The Mystery on the Mississippi Read online

  “It’s a deal!” Jim said, and he counted out the price of admission for all of them.

  A guide was just starting down one of the long corridors with a group of, sightseers. Lem ignored him and beckoned to the Bob-Whites. “Come over this way.”

  “This here’s Aladdin’s Palace,” he told them as they entered a huge cathedral-shaped room hung with glittering stalactites. Its walls were frescoed in candle smoke, with the names and addresses of thousands of visitors. In the far end of the big room, a miniature Niagara cascaded from a small spring that crept in between layers of limestone. Lem took his candle and walked back of it, illuminating it just as Tom Sawyer had done to impress Becky.

  All around them, bats flew in and out around the thick columns of crystal stalagmites. Honey cringed, remembering the bats in the frightening Ozark cave they had visited the summer before.

  “This here’s the bench where Tom an’ Becky sat when their candles give out an’ they almost starved to death,” Lem said. “They don’t let everybody in here now. They used to, but people got lost. I wish they’d never put all them electric lights around. A long time ago, we used to really have fun here. Want to see some more?”

  “No,” Honey and Trixie said in one breath.

  “It’s the bats,” Honey added. “They scare me. Missouri must have a lot of caves. We saw so many of them in the Ozarks.”

  “The state’s chuck-full of ’em,” Lem said proudly. “Now, I could show you another about a mile from here. Nobody owns it, an’ we go as far in as we want.”

  “I guess not, thanks,” Jim told him. “We haven’t too much time to spend in Hannibal. Right now, I guess we’d better go and get something to eat.”

  Disappointed, Lem apparently didn’t think he’d earned the ticket they had paid for at the cave entrance. “Shucks, you’d have to stay a month to really see anything. Tell you what. I got an idea. How’d you like to go over to Jackson’s Island and build a bonfire and cook our lunch? I got a raft right down in the willows. We can cross over in a jiffy. I do it all the time. When we get there,’ we can catch us some fish. My raft’s got pontoons on it,” he added proudly. “It can carry an army.”

  “Hooray!” Mart shouted. “We can stop at a grocery store and get some stuff.”

  “Just bread an’ eggs an’ maybe some bacon to sop the bread in,” Lem said. “I got me a fryin’ pan over there, an’ some tin cups. There’s a spring nearby, I mean nearby where I’m goin’ to take you. How about it?”

  “Let’s go!” Brian shouted. They all piled into the car.

  “Don’t you think we’d better at least drive by Tom Sawyer’s house?” Dan asked.

  “And Becky Thatcher’s?” Trixie added. “And the famous fence?”

  “That’s the house right over there.” Lem pointed it out. “That’s the museum next to it, with a whole lot of things from Mark Twain’s day, like a big paddle wheel from a steamboat.” Lem’s eyes glowed. “An’ right alongside of the museum, you can see the fence Tom Sawyer whitewashed... right there... ain’t it white, gleamin’ in the sun? They whitewash it twice a year.”

  Trixie gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “What’s the matter?” Jim asked, slowing the car. “Did you see someone?”

  “No,” Trixie said soberly, “it’s the teeth. Don’t you see? It’s the teeth!”

  “Have you lost your marbles?” Mart asked, leaning over from his perch in back. “What do you mean by ‘teeth’?”

  “That drawing we thought looked like teeth on that map of the Mississippi River. That map Lontard seemed so worried about. Why didn’t we know it was a fence instead of teeth? That fence is the most famous thing in this town, I guess.”

  “It really is, Trixie.” Mart whistled. “My, but you’re smart. Out in the river, beyond the fence, there was a sketch of an island.”

  “Jackson’s Island!” Brian snapped his fingers. “Golly!” Mart said admiringly. “We’ve just got to get over there now.”

  Trixie nodded vigorously. “I honestly believe we’re on the trail at last. The fence and the island were the topmost sketches on that map of the river. That could mean it’s the end of the trail.”

  “Or the beginning,” Jim said.

  “If we get over there, we may find out,” Mart said. “What’s holding us up? Let’s get to a grocery store and then to the raft!”

  Without even a thought of the promise they had made to the authorities, they piled onto the big old raft. It was hidden among the willows at the foot of a street that led to the river’s bank.

  Lem pushed off, jumped onto the middle of the raft, and grabbed a long pole. Mart, grinning from ear to ear, took the pole on the other side.

  “I ain’t had so much fun in a long time,” Lem said. “We’ll fry us some fish an’ fry us some bacon an’.... Say, hanged if I know what you meant when you was talkin’ about teeth.”

  “Forget it!” Mart said. He poled manfully as Lem guided the raft skillfully across the river and up onto the white, sandy, island beach, where he fastened it to an oak stump.

  “You gather up some wood,” he ordered, “an’ I’ll get a mess of fish. Start fryin’ up the bacon, girls,” he called back as he disappeared into marshy underbrush.

  For an hour, the Bob-Whites lived in a world of pioneers. The island was deserted. It was as primitive as it had been when Tom Sawyer (The Black Avenger), Huckleberry Finn (The Red-Handed), and their friend Joe Harper (The Terror of the Seas) had walked its sandy shore.

  After they had scoured a long-handled skillet with river sand, Honey and Trixie fried thick bacon and heaped it on a plate of oak leaves. They had hardly finished, when Lem arrived from his secret fishing spot with two fat bass and half a dozen small catfish. With his many-bladed knife, he cleaned and scaled the bass, then skinned and slit the catfish. Then he quickly popped them into the bacon fat.

  While the girls were preparing the bacon, the boys had been off in the blackberry bushes that covered the island. They returned with briar scratches but triumphantly holding two large cans filled with plump, juicy blackberries.

  What followed was the best feast the Bob-Whites could ever remember. They were ravenous, for they hadn’t eaten since very early morning at Vacation Inn.

  When they finished, they scoured the pan and gathered up the debris. Then they sat around the fire, waiting for it to get low enough to “stomp out,” as Lem said.

  “Doesn’t anyone live on this island?” Dan asked Lem. He put his hand over his eyes and peered back into the woods.

  “Nope—leastways nobody who has a right to. This place is federal property. Nobody’s allowed to come here, really; but the police, they don’t mind if kids come, long as they behave theirselves.”

  “It looks like a good place for a hideout for criminals,” Dan offered. “Is anything hidden back there in the woods?”

  Lem’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Whaddya mean?”

  “Don’t you ever run across anything that looks like a place where crooks have been? It seems to me strange things could happen back there... maybe murder. Don’t you think so, Mart?”

  Mart nodded. “I guess strange things never happen here, though.”

  “Then you guess wrong,” Lem said. “If you’ll promise never to tell a livin’ soul, I’ll tell you what I seen with these very eyes just last week.”

  The Bob-Whites quickly crossed their hearts and promised.

  “Well, me and Soapy—he’s my best friend—we was campin’ back yonder.” Lem pointed his thumb toward the woods. “Long about midnight, Soapy was asleep, and I was jest droppin’ off, when a boat slid onto the sand out there.”

  The Bob-Whites leaned forward, all ears.

  “I watched three fellas get out of the boat an’ drag a big bundle after ’em. I was so scared I thought my teeth would rattle outen my head. Soapy, he didn’t wake up. They put one bundle down an’ went for another. I thought it was about time for me to let Soapy know what was goin’ on, ’cause sometimes he talks
in his sleep. I thought if they heard him, it would be good-bye for us. I whispered real low till I woke him up. Do you know what that dumb clunk did?”

  “What?” the Bob-Whites shouted.

  “Grabbed his rifle from under his blanket an’ let it go! You coulda heard it clear to St. Paul, Minnesota. Was I scared? I’ll say, but not half as scared as them fellas. They dragged the bundle back, heaved it into the boat, grabbed their oars, an’ hightailed it out of here like a bear was after ’em.”

  “You never found out who they were? You never found out what was in those bundles?” Trixie held tight to Lem’s arm and gazed into his face.

  “No, ma’am, I never did. The onliest thing I ever found was this. Wait till I git it.” He went off into his secret place in the woods and came back with a soiled envelope. Out of it he drew a piece of paper and handed it to Trixie. She took one look at it and passed it around to the other Bob-Whites, without a word.

  It was a sheet of graph paper covered with scrag-gly lines—a blood brother to the papers Lontard had left in the wastebasket, the papers now in the hands of the federal agents.

  St Peter • 12

  WHERE DID YOU find this paper?” Trixie asked, her voice excited.

  “Layin’ smack on the sand, right there. I didn’t pay any attention to it at first; then Soapy said it looked like pirates’ writin’. This is our pirates’ lair.” Lem swept his hand to include the woods back of the beach.

  “May we please look at the pirates’ lair?” Trixie begged. “It’s terribly important.”

  “No, ma’am. That’s somethin’ I couldn’t let you do. You see, we promised in blood, us pirates, never

  to let anybody see our lair. I don’t know what they’d do to me for jest tellin’ you this much. I guess we better git out of here now.”

  Trixie was persistent. “Can’t you just lend us the paper, then, for a little while? We’ll honestly see that you get it back.”

  “No, I can’t do that, nuther. That paper belongs in our chest. I don’t know now why I ever told you anything. Why are you so nosy? I guess I told you in the first place ’cause I thought anybody from way off in New York wouldn’t pay any attention to kids here on Jackson’s Island. Let’s git out of here, right now!”

  “What we want to know is pretty important to the whole United States,” Dan tried to explain. “How about letting us have a look back there?”

  “No, sirree! Never! Supposin’ you’d find out some of the secrets us pirates got. Don’t you never tell nobody ’bout that paper or ’bout the pirates or ’bout them men we seen. Remember, you promised before I told you. Remember?”

  “Yes,” Trixie admitted unhappily. “I remember. We haven’t seen your pirates’ lair, so we can’t tell anything about it. I do wish we could take one look.”

  “Well, you can’t,” Lem said, herding them toward the raft. “An’ don’t get any ideas about sneakin’ back here, either. Soapy’s rifle ain’t the onliest one we use to guard our lair. So keep out! Come on, let’s git goin’. I gotta get home, or I’ll get a hidin’ from my ma.”

  It was late afternoon when the Bob-Whites turned the crowded car toward the airport and their motel. At Trixie’s suggestion, they agreed to return to St. Louis by another route. Trixie thought they might discover other places to remind them of the sketches on the river map.

  “We’ll have to hustle along, or we won’t get back to see that space exhibit,” Mart reminded Jim. “It looks like rain, too—all those clouds. This is no shortcut along the river. I don’t know why you had to stick around that island for so long, Trixie. You sure didn’t dig up any information.”

  “I did, too, Mart Belden. What do you say about that paper Lem found?”

  “What good will that do you, when you promised not to tell about it?”

  “That’s right. We did find out, though, about those men going ashore with those bundles.”

  “You can’t tell that, either. We promised. Anyhow, I don’t think it had anything to do with Pierre Lontard—not if you think he was stealing plans from one of those airplane factories. He couldn’t carry a spaceship in a bundle.”

  “Mart, you’re always suspicious about everything I try to do, every clue that Honey and I find. Of course they couldn’t carry a spaceship in a bundle. That’s silly. That paper did belong with the other papers of Pierre Lontard that I found. As far as the bundles are concerned, they could contain models. Experts make models of spaceships before they start to build the real thing.”

  “Of course, Trixie,” Dan agreed. “And they make thousands of parts. Those men could have some spaceship parts in the bundles.”

  “Then, please tell me why they’d have to take them as far north as Jackson’s Island and park them there,” Mart insisted. “I’d say you’re sniffing on a trail that just isn’t there.”

  “They’d want to hide them as far away as they could, till they had all the stuff accumulated. The bad part of it is that I can’t tell Mr. Brandio or the federal agents anything about it. Why did I have to promise?” Trixie looked out at the fast-gathering clouds on the horizon and sighed.

  Honey gazed into space, and she sighed, too. “It was the best clue we’ve had, and we can’t use it.”

  “Or can we?” Trixie’s face glowed. “We can at least do this: We can tell the agents to check everything on that map of the river very carefully, and we can say that we’re sure the sketches mean something.”

  “Maybe we can do that... maybe,” Honey said. “Jeepers, it’s getting dark, isn’t it?”

  “The wind’s coming up, too,” Brian said. “Let’s speed up, Jim. There’s not much traffic on this side road. You should be able to make good time. Not much chance of clues along here, either, Trixie. We

  made a mistake to come this way.”

  A terrific gust of wind hit the car, and lightning flashed across the black sky, almost blinding Jim. The car swerved onto the shoulder of the road and almost upset as Jim jerked it back onto the pavement.

  Then the rain came, first in large drops pounding against the windshield. Then the sky seemed to open and spill tons of water all at once.

  “We’d better find some sort of shelter!” Brian shouted. “Not under these trees by the side of the road, Jim. Lightning might strike them.”

  “I... know... that,” Jim said, tugging at the wheel to keep the car under control. He strained his eyes ahead. “Isn’t that a side road? It sure is. I’ll pull up there. We won’t be in danger of anyone running into us, at least. Gosh, it’s dark. Look at it pour!” The light car found traction in the gravel of the side road and slowly forged ahead. Trees thinned out, and a dark mass loomed ahead.

  “It’s a private road we’re on,” Brian muttered. “That looks like a house. Boy, is it a big one! Almost as big as your house at home, Jim.”

  Honey shivered. “I’m glad we don’t live in such a spooky place. Isn’t that a porte cochère on the side? We could pull up under it, couldn’t we?”

  “Sure we can, sis,” Jim said. “You must have eyes like an owl’s. I can hardly see a thing. I only know I’m still on the road.”

  “You’re on the driveway and almost under cover,” Trixie cried. “Stop, now! There!”

  “Jeepers, that’s a relief!” Jim took his hands from the wheel. “This is worse than a storm in the Catskills. I thought nothing could beat one of those.”

  “The wind’s blowing so hard it may blow the old house over on us.” Honey snuggled down in her seat. “I’ll bet it’s been ages since anybody lived here.”

  “I’m just glad nobody’s home,” Mart said. “Imagine the characters that would live here—witches and goblins and... gangsters. If you’re looking for a hideout for Lontard’s outfit, you couldn’t find a likelier place, Trix.”

  “It’s the lightning and thunder and rain that make it look so scary,” Trixie declared. “I don’t remember anything on the map of the river that would make us think Lontard uses this place.”

  “Nope. Me, e
ither,” Dan said. “Let’s see what we can remember about those sketches. There was that fence at Tom Sawyer’s home, and there was Jackson’s Island. That figures, especially after we saw that paper Lem Watkins found. I wish we had it to show to Mr. Wheeler.”

  “Then there was the picture of pyramids,” Honey remembered. “That was Cairo, I guess.”

  “I don’t know why they’d have Cairo on the map. It was made—the map, I mean—long before Lontard was mixed up with us Bob-Whites,” Brian said.

  “Well, there was a picture of a fez, too,” Trixie said. “I have it! It meant Thebes—fez and pyramids. Remember how Bob tried to take the Comet into shore at Thebes?”

  “Golly, yes,” Brian said. “The fishermen scared him out! I’m beginning to think there really is something to that crazy map.”

  “I’ve always been sure of it,” Trixie said smugly. “Remember the old man with the beard? Bushy beard? You know, like one of the prophets in the Bible?” Dan recalled. “We haven’t seen anything like that yet.”

  “No, we haven’t, but there were sketches at intervals on the river, from Hannibal to New Orleans,” Trixie said slowly. “Those sketches were one reason I wanted to follow a road near the river. We might possibly run into the old man. Maybe he’s a hermit and lives in this old house.”

  “If he does, he’s going to live there in peace, as far as I’m concerned,” Mart said determinedly. “The rain’s slackening a little. Let’s get going, Jim. I want to see that exhibit.”

  “Jeepers, Mart, that’s probably rained out. I think it’s much more important to keep hunting for Lontard’s caches,” Trixie said.

  “There’s a chance it wasn’t rained out,” Mart insisted. “The sky’s all light down south of us. It’s black as night here. Say, come to think of it, it is night.