Puzzle of the Pepper Tree by Stuart Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

a skidding stop.
    “It’s about time,” emitted the great Ralph O. Tate. “All right, boys!” He rose to his feet, replaced the blue beret upon his shining poll, and made off up the beach.
    Phyllis picked up a small oval stone, looked longingly at the back of his skull, and then spat daintily upon the pebble and sent it skipping across the water, to her deep inward satisfaction.
    Then she, too, followed the procession.
    “It’s all right, folks,” Manager Hinch was announcing. “The bus finally got here. Step lively, please!” Phyllis needed no invitation to step lively.
    Hinch had had a bad hour and had finally locked himself in the office where no one could get at him. But now he was himself again, distributing smiles.
    Captain Thorwald Narveson tapped out his corncob pipe against the stones and rose to his feet. Around him was a little circle of dottle and match stubs, but he was otherwise just as he had been left an hour or more ago. The innocent blue eyes still twinkled, and the freckles on his ears and forehead stood out even darker than before. The captain tossed his duffle bag on the bus and then placed himself heavily and firmly in the rear seat.
    Ralph O. Tate was the next on board, followed by his two assistants and the baggage. He took his seat between them, effectually preventing Phyllis from any further promotion of her fortunes. Philosophically, she joined the captain on the rear seat, defeated but not dismayed.
    Last to come were the newlyweds. Desperate shouts from Hinch and a series of earsplitting blasts upon the horn beneath the thumb of the fat youth in overalls finally brought them forth from the shadows of a eucalyptus clump. The redhaired girl was still cool and comfortable in sweater and blue trousers, and in her hand she gripped tightly a wilted bouquet of nondescript flowers. The young man was busily combing his hair. Without further mishap they scrambled aboard, and the girl hastily set about wiping orange lipstick from her young husband’s nose.
    “All aboard!” shouted Hinch cheerily. He seemed to be washing his hands. “All aboard!”
    The motor bus roared, and then Phyllis suddenly rose to her feet, shrieking.
    “Wait—wait!” Her hands waved, wildly. “I forgot my baggage. It’s—it’s in the office!”
    “It’ll be safe there until you come after it,” Hinch shouted above the roar of the moving bus.
    He waved the driver on. After all, he had received his instructions, and if Chief Britt wanted these people to question, he could have them on the double-quick. The sooner the better, said Hinch.
    The bus lunged forward as the plump youth noisily shifted into second gear, and then roared up the slope. Phyllis sat down, hard, and only the thick hand of Captain Narveson kept her from rolling off sidewise.
    Phyllis murmured something impolite. The captain nodded in hearty agreement. “Yas, indeed,” he said. His blue eyes twinkled more than ever.
    Phyllis grinned in spite of herself and then calmly took his arm and clung to it through the rest of the ride.
    They were deposited before a doorway marked “Curios—Pottery—Postcards—Chief of Police,” just as the town carillon located on the hill above Mr. Zane Grey’s summer residence sounded the first hour of the afternoon.
    Everywhere around them, from the open counters of the little restaurants, rose the aroma of hot dogs, hamburgers, and abalone steaks, but the hungry passengers of the Dragonfly were herded briskly through the doors of the curio store and on toward a rear room. Their shepherd was a gaunt and slightly doddering person who announced himself, in a thin cracked voice, as “Chief Britt’s deppity.” His name, it later developed, was Ruggles, and this was his crowded hour. He made the most of it.
    “Jist a little formality,” he promised them. Director Tate’s impassioned objections met only with an “I’m a mite deef …”
    Through a maze of mother-of-pearl boxes, framed photographs, embalmed