SCOOP DISAPPEARS
Contrary to what we thought would be the case, the soap man didn’t come
near us. And shortly after six o’clock we saw him leave the mill yard
in his rickety buggy, heading south. When he had disappeared from our
sight we drew a deep breath. It was our hope, of course, that we had
seen the last of him.
But we hadn’t, as you will learn by reading on.
In a way we had made a mess of things. We had let the enemy get the
talking frog away from us; and we had fumbled in recovering the
murdered puzzle maker’s hidden fortune. Of course, if we were to
believe Deacon Pillpopper, the ten-ring puzzle had a certain money
value. But it wasn’t what we had expected to find. Far from it.
Moreover, the puzzle was useless to us without the directions for
working it. We couldn’t do a thing with it.
In going to bed that night we agreed that there was no need to stand
guard. For most certainly we had seen the last of the enemy’s spies.
And that meant that we had seen the last of the ghost.
I was tired and went promptly to sleep. It seemed to me that not more
than ten minutes had elapsed when a whispering voice told me to get up.
The clock on the lower floor struck midnight.
“There’s some one at the kitchen door,” Scoop told me.
Having been awakened ahead of me, Peg and Tom were standing in a puddle
of moonlight that came through the bedroom window. Half asleep and half
awake I got onto my feet.
“I went to the kitchen to get a drink,” Scoop told us. “I didn’t bother
to light a lamp. I heard footfalls on the porch. Then the doorknob
turned.”
We went noiselessly down the stairs, more bewildered than frightened.
And sure enough, as Scoop had said, some one was trying to push our key
out of the lock of the kitchen door.
I crept to a near-by window, detecting the ghost on the porch. A
startled cry sprang to my lips. And thus warned of our presence in the
kitchen, the prowler glided swiftly from the porch into the shadows.
Scoop ran into the sitting room and threw up a window.
“I’m going to find out who it is,” he said, grim-like. “Wait here at
the window. For you might have to drag me in quick.”
Then he went out through the opening. I leaned over the sill and
watched him creep to a corner of the house. The kitchen porch was now
within range of his eyes. Suddenly he vanished.
The minutes dragged along. I took to counting the pumping strokes of my
heart. Thump! thump! thump! Once Tom sneezed. I almost jumped out of my
skin.
My legs went stiff and cramped from crouching in one position. Why
didn’t Scoop come back? I hung over the sill to catch possible sight of
my daring chum. But nowhere was he within range of my anxious eyes.
“He’s been gone an hour,” Tom said in a queer, hushed whisper.
It came two o’clock; three o’clock; four o’clock. And still Scoop
hadn’t returned.
At daybreak we went outside and circled the house. I was sick with
worry. For I realized that something had happened to my chum. Maybe he
had been murdered. And the ghost was the murderer.
But who was the ghost? I thought of the old soap man. Was he the ghost
after all? It wasn’t impossible.
Somehow, though, I had the feeling that the soap man wasn’t the ghost.
And in trying to probe the confusing mystery I acknowledged
bewilderment.
Then we found this message chalked on the mail box:
Lay low till I get back.
Scoop.
I went suddenly happy. For Scoop was alive. He was up to some scheme.
He had a reason for vanishing.
Thinking that he might show up in time for breakfast, we set a plate
for him. But only the three of us shared the meal. Then we went to
school. The teacher wanted to know where Howard Ellery was. But no one
could tell her.
It came noon. And Scoop hadn’t returned.
Stopping in at the hotel on the way to school, I found Uncle Sam
Tomlinson fretting over the absence of his star guest.
“Has he gone back to Chicago?” I inquired.
“How do I know whar he’s gone to?” the other scowled. “He was here at
ten o’clock last night. But he hain’t been seen since. An’ my wife says
as how his bed is jest the way she made it up yesterday.”
I ran to the near-by garage. Gennor’s red roadster was in storage. This
proved that its owner hadn’t left town.
But where was he? And, more important in my mind, where was Scoop?
The school bell summoned the three of us to our books. But the pages
might just as well have been printed in Chinese for all of the
understanding that we got out of them that afternoon.
Our thoughts were of Scoop. He was in danger. And we wanted to be with
him so that we could help him. Not knowing where he was, or what was
happening to him, made us crazy, sort of.