“We should be starting home,” Florence said. “It’s going to be dark soon.”
“I know the road by heart, so there’s no danger we’ll get lost,” I said, switching on the headlights.
We traveled five miles or so in the gathering dusk.
“Does it seem to you that we’re bumping more than usual,” I asked Flo.
“It feels like we have a flat tire.”
I pulled up at the side of the road and got out to have a look at the tires. To my relief, they were all sound. However, Bouncing Betsy’s tail lights didn’t seem to be burning.
“Is the switch turned on all the way, Flo?” I called.
Flo turned the button but only succeeded in extinguishing the headlights. At that moment, another car came around the bend. Before Florence could switch on the headlights again, the car drew up at the side of the road some distance away. A man got out and took a large bundle and a thermos flask from the rear of his car.
I rushed to the front of the car.
“Never mind those lights,” I whispered. “Leave them off.”
Flo just nodded and continued staring at the man who had exited the parked car. Taking the paper-wrapped bundle and the thermos flask, the man disappeared into the woods.
“You know who that was, Flo?
“No, how could I see his face at this distance?”
“Well, I did!” I said. “I caught a glimpse of it as he stood for a moment in the headlight beam. The man was Ralph, Flo! You remember Ralph from the laundry. The Sheik. What I wouldn’t give to learn where he’s taking that thermos flask!”
CHAPTER 19
“It does seem peculiar that Ralph would be carrying a thermos flask into the woods at this time of night,” Florence acknowledged. “Still, he’s breaking no law by doing it.”
“I wonder what was in the bundle?” I opened the car door and tugged at Florence’s hand.
“Come along!” I said. “We have to follow him.”
“Jane Carter, have you lost your mind? I’m staying right here. I never heard of such a crazy thing! Just because he’s carrying a package and a thermos flask—”
I didn’t bother arguing with Flo. Instead I snatched the flashlight I carried under the driver’s seat and started across the road toward the woods. Florence hesitated, but not for long.
“Wait, Jane,” Flo called softly. “I’m coming.”
“Hurry, or we’ll lose him.”
In the dense woods it was already quite dark, but far ahead we could see the bobbing beam of a flashlight focused on the ground as the man who carried it walked along.
“Jane, I don’t know what’s in your mind,” Flo complained, as she stumbled over a log, “but whatever it is, it’s a crazy idea!”
“Is it crazy to try to find Jack? Ralph may lead us straight to him.”
“You believe Ralph took Jack a prisoner? It’s unbelievable!”
“That food is meant for someone. If Ralph weren’t up to something, why would he come here at night?”
We were gaining on Ralph, so Flo kept quiet. Unaware that he was being trailed, Ralph moved deeper into the forest. Once he paused as if to listen. We flattened ourselves against tree trunks and waited, even though Ralph could not possibly have seen us in the darkness. I had not illuminated my flashlight.
Ralph was heading for the river, and in a few minutes more we reached a small tributary of the Grassy. Ralph walked along the banks for some distance, coming to a cove which was heavily screened by overhanging bushes and willow trees. Not until we had crept up very close, did we distinguish the outline of a houseboat.
Ralph whistled twice, and a shadowy figure appeared in the doorway of the shanty boat. A lantern was lighted, and by its glow, I could observe the other man. I recognized him as one of the three men who’d gotten out of the car and walked past us the day Flo and I had hidden in the bushes outside the laundry.
Ralph boarded the boat, still carrying the paper bundle and the thermos flask.
We crept closer. The houseboat scraped the high bank as it floated, and we were able to see into one of the windows. In the room which was lighted, three men—the same three I’d seen that day from the bushes—sat at a table eating food brought by Ralph. It was not what I’d expected to see. It seemed that Ralph had not intended the contents of the bundle and the thermos flask for a prisoner after all.
“It looks as if Ralph is just giving a few of his friends a treat,” whispered Florence. “The joke is on you.”
Flo started to creep back up the bank, but I grabbed hold of her ankle and held on tight.
“Look at the walls of that room, Flo!”
“What about them?”
“They are papered with sheets from a mail order catalog!”
“That’s so.”
“And notice the porch.”
“Petunias growing in a flower box,” Florence observed.
“They’ve not been watered in quite some time—perhaps, not since Mud Cat Joe’s Empress disappeared.”
“You think this is his missing boat?”
“It certainly looks like it.”
“But all houseboats are similar,” Florence said. “Besides, this one is painted blue, and Joe said The Empress was covered in tar paper.”
“What if it’s been painted to disguise its appearance?”
I guessed that we’d seen all there was to see, so I let Flo go, and we quietly retreated from the banks of the stream. When we were a safe distance away, we paused.
“I might be mistaken,” I said, “but this boat fits Mud Cat Joe’s description of The Empress. We ought to notify him at once.”
“He’s received so many false clues already,” Florence protested, “but I’m willing to go back if you wish.”
“Let’s hurry then before the boat vanishes again.”
Despite our haste, it took more than a half hour to reach the Gains cottage. Mud Cat Joe had just finished his supper when Bouncing Betsy drove into the yard. He came outside to meet us.
“I’ll git right down there and have a look at ’er,” he said when we told him what we’d seen.
“Perhaps we ought to go with you,” I said.
I suggested that he ride along in Bouncing Betsy, but he declined, pointing out that unless we drove him all the way back, he would have no way of getting home.
“I kin git down there almost as quick in the rowboat,” he insisted. “Current’s runnin’ swift.”
Mud Cat launched the rowboat, Flo and I clambered aboard, and Joe steered for the middle of the river. He bent to the oars, and we were soon moving quickly.
I looked across the river at Old Mansion. A few lights glowed in the windows. The house had a deceptive appearance of peace and tranquility.
The night was cold and penetrating. A breeze rippled the water and sent a chill through Flo and me. We had neglected to bring wraps.
Coming at length to the tributary, Mud Cat Joe steered the boat into the narrow stream. I knew we must be drawing close to the cove where we had seen the houseboat.
We swung around a bend. I leaned forward, and whispered to Joe, “This was the place.”
“But there’s no houseboat here!” Florence said. “What in the world became of it?”
I feared I might have been mistaken on the location, so I asked Mud Cat to row farther up the stream, but it soon became obvious that it was not that I had been mistaken. The boat had vanished.
“This ain’t the first time I’ve had a wild goose chase lookin’ fer that houseboat,” Joe said. He was trying hard to be cheerful but missing the mark by a mile.
“But it was here an hour ago,” I said.
Mud Cat Joe headed the boat toward the Grassy River once more. It would be a hard row back to the cottage where I’d parked Bouncing Betsy. It might be midnight before we arrived home. As for Joe, he was worn out from his long day on the river, and our failure to find his beloved houseboat seemed to have depressed him. He rowed in gloomy silence.
W
hen we reached the mouth of the tributary, Mud Cat steered out into the main stream, setting his course at an angle across the Grassy. Florence and I huddled together to protect ourselves from the wind. I had fallen into a miserable drowsiness when there was an abrupt break in the smooth rhythm of Mud Cat’s rowing.
I sat up. Joe stowed his oars and peered out across the dark, swirling waters.
“Jest fer a minute, I thought I seen somethin’ in the water,” he said. “Reckon it must have been a big fish.”
Florence stirred, and we all searched the rippled water for a glimpse of whatever it was Mud Cat had seen. As we paused in the middle of the stream, the current caught the boat and swung it sideways. I leaned over the side of the boat. I’d seen something, too.
“There is something struggling in the water! It’s surely too large to be a—Joe, it’s a man!”
CHAPTER 20
“By George, if you ain’t right!” said Mud Cat Joe. “He’s about done up too!”
With a hard pull at the right oar, Joe sent the boat toward the struggling man. The man’s face had submerged; only a white hand fluttered weakly above the surface.
I tore off my shoes, and stood up in the boat, ready to dive overboard.
“Hold on,” said Mud Cat. “I’ll git him. Long as a man’s strugglin’, he ain’t drownin’.”
Joe was now close enough to thrust an oar toward the victim, but the drowning man was too spent to take hold of it. We pulled alongside, and Mud Cat managed to grasp the man by an arm.
“I got him,” he said grimly. “Steady now, or we’ll upset the boat.”
Mud Cat Joe was a heavy man, and the added weight of the limp figure very nearly capsized the craft, but Flo and I kept to the opposite side, trying to maintain balance. The boat wobbled and jerked convulsively. Finally, Mud Cat succeeded in pulling the man—who had ceased all movement—over the gunwale.
Joe stretched the man on the bottom of the boat, turning him so that his face was visible in the dim starlight.
“Jack!” I heard myself scream.
It felt like nothing short of a miracle that we’d found Jack, but he was in very poor shape. There was a deep gash across his forehead, and his breathing was light and fluttery.
“Your coat, Joe,” I said. “We must keep him as warm as we can.”
The riverman stripped off his coat, and I wrapped it about Jack’s own wet clothing.
“We must get him to a doctor,” I said to Mud Cat Joe, but the riverman was already rowing hard.
We were over-loaded, and the boat rode very low in the water. I held Jack’s hand and constantly checked his breathing. After a few minutes, he stirred. At first, I couldn’t tell what he was trying to say, as he was not yet fully conscious, but gradually his words became clearer.
“Eyes—” he murmured, “Flaming eyes—looking at me— looking at me—”
“He’s out of his head,” Florence said.
“Yes, I’m afraid he’s in bad condition. That gash in his head looks deep. I hope it won’t become infected from the dirty river water.”
There were no cabins or houses along this stretch of the Grassy. I scanned the shore for a sign of a light, and seeing none, decided that Jack must be taken either to Old Mansion or to Joe’s cottage. Facilities were much better at Old Mansion, but I thought it would be wiser to keep news of Jack’s reappearance from Mr. and Mrs. Conrad for as long as possible.
What had occurred in room seven on that eventful night of the party? Jack alone knew the answer. Whether or not the secret would remain forever locked in his brain, I could not guess. Jack had suffered some great shock, in addition to nearly drowning—I was no medical man, but I didn’t need to be to know Jack was in a bad way.
Jack was trying again to say something, and I bent closer to hear.
“Boat—Boat.”
“Yes, you’re in a boat,” I said as if speaking to a child. I rubbed his icy hands to restore circulation. “You’re with friends, Jack.”
Jack’s opened his eyes, then looked up at me without a trace of recognition.
“Boat,” he muttered again. “Houseboat.”
Jack’s eyelids closed again. His head rolled restlessly back and forth on the floor of the boat, but he spoke no more.
“Why you figger he said that?” asked Joe.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I thought about houseboat which Florence and I had seen in that cove on the Mulberry River only an hour earlier. The boat had mysteriously vanished. It must have taken to the main river once more. Was it possible that Jack had been held a prisoner aboard, and somehow had managed to escape? Yet, there had been no evidence of captives in the houseboat.
“The boat had two rooms, and Florence and I could not see into the one which was dark,” I said. “Jack could have been imprisoned there, but it doesn’t seem likely. Ralph appeared to be taking food to his friends.”
The possibility occurred to me that Jack while struggling in the water, battling to reach shore, might have seen the houseboat leave the mouth of the Mulberry River. Perhaps he had attempted to signal the boat, and failing, had believed that his only hope of rescue was gone. Such an experience would be likely to leave the houseboat imprinted indelibly upon his mind, and thus his strange mutterings could be explained. But with this theory there remained the disturbing question, why had Jack been in the water at all? Where had he been held a prisoner? And by whom?
“If Ralph did have anything to do with this, Clarence Emerson might not wish him to learn that Jack has been found,” I said. “Until I’ve talked with Dad, the best thing to do is to keep him under cover.”
I asked Mud Cat Joe if the reporter could be taken to the cottage, and he agreed to the plan.
I watched Jack anxiously as the boat made its slow progress up the river. I hoped that I hadn’t made the wrong decision. When we reached the cottage, I decided, I would summon a doctor at once, and if necessary, Jack could be taken away to a hospital.
“That feller looks purty well done in to me,” Mud Cat said as he pulled steadily at the oars. “I’ve fished plenty of ’em out of the river, but I never seen one act like him before.”
The boat, at last, scraped on the sandy beach beside Mud Cat Joe’s cottage.
“Bring a light, Jennie!” shouted the riverman.
As Mrs. Gains appeared in the doorway with a kerosene lamp, Mud Cat Joe hauled Jack from the boat, and we carried him into the cottage.
“Jennie, don’t stand there a-gapin’,” Mud Cat said to his wife. “Git some blankets and heat stones fer the bed.”
Jennie knew exactly what to do, for during her many years on the water, this was not the first time she had been called upon revive a victim of the river.
“You git them wet clothes off him,” she told her husband. “He kin have Jed’s bed.”
Jed was routed out of his snug nest, and he stood watching drowsy-eyed as his father rolled the stranger beneath the covers. Jennie heated stones in the oven, which she wrapped in towels and placed at Jack’s feet.
She robbed the other beds of blankets, observing: “They ain’t nothin’ better fer an ailin’ man than a good sweat.”
“I’ll go for a doctor,” I said.
We roused the village physician, Doctor Hamsted, from his warm bed and took him back to the cottage with us. Then we returned to the village once more, so that I could telephone my father.
“Jack has been found?” Dad’s voice broke. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a thousand years.”
“He’s in bad shape, Dad,” I said. “Doctor Hamsted is examining him now. I’m afraid of the verdict.”
“You stay there until I can come, Jane. We’ll have Jack moved to the Greenville hospital, and not spare the expense.”
When we returned to Mud Cat Joe’s cottage, Doctor Hamsted was just leaving.
“How is he, doctor?” I asked.
“His condition is grave. The man has suffered a great shock.”
“But h
e will recover?”
“He has a chance unless pneumonia should develop. However, his mind—” Doctor Hamsted gave a little shake of the head. “Well, he may improve after a lengthy rest. We will hope for the best. Have you any idea what happened to him?”
“We don’t know, Doctor. He was struggling in the river when we found him.”
“From the wound on his head, I assume he was struck a hard blow with a blunt object. The skull is not fractured. At least it appears so.”
“My father is coming from Greenville,” I said. “He plans to take Mr. Bancroft to the hospital at once.”
“That would not be advisable, in my opinion. You will do the patient more harm by moving him, than by allowing him to remain.”
“But facilities are so limited here, Doctor.”
“Perhaps within twenty-four hours he may be transferred to a hospital,” said Doctor Hamsted, “but certainly not tonight. I shall try to locate a nurse. In the meanwhile, will you remain here?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I have explained to Mrs. Gains about the medicine. There is very little that can be done except to give the patient complete rest.”
I stayed up for the remainder of the night by Jack’s bedside. Jack’s head had been neatly bandaged, and the white wrappings accentuated the ashen color of his skin. It was like looking at a stranger. The man on the bed did not seem like Jack Bancroft.
Jennie Gains closed off the doors leading to the bedroom, and herded her children into the other chamber, insisting that they create no disturbance.
An unnatural silence fell upon the little cottage. Now and then, I heard Mud Cat Joe or his wife tiptoe across the kitchen floor, but they did not enter the room where Jack lay.
The only light came from the oil lamp on the dresser which cast grotesque shadows on the plaster walls. At infrequent intervals, Jack stirred, muttering words which I could not understand.
Flo was asleep in an armchair, but I sat with folded hands, watching Jack, my heart leaping into my throat every time he made the slightest movement. I wished the nurse would come.
I heard a sound outside the window. Someone was walking along the gravel path. It was probably the nurse, I thought, although I had not heard a car drive up. It could not be my father. There had not been time for him to reach White Falls.
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