“You’ve come back! Oh, Mother needs you so badly. Do go to her at once.”
Mr. Rhett needed no urging. He was up the steps two at a time. Jerry and Penny, not wishing to intrude, remained in the living room, but a few minutes later, Lorinda called them.
“Oh, everything is wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Mother and Father have adjusted all their differences. And best of all, she’s already half over the idea she is going to die. Why, he just told her Celeste was dead and that she could never do any further harm. Mother snapped right out of it!”
Lorinda insisted that Jerry and Penny go upstairs. Mrs. Rhett was sitting up in bed, and her eyes were shining.
“How silly I’ve been,” she declared. “As I look back, I realize Celeste hated me and kept putting ideas in my mind. Why, I feel much better already.”
“Hungry?” asked Lorinda.
“Indeed, I am. I must have a gigantic dinner tonight.” Mrs. Rhett laughed and added: “With everything well salted!”
“About the bank—” began Mr. Rhett.
“Let’s not talk about it now,” his wife pleaded. “I was wrong about that too. I’ll never ask you to go back there, for it isn’t your type of life. Instead, perhaps we can go away somewhere on a long trip—South America, would that appeal to you, Hamilton?”
“Would it?” he chuckled. “Someone has been putting ideas in your head, and this time it wasn’t Celeste!”
Anxious to return to the newspaper office and to stop at the police station, Jerry and Penny soon took leave of the Rhetts, after receiving urgent invitations to return later that night.
“Well, it appears everything is turning out hunkey dorey for the Rhetts,” Jerry observed as he and Penny drove away from the mansion. “Antón is certain to be caught by the police, and those followers of his will be jailed too if they ever show their faces again.”
“Everything might be fine for the Rhetts except for one thing,” Penny returned. “Mrs. Rhett doesn’t have much ready cash available, and there still remains a little matter of $250,000 in missing bonds.”
“I’d forgotten about that. You’re right, Rhett still is in an awkward spot.”
The car drove into the downtown section where a few vehicles now were moving. Under the glow of the street lights, workmen were clearing the debris away.
As the car approached the First National Bank, Penny chanced to raise her eyes toward the second story balcony fronting the street. The grinning gargoyles stood out in dark relief, and as she gazed at them, she suddenly saw a shadowy figure moving stealthily toward the one nearest the open door leading from Mr. Rhett’s private office.
“Why, that looks like Albert Potts!” she exclaimed.
As she watched in amazement, the man approached the gargoyle. Reaching his hand far in between the open jaws, he removed something which he thrust into his overcoat pocket. Then, with a nervous glance down upon the deserted street, he stepped back into Mr. Rhett’s office, and closed the door.
CHAPTER 25
ON THE BALCONY
“Jerry, that was Albert Potts on the balcony!”Penny cried excitedly. “I’m sure I saw him remove an object from inside the gargoyle!”
“Maybe he was just looking to see what damage was done by the storm,” commented the reporter.
“He took something out and put it in his overcoat pocket! Jerry, now that I think back, Potts acted queerly that first day when the police investigated Mr. Rhett’s office. He didn’t want anyone to go near the gargoyle! Another thing, he’s been spending money as if it were rainwater!”
“You’re suggesting—”
“That it was Albert Potts who stole the bonds! Weren’t they left in Mr. Rhett’s desk? Potts knew it and had a perfect chance to take them! He implied that Rhett walked off with them! Actually, he hid the bonds in the gargoyle, knowing that if they were found there, no blame would be likely to fall upon him. Whenever he needed money, he cashed a bond—that’s why only a few have shown up at out of town banks!”
“Say, maybe you have something!” exclaimed Jerry, pulling up at the curb. “If he had hid the bonds in the gargoyle, it would be natural for him to wonder if they still were safe after this storm! He might have decided to shift them to another place.”
“My idea exactly! Jerry, let’s nab him and turn him over to the police!”
“Not quite so fast, my little chickadee. If we accuse Potts, and it turns out we’re wrong, well, he could make it hot for us.”
“We’ll have to take a chance,” Penny urged.
Leaving the car at the curb, the pair walked hurriedly to the bank. The building was dark and the lights were off inside.
“Sure you saw Potts on the balcony?” Jerry asked as they huddled against the wall for protection against the biting wind.
“Yes, and I think he’s coming now!”
Penny was correct. They heard footsteps coming down the marble stairway, and a moment later, the bank secretary unlocked the door. The waiting couple made no move until he had locked himself out, but as he started away, Jerry tapped him on the shoulder.
Potts whirled around, obviously startled. His face blanched.
“Hello, Potts,” said Jerry. “Working late, aren’t you?”
“Why, yes,” stammered the man, edging away.
“Can you spare a match?”
Potts half reached into his pocket as if to proffer one, then said testily: “I haven’t any. Sorry.”
“Sure now, you must have a match,” said Jerry, brushing against him. “Maybe in your overcoat pocket.”
Before Potts could prevent it, he had thrust his hands deep into each of the outside pockets. The bank clerk jerked angrily away. However, it was too late. Jerry triumphantly brought to light a heavy manila envelope.
“Give that to me!” Potts cried furiously.
Sidestepping him, Jerry pulled several bonds of large denomination from the envelope.
“The stolen bonds!” exclaimed Penny. “Mr. Potts, whatever possessed you to do it?”
The bank secretary never answered the question. Instead, he wheeled and started at a run down the street. As he reached the corner, a policeman who had just finished making a report to headquarters, turned from his phone box.
“Stop that man!” yelled Jerry.
The policeman grasped Potts, bringing him up short. After that, the bank secretary did his explaining to the desk sergeant at police headquarters. So unconvincing was his story, that he was immediately locked in a cell.
Meanwhile, Jerry and Penny related all they knew about the case. All scout cars were ordered to be on the alert to pick up Antón. Mr. Rhett was brought to the station within the hour, and promptly identified the recovered bonds as those he had left in his office desk.
At first, Potts firmly maintained his innocence, but after police had subjected him to a lie detector test, he realized his case was lost. When one of the detectives who was questioning him, remarked that his wife likely would be implicated in the theft, Potts broke completely:
“No! No! My wife had nothing to do with it,” he insisted. “I wanted to give my family better things—that was why I took the bonds. I thought Mr. Rhett would never return and that he would be blamed for the theft.”
“How did you cash the bonds?” he was asked.
“I was afraid to take them to a bank myself,” Potts confessed. “Instead, I paid a woman in another town to do it for me. But she did it only as a favor, and had no idea the bonds were stolen. I alone am to blame.”
A check by police revealed that Potts had spent only $2,000 of the total amount stolen. Mr. Rhett declared that this sum easily could be made up, so that the bank would sustain no loss. He was inclined to be lenient with his secretary, but police were insistent that the man be brought to trial.
Jerry and Penny, knowing that they had a big story to write, did not tarry long at the police station. However, the police desk sergeant promised to keep them informed of any new developments in the case. True to his w
ord, he called them soon after they reached the Star office. His news was that Antón had been captured by the police and now was safely locked in a jail cell.
“Well, that rings the gong on the case,” Jerry announced as he hung up the telephone. “Thanks to you, Penny, it’s all wound up.”
“And it’s nearly edition time!” barked the city editor. “Let’s get going on that story.”
He looked at Jerry who was known as the best writer on the paper, and then his eyes moved on to Penny who waited with bated breath.
“This was her story from start to finish,” said Jerry as the editor hesitated.
“Get going!” ordered the editor again, and now he looked straight at Penny. “Give it to me in takes.”
Penny hurried to a typewriter. The lead, telling of Mr. Rhett’s return, Potts’ arrest and recovery of the stolen bonds, almost wrote itself. Keeping her own part and Jerry’s entirely out of the story, she wrote smoothly and with speed.
When she had finished half a page, she called:“Copy boy!” and ripping the sheet of paper from the typewriter gave it to him to carry to the editor’s desk.
With a fresh sheet in the machine, she wrote on until she had a second “take” ready. Again she called the copy boy and, as he snatched it from her hand, rolled still another sheet into the typewriter.
At last she was on the final page and glanced over it before she typed “30” at the end. The story had been well told, written tersely in the manner DeWitt liked. With a feeling of exultation, she realized she had done a good job.
Getting to her feet, she dropped the last page into the copy basket. Earlier sheets already had been copy-read and were in the process of being set into type. Any moment now, the edition would roll and papers would be on the street.
Penny turned from the desk to see Jerry sitting with his feet propped up on one of the tables. He was gazing at her quizzically and grinning.
“Well, you did it again, Penny!” he remarked.
“We did it together,” she corrected.
“With the help of our silent partner,” he added lightly.
“Silent partner?”
“The hurricane. It damaged a lot of Riverview property, but on the other side of the ledger, it helped write ‘30’ to the Rhett case.”
Penny nodded as she reached for her hat and raincoat. Just then, a copy boy ran up.
“Telephone for you,” he said. “It’s your housekeeper, Mrs. Weems. She wants to know if you’re safe.”
“Safe and sound and on my way home,” laughed Penny. “Tell her I’ve already started.”
“And that she’s being driven by her faithful chauffeur,” chuckled Jerry, as he reached for his hat. “Which reminds me, we have a little package to deliver to the Rhetts’.”
“The Zudi drum! I forgot all about it!”
“Haven’t you forgotten another important matter too?” teased Jerry, escorting her through the swinging gate. “Me, for instance.”
“You?”
“My reward for tonight’s work. Girl reporters, even cute little numbers like you, can’t snatch my bylines without paying the piper!”
“And what fee do you require?” Penny asked with pretended innocence.
“We’ll go into that later,” he chuckled, pinning her neatly into a shadowy corner of the vestibule. “Just now, I’ll take a little kiss on deposit!”
SWAMP ISLAND
CHAPTER 1
THE BEARDED STRANGER
With slow, smooth strokes, Penny Parker sent the flat-bottomed skiff cutting through the still, sluggish water toward a small point of wooded land near the swamp’s edge.
In the bottom of the boat, her dark-haired companion, Louise Sidell, sat with her hand resting carelessly on the collar of her dog, Bones, who drowsed beside her. The girl yawned and shifted cramped limbs.
“Let’s go home, Penny,” she pleaded. “We have all the flowers you’ll need to decorate the banquet tables tonight.”
“But not all I want,” Penny corrected with a grin. “See those beautiful Cherokee roses growing over there on the island point? They’re nicer than anything we have.”
“Also harder to get.”
Louise craned her neck to gaze at the wild, tangled growth which rose densely from the water’s edge.
“Remember,” she admonished, “when Trapper Joe rented us this boat his last words were: ‘Don’t go far, and stay in the skiff.’”
“After we gather the flowers, we’ll start straight home, Lou. We’re too near the edge of the swamp to lose our way.”
Disregarding Louise’s frown, Penny tossed a lock of auburn hair out of her eyes, and dug in again with the oars.
A giant crane, disturbed by the splash, flapped up from the tall water grass. As he trumpeted angrily, Bones stirred and scrambled to his feet.
“Quiet, Bones!” Louise ordered, giving him a reassuring pat. “It’s only a saucy old crane.”
The dog stretched out on the decking again, but through half-closed eyes watched the bird in flight.
“Lou, hasn’t it been fun, coming here today?”Penny demanded in a sudden outbreak of enthusiasm. “I’ve loved every minute of it!”
“You certainly have! But it’s getting late and we’re both hot and tired. If you must have those flowers, let’s get them quickly and start home.”
The two girls, students at Riverview high school, had rented the skiff early that afternoon from Trapper Joe Scoville, a swamper who lived alone in a shack at the swamp’s edge.
For three hours now, they had idled along the entrance channel, gathering water lilies, late-blooming Cherokee roses, yellow jessamine, and iris.
The excursion had been entirely Penny’s idea. That night in a Riverview hotel, her father, Anthony Parker, publisher of the Riverview Star, was acting as host to a state newspapermen’s convention. He had handed Penny twenty dollars, with instructions to buy flowers for the banquet tables.
Penny, with her usual flare for doing things differently, had decided to save the money by gathering swamp blooms.
“These flowers are nicer than anything we could have bought from a florist,” she declared, gazing appreciatively at the mass of blooms which dripped water in the basket at her feet.
“And think what you can do with twenty dollars!” her chum teased.
“Seventeen. Remember, we owe Trapper Joe three dollars for boat rental.”
“It will be four if we don’t call it a day. Let’s get the flowers, if we must, and start home.”
“Fair enough,” Penny agreed.
Squinting at the lowering sun, she guided the skiff to a point of the low-lying island. There she held it steady while her chum stepped out on the spongy ground.
Bones, eager to explore, leaped after her and was off in a flash before Louise could seize his collar.
Penny followed her chum ashore, beaching her skiff in a clump of water plants. “This place looks like a natural haunt for cottonmouths or moccasins,” she remarked. “We’ll have to watch out for snakes.”
Already Louise was edging along in the soft muck, alertly keeping an eye upon all overhead limbs from which a poisonous reptile might drop.
Annoyed by thorny bushes which teethed into her jacket, she turned to protest to Penny that the roses were not worth the trouble it would take to gather them.
But the words never were spoken.
For just then, from some distance inland, came the sound of men’s voices. Louise listened a moment and retreated toward the boat.
“Someone is here on the island,” she whispered nervously. “Let’s leave!”
All afternoon the girls had floated through the outer reaches of the swamp without seeing a single human being. Now to hear voices in this isolated area was slightly unnerving even to Penny. But she was not one to turn tail and run without good reason.
“Why should we leave?” she countered, careful to keep her voice low. “We have a perfect right to be here. They’re probably fishermen from Riverview.”
Louise was not so easily reassured.
“We have all the flowers you need, Penny. Please, let’s go!”
“You wait for me in the boat, Lou. I’ll slip over to the bank and get the roses. Only take a minute.”
Stepping carefully across a half-decayed log, Penny started toward the roses, visible on a bank farther up shore.
Bones trotted a few feet ahead of her, his sensitive nose to the ground.
“Go back, Bones,” Penny ordered softly. “Stay with Louise!”
Bones did not obey. As Penny overtook him and seized the trailing leash, she suddenly heard voices again.
Two men were talking several yards away, completely hidden by the bushes. Their words brought her up short.
“There hain’t no reason to be afeared if we use our heads,” the one was saying. “Maybe me and the boys will help if ye make it worth our while, but we hain’t aimin’ to tangle with no law.”
The voice of the man who answered was low and husky.
“You’ll help me all right, or I’ll tell what I know! Only one thing brought me back here. I aim to get the guy who put me up! I was in town last night but didn’t get sight of him. I’m going back soon’s I leave here.”
Penny had been listening so intently that she completely forgot Bones.
The dog tugged hard at the leash which slipped from the girl’s hand. She scrambled for it, only to have Bones elude her and dart into the underbrush.
From the boat, Louise saw her pet escaping. Fearful that he would be lost, she called shrilly:“Bones! Bones! Come back here!”
The dog paid no heed. But Louise’s cry had carried far and served to warn those inland that someone had landed on the point.
A moment of dead silence ensued. Then Penny heard one of the men demand sharply: “What was that?”
Waiting for no more, she backtracked toward the boat. Before she could reach it, the bushes behind her parted.
A tall, square-shouldered man whose jaw was covered with a jungle growth of red beard, peered out at her. He wore a wide-brimmed, floppy, felt hat and loose fitting work clothes with sturdy boots.
His eyes, fierce and hostile, fastened directly upon Penny.
The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels Page 174