The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels

by Mildred Benson

  Mr. Parker telephoned DeWitt and then joined the others at the press car. As Salt Sommers climbed aboard with his camera, an automobile bearing a News windshield sticker, skidded to a stop nearby.

  “Too bad, boys,” Salt taunted the rival photographers. “Better late than never!”

  Already news vendors were crying the Star’s first extra. Once well away from the bridge, Mr. Parker stopped the car to buy a paper.

  “Nice going,” he declared in satisfaction as he scanned the big black headlines. “We beat every other Riverview paper by a good margin. A colorful story, too.”

  “Thanks to whom?” demanded Penny, giving him a pinch.

  “I suppose I should say, to you,” he admitted with a grin. “However, I see you’ve already received ample credit. DeWitt gave you a by-line.”

  “Did he really?” Penny took the paper from her father’s hand and gazed affectionately at her own name in print. “Nice of him. Especially when I didn’t even suggest the idea.”

  To a newspaper reporter, a story tagged with his own name means high honor. Many times Penny, ever alert for news, had enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing her stories appear with a by-line. Early in her career as a self-made newspaper girl, her contributions had been regarded as something of an annoyance to her father and the staff of the Star. But of late she had turned in many of the paper’s best scoops and incidentally, had solved a few mysteries.

  “This is the way I like a story written,” Mr. Parker declared, reading aloud from the account which bore his daughter’s name. “No flowery phrases. Just a straight version of how your sailboat upset and what you saw as it floated down toward the bridge.”

  “It’s a pretty drab account if you ask me,” sniffed Penny. “I could have written it up much better myself. Why, the re-write man didn’t even tell how Louise and I happened to upset!”

  “A detail of no importance,” Mr. Parker returned. “I mean, in connection with the story,” he corrected hastily as Penny flashed him an injured look. “What did cause you to capsize?”

  “A blue bottle, Dad. It had a piece of paper inside. I was reaching for it and—oh, my aunt!”

  “Now what?” demanded her father.

  “Turn the car around and drive back to the bridge!”

  “Drive back? Why?”

  “I’ve lost that blue bottle,” Penny fairly wailed. “Louise had it, but I know she didn’t take it home with her. It must be lying somewhere on the beach near our stranded sailboat. Oh, please Dad, turn back!”

  CHAPTER 3

  STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER

  Mr. Parker did not slacken the speed of the car. Relaxing somewhat, he edged farther away from Penny, whose sodden garments were oozing water.

  “A bottle!” he exclaimed. “Penny, for a minute you had me worried. I thought you meant something important.”

  “But Dad, the bottle is important,” she argued earnestly. “You see, it contains a folded piece of paper, and I’m sure it must be a message.”

  “Of all the idiotic things! At a time like this when you should be worried about your health, you plague me about a silly bottle. We’re going straight home.”

  “Oh, all right,” Penny accepted the decision with a shrug. “Nevertheless, I’m curious about that bottle, and I mean to find it tomorrow!”

  Mr. Parker dropped Jerry and Salt off at the newspaper plant and then drove on to his home. The house, a modern two-story dwelling, was situated on a terrace overlooking the river. Lights glowed from the living room windows and Mrs. Weems, the stout housekeeper, could be seen hovering over the radio.

  “I was just listening to the news about the dynamiting,” she remarked as Mr. Parker and his daughter came in from the kitchen. Turning her head, she stared at the girl’s bedraggled hair and wet clothing. “Why, Penny Parker!”

  “I guess I am a little bit moist,” Penny admitted with a grin. Sitting down on the davenport, she began to strip off her shoes and stockings.

  “Not here!” Mrs. Weems protested. “Take a hot shower while I fix you a warm drink. Oh, I knew you shouldn’t have gone sailing at night.”

  “But Mrs. Weems—”

  “Scoot right up to the bathroom and get out of those wet clothes!” the housekeeper interrupted. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t come down with your death o’ cold.”

  Carrying a shoe in either hand, Penny wearily climbed the stairs. By the time she had finished under the shower, Mrs. Weems appeared with a glass of hot lemonade.

  “Drink this,” she commanded sternly. “Then get into bed and I’ll fix you up with the hot water bag.”

  “But I’m not sick,” Penny grumbled.

  “You will be tomorrow,” the housekeeper predicted. “Your father told me how he allowed you to stay at the bridge while police searched for the saboteur. I declare, I don’t know what he was thinking of!”

  “Dad and I are a couple of tough old news hawks,”Penny chuckled. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to compromise with you.”

  “Compromise?” Mrs. Weems asked suspiciously.

  “I’ll drink the lemonade if you’ll let me skip the hot water bottle.”

  “Indeed not,” Mrs. Weems returned firmly. “Now jump into bed, and no more arguments.”

  Although Penny considered the housekeeper entirely too thorough in her methods, she enjoyed the pleasant warmth of the bed. She drank the lemonade, submitted to the hot water bottle, and then snuggling down, slept soundly. When she awakened, sunlight streamed in through the Venetian blinds. Cocking an eye at the dresser clock, she saw to her dismay that it was ten o’clock.

  “My Aunt!” she exclaimed, leaping out of bed. “All this good time wasted!”

  With the speed of a trained fireman, Penny wriggled into her clothes. She gave her auburn hair a quick brush but took time to slap a little polish on her saddle shoes before bounding down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “Is that you or a gazelle escaped from the zoo?” inquired Mrs. Weems who was washing dishes at the sink.

  “Why didn’t you bounce me out of bed two hours ago?” asked Penny. “I have an important business engagement for this morning.”

  “You’re not going to the river again, I hope!”

  “Oh, but I must, Mrs. Weems.” Penny opened the refrigerator and helped herself to a bowl of strawberries and a Martha Washington pie.

  “You’re not breakfasting on that,” said the housekeeper, taking the dishes away from her. “Oatmeal is what you need. Now why must you go to the river?”

  “Someone has to salvage the sailboat. Besides, I lost a valuable object last night—”

  The telephone jingled, and Penny darted off to answer it. As she had anticipated, the call was from Louise Sidell, who in a very husky voice asked her how she was feeling.

  “Fit as a fiddle and ready to go bottle hunting!”Penny replied promptly. “And you?”

  “I hurt in all the wrong places,” Louise complained. “What a night!”

  “Why, I enjoyed every minute of it,” Penny said with sincerity. “If you’re such a wreck I suppose you won’t care to go with me to the river this morning. By the way, what did you do with that blue bottle?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. I’m sure I had it in my hand when we reached shore, but that’s the last I remember.”

  “Well, never mind, if it’s anywhere on the beach I’ll find it,” Penny said. “Sure you don’t want to tag along?”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Then meet me in twenty minutes at Ottman’s dock. Signing off now to gobble a bowl of oatmeal.”

  Without giving Louise a chance to change her mind, Penny hung up the receiver and returned to the kitchen. After fortifying herself with oatmeal, a glass of orange juice, bacon, two rolls and sundry odds and ends, she started off to meet Louise. Her chum, looking none too cheerful, awaited her near Ottman’s dock.

  “Why did you ask me to meet you at this particular place, Penny?” she inquired. “It was a block out of my way.”


  “I thought we might rent one of Ottman’s boats and row down to the bridge. It will be easier than walking along the mud flats.”

  “You think of everything,” Louise said admiringly. “But where’s the proprietor of this place?”

  Boats of all description were fastened along the dock, but neither Burt Ottman nor his sister were visible. Not far from a long shed which served as ticket office and canoe-storage house, an empty double-deck motor launch had been tied to a pier. An aged black and white dog drowsed on its sunny deck.

  “Guess the place is deserted,” Penny commented. After wandering about, she sat down on an overturned row boat which had been pulled out near the water’s edge.

  The boat moved beneath her, and an irate voice rumbled: “Would you mind getting off?”

  Decidedly startled, Penny sprang to her feet.

  As the boat was pushed over on its side, a girl in grimy slacks, rolled from beneath it. Barely twenty years of age, her skin was rough and brown from constant exposure to wind and sun. A smear of varnish decorated one cheek and she held a can of caulking material in her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” said Penny, smiling. “Do you live under that boat?”

  Sara Ottman’s dark eyes flashed. Getting to her feet, she regarded the girl with undisguised hostility.

  “Very clever, aren’t you!” she said scathingly. “In fact, quite the little joker!”

  “Why, I didn’t mean anything,” Penny apologized. “I had no idea you were working under that thing.”

  “So clever, and such a marvelous detective,” Sara went on, paying no heed. “Why, it was Penny Parker who not so long ago astonished Riverview by solving the Mystery of the Witch Doll! And who but Penny aided the police in trailing The Vanishing Houseboat? It was our own Penny who learned why the tower Clock Struck Thirteen. And now we are favored with her most valuable opinion in connection with the bridge dynamiting case!”

  Penny and Louise were dumbfounded by the sudden, unwarranted attack. By no stretch of the imagination could they think that Sara Ottman meant her words as a joke. But what had her so aroused? While it was true that Penny had solved many local mysteries, she never had been boastful of her accomplishments. In fact, she was one of the most popular girls in Riverview.

  “Are you sure you haven’t a fever, Miss Ottman?”Penny demanded, her own eyes blazing. “I certainly fail to understand such an outburst.”

  “Of course you do,” the other mocked. “You’re not used to talk coming straight from the shoulder. Why are you here anyhow?”

  “To rent a boat.”

  “Well, you can’t have one,” Sara Ottman said shortly. “And if you never come around here again, it will be soon enough.”

  Glaring once more at Penny, she turned and strode into the boathouse.

  CHAPTER 4

  AN UNWARRANTED ATTACK

  “Now will you tell me what I did to deserve a crack like that?” Penny muttered as the door of the boathouse slammed behind Sara Ottman.

  “Not a single thing,” Louise answered loyally. “She just rolled out from beneath that boat with a dagger between her teeth!”

  “I guess I am a little prig, Lou.”

  “You’re no such thing!” Louise grasped her arm and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “Come along and forget it. I never did like Sara Ottman anyhow.”

  Penny allowed herself to be led away from the dock, but the older girl’s unkind remarks kept pricking her mind. Although occasionally in the past she had stopped for a few minutes at the Ottman place, she never before had spoken a dozen words to Sara. Nearly all of her business dealings had been with Burt Ottman, a pleasant young man who had painted her father’s sailboat that spring.

  “I simply can’t understand it,” Penny mumbled, trudging along the shore with Louise. “The last time I saw Sara she spoke to me politely enough. I must have offended her, but how?”

  “Oh, why waste any thought on her?” Louise scoffed.

  “Because it bothers me. She mentioned the bridge dynamiting affair. Maybe it was my by-line story in the Star that offended her.”

  “What did it say?” Louise inquired curiously. “I didn’t see the morning paper.”

  “Neither did I. I gave my story to a rewrite man over the telephone. I meant to read the entire account, but was in a hurry to get over here, so I skipped it.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t worry about the matter if I were you.”

  “I’m sure the boat used in the dynamiting came from Ottman’s,” Penny declared, thinking aloud. “Perhaps Sara is just out of sorts because she and her brother lost their property.”

  Making their way along the mud flats, the girls came at last to the tiny stretch of sand where the sailboat had been beached the previous night. It lay exactly as they had left it, cockpit half filled with water, the tall mast nosed into the loose sand.

  “What a mess,” sighed Penny. “Well, the first thing to do is to get the wet sail off. We should have taken care of it last night.”

  Before beginning the task, the girls wandered toward the nearby bridge to inspect the damage caused by dynamiting. An armed soldier refused to allow them to approach closer than twenty yards. All traffic had been halted, and a group of engineers could be seen examining the shattered pier.

  “Is Mr. Oaks around here?” Penny asked the soldier.

  “Oaks? Oh, you mean the bridge watchman. He’s been charged with neglect of duty, and relieved of his job.”

  Penny and Louise were sorry to hear the news, feeling that in a way they were responsible for the old fellow having left his post. Unable to learn whether or not the watchman was being detained by police, they returned to the beach to salvage their sailboat.

  Without a pump, it was a difficult task to remove the water from the cockpit of “Pop’s Worry.” By rocking the boat back and forth and scooping with an old tin can, the girls finally got most of it out.

  “We’ll have to dry the sail somehow or it will mildew,” Penny decided. “The best thing, I think, is to put it on again and sail home.”

  Together they righted the boat. As the tall mast flipped out of the sand, Penny caught glimpse of a shiny, blue object.

  “Our bottle!” she cried triumphantly, making a dive for it.

  “Your bottle,” corrected Louise. “I’m not a bit interested in that silly old thing.”

  Nevertheless, as Penny sat down on the deck of“Pop’s Worry” and removed the cork, she edged nearer. By means of a hairpin, the folded sheet of paper contained within was pulled from the narrow neck. Highly elated, Penny spread out the message to read.

  “Well, what does it say?” Louise inquired impatiently.

  “Oh, so you are interested,” teased Penny.

  “Now don’t try to be funny! Read the message.”

  Penny stared at the paper in her hand. “It’s rather queer,” she acknowledged. “Listen:

  “‘The day of the Great Deluge approaches. If you would be saved from destruction, seek without delay, the shelter of my ark.’”

  “If that isn’t nonsense!” Louise exclaimed, peering over her chum’s shoulder. “And the note is signed, ‘Noah.’”

  “Someone’s idea of a joke, I suppose,” Penny replied. She tossed the paper away, then reconsidering, retrieved the message and with the bottle, placed it in the cockpit of the boat. “Well, it’s rained a lot this Spring, but I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the Great Deluge.”

  “Noah was a Biblical character,” Louise commented thoughtfully. “I remember that when God told him it would rain forty days and forty nights, he built an ark to resist the flood waters. And he took his family in with him and all the animals, two by two.”

  “Noah was a bit before our time,” laughed Penny. “Suppose we shove off for home.”

  By dint of much physical exertion, the girls pushed“Pop’s Worry” out into the shallow water. Penny, who had removed shoes and stockings, gave a final thrust and leaped lightly aboard. Raising the wet sail, s
he allowed it to flap loosely in the wind.

  “We’ll have everything snug and dry by the time we reach home,” she declared confidently. “Tired, Lou?”

  “A little,” admitted her chum, stretching out full length on the deck. “I like to sail but I don’t like to bail! And just think, if you hadn’t been so crazy to get that blue bottle, we’d have spared ourselves a lot of hard work.”

  “Well, a fellow never knows. The bottle might have provided the first clue in an absorbing mystery! Who do you suppose wrote such an odd message?”

  “How should I know?” yawned Louise. “Probably some prankster.”

  Taking a zigzag course, “Pop’s Worry” tacked slowly upstream. Whipped by a brisk wind, the wet sail gradually dried and regained its former shape.

  As the boat presently approached Ottman’s dock, both girls turned to gaze in that direction. Sara could be seen moving about on one of the floating platforms, retying several boats which banged at their moorings.

  “Better tack,” Louise advised in a low tone. “We don’t want to get too close.”

  Penny acted as if she had not heard. She made no move to bring the boat about.

  “We’ll end up right at Ottman’s unless you’re careful,”Louise warned. “Or is that what you want to do?”

  “I’m thinking about it.” Penny watched Sara with thoughtful eyes.

  “Well, if you’ll deliberately go there again, I must say you enjoy being insulted!”

  “I’d like to find out why Sara is angry at me. If it’s only a misunderstanding I want to clear it up.”

  Louise shook her head sadly but offered no further protest as the boat held to its course. Not until the craft grated gently against one of the floats at Ottman’s did Sara seem to note the girls’ approach. Glancing up from her work, she stared at them, and then deliberately looked away.

  “The air’s still chilly,” Penny remarked in an undertone. “Well, we’ll see.”

  Making “Pop’s Worry” fast to a spar, she walked across the float to confront Sara.

  “Miss Ottman,” she began quietly, “if I’ve done anything to offend you, I wish to apologize.”