AN ADVENTUROUS MISSION
The endless night was over at last. Through her windows, which faced
east, Patricia noticed that the sky was faintly streaked with pale
light, each moment growing more distinct. She had endured almost seven
hours of unbroken, nerve-racking suspense, yet nothing alarming had
happened. All night she had huddled in a chair by the living-room table,
the electric lights full on, even to the farthest wall-bracket,
listening breathlessly to the faintest creak or rustle, starting
terror-stricken at a sudden flapping of the window-shade, crouching
rigid at the slightest footfall outside her door.
Yet the cheering whistle of the war's most popular tune, every hour or
so, in the park below, assured her that Chet was true to his promise,
even if the loud chugging of his motor-cycle had not likewise informed
her of his intermittent presence. He was certainly proving himself a
friend, and a staunch one, in this time of her dire need.
With the coming of daylight she turned off the lights and lay down
awhile, exhausted by the night's vigil, but she did not sleep. She heard
Delia go quietly out soon after six. At seven she prepared to go down to
breakfast, and promptly at seven-thirty stopped at the desk in the
lounge for her mail, as Chet had directed. She found that she had two
letters, one a short note from Mrs. Quale, explaining that she had been
called away suddenly to New York by the illness of a niece, but expected
to be back that evening, and hoping Patricia had not needed her in the
meantime.
"She little knows how much I did need her!" sighed Patricia. "But thank
goodness! she's coming back to-night. I couldn't—I simply couldn't go
through another night like last!"
The other letter was directed to her in a handwriting she did not
recognize, and she prepared to read it while she was waiting for her
breakfast to be served. To her immense relief, Peter Stoger was still
absent. She had had the horrible suspicion that he might be there once
again to spy on her, perhaps even to be the instrument of the threatened
"danger."
While waiting for her cantaloupe she opened the second missive and read
it through in startled wonder. It was written in pencil and marked
midnight of the night before. It was inscribed also with a fine
disregard of spelling, punctuation, and grammar, was only a few
sentences long, and signed at the end, "C. J." It ran as follows:
_Deer Miss_,
I done a heap of scooting around last night on my moter-cicle and I
found out quite a bit you will be intrested to no. If you _are_
intrested will you please try to be at the sea wall in the park
where you usully like to sit about nine this a m an we can talk it
over. will wate for you their.
Yours respeckfully,
C. J.
"Bless that kind boy's heart!" thought Patricia. "He certainly is a
trump! I don't know what on earth I'd be doing now if it weren't for his
help. I'll be there without fail."
Promptly at nine she was at the tryst by the sea-wall, a bench shaded by
an overhanging tree where she frequently came with her book or sewing to
enjoy the beautiful view out over the water and the invigorating salt
air. Chet was there before her, sitting unostentatiously with his legs
hanging over the sea-wall, apparently absorbed in the occupation of
fishing with a rod and reel.
"Hullo! Good morning!" he greeted her, with his usual infectious grin.
"Catch any Hun spies lurkin' around last night?"
"No indeed!" she answered him quite gaily. "I didn't see one—not a
single one."
"Well, I had better luck than you, then!" he replied, looking about
cautiously to see that no one was approaching along the foot-path.
"Oh, Chester! How? What do you mean?"
"Well, what do you think of this? Last night, after I left the hotel, I
went right home an' got out my motor-cycle and made a bee-line for
Hanford. I somehow figured that we'd better find out that queer dope
about Hanford first of all. I hadn't a ghost of an idea where in the
place that house might be, but I told you before that there weren't so
many houses there, anyhow, an' I just figured I could mosey around an'
take a squint at 'em all an' try to figure out which was the most
likely.
"It's a lonesome kind of a place, 'cause there ain't no railroad nor
even a trolley-line runnin' near it. I didn't want to go chuggin'
through it on my cycle, waking the dead with the racket, so I hid it in
a little clump of woods just outside the place an' went huntin' round on
foot. First I went through the main street, an' every house an' store
was shut up as tight an' dark as a graveyard. Nothin' doin' there. Then
I gave all the rest of the houses the once-over. No better luck!
"The only place left was one way out on the road toward Crampton. It's a
lonesome kind of a hole, old farm-house with queer, dinky, green wooden
shutters all in a piece an' a slantin' roof goin' almost down to the
ground at the back. It used to be all sort of tumblin' to pieces an'
deserted, but a man around here bought it an' fixed it all up modern
inside an' painted it, an' rents it out in the summer to city folks for
a few months. I didn't rightly know whether it was occupied this season
or not, 'cause I ain't been that way lately, but I thinks to myself,
I'll go past it an' see, before I give up the hunt.
"Sure enough, the place was lit up on the ground floor an' one room
upstairs too. But the shades were all drawn down tight. So I just
sneaked around quiet an' hid in the bushes near the front door an' one
of the windows, an' lay low to see if anything would happen. I didn't
want to stay too long, either, 'cause I wanted to get back an' give you
the signal I was on the job. Well, nothin' did happen for so long I was
just goin' to give it up, when all of a sudden the front door opened an'
a woman come out an' stood on the little porch—"
"Oh, who _was_ it?" cried Patricia, in a fever of impatience.
"You can search me!" he replied. "She ain't no one I ever see before.
She was a queer-lookin' specimen, dressed like a maid in a black dress
an' white cap an' apron. I could see her quite well, 'cause the light
was shinin' out from the hall behind her. She was tall an' bony and sort
of grouchy-lookin'. Well, she sat down on one of the little side-benches
on the porch to get the air, I guess, 'cause it was pipin' hot. An' all
of a sudden some one else slipped out of the door very quiet an' sat
down on the bench opposite. An' I bet you can't guess who that was."
"Oh, _who_?" breathed Patricia.
"_The little mam'selle!_"
"Chester, you are a trump!" cried Patricia, springing up excitedly.
"What did you do?"
"Why, I didn't do nothin' but lay low, of course. I sure would have
spilled the beans if I'd jumped out an' hollered who I was, then. I just
stayed and listened to what went on. The grouchy maid said: 'You better
go in. The madame will not like it.' An' the little un' said: 'Oh,
Melanie, let me stay just a few moments! It is so hot in my room. I need
the air.' Then the grouchy maid grunted something that sounded like
French. I couldn't get on to it at all. They didn't say no more, but sat
a while, an' bimeby both got up an' went in. An' soon after all the
lights went out in the place, an' I knew it wasn't no use to stay
longer, so I beat it back here."
[Illustration:
"Oh, Melanie, let me stay just a few moments!"
]
"Chester," exclaimed Patricia, at the end of this recital, "what are we
going to do?"
"Well, I got a plan," he acknowledged. "I don't know whether you'll
stand for it or not, but here it is, anyway. An' I can promise you that
if you go in for it, you won't come to a bit of harm. It ain't possible,
the way I got it fixed, an' we may do a whole lot of good, at least as
far as the little mam'selle is concerned, an' maybe something about this
here Crimson Patch beside. Here's my scheme:
"I got an older brother who owns a secondhand auto an' runs it like a
jitney. That's his business. But sometimes he takes a day off when I do
an' we go fishin' together or somethin'. He's off to-day, same as me.
An' you can trust him just the same as me. He ain't a born detective
like I am, but he's honest as honest an' he knows how to hold his tongue
an' ask no questions. So I ain't explainin' everything to him.
"Now I figure that it ain't healthy for you to stay all day alone around
that hotel if there's anything in this 'danger' business. Not that you
wouldn't be safe enough if you sit tight, but you can't tell what
complicatin' thing might come up, an' you ain't got a soul around to
advise you, not even me. Now suppose you come out to Hanford with me an'
Ted in the auto, an' we'll hang around an' lie low an' see if we can get
hold of the little mam'selle somehow an' find out what this here mess is
all about, anyhow. There can't any harm possibly come to us, 'cause
Ted's goin' to keep out of things an' just lie low in the auto in that
patch of woods back of the house an' I got a police-whistle in my
pocket, an' if anything goes wrong I'll blow it like mad an' he'll beat
it back to the city an' have the police out in ten minutes. Are you
game?"
For one uncertain moment Patricia wavered. Was it right for her to
engage in this harebrained escapade? What would her father say? Or Mrs.
Quale? Then the thought of Virginie in danger, the possibility of
locating the Crimson Patch, and the sheer adventure of the thing
overcame all her scruples.
"Yes, I'll go, Chester. I trust you absolutely, and I'm sure you will
not let me come to harm. But suppose Father should call me up at the
hotel? What will he think if they say I'm away?"
"He'll think you're out somewhere with Mrs. Quale probably, won't he?"
answered Chet. "And I'm almost certain he won't call you up till
evening, probably, because you might be out an' he'd only be wasting
time an' money."
But another thought had suddenly occurred to Patricia, who, truth to
tell, did not feel at all easy about this expedition, nor about what her
father would think of it. A solution of one side of its difficulties had
all at once leaped into her mind.
"How would it do, Chester, if we take Mrs. Quale's Delia along with us?"
"_What?_" exclaimed Chet, in such obvious dismay that Patricia could not
resist a laugh at his expense. "Gee whiz! you'd block the whole game
with that white elephant on our hands!"
"Now, be sensible, Chester!" she urged. "It's perfectly plain to me that
I've either got to take her, or else not go myself. Otherwise Father
would not allow it. We can have her with us, and yet not tell her all
about our plans. You know, Mrs. Quale won't be back until evening, so
Delia hasn't a blessed thing to do to-day. I'll ask her if she'd like to
go off on a little picnic with me this morning a ways out of town where
we _may_ pick up Virginie. She'll be delighted to have the outing,
_that_ I know!"
The explanation cleared the air for Chet. "All right, I'm game if you
are!" he declared. "If you go back and get her and bring her over here,
I'll be round with Ted and the jit in next to no time."
Twenty minutes later he appeared in a battered jitney, sitting on the
front seat with a sheepish-looking, red-haired young fellow, who bowed
and grinned inarticulately as Chet introduced him as his brother Ted.
Patricia, accompanied by an obviously delighted Delia and a well-filled
lunch basket, clambered into the rear seat, and in another instant they
were off on their adventurous mission.