Part 7

Getting out, she sauntered into the garage office. Mattie's partner, Sam, was nowhere to be seen. Nor did he appear to be working in the main part of the building.

Penny waited a few minutes, then wandered about the floor where a number of cars had been stored. No workmen were in evidence.

"This might be a good time to do a bit of looking around!" she thought suddenly. "I'll never have a better chance."

Penny opened the doors into the room where she had observed Sam Burkholder mount a new tire on the car of a customer. One wall was stacked high with large wooden boxes, not unlike those she and Louise had seen delivered by the truck driver, Hank Biglow, on the night of the blizzard.

She thumped one of the boxes with her knuckles. It gave off a hollow, empty sound. She tried another box with no better luck. Some of the big crates had been opened. They contained nothing except a little brown wrapping paper.

Disappointed, Penny turned away. But as she moved toward the exit, her eyes flashed upon one of the boxes which had escaped her attention. Boards were loose at one end, and could be hinged back on their nails like a door.

Intrigued, Penny crossed to the crate. As she pulled on one of the boards, all swung back as a unit.

"Why, it's like a door!" she thought. "A door in a box!"

Penny gazed into the box and was further amazed. It had no back wall. Instead, she saw a long, empty tunnel formed by several crates piled one in front of the other. And at the very end stood a real door!

"Maybe this is the pay-off!" thought Penny excitedly.

Pulling the boards into place behind her, she stooped and made her way through the tunnel to the door. It was locked.

"I'll bet a cent stolen tires are stored in that room!" reasoned Penny. "If only I could get in there!"

Her mind did not dwell long on the problem. A moment later she was alarmed to hear a low murmur of voices. Someone was approaching the storage room from the main part of the garage. Unless she wished to be trapped in the tunnel of boxes, she must abandon the investigation!

Penny started hurriedly toward the opening. Before she could get through the tunnel, the big double doors squeaked open and she heard heavy footsteps in the room. Peering out through a knothole in one of the boxes, she saw Mattie Williams and her partner, Sam. They were arguing and their voices came to her plainly:

"Guess you didn't look for me back quite so soon, Sam," Mattie reprimanded her partner. "When I went off in the tow car you figured I'd be gone a long time. Thought it would give you a good chance to tamper with the books!"

"That's not so, Mattie. I was marking up some expenses like I always do."

"I've been aiming to have a straight talk with you for a long time, Sam," the woman resumed. "That's why I asked you to step back here in the storage room. No use having the customers know about our differences."

"I don't see what you've got to squawk about," Sam retorted. "Ain't you made more money since I teamed up with you than you ever did before?"

"Yes."

"But you're always afraid I'll cheat you out of a penny."

"I've caught you in some dishonest tricks. About those tires--"

A loud, insistent tooting of an automobile horn broke up the conversation. Abandoning the argument, Mattie and Sam went to serve the impatient customer.

Penny did not tarry. Crawling from the tunnel, she glanced about for a means of escape. Fortunately, the room had an outside exit. Making use of it, she returned to the waiting taxi, without seeing either Sam or Mattie again.

"Police station, Joe," she instructed.

"How do you want to go?" the cab driver inquired. "This road or No. 32?"

"Let's drive past the old Harrison place."

"Sure," grinned Joe. "Maybe we'll see that spook again!"

The cab bumped along the frozen road, soon coming within view of the hillside estate. Joe slowed down without being requested to do so.

"I was tellin' the boys about that place last night," he flung over his shoulder. "They tell me the owner is this guy Deming. He's gone East for the winter. A big, fat, bald-headed man."

"Our ghost was a thin person."

"Yeah, I was thinking that," agreed Joe. "Maybe Deming's got a sick relative or something."

The explanation did not satisfy Penny. With troubled eyes she gazed toward the rambling old house which by daylight looked so deserted. No smoke curled from the chimneys. Had it not been for a trail of footprints along the fence, she easily could have convinced herself that she had imagined the events of the previous night.

"Say, who's that trackin' through the fields?" Joe suddenly demanded.

Penny turned to glance in the direction that the cabman pointed. Her heart did a little flip-flop. A woman in a long black coat, market basket on her arm, was hastening toward the rear door of the estate house.

"Stop the cab, Joe!" she cried.

The car came to a halt with a little sideways skid. Leaping out, Penny plunged through the drifts and was able to confront the woman at the rear gate of the premises.

"How do you do," she greeted her breathlessly.

The woman was so startled that she nearly dropped her market basket. Confused, she stammered a reply and started to unlock the gate.

"Just a moment, please," requested Penny. "May I come inside and talk to you?"

"About what?"

"My father's disappearance. You made an appointment to meet me at the cemetery. Why did you run away?"

The bold attack was not without an effect. The woman gasped, and fumbled nervously with the key to the padlock.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she muttered.

"Unless you tell me everything you know regarding my father's disappearance, I'll call the police!"

"The police--" the woman repeated, plainly frightened.

"Yes," Penny went on relentlessly, "this is a serious matter. It will do you no good to bluff."

The woman gave up trying to unlock the gate. Setting her basket down in the snow she said weakly: "You advertised a reward--"

"I'll still be glad to pay it for worthwhile information. What do you know about my father?"

The woman drew a deep breath. "Well, I picked him up in my car after the accident."

"You did?" Penny became jubilant. "Where is he now?"

"I can't tell you that. Mr. Parker asked me to take him to Mercy Hospital. I let him off at the entrance to the grounds. That's the last I saw of him."

"My father entered the hospital?"

"I don't know. I didn't remain to watch."

The story was disappointing. If true, Mr. Parker's disappearance remained as mysterious as ever. Penny was silent a moment and then she asked the woman why she had fled from the cemetery.

"Because I saw a police car parked behind the bushes," the other answered defiantly. "And those detectives chased me, too! I only intended to be helpful and maybe win a reward. Now I want nothing to do with the case. I've told you everything I know."

The woman unlocked the gate and started to enter the grounds.

"You're not Mrs. Deming?" Penny asked quickly.

"Who I am is my own business."

"I suppose the ghost is your own affair too!"

"Ghost? What ghost?"

"You live here, yet you haven't learned that the grounds are haunted?" Penny inquired significantly. "Nearly every night a man in white wanders back and forth in the garden."

"I don't know anything about it!" the woman said nervously. "I'll not answer any more questions either!"

Plainly frightened, she snapped shut the padlock of the gate and fled into the house.

CHAPTER 17 _ADVENTURE BY MOONLIGHT_

A moment Penny stood gazing at the estate house. She considered climbing the iron fence and trying to gain entrance to the dwelling. Then, deciding that nothing would be achieved by again accosting the strange woman, she returned to the waiting taxi.

"Where to?" asked the cabman.

"It's still the police station," directed Penny, repeating an earlier order. "I have twice as much to report now."

As the cab pulled away, she noticed a movement of curtains at the front of the estate house. Evidently the woman who had fled, was watching.

Joe made a quick trip to Riverview, depositing Penny at the doorstep of Central Station.

"Will you need me any more?" he asked hopefully.

"I may."

"Okay," said Joe, slamming the cab door. "I'll stick around. You know, I kinda like this job."

Once inside the police station, Penny inquired for Chief Jalman. Unable to see him, she asked to speak to the two detectives who had been assigned to her father's case. Both men were away from the building.

"Why not talk to Carl Burns?" suggested the desk sergeant. "He's familiar with the case."

Penny was sent to see a heavy-set man who warmed himself by a steaming radiator. Evidently he had spent several hours in an unheated police car for he stamped his feet to restore circulation.

"Mr. Burns?" inquired Penny.

The man turned, staring at her. Penny returned the stare. She had seen the officer before and the recollection was not entirely pleasant. He was the same officer she had met near Mattie's garage on the night of the blizzard.

"What may I do for you?" he asked.

Uncomfortably aware of the officer's scrutiny, Penny began to tell of her visit to the Williams' garage. She stammered a bit and lost confidence.

"You say you saw some big boxes at the garage," he demanded. "What's so suspicious about that?"

Penny tried to explain about the tunnel of boxes which led to a hidden storage room. Even to her own ears the story had a fantastic sound.

"What you _think_ or _surmise_ doesn't go in this business!" the officer said rather rudely. "Did you actually see any stolen tires?"

"Well, no, I didn't," Penny admitted. "The door was locked."

"Are you willing to swear out a warrant charging Mattie and her partner with dealing in stolen merchandise?"

"I don't suppose I'd dare do that. I thought if police would investigate--"

"We can't go on suspicions, Miss Parker. We act only on sound evidence."

"Well, it doesn't matter so much about the stolen tires," Penny said desperately. "I have another clue--a really important one. I've found the woman who eluded Detectives Brandon and Fuller at the cemetery!"

"Now we may get somewhere," replied the officer. "Who is the woman? Where did you see her?"

Penny told everything she knew about the woman who had taken her father to Mercy Hospital. Word for word she repeated their recent conversation together.

"I'll turn this evidence over to Detective Fuller," the policeman promised. "He'll probably want to question the woman himself."

"I hope he does it right away," replied Penny. "She may take it into her head to skip out of town."

Officer Burns smiled wearily. "Just trust us to handle the case," he said. "We know our business."

Penny left the station feeling none too satisfied. Although she had nothing against Mr. Burns, she sensed that he did not like her. She wondered if she could depend on him to repeat her story as she had told it.

"If that estate house isn't investigated immediately, I'll do something myself!" she thought.

Joe, the cabman, still waited. Signaling him, Penny regretfully explained that she would have no further use for his services.

"Well, if you change your mind and want to do some more ghost huntin' tonight, just give me a ring," Joe grinned. "My number's 20476."

Penny carefully wrote it down. She then walked to the nearby _Star_ building where many matters awaited her attention. There she worked without interruption until late afternoon, taking only enough time to call the police station. Detective Fuller was not available. So far as she could learn, no investigation had been made of the Harrison estate.

Thoroughly annoyed, Penny tramped home to dinner. Only a cold meal awaited her. Mrs. Weems, ill with a headache, had set out a few dishes on the kitchen table, and gone to bed.

"It's nothing," the housekeeper insisted as Penny questioned her anxiously. "I've just worried too much the past few days."

"Let me call Doctor Barnell."

"Indeed not," Mrs. Weems remonstrated. "I'll be all right tomorrow."

Penny brewed a cup of tea and made the housekeeper as comfortable as she could. By the time she had eaten a snack and washed the dishes it was eight o'clock. Debating a long while, she went to the telephone and summoned a cab.

"Number 20476," she requested.

Penny was zipping on her galoshes when the doorbell rang. Without giving her time to answer it, Louise Sidell marched into the kitchen bearing a freshly baked lemon pie.

"Mother sent this over," she explained. "I slipped on the ice coming over and nearly had a catastrophe!"

Carefully Louise deposited the pie on the kitchen table. Cutting short Penny's praise of it, she inquired alertly: "Going somewhere?"

Penny explained that she intended to motor to the Harrison estate.

"Not alone?" Louise demanded.

"I'll have to, I guess. Mrs. Weems is sick, so I can't take her along."

"You could invite me," Louise said eagerly. "I'll telephone mother to come over and stay with Mrs. Weems while we're gone!"

The arrangement proved satisfactory to everyone. Mrs. Sidell came immediately to the house, and very shortly thereafter the girls sped away in Joe's taxicab.

The night was a pleasant one, mildly cold, but with a bright moon.

"Park before you get to the estate," Penny directed the driver. "We don't want to be seen. It might defeat our purpose."

Joe drew up in a clump of trees some distance from the Harrison grounds. He then walked with the girls to the spiked fence. There was no sign of activity.

Two hours elapsed. During that time nothing unusual occurred. No lights were visible inside the house. Even Penny began to lose heart.

"This is getting pretty boring," she sighed. "I don't believe the ghost is going to show up tonight."

"We may have been observed," suggested Louise. "One can see very plainly tonight."

After another half hour had elapsed Penny was willing to return to the cab. The three started away from the fence. Just then they heard a door slam inside the house. Instantly they froze against the screen of bushes, waiting.

"There's the ghost!" whispered Louise.

A figure had appeared in the garden beyond the gate. But the one who walked alone was not a ghost. Plainly he was garbed in street clothes rather than white. Over his suit he wore a heavy overcoat. A snap-brimmed hat was pulled low on his forehead.

Penny could not see the man's face, but the silhouette seemed strangely familiar.

"That looks like Dad!" she whispered, clutching Louise's hand. "It is he! I'm sure!"

"Oh, it can't be--"

Penny paid no heed to her chum's protest. Breaking away, she ran toward the gate.

The man in the garden became suddenly alert. As he heard the approaching footsteps he gazed toward the road. Upon seeing Penny he started to retreat.

"Wait!" she called frantically. "Don't you know me, Dad? It's Penny!"

The words seemed to convey nothing to the man. He shook his head in a baffled sort of way, and walked swiftly toward the house.

Penny ran on to the gate. It was locked, but she vaulted over, landing in a heap on the other side. By the time she had picked herself up, the man had vanished into the house.

"Are you hurt?" Louise cried, hurrying to the gate.

Penny brushed snow from her coat and did not answer.

"That man couldn't have been your father," Louise said kindly. "Do come back, Penny."

"But it was Dad! I'm sure of it!"

"You called to him," Louise argued. "If it had been Mr. Parker he couldn't have failed to recognize your voice."

"It was Dad," Penny insisted stubbornly. "He's being held a prisoner here!"

"But that's ridiculous! Whoever that man is, he could escape from the grounds just as easily as you climbed the gate."

Penny did not wish to believe, yet she knew her chum was right.

"Anyway, I'm going to talk to him," she declared. "Now that I am inside the grounds, I'll ring the doorbell."

Leaving Louise and Joe on the other side of the fence, Penny went boldly to the front door. She knocked several times and rang the bell. There was no response.

"Why doesn't someone answer?" she thought impatiently.

At the rear of the house a door slammed. Suddenly Louise called from the gate: "Penny! A woman is leaving the estate by the back way!"

Penny darted to the corner of the house. The same woman she had met earlier that day had let herself out the rear gate. Holding the skirts of her long black coat, she fairly ran across the snowy fields.

"Shall I nab her?" called Joe, eager for action.

Penny's reply was surprisingly calm.

"No, let her go," she decided. "While that woman is away, I'll get into the house. I think Dad is in there alone, and I'm going to find him!"

CHAPTER 18 _THROUGH THE CELLAR WINDOW_

Penny returned to the front porch and rang the doorbell many times. No one came to admit her. She tested the door, finding it locked. Windows above the porch level could not be raised.

"I'll try the back door," she said, refusing to accept defeat.

Louise and Joe followed her to the rear of the dwelling, but remained on the outside of the fence.

As Penny had feared, the back door also was locked. She tested eight windows. Finally she found one which opened into the cellar. To her delight the sash swung inward as she pushed on it.

"Here I go!" she called to Louise. "You and Joe stay where you are and keep watch."

Penny crawled through the narrow opening and swung herself down to the cellar floor. She landed with a thud beside a laundry tub. The room was dark. Groping her way toward a stairway, she tripped over a box and made a fearful clatter.

"I've certainly advertised my arrival!" she thought ruefully.

At the top of the stairway Penny found a light switch and boldly turned it on. The kitchen door was not locked. She opened it and stepped out into another semi-dark room.

A doorbell at the front of the house began to ring. Penny was dumbfounded. Then she became annoyed, thinking that Louise and the cab driver were trying to get in.

Groping her way through the house, she unlocked the door and flung it open.

"For Pity Sakes!" she exclaimed, and then her voice trailed off.

A uniformed messenger boy stood on the porch.

"Mrs. Botts live here?" he asked, taking a telegram from his jacket pocket.

Penny did not know what to answer. Thinking quickly, she replied: "This is the Deming estate."

The messenger boy turned the beam of his flashlight on the telegram. "Mrs. Lennie Botts, Stop 4, Care of G. A. Deming," he read aloud. "This is the place all right."

"But Mrs. Botts isn't at home now."

"I've had a lot of trouble getting here," the boy complained. "Even had to climb over the gate. How about signing for the telegram?"

"Oh, all right," agreed Penny, accepting the pencil. "I don't know why I didn't think of that idea myself!"

In return for the telegram she gave the boy a small tip. The moment he had gone, she closed the front door and switched on a table lamp.

Penny found herself in a luxuriously furnished living room. The rug underfoot was Chinese, the furniture solid mahogany, hand carved. However, she had no interest in her surroundings. Rather tensely, she examined the telegram. Dared she open it?

"What's ten years or so of jail in my young life?" she cajoled herself. "I'm willing to spend it in Sing Sing if only I can find Dad!"

Penny ripped open the envelope. The message, addressed to Mrs. Lennie Botts was terse and none too revealing:

"HAVE CHANGED PLANS. WILL RETURN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH BY PLANE. PLEASE HAVE EVERYTHING IN READINESS."

The telegram was signed by the owner of the estate, G. A. Deming.

"Today is the twenty-seventh of the month," thought Penny. "This message must have been several hours delayed."

The telegram had provided little information. Evidently the woman who had refused to tell her name was Mrs. Lennie Botts. Regretting that she had opened the message, Penny tossed it carelessly on the table.

Footsteps sounded on the floor directly above. Penny had taken no pains to be quiet. Nevertheless, her pulse quickened as she heard someone pad to the head of the stairway. A muffled voice called: "Who's there?"

Penny's heart leaped for she was sure she recognized the tones. Fairly trembling with excitement, she darted to the foot of the circular staircase. On the top landing in the heavy shadows stood a man whose face she could not see.

"Dad!" she cried. "I'm Penny."

"Penny?" the man demanded impatiently as if the name meant nothing to him. "Where is Mrs. Botts?"

"Why, she went away."

"And how did you get into the house?"

"Through a cellar window."

"I thought so! Young lady, I don't know what you're doing here in Mrs. Bott's absence. Unless you leave at once I'll summon the police."

Penny was not to be discouraged so easily. She started slowly up the stairway.

"Stand where you are!" the man ordered sharply. "I've been sick, but I'm still a match for any house-breaker. I have a revolver--"

So dark was the stairway that Penny could not know whether or not the man was bluffing. His voice, startlingly similar to her father's, sounded grim and determined. Knowing that a stranger would have good reason to treat her as a burglar, she was afraid to venture further.

"Dad--" she began.

"Don't keep calling me Dad!" he snapped.

"Who are you?" asked Penny, completely baffled.

"Who am I?" the man repeated. "Why, I'm Lester Jones, a salesman. I room here."

The answer dumbfounded Penny. "Then you're not being held a prisoner by Mrs. Botts?" she faltered.

"On the contrary, Mrs. Botts has been very kind to me. Especially since I've been sick."

Penny's perplexity increased. "But I've seen you wandering in the garden at night," she murmured. "Why do you do it?"

"Because--oh, hang it! Do I have to explain everything to you? My head's aching again. Unless you go away and stop bothering me, I'll call the police."

Penny was completely crushed. She had been so sure that the man was her father! Seemingly she had made a very stupid mistake.

"I'll go," she said quietly.

Retreating down the stairway, she left the opened telegram on the living-room table and switched off the light. Then unlocking the kitchen door, she rejoined Louise and Joe.

"I guess you didn't have any luck," her chum commented, observing her downcast face.

Penny ruefully admitted that the man who had been seen in the garden was Lester Jones.

"I knew he wasn't your father," Louise replied. "You wouldn't listen to reason--"

"All the same, his voice was similar," Penny cut in. "Why, the man even used one of Dad's pet expressions."

"What was it?" Louise inquired curiously.

"'Oh, hang it!' That's the expression Dad uses when he's irritated."

Louise helped her chum over the back fence and guided her toward the parked taxi. Midway there Penny paused to stare up at the dark windows of the second floor.

"Lou!" she exclaimed. "That man must have been Dad even if he didn't know me!"

"Oh, Penny, don't start that all over again," Louise pleaded. "You're only torturing yourself."

"I'm going back!"

"No, we can't let you, Penny."

Louise held her chum's arm firmly. Joe opened the door of the taxi and they pushed her in. Penny protested for a moment, then submitted.

"All right, but we're going straight to the police station!" she announced. "I'll not be satisfied until that man positively is identified as Lester Jones."

A few minutes later, at the police station, Detective Fuller heard the entire story. It was the first he had learned about Mrs. Botts, for Penny's earlier message had not been delivered by Policeman Burns.

"For that matter, I've not seen Burns today," the detective explained. "I'll go to the estate at once and question the woman."

Again Penny and Louise taxied to the estate, this time trailed by a police car. Detective Fuller broke the padlock on the gate and led the party to the front door.