The Blue Herring Mystery (23 page)

“Mr. Boots is a wizard with carpenter tools,” Djuna said. “Could we see how he fixed the drawer?”

“Of course. Jimmy, take Djuna up and show him your room.”

Jimmy drank the last of his milk at a gulp. “Come on, Djuna!”

Jimmy’s room was a small square chamber at the front of the house upstairs above the terrace, with a large old-fashioned window looking out through the trees to the seventh fairway. “I can see the golf course from my window,” Jimmy pointed out.

The old chest stood against the lefthand wall of the room, beside Jimmy’s bed. Jimmy pulled the bottom drawer part way out. “You couldn’t even tell it was busted, could you?” The bottom of the drawer was smooth, flat, and whole once more.

Djuna pushed the drawer back in and examined the rest of the old chest with interest. “This is sure a neat piece of furniture,” he said with honest admiration, “even if it
is
old. Did you say it belonged to your great-great-grandfather?”

“It goes farther back than that,” said Grandma from the doorway. “The original Douglas who owned that chest bought it in Scotland over two hundred years ago. It kept being passed on from father to son after that till Jimmy’s great-great-grandfather, the first James Douglas—Jimmy is named after him—took it with him when he moved from Scotland to Malaya to be a rubber planter, more’n a hundred years ago. James’s son was named Robert, and he would have got the chest, too—he was next in line for it—except he died before his father did. Anyway, he got sick of living in the East, Robert Douglas did, and he came to America. That was Jimmy’s great-grandfather, the first
American
Douglas. Robert left the chest in Malaya with his father when he came to America, of course.”

“Is he the one who caddied for some King at St. Andrews Golf Club?” Djuna asked.

“Why, yes. Robert Douglas was
my
husband’s father.

He worked in a rubber factory here. He loved to play golf. He was just an amateur, of course. But he played every time he could, and finally died of pneumonia that he caught playing on a freezing winter’s day.”

“See?” Jimmy interjected. “All us Douglases have been golfers.”

“That’s pretty nearly right, Djuna,” Grandma confirmed. “My own husband, Angus, Robert’s son and Jimmy’s grandfather, was a greenskeeper at the Three Willows Club outside Philadelphia and made our living by tending a golf course. He was a fine player, too, up to the day he died. And of course, Jimmy’s father was practically born with a golf club in his hand. But here I start out to tell you about that old chest.” she said, “and I get all mixed up in our family history instead.”

“How did the chest get to America if Jimmy’s great-grandfather left it in Malaya with
his
father when he came to America?” Djuna inquired. He ran a finger over the chest’s polished top.

“Well, as I told you, Robert Douglas died here in America before his father did in Malaya. So that made my husband Angus, Robert’s son, the only male Douglas left when old James died in Malaya back in 1927. When they settled up James’s estate, his second wife just crated up that old chest and a couple of golf trophies Robert had left behind, and sent them to my husband. She sent a letter, too, saying that’s what her husband told her to do in his will—to send the Douglas chest and the golf trophies to his grandson in America. That’s how the chest got here. It really belongs to Jimmy’s father now, of course, but he’s given it to Jimmy to use.”

“Then Champ could have caused an awful accident yesterday,” Djuna said. “This chest must be valuable if it’s as old as that.”

“I suppose it is,” said Grandma indifferently, “but it’s been in the family so long we wouldn’t dream of selling it.”

Jimmy looked out the window. “It’s still raining,” he said. “Say Djuna, do you want to see the golf trophies the Douglases have won?”

“Could I?”

“The trophies aren’t unpacked yet,” said Grandma.

“They’re in one of those cartoons in the hall downstairs,” Jimmy said. “You
said
you wanted us to help you unpack and move stuff.”

Grandma laughed. “All right.”

Jimmy winked at Djuna. “She’s as crazy about golf as I am,” he whispered.

On the ground floor, Jimmy selected a large carton from the stack in the hall, and began to empty it of its contents. Djuna took each item from Jimmy as it was unpacked and placed it on the floor.

There were fourteen items in the collection, most of them silver cups of various sizes. Reading the inscriptions, Djuna saw that they had been won for golf performances of all kinds, from a sectional junior championship won by Jimmy’s grandfather, Angus Douglas, as a boy, to a state amateur championship won by Jimmy’s father before he turned professional.

Jimmy handed Djuna a small cup, tarnished almost black. “Here’s the oldest one,” he explained. “My great-grandfather won that when he was in school in Scotland. Look, it says, ‘Robert Douglas, Intramural Golf Champion, St. Albans School.’ And here’s a nifty one, Djuna.” He brought from the carton a trophy that consisted of an age-darkened golf ball mounted on the bunched fingers of a roughly carved wooden hand.

“What’s that?” Djuna asked, fascinated.

“Remember Pop told you my great-grandfather caddied for King Edward at St. Andrews? Well, the King gave my grandfather the ball he played with for a souvenir. That’s it, right there. It was a guttie ball.”

Djuna read the inscription on the brass plate that was screwed to the trophy’s wooden pedestal. “Golf ball used by H.R.H. Edward, Prince of Wales, at St. Andrews, Scotland, July 12, 1895.”

“Your great-grandfather Robert was proud of that one,” Grandma said. “He carved the wooden hand to hold the ball himself, my husband told me. But when he came to America, he left it behind with the chest and everything else.’

“It was pretty nice of that lady in Malaya to send it to you when she sent the chest,” Djuna said.

Grandma said with a touch of regret in her voice, “An old chest and a couple of golf souvenirs. Not much of an inheritance, is it, Jimmy?”

“It’s a swell inheritance!” Jimmy said. “I’d rather have these golf trophies than almost anything.”

“I wouldn’t,” retorted Grandma. “I’d rather have the King’s Talisman.”

Jimmy looked puzzled. “What’s a talisman, Grandma?”

“Oh, it’s a kind of good-luck piece, you might say.” Grandma suddenly turned away and started for the kitchen. “Goodness, I haven’t even cleared up the lunch dishes.”

Jimmy and Djuna trailed after her. Stubbornly, as he and Djuna began to dry the dishes, Jimmy said, “What did you mean about that King’s Talisman, Grandma? Why would you rather have that than my great-grandfather’s guttie ball and the trophies?”

“Because the King’s Talisman was worth something, that’s why! It belonged to the Douglases for hundreds of years, too, just like the chest … and then it got itself stolen in Malaya. Or at least, it disappeared there. Anyway, if you had the King’s Talisman, Jimmy, instead of that old golf ball, you’d be rich. Well, there’s no use crying over spilt milk or lost jewelry.”

Djuna rubbed a plate dry with his towel. “Jewelry?” he asked. “Was the King’s Talisman jewelry, Grandma?”

“Yes. It was a jewel that King Henry VIII of England wore for luck, they say, when he was having trouble with the Pope about divorcing one of his wives.”

“Who was Henry VIII? When did he live? Did he have more than one wife?” Jimmy asked.

Grandma laughed. “He had six before he was through, Jimmy. He was king of England ’way back in the sixteenth century, and claimed to be king of Scotland, too. Except Scotland wouldn’t agree to that and had it own king, James V, at the time.”

Djuna was listening breathlessly. “What was the King’s Talisman like, Grandma, do you know? And how did it happen to belong to the Douglas family if the king owned it?”

“Well,” Grandma said, rinsing off a tumbler, “from what my husband’s father used to say, the King’s Talisman was shaped like an oak leaf. And all around its edges were diamonds, outlining the leaf, maybe fifty or sixty altogether. Then, right in the middle of the gold leaf, inside the diamond border, there was a big emerald. You know what an emerald is?”

“It’s green,” Djuna said, “and costs an awful lot.”

“That’s right. Well, the emerald in the King’s Talisman was pretty big, and a perfect color and flawless. So the whole gold, diamond, and emerald leaf was worth a lot of money even in those days.” Grandma paused, then went on. “An ancestor of yours, Jimmy, a fellow named Allen Douglas, was at the English court then. And one day King Henry VIII send this Allen Douglas—who was a Scotsman, of course—on a mission to King James, trying to get the Scottish king over on Henry’s side in his argument with the Pope. And he gave this Allen Douglas his good-luck piece, the King’s Talisman, as a present for doing the mission. That’s how the King’s Talisman came to belong to the Douglases.”

“Did Allen Douglas’s mission to the Scotch king turn out all right?” Djuna asked.

Grandma smiled. “No, it was a failure. Anyway, the King’s Talisman was passed on from Douglas father to son for generations and became a family heirloom, like that old chest upstairs, except much more valuable. And if the Talisman hadn’t been stolen in Malaya from old James Douglas, your great-great-grandfather, Jimmy, you’d inherit it yourself some day. That’s why I said I’d rather have the King’s Talisman than the trophies.”

Jimmy said, “I’d rather have the King’s golf ball any old time. Wouldn’t you, Djuna?”

Djuna shook his head. “I don’t know, Jimmy, that King’s Talisman sounds awfully important. What happened to it in Malaya, Grandma?”

“Nobody knows for sure. Old James intended to hand it on to his son, but then Robert died here in America before his father did in Malaya. My husband, Robert’s son, expected eventually to inherit the talisman; but in that letter James Douglas’s second wife wrote after my husband got the chest from her, she said she’d been away from home when her husband died, visiting friends on another plantation, and when she got home, her husband was dead and the bungalow where they lived looked as if a cyclone had hit it, it was so torn apart. Somebody had been searching it. So thieves must have heard about the King’s Talisman being in Malaya, and robbed James Douglas of it while she was away.”

“You said her husband was dead when she got home,” Djuna said thoughtfully. “Did the robbers kill him?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Grandma said. “He died peacefully enough. There weren’t any marks of violence on
him
. Just the house and all the furniture and beds and things.”

Grandma wiped her hands and turned from the sink.
“That’s
done. Will you come move the living-room sofa, boys? It’s not centered under the window. Those movers yesterday didn’t listen to a word I said!”

She bustled out, the boys trailing along. Jimmy said to Djuna, “ If that King’s Talisman hadn’t been stolen, and
I’d
got it some day, Djuna, you know what I’d do?”

“What?”

“I’d sell it and buy the best set of matched golf clubs in the world,” said Jimmy. “Who needs an old leaf made out of gold and diamonds and stuff!”

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