"I understand now how a mathematician could write 'Alice in Wonderland'," Helen Nash remarked to Marion after Mr. Stanlock had withdrawn to the diningroom and his belated meal.
"How is that?" the hostess inquired, looking curiously at her friend.
"Why, your father, I suppose, has been thinking in terms of tons of coal all day—"
"Carloads," Marion corrected, with a toss of levity.
"Well, make it carloads," Helen assented. "That's better to my purpose, more like a multiplication table, instead of addition. But it must be about as dry as mathematics."
"Oh, I get you," Marion exclaimed delightedly. "You mean that it is quite as remarkable for a coal operator, with carloads of coal and soot weighing down his imagination all day, to come home in the evening and spin off a lot of nonsense like a comedian as it is for a mathematician to have written 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'."
"Precisely," answered Helen.
"Well, I don't know but you're right. Anyway, I wouldn't detract from such a nice compliment paid to the dearest daddy on earth. Still, after leaving the atmosphere of his carloads of coal he had experienced the diversion of being held up."
"By two masked men with guns on a lonely highway," supplemented Helen.
"Yes."
"And later found that his driver had turned traitor and planned to deliver him into the hands of the enemy."
"Yes."
"I don't see any diversion or inspiration in that sort of experience. Many a man would have come home in a very depressed state of mind after such an adventure. And yet he came home, found everybody scared to death, and before he even began his story had us all laughing just as Alice would at some of the contortions behind the looking glass. And he kept us smiling even when he told of the masked would-be kidnappers standing in the middle of the road and pointing pistols at the driver of his automobile."
"Kidnappers," repeated Marion in puzzled surprise. "Why do you say kidnappers?"
The two girls were alone in the library when this conversation took place. All of the other guests, feeling that the members of the family would prefer to be left alone following the startling occurrences of the evening, had withdrawn to their rooms. Helen was about to bid her friend good-night when her remark regarding Mr. Stanlock's happy personal faculties opened the discussion as here recorded. She hesitated a few moments before answering the last inquiry; then she said:
"Don't you think that those men intended to kidnap your father? What other explanation can you find for their actions?"
"I hadn't tried to figure out their motive," Marion replied thoughtfully. "Father called it a hold-up and I took his word for it."
"But he had no money with him, did he?"
"No, I think not. He seldom carries much money."
"And it is hardly reasonable to suppose that this plot between the chauffeur and the two highwaymen was for the purpose of murder. They would have gone about it in some other way. This one leaves too many traces behind."
"Yes," Marion admitted.
"Well, the only reasonable conclusion you can reach with the robbery and murder motives out of the way, is that the plotters wished to take your father prisoner and hold him some place until they got what they wanted."
"But what did they want?" asked the bewildered Marion.
"That's for your father to suspect and the police to find out," said Helen shrewdly. "Personally, I haven't a doubt that the strike has everything to do with it."
"What makes you think so?"
"The threatening letter that you received at the Institute. Show that to your father tonight and suggest that he turn it over to the police."
"I will," Marion promised. "In this new excitement I forgot all about it. I didn't even show it to mother. Just as soon as papa finishes his dinner, I'm going to show that letter to him. I'll go upstairs now and get it. You wait here and be present when we talk it over, Helen. You're so good at offering suggestions that maybe with you present we can all work out some kind of solution of what has been going on."
Marion hastened up to her room and returned presently with both of the anonymous letters she had received in Westmoreland. A few minutes later her father and mother both entered the library with the evident purpose in mind of holding a lengthy conference on the problems growing out of Mr. Stanlock's business troubles.
"Papa, do you think those men tried to kidnap you?" Marion inquired by way of introducing the subject.
Mr. Stanlock laughed heartily.
"Kidnap me!" he exclaimed. "Well, that's a good one. I thought they only kidnapped kids."
"Father," the girl pleaded; "do be serious with me. I've got something very important to show you, something I forgot all about until Helen reminded me. Helen thinks those men tried to kidnap you, and she's a pretty wise girl, as I've had occasion to find out."
"If Helen said that, she surely must be a wise girl or else she has made a pretty accurate guess," was the mine owner's reply.
"Then they did want to kidnap you?"
"Absolutely no doubt of it. They've got some kind of retreat in the mountains, and planned to carry me off there and keep me prisoner."
"What for?"
"Why, to force me to yield to some of their demands, which are utterly impossible and unreasonable. First, they demand an increase of wages that would force us into a receivership sooner or later and again they demand the adoption of a cooperative plan which eventually would make them owners of the mines, if there were any possibility of it working, and there isn't. It's a most ridiculous hold-up, the responsibility for which rests with a few fanatical leaders of doubtful integrity."
"What do you think of these letters?" Marion asked, handing the two anonymous missives to her father. "I received them by mail at the Institute last night, but neglected to read them until we were all on the train this morning."
As Mr. Stanlock read them, his brow contracted sternly. He could treat lightly any hostile attack on himself, but when danger threatened members of his family or their intimate friends, all signs of levity disappeared from his manner and he was ready at once to meet with all his energy the source of the danger, whether it be human or an element of inanimate nature.
"This" he said, as he finished reading and held up the letter signed with a skull and cross-bones, "undoubtedly came from the source where the plot to kidnap me originated. They are pretty well organized and determined to go the limit. Of course, you girls must give up your plans to work among the strikers' families. It would be foolhardy and probably would result in somebody's getting hurt."
"How about the other letter?" Marion asked.
"I don't know," was the reply. "It doesn't seem to amount to much. I hardly think it is to be taken as a threat. Have you no idea who sent it?"
"Some of the girls think it was sent by some of the Boy Scouts at Spring Lake. You see they came up in full force to Hiawatha on the night when we held our Grand Council Fire. It was a complete surprise on us, exceedingly well done and about as clever as you could expect from the cleverest boys. Before they left, several of them boasted openly that they were planning another surprise for some of us, and they dared us to find out in advance what it was."
"No doubt that is what this note means," Mr. Stanlock declared so positively and such a gleam of interest in his eyes that Marion could not help wondering just a little.
"What makes you so certain about it?" she inquired. "I don't see any real proof in those words as to what they mean or who wrote them."
"No, no, of course not," agreed Mr. Stanlock with seemingly uncalled for glibness; "but then, you see, it is more reasonable to suspect that this note came from the boys than from the strikers. If it is between the two,—the boys and the strikers,—I say forget the strikers and be sure that the boys sent this note."
"I wish that the boys would spring their surprise tonight and settle the question of that note," said Marion.
"Why?" inquired her father with the faint light of a smile in his eyes.
"Because I don't like the uncertainty of the thing. Uncertainty always bothers me, and this is a more than ordinary case."
"But how could the boys spring their surprise without coming to Hollyhill?" her father asked.
"That's just it," she returned with a quick glance of suspicion toward both her father and her mother. "Do you know, I found myself wondering several times if Clifford wouldn't bring some of those boys down here some time during the holidays."
Mr. Stanlock laughed, but he would have given a good deal to be able to recall the noise he made. It was really a noise, as he must have admitted himself, and so hollow as to indicate something decidedly unlike spontaneous amusement.
Marion caught herself in a brown study several times over these circumstances and her father's manner before she went to sleep that night.
CHAPTER XI.
A MAN OF BIG HEART AND QUEER NOTIONS.
Christmas was a big event at Hollyhill. Hollyhill was well named. Perhaps some old patriarch a century or two back conceived the inspiration of the name while playing Santa Claus with the little tots of the household and pretending to have slid down the chimney without getting a speck of soot on his bulging vestments.
Perhaps he imagined, while mother woke the children and had them peek through a "crack in the door" at the white whiskered visitor stuffing their stockings full of presents, that he had tethered his prancing team of reindeer to a holly tree outside. Certainly there seemed to have been material for such imagination, for tradition said that the hill on which the first houses of the first settlement were built had at one time been richly adorned with a species of American Ilex, and even now there remained here and there carefully preserved remnants of that reported original wealth of the wilderness.
Whether or not this conjectural history of the settlement had anything to do with the cheerful mid-winter holiday developments of the community need not be argued at length. An argument would render the truth flat and insipid if it should prove to be in accord with poetic tradition. So what's the use?
In mid-winter everybody just knew that Hollyhill as a child had been nursed in the snow trimmed evergreen lap of Christmas. Not that this municipality had a corner on mid-winter holiday generosity to the exclusion of all other communities. The chief outstanding fact in this relation was that the inhabitants, or those so fortunate as to be in a position to give and receive abundantly, believed Hollyhill to be the most generous Christmas town on earth, and there was nobody sufficiently interested to make a denial and follow it up with proof.
Much of the credit for this condition was due to the leading man of the place, Richard P. Stanlock, president and controlling power of the Hollyhill Coal Mining company, which owned a string of mines in the mountain district near the divisional line of two states. Besides being the leading citizen, Mr. Stanlock was the "biggest" man in town, because of the position to which he had risen, his ability to hold it, and the influence that went with it. What he said usually went, but his hand was not always evident. He liked to see things done, doubtless enjoyed the realization that his was the great moving power that produced results, but didn't give a fig to have anybody else know it. To his intimate friends, who were few, and to the many with whom he would pass the time of day, he was as common in word and manner as the average householder with nothing more pretentious in life than the earning of his daily bread.
But in spite of all this simplicity and personal retirement Mr. Stanlock was a good deal of a mystery to many citizens who knew really little about him. Or perhaps he was a mystery to these fellow townsfolk because of his modest qualities. Knowing little about him, they imagined more. Leading citizens who knew his good qualities were ever ready with a word of praise for him. But the trouble was, the needed tangible evidence of his broad philanthropy was utterly lacking. Seldom was there a visible connecting link between him and a good deed. And so the praise of his work in pulpit, press and other public and semi-public places fell as platitudes before a considerable number of skeptics, whose favorite reply to this sort of thing was something like—
"Bunk."
But Marion knew that it wasn't "bunk." She was one of the few confidants that gained an intimate understanding of the wealthy mine owner's character. She knew that he was the secret financial backer of an organization of settlement workers which kept close watch on the needs of the miners and their families, many of whom were so woefully ignorant that about the only way to handle them was by appealing to their appetites, their sympathies and their prejudices. She knew, too, that he had strong connections constantly at work fostering and promoting the best of activities for advancement of the civic welfare, that Christmas was one of his secret hobbies and that it was practically impossible for this city of 40,000 inhabitants to neglect this opportunity for a revival of good fellowship and good cheer so long as her father had his hand on the electric key of public generosity.
Christmas was a blaze of glory every year in Hollyhill. Public halls, churches, and theaters were the scenes of the liveliest activities for several days and nights before and after this biggest event of the winter season. Nor was the celebration confined to the more prosperous sections of the town, but extended into the heart of the mining settlement, where Christmas tinsel and lights were lavished without consideration of cost and nobody was allowed to pass the season without being impressively reminded as to just what turkey roast and cranberry sauce tasted like.
So skilfully were these programs put into effect that seldom was a hint dropped from any source that Richard Perry Stanlock was entitled to the slightest credit for these magnificent doings. He spent Christmas at home in a quiet unassuming way amid the family decorations of holly and mistletoe, and a vast litter of presents, oranges, apples, nuts, and candy.
Marion knew that her father's greatest vanity was his secret pride in his ability to put over the biggest generosity of the year without its being traceable to him. One day a girl acquaintance of her asked her if she knew that her father spent $25,000 every year for Christmas. Marion laughed; later she laughingly reported the query to Mr. Stanlock. Next day this girl friend's uncle, one of the philanthropist's agents, was called in on the carpet and given a lecture on the wisdom of guarding his remarks such as he had never before dreamed of receiving.
"Papa," the millionaire's older daughter said to him one day; "don't you think it is foolish to keep secret all these generous things that you are doing?"
"Why do you think it is foolish, my dear?" he replied with an expression of shrewd amusement. He was certain that she would have difficulty in answering his question.
"Well," she began slowly, then admitted: "I don't know."
"I'm very glad you don't know," said her father with evident satisfaction. "If you had tried to give a reason, I should have been greatly disappointed. No explanation of that suggestion could be based on anything but family pride, which is one form of vanity."
"No," Marion differed thoughtfully. "There is one explanation based on human caution and wisdom. I am afraid that you are misunderstood by the very people whose confidence you should seek to cultivate, that is the miners. Some of them don't like you very well. They think that you personally are a hard taskmaster and that the attentions and relief which really come from you in times of need, are bestowed on them by persons who feel that they have to help them because of your failure to do the right thing by them. Why don't you, papa, go right among them and tell them that you are going to do everything you can for them, raise their wages, maybe, and make them love you personally?"
"It isn't my nature, Marion, to do it that way," Mr. Stanlock replied. "There is nothing in the world that would be so distasteful to me as assuming the role of a philanthropist or a hero. It spoils every man to some extent who tries it. Personal vanity is the greatest enemy that man has to guard against. I've guarded myself against it thus far successfully, I think, and I'm not going to let it get me in the future if I can help it."
Marion felt like saying that her father's fear of vanity might some day get him into trouble with his men, but she refrained from so expressing herself. On the occasion before us she recalled that conversation, for she realized that the strike was a result, in part, of the very misunderstanding that she had anticipated. Several clever leaders among the miners had spread the report about that Mr. Stanlock had become immensely wealthy by overworking and underpaying his men, while he caused to be circulated through various channels numerous undetailed reports of his generosity, philanthropy and public spirit.
When she invited the members of Flamingo Camp Fire to be her guests and work with her among the poor and hunger-suffering families of the strikers she did not realize the seriousness of the situation with reference to the feeling of the miners toward her father. Now she felt that the condition of affairs was more than she could cope with and from the day of her arrival home she was constantly in fear lest some dread catastrophe should befall the family because the "biggest man" in Hollyhill kept himself severely fortified against the adulation of his fellow townsmen and the character weakening influence of personal vanity.
CHAPTER XII.
A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.
The Flamingo Camp Fire arrived at the Stanlock home on Friday. Christmas was scheduled on the calendar to fall on the following Wednesday.
From the day of their arrival all of the girls were busy with Christmas preparations. Every one of them, several weeks before, had taken on her the task of making, buying, or assembling from parts purchased a score or more of presents. As one of the chief aims of Hiawatha Institute was to teach wealthy men's daughters how to be economical, it goes without saying that each of these girls had on hand no enviable Winter Task.
Madame Cleaver laid the matter very plainly before her two hundred and forty-odd girls. She had observed that the Christmas problem had a tendency to make some of the students of her school sympathize with Old Scrooge. If Christmas wasn't a humbug it could very easily be made a nuisance.
Madame Cleaver agreed with them in this respect. She told them so. Furthermore, she added:
"I don't wish you to understand that there is anything compulsory in the giving of presents on such occasions. One of the dangers of this sort of thing is that it is likely to become a perfunctory affair with thousands taking part because they feel they have to. Also Christmas is exploited by many people. Their sympathy for the good-fellowship of the occasion is measured largely by the dollars and cents that it pours into their coffers.
"You should see all these drawbacks and then decide for yourselves whether the advantages of Christmas overbalance the drawbacks. For my part I believe that they do and I enjoy the day and the season. But don't take my word for it. Decide for yourselves."
The result was that everybody at the Institute got busy several weeks before the holiday season, and the manner in which the products of girl ingenuity began to pile up must have been satisfying indeed to the head of the school. But the work was not all done when the Camp Fire arrived at Hollyhill, most of the girls still having enough to do to keep them busy almost up to Christmas eve.
Mr. Stanlock advised the girls not to leave the house under any consideration after night, and engaged three detectives, who were given instructions to follow and protect any of Marion's guests who might desire to go shopping or make other journeys about the city in the day time. Automobiles, with drivers, were within ready call for these men at any time. It was understood, also, that no journeys were to be made into the section of the city inhabited by the miners and their families.
Thus far the strike had not been attended by violence of any sort or the destruction of property. The men had simply ceased to work and had submitted their demands to the president of the company. The latter realized at once that the employees were being led by an unusual type of labor agitators, who might be expected to employ unusual methods to gain their ends. The man who appeared to be the leader was as unusual in appearance as he was in methods pursued. He was about thirty-five years old, but looked five or eight years younger. He had first been employed in the mines about six months before as an operator of an electric chain-cutter machine, but he had not long been connected with the work before his influence among the men began to be felt. To the casual observer, he was a quiet sharp-eyed man, who seldom spoke, under ordinary circumstances, unless he was first spoken to. But he got in communication with all his fellow workers in some mysterious manner and before long, in spite of the fact that he was not what is popularly known as a "mixer," everybody from shovelers to machine men knew him as Dave, the chain-cutter man. He had the reputation of being able to do "half again as much work as any man in the slope." Although Mr. Stanlock knew of the influence of this man on the miners almost from the day when the strike was called, the only name by which he heard him spoken of during almost the entire period of the tie-up was "Dave, the chain-cutter man."
Little of special interest relative to the strike, so far as the girls were concerned, took place on the last Saturday and Sunday before Christmas. Mr. Stanlock reported the recent occurrences to the police in detail, but what the police planned to do was not communicated in the form of hint or suggestion to the members of Flamingo Fire. If Mr. Stanlock knew, he kept the information a close secret. In harmony with his habitual reticence on business matters, he sought to avoid further discussion of the subject.
On Saturday, however, there was added to the events of the season one item of great importance, which would have caused Marion no little uneasiness could she have caught more than the most superficial hint concerning it. This hint was so superficial that it consisted merely of a glimpse at the address and postmark on a letter that arrived at the house with the early mail. Marion took the letters and papers from the mail box, and as she was distributing them she observed the Hollyhill postmark on an envelope addressed in a man's handwriting to Helen Nash.
"I wonder who it can be," the hostess mused as she laid the letter on Helen's dresser. "I didn't know that she was on specially friendly terms with any of the boys of Hollyhill. But then you can never know what to expect of her. You find out what she is going to do when she does it."
In spite of the paradox, no truer statement of Helen's nature had ever been made. She said nothing to any of the girls about the letter she had received and if subsequent events had not recalled the incident, Marion probably would have forgotten it entirely.
The three detectives employed by Mr. Stanlock were housed in the now vacant sleeping quarters of the chauffeur over the garage. A buzzer connected with the house and an agreed signal system of "1," "2," "3" served as a means of quick information as to how many of the men were wanted at any given time. Sunday morning another chauffeur, engaged by Mr. Stanlock, arrived and was housed with the detectives.
It was not the duty of the latter, of course, to accompany or follow anybody leaving the house unless they were called. Hence it was quite possible for any of the guests to start out alone and make a trip to any part of the city without the protection of a watchful guard. The possibility that any of the guests might desire to take such a course did not occur to Marion or any other member of the household. It was presumed that everybody would gladly accept such protection on every occasion when it seemed advisable.
As a matter of fact, however, the detectives had little to do on Saturday and Sunday. Only three of the girls made shopping trips on Saturday and all took an automobile ride Sunday afternoon. This was the sum total of their activities away from the Stanlock home, with the exception of one instance, of which there was no hint until late in the afternoon.
About six o'clock Marion suddenly became mindful of the fact that she had not seen Helen since their return from the automobile drive three hours earlier, and she began a search for her. She first went upstairs to her room to see if her friend were there. Probably she was tired and had lain down to rest and fallen asleep. But an inspection of the room failed to discover Helen.
Considerably puzzled, Marion now hunted up every other person in the house and inquired for the missing girl. Not one of them remembered seeing her since the return from the drive. The girl hostess was now thoroughly alarmed and her fears were speedily communicated to the others. Everybody joined in the search and every nook and corner capable of concealing a human form was examined.
Helen Nash was not in the house and there seemed to be no reasonable explanation of her disappearance.
CHAPTER XIII.
"FIND HER, OR I'LL FIND HER MYSELF."
Mr. Stanlock came home from a meeting of mining stockholders about the time when consternation over the disappearance of Helen was at its height. After the particulars of the affair, so far as they were known, had been explained to him, he asked:
"Where are the detectives?"
The question fell with something of a shock on the ears of the assembled searchers who had just completed a second fruitless hunt through the house. Why had they not thought of the trio of "mystery masters" before?
"We ought to have called them in at once," Mrs. Stanlock said. "I suppose they've gone by this time, but I'll see."
She pushed the buzzer button in the hall and soon the new chauffeur appeared at the side entrance. Yes, the detectives had gone, but he knew where they could be found—at the High Peak Athletic Club.
Mr. Stanlock at once called up the club and soon had one of the detectives on the wire.
"Can you men come over at once?" he inquired. "One of the girls has disappeared and we are afraid that something serious has happened."
"Yes, we'll be there right away," was the answer.
Twenty minutes later there was a ring at the door and the three detectives, a tall thin man, a short heavy man, and a squarely built angular man, were ushered in.
The short heavy man, named Meyers, was the most talkative of the three. He put forth a string of questions as to when and where Helen was last seen and what she was doing. Had anybody seen her go out of the house? Nobody had. Was there anything peculiar in her manner in the course of the day? Nothing peculiar. What kind of a girl was she? What were her most noticeable characteristics? Had she any pronounced likes and dislikes? Was she in the habit of doing things just to be contrary? Was she a girl of good judgment, or flighty and light-headed?
These questions brought out nothing of tangible advantage, and No. 1 rested apparently well satisfied with the keenness of his record thus far made. No. 2 now took up the inquiry. He was the squarely built angular fellow with deep-set eyes, quiet demeanor and few words. His first question was:
"Has Miss Nash any other friends living in Hollyhill?"
"No, I think not," Marion replied; "no particular friends."
"None that she ever corresponds with?" persisted the man with the deep-set eyes.
Marion started visibly. Sudden recollection of the letter received by Helen the day before came to her.
"She got a letter postmarked Hollyhill yesterday," the young hostess replied.
"Who was it from?"
"I don't know. I didn't know that she was corresponding with anybody in the town. But the address on the envelope looked as if it was written by a man."
"Do you suppose you could find that letter?"
"I'll go upstairs and look," Marion said, suiting the action to the word.
In a few minutes she returned with a waste paper basket in her hands.
"Helen was sharing my room with me," she said. "A letter has been torn up and thrown in the basket. As I didn't do it, it must be Helen's."
"This begins to look like something," the tall man said with a nod of approval, picking up several bits of paper from the basket. "She's torn it up in pretty small pieces, but if we all get busy we ought to be able to put them together in a short time."
"Let's go out to the dining room table," Mrs. Stanlock proposed, leading the way as she spoke.
In a few moments all were seated around the large fumed oak table from which the spread had been removed as the hard wood surface was much better for the task of piecing the letter together.
It was, indeed, a tedious task, but with so many working together progress was fairly rapid. Within fifteen minutes half a dozen sentence sections of several words each had been joined in their phrase order. These were soon followed by three or four more and presently one of the girls found a connecting link between two sections thus forming a complete sentence. Imagine the thrill that went through everyone as Mr. Stanlock read the following:
"Get your friends out of Hollyhill as soon as possible."
"I bet this letter was written by the same person who wrote the skull-and-cross-bones letter to me," Marion ventured confidently.
"That's the very idea that just occurred to me," Miss Ladd declared as she fitted "no" and "difference" together and then tried to find a connecting edge on the pieces held by her neighbor to the left.
Fortunately the letter had been written on only one side of a large sheet of paper, so that they could be pasted in correlative positions on another sheet provided for the purpose.
Finally the patchwork was completed, in so far as the material at hand made completeness possible. A few of the bits of torn paper were missing, so that a word was wanting here and there in the text, but apparently the idea and purpose of the writer did not suffer from these vacancies. The letter as read at last by Mr. Stanlock was as follows:
"Dear ...r
"You have failed to do what I ... you to do. I told you that it was ... dangerous to bring the girls here. The letter of warning to Miss Stan ... did no good.... I want to warn you again and ... ... last time. Get your friends out of Hollyhill as soon as possible. I won't be responsible for what occurs. It makes no difference if you have given up your original purpose. Some of the men are so worked up that they are liable to do almost anything. If you can't get the rest out of town go yourself, or you may get hurt.
"D...."
"Ah, ha!" exclaimed the short, heavy and loquacious detective, "That explains the whole thing. Miss Nash has gone out of town."
"She hasn't done any such thing," Marion exclaimed indignantly, springing to her feet. "Helen isn't that kind of a girl. I know she is peculiar, but she isn't a coward. It's evident now that she knew something about affairs here that resulted in the sending of that threatening letter to me, and she kept her information secret for some reason. Whatever her reason was, she meant all right."
"Did she at any time urge or suggest that it would not be well for the girls to come here in the holidays?" Mr. Stanlock inquired.
"Never a word," Marion replied, positively. "I admit that once or twice I noticed that there was something peculiar in her manner, and it may have had something to do with her condition back of these developments, but that is all."
"How do you account for her disappearance?" asked Detective Meyer, with puzzled humility.
"I don't pretend to account for it," Marion replied, quickly. "That's a problem for you men to solve. All I know is that Helen did not intentionally desert us. She's gone, and she went for some reason, and I believe that reason is connected with the letter. Now, it's up to you men to find her, and, if you don't find her pretty quick, I'll go and find her myself."
A murmur of applause swept the room.
"We'll do it," declared the tall, thin detective.
"If it's within human power," conditioned the square-built, deep-eyed man.
The talkative gentleman of genius said nothing. All three of them left the house a few minutes later.
CHAPTER XIV.
TRAPPED.
There was little sleep for anyone at the Stanlock home that night. The mystery of the patched-up letter, coupled with Helen's apparently voluntary disappearance and the fear that she had been led into a trap of some sort, in line with the threat contained in the skull-and-cross-bones letter, kept everybody up until long after midnight. Meanwhile, Mr. Stanlock called up the police station and asked the lieutenant in charge to come over and begin work on a new angle of the strike developments.
"One of the girls has disappeared, and we are afraid that something serious has happened," he told the officer over the telephone.
The latter soon drove up to the house in an automobile and was admitted by Mr. Stanlock. The conference lasted half an hour, but before half this time had elapsed Lieut. Larkin had the station on the wire and was giving instructions to the desk sergeant.
To add to the difficulty of the problem, snow began to fall about 5 o'clock, and developed almost into a blizzard in three or four hours.
Next morning the two newspapers of Hollyhill carried big headlines and column-and-a-half stories of the new strike development, suggestive of a far-reaching plot that might result in tragedy. Mr. Stanlock had during the evening received all newspaper calls over a special wire in his private room, so as not to disturb the guests with the publicity end of the affair.
In the afternoon Mrs. Stanlock announced that she, being an officer of the woman's club with an important duty to perform, must attend a committee meeting from 3 until 4:30 o'clock, and she asked Miss Ladd to accompany her. The latter consented, but cautioned the girls against leaving the house, inasmuch as the three detectives were no longer available for guard duty, having been directed to devote their entire time to the search for Helen.
There were now at the house only the twelve remaining Camp Fire Girls and the kitchen maid, Kitty Koepke.
Marion's younger sister and brother were attending a children's afternoon party a few blocks away. The new chauffeur had been summoned by Mrs. Stanlock to take her and Miss Ladd to the club rooms where the committee meeting was to be held.
About 3 o'clock a newspaper photographer and a reporter arrived. The girls allowed a group picture to be taken and the reporter was granted an interview.
Half an hour after the newspaper men departed, there came a ring at the front door. As Mary, the head servant, was out, Marion answered the ring and found at the entrance a woman of middle age, dressed in plain black, who spoke to her, in quick, eager accents, thus:
"Is this Miss Marion Stanlock?"
"It is," the girl answered.
"I am Mrs. Eddy, who moved into one of those vacant houses two blocks from here," the woman explained. "I have some information of interest to you."
"Is it about Helen Nash?" Marion asked, so eagerly that there could be no mistaking the subject nearest her heart.
The woman nodded and smiled, and Marion seized her by the arm and almost dragged her into the hall and thence into the reception room.
"Where is she?—tell me quickly!" Two of the other girls in the drawing-room, hearing these words and surmising their significance, came rushing in and caught the visitor's answer, thus:
"She's over at my house. She came there last night. I had no idea who she was until I saw the articles in the newspaper—I didn't get it until late—and then I came right over."
"But," said Marion, apprehensively, "why didn't she come right home? What was the matter—couldn't she explain who she was?"
"The girl was not in her right mind," Mrs. Eddy said. "She was in a delirium. It was about 10 o'clock at night, and evidently she had been tramping the streets for hours in the storm."
"How is she now? Oh! I must go right to her! Did she get lost in the storm? Girls, girls! Come here! Helen's found! Is she—is she—ill—very ill, Mrs. Eddy?"
"I don't think she is seriously ill," the woman replied, with an expression of sweet encouragement. "I had a doctor call, and he didn't seem to think there was any immediate danger, although she hasn't talked rationally yet. She is in bed, and has considerable fever."
"Would it be all right for me to go and see her—is it against the doctor's orders? I'd be very careful; and, besides, I'm a nurse—in fact, we all are nurses."
"Oh, to be sure—it will be all right for you to come—all of you may come if you wish. You can go in one at a time, quietly. Then a couple of you may remain and help nurse her. I really need help, for I am all alone, and sat up all night with her, and have been close to her most of the day. Perhaps it would be well for you girls to make arrangements for relief nursing watches. You are perfectly welcome to keep her at my home until she is well, if you will relieve me of the necessity of nursing her."
"Come on, girls; get your wraps; we will all go over. It's only a couple of blocks. Hurry, everybody!"
"Wait, and I'll tell Kitty we're going out," Marion said.
She ran through several rooms, calling "Kittie! Kittie!" but received no response.
"I wonder where she is," the hostess said, in a puzzled manner. "Well, we haven't time to find her. Come on."
"I think I saw her go out more than half an hour ago," Harriet Newcomb said. "She called someone up on the telephone, and then put her hat and coat on and went out the side way, and I haven't seen her since."
"That's strange," Marion commented. Then the subject was forgotten. The twelve girls and their leader were walking rapidly toward the place where Mrs. Eddy, the good Samaritan, had taken in and cared for the girl whom every one of them loved as they would have loved a sister.
The house they stopped in front of was rather dingy and forbidding. It was a large brick structure, set back a hundred feet from the street on a plot of ground nearly an acre in extent. Most of the windows were darkened with green blinds two generations out of date.
Mrs. Eddy put a key into the lock and opened the door. Then she stepped aside and motioned the girls to enter, and they did so as if moved by a spell that they were unable to resist. Then the woman herself entered, closed the door and put the key into the lock and turned it. If the twelve Camp Fire Girls had no suspicions as to the genuineness of the motives of the woman up to this time, they had good and sufficient reason to anticipate something dreadful when they saw her take the key from the lock and put it in her coat pocket.
And still if there were any doubts in their minds after this act, they were effectively dispelled by the sound of a man's voice coming through a doorway from a dimly lighted room to the right, speaking thus:
"Now, young ladies, let me warn you to be quiet. You have been led into a trap; but you will not be hurt in any way if you obey orders. One scream from any of you will be followed by a blow with a club that will silence you for a long time—maybe, forever. This way, please. Everybody be quiet and sensible, and you will be well treated."
CHAPTER XV.
A PILE OF SCRAP LUMBER.
Conditions and developments seemed to work favorably for the mysterious trappers of the Camp Fire Girls. In the first place, when Mrs. Stanlock returned home and found the house without an occupant, except Kittie Koepke, who was working away very quietly in the kitchen, it was difficult for her to suspect anything wrong.
"Where are the girls, Kittie?" she inquired, and the other replied, with a suggestion of foreign accent:
"Oh, they just gone out for a walk. They be back soon, I guess."
"I hope they didn't go far," Mrs. Stanlock said, concernedly. "They ought to be very careful. It will be getting dark before very long. It's cloudy and looks like more snow. How long have they been gone?"
"About half an hour," Kittie answered. "I went out to the drug store to get something for my toothache, and when I came back they was gone."
This was the first reference that Mrs. Stanlock heard regarding Kittie's toothache, but she accepted the statement for its face value and waited hopefully for an early return of her daughter and her daughter's guests. Half an hour went by and the girls did not appear. Darkness was now visibly gathering. Mrs. Stanlock was becoming uneasy and called up her husband's office, but Mr. Stanlock had already started for home. By the time he arrived, the good woman was almost prostrated, so rapidly were fear and apprehension taking possession of her.
The big coal operator scented danger at once. Immediately after gathering the principal details of the day's occurrences, he got the police station on the wire and communicated them to the officer in charge.
Drastic measures were resorted to at once. The day shift of uniformed and ununiformed guardians of the law was summoned back to duty, and a posse of available citizens were sworn in.
About 7 o'clock a posse of citizen policemen, led by three or four uniformed members of the regular force, began a canvass of the neighborhood to discover information that might suggest a clew as to the whereabouts of the missing girls. Half an hour later a woman informed one of the canvassers that she had seen eight or ten girls enter the yard of the old Buckholz place between 3 and 4 o'clock, but had not noticed whether they went into the house or not. The man to whom this statement was made blew a whistle as an agreed signal to the other searchers that he had important information and soon a score of them were running toward him from all directions.
A comparison of notes disclosed the fact that another member of the party of canvassers had received a similar statement from another resident in the neighborhood. It was decided, therefore, to delay no further but to proceed at once to the house in question, while one of the men hastened to Mr. Stanlock with news of developments in order that he might be present and direct the next move.
The latter was waiting at home, ready to answer a telephone or personal call from any of the central points of investigation. The nervous strain of the apparent certainty, by this time, that the disappearance of Marion and her guests portended serious developments had compelled Mrs. Stanlock to take to her bed and summon a physician and a nurse. The call from the searchers in the neighborhood took Mr. Stanlock from her bedside, and so speedily did he respond to it that he was at the entrance of the Buckholz house almost as soon as the party of citizens and uniformed policemen.
"Don't hesitate, men," he urged. "I know the owner of this house very well and will take all responsibility for damages on my own shoulders. If the door won't give, break it down."
"Maybe there is somebody at home," Lieutenant Larkin suggested. "Let's ring the bell first"
"Well, come on," said Mr. Stanlock. "We'll soon find out if there's anyone in the house."
He led the way up the weather-beaten but fairly well preserved steps and pulled the knob of the old fashioned doorbell. Then they waited expectantly, straining their ears to catch the sound of the approach of someone within. But no such sound reached them.
It appearing evident now that the house was temporarily without an inmate, the searchers for the thirteen mysteriously vanished girls decided to force their way in. Under ordinary conditions, this act would have been recognized as burglary, but the present circumstances were so extraordinary that legal consequences had no terrors for any of those present. Accordingly an examination was made of the two first story windows, two of which were found unlocked. With the aid of a box discovered under the rear porch, several of the men climbed in one by one and found themselves in a large unfurnished room, architecturally intended, perhaps, as a dining room. Each of the three uniformed policemen carried an electric flashlight and with the aid of these an examination of the house was begun.
But not a trace of the missing girls could be found.
"What next?" one of the men asked.
"The basement," suggested Lieut. Larkin.
Mr. Stanlock opened the door at the head of the stairway and flashed his light down the steps.
"Wait a minute," he said, barring the entrance. "Let's examine the ground as we go. These steps have dust on them, and there are shoe prints in the dust, and, yes, sir, as sure as you are alive, they are the prints of women's shoes, and there are a lot of 'em, unless I'm mistaken. Be careful now, men. Follow me single file and come down along the left side of the stairway as close the wall as possible so as not to spoil those footprints in the dust."
"Look out," said Mr. Stanlock. "There may be some desperate characters down there with guns. Better let me go first—I have most at stake."
"Not much!" replied the lieutenant. "We'll never win the European war without charging the trenches. All I ask is that you get the fellow that gets me. So here goes."
Cautiously he descended the stairs, followed by the five men who had entered the house with him. But their anticipations were groundless. Not a sign of human life did they find in the large, square, deep basement, or cellar, more properly.
Some of the men looked puzzled, Mr. Stanlock was evidently laboring under increasing distress, but Lieut Larkin's curiosity seemed to grow.
"Some queer stories have been told about this place," he said; "and I'm wondering if now is not the time to put them to a test. They are pretty wild stories, almost as wild as haunted house yarns, but there may be thing to them."
"I've heard something about them myself," said Mr. Stanlock. "You refer to the stories about the building of this house over an old mine, I suppose? This cellar was said to have been the mouth of the shaft of the mine enlarged."
"That's it," the lieutenant replied. "Now, let's look about and see if there is anything to it."
He began to flash his light over the floor, walls, and contents of the cellar. The latter consisted principally of barrels, boxes and a nondescript pile of scrap lumber. Most of this was heaped against the south wall.
Presently something in the pile of lumber held the attention of the lieutenant, who began to examine it more closely.
"Look here," he said, addressing Mr. Stanlock. "Do you see any difference between this pile of lumber and that dry goods box over there?"
"I was just noticing that there was a heavy covering of dust on the box and little or none on the top pieces of lumber," the mine owner answered.
"That's just it," continued Lieut. Larkin, "and it can mean only one thing, that this pile of lumber has been moved recently. Now, the question, in view of the fact that the missing girls were seen entering this place today and in view of the shoe prints on the cellar stairway and the fact that they are not in the basement now is, Why?"
"The best way to find out is to move it again," suggested Sergeant Higgins.
"Exactly," agreed his superior officer. "Now, Johnson, you go upstairs and inform the other men what we are doing. We don't want them down here, for there's nothing they can do. Moreover, we don't want any more traveling up and down those steps than is absolutely necessary. Be careful, Johnson, on your way up."
"Excuse me, lieutenant," interposed Mr. Stanlock in a weak voice that bespoke the distress under which he was laboring. "I think I won't remain down here just now. I'll go up and carry that message to the men, if you wish. Let me know as soon as you can what you find."