“ONE GOOD THING,” DR. HAL POINTED OUT TO CHERRY early the next morning at the county health office. “At least now I know precisely how to treat the ill effects caused by Nature’s Herb Cure.”
He snorted at the name. He had already telephoned all the other county doctors about his and Cherry’s medical investigation, and had notified the appropriate Iowa state health agencies. Cherry had already telephoned Miss Hudson, her nursing supervisor, to report this matter.
“Food and Drug likes to have a sample of whatever is being reported,” Dr. Hal said. “If only we could direct a Food and Drug inspector to the manufacturer—But we can’t, because we don’t know who makes this dangerous stuff, or where.”
Cherry realized that the laboratory technician and the chemist had used up all of the small sample she and Dr. Hal had brought.
“We’ll have to ask our patients for some of the remedy,” Cherry said. “I’m not optimistic about that.” Only Mrs. Swaybill had cooperated before.
“Do your best. At the same time,” Dr. Hal reminded Cherry, “tell them to throw the stuff away. Tell them to pass on the warning.”
Hal went back to his private office to wait for the Federal Food and Drug people’s call. Cherry started out on her nursing rounds.
She had a long list of calls today, and a hard time. As soon as she told several patients and their families that Nature’s Herb Cure was dangerous, they closed up like clams. They had been evasive about the new medicine before; now they were doubly so. Cherry could not win their confidence. She wondered whether it was because they were loyal to the old pedlar—or because they would not admit they had been gullible in buying a quack remedy—or because they trusted in supposedly natural remedies—or a combination of all of these reasons? In any case, Cherry could not persuade a single person to let her have his or her jar of Nature’s Herb Cure.
“We used it up.”—“If it’s no good, what do you want it for?”—“Why, I never bought any in the first place!”
As a last resort, she stopped in at the Swaybills’.
“I’m mighty sorry, Miss Cherry,” said Mrs. Swaybill, “but I already gave you all I had.”
“Would your cousins just across the river in Missouri have any left?”
“They were over here Sunday to see us, and they said they accidentally spilled what they had of it. I’ll tell you what, though! If Old Snell comes around, I’ll buy some more and keep it for you.”
Cherry was afraid, though, that as the doctor’s warning against the remedy spread, the pedlar would hear of it and would stop selling the remedy. She wondered about the pedlar. Everyone for miles around considered Old Snell an honest person to trade with. But if he were honest, he would not sell it, now that a warning was abroad.
Cherry worried about something else, later that day. Although her patients denied it, she saw the same unmistakable symptoms again—these persons had taken Nature’s Herb Cure. These were new patients—all living in one area—new customers of Snell’s. The racket was spreading!
As she treated these patients, Cherry warned them not to use the “remedy,” to throw it away. Two persons, realizing it had made them sick, had already done so. The others might still have some, but Old Snell must have persuaded them to be silent.
On her last home visit that day, a woman argued when Cherry emphatically warned her not to take the preparation. But she was sick enough to consent to let Cherry call Dr. Miller. Then Cherry said:
“Would you do me a favor? Would you give me, or sell me, your jar of Nature’s Herb Cure?”
The woman’s face tightened. “I haven’t got any left.”
“Well, then,” Cherry tried again, “will you tell me when you bought it from Old Snell?”
“Well, I swear! Why are you so inquisitive about him? He’s only a poor old fellow trying to make a living. He told me you and the doctors aim to drive him out of business. All because you can’t stand his competition. Says the medicine’s got a secret, exclusive formula that you haven’t got, and you’re jealous and afraid of this new discovery. Says you’re persecuting him, and it’s not fair.”
Cherry gasped. “Is that the story he’s spreading? Let me tell you the truth—” and she gave the woman the facts. “Now, please tell me, when did you buy that quack medicine from Old Snell?”
“Oh, a few days ago—maybe day before yesterday. I don’t rightly remember.”
Cherry had seen the pedlar only that one time, slipping away from the Swaybill’s house. But, according to this patient, he was still selling the cure all.
Cherry felt gloomy all day Tuesday over the impossibility of locating a second sample. The only encouraging thing today was that the ordinary flu cases now were well or nearly well.
By the time Cherry finished with her visits, it was late and a chilly rain was starting.
“I’d like a cup of hot tea before I drive back to Sauk,” Cherry thought. “I’m not far from Mrs. Barker’s. I’ll go throw myself on her doorstep.”
The Barker door opened to Cherry’s knock. Jane admitted her.
“Ssh!” Jane said. “Mrs. Barker has a cake in the oven. Walk lightly.”
“And don’t you slam the door,” Cherry said. She walked in on tiptoe. The parrot squawked at her. “I was hoping for a cup of tea, but if Mrs. Barker is busy in the kitchen—”
“Can you wait for the tea?” Jane asked. “To tell you the truth, I need to talk to you privately. About Floyd. I have some doubts about him.”
“So have I, though I may be blaming the wrong person. Remember, Jane, we picked some ginseng roots last Saturday afternoon—Floyd isn’t here to overhear, is he? Well, then—”
Cherry moved the parrot out of earshot. Then she told Jane Fraser about the theft of the ginseng roots from her car. She also told, in confidence, what the laboratory technician and the chemist had found out about Nature’s Herb Cure.
“How awful!” Jane exclaimed. “Exploiting sick people!” They discussed the laboratory findings. Then Jane said:
“What I learned isn’t as definite as your news but it—it makes me uneasy. You see, Floyd’s comings and goings are at such irregular hours that even his mother has noticed.”
“How can he hold a job at the cannery at that rate?” Cherry asked. “What does he do at the cannery?”
“Floyd refuses to say,” Jane answered. “He’s secretive and resentful of his mother’s questions. Yesterday, after Floyd had left for work, Mrs. Barker wanted to ask him a question—something about where he had put the shovel for the cellar coalbin. She called him up at the cannery,” Jane told Cherry. “And what do you think? He isn’t working there. He never has worked there. The people who do the hiring at the cannery never even heard of him.”
“Then where—” Cherry stopped short. She had started to say: Then where does Floyd get the money he now gives his mother occasionally?
But Jane said: “Oh, that’s enough about Floyd! We have more important things to worry about. You know, Cherry, I was thinking that if we could clear out these big beds of ginseng—”
A knock on the front door interrupted Jane. “Goodness, you’ll never get your tea!” she said, rising.
There was a flurry of activity as Jane and Mrs. Barker reached and opened the door together. Mr. Brown, a neighbor, had come to talk to Jane about repairing the water pipes in the old farmhouse. Mrs. Barker and Cherry went into the kitchen.
“I heard Jane say you wanted a cup of tea,” Mrs. Barker said. Cherry asked her not to bother. “Oh, I’ll have one with you, Miss Cherry. I can do with a hot drink after an afternoon’s baking.”
Emma Barker’s kitchen was a warm and cheerful place to be on a rainy afternoon. It was filled with the fragrance of butter and sugar, and of flowering begonia in pots on the windowsills. Cherry admired the copper teakettle, and asked about a row of books on a shelf.
“Those are cookbooks,” Mrs. Barker said. “Some of them belonged to my mother, and some to my grandmother.” She opened one for Cherry, to show her the recipes handwritten in faded ink.
Cherry read aloud: “Take three pounds of unsalted butter, three pounds of fine white sugar, a dozen and a half freshly laid eggs—Why, that would make enough cake to feed several families!”
“People used to have big families,” Mrs. Barker put the cookbook back on the shelf. “Sit down, child, and let’s have our tea. I don’t refer to these old books much. They’re just curiosities nowadays.”
Her hospitable hostess took a pan of cookies from where they were cooling in the sink, and offered them to Cherry.
“Speaking of curiosities,” said Mrs. Barker, “I have one old book that’d specially interest you, since you’re a nurse. It’s called The Compleat Housewife. The title page says it was published in 1753, in England, and it’s been handed down in our family. It has six hundred recipes for cooking and remedies.”
“Remedies?” Cherry repeated. This might be a find! She hid her excitement.
“Would you believe it, my copy is the fifteenth edition! Some country folks still use those recipes for nourishing dishes and medical herbs and simple home remedies. For myself I’d rather use a doctor and up to date scientific medicine. Still, people who live close to the soil know some sensible ways of living. Same as the animals know what’s good for them. Let’s see where that old formula book is.”
Mrs. Barker rummaged through the volumes on the shelf. She grew flushed. “That’s peculiar, I can’t find it. I always keep it right here.”
She hunted through other shelves and drawers. She was so disconcerted that Cherry helped her search. The old book did not turn up.
“Well, never mind,” Mrs. Barker said at last, sitting down again at the kitchen table. “Floyd probably knows where it is, he may have borrowed it. I can’t imagine that anyone else’d take it. He’s always looking up the names of the green things he finds in the woods and fields. A real countryman.”
Countryman, indeed! Cherry recalled the sour odor in the deserted farmhouse. Was Floyd compounding a medicine there? Where did Floyd get the money he gave his mother now and then? It was easy to guess: he might have a stake in the patent medicine. He and the old pedlar might be in this racket together—a racket that centered around the abandoned farm.
Cherry was convinced of one thing: that Mrs. Barker herself was in no way involved. She was such a straitlaced, hardworking woman, it would never even enter her mind that Floyd could be connected with such an evil scheme.
“You know, Miss Cherry,” Mrs. Barker was saying, “in olden days, a farm without a few medicinal herbs growing would have been as unheard of as a barn without a barn cat or a well without a pail. People had to treat themselves, because doctors and medicines were a rarity.”
“Tell me about this old formula book,” Cherry said. “What about the homemade remedies?”
The old lady rattled off the names of several time honored favorites: mustard plaster; sassafras tea; asafetida worn in a bag around your neck for a spring tonic; ginseng to both soothe and stimulate.
“I’d say these things do good as far as they go—”
“Oh, I don’t hold much with ginseng,” Mrs. Barker said. “Mostly people used to value it because the root is forked and shaped like a human figure, but that’s only legend, superstition. Ginseng just makes you feel better temporarily. So would a cup of hot tea. I do believe there’s at least one ginseng formula in my book! You grind up the dried ginseng root into a powder, and then you add—let me see—Oh, dear, I forget.”
Cherry kept silent. She did not want to put answers into Emma Barker’s mouth.
Mrs. Barker was not interested in ginseng and rattled on about something else. Cherry saw that she was not going to learn anything more about ginseng remedies here today. But there was another way she might find out! A plan took shape in her mind. It was growing late, yet not too late, not too rainy and dark—
“Mrs. Barker, this has been a delightful tea party. Now, I’m afraid I must go.”
“Can’t you stay and visit a little longer? Maybe Jane can join us now.”
“I wish I could stay. Thank you ever so much!” Cherry was grateful to her for more than tea and cookies. Mrs. Barker had provided her with an important new lead.
Cherry said a hasty good-bye to Jane, got into her car, and headed for the river road. She almost regretted what she was going to do. She’d rather not discover anything about Floyd that would distress his mother. But she wanted that old formula book.
Getting out at the old farmhouse, Cherry realized it was dangerous for her to have come here alone. She should have waited until Hal could come, too.
“Well, I’m here now. I’ll be quick—and cautious.”
She picked her way through patches of ginseng and of weeds, and reached the front door of the empty house. Cherry opened the door quietly, and stood there listening, looking. The house was so still she could hear the nearby river flowing. It must be swollen by the rain. This wet afternoon the sour moldy odor in the house was stronger than ever. Cherry took a deep breath of it, but was not sure whether or not it smelled like the remedy.
If someone was making the worthless remedy here, where in the house was that likely to be? Where should she look first for the ancient formula book? Or for jars of the medicine, or ginseng roots, or any telltale clue she could find? Cherry was not eager to spend any more time searching alone in this deserted place than necessary—and she preferred not to come face to face with—whom?
“If I knew the layout of the rooms—”
She peered in. Straight ahead of her was the staircase and the long, narrow hall. To her left was the empty sitting room, with only a threadbare carpet left in it. Also on her left and farther down the hall was—apparently—a dining room. Although it was next to the sitting room, Cherry noticed there was no door connecting the two rooms.
The odor came from deeper inside the house. Cherry started noiselessly down the hall. After three paces a floor board creaked. She caught her breath and halted.
“Was that someone moving around in here? Or was it my own footfall?” She listened and heard only the wind and river. “Oh, an old house is full of creaking woodwork, and on a windy, rainy day—”
She started on tiptoe again. The odor grew stronger. At the doorway of the dining room, she cautiously looked in. Along one wall—the other side of the sitting-room wall—stood a heavy, old fashioned oak buffet. It stretched along nearly the length of the wall, standing a little askew. Except for a few worn-out dining room chairs and the buffet, there was nothing to see.
“Maybe what I’m looking for is in the kitchen,” Cherry thought. “There’d be a sink and a stove and running water, at least a pump, in the kitchen to use in making the remedy.”
She hesitated. Did she hear someone in the kitchen? How warm it was in here! Had someone lighted the stove? Did she smell a kerosene stove? Well, there was only one way to find out. Go and look. But if someone was in there—Cherry felt the back of her neck tingle with fear.
“I won’t turn back,” she told herself. “I’ll just take a quick look into the kitchen. I can always run for it.”
The kitchen, she saw, ran across the width of the house. She was faced with a choice of whether to enter the kitchen by continuing down the hall, or by crossing through the dining room. But fading daylight streamed through the dining room windows—she could be seen from the kitchen if she crossed through. If someone was in here—Cherry decided to stick to the shadowy hall. She crept past the dining room, lifting and slowly setting down one foot on the old floor boards, shifting her weight, waiting a second, then taking the next catlike step. She moved almost soundlessly. It took her close to four minutes to reach the kitchen.
As she came to the kitchen door, Cherry heard a grating, scraping noise. She was so startled, she thought her heart would fly out of her chest. She whirled around in time to see a man’s shadow running swiftly in the dining room. His shadow fell through the dining room doorway and across the hall for an instant. She hesitated for a few moments, too scared to move. Then Cherry ran back up the hall to the dining room and peered around the doorway’s edge.
The dining room was empty. Cherry was trembling. The man, whoever he was, knew that an intruder—she—was here. His stealth proved that. She had to get out immediately! And by another route, so he couldn’t see and stop her. Through the kitchen? Out the back door, and then around the far side of the house? Yes, that should do it. She could go through the trees and reach her car unseen.
She didn’t waste any time trying to be silent. Cherry ran through the kitchen for all she was worth. She remembered to touch the stove as she ran. It was stone cold. Not being used, then! Fleetingly she thought there must be another stove in the house, but her concern now was to escape. Thank heavens the back door of the kitchen opened at her touch.
She fled across the big back porch, down the steps, and around the back of the house.
She stumbled through a cluster of gnarled fruit trees. The tangle of ginseng plants slowed her. It seemed like an eternity until she finally reached her car and jumped in.
Cherry started the car, pulling out of that place as fast as she could. She took one look to see whether anyone had followed her. No one was in sight. That didn’t mean no one was watching her! The man hiding in the house could have seen who she was. He didn’t want to be seen, either—of course. She headed the car along the weed filled roadway and out onto the highway, and stepped hard on the gas. She didn’t want anyone to follow her and catch up with her.
“What an experience!” she thought. “What a narrow squeak! Not worth the risk. I didn’t find a single thing I was searching for—not the book nor ginseng roots nor the remedy. Only a shadow.”
But she knew now that someone—very likely Floyd or some pal of his—was up to something in the house Jane hoped to live in. The next thing was to prove his identity.
“Unless it was just a tramp, taking cover on a rainy day?” Cherry speculated. “I haven’t a scrap of proof about who the man was or what he was doing. No, no, a tramp is too easy and random an explanation.”
Where had the man disappeared to? He had run into the dining room, evidently from the kitchen. Once in the dining room, where had he gone to? Not back into the kitchen, or she would have seen him a few seconds later when she ran through there. Not out the dining room windows, they were closed. Not into the hall, either, for when she saw his shadow, she was still standing in the hall. Yet when she had collected her wits and peered into the dining room, the man was gone. He had vanished, it seemed, into the wall. That certainly didn’t explain anything.