The Golden Eagle Mystery (21 page)

“And then I got to thinking about Doctor Holder. Aunt Patty said her mother and father liked Doctor Holder an awful lot, just as if he was their own son, before she was born. After they died, he took care of the nest egg for her until she got married to Mr. Tubbs. He didn’t like Mr. Tubbs, and when he took the money back to Aunt Patty, he buried it in the fireplace for her, just where her father had kept it. He wrote a letter to Mr. Tubbs and said, ‘I have put the nest egg where it belongs,’ and told Mr. Tubbs to keep it there. Mr. Tubbs got mad, and wrote a letter to Doctor Holder and told him to mind his own business, and was going to mail the letter to him, but Aunt Patty wouldn’t let him.

“Mr. Tubbs dug up the nest egg, just the same. He said in the letter, ‘I have cleaned out the eagles’ nest.’ Of course he didn’t say in the letter where he was going to put the eagles. But when I asked Aunt Patty what had become of the stone, she said Mr. Tubbs had taken it over to his cabin on this island. He tried to get her to come and live over here, with him, but she wouldn’t. So after that he climbed up the pine tree to the eagles’ nest and fell off and broke his neck.

“I think Aunt Patty is awful nice about Mr. Tubbs. She knows he took the nest egg, so she says she never had any nest egg. She knows he wrote that letter to Doctor Holder, but she says somebody else must have written it. You know what I think? I think that next to Miss Annie Ellery she’s the nicest person there is!

“Well, anyway, the day that the stone egg got stolen out of my bureau drawer was the same day that Aunt Patty’s wooden darning egg got stolen. The front door was open, and nobody was home, not even my dog Champ. There’s a gray squirrel that lives in a tree right next door. It came into the front room and found that darning egg on the floor and carried it off. Champ and I found the darning egg a couple of days after that, lying on the ground, under the tree. It had squirrel teeth marks on it.

“But the squirrel couldn’t have gone upstairs and opened my bureau drawer and carried off the stone egg.

“Aunt Patty said four people came to see her that morning, one at a time. One was Mr. Truelove, one was Captain Atterbury, one was Billy’s cousin Emmy, and one was a junk man who wanted to buy old paper. Well, afterwards I told Billy that a junk man came to buy old paper, and he said there isn’t any junk man in Stony Harbor.

“The next time I heard about the junk man was when I was looking at Emmy’s stamp catalog. She said a man came and asked her mother is she had any old paper to sell. He gave her the stamp catalog. His name was printed right on the catalog. It said, ‘Julius L. Patina, Dealer in Rare Stamps and Coins, Hoboken, N. J., U. S. A.’”

“Patina!” exclaimed the Coast Guard officer. “That’s the man we just arrested?”

“That’s the man,” said Djuna. “The first time I ever saw him was the day after I came to Stony Harbor. He was talking to Mr. Phinny Truelove, in Mr. Truelove’s store. He bought overalls for two dollars and twenty-three cents and gave Mr. Truelove a twenty-dollar bill. Mr. Truelove counted out the change. He gave him a five-dollar bill and two one-dollar bills, and a quarter, and two pennies, and a half-dollar, and another half-dollar that was the same color as a new penny. At least, I
thought
it was a half-dollar.”

“A gold eagle!” exclaimed Billy. “Was that what it was?”

“I guess so,” said Djuna. “I guess Mr. Patina kept it. Well, anyway, he stayed at the Harbor House, and he went around asking everybody if they had any old junk up in their attics to sell, and pretending he was a junk man. I guess what he was looking for was old postage stamps, on old letters, because Stony Harbor is an awful old town. I saw him talking to Harvey Bohnett and Bonehead one day, but I didn’t think anything about it, then. And all the time he was trying to find out where there were some more gold eagles, but, of course, I never thought of that until I saw that book he gave Emmy. And then there was hardly any time left. They had already tried to find out if Mr. Tubbs had hidden them on board of the
Patagonia
. The next place they would look would be here in this cabin where Mr. Tubbs used to live. There wasn’t any time to lose. I thought Billy and I could get over here and get home again before they came, but they got here too quick. When Mr. Patina came in, I was so scared that the only thing I could think of was to tell him we had found the eagles’ nest on Haypenny Island, and he was so greedy that he never stopped to ask questions. Gee, it certainly was lucky!”

“What do you mean, ‘lucky’?” said the bos’n’s mate, admiringly. “I know better!
You
don’t have to depend on luck. You just think faster than the other fellow, that’s all! But, say, didn’t you find the treasure before they got here?”

“Of course,” said Djuna. “But I didn’t have time to count them. I’d just got them dug up when Bonehead came.”

“For Pete’s sake!” said Billy, “are they still right there where anybody can see them?”

“Come on, I’ll show you,” said Djuna, jumping up. He led the way into the cabin and pointed toward the fireplace. Billy and the Coast Guard officer stared at it.

“Where?” said Billy. “I don’t see anything except that old kettle full of clam shells.”

“Well, that’s all that Bonehead saw,” said Djuna. “I dumped the clam shells in there just before he came in.”

The bos’n’s mate stared at it, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me any more, Admiral,” he said hoarsely. “That’s wampum!”

“Let’s take it to Aunt Patty just like this!” said Billy. “Shall we?”

“Oh, gee, that’s a swell idea!” said Djuna. “Boy, will she be surprised!”

“You don’t mind if I come along, do you?” asked the bos’n’s mate respectfully. “The wife will be sore if I don’t give her the final bulletin.”

“Oh, sure!” said Djuna, eagerly.

In a few minutes the Coast Guard launch came into sight towing Billy’s boat behind it, and Billy and Djuna carried the rusty old iron kettle down to the rickety wharf, between them, because it was pretty heavy. The Coast Guard crew helped them lift it into the launch. The bos’n’s mate remembered to bring the spade along, and they all got into the launch.

“Excuse me, chief,” said one of the crew, touching his cap to Djuna. “That black-haired guy, that Patina guy, he asked me to give you this. He said to tell you he was sorry he ever took it.”

He handed Djuna the spotted stone egg with the eagle’s claw on it.

“Oh, thanks very much,” said Djuna. “I was pretty sure he took it, when Doctor Holder said a man had been asking him about eagles. So I asked Mr. Primrose, he’s a colored man that works at the Harbor House, and he said he had seen it in Mr. Patina’s room, but we didn’t have time to get it, then.”

The bos’n’s mate took the launch around to Haypenny Island and left two of his men there, with orders to bring the Bohnetts’ boat to the Coast Guard station as soon as the tide came in. Then they headed for Stony Harbor, still towing Billy’s boat, and in half an hour they had reached the wharf at Billy’s house. They tied the launch and Billy’s boat at the landing float and went ashore. The first person they saw was Billy’s father, who had just finished mending and painting Aunt Patty’s boat, the
Patagonia
. When he looked up and saw Billy and Djuna coming towards him, stumbling along with the heavy kettle between them, and four Coast Guard men in uniform marching behind them, he nearly dropped the paint pot in his astonishment.

“Hey, dad, come on!” yelled Billy. “We’re all going to Aunt Patty’s!”

Captain Reckless put down the paint pot and hurried over to ask the bos’n’s mate what the boys were up to. The bos’n’s mate laughed, and asked him to come along and see, so Captain Reckless came along.

Billy’s mother stuck her head out of the door and nearly fell off the porch.

“Come on, Mom!” yelled Billy. “We’re all going to Aunt Patty’s!”

Emmy and her mother came running out of their house.

“Hey, Emmy, come on over to Aunt Patty’s as quick as you can!” yelled Djuna.

Emmy and her mother hurried to catch up with the procession.

When they went past the Harbor House, Mr. Primrose, the colored man, woke up out of a sound sleep and joined the crowd.

Mr. Steptoe, the fish-store man, saw them coming and yelled across the fence to Mr. Phinny Truelove, who was sitting in the shade in front of his store.

Mr. Truelove shouted to old Mr. Jackson the fisherman, who was mending a net on the next wharf, and Mr. Jackson limped up to join the crowd as fast as he could.

By the time they got to Aunt Patty’s back door, there was hardly room for everybody in the little back yard. Billy and Djuna put the kettle down on the garden path. The path was made out of clam shells; all the garden paths in Stony Harbor were made out of clam shells. Djuna unfastened the woodshed door and let Champ out. Champ ran around and around, barking so hard that he shook all over.

Djuna dashed into the house and ran into the front room and almost bumped into Aunt Patty, who had just got up from her chair and was coming to see what the noise was about.

“Djuna, where
have
you been?” said Aunt Patty. “You haven’t had any lunch! But I’ve saved some for you. Wait, I’ll get it right away! But what on earth is all that noise out there?”

Djuna pulled her toward the kitchen door and threw it open. “Come on, Aunt Patty,” he whispered, “you’ve got some callers!”

As she got to the door, they all cheered. “Hurrah for Aunt Patty!” they shouted. “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”

Aunt Patty turned pale and put her hand on the door. “Merciful goodness!” she gasped. “What’s this all about?”

Djuna and Billy, standing side by side in front of her, were trying hard not to laugh at the joke they had planned.

“Now, watch us, Aunt Patty!” said Djuna. “We brought some clam shells to fix the path with! Look!”

They both bowed to her, very solemnly, and then lifted the old iron kettle and spilled the clam shells out on the path. The last thing to fall out was a small wooden box, resting on top of the heap of shells. Djuna bent over and lifted it. Small as the box was, it was so heavy that he could lift it only with both hands.

“Why, for Pete’s sake!” exclaimed Billy, pretending to be terribly surprised. “What’s that?”

“Surprise!” yelled Djuna. “Surprise! Chickens come home to roost, and eagles come home to nest! This is for
you
, Aunt Patty!”

He got as far as the kitchen table, and the heavy little box slipped out of his hands. It burst. Showers of gold, rockets of gold, cascades of gold, jumped and streamed and flashed and gleamed everywhere, spreading over the table and ringing to the floor like a musical rain.

Aunt Patty picked up one of the golden disks. She looked at it. She put it down and clasped her hands.

“Djuna,” she said in a trembling voice, “go down to Phinny Truelove’s store and buy all the ice cream he’s got! I’m going to give a party!”

When all the gold eagles had been picked up, and counted, and stacked on the table in neat piles, and everybody was sitting around, eating ice cream in different flavors, and Champ had been given a special bone to take out to the woodshed, Djuna winked at Billy and nodded toward the door, and the two boys quietly slid out without being noticed. After they got around the corner of the house, Djuna walked on for a little way without saying anything. He looked worried.

“Look,” he said finally, “I got a letter from Miss Annie Ellery this morning. She says she wants me to come back to Edenboro.”

“Gee!” said Billy. They walked on for a while in silence.

“I wish I could stay all summer,” said Djuna.

“So do I,” said Billy. “Maybe you can come back.”

“Well, maybe I can,” said Djuna hopefully. There was another silence.

After a while Billy sighed.

“Gee,” he said, “Alberto’s going to miss Champ a lot!”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Ellery Queen Jr. Mystery Stories

T
HE BOY NAMED
D
JUNA
was grinning to himself as he walked across the tree-shaded Square. Over his shoulder was slung the small wooden box in which he carried the two kinds of shoe polish, tan and black, the shoebrushes, and the strips of cloth with which to put on the final glossiness.

He was grinning because never before had he shined anyone’s shoes except his own. And now he was looking for his first customer. It was a little exciting.