"Bless me!" Mr. Kingley stared unbelievingly into Joe Cary's excited
face. "Queen Teresa kidnaped? Nonsense, Cary! Such things aren't done in
Waloo in broad daylight. You say it's true? What a story! I must have
Gray telephone the _Gazette_ that we have a front page story for them.
Bless me!"
"Never mind the publicity end of this now, Mr. Kingley!" exclaimed Joe,
so disgusted that he could scarcely speak calmly. "Let's think of Tessie
first and the Evergreen second for a change."
Mr. Kingley opened his mouth to say that the Evergreen must always come
first, and people, no matter who they were, second, but as he looked at
Joe, he suddenly decided that some explanations were better left unmade.
"The little queen is all right!" he insisted instead. "Of course she is!
This is Waloo, the United States, not a savage island. Nothing could
happen to Miss Gilfooly in Waloo. She's all right! What makes you think
she was kidnaped? Who kidnaped her? Where was that frizzle-headed
bodyguard? Why wasn't he on his job?" He shot the questions, one after
another at Joe, and then was impatient because they were not answered.
"You forget that Ka-kee-ta disappeared first," Joe said, as quietly as
he could when he was so full of disgust and impatience. "Tessie was
trying to find him when she was carried off. I don't know who did it,
but I'd be willing to bet that a tow-headed man with a big nose had a
hand in it--a big hand!" He looked keenly at Mr. Kingley, as he
described the man he thought had had a hand in kidnaping Tessie.
Mr. Kingley snorted contemptuously. "Bets won't get you anywhere," he
said scornfully. "What you want are a few facts. Do you know where she
was and what she was doing when she was kidnaped?"
"Her brother Johnny saw her get into a car, and as soon as the door was
shut, the car dashed up the street and around a corner."
Mr. Kingley rubbed his hands together and nodded approvingly. "Now
you're talking. You show you have something to work with. I don't
suppose you have the number of the car?" There was considerable
superiority in his voice because, of course, Joe did not have the
number.
"Yes, I have! And a description, too. The car was a dark blue limousine
and its license number was 13,023!" He moved closer to Mr. Kingley and
eyed him oddly, but Mr. Kingley did not become at all excited when he
heard the license number.
"13,023," he repeated slowly. "Well, have you found whose car that is?
It seems simple enough now, Cary. Whose car is it?"
Joe looked at him. Was it possible that he didn't know whose car bore
the license number 13,023? Joe watched him like a hawk as he told him
whose car it was.
"The car is listed," he said slowly, "as belonging to Mr. W. A.
Kingley--Mr. William A. Kingley!"
"No!" exclaimed Mr. William A. Kingley in a surprise that seemed
genuine, although Joe could not believe that any man would be ignorant
of the license number of his own car. "It can't be!"
"Owner of the Evergreen," went on Joe, with a thump on the table to
drive the fact home.
"It's been stolen!" declared Mr. Kingley excitedly. "My car has been
stolen! I don't know a thing about this! I don't even believe it!" he
exclaimed shrilly.
"When I got the information from the police," Joe told him slowly, "I
telephoned to your house to learn if your car was there."
"And it was!" insisted Mr. Kingley, leaning forward in his big chair.
"Of course it was!"
"It was not!" Mr. Kingley sank back with a groan. "And your chauffeur
was found in the garage, tied and gagged!"
"Bless me!" In the face of such facts Mr. Kingley could only stammer and
sputter. "Who could--who could--who found him?" he demanded sharply.
"Your daughter telephoned to the garage for the car, and when it wasn't
brought around, she went herself to see what was the matter. She found
the chauffeur on the floor tied and gagged."
"But what did he say? What did he say?" Mr. Kingley had jumped up from
his big chair and was tramping up and down the office with quick excited
steps.
"He said he had the car all ready to drive out, when two men came in and
threatened him with a gun. They gagged him, tied him up and drove the
car out of the garage. He didn't know either of them, he said. Never saw
them before. They were both masked, but he thought one of them, at
least, was a Jap." He stopped and looked at Mr. Kingley significantly.
"A Jap!" repeated Mr. Kingley aghast. He stared at Joe, and he tried
with all of his might to understand what Joe so plainly wanted him to
understand. "I never employed a Jap in my life," he said hurriedly. "Not
in any capacity!"
"Didn't you?" questioned Joe, with even more of that puzzling
significance.
"A Jap kidnaping the Queen of the Sunshine Islands," Mr. Kingley said
slowly. His eyes brightened. "Such pub--I mean," as he caught the
indignant flash in Joe's eyes--"I mean, I hope it won't lead to any
international complication."
"I hope not," agreed Joe, wishing he could raise the top of Mr.
Kingley's head, with its shining scalp and fringe of pepper-and-salt
hair, and take a look at his mental machinery. "You can't tell me
anything more then, Mr. Kingley? You don't know anything about this?"
His eyes seemed to be boring into Mr. Kingley's very soul.
"Know? How should I know anything?" demanded Mr. Kingley, and he looked
insulted.
"Several little things made me think that possibly you might know more
about the Sunshine Islands and their queen than you admit," Joe told him
with more of that disagreeable significance. "Maybe you know more about
the Sons of Sunshine than I do," he added, as Mr. Kingley turned away
with a muttered exclamation.
"Yes, yes," he said hastily. "Bill told me about them, that they had
threatened to make trouble for Miss Gilfooly. I told Bill then that she
should ask for police protection, but Bill laughed at me and said
Ka-kee-ta with his ax was worth a platoon of police."
"I thought you would know about them," Joe went on completely ignoring
what Mr. Bill said. "And perhaps you know about the special
representative--I believe his name is Pitts? The Sons of Sunshine
claimed they had him a prisoner."
"I don't know a word about him!" Mr. Kingley seemed pained to hear that
Joe thought that he did. "I don't see why you come here, Cary, and talk
to me as if I were implicated in this kidnaping. Why aren't you running
down this clue you have? Did Ethel telephone to the insurance company?
Who got the number anyway? Are you sure that it's correct?"
"I'm sure. Johnny Gilfooly took the number, and he's a Boy Scout and
trained to observe."
"Why wasn't he looking after his sister? Aren't Boy Scouts trained to
take care of their sisters?" Mr. Kingley sounded quite as unreasonable
as he looked.
"Tessie sent him into the Bon Bon Box for some chocolates----"
"Then he didn't see his sister kidnaped?" Mr. Kingley interrupted
quickly.
"Yes, he did. He was just coming out when he saw Tessie get into the
car. It dashed away, but not before he had snatched his pencil from his
pocket and written the number on the box of candy. He did it
mechanically, and when Tessie didn't come home, we were glad he did.
It's the only clue we have. It is mighty strange that she should have
been carried away in your car, Mr. Kingley!" he insisted.
"Very, very strange," agreed Mr. Kingley with a frown. "And very strange
that I didn't hear about the car until you came in. Why didn't Ethel
telephone to me?"
"Your line was busy. And Bill-- Where is your son Bill, Mr. Kingley?" he
asked sharply.
"My son Bill! Why--why--" What on earth was Joe Cary driving at. No
wonder he stammered.
It seemed to Joe that he was just stammering to gain time.
"Yes, your son Bill!" he repeated sharply.
"What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Kingley.
"Just what I say. Where's young Bill Kingley?" insisted Joe, growing
more suspicious every minute.
"Who wants Bill Kingley?" asked a voice from the doorway, and Mr. Bill
himself came in. He looked excited and worried. "I say, dad, have you
heard? Queen Teresa has been kidnaped! We've got to find her! There are
three reporters out here."
"Reporters! Why should they come to me?" wondered Mr. Kingley, chafing
under the fiery gaze of Joe Cary.
"Tessie was carried off in your car," Joe reminded him. "I should think
the police, as well as the reporters, would want to talk to you. The
Queen of the Sunshine Islands was found in the basement of your store,
and now she has been carried off in your car. It sounds----"
"How!" interrupted Mr. Bill, stepping in front of his shrinking father
and facing Joe. "How does it sound to you, Cary?" he asked thirstily.
"Queer!" Joe told him flatly. "Darned queer! But if you don't tell all
you know now, Mr. Kingley, you'll have to come through some day!" He
regarded Mr. Kingley with an odd combination of eager hope and hot
defiance. Would Mr. Kingley tell all he knew now?
But Mr. Kingley had stood all he was going to stand from Joe Cary.
"You--you--" he stammered furiously and had to stop for breath. "You're
discharged! Discharged! Do you hear? I won't let any employee talk to me
as if I were a kidnaper and a thief!"
"Yes, you will!" Joe dared to say to his purple face. "Unless you prove
you aren't a kidnaper and a thief! And you'd better not discharge me! I
suspect too much! When I'm ready to leave, I'll resign. You had better
go now and talk to your reporters," he added with contempt. "You'll miss
the afternoon papers if you don't. And that would be too bad, when you
have some more publicity for the Evergreen."
"What do you mean, Joe?" asked Mr. Bill, who could not make anything of
the eager words that Joe was uttering, and that made his father so
apoplectic that he could only gasp and gurgle and shake his fist at Joe
as he left the room. "What do you mean?" Joe seemed to mean so much more
than he said.
"I haven't time to tell you now!" Joe exclaimed brusquely. "I must find
Tessie!" He would have brushed by Mr. Bill, as if Mr. Bill were only a
part of the office furniture, but Mr. Bill clutched his arm.
"I'm going to find her, too!" he insisted. "I'm going to find her! Where
do you suppose she is? What could have happened to her?" He shivered as
he thought of what might have happened to Tessie. "I don't suppose those
Sons of Sunshine would stop at anything, would they?" His voice shook as
he asked the question.
Joe stood still and looked at him curiously. "Yes," he said as if he
knew what he was talking about. "I think there are some things the Sons
of Sunshine will not attempt--not in Waloo. Come on, if you're going
with me. Do you happen to know," he stopped as a thought flashed through
his brain, "do you happen to know if Tessie had the Tear of God with
her?"
Mr. Bill shook his head, and the anxious look in his face deepened.
Would it make it better or worse for Tessie if she had the royal jewel
with her?
"I don't know," he confessed. "She usually did have it around her neck
or somewhere else in a safety-bag. Mrs. Gilfooly would know," he
suggested when Joe frowned and said nothing.
"Of course," Joe shrugged his shoulders and threw back his head. "Of
course, Granny will know!"