Joe took matters into his own hands at the Waloo. He sent peremptory
orders over the telephone, and received unsatisfactory reports from the
policemen, who were scouring the city for the Queen of the Sunshine
Islands. Granny fluttered helplessly about, blaming herself for ever
letting Tessie be a queen, and scolding Johnny, when he told her to stop
worrying and leave Tessie to the Boy Scouts. They would find Tessie.
Granny pushed Johnny aside and fluttered over to Joe to ask him if it
wasn't time to hear something from Mr. Bill, who was driving frantically
here and there, following up every clue. The Kingley limousine had been
abandoned in Southeast Waloo, but it could not tell where it had been,
and so did not furnish any help at all.
Norah Lee tried to soothe Granny, to tell her that Tessie was all right.
Of course she was all right! Nothing could happen to Tessie in Waloo in
broad daylight! But Norah's heart did not feel half so hopeful as her
lips sounded. Norah read the daily papers, and she knew that many things
can happen to a pretty girl in a big city in broad daylight. But she
kept on patting Granny's arm encouragingly, and told her again that
Tessie was all right. It was the only thing Norah could do.
"It doesn't seem possible that a good little girl like Tessie could
disappear without some one seeing her," moaned Granny. The almost
continuous whir of the telephone made her so nervous that she jumped
now, when it rang louder than before. She ran over to stand by Joe when
he answered the call.
"A Boy Scout master is coming up!" Joe turned to Granny, and there was a
flicker of hope in his face. "He thinks he has a clue!"
"What did I tell you?" crowed Johnny, dancing up and down triumphantly.
"Didn't I tell you the Scouts would help? If you'd let me look I bet I'd
have found her long ago!"
"Don't bother me now, Johnny!" Granny brushed him aside as he danced up
to her, and went to stand at the door beside Joe and Norah Lee.
Mr. Bill came in, tired and discouraged, for his frantic driving had
produced no results. Close on his heels was Charlie Deakin, who showed
Granny the beaded bag and told her where Neddie Blake had found it.
"I tried to tell you on the 'phone," Charlie said. "But your line was so
busy that I got an officer to watch the house and came right down. I
thought it would be quicker when your line was so busy."
Mr. Bill had jumped to his tired feet, and he grasped Charlie by the
shoulder.
"Come and show me that house!" he ordered. "My car is outside!" And he
pulled Charlie to the door.
"Hold on, Bill! I'm coming, too!" called Joe.
"I'm going!" exclaimed Johnny, dashing after them. "Tessie's my sister,
and I'm going!"
Granny caught his arm. "No, you can't go, Johnny Gilfooly! You got to
stay here with me! I've got to have something left!" And then she
changed her mind and went thudding down the corridor, Johnny's hot
little hand clasped tight. She was in the car before Mr. Bill, Johnny
close beside her.
"You can't go, Granny!" frowned Joe.
"I shall go!" Granny's voice was quite as determined as Joe's. They
seemed to be made from the same piece of adamant. "I guess Tessie is my
own granddaughter! I have a right to go. And Johnny's Tessie own
brother! I guess he has a right to go, too. Tessie'll want to see us!"
Joe did not waste any time debating the question, but jumped in beside
Mr. Bill. Norah Lee had run to them, and was sitting beside Granny,
holding Granny's hand. Charlie Deakin squeezed in between Mr. Bill and
Joe and told Mr. Bill where to go. Mr. Bill forgot there were any speed
laws or any traffic laws in Waloo as he sent his car forward. Granny
gasped for breath. She declared they were in Northeast Waloo before
they left the hotel.
"Stop at the corner, Bill," suggested Joe, as they drew near the red
brick house, before which a curious policeman was sauntering, and Neddie
Black was still playing ball. "We don't want them to know we're coming."
"I was going to!" muttered Mr. Bill indignantly. Joe should credit him
with a little sense.
"You'll stay here, Granny!" hissed Joe, as he jumped from the car. "And
Johnny, you mind your grandmother and don't make any more trouble for
us. Come on, Bill!"
"I'll go with you," offered Charlie Deakin, his teeth chattering in his
excitement.
"I--" began Johnny, but Joe turned to him fiercely.
"You shut up!" he said so sharply that Johnny did not dare to say
another word.
"There's a policeman!" Granny told them in a hoarse whisper, and her
gnarled finger pointed tremblingly to the officer. "I suppose you'll let
him go with you," she added with much scorn. She was shivering with
excitement and fear.
Accompanied by the officer, Joe and Mr. Bill went up the steps. Mr. Bill
rang the bell, and when no one answered it, Joe tried to open the door.
Mr. Bill kept his finger on the bell. Granny shivered at its shrill
peal. But there was no response to it. Joe and Mr. Bill and the officer
tried to break in the door, but its fibers and hinges were stronger than
their muscles. Mr. Bill tried a window, and when he could not open it he
shattered the glass with one blow of his hand. Granny and Norah and
Johnny heard the clatter. They caught each other's hands. And still
there was not a sound in the house.
"She can't be here!" Joe said hopelessly. "There isn't any one here!"
"We must make sure!" exclaimed Mr. Bill between his teeth, and he
climbed through the window.
In a moment he had the door open, and Joe and the officer were
clattering in. It was not worth while now to be quiet. The officer's
flashlight showed them only empty rooms. Joe lighted matches and threw
them aside as they flared out. He led the way through the lower floor.
"Some one has been here!" He pointed to a heap of cigar ashes beside a
big chair.
"And here for some time if he smoked cigars enough to make that much
ash," added the officer wisely.
"Come upstairs," begged Mr. Bill. "Never mind the ashes now!"
At last they reached the room in which Tessie had been locked. They were
able to break in the door and the flashlight, the flaring matches showed
them the bed, the old wardrobe and the bureau, which had been pulled
from the wall. Mr. Bill ran to look behind it.
"Great Scott!" he exclaimed when he saw the open window. "Great Scott!"
he cried again when he saw a piece of blue crepe caught on a nail in the
sill. It was from a woman's frock, and Mr. Bill stared at it. Tessie had
been wearing a blue crepe when she disappeared. "She's been here!" he
shouted to Joe, although he had no way of proving that the bit of blue
crepe had ever been a part of Tessie's frock.
"And she got away!" Joe read the story of the open window, as he looked
out and saw the roof of the porch below it. "She got out this way!" He
dropped from the window, as Tessie had dropped, struck the porch roof,
and slid down the post to look carefully over the yard. "Tess!" he
called softly. "Tess! It's Joe Cary! She isn't here," he looked back to
tell Mr. Bill. "But she must have got away all right!" He went around to
join the others at the front door.
Another man joined them also, the irate owner of the red brick house,
who wanted to know what the dickens they were doing breaking into his
place and making such a commotion?
"Who lived here?" demanded Mr. Bill before he answered one of the
questions.
"I rented it day before yesterday to a man by the name of Smith,"
returned the owner, who never would have answered Mr. Bill if he had
not been accompanied by a policeman. "A fat, white-headed fellow who
wanted a quiet place for his sister. She had been at a sanitarium," and
the owner touched his head significantly. He was the most surprised
landlord in Waloo when he was told that the Queen of the Sunshine
Islands must have been a prisoner in his house, and he exclaimed quickly
that he knew nothing about any Frederic Pracht. He had rented the house
to a man who had said his name was Smith--John Smith. He had taken it
for an indefinite period and paid a month's rent. The house was
furnished, so the new tenant had only to bring his personal baggage.
John Smith had seemed like a pleasant, honest man, and had talked in a
nice way about his sister.
"And all the time he must have meant the Queen," he said, as if he could
not believe the story Joe and Mr. Bill told him. "Sure, I read about her
in the papers! She used to work in the Evergreen. My niece, Susie
Blakeley, works there, too. She was all excited when they found a queen
in the store. I wonder what she will say to this!" He took the money Mr.
Bill offered him to repair the broken window, and said again it was all
right, and he was glad they hadn't found anything worse than they had.
He stared at his old house with dazed eyes. "Well, can you believe it,"
he murmured as they drove away and left him with Charlie Deakin and
Neddie Black, who were more disappointed than they could ever say.
"What's the matter? Isn't Tessie there?" called Granny impatiently. She
jumped out and ran heavily toward them. She could not wait in the car
another second. "Where's Tessie?" she demanded.
"She got away!" explained Joe. "She got away from Pracht!"
"She did? Then why don't we go right back to the hotel and ask her where
she's been?" Granny scuttled to the car. That was the sensible thing to
do, not stand here and talk indefinitely. "Why are you waiting here when
Tessie's gone home?"
"Why, indeed?" They tumbled into the car, and Mr. Bill drove back to the
Waloo as he had driven away from it, without any regard for traffic laws
or speed laws. They hurried into the hotel and up in the elevator,
chattering excitedly. They ran along the corridor and into the royal
suite.
"Tessie, you bad girl!" began Granny at the door. But she did not sound
as if Tessie really had been a bad girl--she sounded loving and excited.
When she ran into the room she stopped. "She isn't here!" she exclaimed,
frightened because Tessie was not there. "She isn't here!"
"She must be!" declared Mr. Bill, and he ran through the other rooms.
But Tessie was not in one of them. Mr. Bill's eager face fell. He had
been so sure that Tessie would be there that he felt bewildered and
indignant as well as frightened.
"Perhaps she hasn't had time to get here," suggested Joe forlornly,
although he knew that Tessie had had plenty of time. All she had to do
was to jump on a car, and she would be at the hotel in twenty minutes.
They had taken more than twenty minutes to search the house and drive
back. He called up the hotel office to learn if any one had seen Tessie.
No one had. He turned to Mr. Bill with a questioning stare. Where was
Tessie Gilfooly?
Mr. Bill shook his head. He wished he knew. And then he shook his broad
shoulders and stared at Joe. "I'll find her!" he declared fiercely, with
a confidence which was based on nothing sounder than desire.
"I'll find her!" contradicted Joe as fiercely.
"Deary me, where can she be?" wailed Granny. "It isn't like the
Gilfoolys to go away like this! It never was like one of them but Pete!
I wish Tessie had never heard of this queen business!"
"So do I!" fervently agreed Joe. He looked at Mr. Bill, as if in some
way he blamed him!
Mr. Bill said never a word, but he did flush quickly. Deep, in his
heart, he did not wish that Tessie had never heard of the queen
business. Although Tessie had been kidnaped and might be in danger he
did not wish that, for if Tessie had never been a queen, there was
every chance that Mr. Bill would never have known her. When she was
selling aluminum, she was just one of the hundreds of girls who poured
into the Evergreen every morning and out of the Evergreen every evening.
She was lost among the hundreds. But when Fate plucked her out of the
industrial army, and showed her to Mr. Bill as a queen, he saw that she
was fair and sweet and dear--how dear Mr. Bill had not quite realized
until now. It made him furious to think of it now. You bet, he would
find her!
"You go to bed, Granny, you and Johnny," suggested Joe. "We'll call you
the minute we hear anything. You go to bed. You're dead tired!"
Granny was tired, but she could not go to sleep until she knew where
Tessie was. She allowed Norah to lead her to her room and tuck her into
the bed. She was too tired to resist. She was an old woman, she told
Norah pitifully, and had lost her husband and seven children, but never
in all of her life had she had had to go through anything like this. Why
couldn't she have been kidnaped instead of Tessie?
Norah patted her wrinkled hand and crooned; "Poor Granny!" until Granny
did fall into a troubled sleep.
Johnny refused to go to bed, but consented to lie on the davenport. His
head had scarcely touched the pillow before he was asleep, too. Joe
tramped up and down the room, while Mr. Bill slumped in a chair, his
head in his hands. As Norah came out of the bedroom, the telephone rang
and she caught the receiver. The two men jumped beside her.
"It's your mother." She nodded to Mr. Bill. "No, no news," she said
through the transmitter. "Yes, we are all terribly anxious. We will let
you know when we hear anything," she promised, for Mrs. Kingley had told
her that she could not sleep unless she knew the little queen was safe.
"We were so fond of her, she was so pretty and simple and honest. I
don't know any girl now who is so unaffected. You couldn't help but be
fond of her. It doesn't seem possible that any one could carry her off
in Waloo, does it? And in our car! It makes me frantic! I can't think
what the police are doing. Mr. Kingley is frantic, too!"
"I should think he would be," Joe said dryly, when Norah had told them
what Mrs. Kingley had said.
Mr. Bill dropped back in his big chair with a groan, but in a flash, he
jumped up and went out. Norah's eyes followed him.
"He's worried," she told Joe.
"We're all worried!"
"I know. I'm so--so sorry for you!" She just touched Joe's sleeve to
let him know how sorry she was.
He looked up suddenly. How sympathetic she was! What a good friend she
had been to Tessie. There was no one quite like Norah Lee. His heart
thumped a bit as he thought how unusual Norah Lee was.
"You go to bed, too!" he insisted huskily. "I'll call you the minute we
hear anything. But if you don't get some sleep you won't be much help
to-morrow. I'll just stay here beside the telephone. We may hear
something. We must hear something!" he insisted, because he so
desperately wished to hear something. "But I shan't let you stay up any
longer. You're all tired out!"
She hesitated as if she were going to insist on staying with him, and
then she said good night softly and went away. Joe's eyes followed her
until she was out of sight. What a splendid girl she was, he thought, as
he tramped up and down the room before he threw himself into a chair
beside the telephone. He had always known she was splendid. And what a
good friend she was to Tessie! How different they were! Norah was the
kind of a girl a man would have to reach up to. He would always have to
be right on his toes, for she would be a little ahead--always. While
Tessie--a man would have to put back his hand and pull Tessie up to him.
Tessie was all sweetness and tenderness. She made a man contented and
happy while Norah--Norah--
Joe's heart gave a sudden leap which almost choked him. He jumped to his
feet and looked about him bewildered. "Gosh!" he exclaimed, puzzled at
this emotion which had gripped him so suddenly. He tramped up and down
the room again. "Norah!" The name made him tingle. "Norah!" He dropped
weakly into a chair and put his hand to his forehead. What on earth was
the matter with him? Why should he feel smothered and limp and
exhilarated when he thought of Norah Lee? He did not understand why, but
he discovered that when he thought of Norah, he forgot Tessie. But he
must not forget Tessie--Tessie was lost. It must be because he was so
tired. Lord, how tired he was! He slouched down in his chair and relaxed
his tired muscles. Tessie--Norah-- The lids dropped over his weary eyes,
and he began to dream--strange, sweet, new dreams.
Downstairs, Mr. Bill had settled himself in a chair beside the telephone
switchboard and lighted a cigarette.
"Give me any message about Queen Teresa," he told the telephone girl.
"Ain't it awful about her?" she shuddered. "I used to wish I could
change places with her, when I'd see her go in and out with that black
fellow with his ax, but now-- Say, where do you suppose she is?"
"I wish you would tell me," Mr. Bill said wearily. "Don't forget to give
me any message that comes in. Everybody upstairs is asleep, and I don't
want them disturbed."
"The old lady ought to get a good night's rest," agreed the telephone
girl. "You just shut your own eyes, and I'll call you the first thing."
Mr. Bill could close his eyes, but he could not sleep. He smoked
cigarette after cigarette, and listened unconsciously to the
uninterrupted chatter of the girl who had envied Tessie until Tessie had
been kidnaped. When the telephone operator went off duty, and the
switchboard was turned over to the night clerk, Mr. Bill went over to
police headquarters, where there was no news at all.
"We have all our men out, Mr. Kingley," the sergeant told him. "Even the
chief's working on the case. We're trying to round up that
Pracht--Smith, he called himself, didn't he?--and make him confess. But
we don't know anything about those Sons of Sunshine. They sound like
anarchists or Black Hands to me. But we oughta hear something pretty
soon."
The minutes dragged into hours and there was no news. Mr. Bill dropped
into a troubled doze and woke to find himself in another day. He went
drearily back to the hotel. Joe was furious because he had fallen
asleep over his strange new dreams. Granny, with a face that was gray
and worried, instead of happy and rosy, was talking to him and to Norah
Lee. The Boy Scout was splashing in the bathroom.
"You heard anything?" demanded Granny as Mr. Bill entered.
Before he could answer, the telephone rang sharply. Joe and Mr. Bill
dashed to answer it, but Joe caught the receiver. He pushed Mr. Bill
away.
"Yes," he said impatiently through the transmitter. He waved his hand to
them. "It's Tess!" he cried chokingly. "Yes, Tessie! Where are you?" He
listened eagerly. "Where are you?" he demanded fiercely. "Where--" He
shook the instrument and turned to them in exasperation. "Isn't that the
limit? Central broke the connection before Tessie could tell me where
she was."
"What did she say?" demanded Mr. Bill.
"She said she was all right, and that Granny wasn't to worry. She isn't
coming back for a while. She's going to hide until Pitts comes and
straightens everything out. She said Granny wasn't to worry, nobody was
to worry." But Joe looked worried. "Do you suppose she did get away?" he
asked Mr. Bill. "Is this message a plan to call off the police?"
Mr. Bill had taken the receiver from Joe and was calling Central and
ordering her for heaven's sake to get a move on and trace the call she
had just given them. Several days later, it seemed to all of them,
Central reported that the call had come from a pay station. Hadn't they
heard the nickel drop? Central couldn't say which pay station. She would
try and find out if they wanted her to, she added obligingly.
"You'd better!" advised Mr. Bill. "And immediately!" He swung around and
faced the others. "We know she's alive and well. That's something! Did
she talk as if she were frightened?"
"No," remembered Joe. "She said she would have called before but she
fell asleep. She said she was awfully tired."
"She wouldn't have fallen asleep if she had been frightened," Norah said
with a wise nod of her head.
Granny contradicted her flatly. "I went to sleep and I was frightened,"
she said with a deep, deep sigh. "I never was more frightened in my
life. I don't think I can wait until this Pitts comes. I've got to find
Tessie right away and see for myself if she's all right."
"We'll find her," promised Joe, as he had promised a hundred times since
Tessie had disappeared. "And we know she's all right. She'll call us
again soon. Sure she will! She's still a little afraid. She'll call us
again," he repeated.
Granny whimpered softly. It was such a relief to hear from Tessie. "I'm
not going to wait here!" she said with a sudden determination. "I don't
like it here without Tessie. I don't feel I have any right here without
her. I'm not the queen. I'm going home with Johnny and wait for Tessie
there!" She had a quick dislike to the luxury of the hotel. She wanted
her little cottage where there was work for her to do while she waited,
and where she had always had Tessie.
"Tessie won't like that," objected Joe.
"I don't care! I shan't stay here without her!"
"Let her go," whispered Norah. "It will be better for her to be where
she can be busy. She has nothing to do here but think."
Norah helped Granny pack a bag, and Mr. Bill drove them to the cottage.
They were very quiet, and Mr. Bill remembered the traffic laws and did
not dash up the street as he had the night before. They were very quiet
when they stopped in front of the shabby little house. Granny murmured a
wish that they had never left it as she hurried up the walk and up the
steps, but at the door she paused.
"Tessie always had the key," she faltered.
Joe had a key and unlocked the door. When they went in, Granny raised
her head. It was as if she sensed a presence. Her nostrils twitched, and
her ears strained. She sent a swift glance around the shabby living-room
and went on to the kitchen. There was a coffee pot on the stove and an
opened package of cereal on the table while in the sink was a cup and
saucer and a bowl.
"Tessie's been here!" cried Granny, and she sat down suddenly on a
chair. "She's been here! Thank heaven I didn't give away that coffee and
breakfast food when we left. Even if we were queens I kept it. Tessie
came here when she ran away from that wicked man." She waved her hand to
show them her proof.
"Well I'll be darned!" muttered Mr. Bill, and he sat down suddenly on
the kitchen table.
"Why the dickens didn't I come home last night?" demanded Joe in
disgust. "If I had come home I would have found her."
"Perhaps she's upstairs asleep?" suggested Norah. "She said she was
tired."
They trooped up the narrow stairs--Granny first. It was Granny who went
into the bedroom alone, and at her disappointed exclamation the others
ran in, although Granny's disappointed exclamation had told them that
Tessie was not there.
"She's gone!" wailed Granny. "She's gone! And look!" She pointed to
Tessie's royal raiment on a chair. "She took off her queen clothes!" She
pulled the closet door open, and searched among the shabby dresses which
had belonged to Tessie Gilfooly. There was something pathetic and
ghostlike about the little frocks. Mr. Bill tenderly stroked a sleeve.
"She's taken her old black sateen," announced Granny from the closet.
"The dress she used to wear to the store. She's left her queen clothes
and gone off in her old working clothes! Can you believe it? Deary me!"
She sat down on the bed and looked from one to the other. "I'd like to
know what it all means?" she said helplessly.
"I bet I know!" Mr. Bill's downcast face had been growing brighter and
brighter. If Mr. Bill had been a barometer you would have seen at a
glance that he promised fair weather. "I bet I know the hunch that made
her change her clothes! You just wait, Granny! I'll find her now!"
"Just a minute!" Joe put a forceful hand on Mr. Bill's arm as he would
have dashed away. "Tessie's safe now. We know that if we don't know
where she is. But before you follow your hunch you'll take me to your
father!"
"Father!" Mr. Bill stared at Joe. Had Joe lost his mind? "Sure," he said
soothingly. "That's on my way. Come on!"