Читать книгу The Ghost of Melody Lane - Lilian Garis - Страница 7

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“No lights!” Carol was at the heavy front door of the mansion which was Kitty Becket’s home.

“Maybe a fuse burned out.” Glenn was always reassuring.

Carol pushed the bell button again and they waited. Still no answer.

“That’s queer. Let’s try the side door,” Glenn suggested.

The night was now dark and dreary, as fall nights are apt to be, and the massive trees with heavy shrubbery seemed to weave sinister figures into the very darkness.

Carol drew her coat around her. “You should have worn a sweater, Glenn,” she remarked to the boy who so gallantly stood beside her.

“Oh, I’m all right,” he declared. “But I would just like to know why we can’t get in.” He rattled the door thoroughly.

They tried the windows; all locked and perhaps even bolted, for Mrs. Becket had lately been having trouble to keep even one maid with her; the spook story had frightened several away.

“Isn’t Lizzie Towner here?” Glenn asked.

“She was yesterday, but who knows? Oh, Glenn, I am afraid something really serious has happened.”

“Maybe Kitty went away for the night.”

“Not likely. I was here this afternoon and Cecy was here an hour ago. Do you suppose there is any possible window unlocked?”

“We’ll try them all. But old windows seem locked when they ain’t,” he tried to joke.

“The pantry is above the cellar door,” Carol remembered.

“Wait, I’ll get my flash light from the car.”

The few moments Carol stood alone on the great wide porch seemed to add to her fears. What could be wrong around that place? What could have happened to dear Kitty Adair—Mrs. Becket? She had done so much for so many girls, including Carol, herself.

Memories of her many kindnesses flashed into Carol’s mind, like a shaft of light cutting through the hideous black night, as she waited for Glenn with his flash light.

They tried the pantry window, Glenn standing on the slanting cellar door, but it did not budge.

“We’ll have to break something, I guess,” he said finally. “Are you sure it’s best to get in?”

“Oh, yes, we must. Glenn, she may be very ill.”

“All right. Never mind windows,” he concluded. “That old French door in the library shouldn’t be hard to convince. Let’s try it.”

“You mean—batter it down?”

“Or bust it in. I don’t care which. Do you?”

“No.” But she didn’t lighten her voice to match his. It was heavy with keen anxiety.

“Why didn’t she ever keep a dog?” he asked, as they again tramped around to the side porch.

“Old Jacob Vroom is a crank about dogs.”

“And about a lot of other things. But no lone woman should ever stay in a place like this without a good watchdog.”

“Oh, she never did intend to be alone. She always had visitors, and her maid Tillie was very faithful. But lately—oh, I don’t know,” sighed Carol. “It does seem to me everything comes at once.”

“Now for the door.” Glenn was edging his shoulder against it with premonitory tests.

“Suppose we ring the bell once more,” suggested Carol, disliking the possibility of hearing that glass door splinter. “She might just hear us.”

“All right. But don’t let’s waste too much time.”

First they rang the side doorbell and could hear it plainly. But there was no step inside; no answer. Then they raced around to the front, having to leave the porch to do so; but neither was that attempt successful.

“Looks like busting the old door,” Glenn decided, and down the steps they trotted again, wasting no time now on other possibilities.

A step from the back gate was crunching up the gravel path.

“Someone coming,” whispered Carol.

“Yes,” Glenn had her arm and she was instinctively crowding nearer to him.

“A man—it’s Jacob,” Carol whispered. “He may be ugly.”

“Will be,” Glenn corrected. “But maybe he has a pass-key. Easier than breaking the door.”

“Who’s that?” came a gruff command. “What you doin’ here?”

“I’m Carol Duncan and we are here to see Mrs. Becket,” Carol promptly answered. “She does not answer the door. Do you know if she is at home?”

“I don’t. Maybe she ain’t. If she don’t answer, so why make all that noise? It’s nighttime, ain’t it?”

He was ugly, his voice almost snarling. The few times Carol had spoken to him before he had been like this, she remembered. He always growled and snarled, and Mrs. Becket would have sent him away long ago but for some legal angle that seemed to give him a home on the old estate as long as he should want it. He had taken care of an invalid son of the original owner, and while well paid for his services, the home idea was evidently a matter of extreme gratitude. Carol remembered hearing all this, and she hoped Glenn would not argue with Jacob Vroom. Glenn could answer quickly enough, and what he was saying just now showed the very danger Carol was hoping to avoid.

“You can get yourselves out of this,” Jacob began when Glenn paused for breath. “How’s this your business, I’d like to know?”

“I came to spend the night with Mrs. Becket,” Carol tried to explain.

“And we are not going away till we see her,” fired back Glenn. “Have you got a key or shall I break in?”

“You break in! Want to go to jail? I’ll call Tim Clark just this minute——”

“Never mind Tim Clark, he’s a friend of mine and a good cop. You just open a door or I’ll call him myself after I get through investigating, maybe,” Glenn retorted.

Which had the effect of cooling Jacob’s anger, for he at once changed his tone.

“’Tain’t no use gettin’ so mad——”

“But I must get inside quickly,” pressed Carol. “If Mrs. Becket is in, she must be dreadfully ill.”

“I ain’t seen no light since maybe eight o’clock. I can go in by the back door, the ice house door.”

They followed him, with his dingy lantern, all around the house, for the ice house door was on the extreme end. Trees and bushes were thick about the old door, for it was no longer used, and Carol as well as Glenn wondered Jacob did not use a more convenient entrance. Near the little round extension that bulged out back of the kitchen he suddenly stopped.

THEY FOLLOWED HIM WITH HIS DINGY LANTERN.

“You wait here. I’ll open the door when I get in.”

“We can just as well go in the door you use,” Glenn urged quickly. He wondered why they shouldn’t.

“’Tain’t necessary, and it’s dark. I’ll open the kitchen way for you. You stay here.” Jacob was ordering them now.

“Let’s wait,” Carol asked, as if fearful of further complications. Also, she was pretty well used up and didn’t feel like prowling around dark corners.

Glenn made a way for her to follow. If there ever had been a path that way, it must have been a long time ago, for the underbrush was in a terrible tangle.

“Why didn’t he park us in a clearing?” Glenn wondered. “Maybe he’s trying to lose us.”

“Lose us?” Carol repeated.

“I mean slip away from us. But fat chance. Here, hold on to me, Carol, dear. I’m your hero.”

She did hold on to him and refused to notice the hero joke. Comic hero business was farthest from her thoughts just then.

“This is the door he will open, I suppose,” she said, going up another little flight of steps to a door almost hidden in the arch of a window.

“More doors than keys,” Glenn added. “Say, Carol,” he changed to seriousness, “don’t worry so. After all, Kitty may really have gone out for the night, you know.”

“If only I could think so. Listen, here comes Jacob.”

They listened, waited, but the step they had heard coming was now apparently going away from the door.

“He’s calling. Hear him yell! Calling Mrs. Becket,” Glenn said, as the rough, raucous voice of the man sounded through the big dark house. “Wonder he wouldn’t scare her, yelling like that.”

“She may be glad to hear his voice. Oh, Glenn, why doesn’t he open the door!” Carol was shuddering.

“I’ll find out why. Hey there, Vroom!” Glenn yelled himself this time. “Let us in!” and he pounded on the door as if he meant business. “Open up here! If you don’t soon, I’ll go after Tim Clark, pretty quick. Get a move on,” ordered Glenn. “I’ve got a good little car here, you know.”

They waited after that and, yes, the step was coming down the stairs again. Jacob Vroom had stopped calling out Mrs. Becket’s name. Couldn’t he find her?

A new dread seized Carol. Her nerves were on edge from the anxieties of the afternoon, and this seemed like the last straw. Still, if only nothing serious had happened to her dear, good friend Mrs. Becket, she would be glad and willing not to complain of anything else.

A sound of stumbling and more growls within told them what they could not help knowing. Jacob was stumbling about in the dark, trying to reach the door, for no light showed, and the dingy lantern could be little use as a guide.

Finally, after many knocks and bumps, the bolt was shot back and the door pulled open.

“Come in,” the man uttered, “but she ain’t here.”

“Isn’t here!” They had stepped quickly into the dark hall that Carol knew so well under more pleasant circumstances. “Where can she be? Have you looked everywhere?”

“And yelled my t’roat sore. She ain’t nowheres.” They saw now that Jacob, too, was scared, for he was holding the lantern high and its faint glow cast a queer pallor over his hardened face. “I don’t see what she could do—” he went on. “She was here at supper time.”

“Let’s look,” ordered Glenn sensibly. “What’s wrong with the lights?”

“That’s funny, too, they’re off. Not a button works.” Jacob Vroom may have been mean and ugly, but he showed deep concern now. “I takes as good care of her as she’ll let me,” he defended himself, “but she’s queer.”

“I don’t think she’s a bit queer,” Carol exploded. “But queer things are happening around here lately. I know that much. Come along, Glenn, let’s try her bedroom first.”

“I was in there,” Jacob declared.

“Well, we’ll take another look,” Glenn answered. “It’s a pretty big house and we have only my flash light and your lantern. So let’s get going. Wait for me, Carol. You can’t see without some light,” for Carol was rushing up the stairs, fearing she knew not what, and wishing every button she touched would answer presently with at least a friendly light. But her wish was vain; it was in darkness they went first to the big bedroom, where that delicate perfume Carol had always loved flooded about in the darkness now, friendly enough but not reassuring.

“Cousin Kitty!” Carol called softly. “Are—you—here!”

Glenn flashed his light first on the bed. Its pretty satin coverlet had been neatly turned back, and the dainty little pink head pillow Carol had given Cousin Kitty at Christmas showed the crush of a head only lately withdrawn.

But there was no sign of the owner. Jacob was opening the closet doors, Carol was looking everywhere while her heart sank to deeper fears, as she realized the enormity of their quest.