Disgusted, Salt allowed her to drop lightly to the ground. "Wait until I
find a rock," he instructed. "We'll get in!"
Penny caught his arm. "No, Salt! We've already overstepped our rights. We
mustn't damage the Rhett property."
"Well, someone is making a monkey of us," the photographer grumbled. "It
burns me up!"
"There's more to it than meets the eyes, Salt. Even the atmosphere of
this place is sinister."
"You say that, and yet you're willing to turn your back on an unsolved
mystery? How times have changed!"
"Well--" Penny wavered, for it was true she loved mystery and adventure.
But she finished in a firm voice: "We were sent here to get a story and
picture for the _Star_! We'll miss the Green Streak edition if we don't
get back to the office _pronto_."
She thrust her wrist watch beneath Salt's nose. He looked at the moving
hands and muttered: "Jeepers! We've got just thirty-five minutes to catch
our deadline! Let's go!"
Hurriedly, they went up the path toward the mansion and the road. As they
approached the house, the rear door swung open and Lorinda came out on
the flagstone terrace.
"There she is now!" Penny murmured in an undertone. "I don't believe she
could have been the one who whispered the warning at the cottage! It must
have been someone else."
"Is she the Rhett girl?" Salt demanded, starting to adjust his camera.
"Maybe I can get a shot of her after all."
Lorinda came directly toward the pair, but she raised a hand squarely in
front of her face as she saw that Salt meant to take her picture.
"Please don't!" she pleaded. "I can't pose. I only came to ask you to
leave. Mother is so upset. The telephone is ringing constantly, and we
expect the police any minute."
Lorinda obviously was on the verge of tears. Salt lowered his camera.
"I do want to help you," Lorinda hastened on. "That's why I am giving you
this. Mother doesn't know about it, and she will be furious."
Into Penny's hand, she thrust a small but clear photograph of a
middle-aged man who wore glasses. His left cheek was marred by a jagged
though not particularly disfiguring scar.
"Your stepfather!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, this is the only picture we have of him. He never liked to have his
photograph taken. If you use it, please take good care of the original
and see that we get it back."
"Oh, we will!" Penny promised. "This photograph should help in tracing
Mr. Rhett."
"Please go now," Lorinda urged again. She glanced uneasily down the path
toward the thatched-roof cottage, but if she knew what had transpired
there, she gave no sign.
Elated to have obtained the photograph, Penny and Salt hastened on to the
parked press car. Starting the car with a jerk, Salt followed the winding
river road.
Penny cast a glance over her shoulder. Through the trees she could see
only the roof-top of the thatched cottage in the clearing.
The estate was bounded by a wooden rail fence, in many places fortified
with dense, tall shrubbery. The fall weather had tinted many of the
bushes scarlet, yellow or bronze. Gazing toward a patch of particularly
brilliant-colored leaves, Penny detected movement behind them.
For a fleeting instant she thought she had seen a large, shaggy dog. Then
she became certain it was a man who crouched behind the screen of leaves.
"Salt!" she exclaimed sharply. "Look at those bushes!"
The photographer slowed the car, turning his head.
"What about 'em, Penny?"
"Someone is hiding there behind the fence! Perhaps it's the person who
whispered a warning at the thatched cottage!"
"Oh, it's just a shadow," Salt began, only to change his mind. "You're
right! Someone is crouching there!"
So suddenly that Penny was thrown sideways, the photographer swerved the
car to the curb. He swung the door open.
"What are you going to do?" Penny demanded.
The photographer did not take time to reply. Already he was out of the
car, running toward the hedge.
CHAPTER
9
_JERRY ENTERS THE CASE_
As Salt ran toward him, the man who crouched behind the bushes began to
move stealthily away. From the car Penny could not see his face which was
screened by dense foliage.
"Salt, he's getting away!" she shouted.
Salt climbed over the fence. His clothing got snagged and by the time he
had freed himself and struggled through a tangle of vines and bushes, the
man he pursued had completely disappeared.
"Which way did he go, Penny?" he called.
"I lost sight of him after he ducked into a clump of shrubbery," she
replied regretfully. "It's useless to try to find him now."
Salt came back to the car, and starting the engine, drove on.
"You didn't see who it was?" Penny asked hopefully.
"No, I think it was a man. Maybe the Rhett's gardener or a tramp."
"Whoever it was, I'm sure he stood there watching us drive away from the
grounds," Penny declared.
Until the car was far down the street, she alertly watched the Rhett
grounds. However, the one who had crouched by the fence now was well
hidden and on guard. Not a movement of the bushes betrayed his presence.
As the Rhett mansion was lost completely from view, Penny's thoughts came
back to the story which she must write. Nervously she glanced at her
wrist watch.
"What's the bad news?" Salt asked, stepping hard on the gasoline pedal.
"Twenty-five minutes until deadline. Can you make it?"
Salt's lips compressed into a grim line and he concentrated on his
driving, avoiding heavy traffic and red lights as they approached the
center of town.
They came at last to the big stone building downtown which housed the
_Riverview Star_. As Salt pulled up at the curb, Penny leaped out and ran
inside. Without waiting for an elevator, she darted up the stairs to the
busy newsroom.
Editor DeWitt was talking on a telephone, and, all about him, reporters
were tapping typewriters at a furious pace.
Editor DeWitt held his hand over the phone mouthpiece and fixed Penny
with a gloomy eye. "Time you got here," he observed. "Anything new? Did
you get the pictures?"
Penny produced the photograph of Mr. Rhett which the editor studied an
instant, then tossed to his assistant, with a terse: "Make it a one
column--rush!"
Knowing that with a deadline practically at hand Mr. DeWitt was in no
mood for a lengthy tale, Penny told him only such facts as were pertinent
to Mr. Rhett's disappearance.
"So the family won't talk?" DeWitt growled. "Well, play up that angle.
We've already set up everything you gave us over the phone. Make this an
add and get it right out."
Penny nodded and slid into a chair behind the nearest typewriter. An
"add" she knew, was an addition to a story already set up in type. It was
easier to write than a "lead" which contained the main facts of all that
had happened, but even so, she would be hard pressed to make the
deadline.
For a moment she concentrated, but the noises of the room distracted her
somewhat. Editor DeWitt was barking into the telephone again; a reporter
on her left side was clicking a pencil against the desk; the short-wave
radio blared a police call; and across the room someone bellowed: "Copy
boy!"
Then Penny began to write, and the noises blanked out, until she was
aware only of the moving ribbon of words on the copy paper. She had
written perhaps four paragraphs when DeWitt ordered tersely: "Give me a
take."
Without looking up, Penny nodded, wrote a few more words, then jerked the
copy from her machine. A boy snatched it from her hand and carried it to
DeWitt, who read it rapidly. Pencilling a few minor corrections, he shot
it to the copy desk.
Meanwhile, with another sheet of paper rolled in her machine, Penny was
grinding out more of the story. Words flowed easily now, and she scarcely
paused to think.
DeWitt called for more copy. Again she ripped it from the roller and gave
it to the boy.