The Ypsilanti Daily Press

"Aggie" is the familiar name for Dr. Agamemnon Telemachus Plum, 34, professor of anthropology and a bachelor, whose Aunt Sarah, a marital matchmaker, has dragooned him into coming with her to Rainbow Lodge, the family summer home at Indian Stones. En route she promoted the charms of Beth Calder. Upon arrival, Aggie found a personal card: Henry H. Bogarty, impaled by a hunting knife on the front door frame. A telegram, signed "Hank," announced his coming visit "for a new grubstake"; it was received at the lodge earlier that day. He was an old friend of Sarah. "Jim" Calder, a broker, called on Sarah. After a brief clash with Aggie, he left. Old John, the family butler, told Aggie that Calder had lost lots of money for Indian Stones investors. The knife, left on the porch rail, is missing. Late that night, Aunt Sarah came to Aggie's room, obviously very ill, and he motored to Dr. George G. Davis at Medicine Lodge, nearby. The doctor's daughter, alluring Danielle, answered his knocks with lighted candles, explaining that the power system is out of order. She escorted Aggie to the garage where her father was working in his photographic dark room. Dr. Davis returned with Aggie. While the former was examining Sarah, Aggie from the porch saw a dog or fox. Soon Dr. Davis announced that Sarah must be quarantined because of the mumps. Next morning, Aggie calls on her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sarah was sitting in a mighty rocker, enveloped in the red kimono, and smoking a cigarette. "This," she said, looking at the cigarette, "makes me feel as if my jaws were full of hot wires. Mumps! Imagine it! Disgraceful!"

"You said something of the sort, early this A.M."

"Sit down, Aggie. Drink that coffee. I want you to summon your strength. I've got work for you."

"Good." he answered. "I mend pipes, spray flowers, build shelves, fix old rock walls, repair tools-"

"Not that kind of work. My grapevine's in operation and I need a field agent. A person can't snoop with-mumps!"

He chuckled and shook his head "For you, Sarah -anything but that. No espionage. You forget. I'm the original social mouse. I hate people. I would rather face a juramentado than a hostess."

"And what is that?"

A juramentado is a hopped-up holy man on a killing jab against infidels."

Sarah wrinkled her nose. "No matter. You can't let your favorite relative sit here sweating with curiosity day in and day out. My grapevine has already been working by telephone. By servants' murmurs, carried to me from Winnie and from Chillie. I have a host of inquiries in mind. Myriad things that must be known. Problems. Indian Stones is seething with enigmas."

He eyed her. "You're serious, aren't you? What enigmas?"

She cleared her throat. "Tell

John to bring me more coffee. Never mind. I'll yell." She yelled, and went on, "What did you think of Danielle Davis?"

"That she was the kind of woman about whom the less I thought, the better."

"Mmm. She was crazy about Bill Calder, once. At least, she led him along in a most sensational manner. Bill's married to Martha Drayman."

"Let me get this straight. Bill is the son of the evil-mannered Mr. Calder, who barged in here last night? Bill has a sister named Beth, whom I am supposed to marry and have children by? Right? How many children, incidentally? You carelessly forgot to let me know. And Danielle Davis, the menace type, once pursued the luckless Bill, or vice versa, but it came to nothing. Bill is now married to a girl with the nice name of Martha. A local belle, too, if she is one of the Draymans that I feebly remember."

Sarah nodded. "That's it. Well, it happens that I know that Danielle has been eating lunch in odd nooks here and there with Bill Calder-in New York-for some weeks, now. Danielle's not married. She doesn't come up here, as a rule. Makes the summer rounds -Newport-Maine-yaknow. But she's here this year for the season -and I'll bet that she's out to make trouble for Bill."

"Put it the nonfeminine way. Trouble for Martha. I daresay, wherever that copper-tinged blonde is, there's trouble."

"So" said Sarah, "I'll want you to keep tabs on Bill and Danielle. I want to know what they're doing. Danielle's headstrong and she's able, potentially, to ruin Bill and Martha's lives-"

"Why," he asked, accepting another cup of coffee from John, "do we wantonly barge into that private matter?"

"Because I got Martha and Bill married, and I propose to keep them married."

Aggie nodded as if the idea were acceptable to him. "What's the next on our list of meddling and peeking?"

"Next," she said, without being fazed, "is-what has happened to Hank Bogarty? He wired four of us. Jim Calder, George Davis, Byron Waite, and me. The wires were sent yesterday morning from Albany and delivered in the noon mail. Plenty of time for him to get here but he didn't. No one's seen him. He may have had an accident. I'm worried about him."

"I don't think he had an accident." Aggie said. He told Sarah about the knife and the calling card. After he had done so, he wished he had not. His aunt tried to dissemble the fact that she was now very much concerned with the absence of Mr. Bogarty. He could see her intelligent gray eyes alive with numerous speculations, the nature of which he could not guess. Her knitted red bedroom slippers tapped for a full minute. Finally she said,

"Hank belonged to a family that lived here long before your time. He went to Harvard for a year-- which was all he could stand. He was a cross between a sweetie-pie and a grizzly bear-even when he was a youngster. Loved the West. Jim Calder, Dr. Davis, Byron Waite and I-backed him on a prospecting trip-and he's lived in British Columbia ever since. You remember Byron Waite? You kids used to pester him-"

Aggie nodded. "Did Bogarty make out?"

"Ye-es," Sarah admitted. "Well enough. Very well, for years. He —he paid us all back, all right. And I guess he'll turn up. He was full of fun-and full of the devil too. He's the very kind of person who would stick his card on your door with a knife-to give you a shock- and to make sure you'd see it. He must have called shortly before our arrival last night-and I suppose John was out in the barn, or somewhere." She hesitated. "You're sure the knife was gone?"

"Yes. Certain. Do you think Calder took it? He probably did."

"I can't imagine why. He wouldn't know whose it was."

Aggie started. "Yes, he would- if he examined it when he passed it. The darned thing was monogrammed."

"With Hank's initials?" Sarah was excited.

Search me. I didn't look. I had the calling card-and I assumed the initials were the same.

"You're a big help." Sarah said. "For an archaeologist, you did fine! Aren't you supposed to observe things-and deduce from them?"

Aggie grinned. "I draw myself up with dignity," he answered. "I am a scientist not a Paul Pry. How was I to know you'd be 'playing house dick this morning? Ask the local cops to trace Bogarty's car. I assume he didn't come here on foot?"

"It's not that." she answered. "Jim Calder didn't go home last night. He hasn't showed up since."

Aggie felt a recrudescence of the prickling sensation he had experienced when he saw the knife in the door. The undue worry his aunt had shown, and the urgent behavior of Mr. Calder, began to take form. Something was happening that Sarah would not talk about. At least —that she had not talked about. He waited for her to go on.

"The Calder cottage," she said, "is being done over. Jim's room is finished-and he was there last night-and the night before-with Gannon, his butler. The rest of the Calders--Beth, and Bill and Martha -are at the Draymans' for the moment. That's Martha's mother's house. They didn't see their father last night. Gannon says, this morning, that Jim must have left the house after he'd gone to bed. He came over here, anyhow. What time was that?"

"Around eleven?"

"Maybe half past. He didn't sleep in his bed last night. He hasn't been seen since."

"And you think he picked up Mr. Bogarty's knife, walked off on our road toward his home, ran into Bogarty, attacked him, and that they both killed each other and hid each other's bodies?"

"I'm-worried-that's all."

(To be continued)

Copyright, 1943, by Philip Wylie; Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.