The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels

by Mildred Benson

  Seeing his face, Penny drew in her breath sharply. A small jagged scar disfigured one cheek. As he struggled past the door, she reached out and grasped his arm.

  “Come in here out of the wind,” she urged. As she gazed directly into his eyes, she added distinctly:“We have been looking for you a long while, Mr. Rhett!”

  CHAPTER 23

  IN THE PRESSROOM

  “You have made a mistake,” the man mumbled. “I am not Mr. Rhett. My name is Brown—Edgar Brown.”

  Penny, none too certain of the identification, gazed at the man’s hands. They were soft and white as if unaccustomed to hard work, but he wore no serpent ring on any of his fingers. She felt certain this was the man she had met at the steamship office.

  The stranger pulled gently away from her grasp, ready to start out into the howling wind once more.

  “You’ll be swept off your feet if you try to battle that storm!” Penny protested. “You must stay here until the worst of it is over!”

  “But I am not Mr. Rhett.”

  “Never mind about that,” said Penny. “I mistook you for someone else. Just come inside and I’ll close the doors.”

  The man peered outside once more, and noting the intensity of the storm, lost all desire to leave the shelter. He moved away from the entrance, and Penny closed the big, heavy door.

  “Come along with me into the pressroom where it is warm,” she invited.

  Without comment, the man followed her across the cement toward the loading docks. At the other end of the drive, someone opened the doors for a moment to allow a truck to roll inside. A great gust of wind tore through the passage, and sent the stranger’s hat careening into a corner.

  He darted to recapture it. As he stooped to pick it up, an object on a string which he wore about his neck, swung from beneath his sport shirt. Quickly he pushed it out of sight again, but not before Penny had seen the ring and recognized the serpent design.

  “He is Mr. Rhett!” she thought, her pulse pounding.

  Wisely, she pretended to have observed nothing, and invited him into the pressroom where Jerry was waiting. Celeste, still locked in the storage closet, was rattling the door knob and kicking on the panel with all her strength.

  “Jerry,” said Penny, dropping her bombshell. “This is Mr. Rhett.”

  The reporter’s mouth dropped agape, while the stranger plainly showed his annoyance.

  “I told you I am not Mr. Rhett.”

  “Then kindly explain the significance of that ring you wear around your neck. I saw it only a moment ago.”

  The stranger became confused. “My ring—” he stammered. “Oh, that! An heirloom. I have had it for years.”

  “Please tell us the truth,” pleaded Penny.

  “I know nothing about this man you call Mr. Rhett,” he replied, avoiding her direct gaze. “Evidently you have someone locked up here. Suppose you explain the meaning.”

  “Gladly,” replied Penny. “We do have someone imprisoned in the storage room ready to turn over to the police as soon as the storm lets up. It is Celeste.”

  “Celeste!” The stranger’s amazed expression betrayed him. Although he added: “And who is she?” it was unconvincing.

  “Mr. Rhett, why pretend?” Penny demanded. “We know who you are.”

  “Very well,” said the man, smiling faintly. “So I am Mr. Rhett! I assume you two are reporters for the Star.”

  “Right,” agreed Jerry.

  “And you want a story. Well, there’s no story. Since you have me dead to rights as they say, I’ll not deny I am Hamilton Rhett. However, my identity is my own affair. I stepped out of my old life—the bank and my home—because I was tired of a very boring existence. I never was cut to the cloth of a banker. I dislike being shut up indoors even for an hour. Probably I shall return to South America.”

  “You say it is your own affair,” Penny remarked pointedly. “I am afraid it isn’t. Aren’t you forgetting a little matter of $250,000?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I refer to that sum in negotiable bonds which you had in your possession at the time you left the bank.”

  Mr. Rhett did not seem to understand for a moment. Then he exclaimed: “Oh, the bonds! I was to have returned them to the vault, but it slipped my mind. You will find them in the top desk drawer in my office.”

  “The desk has been carefully searched. The bonds are not there.”

  “Not there?” For the first time Mr. Rhett seemed disturbed. “But they must be, unless they were stolen after I went away!”

  “The bonds have not been found, and the bank trustees are pressing your family to make restitution. Furthermore, your wife is dangerously ill.”

  “My wife sick? What is wrong?”

  “The doctors do not know. However, Lorinda burned an effigy doll made in your wife’s image—she found it in the house. Two burned match sticks tied together also were found by Mrs. Rhett. For some reason she became obsessed with the idea she was doomed to a lingering fatal illness. She began to refuse food and since then has gone steadily downhill.”

  “The work of Celeste!”

  “We think so. Tonight she stole the Zudi drum, and Lorinda and I found her with Antón and other followers celebrating their rites in a cave near the beach.”

  “Then they have reverted to their heathen ways!” the banker exclaimed. “My wife always said Celeste hated her, but I, like a blind fool, refused to see it. Once during the years I spent in the jungle, Celeste saved my life and I always felt grateful to her. Now I must forget that, for she is a dangerous woman if she seeks to practice her jungle magic.”

  “You don’t actually believe Celeste could make your wife ill merely by suggestion?” Jerry inquired in amazement.

  “In the jungles I have seen a native die from superficial wounds. If told the spear which struck him had been sung over by an enemy, the native would simply lie down, refuse food and pine away. My wife is in great danger!”

  “Can nothing be done?” cried Penny.

  Mr. Rhett’s face tightened into hard, grim lines. “A great deal can be done,” he said. “But Celeste must be fought with her own jungle weapons. To turn her over to the police will not be sufficient. She is inside the closet you say—let me talk to her.”

  “Okay,” agreed Jerry, “but Celeste in her present mood is a pretty brisk customer. To make sure she doesn’t get away, I’ll lock the pressroom door before letting her out of her cage.”

  As the reporter went to the exit, Penny heard the pressmen at the other end of the room shout that the storm had abated.

  “The hurricane has not passed,” corrected Mr. Rhett quietly. “This lull merely marks the end of the first phase. The wind will return harder than ever in a few minutes from another quarter.”

  Jerry returned, and taking the key to the storage room from his pocket, cautiously unlocked the door. Celeste, blinking like an owl as she staggered out under the electric lights, gasped as she saw Mr. Rhett.

  “Master!” she exclaimed worshipfully. “You come back!”

  Mr. Rhett’s face showed no trace of the affection he had felt for his servant. “Celeste,” he said, “you’ve been dabbling in magic again! What’s this nonsense about my wife being ill and going to die?”

  “The truth, Master. Antón and I try hard to save her, but no use. She die next month. Maybe sooner.”

  “Get this through your head, Celeste. My wife will not die. She will be as well as you are within two days. All your incantations over the doll were wasted. You plotted to no avail. I am home now, and if you persist in your wickedness, I will meet your so-called magic with stronger magic of my own!”

  “Celeste sorry,” the old woman whimpered. “Do it only to get money for master.”

  “I need no money and want none. You have been very wicked, Celeste, and must be turned over to the police for safe keeping.”

  “Oh, no, Master! Not the police!”

  “Yes, and now is the time to t
ake you there during this lull in the storm.”

  Celeste’s wild eyes darted about the room, searching for a means of escape. With a savage lunge, she reached the door only to find it locked.

  As Jerry and Mr. Rhett bore down upon her, she scurried frantically along the outer room wall, coming to the metal paper chute through which packages of freshly-printed papers were tossed for delivery.

  Quick as a cat, Celeste scrambled into the chute, crawling through on all fours. At the chute’s exit on the sheltered cement drive, stood the waiting paper truck, its rear door ajar. Already loaded, the driver awaited only this lull in the storm before setting off to deliver his cargo.

  Even as Celeste crawled through the chute, the man started the truck engine. The woman did not hesitate. Leaping into the rear of the vehicle, she slammed the door.

  Hearing it close, the driver assumed another workman had shut it as a signal for him to pull out. Shifting gears, he drove away with his cargo of papers—and Celeste.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE GRINNING GARGOYLE

  By the time Jerry, Penny and Mr. Rhett unlocked the pressroom door and reached the loading dock, the truck bearing Celeste was far down the street.

  “Hey, where’d that truck go?” the reporter shouted to another workman at the far end of the drive.

  “Docks at the end of Basset Street,” he answered. “A batch o’ papers go aboard the Monclove for shipment to Presque Isle.”

  Jerry’s car stood close by. He sprang in, making room for Penny and Mr. Rhett.

  The newspaper truck had disappeared by the time they drove out on the street. Jerry took a short-cut route to the Basset Street docks. Signs and debris of all description cluttered the roadway. Rain had ceased, but the ominous quiet, the heaviness of the air, was even more frightening than the wind had been.

  In a distant section of the city they heard the high-pitched whistle of a police siren; otherwise, the streets were as silent as the tomb.

  The car turned a corner, and directly ahead Penny glimpsed the newspaper truck.

  “There it is!” she cried, but Jerry also had seen the vehicle.

  He put on speed, and was close behind as the truck pulled up with a jerk at Dock 12. Green water whipped to foam, crashed with heavy impact against the dock posts and flooded out on the slippery planking.

  “We won’t have much time!” Mr. Rhett exclaimed. “When the next phase of the storm comes—and it’s close now—the wind will be terrific!”

  The men, with Penny close behind, leaped from the car. Quick as they were, Celeste was out of the truck before they could reach its door.

  She stopped short as she saw the trio, then like a trapped animal, turned and fled in the opposite direction.

  “Celeste!” Mr. Rhett shouted. “Wait!”

  The woman paid no attention. Splashing ankle-deep through water that washed the dock planks, she ran precariously close to the river’s edge.

  A hoarse shout from behind caused Penny to turn. The driver of the truck was gesturing and pointing first to the dark sky and then to an open shed. For a moment she did not understand, but as he ran for the shelter, she heard the deep-throated roar of the hurricane as it returned for its final onslaught.

  “Quick!” cried Mr. Rhett who also recognized the danger. “Inside!”

  The three ran back to the shed where the truck-driver had taken shelter. Although they shouted again and again to Celeste, she ignored their warnings.

  As the wind struck, they saw her at the very edge of the dock. She half turned toward the shed as if debating whether or not to seek its shelter, then took a step or two in the opposite direction.

  A great gust lifted off a section of the shed roof and whirled it away. As the full impact of the wind swept around the building, Celeste clung to a dock post for an instant; then her fingers lost their grip, and with a scream, she toppled over the edge into the churning water.

  Jerry started toward the door, but Mr. Rhett seized his arm, dragging him back.

  “Don’t be a fool! Celeste is beyond help! You’ll only lose your own life if you venture out there now!”

  Already Celeste had disappeared beneath the turbulent waters, leaving no trace. Anxiously those in the shed watched but her head never appeared above the surface.

  “Poor Celeste,” said Mr. Rhett sadly. “She meant well, but she was superstitious and misguided. However, she would have pined away in captivity. Perhaps she went the best way.”

  The servant’s startling death placed a pall upon the four who huddled in the shed. Close together, they flattened themselves against the wall, expecting at any moment that the entire building would be lifted from its foundation and hurled into the river. The force of the wind was almost unbelievable.

  After nearly a half hour, the gusts lost their strength and Mr. Rhett declared that the greatest danger had been passed.

  “Tell me everything that happened while I was away,” he requested Penny and Jerry.

  “We will,” promised Penny, “but first, suppose you explain why you went away.”

  “I thought I did tell you.” Mr. Rhett drew a deep sigh. “For many months I considered retiring from the bank. I discussed it with my wife, but she failed to see my viewpoint and insisted that I remain. We became deadlocked, so to speak.

  “I tried for her sake to force myself to like bank work, but it was utterly impossible. Each day I found myself longing for the old carefree adventurous days.”

  “So you quietly walked out?” Jerry supplied.

  “Something like that. My actions weren’t premeditated. One thing led to another. I had a quarrel with my wife over neglect of bank duties. As I sat thinking it over at my desk, it struck me that Lorinda and her mother probably would be happier if I removed myself from the picture.”

  “Did you write anything as you sat there?” Penny interposed eagerly.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Did you draw a picture of a plumed serpent?”

  “Yes, I believe so, though it was only absent-minded doodling.”

  “And beneath the drawing you wrote, ‘This shall be the end.’”

  “Why, yes, I did,” the man acknowledged. “I had decided to walk out and those words expressed the conclusion I reached. I wrote the thought absent-mindedly and never intended it to fall into anyone’s hands. Did I leave the paper in the desk?”

  “The police found it there.”

  “I must have been quite upset,” Mr. Rhett said, frowning. “At any rate, I walked out with less than three dollars in my pocket, and didn’t realize until later that I was without funds.”

  “So you took lodging in a cheap flop house on Cherry Street?” Jerry interposed.

  “Yes, you seem to have followed my actions very closely. Although the lodgings were hardly deluxe, I did not mind the experience. I frequently have slept on the ground or in native huts.”

  “You stayed there only one night?” Penny inquired.

  “Another lodger told me two persons had come to ask questions about a man who wore a serpent ring,”Mr. Rhett said. “Not wishing to be found, I removed the ring from my finger, and found another lodging place. When my money ran out, I picked up a little work as a laborer at one of the mills.”

  “I saw you inquiring at one of the steamship ticket offices,” Penny reminded him. “You remember that, I’m sure.”

  “I sought to work my passage on a boat going to South America,” Mr. Rhett explained.

  “All this time, didn’t you read the newspapers?”Jerry asked curiously. “Didn’t you know the bonds were missing and that your wife was ill?”

  Mr. Rhett shook his head. “I purposely avoided looking at the newspapers. I was afraid if I did I might be tempted to return to my old life.”

  “And now?” asked Penny softly.

  “I have no future, only the present. Before making any plans, I must return home to see that my wife frees her mind from Celeste’s evil suggestions. I made a great mistake
in bringing Celeste and Antón into the household. But once my wife knows Celeste is dead, I am confident she will quickly recover.”

  “You still love your wife?”

  “I shall always love her,” he returned quietly, “but she has no use for me. I’ve been a drag on her since the day we were married.”

  “She doesn’t feel that way, I’m sure,” Penny corrected. “Since you went away, she’s been heartbroken. Lorinda needs you too.”

  “I can never return to the bank,” Mr. Rhett repeated. “And there are the stolen bonds to be considered. Why, the police may even arrest me! I’m all mixed up.”

  “Matters will straighten out as soon as you see your wife,” Penny declared. “However, I’ll admit recovering the bonds may not be so easy. To my knowledge, the police haven’t a single clue.”

  Jerry was peering out the open shed door. “The storm is letting up,” he called. “We’ll soon be able to get out of here.”

  Another half hour and the wind died sufficiently so that the party could safely leave the shelter. The truck driver returned to the newspaper office, while Jerry and Penny drove Mr. Rhett to his home.

  The mansion yard was cluttered with uprooted trees, boards and debris. Penny ran down the path a short distance and returned to report that the thatched roof cottage had vanished without a trace.

  “Perhaps it is just as well,” said Mr. Rhett. “It was a mistake to build the cottage, but Celeste first put the idea in my head. I intended to use it only as a trophy room, but to Celeste it became a living symbol of the life she had left behind.”

  “Why did you build the passageway leading to the cave and to Celeste’s room?” Penny inquired.

  Mr. Rhett’s blank expression told her that he did not understand. After she had explained, he said grimly: “Antón and Celeste must have dug the tunnel without my knowledge! Oh, they were a cunning pair!”

  “And Antón still is on the loose,” Jerry reminded the banker. “We’ll have to notify the police to pick him up.”

  Mr. Rhett and the young people entered the house. Lorinda, startled by hearing the front door open, ran to the head of the stairway. Seeing her stepfather, she gave a cry of joy and raced to meet him.