The Figure in Red
Arden Blake fairly jumped into her bedside slippers, drew on a dressing
gown, and in an instant was at the window.
“What’s the matter?” sleepily inquired Terry, who was in the other twin
bed. “Has anything happened?”
“It’s snowing again,” Arden answered. “I awoke a little while ago and I
heard tiny tappings against the window. I wondered what it was and I
waited a decent time, so I shouldn’t awaken you, to find out.”
“Nothing to do with the mystery, has it?” yawned Terry.
“No, silly! It’s just snowing. It’s going to be a glorious storm, much
better than the other little fairy we had, I believe, and oh, don’t you
just love snow for Christmas?”
“That’s so, Christmas is coming,” Terry admitted as she sat up in her bed
and watched Arden, still at the window. “What time is it?”
“Nearly eight. Too sleepy still to see the faithful clock right before
you,” teased Arden.
“Sim and Dot up yet?”
“I haven’t heard them moving.” Arden inclined an ear toward the room
across the hall where their hostess and the other girl slept.
“Well, then, come on back to bed,” urged Terry. “No use getting up until
Sim does. And we stayed up so late last night, talking to Harry Pangborn,
that I’m sleepy yet.”
“I’m not, and I’m going to dress. I have something to do,” declared Arden
with a purposeful look on her face.
“What? Going to see Harry? I think he’s awfully nice.”
“He is, but I’m not going to see him. I’m going to the woods to get some
holly branches. I noticed a lovely lot of bushes some distance back of
the old Hall when I was wandering around by the cellar door that time
Betty Howe popped up out of it.”
“With horror on her face, as they say in books,” drawled Terry.
“Yes, she was terrified all right,” admitted Arden. “Who wouldn’t be,
coming upon what looked like a dead man? And that’s another thing we must
do.”
“My, aren’t we the busy girls!” laughed Terry. “What else, for goodness’
sakes? I might as well get up and dress, I suppose. There’ll be no sleep
for me now with you barging around.”
“Another thing we must do,” said Arden as she began to dress, “is to see
to it that Jim Danton’s poor little family gets some relief from Mr.
Callahan or somebody. He was hurt while working for the contractor, and
the contractor should pay. That’s the law.”
“It wasn’t exactly his fault, though,” Terry argued. “Mr. Callahan might
claim, as they say they do in some insurance policies, that it was an act
of God, an unforeseen calamity, and so get out of it—I mean he might say
it was the ghost of Jockey Hollow.”
“I hardly believe he would do that,” remarked Arden, brushing her hair
vigorously. “But it surely is puzzling. Well, we’ll see what Harry
Pangborn can figure out of it, though I think, since we sort of promised,
in a way we should try and do something for the Danton family. There is
no social service agency around here.”
“Yes, somebody must help them, and they seem nice folks, too. But about
this holly, what are you going to do with it specially?”
“Decorate this place for Christmas, of course. Coming with me?”
“I suppose so. Dot and Sim will, I imagine.”
“Yes, we’ll make a little party of it. Oh, I do love to walk in the snow,
and it’s coming down beautifully!” raved Arden. “Do come and look,
Terry!”
“Wait until I get this shoe on. Though if we’re going to tramp in the
snow I suppose I’d better wear heavier ones.”
“You won’t need them with arctics. But isn’t it a glorious storm!”
Terry agreed that it was. The two chums finished dressing and went out in
the hall to go down for breakfast, which was evidently being prepared by
Moselle and her dark daughter, as testified to by the rattling of dishes
and the aroma of bacon and coffee floating up.
As Terry and Arden were walking toward the stairs, they heard the door of
Sim’s room open, and Dot came out, wearing a robe. She held her finger on
her lips as a signal for silence.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Arden.
“She has a bad headache,” Dot replied. “She was awake a good part of the
night, and she’s just fallen asleep. I thought I’d slip down and tell
Moselle not to make any more noise than she can help. Sim needs quiet.”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” murmured Terry. “I wonder if there’s anything we
can do?”
“No, I gave her some aspirin. She’ll be all right. If you’re going down,
would you mind having that little slave bring me up some coffee? That’s
all I want. I’ll be waiting out in the hall so I won’t disturb Sim by
opening the door too often.”
“It’s too bad,” murmured Terry again. “Can’t you come down and have some
breakfast with us?”
“No, coffee is all I’ll take. Some storm, isn’t it?”
“Terry and I were going out for a walk in it,” whispered Arden, “and to
gather some holly branches to decorate the place here for Christmas. We
hoped you and Sim would come, but if she has a headache I guess we’ll
postpone the trip.”
“No reason why you should,” Dorothy argued, walking to the head of the
stairs with the others to avoid whispering so much outside Sim’s door.
“I’ll stay here with her. I don’t feel much like walking in the snow,
though I love fresh-grown holly. Get all you can, and by the time you
come back I’ll be ready to help decorate, and perhaps Sim’s head will be
better.”
“All right,” agreed Arden. “I have my mind set on it, and I don’t like to
change. You’ll come, Terry?”
“Oh, yes.”
Dot had her coffee, the other girls making a more substantial breakfast,
and then, leaving Sim still asleep and Dot on guard, Terry and Arden set
out into the storm. The flakes were coming down rapidly now, dry, small
flakes that seemed to presage a heavy fall. It was not yet deep, but
would be, as none was melting.
“Oh, it’s so lovely!” murmured Arden raising her face to let the
snowflakes melt on it.
“You seem to have quite a yen on for storms,” remarked Terry, laughing.
“I always have had. Now we must step out. It’s quite a distance to the
old Hall, and it’s slow walking in the snow.”
“I’m equal to it,” declared Terry, bracing up and dashing forward.
They trudged along, laughing and talking—talking principally of the
advent of Harry Pangborn and his declaration that he would do some real
investigating of the mysterious happenings in Jockey Hollow.
“I wonder if he’ll really discover anything,” said Terry as they neared
the place.
“He might,” was Arden’s opinion. “He has a good head, I believe.”
“He has nice teeth, anyhow.”
“To bite ghosts with, I suppose!” laughed Arden.
“Yep! Well, I can see the place now,” remarked Terry as they topped a
little rise. “There doesn’t seem to be any men working there, though—no
plaster dust floating out of the windows as usual when men are tearing
down an old building.”
“It is quiet,” Arden admitted as they walked in front of the Hall. “I
suppose Mr. Callahan is wondering what sort of workmen to get next, since
his white-collar class has left, apparently.”
“Look!” Terry suddenly exclaimed, pointing. “Footprints in the snow. At
least one man has gone in there!”
“That is very evident, Robinson Crusoe,” laughed Arden. “As your man
Friday, I agree with you. Someone has gone in, and one man only, judging
by the footprints. And as these are plain footprints and not little
scratchy marks in the snow I think we may safely argue that it is no
ghost.”
“Who said it was?” countered Terry. “But what can one workman do in
tearing down such a big house?”
At that moment a head was thrust out of an upper and partly demolished
window and a voice cheerily called:
“Good-morning, girls!”
“Oh, it’s Harry Pangborn!” exclaimed Arden.
“Hello, Harry!” greeted Terry. Since the episode at Cedar Ridge, the
friends had begun to call one another by their first names.
“What are you doing in there?” Arden called back.
“Investigating ghosts, as I promised. Want to help me?”
“We’re after holly,” said Terry, “in the back woods.”
“Well, you have time for both ghosts and holly too, perhaps.”
“No, thank you,” Arden decided, shaking some of the snow off her hat. “I
think you can do your investigating alone. I mean, you come to it with an
open mind. Terry or I might suggest something to you, in our eagerness,
and that would throw you off the track.” They were so near the Hall they
could talk easily to the young man at the window above.
“There is something in what you say,” admitted Harry with an assumed
judicial air. “I shall take it under consideration. Well, then, I’ll go
on investigating by myself, reserving the right to call at Sim’s house to
see you all, later, and report.”
“Yes, do!” invited Terry.
“Have you found anything yet?” Arden wanted to know.
“I only arrived a few minutes ago. Well, on with the ghost hunt! Stop in
if you come past this way, and I’ll help you carry the holly branches
home.”
“Oh, that will be fine!” called Terry. “I was wondering how we could
carry enough to make really satisfactory decorations.”
“But I draw the line at a Yule Log!” stipulated the young millionaire,
whose car, the girls now noticed, was parked near a big clump of lilac
bushes that nearly concealed it. He had driven in from a direction
opposite that which they had traversed and so they had not seen the tire
marks.
“Did you come here this morning just to investigate?” pressed Arden as
young Pangborn started away from the window and she and Terry were about
to walk on.
“Well, I came to look into the matter of bird-feeding stations for the
sanctuary Dr. Thandu wants to establish here, and so I decided I might
also take in the Hall. It’s quite a place.”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” quoted Terry tritely.
“Exactly! See you later!”
He waved a hand to them and disappeared back into the strange old house.
It was a little farther to the small grove, where the holly trees and
bushes grew, than Arden realized and it was perhaps ten minutes after
their good-bye to the ghost-hunter that the two girls found a thicket
sufficiently large to ensure a good supply of branches with their lovely
red berries and dark, prickly, glossy leaves. Holly is always just holly;
hard, sharp, but magnificent on its trees.
They had good pocket knives and soon cut off a quantity—more, Arden
suggested, than they could carry even with the help of Mr. Pangborn, when
Terry, glancing off toward a little clearing, suddenly cried:
“Look!”
There was something in the tone of her voice that startled Arden. But she
managed to ask, as she whirled quickly around:
“What is it?”
“A figure in red!” whispered Terry, pointing. “There—through the
trees—someone in red—moving. Oh, perhaps it’s the ghost of Patience Howe!
She is always seen wearing a red cloak, you know!”
Arden dropped the holly branches from her hand as she looked toward where
Terry pointed.
Something was moving! Red, in all that deep, dark clump of evergreens!