CHAPTER XXI

THE SECRET NUMBER

When Drew Lane returned to the shack an hour later, he was treated to a great surprise.

Seated in his most comfortable chair was a slender girl of some eighteen summers. Her hair was dark; her eyes, of the eager sort, were brown. Drew had never seen her.

As he entered the room she sprang up.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

"He? Who? Why--" Drew was astonished.

"You have him locked up. They told me at the police station that you would know where he is. Where is he?" Her voice rose to a shrill note.

"Why, I--" Drew's mind was in a turmoil. Who was this whirlwind? Whom did he have locked up? At that moment, no one.

He looked into those eager eyes. He studied those high cheekbones, that sensitive mouth, and read there the answer to at least one of his questions.

"Why! You--you are Newton Mills' daughter." He sat down quite suddenly. "He--he never told us--"

"That he had a daughter? He wouldn't. He's that way." Her tone went cold.

"Sit down, won't you?" Drew offered her a chair. "What's your name?"

She ignored the chair, but answered his question. "Joyce Mills. Where is my father?"

"Your father? The last time I saw him he was going out of a door. He's been assigned to a case, a rather big case. Has to do with what he calls ballistics. He--"

He came to a sudden pause. The girl's face was a study. Surprise, doubt, joy, sorrow, laughter, tears; they were all there, registered in quick succession.

"A case! A case!" she fairly shrieked. "And I thought he was in jail."

She crumpled into a chair.

"Well," said Drew quietly, "he might have been. But he isn't. And he's not likely to be. So you can set your heart at rest on that."

Having regained her self-composure somewhat, she leaned forward as if expecting to be told more.

Drew humored her. He told, so far as he knew it, the whole story of the downfall and the redemption of Newton Mills.

"Oh!" she breathed. "And you saved him. You and that boy!"

"Johnny Thompson saved your father," Drew smiled. "The rest of us only helped a little."

She rose and advanced toward him.

There is no telling what might have happened. But at this moment the subject of their conversation, Newton Mills himself, opened the door and entered.

"Joyce!" he exclaimed. "You here?"

"Father!" There was an indescribable touch of something in her tone that caused the tense muscles of the man's face to relax. "Father, I had to come." She laid a hand on his arm. "And now you have a case, a very hard case. He has told me. I must stay and help you."

"No! No! You must not!" The words came like a startled cry from the lips of the veteran detective.

"But, father, I used to help you."

"Yes, yes. That is all in the past. This case is a dangerous one. It has to do with desperate characters. It may mean death. I cannot take you with me. You are too young." He said these last words as if he were speaking of going to the grave.

Dropping into a chair and cupping his chin in his hands, he sat for some time thinking. As he thought the blood vessels swelled and throbbed on his broad temples.

"I have it!" he exclaimed at last, springing up. "Your cousin Doris Mills lives in Naperville. She is married. They are fine people. I haven't a doubt of it, though I have never seen them. You must go there. When this affair is over, I, too, will come. We will have an enjoyable time together."

The girl, who had measured the emotions that flowed through his being, did not say, "I will go," nor yet, "I will not go." She said nothing.

After opening a leather bag and fumbling about among his belongings, her father handed her an envelope.

"The address is on that," he said.

At once he appeared to forget her. Having taken some small articles from his bag, he thrust them deep in his pocket. One was a very thin automatic pistol.

One glance about the room, a halting puzzled stare at the pistol and arrow hanging over Drew's bed, then he was gone.

"He was always like that." There was a look of tenderness and a smile on the girl's face.

She turned again to Drew. "I can't thank you enough," she said. "I must find Johnny Thompson and thank him, too. It was terrible when father lost interest in everything, and took to forgetting in that horrible way."

"He'll be all right now, I think," Drew replied.

"But I must help him!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet and walking the length of the room. "I must! I will!"

"I am afraid," said Drew in a quiet tone, "that this is no task for a girl."

"Girl!" She gave him a look. "I'm eighteen. As long as I can remember, I've been helping him.

"When I was thirteen we went to live in the worst corner of New York. Department orders for him. Mother wouldn't go. Grandmother is rich. She's in society. Mother's in society. Society folks don't go to live on a street where they're all Sicilians. I went. I made him let me come.

"Learned the language, I did. Played around with the kids. Found out things. Say! I found out things he'd never have learned any other way!"

"Maybe so." Drew's tone was still quiet. "But this is not New York."

She looked at him for a moment in silence. When she spoke it was with some effort. "Big cities are all alike. I know!"

Dropping into a chair she remained silent for a time. Then she said in a changed voice:

"Tell me about this case."

Because he was beginning to like this girl, Drew told her. "And we'll get them," he concluded. "Justice is an arrow of fire. It burns its way in time to every evil heart."

Joyce took in every word. Then she asked a question:

"Where is Mrs. Ramacciotti?"

"In the cottage just ahead of this shack."

"Take me there."

Drew led the way.

The instant the girl entered Mrs. Ramacciotti's cottage she began talking. She spoke in Italian, and Mrs. Ramacciotti, smiling for the first time since the tragedy, answered her in Italian.

"I'll leave you," said Drew. "I have some things to do."

"Please do." The girl sat down.

The two, the tall girl and the stolid Italian mother, talked for a solid hour, always in Italian.

When they had ended, the mother said, "If you are going to this place, you will not be safe. They will kill you. Unless I give you this, they are sure to murder you." She drew from the folds of her dress the square of cardboard and pointed to the secret number in red.

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed. "I understand. How perfectly grand!"

"And, Miss," Mother Ramacciotti ran her hand across her face, "your hair, it is dark. Your eyes also. There is this which comes in bottles. Fine ladies who want to seem tanned, they use it. You speak so good Italian. Put this on hands and face. They will think you are Italian. It is better so."

"Thanks a lot," Joyce responded, "I will."

Joyce Mills did not go to Naperville. She went instead to a drug store and then to a men's furnishing store. After that she went into a barber shop and got a hair-cut.

As night began to fall upon the city, she took a car on Madison Street and went west. She dismounted at Ashland Boulevard and walked slowly toward the south.