LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

closed. There were four or five cars, however, that attracted Philo Gubb’s attention, and one in particular made his heart beat rapidly. This car bore the words, “World’s Monster Combined Shows Freak Car.” And as Mr. Winterberry had gone as a social reform agent to the side-show, Mr. Gubb rightly felt that here if anywhere he would find a clue, and he was doubly agitated since he knew the beautiful Syrilla was doubtless in that car.

      Walking around the car, he heard the door at one end open. He crouched under the platform, his ears and eyes on edge. Hardly was he concealed before the head ruffian of the unloading gang approached.

      “Mister Dorgan,” he said, in quite another tone than he had used to his laborers, “should I fetch that wild man cage to the grounds for you to-day?”

      “No,” said Dorgan. “What’s the use? I don’t like an empty cage standing around. Leave it on the car, Jake. Or—hold on! I’ll use it. Take it up to the grounds and put it in the side-show as usual. I’ll put the Pet in it.”

      “Are ye foolin’?” asked the loading boss with a grin. “The cage won’t know itself, Mister Dorgan, afther holdin’ that rip-snortin’ Wild Man to be holdin’ a cold corpse like the Pet is.”

      “Never you mind,” said Dorgan shortly. “I know my business, Jake. You and I know the Pet is a dead one, but these country yaps don’t know it. I might as well make some use of the remains as long as I’ve got ’em on hand.”

      “Who you goin’ to fool, sweety?” asked a voice, and Mr. Dorgan looked around to see Syrilla, the Fat Lady, standing in the car door.

      “Oh, just folks!” said Dorgan, laughing.

      “You’re goin’ to use the Pet,” said the Fat Lady reproachfully, “and I don’t think it is nice of you. Say what you will, Mr. Dorgan, a corpse is a corpse, and a respectable side-show ain’t no place for it. I wish you would take it out in the lot and bury it, like I wanted you to, or throw it in the river and get rid of it. Won’t you, dearie?”

      “I will not,” said Mr. Dorgan firmly. “A corpse may be a corpse, Syrilla, any place but in a circus, but in a circus it is a feature. He’s goin’ to be one of the Seven Sleepers.”

      “One of what?” asked Syrilla.

      “One of the Seven Sleepers,” said Dorgan. “I’m goin’ to put him in the cage the Wild Man was in, and I’m goin’ to tell the audiences he’s asleep. ‘He looks dead,’ I’ll say, ‘but I give my word he’s only asleep. We offer five thousand dollars,’ I’ll say, ‘to any man, woman, or child that proves contrary than that we have documents provin’ that this human bein’ in this cage fell asleep in the year 1837 and has been sleepin’ ever since. The longest nap on record,’ I’ll say. That’ll fetch a laugh.”

      “And you don’t care, dearie, that I’ll be creepy all through the show, do you?” said Syrilla.

      “I won’t care a hang,” said Dorgan.

      Mr. Gubb glided noiselessly from under the car and sped away. He had heard enough to know that deviltry was afoot. There was no doubt in his mind that the Pet was the late Mr. Winterberry, for if ever a man deserved to be called “Pet,” Mr. Winterberry—according to Mrs. Garthwaite’s description—was that man. There was no doubt that Mr. Winterberry had been murdered, and that these heartless wretches meant to make capital of his body. The inference was logical. It was a strong clue, and Mr. Gubb hurried to the circus grounds to study the situation.

      “No,” said Syrilla tearfully, “you don’t care a hang for the nerves of the lady and gent freaks under your care, Mr. Dorgan. It’s nothin’ to you if repulsion from that corpse-like Pet drags seventy or eighty pounds of fat off of me, for you well know what my contract is—so much a week and so much for each additional pound of fat, and the less fat I am the less you have to add onto your pay-roll. The day the Pet come to the show first I fainted outright and busted down the platform, but little do you care, Mr. Dorgan.”

      “Don’t you worry; you didn’t murder him,” said Mr. Dorgan.

      “He looks so lifelike!” sobbed Syrilla.

      “Oh, Hoxie!” shouted Mr. Dorgan.

      “Yes, sir?” said the Strong Man, coming to the car door.

      “Take Syrilla in and tell the girls to put ice on her head. She’s gettin’ hysterics again. And when you’ve told ’em, you go up to the grounds and tell Blake and Skinny to unpack the Petrified Man. Tell ’em I’m goin’ to use him again to-day, and if he’s lookin’ shop-worn, have one of the men go over his complexion and make him look nice and lifelike.”

      Mr. Dorgan swung off from the car step and walked away.

      The Petrified Man had been one of his mistakes. In days past petrified men had been important side-show features and Mr. Dorgan had supposed the time had come to re-introduce them, and he had had an excellent petrified man made of concrete, with steel reinforcements in the legs and arms and a body of hollow tile so that it could stand rough travel.

      Unfortunately, the features of the Petrified Man had been entrusted to an artist devoted to the making of clothing dummies. Instead of an Aztec or Cave Dweller cast of countenance, he had given the Petrified Man the simpering features of the wax figures seen in cheap clothing stores. The result was that, instead of gazing at the Petrified Man with awe as a wonder of nature, the audiences laughed at him, and the living freaks dubbed him “the Pet,” or, still more rudely, “the Corpse,” and when the glass case broke at the end of the week, Mr. Dorgan ordered the Pet packed in a box.

      Just now, however, the flight of the Tasmanian Wild Man, and the involuntary departure of Mr. Winterberry at the command of his wife after his short appearance as Waw-Waw, the Mexican Hairless Dog-Man, suggested the new use for the Petrified Man.

      When Detective Gubb reached the circus grounds the glaring banners had not yet been erected before the side-show tent, but all the tents except the “big top” were up and all hands were at work on that one, or supposed to be. Two were not. Two of the roughest-looking roustabouts, after glancing here and there, glided into the property tent and concealed themselves behind a pile of blue cases, hampers, and canvas bags. One of them immediately drew from under his coat a small but heavy parcel wrapped in an old rag.

      “Say, cul,” he said in a coarse voice, “you sure have got a head on you. This here stuff will be just as safe in there as in a bank, see? Gimme the screw-driver.”

      “‘Not to be opened until Chicago,’” said the other gleefully, pointing to the words daubed on one of the blue cases. “But I guess it will be—hey, old pal? I guess so!”

      Together they removed the lid of the box, and Detective Gubb, seeking the side-show, crawled under the wall of the property tent just in time to see the two ruffians hurriedly jam their parcel into the case and screw the lid in place again. Mr. Gubb’s mustache was now in a diagonal position, but little he cared for that. His eyes were fastened on the countenances of the two roustabouts. The men were easy to remember. One was red-headed and pockmarked and the other was dark and the lobes of his ears were slit, as if some one had at some time forcibly removed a pair of rings from them. Very quietly Philo Gubb wiggled backward out of the tent, but as he did so his eyes caught a word painted on the side of the blue case. It was “Pet”!

      Mr. Gubb proceeded to the next tent. Stooping, he peered inside, and what he saw satisfied him that he had found the side-show. Around the inside of the tent men were erecting a blue platform, and on the far side four men were wheeling a tongueless cage into place. A door at the back of the cage swung open and shut as the men moved the cage, but another in front was securely bolted and barred. Mr. Gubb lowered the tent wall and backed away. It was into this cage that the body of Mr. Winterberry was to be put to make a public holiday for yokels! And the murderer was still at large!

      Murderer? Murderers! For who were the two rough characters he had seen tampering with the case containing the remains of the Pet? What had they been putting in the case? If not the murderers, they were

Скачать книгу