The Barking of Tania
Chief Reilly came out of the poor little house, a veritable shack it was,
shaking his head.
“I suppose,” remarked Sim in an aside to Arden, “he is going to say ‘it’s
a long road without a cat in the attic,’ or something equally brilliant.”
“He might,” remarked Terry, “propose that the race is not always to the
swift but there are none so blind as those who won’t eat.”
“Meaning what?” asked Arden.
“That we’ve drawn a blank,” said Sim.
She was right. For the first impression, gathered on arrival at the home
of the Claytons, that no one was there, was borne out as the chief
emerged a second time from an inspection of the premises.
“Can’t find anybody,” he announced with a flourish of his big red hands.
“You mean there’s nobody home?” asked Terry.
“That’s about it,” said Mr. Reilly. “Nobody home. You can’t get anything
out of an empty bag except dust, you know.”
“And I suppose there was plenty of dust?” suggested Sim.
“Well, not so much as you’d think for,” said the officer and garage
owner. “Melissa must have humped herself, for the old shack was pretty
clean. Case of pot calling the kettle black, you know.”
“Poor kid! I guess she had her own troubles,” remarked Arden. “I wonder
where her father took her and why?”
“Maybe we’ll know that when we find Dimitri,” suggested Terry.
“If we ever do,” voiced Sim.
“Oh, don’t be Mrs. Gloom!” exclaimed Arden. “Of course we’ll find him.”
“And find out why he painted such a lovely picture of you,” said Terry.
“Silly!” murmured Arden as she blushed beneath her tan. But it was
obvious that she was as curious as were her chums about the mysterious
portrait.
“Well, I guess we’ve found out all we can here, which is about less than
nothing with a hole in the middle,” said the chief, as he came back from
a walk about the place. “None of the Claytons are here. Not that there’s
many in this branch of the family—jest Melissa and her dad. But they’re
gone.”
Suddenly Arden had a thought. She expressed it to Sim and Terry while the
chief was looking into a rain-water barrel, as if he might find the
missing Dimitri there. Arden said:
“I think we ought to tell him about the policewoman.”
“Emma Tash,” murmured Sim.
“Yes,” said Terry. “I think we had.”
“Mr. Reilly,” began Arden, after receiving this confirmation, “we have
something to tell you.”
“You ain’t got that Russian stranger hid away with that there gold
snuffbox, have you?” chuckled the chief. “Like a hen on a wet griddle,
you know.”
“Oh, he’ll be the death of me,” sighed Sim.
“It’s about Melissa,” said Arden, and then, much to the astonishment of
the chief, the girls told him about the visit of the detective woman and
the happier prospects for the unfortunate girl.
“I always knowed there was something more than met the eye in them
Claytons,” said the chief. “Hum! Melissa with a rich aunt that wants to
send her to school and make her into a lady. Well, I hope she does.
Melissa is a good girl in spite of being a bit queer. She’s the champion
swimmer around here.”
“Maybe she might give me points,” said Sim.
“Oh, yes, she’s a natural swimmer,” went on the chief, taking no notice
of this aside. “And a good girl. Loves bright things—birds and flowers.
More than once I’ve seen her sitting on a fence where somebody had a
garden full of red poppies, looking at ’em to beat the band. Her old man,
though—there’s a case! All he cares about are crabs, lobsters, and fish.”
“Did you ever hear,” asked Arden, thinking to confirm what Emma Tash had
said, “that Melissa’s mother came of a good family?”
“It wouldn’t have to be very good to beat the Clayton end of it,” said
Mr. Reilly. “Yes, Mrs. Clayton was a different breed. Give a dog a bad
name and throw him a bone,” he chuckled. “Yes, Melissa’s mother made a
bad match of it. I hope this here detective woman can do something for
the poor kid.”
“Maybe she has,” said Terry suddenly.
“What do you mean?” asked Sim.
“Maybe Emma Tash has been here without us knowing it and has taken
Melissa away,” explained Terry. “That detective woman was smart. She may
have come here, met George Clayton and Melissa, and have prevailed on him
to let her take the girl. That would account for their being gone now.”
For a moment they were inclined to accept this theory. Then Arden, as
usual putting her finger on the critical point, said:
“It wouldn’t account, though, for the barking of Tania.”
For the first time they all realized that the dog was barking with an
unusual note in the tone and that she kept it up almost continuously. Up
to this moment they had been so engrossed with approaching the shack
without inciting George Clayton to the point of desperate resistance that
they had not paid much attention to Tania.
Now they noticed that the dog was running about the shack in a most
excited manner, scarcely ceasing her growls and barks. And, now that
their attention was fixed on her, they saw that she stopped at a certain
cellar window and barked there with unusual vigor.
“The barking of Tania,” murmured Sim. “No, the taking away of Melissa by
the detective woman, with her father’s consent, and his desertion of his
home, would not account for the barking of Tania. Arden, I think we are
going to make a discovery—a big discovery.”
“What do you mean?” faltered Terry. “Do you think Dimitri——” She could
not finish. She dared not finish. But the others knew what she had in
mind.
“Now you speak of it,” said the chief, “that dog is making quite a row.
Barking dogs, you know, catch no cats. But we’ll see what’s up.”
“You think, don’t you, Sim,” said Arden, “that there is something in the
cellar?”
“I can’t help but think that, from the way Tania acts. Look at her now,
barking into the window.”
It was as Sim said. The dog was trying almost to thrust her pointed
muzzle into the glass.
“Maybe Clayton and Melissa are hiding there,” said Terry. “You didn’t go
down cellar, did you, Mr. Reilly?”
“No, I didn’t. Didn’t see any use. But if you think we’d better, why, I
got a flashlight in my boat.”
“I think we had better,” said Arden.
“Then we will. Nothing like eating your cake and having your bread,” the
chief declared. “Wait a minute.”
He tried to run down to his motorboat but made a bad job of that, for he
only waddled. However, he soon came back with the flashlight. Meanwhile
Tania had not ceased her barking. She no longer ran frantically about the
shack. She remained at the one window and barked continuously.
“Now, girls,” said the chief as he again started into the house, “there’s
no use of you running into any danger. I don’t say there _is_ danger but
if it’s _there_ I ain’t going to let you run your pretty necks into no
noose. I’m paid for this work and I’ll do it. Nobody can ever say Rufus
Reilly let anybody else pull his pancakes out of the ice box. I’ll go
down in that cellar alone.”
“But if Clayton is there,” said Arden, “and starts to fight you——”
“I’ve got a gun,” said the chief, showing an automatic. “I can fight as
good as the next one if I have to, but I don’t think I’ll have to. If I
do, well, you’re outside here to go git help. You know what I mean.” A
gold-toothed smile.
“Yes,” said Terry. “If we hear shooting, or any calls for help from the
cellar, we’ll take your motorboat and go get assistance. I can run a
boat.”
“That’s the idea,” said the chief. “You go right back to town and get
Henry Doremus and Ike Tantker. They’re deputy constables, and you can
generally find ’em around my garage. If they ain’t there, Ted Rollaby, my
mechanic, will tell you what to do. Now I’m goin’ in.”
There was an outside slanting door leading down into the cellar. The
chief pulled this up, hooked it into place, and then, with his flashlight
in one hand and his automatic in the other, started down the half-rotten
wooden steps.
He had no sooner started down than Tania, deserting her barking post at
the window, rushed past him and was into the dark musty cellar ahead of
him.
“Oh,” murmured Arden, “I’m glad the dog went down.”
“So am I,” said Sim. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to the funny old
chief, even if he does drive me crazy with his proverbs.”
“What do you think he’ll find?” asked Terry.
Before either of her chums could hazard a guess they all heard, above the
frantic barking of Tania, the chief’s voice shouting:
“I’ve got him! I’ve found him! Here he is, tied up like a bag of potatoes
in the cellar. I’ve found Mr. Uzlov!”