A Clew to Follow
After Helen Tower’s outburst of rage and disappointment over losing the
money which she had been counting on receiving, she became absolutely
silent. Without a word she followed Linda out of the office to a
telephone booth, then to a restaurant across the street from the Trust
Company’s building. It was an automat, and Linda thought that the
novelty of putting nickels into a slot machine to obtain food might
divert Helen’s thoughts from her own troubles. Surely a girl who had
lived in the country all her life had never seen anything so unusual as
this; surely she would be interested. But Helen showed no enthusiasm at
all.
“What do you want for your lunch, Helen?” Linda asked.
“I’m not hungry,” replied her companion, listlessly.
“But you must eat, while we have the chance!”
Tears came up into Helen’s eyes.
“I’m a pauper again,” she said, in a melancholy tone. “I can’t even pay
for what I eat.”
“Don’t be silly, dear!” urged Linda, with an effort at cheerfulness.
“Don’t forget you have five hundred dollars of that prize money—which
you earned yourself! And besides, I think we’re going to catch that
man.”
Helen, however, refused to be encouraged.
“Even if we do, he’ll have spent it,” she objected.
“Then he’ll have to pay it back! Or go to prison— But come along, we
must get into line with our trays. We’ll choose a regular hot dinner
now, and then I’ll buy some sandwiches to tuck into the autogiro for our
supper, so we shan’t have to stop on our way, and lose any time.”
In spite of her indifference, the attractive food did make its appeal to
Helen, and once she began to eat she found that she was hungry. She even
smiled when Linda went back to the slot machines for ice cream and
chocolate cake.
It was while the girls were eating their dessert that a familiar figure
entered the restaurant. A woman, whom both Linda and Helen had been
hoping they would never see again in their lives. It was none other than
Mrs. Fishberry!
Helen’s eyes met Linda’s in annoyance.
“I sincerely hope she doesn’t see us,” remarked the latter, giving all
her attention to her ice cream.
But this wish was not fulfilled, for the woman noticed them and
recognized them immediately. And, glad of a chance to clear herself of
her part in the unpleasant affair, she hurried over to their very table
and sat down with her tray.
“How do you do?” she said, brightly. “I am so glad that you are with
Miss Carlton again, Helen. When I came back to the old house for you on
Monday, I wondered where you had gone.”
The old sense of fear came back to Helen, and she reached for Linda’s
hand. What was this woman planning to do to her now?
Noticing this gesture, Mrs. Fishberry smiled.
“You needn’t be afraid of me,” she said, reassuringly. “I’m not after
you now—in fact, I don’t want you! I’ve broken with Ed Tower.”
“You mean you aren’t married to him?” demanded Linda, thinking at once
of the threatening telegram, and of the law suit that was planned.
“No, I’m not—and I’m not going to be!” returned the other, emphatically.
“He’s too crooked for me.” She did not add that Tower himself had tired
of her, and tried to escape from her first.
“I ran away from him in his own car,” she continued, “while he was
setting that house on fire. A crime like that was too much for me.”
“He did set the house on fire?” Linda repeated, excitedly. “We thought
so.”
“Linda and I and another girl were in it,” remarked Helen, grimly.
“Oh, my heavens!” exclaimed the woman, aghast at these words. “But you
got out?”
“Yes,” replied Linda briefly, as she rose from her seat. “We must go
now, Mrs. Fishberry— Oh, I might ask you—I suppose that law suit is off,
then, if you are not Mrs. Tower?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And one thing more—just to clear things up in my own mind—did you ever
see Helen in your life before your visit to Green Falls?”
“No, I didn’t,” admitted the woman. “That was all Ed’s lie—to get money
out of you. Oh, I am innocent—I’ve never done anything bad till I got in
his clutches. But he looks like a prince, and smiles like an angel, and
he wound me right around his little finger!”
An inspiration came to Linda: perhaps Mrs. Fishberry knew something of
Ed Tower’s plans. Perhaps she would be willing to tell, now that she was
so angry with him.
“You don’t know where he is now, do you?” she asked, trying to speak
casually, as if she were not much concerned.
“No, I don’t!” replied the other, flatly. “And I don’t care! I’m going
to clear out of here, and go back to Montana.”
“Mr. Tower didn’t say anything to you about going abroad?”
“Oh, yes, he did. He’s clearing out of the country, the minute he
collects that money from his father’s estate. He got some kind of job
with an air-transport company at Newport News.”
“Air-transport company!” repeated Linda, in amazement. “But why should
he want to get a job, when he had all that money? Does he like work so
much?”
“No, but he was afraid to go to England by an ordinary passenger boat,
for fear he’d be caught. You know—passports, and all that sort of thing.
Nobody but me and the man who got him this job know that he’s going.”
“So if the police look for him, they won’t be able to find him?”
concluded Linda, with a twinkle in her eye. What luck it was, to get the
very information she wanted—and from a person she had actually tried to
avoid!
She held out her hand.
“Shall we part good friends, Mrs. Fishberry?” she asked, pleasantly.
“O.K. with me,” replied the woman, accepting the hand shake with a
smile.
The girls were hardly out of the door when Linda grasped her companion’s
arm and whistled for joy.
“We’re going to get him now, Helen!” she cried, exultantly. “Think of
the time we’ll save by flying straight to Virginia, instead of going
around by New York!”
“You believe Mrs. Fishberry was telling the truth?” inquired Helen,
doubtfully.
“Oh, yes! Your uncle has let her down—decided that he didn’t want to
marry her and share the money with her after all—and she’s sore. She was
glad to tell all she knew about him!”
They were walking rapidly, approaching the Trust Company’s building,
when Linda suddenly stopped, and frowned.
“Why didn’t I ask Mrs. Fishberry to describe Mr. Tower?” she demanded.
“We may not know him if we do see him!”
“I might recognize him,” remarked the other girl. “Though at the present
minute, I haven’t the slightest idea what he looks like. But that really
doesn’t matter, Linda. If Mr. Hudson gets that warrant for his arrest,
all we have to do is ask for him.”
“Maybe,” agreed Linda, trying to be hopeful. “Only I’m afraid that once
he got that money, he’d travel under a different name.”
Helen looked dismayed at the idea.
“He would if he could, I suppose,” she said. “But let’s hope that he got
this job under his own name—and had to keep it.”
Returning to the office where Linda was to meet Mr. Hudson again, she
sat down at a desk to plot out her flight to Virginia. She had expected
to follow the regular air line from Chicago to New York, but, of course,
this plan was changed now.
“It’s going to be fun, Helen!” she cried, as she bent over the map. As
usual the anticipation of a long flight gave her a joyous thrill.
“We’ll fly southeast,” she announced, “and I think I can pass right over
Spring City. The only difficult part is the Allegheny Mountains—but I’ve
flown over mountains before. You aren’t afraid, are you, Helen?” she
asked. “You wouldn’t rather go back to Green Falls, and wait for me
there?”
“I should say not!” protested the girl, eagerly. “I love flying, you
know that, Linda! And I never get a bit sick.”
“There’s not much danger of that in an autogiro,” replied the capable
young aviatrix. “You see we don’t feel air pockets, as people do in
other planes—now, let me see—I think we can make Spring City before dark
to-night! Wouldn’t it be fun to stay in our own house?”
“I should say it would!” exclaimed Helen, in delight. “But could we get
in?”
“Surely. I always carry a key with me—with my other keys, you know. Oh,
Helen, that will be fun! And we’ll start early to-morrow morning for
Newport News, Virginia.”
“Do you suppose we’ll catch him?”
“I hope so. If he left here this morning, he’d hardly be planning to
sail before Friday morning. And I think we’ll arrive some time Thursday
afternoon.”
“If everything goes right,” amended the other.
“Yes,” agreed Linda. “If everything goes right. If we don’t run into a
storm over the mountains!”