AN AUTOMOBILE AND A DRIVER.
Along in the last week of May, Nyoda, on a shopping tour downtown,
dropped into a restaurant for a bit of lunch. As she was sitting down to
the table, another young woman came and sat down opposite her. The two
glanced at each other.
"Why, Elizabeth Kent!" exclaimed the latest arrival.
"Why, Norma Williamson!" exclaimed Nyoda, recognizing an old college
friend.
"Not Norma Williamson any more," said the friend, blushing as she drew
off her glove and displayed the rings on her fourth finger; "Norma
Bates."
"What are you doing to pass the time away?" asked the pretty little
matron when she had exhausted her own experiences of the last few years.
Nyoda told her about her teaching and the guardianship of the
Winnebagos. "Camp Fire Girls?" said Mrs. Bates. "How delightful! I think
that is one of the best things that ever happened to girls. If I were
not so frightfully busy I would take a group too--I may yet. But I wish
you would bring your girls out to visit us. We're living on the Lake
Shore for the summer. Camp Fire Girls would certainly know how to have a
good time at our place. We have a launch and a sailboat and horses to
ride and a tennis court. Can't you come out next Saturday?" Nyoda
thought perhaps they could. "I'll tell you what to do," said Mrs. Bates,
warming to the scheme. "Come out Friday after school and stay until
Sunday night. That will give the girls more chance to do things. We have
plenty of room."
"The same hospitable Norma Williamson as of old," said Nyoda, smiling at
her. "Don't you remember how we girls used to flock to your room in
college, and when it was apparently as fall as it could get you would
always make room for one more?"
"I love to have people visit me," said Mrs. Bates simply.
"By the way," said Nyoda, as she rose to depart, "how do you get to
Bates Villa?"
"Take the Interurban car," replied Mrs. Bates, "and get off at Stop
_42_. The Limited leaves the Interurban Station at four o'clock; that
would be a good car to come on."
"All right," said Nyoda, extending her hand in farewell; "we'll be
there."
The news of the invitation to spend a week-end in the country was
received with a shout by the Winnebagos. Their only regret was that
Sahwah would be unable to go. "Never mind, Sahwah," comforted Nyoda,
"Mrs. Bates wants us to come out again when the water is warm enough to
go in bathing and by that time your hip will be all right."
On Friday, after school was out, Nyoda and Gladys left the building
together. "You are coming home with me, as we planned, until it is time
to take the car?" asked Nyoda.
"I'm afraid I'll have to go home first, after all," said Gladys. "I came
away in such a hurry this morning that I forgot my sweater and my tennis
shoes and I really must have them. You come home with me."
But on arriving at the Evans house they found nobody home. Gladys rang
and waited and rang again, but there was no answer. Gladys frowned with
vexation. "I simply must have that sweater and those shoes," she said.
"There's no use in waiting until some one comes home; it'll be too late.
Mother has gone for the day and father is out of town, and if Katy has
been given a day off she won't be at home until evening. We'll have to
break into the house, that's all there is to it."
Feeling like burglars, they tried all the windows on the first floor and
the basement. Everything was locked tightly. Gladys began to feel
desperate. "Do you suppose I had better break the pantry window," she
asked, "or possibly one of the cellar ones? I'll pay for it out of my
allowance. I think the pantry window would be the best, because the door
at the head of the cellar stairs is likely to be locked and we might not
be able to get upstairs if we did get into the cellar."
Nyoda was inspecting the upper windows of the house. "There is one open
a little," she said; "the one over the side entrance." Gladys abandoned
her idea of breaking the pantry window and bent her energies to reaching
the open one. With the aid of Nyoda she climbed up the post of the
little side porch, swung herself over the edge of the roof and raised
the window.
"Stop where you are!" called a commanding voice. Gladys and Nyoda both
started guiltily. A man was running across the lawn from the next
estate. "Stop or I'll call the police," he said, coming upon the drive.
He looked much disconcerted when Nyoda and Gladys both burst into a
ringing peal of laughter. "Oh, it's too funny for anything," said
Gladys, wiping her eyes, "to be caught breaking into your own house.
You're a good man, whoever you are, for keeping an eye on the house,"
she said to the puzzled-looking arrester, "but the joke is on you this
time. This is my father's house. I'm Gladys Evans. Give him one of my
cards out of my purse, Nyoda, so he'll believe it."
"I beg your pardon," said the man, convinced that Gladys had a right to
enter the Evans's house by the second-story window if she chose. "I'm
the new gardener next door and I didn't know you, and it always looks
suspicious to see such goings-on."
"You did perfectly right," said Gladys, as he went back to his work.
Laughing extravagantly over their being taken for housebreakers, Gladys
climbed into the window and went downstairs. Opening the front door a
crack, she gave a low whistle which she fondly believed to be a
burglar-like signal. Nyoda answered with a similar whistle. "Is that
you, Diamond Dick?" she asked in a thrilling whisper.
"Who stands without?" asked Gladys.
"It is I, Dark-lantern Pete," hissed Nyoda.
"Give the countersign," commanded Gladys.
"Six buckets of blood!" replied Nyoda in a curdling voice.
Gladys admitted her into the house and they both sat down on the stairs
and shrieked with laughter. "Oh, I can hardly wait until we get down to
the car, so we can tell the other girls," said Gladys. "Caught in the
act! My fair name is ruined. Now for some dinner."
"I'm hungry for a pickle," she said as they foraged in the pantry for
something to eat. "Wait a minute until I go down cellar and get some."
As she opened the door of the cool cellar she started back in surprise.
On the floor lay Katy, the maid, unconscious. An overturned chair beside
her and a shattered light globe told how she had tried to screw a new
bulb into the fixture in the ceiling and had tipped over with the chair,
striking her head on the cement floor. "Nyoda, come down here," called
Gladys. Nyoda hastened down. Together they laid the unconscious girl on
a pile of carpet and tried to revive her. After a few minutes' work
Nyoda went upstairs and called the ambulance to take Katy to the
hospital. When she had been examined by a surgeon and pronounced badly
stunned but not seriously injured, Gladys and Nyoda breathed a sigh of
relief and left her in the care of the hospital.
"We've had enough excitement to-day to last a month," said Gladys, as
they hastened tack to the house the second time to get the sweater and
shoes. "I'm all tired out."
"So am I," said Nyoda.
"We have just time enough to make that four o'clock car, and none to
spare," said Gladys, as they rode toward town in the street-car. As if
everything were conspiring against them to-day, a heavy truck, loaded
with boxes, got caught in the car-track right in front of them and
blocked traffic for ten minutes. Gladys and Nyoda looked tragically at
each other at this delay. Nyoda held up her watch significantly. It was
ten minutes to four. Just then Gladys spied a man she knew in an
automobile, slowly passing the car. She called to him through the open
window. "Will you take us in if we get off the car?" she asked. "We're
trying to make the four o'clock Limited."
"Certainly," agreed the obliging friend. The transfer of seats was soon
made. "How much time have you?" asked the friend as he shoved in the
spark.
"Ten minutes," replied Gladys.
"We'll make it," said the friend, dodging between the vehicles that were
standing around the disabled truck, helping to pull it from the
car-tracks. Getting into a clear road, he opened the throttle and they
proceeded like the wind for about six blocks. Then, for no apparent
reason, the car slowed down, and with a whining whir of machinery came
to a dead stop. "I'm afraid I can't make good my promise to catch that
car," said the friend in a vexed tone, after vainly trying to start the
car for several minutes. "I'll have to be towed to a garage," Nyoda and
Gladys jumped out, hailed a passing street-car and reached the station
just five minutes too late. The Limited had already pulled out.
"Five girls with red ties?" repeated the crossing policeman when they
made inquiries to find out if the other girls had gone and left them.
"They all got on the Limited." There was no doubt about their having
gone, then.
"You know, you said if any were late they'd get left," said Gladys.
"Whoever was here for the car was to go and not wait. Won't they laugh,
though, at you being the late one?"
"There won't be another Limited for two hours," said Nyoda impatiently,
"and the local takes twice as long to get there. I'll telephone Mrs.
Bates that we missed this car but will come out on the next Limited."
"Missed the car?" said Mrs. Bates, when they had her on the wire.
"That's too bad. But you won't have to wait for the other Limited. Our
driver is in town to-day with the automobile and he can bring you out.
He's in Morrison's now ordering some supplies, and the car is at the
corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street. Just get into the car and
it'll be all right. John always calls me up before he starts for home
and I'll tell him about you. It's a blue car, rather bright, with a cane
streamer."
Much cheered by the thought of an automobile ride through the country
instead of a two-hour wait and the prospect of being packed like
sardines into the crowded interurban car, Nyoda and Gladys moved down to
the corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street and found the car just as
Mrs. Bates had said. With a sigh of comfort they settled down on the
cushions. "Our struggles are over," said Nyoda, leaning back luxuriously
and counting over the various things that had happened to them since
leaving school at noon. In a few moments the driver appeared, touched
his hat respectfully to the two girls in the tonneau, and got into the
front seat without any comment. He had his orders from Mrs. Bates.
"It's just like Norma Williamson to have a blue car with blue cushions,"
said Nyoda, as they sped through the streets toward the city limits.
"She was always so fond of blue in college. And this cane streamer is
just the finishing touch. She always liked things trimmed up gaily. It's
a pleasant thing for the Winnebagos that I met her that day. She'll be a
regular fairy godmother to us." Talking happily about the fun they would
have on this week-end party, they rode along the pleasant country roads,
bordered with flowering apple trees, and drank in the sweet-scented air
with unbounded delight. "Could anything be lovelier than the country in
May?" sighed Nyoda.
"Wouldn't it be a joke," said Gladys, "if we were to get there ahead of
the others, after missing the car? Wouldn't they stare, though, to find
us waiting for them? We must be nearly there now." The automobile left
the main road and turned down toward the lake. "That must be the place,"
continued Gladys, as a white house came into view far in the distance.
"I don't see any of the girls waiting for us," said Nyoda. "I declare, I
believe we're here first. Oh, what a joke!" The estate through which
they were driving was a very large one, much of it covered with great
trees. The house was painted white, and perched directly on the edge of
the cliff. The automobile halted before the porch and Nyoda and Gladys
got out. A woman, evidently a servant, came to the screen door and held
it open, motioning them to come in. Neither Mrs. Bates nor any of the
girls were in evidence. The servant said nothing.
"I believe they're all hiding on us!" said Nyoda, getting a sudden light
on this apparently neglectful reception. "I know Norma's tricks of old.
If we could only think of some way to turn the laugh on them!" The
servant who had admitted them led the way to an inner room and opened a
door, stepping aside to let them go first. Then she followed and closed
the door after them. They found that they were in an elevator. The woman
pushed a button and they began to rise. "Of all things, an elevator in a
country house!" said Gladys. They rose to a height which must have
equalled the third story of the house, although they passed no open
floor. They came to a halt before an opening covered with an iron
grating. To the girls it looked like the ordinary elevator entrance. At
a touch from the woman the grating moved aside and they stepped out into
the room. The elevator descended noiselessly and Nyoda and Gladys were
alone.
"It's a tower room!" said Gladys. The chamber they were in was square,
about fifteen by fifteen, furnished as a bedroom. Through a door which
opened at one side they could see a luxurious tiled bath. The walls and
ceiling of the chamber were tinted a deep violet, and the covers on the
bed, dresser, table and the upholstery of the chairs were of the same
shade. The lamp globes hanging from the ceiling were deep purple.
"What an extraordinary color to decorate a room in," said Nyoda. "I
wonder if this is where we are going to sleep. Where can Mrs. Bates be,
I wonder?" she said, getting rather impatient for the joke to be sprung.
Just at this time Gladys made a discovery. There was only one window in
the room, curtained with heavy cretonne, purple, to match the rest of
the hangings. Drawing the curtain aside to look out at the landscape,
she suddenly stood still, frozen to the spot. At her exclamation Nyoda
turned around and also stood as if turned to stone. _The window was
barred_! "What does it mean?" asked Gladys in a horrified voice. The two
hastened back to the elevator entrance and looked for the button to
summon the elevator. There was none. They called down the shaft
repeatedly, but there was no answer. As they stood listening for sounds
from below they heard the automobile which had brought them start up and
drive away from the house. After that there was not another sound of any
kind. An unnamable terror seized them both. Each read the other's fear
in her eyes. Rushing to the window, they looked out. There was nothing
to be seen but the lake stretching out before them, calm and smiling in
the May sunshine. The boom of the waves sounded directly beneath them,
and they knew that the tower was on the extreme edge of the bluff.
"This is not Norma Bates's house," said Nyoda in a frightened voice.
"She said that they were a hundred feet back from the lake."
"Whose house is it, then?" asked Gladys.
"I can't imagine," said Nyoda. "It's all a mistake somewhere."
"But that was the Bates's automobile, all right, that we got into," said
Gladys.
"Yes," said Nyoda reflectively; "bright blue with a cane streamer,
standing at the corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street. _But was it
the right one?"_ she asked suddenly, putting her hands to her head.
"That driver never said a word, just got in and drove off. What on earth
are we into?"
Gladys's face suddenly went as white as chalk. "Nyoda!" she gasped,
clutching the other girl's arm.
"What is it?" asked Nyoda.
"You read every day in the papers of girls disappearing," said Gladys
faintly, "never to be heard of again. Have we--have we--disappeared?"
"I don't know," said Nyoda, with thoughts whirling. She turned away from
the window, toward the elevator. Not a sound of any kind had been heard,
and yet when she turned around there was the elevator up again with the
same woman in it who had brought them up. Instead of opening the door,
however, she pressed something and a little slide opened at about the
height of her head. Through this she passed a supper tray, which she set
on a shelf on the wall at the side of the elevator. Gladys and Nyoda
hastened toward her.
"What is the meaning of this?" asked Nyoda. The woman made no answer.
"In whose house are we?" demanded Nyoda. Still no reply. "Answer me,"
said Nyoda sharply. The woman pointed to her ears and shook her head,
then pointed to her lips and shook her head. "She's deaf and dumb!"
exclaimed Nyoda. The woman pressed a button and the elevator sank from
sight.
Nyoda and Gladys faced each other in consternation. The mystery was
becoming deeper. Beyond a doubt they were not in Mrs. Bates's house;
beyond a doubt they were the victims of some mistake; but how was the
mistake to be cleared up if they could not make themselves understood?
They looked the room over thoroughly for some clew to the mystery. They
found none. There was no door leading from the room except the one
opening into the bath. There was no door leading out from the bath, to
any other room; neither was there any window. The little room was
lighted by electricity. As in the other room, everything here was
violet-colored. The tiled walls, the floor, the calcimined ceiling, the
light globe, the enameled medicine chest, the outside of the bathtub,
and even a little three-legged stool, were all the same shade. The
wonder of the girls increased momentarily.
"Can this be real," asked Nyoda, looking around her in a daze, "or are
we in the middle of some nightmare? Pinch me to see if I'm awake."
"We're awake, all right," said Gladys.
"Then have we dropped back into one of the novels of Dumas? Can this be
the year 1915? Imprisoned in a lonely tower, with no window except one
over the lake, and that window barred. How did we get here, anyway?" she
asked wearily, her head spinning with the effort to make head or tail
out of their position. "Let's see, just how was it? We missed the
Limited, telephoned Mrs. Bates, and she told us that her automobile was
at the corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street--a bright blue
automobile with a cane streamer--and we should get in and the driver
would come and take us out to Bates Villa. We went down to the corner,
found the automobile, got in, and the driver came and drove off and we
landed here." Her temples throbbed as she tried to recall anything out
of the way in the business. But no light came. The whole thing was
mysterious, inexplicable, grotesque.
"Hadn't we better eat something?" suggested Gladys gently. "It evidently
isn't their intention to starve us, whatever they are keeping us here
for."
"You are right," said Nyoda, and she lifted the tray down from the
shelf. The dishes and silver were of good quality, but the knives were
so dull that it was impossible to cut anything with them. After vainly
trying to make an impression on a piece of meat, Gladys threw her knife
aside impatiently.
"They certainly never made those knives to cut with," she said.
At her remark Nyoda raised her head suddenly. She thought she saw a ray
of light on the situation. "Gladys," she said, "do you know what kind of
people they give dull knives to? It's insane people! This room was
undoubtedly designed for some one afflicted in that way. That is why the
window is barred, and there is no door, and why the room is done in
lavender. Lavender has a soothing and depressing effect on people's
nerves and would probably keep an insane person from becoming violent.
We got here through some awful mistake."
Gladys shuddered violently. "How horrible!" she said. "I suppose that
woman actually considers us insane. How long do you suppose they will
keep us here?"
"Only until they find out their mistake," answered Nyoda, "which I hope
will be soon. I shall write a note and give it to the woman when she
comes up again."
Both their spirits revived when they arrived at this theory, and they
returned to their supper with good appetites. "I wish I could cut this
meat," sighed Gladys. Then she brightened. "I have my Wohelo knife in my
handbag," she said, rising and going over to the bed where her coat lay.
She stopped in disappointment when she opened the bag. The knife was not
there. "I remember now," she said; "I took it out just before we left
home and must have forgotten to put it back in again, we left in such a
hurry."
"What will the girls think, anyway, when we fail to arrive at the
Bates's?" said Nyoda.
"They'll probably telephone to town," said Gladys, "and mother will know
I didn't get there and she will be frantic." She lost all her appetite
with a rush when this thought came to her.
They waited impatiently for the return of the woman with the tray. Nyoda
wrote a note and had it ready for her. It read:
"There has been some mistake. We are not the persons you intended to
keep here."
But the woman did not come. Darkness fell outside the window and they
lighted the lights in the room, but still there was no movement of the
elevator. They spent the evening pacing up and down the room, discussing
the mysterious situation in which they found themselves, until from
sheer weariness they lay down on the bed. They did not undress and they
left the lights burning, intending to watch for the return of the woman.
They set the tray on the floor at some distance from the elevator.
"Can it be possible," said Gladys, "that it was only this afternoon that
we broke into our house? It seems years ago." Nyoda lay staring at the
elevator shaft, awaiting the return of the cage.
"This purple glare over everything hurts my eyes," she said. She closed
them a minute to get relief. When she opened them again there was a
broad streak of light coming in through the window. The lights were out
in the room and the tray had disappeared from the floor. Gladys lay
sound asleep, her head pillowed on her arm. Nyoda started up and was on
the point of rousing Gladys. "No, I'll let her sleep," she thought;
"it's a good thing she can."
She went to the window and looked out through the bars at the sun rising
over the water. There was the same old lake with which she had been
familiar all her life, with the cliffs jutting out in points, one always
a little farther out than the other, to form the great curve of the
shore line. She must have passed this place dozens of times while riding
in the lake boats. Here was a scene she had admired many times from the
open shore, and now she was looking at it from behind bars, a prisoner.
It was too grotesque to be true. She turned pensively toward the bed and
noticed with a start that a tray containing breakfast for two stood on
the shelf beside the elevator. And yet she had not heard a sound! Gladys
was still asleep on the bed. As Nyoda stood looking down at her she woke
up and stared around the room uncomprehendingly. She could not place
herself at first. Then at the sight of the violet room the events of
yesterday came back to her.
They ate breakfast with what appetite they could and then sat down close
beside the elevator shaft to be sure and see the deaf-mute when she
came, for it seemed impossible to detect her visit when they had their
backs turned. While they waited they examined the iron grating for the
door opening, but found none. There was apparently no break in the
scroll-work anywhere, no hinge, no slide arrangement. "Did we come into
the room through there, or did we only imagine it?" asked Nyoda,
completely baffled. "Surely we didn't come through that little grating
that opens on top, did we? I declare, I'm getting so bewildered that if
any one told us we did come in that way I wouldn't dispute them."
Almost while she was speaking the elevator cage shot rapidly and
noiselessly into view and the deaf-mute opened the slide to take the
tray. Instead of giving it to her, however, they gave her the note
first. She took it and read it and then looked at the two girls in
silence. "Maybe she would write something if you gave her a pencil,"
suggested Gladys.
Nyoda handed the woman a pencil through the iron scroll-work. She wrote
something on the bottom of the paper and handed it back to Nyoda. Nyoda
took the piece of paper and read:
"_There is no mistake about your being here._"
As she stood in open-mouthed astonishment the elevator sank from view.