The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels (143 page)

“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: