Читать книгу Doris Force at Raven Rock - Julia K. Duncan - Страница 6

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“Good luck, Miss Force. Please to take extra good care of that so lovely voice of yours.”

“Of course I will, Professor Von Heflinger,” Doris assured her singing teacher.

“What effects on the voice such high altitude have got, I do not know,” the professor said dubiously. “You are on the threshold of a great career, or else Wolfgang Von Heflinger never heard a note. Be careful, please.”

“Indeed, I assure you,” Doris laughed, pleased with her instructor’s confidence. “It was very, very good of you to come to my home to say ‘auf wiedersehen.’”

With a courtly, old-world bow the professor took his leave and Doris went back to the breakfast table, where Kitty, Mrs. Mallow, her son, and Mr. Force were completing their meal.

It was eight o’clock on the day of the proposed flight to Raven Rock. Within an hour they would be in the air, speeding westward.

“Now, Marshmallow, if you’ll warm up your tri-motor or half-motor or whatever it is, we’ll get ready to start!”

Doris danced around the room and halted with her arms around her uncle, thereupon giving him a few last minute bits of advice on taking care of himself.

“Before you know it we’ll be flying back on the wings of success,” she concluded grandly.

“I’m sure of it,” Mr. Force said. “Meanwhile, I shall be very comfortable here and ready to come to your aid if it takes more than a week to conclude your task.”

“Let’s get started, everybody!” Doris cried. “You know that plane is scheduled to start at a certain time and it won’t wait for us, if we’re late.”

Soon the baggage was in the automobile and the family gathered in the living room for final farewells to Mr. Force.

“Let’s go!” Marshmallow commanded gaily.

“Dear me, dear me!” wailed Mrs. Mallow. “I’m so nervous I can hardly stand up! I’m just plain frightened to death!”

“Shucks, Mother, you haven’t anything to be afraid of!” Marshmallow uttered. “Dave and I are a match for any pair of desperadoes you ever heard of, and we’ll have the law on our side, too!”

“It isn’t th-that,” Mrs. Mallow said, her teeth chattering. “It’s the thought of g-going up in an airplane.”

Mr. Force bent solicitously over the agitated woman. He was afraid she might become ill.

“My dear Mrs. Mallow,” he said, “if I thought there was any danger, I should not allow Doris or any of you to go.”

“You’ll soon be all right, Mother,” Marshmallow laughed. “When the trip is over you’ll be wanting to buy a plane of your own to go shopping in!”

He put his sturdy arm around her, led her from the house and literally lifted her into the auto. The others followed.

Marshmallow put his car into gear and it shot forward.

“Excuse me, Mother, for hurrying you,” he shouted above the roar of the motor, “but we are late now.”

Doris and Kitty, in the rear of the car, could not help but feel sympathy for Mrs. Mallow.

“Just the same, she gives me a hunch this trip is due for trouble,” Kitty remarked. “I’ll bet we crack up, or make a forced landing in the desert somewhere.”

“There are no deserts between here and Raven Rock,” scoffed Doris. “Buck up, Kitty! See how brave Marshmallow is. He wouldn’t let you get hurt for worlds.”

Marshmallow settled into silence and gave his full attention to getting the maximum speed out of his car.

The airport was some distance outside the Plainfield city limits, and soon the car was rocking and careening along the state highway, which was bordered by orchards and truck gardens.

From the laden apple and peach trees came odors as delicious as any blossoms’ fragrance, and even Mrs. Mallow was enjoying the beauty of it all, when without warning an ear-splitting report rang out and the car bumped to a swaying halt, well off the road-bed.

“Oh, what’s the matter!” cried Mrs. Mallow.

“Marshall, are you hurt?” Kitty screamed, as Marshmallow climbed out of the car, ruefully rubbing himself.

“No, not much. Got a hard bump against the steering wheel,” he said. “But isn’t it just our luck to have a tire blow out?”

The one on the rear wheel was practically in fragments. Philosophically, Marshmallow opened the tool box, extracted a wrench and a jack, and began the task of replacing the blown tire.

“It is twenty minutes to nine now,” Doris said, looking at her wrist watch. “Oh, dear, we can never get there in time!”

“Maybe—you’d better walk—down to that house and call up the airport,” Marshmallow wheezed. “Tell Dave we’ll be only fifteen minutes late. Maybe they’ll wait for us.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Kitty, “wouldn’t it be dreadful if they went without us?”

“You stay here with Mrs. Mallow, Kitty,” Doris said hurriedly. “There is a lunch stand or something at that house, I remember, so there’s probably a ’phone.”

Quickly she strode along the road to the dwelling visible at the turn of the road a quarter of a mile distant. The fragrant air, spiced with the first promise of autumn, exhilarated Doris, and even in her anxiety she began to sing from the pure joy of it all, one of her favorite songs, Tosti’s “Goodbye.” The melody poured from her throat in a manner that would have swept a crowded concert hall.

“Better hush up,” she told herself as she approached the house. “They’ll probably think I’m silly.”

She was glad that she had stopped singing, for just as she reached the bend in the road a man in overalls came hurrying from the opposite direction. He glanced at her in a surprised way, acted as if he were about to stop, but went on without speaking. Doris was glad he moved off.

The building that was her goal was set in a grove of dusty and scraggy willows. Once it had been a spacious farmhouse, but now there were metal stools and round tables on the porch, while scores of signs tacked to pillars, walls and even the trees advertised this and that soft drink, confection, ice cream or sandwich. One prominent notice advised the public that here also were “Boarders Took by Week or Month.”

Only one sign attracted Doris’s eye, however, and that was the blue and white announcement that telephone booths were to be found indoors.

A drowsy waitress directed Doris to the end of a large, bare room where there were two varnished telephone booths. Doris saw that one was vacant.

She inserted a nickel in the slot and gave the number of the administrative office at the airport.

“Line’s busy. We will call you,” the operator said, and Doris leaned against the scribbled wall to wait. Unconsciously she listened to the words of the man in the next booth, and suddenly became all attention when the significance of the conversation dawned on her.

“—we been layin’ low but de hunt’s got cold, so we start for Rock dis day. See? Never mind, nobody lis’en, Jefe! Wat dat? Hey, long dee-stance! Git off de wire. Sure I pay you w’en I feenish. Allo! We start today wid de deed, you savvy? Bueno!”

There was a click of the receiver; then the man’s voice again asking how much he owed for the call. Doris heard coin after coin rattle into the box, and then the speaker stepped out of the booth.

Doris cowered in the back of her own cubicle as the man, pausing to adjust his hat, caught sight of her. Evidently he had not been aware that she was in the next booth, for amazement and suspicion flashed across his face.

DORIS COWERED IN THE BACK OF HER CUBICLE AS THE MAN CAUGHT SIGHT OF HER

What a face! A face never to be forgotten!

Beneath the broad hat-brim it leered at the girl evilly. Black, very black eyes above high, bronze cheek-bones, and a mouth that was extremely straight and thin.

“Here is your party. Go ahead, please,” spoke the operator’s voice into Doris’s ear.

Doris could not speak.

Over the man’s nose, from cheek to cheek, there ran a vicious scar, almost blue against his copper-colored skin.

“Hello! Hello!” dinned impatiently through the receiver into her ears. “Anybody there?”

As the scar-faced man spun about on his heel and vanished from the room, Doris turned with a catch in her throat and spoke into the mouthpiece.

“Dave—David Chamberlin, please.”

It seemed a long time to Doris, waiting in the stuffy ’phone booth, before an attendant found Dave. The young aviator had taken a stand near the entrance gate to watch for the arriving party, and was passing the time by speaking to his many pilot friends who were coming and going through the main thoroughfare.

“Chamberlin! Hey, Chamberlin!” shouted a uniformed boy. “You’re wanted on the telephone?”

Dave covered the ground like a trained sprinter. “Could something have happened to his friends?” he suddenly wondered as he neared the office breathlessly.

“Hello, hello!” he shouted eagerly.

“Dave,” answered Doris, “we’re coming, but we’ll be fifteen minutes late. Please don’t go without us!”