Leo Edwards

“ Ellery, a Tutter storekeeper, that the new family had rented the long-vacant house where Mr. Matson, a queer old man, had been murdered for his money. It is a lonely brick house on the edge of town. The front yard is full of pine trees, just like a cemetery. And when the wind blows the pines whisper strange stories about the murder and about the vanished body.
It is no place for people to live. Everybody in Tutter says so. And I wondered why this new Ricks family had picked out such a lonely, spooky home. ”

“ Scoop Ellery’s face was rigid.
“Got to,” he said, steady-like. “If I miss, he’ll turn on us and kill us both.” [2]
“It’s a lucky thing for Red and Peg,” I said, thinking of my other chums, “that they aren’t in it.”
“They’ll miss us,” said Scoop, “if we get killed.”
My thoughts took a crazy jump.
“Why not aim for a tickly spot in his ribs,” I snickered, pointing to the dinosaur, “and let him giggle himself to death?”
“Sh-h-h-h!” cautioned Scoop, putting out a hand. “He’s listening. The wind is blowing that way. He smells us.” ”

“ I grinned, forgetful of my bump, in the thought of it.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pederson,” I heard him say. My, he was polite! His voice was all honey and cream. I got up and went closer.
There was a flower bed beside the porch. He let on as though he was awfully surprised and tickled to find the flower bed there. From his actions you would have thought that a flower bed—this flower bed—was the most wonderful and the most important thing in the world. ”

“ Peg broke the silence, “no news is good news. So let’s look on the bright side.... What are we going to do this morning?—peddle soap?”
While we were talking, making our plans, sort of, an automobile came into sight from the country, a classy red roadster, driven by a boy our age. There was a screeching of brakes, and on the instant that the car came to a skidding stand-still, Tom dove from sight into a lilac bush beside the path.
“It’s young Gennor,” he hissed at us from under cover. “Watch your steps, fellows! He’s up to some trick in stopping here.” ”

“ I told him.
“If you’ll help us get the talking frog from Gennor,” I cried, “we’ll pay you a hundred dollars.”
“Go lay an egg! You haven’t got a hundred cents.”
“We’ll have a lot of money,” I cried, “if we save the talking frog. Aw, come on, fellows! We’re Tutter kids. You ought to stick up for us, rather than let an outsider cheat us.” ”

“ Plainly he was going over every inch of the mill wall in a systematic search for the puzzle maker’s hidden fortune.
Did he have a clew to the money’s hiding place? Did he know to a certainty that the money was cemented into the stone wall? I wondered to myself as I watched him.
If the money were in the wall, he would be sure to find it sooner or later. We had bragged to Mrs. Kelly and the granddaughter that we wouldn’t let the uncle get away from us with the hidden fortune. But now I was suddenly uneasy in the thought that he might find the money ahead [139] of us and escape us. ”

“ He raised his eyes. “Mrs. Pederson,” he said, sober, “you ought to go into the flower business. Why, the way you can make flowers grow you’d become rich and famous in no time at all.”
The flattered owner of the flowers left her broom on the porch and came down the steps. Pretty soon she was on her knees beside the flower bed, jabbering about the flowers as though she was crazy. Scoop was jabbering too. It was very disgusting to me. For I saw what he was up to. He was plastering her with soft soap, to get her dime, and she didn’t have sense enough to realize it. ”

“ Tom’s eyes bulged. And noticing this, Scoop laughingly clapped a hand on the frightened one’s shoulders.
“Jerry’s trying to scare you, Tom. No one ever saw the old man’s ghost around here.”
“Old Paddy Gorbett did,” I reminded quickly.
“Shucks! Any one who knows old Paddy always believes the opposite to what he tells.”
Tom shrugged and gave a short laugh.
“I’ve read stories about ghost houses, but I never thought I’d live in one.”
“There’s no such thing as a ghost,” declared Scoop.
“Of course not,” agreed Tom. “But just the same we had better keep this story from Aunt Polly’s ears. ”

“ Scoop quizzed.
“Ask Jerry and Tom,” the woman smiled. “They saw him.”
“Golly Ned!” cried Scoop, tugging at his hair. “I can’t understand it. It doesn’t seem possible to me. But it must be so if the three of you say so.”
We started for the brick house.
“I wonder,” grinned Tom, as we turned the corner, “if the soap will beautify all of our customers.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” I countered.
“If it does,” he laughed, “this is going to be a badly mixed-up town. For half of the husbands won’t be able to pick out their own wives.” ”

“ For if he isn’t, why should he be hiding in the old mill?”
I shrugged.
“Search me,” I said.
“His main reason for being in the neighborhood,” Tom went on, sure of himself, “isn’t to make women beautiful. Not so you can notice it! The spiel he gave us about his wonderful soap was bunk, and nothing else but. He can’t string me. For I know that it takes more than soap to drive away warts and things. His soap may be good, but it won’t do all of the wonderful things that he claims for it.”
Scoop grinned.
“We can find out how good the soap is by using it on Mrs. Kelly.” ”

“ She took the letter and read it through.
“As you know,” I said, getting in my selling talk, “Miss Prindle was not a very beautiful woman before she used our beauty soap. But in just one night Bubbles of Beauty, the wonder soap, has transformed her into a dream of beauty. Of course,” I added, in good tact, “I realize that you have no use for the soap yourself. It is only for women who are not beautiful. But you may know of some woman who is homely and who wants to become beautiful. ”

“ For why should your father offer to buy the invention when he has hired spies to steal it?”
“I’ll git you for this,” screeched Gennor. And when Tom and I ran into the room, he sneered: “Three against one.”
“Three against one,” scowled Scoop, “is a fair game as compared to what your father is doing.”
“He never intended to steal the invention.”
“We happen to know better,” said Scoop. “But don’t pat yourself on the back when I tell you that the spies succeeded in getting the frog away from us. For your man will have no chance to turn it over to you ”

“ I fished Miss Prindle’s letter out of my pocket, explaining to our leader how the letter had come into my possession.
“A trick of the Strickers,” he said promptly.
“Nothing of the kind,” I told him. “For I saw her myself. So did Tom.”
“Rats! A woman can’t become beautiful over night.”
“Miss Prindle did,” I waggled. “And so did Red.”
“Red? Do you mean Red Meyers? Oh, ho, ho, ho! That’s rich!” [128]
“His mother used the beauty soap on him,” I said, “and his freckles have all disappeared. His skin is like peaches and cream.”
“I’ve got to see it,” said Scoop, “to believe it.” ”

“ Every woman does, I imagine. So you can imagine how they will welcome our Bubbles of Beauty. But you mustn’t repeat what I am telling you, Mrs. Pederson. Oh, no! For your neighbors would be as mad as hops to have the story get out. They will want to have the source of their sudden beauty kept a secret. Don’t you see?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Pederson.
Scoop again searched his pockets.
“It gets me,” he said, puzzled, “what I did with that extra cake—the one that I was saving for you.” He counted the cakes on the grass. And every time that his finger moved Mrs. Pederson’s eyes moved with it. ”

“ Ricks, an inventor as Scoop had surmised, was working on a very wonderful radio toy. Tom called it an electro-mechanical frog.
We had promised our new chum that we wouldn’t breathe a word about the talking frog to any one else. For a Chicago radio company had spies searching for Mr. Ricks. These people [9] knew that the inventor was working on a radio toy, and it was their evil intention to steal the invention, the same as they had stolen a simplified radio transmitter that Mr. Ricks had designed and built in his little Chicago workshop. ”

“ We could hear the soap man in the mill.
“Let’s go over to the house,” suggested Scoop, “where we can lock ourselves in if necessary. [191] For we don’t know what the old coot is liable to do.”
Fortified in the brick house, we broke open the metal box. But, to our disappointment, it contained no money. Not a penny. Its only content was the ten-ring puzzle that Mr. Matson had made just before he met with his awful death.
“There’s money hid somewhere,” cried Mrs. Kelly. “I know it. For the ould gintleman told me so.” ”

“ It’s all right for a fellow who has an ear for music.
“Now,” Miss Grimes told me at recess, shoving some records at me, “here are the first four pieces. Take them, one at a time, and play each one over and over again till you know it.” Then she went out of the room, closing the door behind her.
It was fun at first. But I got sick of it. The old pieces were no good. So I hunted up something snappy. A band piece with a lot of loud toots in it. And at the first toot, what do you know if the tin frog didn’t come to life! “R-r-r-a-t-s!” it rumbled in Scoop’s desk, sort of muffled-like. ”

“ She nodded.
“What he needs,” I told her, as a quick-minded salesman, “is a cake of our beauty soap.”
“Beauty soap?” she repeated.
I held up one of my pink boxes.
“Bubbles of Beauty,” I recited, “the wonder soap that makes all women beautiful. It cures warts and blemishes,” I added, “so it ought to be good for blotches. Don’t you think so?”
She laughed.
“Jerry, where in the world did you get this soap?”
I told her about the old soap man in the deserted mill. ”

“ No doubt the bag was thrown from the car into the road, where it was picked up by the soap man.
I suspect it is a wonder to Gennor to this day how the bag came into our hands.
He left town that night, headed for Chicago. [220] That is the last we ever saw of him. And moreover that is the last we ever want to see of him or any boy like him.
For, as Scoop says, the fun of being rich lies in doing good turns for other and less fortunate people. And when a fellow gets Gennor’s idea that money is something to lift himself above other people, he’s all wrong. ”

“ Strickers might have delivered the letter, but the letter itself was no trick of theirs. It couldn’t be a trick, I concluded. For I had seen the transformed dressmaker with my own eyes.
“Did you know,” grinned Bid, “that Douglas Fairbanks is in town?”
I kept shut. For I wasn’t going to bite on his old gag, whatever it was.
“He’s here to sign up Miss Prindle,” the gang leader went on. “He wants her to be his leading lady. Five hundred thousand dollars a year. Better than pumping a sewing machine, hey? Oh, I tell you, your beauty soap is wonderful stuff.” ”

“ For what we thought was a spy was just a silly old soap peddler, who had gotten the idea somehow that his dead brother had hidden a lot of money in the stone wall of his mill. No doubt Mr. Ricks misplaced the roll of dress patterns on the train. He’s pretty good at misplacing things! Aunt Polly says that he would misplace his head if it wasn’t fastened to him.
Dad says that big companies do business on the square. And Dad knows.
We called on Mrs. Crandon the following day. And when we had told her about our adventure she showed us her pile of soap. ”

“ BOOKS BY LEO EDWARDS
Illustrated. Every volume complete in itself.
Hundreds of thousands of boys and girls have laughed until their sides ached over the weird and wonderful adventures of Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott and their friends. Mr. Edwards’ boy characters are real. They do the things other boys like. Pirates! Mystery! Detectives! Adventure! Ghosts! Buried Treasure! Achievement! Stories of boys making things, doing things, going places—always on the jump and always having fun. His stories are for boys and girls of all ages. ”

“ CHAPTER V BUBBLES OF BEAUTY
Wednesday morning when we came into the school grounds a number of the kids were yipping and kicking up their heels. Tom was the first one in our gang to grab the good news that was going around among the scholars.
“Hot dog!” he cried. “Teachers’ convention. No school till next Monday.”
We were excited. And right away we began to plan our fun.
“Let’s catch frogs,” suggested Scoop. “We can sell them and make some money. For almost everybody likes fried frog legs.”
So we got a bag and started out. First we tried our luck in the millpond behind the brick house. ”

“ I was scared for a moment in the thought that he had already met the spy and had left town with the stolen invention.
The hotel manager got his eyes on me and grinned.
“Howdy, Jerry,” he said, good-natured-like.
If you can imagine a man so tall that he has to close up like a jackknife in order to get into a [153] regular-size bed, that is Mr. Rufus Tomlinson, who shares the ownership of the Tutter hotel with his son, Mr. Charley Tomlinson. And he is about three points skinnier than an underweight toothpick. In our Halloween parades he usually takes the part of Uncle Sam. ”

“ We tied the launch to the pier.
“See anything of Gennor and his gang?” inquired Scoop, squinting ashore.
“Maybe they’re in the hotel.”
“We’ll circle the building and see if the red car is here.”
But to our satisfaction the roadster was nowhere in sight in the hotel yard.
“Come on,” motioned Scoop, starting for a rear door.
I didn’t hurry.
“Do you suppose,” I said, sort of letting out my neck in all directions at once, “that the ghost is watching us through one of those windows?”
“He probably is,” returned Scoop, “if he’s inside. For I happen to know that he isn’t blind. ”

“ What direction is his home from here?”
“Are you going to put up at the hotel while you’re in Tutter?”
“Of course.”
“Well, they’ll tell you at the hotel where Mr. Ricks lives.”
As the roadster disappeared into town, Tom tumbled out of the lilac bush.
“The big bluffer! Yes, he’ll build a radio toy factory, all right, if he can steal Pa’s talking frog.”
Scoop followed the dust cloud with curling lips.
“Jerry,” he said, “I’ve already made up my mind to get rich. For a fellow with money can have a lot of fun doing a lot of good. ”

“ Tom explained. “Pa’ll get twenty-five thousand dollars cash money for the idea; then the company will develop and apply the idea, and Pa’ll get a royalty on each talking toy sold.”
I asked what a royalty was.
“It’s a written agreement,” Tom told me, “under which Pa’ll get a certain part of every dollar that the company takes in. The money is his pay, as an inventor, for letting them use his idea. For instance, if they sell a million dollars’ worth of talking toys, Pa’ll get fifty thousand dollars. That’s five per cent.” ”

“ I told him about the ghost.
“It wasn’t the spy,” he waggled. “For the old man hasn’t been out of the mill for hours. It was only within the past ten minutes that he quit his wall pounding and went to bed.”
“The dickens!” cried Scoop, bewildered. “If it wasn’t the spy, who was it?”
“Maybe,” suggested Tom, “it was a second spy, one that we haven’t seen.”
“An unknown spy!” cried Scoop. There was [175] a short silence. “You may be right. But what’s his object in playing ghost?”
It was indeed a mystery. In our conversation we advanced various scattered theories. ”