“That ain’t no slouch of an idea,” Crockett conceded. “Let me see if I can round them up.”

Rising from his seat, he hurried from the room. In the meanwhile, I took the opportunity to undo the handkerchief, emitting a deep sigh of relief as I removed it from my face. Some ten or fifteen minutes later, the frontiersman reappeared with the youthful quartet in tow. The four boys then happily assisted us in conveying the newspapers out to the chaise, while Crockett regaled them with a protracted and wholly improbable anecdote about his ostensible encounter with a prodigious member of the species Amiurus locustris—or, as he put it in his crude backwoods vernacular, his “rip-roarious scrape with a monstracious great cat-fish.”

At length, the task was completed and—bidding farewell to young Jesse and his companions—we set out for Amity Street, arriving at my dwelling some twenty minutes later. Dismounting from the vehicle, I gathered up an armload of papers and carried them to my doorway. With my arms thus occupied, I found it necessary to announce my arrival by drawing back my right boot and delivering a single, emphatic kick with the toe. An instant later, the door swung open and there stood Muddy, wearing an expression of such extreme dismay that—my thoughts immediately turning to Virginia—I felt my heart seize up with fear.

“What is the matter, dearest Muddy?” I cried. “Has something happened to Sissy?”

“Oh, Eddie, I am so relieved to see you! No, no—Virginia is perfectly well. But only minutes ago, I received an urgent visit from a young police officer named Carlton, who was seeking you and Colonel Crockett”

“Why, what is the matter?” I inquired. By this point, Crockett, whose arms were also laden with a quantity of Montague’s papers, had materialized at my side.

“Something dreadful has happened,” said Muddy. “The two of you are to go to Calvert Street at once.”

“Calvert Street?” I repeated.

“Yes,” said Muddy. “To the Baltimore Museum.”

CHAPTER 27