Aunt Betsy laughed contemptuously.
“The boy fairly groveled, and swore he’d go; that it wouldn’t be necessary for me to accompany him. I waited while he put on his coat, and started out with him. Watched him go to two places, and on his way to the third before I left him.”
“Mrs. Carter,” began Jack, “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t try. I hate to be thanked.”
“Aunt Betsy, you’re just wonderful!” cried Patricia gleefully, while Ted shook his mother’s hand violently.
Conversation for the rest of the evening was general, concerned principally with the prospects of Granard in the morrow’s game. Patricia apparently forgot her resolution to leave right after dinner, for it was half past nine when she drove back to the dorm alone, having decidedly refused Ted’s offer to go with her.
“I’d feel lots better if you stayed home and kept guard,” she whispered to him as he protestingly let her out. “I’ll be all right.”
She did not know that Norman Young had inspected the interior of the car as it stood in the back yard; nor that, hidden behind a pillar on the porch next to the apartment house, he had watched her come out alone and start for Arnold Hall.
CHAPTER XII
ON DUTY
“Oh, come on, Pats!” urged Betty, impatiently.
“It’s heaps of fun to hear the tryouts,” added Anne; “more than seeing the plays themselves, sometimes.”
The football season was over. The Greystone game had resulted in a close victory for Granard, in a hard-fought battle. Jack had covered himself with glory and made the final score for his college in the last few minutes of play. Tut had come down with a heavy cold—so it was said—and had gone home for the Thanksgiving recess a few days early; so he was absent not only from the line-up, but also from the game. All rumors regarding Jack had died a natural death, and now were nearly forgotten; so rapidly does one event follow another, and a fresh excitement take the place of its predecessor, in college life. The present and the future are the only tenses the college student knows anything about.
Dramatics now held the center of the stage.
The Alley Gang was standing on the corner of Wentworth Street and College Avenue after leaving Horton Hall, and were discussing a coming production of the dramatic club.
“And we’ll all go to ‘Vans’ afterward and get something decent to eat,” proposed Frances enthusiastically. “That dinner we just had was fierce!”
“Dinner, did you say?” inquired Hazel scornfully.
“Why won’t you go, Pat?” asked Jane, clasping Patricia’s arm affectionately.
“Because my theme for English III is due tomorrow, and—”
“But not until afternoon,” objected Hazel. “You’ll have plenty of time to—”
“That’s just what I won’t have,” contradicted Patricia. “French test and History review both in the morning; and with Yates’ lab period early in the afternoon. I don’t know when you people do all your work, I’m sure.”
“We don’t do it,” laughed Mary, shifting rapidly from one foot to the other to keep warm; for the night was cold.
“Well, let’s go somewhere,” grumbled Lucile, sinking her head deeper into her big fur collar, “before we all freeze.”
Patricia bit her tongue to keep back an angry response to Lucile’s unpleasant tones. She and Lucile had never hit it off very well, and she had wondered more than once how the other girls managed so nonchalantly to put up with Lu’s uncertain moods. Clarice, the “black sheep,” was noisy and indiscreet, but at least she was accommodating and good-natured.
“You’ll be all alone in the alley, except for Clarice,” warned Anne. “It’s her night on the Black Book.”
“I can work in peace and quiet, then,” replied Patricia; “with all of you ‘hyenas’ out of the way.”
Dodging a threatened blow from Katharine’s sturdy arm, Patricia ran quickly down Wentworth Street, while the rest of the crowd started for the auditorium. It was hard to leave the girls and go back alone to work in the lonely dormitory; only a strong sense of obligation to her unknown benefactor saved Patricia from giving in to the pleas of her pals and let the theme slide. When she entered the hall she was surprised to find Rhoda still on duty.
“Why, where’s Clarice?” she asked.
“She hasn’t come in yet,” replied the maid, looking up from some fancy work she was doing.
“You’ll be awfully late for your dinner, Rhoda. You’d better go. I’ll stay here until Clarice comes.”
“That’s very kind of you,” responded the girl gratefully, beginning to fold up the long scarf and lay aside her silks. “The chef is always so put out when the help come in late.”
“I suppose he wants to get his work finished, and go somewhere; we all do. It is only stern necessity for work on an essay that brought me back here tonight. The others have all gone to the tryouts.”
Patricia slipped into the chair which Rhoda vacated, and watched the maid put on her hat and coat, thinking how little, after all, they really knew about her in spite of their association with her, day after day.
“Good night, and thank you,” said the girl softly, as she opened the door.
“Good night, and you’re welcome,” laughed Patricia.
A couple of minutes later, the telephone rang.
“Yes?” answered Patricia.
“Rhoda?” demanded a thin, sharp voice.
“No; she has just gone. Is there any message?”
“There is not,” was the curt response, as the woman at the other end of the line hung up noisily.
“Now where in the name of fortune have I heard that voice before?” mused Patricia aloud. “Those thin high tones sound oddly familiar. I know! It was Mrs. Brock! But why should she telephone Rhoda?”
Patricia was still puzzling over the question when the door opened to admit Clarice in a dull rose dinner gown and a black fur jacket, followed by Mrs. Vincent, closely wrapped in a long, grey coat, her face drawn with pain.
“Clarice,” the chaperon was saying, as they paused to close the door, “tell Ivan when he comes that I’m sorry to break my engagement with him, but that I’m ill and have gone to bed.”
She hurried to her room, without even a glance at Patricia.
“How gay you are tonight,” observed Patricia, eyeing the rose-colored gown admiringly as the girl came over to the table.
“Isn’t the dress darling?” inquired Clarice, opening her jacket to display more fully the charms beneath it. “My father just sent it to me. You see,” perching on the corner of the table, and swinging her feet, “he’s just crazy for me to make good here, and graduate; and so long as I manage to stick, he’ll send me pretties every once in a while. On the other hand, if I’m flunked out,” with a careless laugh, “he threatens to send me off into the country to live with some old maid cousin whom I’ve never seen.”
While Patricia was searching for a suitable reply to this unusual confidence, the doorbell rang, and Clarice flew to answer it. A short, dark youth with bold black eyes, which were everywhere at once, stepped familiarly in as soon as the door was opened.
“Oh, Mr. Zahn,” said Clarice, without preamble, “Mrs. Vincent is sorry; but she has a bad tooth, and has gone to bed. So she won’t be able to go out with you.”
There was the faintest accent on the word she, as Clarice smiled mischievously upon the young man. Without a moment’s hesitation, he caught the suggestion and replied suavely:
“Then perhaps you would take her place?”
“Oh, I’ve got to work tonight,” laughed Clarice, “unless—” turning to glance inquiringly at Patricia, “are you going to be here all the evening?”
“Yes,” was the brief reply, as Patricia turned over the pages of a magazine, trying not to listen in on the conversation going on near the door.
“Then you wouldn’t mind taking my place, would you?” begged Clarice, clattering noisily across the polished floor
on her high-heeled rose slippers to lean on the table and smile coaxingly at Patricia. “I’ll do the same for you some time.”
“All right,” replied Patricia, without enthusiasm, for she did not at all approve of Clarice’s going off with Mrs. Vincent’s friend; yet did not feel at liberty to try to dissuade the girl.
“Thanks, darling!” was Clarice’s grateful response. A hasty kiss on the tip of Patricia’s nose, a dash across the hall, the opening and closing of a door, and they were gone.
“I hope to goodness Mrs. Vincent doesn’t come out and ask for Clarice! I don’t know what I’d ever tell her,” said Patricia to herself, as she settled down to work.
An hour later when she went to her room for a note book, she paused to look out of the window at the big snowflakes which were floating lazily down from a partly clouded sky. To her intense surprise, she saw a man slinking along the path beside the dormitory, glancing up at its windows as he passed. A grey hat was pulled so far down on his head that she could not get a good look at his face; but his size, clothing, and general make-up led her to believe it was Norman Young. Since she had not turned on her light, it was safe to watch the man until he crossed the back yard and disappeared among the trees on Mrs. Brock’s lawn. That practically settled his identity.
Catching up the note book from her desk, she hurried back to the hall. What was Norman doing out there? Why did he look up at all the windows? Was there any connection between his actions and the mysterious telephone call earlier in the evening? No satisfactory answers presented themselves; so Patricia tried to force the troublesome problem out of her mind by settling to work in real earnest on the essay.
Half an hour later the sound of a door knob turning made her jump so violently that she knocked a big reference book onto the floor. Mrs. Vincent had opened her door and was crossing the hall.
“Now I’m in for it,” thought Patricia, stooping to pick up the heavy volume; but the chaperon seemed oblivious to the change of girls at the Black Book.
“My tooth is so bad,” murmured Mrs. Vincent, pressing her hand to her right cheek, “that I’m going over to my cousin’s,—he’s a dentist,—to see what he can do for it. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried out.
“Well,” thought Patricia, “now I certainly am alone here. The girls on the third floor are all up at Fine Arts making scenery for the play; and those from the second are ushering at the concert—all except Tiny.”
A little black-haired girl, whose size and delicate features suggested nothing so much as a lovely doll, had promptly been nicknamed by the girls of Arnold Hall. Nobody ever thought of calling her by her right name, Evelyn Stone.
“Seems to me I heard someone say she was ill. If I get this finished in time, I’ll run up and see her. No, I can’t either. I’ll have to stay with the Book and the telephone,” thought Patricia, writing rapidly.
Presently she stopped, sat up straight, and sniffed.
“I smell smoke!” she said aloud, getting up from the table and walking down the hall.
CHAPTER XIII
A FIRE
Patricia thrust her head into each room on her way down the corridor, but no trace of fire did she find until she reached the very end. There, in the room occupied by Frances and Katharine, flames were flickering around the window frames, apparently coming from outside. Quickly closing the door again to prevent a draft, she dashed to the telephone and called the Fire Department. Then she ran into her own room to look out of the window and see how much space the fire covered. The side of the house below Frances’ window was ablaze, and tongues of flame were creeping steadily up the frame building.
“Tiny’s room is directly over Frances’!” was the thought which flashed through Patricia’s brain.
Darting back into the hall and up the stairs, two steps at a time, Patricia burst into Evelyn’s room crying:
“Get up quickly!” She pulled the covers off of the astonished little girl. “There’s a fire.”
“I can’t get up; I’m too weak!” whimpered Evelyn.
“You’ve got to!” replied Patricia, snatching up a heavy bathrobe, pulling the girl up from her pillows, and forcing her arms into the sleeves. “Now come—quick.”
Still Evelyn hesitated; so Patricia literally dragged her out of bed, and, grasping her firmly from behind, pushed the reluctant girl out to the stairs. There, overcome by fright and weakness, Evelyn sat down on the top step. Without wasting any more words, Patricia grabbed her by the ankles, pulled her all the way down the long, straight flight of stairs, and landed her on the rug at the foot of them just as the fire apparatus clattered up to the house. Clutching Evelyn under the arms, Patricia dragged her into the parlor, rolled her onto some cushions before the fireplace, threw a rug over her, and ran out to consult with the Fire Chief who was already in the hall.
“Shall we have to get out?” inquired Patricia, somewhat breathlessly.
“Hardly think so. Seems to be confined to back corner. Keep all doors closed,” was the man’s curt reply, as he directed his assistants who were bringing in extinguishers and hose.
Immediately a huge crowd assembled and some policemen were trying to keep the excited people far enough away from the house; even the students who lived in the Hall were not allowed to enter it. Watching from the front windows of the parlor, Patricia could see the Alley Gang on the edge of one group; Jane, calm as usual; Frances crying and holding onto Katharine; Hazel gesticulating wildly as she talked to Anne; and the others dodging this way and that, trying to get closer to the house. Just as Mrs. Vincent worked her way through the crowd to speak to one of the firemen, she came face to face with Clarice and Ivan who had edged through from the opposite side of the street. Patricia held her breath for an instant, but after receiving the fireman’s reply Mrs. Vincent seemed to be chatting quite naturally with the couple. Probably she did not realize that they had been out together.
A grey coat and hat in the background caught Patricia’s eye, and as a sudden movement of their owner brought him fully into the light of a street lamp, she recognized Norman Young. Like lightning her mind raced from the skulking figure beside the dormitory earlier in the evening, to the subsequent outbreak of fire. Surely there could be no connection. No doubt an investigation of the fire would surely follow, to which, in all probability, she would be summoned. What should she say? “I should hate to tell a mere suspicion. I’m not really certain,” she stated to herself. “I wish I knew what to do about it.”
Evelyn, who had lain shivering and weeping just where Patricia had left her, now raised up and inquired plaintively: “Do you suppose my room will be burned? I just bought all my spring clothes; and if they’re lost—I—”
“I’m quite sure they must be getting the fire under control; otherwise, they would have ordered us out,” replied Patricia calmly. “I hardly think the flames reached your room at all.”
“Thank goodness!” sighed Evelyn, collapsing again onto her pillows.
Not a word of gratitude to the girl who had rescued her. People are awfully queer, thought Patricia, gazing wonderingly at Tiny. Imagine, thinking of her new clothes when she, herself, might have been trapped up there, alone and sick! Turning again to the window, she was amused to see her Aunt Betsy dash determinedly through the crowd only to be stopped by a policeman. Patricia could imagine the things she was saying to the man who dared block her way. Nearby stood Ted and John, scanning the crowd anxiously. She wished she could in some way attract their attention so they might know she was safe. Presently the crowd shifted a little, bringing the two boys more directly in her range of vision. Ted’s restless eyes soon spied her; he said something to John, and they both made grotesque gestures, which she interpreted as offers of rescue. Gaily she shook her head, thereby causing Ted to shed imaginary tears into his handkerchief, while Jack patted him on the back.
Half an hour later sounded the welcome two gongs which indicated that the fire was out. Then the crowd made
a dash for the front steps; but a couple of officers, with whom the Dean had been quietly conferring, took their stand on the bottom step and refused admittance to all but Arnold Hall students. Slowly the townspeople strolled away, while the excited girls hurried in to see how much damage had been done.
“Oh, Pat!” cried Anne, flinging both arms around her. “We were so worried about you!”
“Until we caught sight of you at the window, we were absolutely frantic,” added Jane.
A loud burst of laughter from Clarice, who had just entered with Betty and Hazel, made them all turn to see what had occasioned it.
“Just look at Tiny!” cried Clarice. “How did you get down here?”
“Patricia dragged me down!” retorted Evelyn in injured tones. “She burst into my room, scared the life out of me, and literally pulled me down the stairs—”
“Pat to the rescue!” interrupted Hazel admiringly.
“Our Pat’s a heroine!” cried Anne, while the rest of the Gang pressed closer.
“Who sent in the alarm?” inquired Mrs. Vincent.
“I did,” acknowledged Patricia modestly. “I smelled smoke and discovered the cause of it in Katharine’s and Frances’ room—”
“She’s a double heroine!” exulted Jane.
“Have you any idea what started it?” continued Mrs. Vincent sharply.
“I told you all I know about it,” replied Patricia, with a faint accent on the word know, which was lost on the troubled chaperon. “I was on the Black Book all the evening, except once when I went to my room for a book and when I was looking for the fire—”
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 64