DANNY DISAPPEARS
Danny Dexter took a hasty glance at Mary Louise’s empty room, and then
with one running jump he was in the garden again, clutching his cap to
save it from the wind and cursing the clouds which just then made it so
dark he could not see his hand in front of him. He followed the path to
the old stables as best he could, and once he paused as a soft bit of
white blew into his face. It was Mary Louise’s little handkerchief that
was tossing about in the elements and had finally found a very welcome
lodgment. Danny recognized that soft perfume as of violets, and he
placed the foolish trifle carefully in the inside pocket of his coat as
though it were a very precious thing. Then he hurried on, his anxious
eyes straining in the darkness toward the garage.
Past the pines he hastened, never noticing their sighs and wailings,
and stopped with a hurt cry of amazement at finding the garage door
open and the automobile gone.
“Oh, Uncle Jim, why did you take it?” he groaned aloud--“just when
we’d worked for two hours quietly pushing it back in its place. Mary
Louise would have been so happy to have found it in the morning. I’d so
counted on her joy!” and the lad leaned wearily against the door.
There seemed no need to search the building further, but Danny rushed
up the stairs just to be sure Mary Louise had not been there.
“Of course she couldn’t have come here,” he argued with himself, “and
yet how kind of her if she had come, thinking Uncle Jim’s light meant
that I was back.”
The very thought that Mary Louise had utterly despised him sent Danny
flying around the tower room searching for a sign of her. But no sign
was given him. He saw where the man whom he called Uncle Jim had rested
through the evening and where his candle had dripped tallow on the
floor, but that was all.
“Good Uncle Jimsie!” thought Danny, as he quickly scraped up the candle
grease and locked the door to the tower room. “It was the one place I
could hide him where I felt they would not look for him again to-night.
But, thank God, we are saving him!”
Danny again went down the stairs. This time with an electric torch
he carefully searched the ground outside to find just where the car
had gone. “It started off in the right direction,” said Danny, as he
still strained his eyes for one glimpse of something or someone that
might turn out to be Mary Louise. Once he saw a gleam of white in the
darkness and tearing madly toward it found with a sinking heart that it
was only a bush of small white flowers.
His torch was playing upon every bit of ground about the garage, and
suddenly it stopped in his hand as though paralyzed. The faint glow
of its light had fallen directly upon a little bow from Mary Louise’s
slipper, evidently torn off in her scurry to reach the car.
Danny leaned over it as if trying to solve the mystery of its being
there. All that he could reason was that Mary Louise must have driven
off with Uncle Jim. Then the quickest and only thing for him to do was
to reach the crossroads.
His head jerked up in alarm. So engrossed had he been in Mary Louise’s
disappearance that he had failed to recall the alarm which Josie must
have given. Voices were floating down the garden paths and a glow of
light illumined the whole house. The face of Danny Dexter was stern
with resolve as with infinite caution he swung to the garage door and
crept into the darkness.
He made his way carefully and with instant decision. It was as though
by prearrangement, so steadily and yet so quietly he went, across the
road and into the waste of meadow beyond it.
The wind had hushed by now, as though in deference to the distant roar
of thunder, and a heavy warmth was weighing down the air. The perfume
of the drying clover was oppressive as Danny unerringly made his way,
his cap now in his pocket, and his thick hair damp on his bare forehead.
The sudden baying of a dog a long way distant caused him to pause,
but the sound ceased and only the restless rumble of the approaching
storm broke the perfect silence. Then Danny, convinced that he was not
followed, stumbled on and reached the edge of the marsh land which
skirted the river. It was an intensely lonely spot. Even the deep,
full-throated croaking of the bullfrogs seemed subdued by the dank mist
that hung low upon the water-soaked land, and the glimmer and sparkle
of innumerable fireflies were dim and tremulous through the dusk.
The moon, now very pale and yellow, was wanly glowing a last farewell
before succumbing to the piling clouds of the storm. It faintly
outlined a small woodland to the right, where willows dipped their
branches in the muddy soil and elderberry bushes ran riot undisturbed.
Danny smiled grimly as he thought of the trouble it had been to push
Mary Louise’s automobile from its hiding-place there and get it safely
home without the engine being heard. And it had all been in vain. But
the last part of his errand should succeed; of this he was assured.
Pausing not an instant, he went on as best he could, leaping and
slipping from hummock to hummock in the weird green of the moon and by
the glowworm’s flash.
At last he was quite at the edge of the wood, and distinctly he made
out the dim outline of a little Ford secluded amongst the trees which
had so recently held “Queenie.” Danny Dexter felt a thrill of joy and
gratitude.
“Are you there?” he called.
“Right-o!” answered a cheery voice, and from the Ford stepped Will
White.
* * * * *
As Danny leaped over the railing and disappeared into the night Josie
rushed into the hall and up the stairs. Pausing only for a quick knock,
she flung open the door of Grandpa Jim’s room, awakening that worthy
old gentleman with the startling announcement, “Mary Louise isn’t here!”
“What’s that? Mary Louise gone?”
The realization that his beloved grandchild was in danger waked him
wide in an instant. Telling Josie to scamper, he was out of bed and
dressed in three minutes by the clock. Josie was but two minutes later
than he, which was very quick time for a girl detective.
They met in the library in front of the ashes of the little fire that
Mary Louise had kindled so happily the evening before. Grandpa Jim was
almost as gray as the ashes, and a great fear was in his eyes as Josie
told of hearing the auto and meeting Danny.
“We must telephone for Lonsdale at once, and you’d better ring up
Crocker, too,” he said, “for if Danny is innocent of this, our Mary
Louise must be in the hands of this O’Hara. Ransom, I suppose.”
The Colonel walked restlessly up and down the room while Josie
telephoned. He was still pacing about when she returned to tell him:
“They’ll both be here in a jiffy, Grandpa Jim. Lonsdale is bringing his
car, and we’ll all go along. Why, they just can’t escape us!”
The old man patted the head of the young girl tenderly. He knew she was
trying to give him courage, and indeed she was the picture of pluck
as she stood there, her scarlet cheeks reflecting the scarlet Tam o’
Shanter she had carelessly pulled down about her hair. So they stood
together as the minutes ticked away, the clock-hands seeming to move
with infinite weariness. Finally with a slight ring of the bell the
door opened and admitted Lonsdale, the local Chief, and Crocker, the
detective from Boston.