“I don’t mind. So much has happened today, I’ve had no time to be hungry.”
“Want me to drop you off there now?”
“No, the banquet will be nearly over. I couldn’t bear to listen to speeches. Let’s go straight to the office and find out what that traffic accident picture shows.”
“Suits me, only I’m hungry.” On impulse, Salt pulled up in front of a hamburger shop offering curb service. “Let’s grab a bite before we really go to work to crack this case.”
He tooted the horn and a uniformed girl came hurrying to take his order.
Fortified by sandwiches, coffee, and ice cream, the pair then drove on to the Riverview Star office.
Avoiding the busy newsroom, Salt and Penny went up the back stairs to the photographic studio. Bill Jones, a studio helper, was busy at the wire photo machine.
“Has that picture of the traffic accident I sent over come up yet?” Salt asked him.
“On the desk,” the boy answered. “Not too sharp.”
Salt picked up a dozen pictures which had been printed on glossy paper and rapidly ran through them until he found the one he sought.
Eagerly Penny peered over his shoulder. The two cars involved in the accident were plainly shown, the license numbers of both visible. In the ancient vehicle, the younger man had lowered his head so that his face was completely hidden. The camera had caught a profile view of the older man, also not clear.
“Lousy picture,” said Salt contemptuously.
“It shows the license number of the car. Can’t we trace the driver that way?”
“The Motor Vehicle Department is closed now. But I know a fellow who works there. Maybe he’ll do us a favor and go back to the office tonight and look up the information.”
Salt made the telephone call, and after ten minutes of argument, convinced his friend that the requested information was a matter of life and death.
“He’ll do it,” the photographer said, hanging up the receiver. “Soon’s he gets the information, he’ll telephone us here.”
Penny had been studying the photograph again. She now was ready with a second suggestion. “Even if the faces aren’t very clear, let’s compare them with pictures of Danny Deevers in the morgue.”
“Good idea,” agreed Salt.
The newspaper morgue or library where photographs, cuts and newspaper clippings were carefully filed for reference, was just a few steps down the hall. Miss Adams, the librarian, had gone to lunch, so Salt obtained a key and they searched for their own information.
“Here’s an envelope marked Danny Deevers!”Penny cried, pulling it from one of the long filing drawers. “All sorts of pictures of him too!”
Critically, the pair studied the photographs.
The escaped convict was a middle-aged, sullen looking man with hard, expressionless eyes. In one of the pictures, parted lips revealed a set of ugly, uneven teeth.
“This shot I took is so blurred, it’s hard to tell if they’re the same person or not,” Salt complained. “But it looks like Danny.”
“If it is, that would explain why he tried to make you give up the plate.”
“Sure, he knew the car license number would be a tip-off to the police. But maybe the bird isn’t Danny.”
“I wish we were certain. Salt, couldn’t Jerry identify him from the picture you took?”
“Maybe. Jerry saw Deevers several times before he was put away in the pen.”
“Then why not take the picture to the hospital now?”
“Okay,” agreed Salt. “Let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later, at the hospital, they sought unsuccessfully to pass a receptionist who sat at a desk in the lobby.
“Sorry, visiting hours are over,” she explained.
“We’re from the Star,” Salt insisted. “We have to see Jerry Livingston on an important business matter.”
“That’s different,” the receptionist replied. “You may go up to his room, but please make the call brief.”
An automatic elevator carried the pair to the third floor. Jerry’s door near the end of the corridor stood slightly ajar. Salt tapped lightly on it, and hearing no answer, pushed it farther open.
“Well, what d’you know!” he exclaimed.
Penny, startled by his tone of voice, peered over his shoulder.
The room was deserted. Jerry’s bed, unmade, stood empty.
CHAPTER 8
IN SEARCH OF JERRY
“Now what could have become of Jerry?”Penny murmured as she and Salt gazed about the deserted room in amazement. “Surely we’ve made no mistake.”
“He was assigned this room all right,” the photographer declared. “But maybe they changed it later.”
“That’s it,” agreed Penny in relief. “For a minute it gave me a shock seeing that empty bed. I thought perhaps he had taken a bad turn and been removed for emergency treatment.”
The pair sought Miss Brent, a floor supervisor.
“Why, the patient in Room 318 hasn’t been changed elsewhere,” she replied. “At least, not to my knowledge. I’ve been off the floor for the last half hour.”
Inspecting Room 318 to satisfy herself that the bed was empty, Miss Brent questioned several nurses and an interne. No one seemed to know what had become of the patient. There was a whispered conference and then Miss Brent made a call to the superintendent.
“Something has happened to Jerry!” Penny told Salt tensely. “He may have been abducted!”
A nurse came flying up the hall from the locker room.
“Mr. Livingston’s clothes are gone!” she reported.
Light began to dawn on Penny. She recalled the seemingly innocent question Jerry had asked earlier that night as to the location of the clothes locker.
“He’s probably walked out of the hospital!” she exclaimed.
“Impossible!” snapped Miss Brent, though her voice lacked conviction. “Nurses have been on duty here all the time. Mr. Livingston couldn’t have obtained his clothes without being observed.”
“The floor was deserted for about ten minutes,” an interne recalled. “An emergency case came in and everyone was tied up.”
Penny re-entered Jerry’s room. The window remained closed and it was a straight drop of three stories to the yard below. She was satisfied the reporter had not taken that escape route.
A sheet of paper, propped against the mirror of the dresser attracted her eye. As she unfolded it, she saw at once that the handwriting was Jerry’s.
“I’m too healthy a pup to stay in bed,” he had scrawled. “Sorry, but I’m walking out.”
Penny handed the note to Miss Brent who could not hide her annoyance as she read it.
“Nothing like this ever happened before!” she exclaimed. “How could the young man have left this floor and the building without being seen? He’s in no condition to be wandering about the streets.”
“Then Jerry really did need hospitalization?” inquired Penny.
“Certainly. He suffered shock and the doctor was afraid of brain injury. The patient should have been kept under observation for at least twenty-four hours. Wandering off this way is a very bad sign.”
“We’ll get him back here pronto!” Salt promised. “He can’t have gone far.”
In the lobby he and Penny paused to ask the receptionist if she had observed anyone answering Jerry’s description leave the building.
“Why, no,” she replied, only to correct herself. “Wait! A young man in a gray suit left here about twenty minutes ago. I didn’t really notice his face.”
“That must have been Jerry!” cried Penny. “Which way did he go?”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Jerry may have gone to his room,” Penny said hopefully. “Let’s call his hotel.”
Using a lobby telephone, they dialed the St. Agnes Hotel Apartments where the reporter lived. The desk clerk reported that Jerry had not been seen that night.
“Oh, where could
he have gone?” Penny said as she and Salt left the hospital. “He may be wandering the streets in a dazed condition. Shouldn’t we ask police to try to find him?”
“Guess it’s all we can do,” the photographer agreed. “Jerry sure will be sore at us though.”
A taxi cab pulled up near the hospital steps.
“Taxi?” the driver inquired.
Salt shook his head. “We don’t know where we want to go yet. We’re looking for a friend of ours who left the hospital about twenty minutes ago.”
“A girl?”
“No, a man in a gray suit,” Penny supplied. “He probably wasn’t wearing a hat.”
“Say, he musta been the one that asked me about the fare to the swamp!”
At the pair’s look of intense interest, the cab driver added: “I was waitin’ here for a fare when some ladies came out of the hospital. I pulled up and took ’em aboard. Just then this young feller comes out.
“He didn’t seem to notice I had my cab filled, and says: ‘How much to take me to Caleb Corners?’”
“Caleb Corners?” Penny repeated, having never heard of the place.
“That’s a long ways out, almost to the swamp. I says to him, ‘Sorry, buddy, but I got a fare. If you can wait a few minutes I’ll be right back and pick you up.’”
“What did Jerry say?” Salt asked.
“He said he wanted to get started right away. Reckon he picked up another cab.”
Thanking the driver for the information, Penny and Salt retreated a few steps for a consultation.
“If Jerry started for the swamp at this time of night he must be wacky!” the photographer declared. “That knock on the head must have cracked him up and he doesn’t know what he’s doing!”
“Why would he start for the swamp? Maybe he remembers what I told him about seeing a stranger there today, and in his confusion, has an idea he’ll find Danny Deevers!”
“Jerry can’t have had much of a start, and we know he headed for Caleb Corners! I’ll go after him.”
“We’ll both go,” Penny said quickly. “Come on, let’s get the car.”
Before they could leave the hospital steps, the receptionist came hurrying outside.
“Oh, I’m glad you’re still here!” she said breathlessly, looking at the photographer. “Aren’t you Mr. Sommers?”
“That’s me,” agreed Salt.
“A telephone call for you.”
“Say, maybe it’s Jerry! Wait here, Penny. I’ll be right back.”
Salt was gone perhaps ten minutes. When he returned, his grim expression instantly informed Penny that the call had not been from Jerry.
“It was from my friend in the Motor Vehicle Department,” he reported. “He traced the license number of the car that was in the accident.”
“How did he know you were here, Salt?”
“Telephoned the office, and someone told him to try the hospital.”
“Who owns the car, Salt?”
“A woman by the name of Sarah Jones, Route 3, Crissey Road.
“Crissey Road! Why, that’s out near the swamp, not far from Trapper Joe’s place! I recall seeing the name on a signpost when Louise and I were out there this afternoon.”
“All roads lead to the swamp tonight,” Salt commented. “I’m worried about Jerry. I called the office and he hasn’t shown up there.”
“Then he must have started for Caleb Corners! Salt, we’re wasting time!”
“We sure are,” he agreed. “Let’s go!”
The press car had been parked in a circular area fifty yards from the hospital. Salt and Penny ran to it, and soon were on their way, speeding into the night on a deserted, narrow road.
CHAPTER 9
THE WIDOW JONES
Caleb Corners scarcely was a stopping point on the narrow, dusty, county highway.
By night the crossroads were dark and gloomy, unlighted even by a traffic signal. To the right stood a filling station, and directly across from it, a little grocery store, long since closed for the day.
Salt turned in at the filling station, halting the press car almost at the doorway of the tiny office.
Inside, a young man who was counting change at a cash register, turned suddenly and reached for an object beneath the counter. As Salt came in, he kept his hand out of sight, regarding the photographer with suspicion.
“Relax, buddy,” said Salt, guessing that the station owner feared robbery. “We’re from the Riverview Star and need a little information.”
“What do you want to know?” The young man still kept his hand beneath the counter.
“We’re looking for a friend of ours who may have come out here a few minutes ago in a taxi.”
“No cab’s been through here in the last hour,” the filling station man said. “This is a mighty lonesome corner at night. I should have closed up hours ago, only I’m expecting a truck to fill up here.”
“Why not put that gun away?” Salt suggested pointedly. “We’re not here to rob you. Do we look like crooks?”
“No, you don’t,” the man admitted, “but I’ve been taken in before. This station was broken into three times in the past six months. Only two weeks ago a man and woman stopped here about this same time of night—they looked okay and talked easy, but they got away with $48.50 of my hard earned cash.”
“We really are from the Star,” Penny assured him. “And we’re worried about a friend of ours who slipped away from the hospital tonight. He was in an accident and wasn’t entirely himself. He may get into serious trouble if we don’t find him.”
Her words seemed to convince the filling station man that he had nothing to fear. Dropping the revolver into the cash drawer, he said in a more friendly tone:
“I guess you folks are on the square. Anyway, you wouldn’t get much if you robbed the till tonight. I only took in $37.50. Not enough to pay me for keeping open.”
“You say a cab hasn’t been through here tonight?”Salt asked impatiently.
“There’s been cars through, but no taxi cabs.”
“Where do these roads lead?”
“One takes you to Belle Plain and on to Three Forks. The other doesn’t go much of anywhere—just on to the swamp.”
“Any houses on the swamp road?” Salt inquired.
“An old trapper has a place up there, and the Hawkins’farm is on a piece. Closest house from here is the Widow Jones’.”
“How far?”
“Oh, not more than three—four miles.”
“Mrs. Jones drives a car?” Salt asked casually.
“Her?” The filling station man laughed. “Not on your life! She has an old rattle-trap her husband left her when he died, but she doesn’t take it out of the shed often enough to keep air in the tires.”
Penny and Salt inquired the way to the widow’s home.
“You can’t miss it,” replied the station man. “Straight on down the swamp road about three miles. First house you come to on the right hand side of Crissey Road. But you won’t likely find the widow up at this hour. She goes to bed with the chickens!”
On the highway once more, Salt and Penny debated their next move. Jerry’s failure to show up at Caleb Corners only partially relieved their anxiety. Now they could only speculate upon whether the reporter had remained in Riverview or had driven past the filling station without being seen.
“Since we’ve come this far, why not go on to the Widow Jones’ place?” Salt proposed. “She may have seen Jerry. In any case, we can question her about that car she owns.”
Bumping along on the rutty road, they presently rounded a bend and on a sideroad saw a small, square house which even in its desolation had a look of sturdy liveability.
“That must be the place,” Salt decided, slowing the car. “No lights so I guess she’s abed.”
“I see one at the rear!” Penny exclaimed. “Someone is up!”
With a jerk, Salt halted the car beside a mailbox which stood on a high post. A brick walk, choked with weeds, l
ed to the front door and around to a back porch.
Through an uncurtained window, the pair glimpsed a tall, wiry woman filling an oil lamp in the kitchen.
As Salt rapped on the door, they saw her start and reach quickly for a shotgun which stood in a corner of the room.
“Who’s there?” she called sharply.
“We’re from Riverview,” answered Penny.
Reassured by a feminine voice, the woman opened the door. She towered above them, a quaint figure in white shirtwaist and a long flowing black skirt which swept the bare floor of the kitchen.
“Good evening,” said Penny. “I hope we didn’t startle you.”
Slowly the widow’s eyes traveled over the pair. She laid the shotgun aside and then said evenly:
“’Pears like you did. Hain’t in the habit o’ having visitors this time o’ night. Whar be ye from and what do you want?”
Salt told of their search for Jerry, carefully describing the reporter.
“Hain’t seen anyone like that,” the Widow Jones said at once. “No one been by on this road since sundown’cepting old Ezekiel Hawkins.”
“By the way, do you drive a car?” Salt questioned.
“Not if I kin keep from it,” the widow retorted. “Cars is the ruination o’ civilization! Last time I tried to drive to town, backed square into a big sycamore and nigh onto knocked all my teeth out!”
“So you sold your car?” Salt interposed.
“It’s a settin’ out in the shed. That no-good young’un o’ Ezekiel’s, Coon Hawkins, tried to buy it off’en me a year ago, but I turned him down flat.”
“Didn’t he offer enough?” Penny asked curiously.
“’Twasn’t that. Fust place, I don’t think much o’Coon Hawkins! Second place, that car belonged to my departed husband, and I don’t aim nobody else ever will drive it.”
“Then you didn’t have the car out today or loan it to anyone?”
“No, I didn’t! Say, what you gittin’ at anyway with all these questions?”
“Your car was involved in an accident this afternoon in Riverview,” Salt explained.
“What you sayin’?” the woman demanded. “You must be out o’ yer mind! My car ain’t been out of the shed fer a month.”
“We may have been mistaken,” Penny admitted. “The license number of the car was K-4687.”
The Penny Parker Megapack: 15 Complete Novels Page 178