The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels

by Mildred Benson

  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 t
he 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.

  A light now burned in the living room. To Penny’s astonishment, the door was opened by Mrs. Botts.

  “Good evening,” she greeted the visitors pleasantly.

  Detective Fuller flashed his badge. “We want to ask you a few questions,” he said. “May we come in?”

  With obvious reluctance the woman stepped aside, allowing the party to enter the living room. Penny’s gaze roved to the center table. The telegram which she had opened no longer was there.

  Mrs. Botts did not offer chairs to the callers. Glaring at Penny with undisguised dislike, she said coldly: “I suppose I am indebted to you for this visit. What is it you want?”

  “I understand you have a roomer here,” began Detective Fuller.

  “A roomer?” Mrs. Botts echoed blankly.

  “Yes, a man by the name of Lester Jones.”

  “Ridiculous! You don’t seem to realize that this is the Deming estate.”

  “Are you an employee here?”

  “I am the housekeeper. During Mr. Deming’s absence I look after the property. I assure you no one but myself lives in the house at present.”

  “No roomer ever has stayed here?”

  Mrs. Botts drew herself up proudly. “Would Mr. Deming be likely to annoy himself with roomers? He has a very substantial fortune.”

  “You might try to pick up a few dollars yourself.”

  “Mr. Deming would not hear of such a thing! He pays me well.”

  Detective Fuller asked additional questions, trying to learn whether or not the woman was the one who had fled from the cemetery. Mrs. Botts frankly admitted that she had taken Mr. Parker to the hospital, but she denied ever trying to collect a ransom.

  “What you say now doesn’t agree with your original story,” Penny protested. “You admitted to me—”

  “I admitted nothing,” Mrs. Botts broke in indignantly. “I have no secrets to hide!”

  “But I’m sure Mr. Jones is living in this house,”Penny said stubbornly. “He’s upstairs.”

  “Indeed?” mocked Mrs. Botts. “Perhaps you’d like to search the house.”

  “Yes, we would,” said Detective Fuller.

  Mrs. Botts remained undisturbed. Bestowing upon Penny a look of deep contempt, she motioned toward the stairway.

  “Very well, search the house,” she invited with cool assurance. “I’ve told you the truth. You’ll find no one here but myself.”

  CHAPTER 19

  A BAFFLING SEARCH

  In systematic, unhurried fashion, Detective Fuller went through every room in the Deming house. The bed chambers, nine in number, were in perfect order. Only Mrs. Botts’ suite over the kitchen appeared to have been used recently.

  As the search progressed, Penny’s bewilderment increased. She knew that Lester Jones had been in the house an hour earlier, yet there was no sign of him. Personally she inspected clothes closets and bureau drawers. Not an article could she find that ever had belonged to her father. She did come upon a white woolen bathrobe. Believing it to be the garment worn by the “ghost” she called it to Detective Fuller’s attention.

  “Oh, that robe belongs to my employer, Mr. Deming,” explained Mrs. Botts.

  Penny indicated water stains along the hem which suggested that the garment had been allowed to trail in the snow.

  “Sometimes I wear the robe when I go outside to bring in the washing,” replied Mrs. Botts. “It is warmer than my coat.”

  Try as she would, Penny could not trip the woman into making any damaging admissions. Mrs. Botts had changed her original story and would not acknowledge that she had fled from the cemetery. Stubbornly, she maintained that she had told everything she knew about Mr. Parker’s disappearance.

  “I took him to Mercy Hospital in my employer’s car,” she repeated to Detective Fuller. “That’s the last I saw of him.”

  “In what condition was Mr. Parker when you left him?” questioned the detective.

  “He seemed all right. Perhaps he was a bit dazed.”

  “Why didn’t you report to the police?”

  “Because I didn’t see the newspapers for a day,”Mrs. Botts replied sullenly. “Later I read Miss Parker’s offer of a reward.”

  “Then you did write, requesting me to run the ad in the Star!” Penny cried triumphantly.

  “No, of course not,” Mrs. Botts retorted, “I merely read the item.”

  Penny knew Mrs. Botts was not telling the entire truth, but to prove it seemed an impossible matter. Neither could she establish that a man who claimed to be Lester Jones had been living in the house. True, Louise and the taxi driver would support her story, but it would only be their word against Mrs. Botts’. The situation had become hopelessly confusing.

  Detective Fuller was not entirely satisfied with the housekeeper’s story. “Guess we’ll have to take you along to the station for questioning,” he c
oncluded.

  Only then did Mrs. Botts lose her composure.

  “No, don’t take me away!” she pleaded anxiously. “My employer is coming home tonight. I just received the telegram. If I’m not here when he arrives, I may lose my job!”

  Actually Detective Fuller had little evidence against Mrs. Botts and doubted that he could hold her many hours in jail. Far more might be gained by allowing the woman her freedom and keeping watch of the house.

  “We’ll let you stay here,” he decided after a moment’s thought. “However, you’ll be wanted for questioning a little later. Make no attempt to leave the premises.”

  “I won’t try to go away,” Mrs. Botts promised. “I want to cooperate with the police. All I ask is that my employer, Mr. Deming, doesn’t hear of this. I’m innocent and it’s not right for me to lose a good job.”

  Very shortly the party bade the woman goodbye and left the estate. Detective Fuller assigned a policeman to keep watch of the property and then returned to Riverview. Louise and Penny, completely bewildered, left with their driver, Joe, debated their next action.

  “Where to?” the cabman inquired. “Home?”

  “I suppose so,” sighed Penny. “I never was in such a muddle in all my life. What became of that man I thought was Dad?”

  “He must have left the house while we were at the police station,” Louise declared. “It was a surprise finding Mrs. Botts there too! She must have returned in a hurry after we went away.”

  “Mrs. Botts got rid of Lester Jones somehow,”Penny said with conviction. “Oh, she’s a slick one!”

  As Joe shifted gears, the girls observed a dark figure approaching the estate from down the road.

  “Wait!” Penny instructed the cabman. “Let’s see who it is.”

  A moment later the figure emerged from the shadow cast by a giant tree. Penny was surprised to recognize Mose Johnson. The old colored man carried a basket on his arm and evidently had been doing a little late marketing at the crossroads store.

  “Good evening, Mose,” Penny greeted him as he approached the cab.

  “Evenin’, Miss Penny,” he beamed, pausing. “I’se suah astonished to see yo’ all out dis way. Has yo’been lookin’ for dat ghost?”