talisman was hidden in the chest. And after he saw what was written on the boards from the trash barrel, he
still
didn’t have the whole inscription. The last word was on the scrap of drawer bottom that Champ found at Mr. Boots’s shop. So when Joe told Mr. Swift about the unfinished inscription….”

Jimmy broke in eagerly, “Mr. Swift tried to get the other part from Mr. Boots, but Mr. Boots told him Champ had it! And that’s why Mr. Swift knocked out Champ—to steal his piece of the board!”

Socker hit himself on the forehead with a clenched hand. “Did I say clear? Now I’m more confused than ever!”

“Is that substantially what happened?” the sergeant asked Joe Morell.

“That’s it exactly,” Morell said.

“Did you know what it was Swift was looking for?”

“Not at first. But when he arrived in Edenboro and we made our plans to try to buy the chest from Mr. Douglas, he told me about it.”

“Excuse me,” Djuna interrupted. “Did he have that tigerskin book in his briefcase when Champ grabbed it in his car?”

“Yes. And he was so upset for fear Champ’s reaction would make you wonder what was in the briefcase, that he lost his temper, he told me.”

“He sure did!” This was Jimmy.

“And was it
you
who whistled to Mr. Swift outside Mrs. Carstairs’s house, Joe?” Djuna asked before Sergeant Scott could resume the questioning.

“Yeah. I’ve really been living in Mrs. Carstairs’s barn behind her house since Swift arrived,” Joe said. “The Brookville address was a phony. I reported to Swift each night when I got home from the Club. I didn’t know he had company last night when you heard my whistle.”

The sergeant, impatient with these details, said, “Did Swift tell you how he happened to learn about the King’s Talisman, Morell? And how he happened to know it might be in the Douglases’ chest?”

“It isn’t in the chest!” Djuna broke in, sitting forward. “There’s nothing but the inscription in the chest.”

He gulped when Sergeant Scott turned a cold eye on him. “I’d gathered that, son,” he said, and turned to Morell. “Well?”

“‘Anthony Swift’ is an alias. Swift’s real name is Charles Douglas.”

“Douglas
!
Jimmy’s father exclaimed in astonishment.

And Djuna cried, “Then that’s why the initials on his briefcase were C.D.!”

“Yes.” Morell seemed anxious to make a clean breast of everything he knew about his former client. “He claims he’s a distant relative of yours, Mr. Douglas—another branch of the family. His branch never had anything to do with the King’s Talisman, but they knew all about it. And they were envious. However, Charles Douglas—”

“Call him Swift,” the sergeant complained. “I want to keep this straight.”

“Okay. Swift told me he believed, like everybody else, that the King’s Talisman had been stolen or lost in Malaya away back when. Until he happened to run across an old book in Scotland.”

“The tigerskin diary,” Djuna murmured.

Morell didn’t hear him. “Swift isn’t an antique dealer, but he
is a
book dealer. Buys up old libraries from estates and re-sells them, that kind of thing. Well, in a collection of old books he bought last year, he accidentally acquired that thing bound in tigerskin. And in reading through it for appraisal purposes, he found evidence that the book had belonged to James Douglas, his own relative, in Malaya. And he also found reference to the King’s Talisman and an old chest.”

“The last entry in the diary!” Djuna said.

“I never saw it,” Morell said. “Swift kept it to himself. Guarded that smelly diary like it was pure gold.” He grinned. “Even from Champ. But he told me he’d had private detectives locate the wife of this James Douglas who had written the diary. She’s a very old lady. After his death, she’d settled things up in Malaya, sold off their plantation, furnishings, and books, and moved back to Scotland, her original home. She’s still alive—married again. Anyway, Swift found her and talked to her, and she put him—all innocently—on the trail of your chest, Jimmy. She told him she’d sent the old chest to America, to her husband’s grandson.”

“But why did he think the Talisman was in it?”

“Because it proved to Swift that James Douglas hadn’t
burned
the chest, as the diary indicated, but had sent it to the United States. And he figured there could be only one reason for that—to pass along the Talisman.”

Djuna was longing to interrupt and explain what he knew about that, but he was more anxious to hear what else Morell had to say about Swift, so he didn’t say anything.

Morell went on, “Swift was sure the Talisman was in the chest, and he was going to recover it for himself. And that’s what he’s been trying to do.”

Mr. Douglas was looking very thoughtful. “I could forgive him for that,” he said, “if only because he’s a Douglas and thinks his branch of the family is entitled to the Talisman. But to do it this way! And I’ll never forgive him for the way he treated my mother and these youngsters today!” He looked hard at Morell. “Anything more you know about him?”

“That’s it. Except when he finally figured out the inscription today, he got awfully excited and said we were going to find the Talisman after all, because the inscription told where it was.”

“In the purple bird?” Sergeant Scott asked sarcastically.

“In the purple bird. Whatever that is.”

“He had no idea what the purple bird might be?”

“Not the foggiest. He decided the only way to find out was to ask Mrs. Douglas. And she didn’t know.” Morell turned a penetrating eye on Djuna. “But you know what I think? I think this kid here knows all about it.”

“Djuna?” Socker looked up from his notes. “I could have told you that.”

“He’s a better detective than I am, that’s for sure,” Morell said wryly. “Anyway, that’s all I know about Swift, Sergeant. Except one thing. That I’d never have got mixed up with him if I’d known he would get rough. I can stomach a little house-breaking and general cussedness without losing much sleep, but getting rough with women and kids—that’s not for me. I hope you believe me when I say I’m sorry.” He looked at Grandma, then at Djuna and Jimmy.

“We believe you,” Grandma said.

“Sure we do!” Jimmy’s loyalty was in his voice. “And thanks for the tips on caddying, Joe. Even if you aren’t a very good detective, you’re a great caddy!”

“Take him back to his cell,” said the Sergeant.

Joe Morell went out with Cannonball, his shoulders sagging.

Mr. Douglas said, “Djuna, I can’t conceive how you found out, but would you care to explain? The Douglases are inclined to be good at golf but bad at puzzles, I’m afraid. Anyway, I never heard of the purple bird in my life until this afternoon!”

“Gee, Mr. Douglas,” Djuna said, “I’m not sure I know anything really important about the inscription. It’s just because I’m the only one who saw the entry in Mr. Swift’s diary that I was able to connect the King’s Talisman and the chest and Mr. Swift.”

“Whoa! Whoa!” Socker broke in, waving at Djuna. “Let’s take it easy now, shall we, for the sake of poor old Socker? Chests, inscriptions, purple birds, Talismans—please, Djuna, make some sense out of it for me, will you?”

“And for me, too,” the sergeant said, glancing at the wall-clock.

“Well,” said Djuna, “maybe I’d better tell it in order. At first, the diary entry didn’t mean a thing to me except that something exciting had happened a long time ago. But then I noticed that the diary mentioned an old chest; and all of a sudden, it began to seem funny to me that Mr. Swift, who owned the tigerskin book, had just that very afternoon tried to buy an old chest from Jimmy’s grandmother. And for an awful lot of money.”

“Then what?” asked the sergeant, again glancing at the clock. Evidently his chow-time had come and gone.

“Then I noticed that a necklace was mentioned in the diary entry,” Djuna continued, “a valuable one, because somebody was trying to steal it from whoever wrote the diary. And Grandma had just told me at lunch time about the King’s Talisman, an heirloom in the Douglas family. And
that
was awfully valuable and had been lost or stolen in Malaya. And there are tigers in Malaya, and that old diary was bound in tigerskin! So there was another possible connection between the diary and the Douglases.”

“Gosh, you never told
me
about any of that stuff,” said Jimmy accusingly.

“I didn’t really think it meant anything,” Djuna told his friend. “I’m always dreaming up mysteries, and half the time it’s just a dream.”

“We know, we know,” Socker interrupted. “So you had a hunch there might be some connection between Jimmy’s chest and the diary and Mr. Swift?”

Djuna nodded. “But I thought I was wrong, you see, because the diary talked about
burning
the chest. If it had been burned, it couldn’t be Jimmy’s chest.”

“When did you change your mind about that?” asked Sergeant Scott.

“After we found the inscription. And when Jimmy and I had a sundae this afternoon in Evans’s Drug Store.”

Socker scowled. “There’s a sensible answer for you! Djuna, my young genius, what in the name of all that’s wonderful has an ice cream sundae in Evans’s Drug Store got to do with Jimmy’s chest? Will you kindly tell me that? In words of one syllable?”

Djuna laughed. “I guess it does sound crazy, Socker. But while Jimmy and I were eating our sundaes, Mr. Evans bawled out a fellow for burning his table top with cigarettes. And all of a sudden I thought maybe
that’s
what it meant in the diary when it talked about ‘burning’ a chest—burning
writing
into it some way, like the letters on Champ’s board and the inscription on the drawers.”

“Ah,” said Sergeant Scott, impressed. “Good thinking, son. Go on.”

“Well, on the way into Brookville to find out about Mr. Martin,” Djuna said, glancing at the lawyer, “Jimmy and I tried substituting various words in the inscription to see if they’d make sense. And accidentally, I tried a word that
did
make sense.”