CHAPTER IV
A NEW DANGER
Alarmed at this news of Zara, Bessie hurried upstairs at once to the room the two girls shared. She found her chum on the bed, crying as if her heart would break.
"Why, Zara, what's the matter? Why are you crying?" she asked.
But try as she might, Bessie could get no answer at all from Zara for a long time.
"Have I done anything to make you feel bad? Has anything gone wrong here?" urged Bessie. "If you'll only tell us what's the matter, dear, we'll straighten it out. Can't you trust me?"
"N—nothing's happened—you haven't done anything," Zara managed to say at last.
"Surely nothing Miss Eleanor has said has hurt you, Zara? I'm certain she'd feel terrible if she thought you were crying because of anything she had done!"
Zara shook her head vehemently at that, but her sobs only seemed to come harder than before.
Bessie was thoroughly puzzled. She knew that Zara, brought up in a foreign country, did not always understand American ways. Sometimes, when Bessie had first known her, little jesting remarks, which couldn't have been taken amiss by any American girl, had reduced her to tears. And Bessie thought it entirely possible that someone, either Miss Eleanor, or her mother, or one of the Mercer servants, might have offended Zara without in the least meaning to do so.
But Zara seemed determined to keep the cause of her woe to herself. Not all of Bessie's pleading could make her answer the simplest questions. Finally, seeming to feel a little better, she managed to speak more coherently.
"Leave me alone for a little while, please, Bessie," she begged. "I'll be all right then—really I will!"
So Bessie, reluctantly enough, had to go downstairs, since she understood thoroughly that to keep on pressing Zara for an explanation while she was in such a nervous state would do more harm than good.
"Could you find out what was wrong?" asked Eleanor anxiously when Bessie came down. Charlie Jamieson was still with her on the porch, smoking a cigar and frowning as if he were thinking of something very unpleasant. He was, as a matter of fact. He was changing all his ideas of the case in which Eleanor's encounter with the two girls had involved him, since, with Brack for an opponent, he knew only too well that he was in for a hard fight, and if, as he supposed, the opposition was entirely without a reasonable case, a fight in which dirty and unfair methods were sure to be employed.
Bessie shook her head.
"She wouldn't tell me anything—just begged me to leave her alone and said she'd be all right presently," she answered. "I've seen her this way before and, really, there's nothing to do but wait until she feels better."
"You've seen her this way before, you say?" said Jamieson, quickly. "What was the matter then? What made her act so? If we know why she did it before, perhaps it will give us a clue to why she is behaving in such a queer fashion now."
Bessie hesitated.
"She's awfully sensitive," she said. "Sometimes, when people have just joked with her a little bit, without meaning to say anything nasty at all, she's thought they were angry at her, or laughing at her for being a foreigner, and she's gone off just like this. I thought at first—"
"Yes?" said Eleanor, encouragingly, when Bessie stopped. "Don't be afraid to tell us what you think, Bessie. We just want to get to the bottom of this strange fit of hers, you know."
"Well, it seems awfully mean to say it," said poor Bessie, "when you've been so lovely to us, but I thought maybe someone had joked about her in some way. You know she sometimes pronounces words in a funny fashion, as if she'd only read them, and had never heard anyone speak them. In Hedgeville lots of people used to laugh at her for that. I think that's why she stopped going to school. And I thought, perhaps, that was what was the matter—"
"It might have happened, of course," said Eleanor, "and without anyone meaning to hurt her feelings. I'd be very careful myself, but some of the other people around the house wouldn't know, of course. But, no, that won't explain it, Bessie. Not this time."
"Are you sure, Eleanor!" asked Jamieson.
"Positively," she answered. "Because, after you went off, she was out here with me for quite a long time. Then I was called inside, and I'm quite sure no one from the house saw her at all after that until I found her crying. She'd been outside on the porch all the time—"
"Aha!" cried Jamieson, then. "If no one in the house here talked to her, someone from outside must have done it. Listen, Bessie. She wouldn't go off that way just from brooding, would she, just from thinking about things?"
"No, I'm quite sure she wouldn't, Mr. Jamieson. She's felt bad two or three times since we left Hedgeville, when she got to thinking about her father's troubles, and everything of that sort. But she's always told me about it and it hasn't made her feel just as she seems to now, anyhow."
"Well, then, can't you see? No one here said anything to her, so it must have been someone who isn't in the house—someone who spoke to her after you left her out here alone, Eleanor. And I know who it was, too!"
"That nasty looking man you pointed out to me as we were coming along with Mr. Norris?" cried Bessie.
"Yes, indeed—Brack!" said Jamieson. "He's just the one who would do it, too! Oh, I tell you, one has to look out for him! He's as mean as a man could be and still live, I guess. I've heard of more harsh, miserable things he's done than I could tell you in a week. Whenever he's around it's a warning to look out for trouble. Suppose you go up to her, Bessie, and see if mentioning his name will loosen her tongue."
But just as she was entering the house Zara, with only her reddened eyes to show that she had been crying at all, came out on the porch.
"I'm ever so ashamed of myself, Miss Eleanor," she said, smiling pluckily. "I suppose you think I'm an awful cry-baby, but I was just feeling bad about my father and everything, and I couldn't seem to help it."
Bessie looked at Zara in astonishment. To the eyes of those who didn't know her as well as Bessie, Zara might seem to be all right, but Bessie could see that her chum was still frightened and weak. She wondered why Zara was acting, for acting she was. She meant that Miss Mercer and everyone should think that her fit of depression had been only temporary, and that now everything was all right. And Bessie, loyal as ever, decided to help her.
But when Charlie Jamieson took his leave again to go back to his office and his interrupted work, he looked at her keenly and when he started to go he took Bessie by the hand playfully and pulled her off the porch, and out of sight of the others.
"Listen," he said, earnestly, "there's something more than we know about or can guess very easily the matter with your friend, Bessie. She's been frightened—badly frightened. And it's dollars to doughnuts that it's that scoundrel Brack who's frightened her, too. Keep your eyes on her—see that she doesn't get a chance to speak to him or anyone else alone."
"Do you think there's any danger of his coming back?" asked Bessie, alarmed by his serious tone.
"I don't know, Bessie, but I do know Brack. And I've found out this much about him. He's like a rabbit—he'll fight when he's driven into a corner. And the time he's most dangerous is when he seems to be beaten, when it looks as if he hadn't a leg to stand on."
"Do you think he's beaten now, Mr. Jamieson?"
"No, I don't! And just because he's the man he is. If it were anyone else, I'd say yes, because I don't see what they can expect to do. But you can depend upon it that Brack has some dirty trick up his sleeve, and from all you tell me of this man Weeks, he's the same sort of an ugly customer. So you keep your eyes open, and if anything happens to worry you, call me up right away. Get me at my office if it's before five o'clock; after that, call up this number." He wrote down a telephone number on a slip of paper and handed it to Bessie.
"That's the telephone at my home, and if I'm not there myself ask for my servant, Farrell. He'll be there, and he'll manage to get word to me somehow, no matter where I am."
"Oh, I do hope I shan't have to bother you, Mr. Jamieson."
"Don't you worry about that. That's what I'm here for, to be bothered, as you call it, if there's any need of me. Remember that you can't do everything yourself—and you may only get into trouble yourself without really helping if you try to do it all. So call on me if there's any need. And, whatever you do, don't let Zara go out of the house alone on any pretence. Remember that, will you?"
"I certainly will, Mr. Jamieson. You're awfully good to us, and I know Zara would be grateful, too, if she were herself. She will be as soon as all this trouble is over."
"I know that, Bessie. Don't you fuss around being grateful to me until I've really done something for you. You know, you're the sort of girl I like. You've got pluck, and you don't get discouraged, like so many girls—though Heaven knows you've had enough trouble to make you as nervous as any of them."
"I get awfully frightened. Indeed, I do!"
"Of course you do, but you've got pluck enough to admit it. Remember this: the real hero is the man who does what's right, and what he knows he ought to do, even if he's scared so that he's shaking like a leaf. Any fool can do a thing if it doesn't frighten him to do it, and he doesn't deserve any special credit for that. The real bravery is the sort a man shows when he goes into battle, for instance, and wants to turn around and run as soon as he hears the bullets singing over his head."
"I'm sure I would want to do just that—"
"But you wouldn't! That's the point, you see. And you always think things are going to be all right. That's fine—because about half the time we can control the things that happen to us. If we think everything will come right in the end, we can usually make them work out our way. But if we start in thinking that nothing is going to be right, why, then we're licked before we begin, and there's not much use trying at all. Now, you didn't say Zara would feel differently if things came out right. You said she would when everything was straightened out. And that's the spirit that wins. Try to put some more of it into her, and try to make her tell you what happened, too."
But all of Bessie's efforts to win Zara's confidence that day were in vain. Zara, however, seemed to be all right. She was brighter and livelier than she had been since Bessie had known her. All day long she laughed and burst into little snatches of song, and Miss Mercer was delighted.
Nevertheless Bessie wasn't satisfied, and she kept a close watch on Zara all day. It seemed time wasted, however. Zara made no attempt to keep away from her; seemed anxious, indeed, to be with her chum, that they might talk over their plans for winning enough honors as Camp Fire Girls to become Fire-Makers.
Had Bessie's eyes and her perceptions been less keen she would have thought her first idea, the one she shared with Charlie Jamieson, a mistaken one. But more than once, when Zara thought she was unobserved, and was therefore off her guard, Bessie saw the corners of her mouth droop and a wistful look come into her eyes. There was fear in those eyes, too, though of what, Bessie could not imagine.
It was long after midnight that night when Bessie was aroused, she scarcely knew how. Some instinct led her to turn on the light—and she could scarcely repress a scream when she saw that Zara's bed was empty!
CHAPTER V
STRANGE SUSPICIONS
For a moment she stood in the middle of the room, dazed, wondering what could have happened. The door was closed. Bessie rushed to it, and looked out, but there was no sign of Zara in the hall. She listened intently. The house was silent, with the silence that broods over a well regulated house at night, when everyone is or ought to be asleep. But then there was a noise from outside—a noise that came through the windows, from the street.
Bessie rushed back into the room and over to the window. She knew now that the noise she heard was the same one that had awakened her.
And, looking out of the window, Bessie saw what had made the noise—a big, green automobile, that, even as she looked, was gliding slowly but with increasing speed away from the Mercer house. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to cry out, or to make a move. But somehow, though she could never explain afterward how it happened, since the importance of it did not strike her at all at the time, Bessie managed to get a mental photograph of one thing that was to prove important in the extreme—the number of the automobile, plainly visible in the light of the tail lamp that shone full upon it. The figures were registered in her brain as if she had studied them for an hour in the effort to memorize them—4587.
Then, when the car was out of sight around the corner, Bessie's power of movement seemed to be restored to her as mysteriously as it had been taken away. Her first impulse was to cry out and arouse the household. But the futility of that soon struck her, and she remembered what Charlie Jamieson had said. If anything happened, if she was frightened, she was to call on him. And certainly something had happened. Of her alarm there could be no doubt. She was shaking like a leaf, as if she were exposed to a cold wind, although the night was hot and even sultry.
Swiftly she sought for and found the telephone number the lawyer had written down for her. Then, in her bare feet, lest she make a noise and arouse the whole household, she crept downstairs to reach the telephone.
"Oh, I do hope they won't see me or hear me," she breathed to herself. "There's nothing they can do, and maybe, if I get hold of Mr. Jamieson at once, we can have Zara back before they know she's gone."
At that hour of the night it was hard work to get the connection she wanted, and Bessie chafed at the delay, knowing that every moment might be precious, were Zara in real danger. But she got the number at last, after Central had tried to convince her no one would answer at such a time.
"What's happened? Has something gone wrong?" Jamieson asked anxiously as soon as he recognized her voice.
"Oh, I'm terribly afraid it has—and it was all my fault! I was asleep, Mr. Jamieson—and Zara's gone!"
"By herself, or don't you know?"
"I don't know positively, but I think she was taken off in a big automobile. But, Mr. Jamieson, I think she wanted to go!"
"Why, what makes you think that?"
"She's taken all the things that were given to her. And then, she got out so quietly that I didn't hear her. If anyone had carried her away, they'd have waked me up, I'm sure."
"That's bad—if she went away of her own accord. Makes it harder to find her, harder to get her back."
"What shall we do, Mr. Jamieson? You will try to get her back, won't you, even if she did go with them willingly?"
"Yes, yes, of course! I'll come out right away. Better not tell the others yet, if you haven't done it already."
Then Bessie told him about the automobile, and the number she had seen.
"Oh, that's different!" he exclaimed. "There's no use my coming to the house then—not right away, at least. I'll find out whose car that is right away—and then perhaps we'll be able to get a clue more quickly. Someone is almost sure to have noticed that number, you see. Policemen have a way of keeping their eyes on car numbers as late as this, just on the chance that there may be something wrong about people who are chasing around in this town when they ought to be in bed. You go back to sleep, if you can. I'll let you know as soon as there's something new."
"I don't see how I can sleep, Mr. Jamieson. Isn't there something I can do, please? That would make me feel ever so much better, I'm sure."
"I know, I know! But there isn't a thing you can do to-night. There's precious little I can do, for that matter, myself. You get some rest, so that you'll be fresh and strong in the morning. No telling what may turn up then; and we may need you to do a whole lot. Got to keep yourself in condition, you know. Remember that, always. That's the way to help. Good-night! I'm going to hurry out now and see what I can find out about that car."
So Bessie went back to her room, and, knowing that the lawyer had given her good advice when he had urged her to rest, she tried hard to go to sleep again. But trying to sleep and actually doing it are very different, and Bessie tossed restlessly for the remainder of the night. The sun, shining through her window in the early morning, was the most welcome of all possible sights, and she got up and dressed, glad that the night of inactivity was over, and that the time for action, if action there was to be, was at hand.
Eleanor was shocked and frightened when she heard what had happened.
"I'm sorry you didn't wake me, Bessie," she said. "It must have been dreadful for you, waiting for morning all alone up there. We could have talked, anyhow, and sometimes that helps a good deal."
"Well, I didn't see any use in spoiling the night for you and I'd have stayed awake anyhow, I think, even if I hadn't been alone. So there was no use keeping you up and awake, too."
"I'll telephone at once and see if anything has been found out, Bessie. Then we'll know better what to do. But I'm afraid there's not much that we can do—not just now."
Jamieson was not in his office, or at his home, when Eleanor telephoned. But when she stopped to think she realized that he was almost certain to be busy in his search for some clue to the missing girl.
"Come with me. Let's go down town," she said to Bessie. "I want to get some things for you, anyhow, and anything is better than sitting around the house here, just waiting for news. That's terrible. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, indeed. But suppose some news came when we were out?"
"Oh, we can easily telephone to the house and then, if there should be a message, we can get it right away, you see. I'll tell them here to write down any message that comes, and we'll telephone every fifteen minutes or so."
"Shall we see Mr. Jamieson while we're down town?"
"Yes, we will. That's a good idea. It will save his time, too, and there may be something he wants us to do."
So they started. Eleanor wanted to walk. But before they had gone very far a big automobile drew up along the sidewalk, and a cheery, pleasant man, middle aged, with a smiling face, and white hair, though he seemed too young for that, hailed them.
"Hello, Miss Mercer!" he said: "Jump in, won't you? I'll take you wherever you want to go. I've got lots of time—nothing in the world to do, and I'm lonely."
"Why, thank you very much, Mr. Holmes," said Eleanor, smiling at him. "This is my new friend, Bessie King, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes is one of our family's oldest and best friends."
"Well, well, this is very nice!" he said. "I'd better be careful, though, or I'll have all the young fellows in town down on me, when they see an old codger like me driving two pretty young ladies around. Where shall we go, eh?"
"If you're really not in a hurry, Mr. Holmes," said Eleanor, "I wish you would take us down town by the long way around. I'd like Bessie to see the river and the Kent Bridge."
"Splendid!" said Mr. Holmes. "That's fine! You see, they say I'm a back number, now that I don't know how to run my store any more. I guess they're right, too. I just seem to be in the way when I go down there. So I stay away as long as I can find anything else to do."
Eleanor laughed, but Bessie somehow felt that the jovial words didn't ring true. There was a strange look in the eyes of their kindly host, and despite her attempts to convince herself that she was foolish, she didn't like him. But she enjoyed the ride thoroughly. He took them out of the town, and then, skirting the suburbs by a beautiful road, approached the heart of the business section by a new road that Bessie had not seen before. But then, though he had said, and, indeed, proved, that he was in no hurry, Mr. Holmes began to increase the speed of his car.
"He's going very fast if he's not in a hurry," suggested Bessie, sure that the driver could not hear in the rush of the wind made by the car's speed.
Eleanor laughed merrily.
"He always does everything in a hurry," she said. "This is the fastest car in town, and before automobiles got so popular, Mr. Holmes had the fastest horses. He just likes to go quickly. That's why his business was so successful, they say."
Just then the car stopped, and Holmes, laughing, turned to them.
"I heard that," he said. "After all, what's the harm? It would have taken you an hour to get down town if you'd walked all the way, wouldn't it, Miss Eleanor?"
She nodded.
"All right, then, I'll get you there as soon as that, and have time for a bit of a spin in the country, as well. We'll go pretty fast, so just put on these goggles, young ladies, and you'll have no trouble getting specks in your eyes. I'll do the same. I really intended to drive slowly today—that's why I haven't got mine on. But somehow, when I get a wheel between my hands, I can't drive slowly; it isn't in me, somehow!"
He handed them their goggles, and then put on his own, and changed his soft hat, which had two or three times threatened to blow off, for a cap that would stay on in any wind. And, as he faced them, Bessie had all she could do to suppress a sharp cry of amazement, and she was more than thankful for the goggles that partly concealed her start of surprise and dismay. For the sight of Holmes, thus equipped, had recalled something that seemed in a way, at least, to explain her feeling of distrust and dislike.
Eleanor saw that Bessie was troubled, even though Holmes was ignorant of the sensation he had caused, and, as soon as the car was moving at high speed again, she leaned over close.
"What is it, Bessie! What startled you so?"
"I'll tell you later, Miss Eleanor," whispered Bessie. "I'm not sure enough yet—really I'm not! But as soon as I am, I'll tell you all I know."
Mr. Holmes was as good as his word. He brought them into the central part of the town just at the time he had promised, and sprang out to open the door of the tonneau for them.
"Must you really go now?" he said, dejectedly. "You'll be leaving me all alone, you know. Can't you finish your shopping, and then let me run you out to Arkville for luncheon?"
"You speak as if it were just across the street," laughed Eleanor. "And you know, Bessie, it's really fifty miles or more away, and it's actually over the state line. It's in your old state—the same one Hedgeville is in. But it's in a different direction, and it's even further from Hedgeville than we are here, I guess. Isn't it, Mr. Holmes?"
"I'd have to know just where Hedgeville is to answer that, Miss Mercer. And I've never been there nor even traveled through it, so far as I can remember. I'll look it up on my road map, though, if you like—"
"Oh, no, please don't bother to do that. It's not of the slightest importance."
"Then we shall have to put off Arkville to another day, you think, Miss Mercer?"
"I'm afraid so, really. We've a good deal to do today, and there are reasons that I won't bother you with for our having to be in town. Thank you ever so much for the ride."
"Yes, thank you ever so much," echoed Bessie.
They were near Charlie Jamieson's office, and, as the car turned and disappeared in the mass of traffic, Bessie clutched Eleanor's arm.
"Oh, do come quickly, Miss Eleanor, please! Look at this. Don't you think we ought to tell Mr. Jamieson about it right away?"
She held out a piece of ribbon, torn and stained. It was not large, but there was enough of it to identify it easily. And, as Eleanor looked at it, she remembered faintly having seen it before.
"What is that? Where did you find it?" she asked, puzzled.
"It's the ribbon Zara wore in her hair, and I found it in the car. It fell on the floor when he opened the door for us to get out—it must have been caught there. And do you remember, we got in on the other side, so that that door wasn't opened then?"
Eleanor looked more puzzled than ever.
"I don't see how that can be Zara's ribbon," she protested. "What would she have been doing in Mr. Holmes' car? It's just an accident, Bessie. It's just a coincidence that that ribbon should be there. It might have belonged to someone else—I'm sure it did, in fact."
"Oh, please, please, I know!" said Bessie. "Won't you let me tell Mr. Jamieson about it!"
"Oh, yes, course, but he'll say just what I do, Bessie. You mustn't let this affect you so that you get nervous and hysterical, Bessie. That's not the way to help Zara."
They were walking toward the building in which Jamieson's offices were located, and Bessie was hurrying their progress as much as she could.
"I don't like Mr. Holmes. I'm afraid of him," she said. "I know that sounds dreadful, but it's true—"
"Why, Bessie, how absurd!" she exclaimed. "I've known him for years and years, and he's one of the nicest, kindest men in town."
"But, Miss Eleanor, do you remember when you asked him about Hedgeville, he said he'd never been there?"
"Yes, and I thought, as soon as I asked him, that he would probably have to tell me just that. Hedgeville's out of the way. You never saw automobile parties on trips going through, did you?"
"No, we didn't. About the only people who came there in automobiles came to see someone—and usually Farmer Weeks."
"There, you see!"
"But, Miss Eleanor, Mr. Holmes knows all about Hedgeville! He's been there ever so many times! I thought this morning, as soon as he stopped to talk to you, that I'd seen him before somewhere, but I wasn't sure."
"Why, what do you mean? Are you sure now?"
"Yes, I was sure the minute he put on those goggles and his cap. He's driven to Hedgeville a lot in the last year. The last time wasn't more than three weeks ago, and he was in that same car, and wore the same cap and goggles."
Eleanor stopped, looking very thoughtful.
"I think you must be mistaken, Bessie," she said. "There's no reason why he shouldn't tell us if he'd ever been there, and he certainly couldn't have forgotten it if he's been there as often as you say. Can't you see that! What object could he have in trying to deceive us?"
"I don't know. I can't guess that unless—well, I can tell you who it was he saw when he was there—every time. It was Farmer Weeks. And I think he was there the day before they took Zara's father away. I'm not sure, but I think so."
"If you could be certain," said Eleanor, doubtfully, "that would make it different, Bessie. We'll tell Mr. Jamieson, and see what he thinks. But I'm sure you must be mistaken."
CHAPTER VI
A SUDDEN TURN
Jamieson was in his office when they entered.
"Well, I wondered where you two were!" he exclaimed, by way of greeting. "I tried to get you on the telephone a couple of times, but I supposed you were probably on your way here."
"We telephoned before we left the house, but we understood that you would be busy," said Eleanor. "So we started to walk into town, and Mr. Holmes saw us, and took us for a ride in his car. I hope it hasn't made any difference—that you didn't want us? Have you found out anything, Charlie?"
"No, it didn't make any difference," said the lawyer, gloomily. "As for finding out things, well, I have, and I haven't! There's no trace of Zara, but there's other news."
"What is it?"
"Well, it's mighty queer, I'll say that for it. When I went to see Zara's father this morning, he refused to see me—sent out word that he didn't want me to act as his lawyer any more. He's got another lawyer, and who do you suppose it is?"
The two girls stared at him, surprised and puzzled.
"Brack!" exclaimed Jamieson. "What do you know about that for a mess, eh? If half of what I believe is right, Brack's his worst enemy. He's hand in glove with the people who are responsible for all his trouble, and yet here he goes and gets the scoundrel to act as his lawyer!"
"Oh, what a shame!" said Eleanor, indignantly. "And he wouldn't even see you to explain?"
"Absolutely not! I tried to get them to let me in, and I sent him an urgent message, telling him it was of the utmost importance for us to have a talk, but I couldn't budge him."
Eleanor was flushed with resentment.
"Well, that settles it!" she said, indignantly. "If people don't want to be helped, one can't help them. He and Zara will just have to look out for themselves, I guess. Bessie, don't you think Zara must have gone with those people in the car willingly?"
"Yes, I do," said Bessie. "But—"
"Then I think she and her father are an ungrateful pair, and they deserve anything that happens to them! I'm certainly not going to worry myself about them any more, and I should think you would drop the whole thing, Charlie Jamieson, and attend to your own affairs!"
"Hold on! You're going a bit too fast, Eleanor," he said, laughing lightly. "Let's see what Bessie thinks about it."
Bessie, who had flushed too, but not with anger, when Eleanor thus gave her resentment full play, was glad of the chance to speak.
"I do think Zara went off willingly and of her own accord," she said. "I'm sure of that, because she couldn't have been taken away without my hearing something."
"Well, then," began Eleanor, "doesn't that prove—"
"But if Zara was willing to go off that way, I believe it's because she thought she was doing the right thing," Bessie went on, determinedly. "Someone must have seen her and told her something she believed, though perhaps it wasn't true."
"Of course!" said Jamieson, heartily, "That's what I've thought from the start, and don't you see who it probably was? Why, Brack! He was in the neighborhood yesterday morning and he must have seen her. He might have told her anything—any wild story. You see, we are pretty much in the dark about this affair yet. We don't know why these people are so keen after Zara's father, or why they've put up this job on him. So I don't think I'll get mad and drop it just because Zara and her father have probably been fooled into acting in a way that would seem likely to irritate me."
Eleanor was regretful at once.
"Oh, you're ever so much more sensible than I am, Charlie," she said. "It made me angry to think they were acting so when all we wanted was to help them, and I lost my temper."
"I suspect that that is just what Brack hoped I would do, Eleanor. And it makes me all the more determined to stick to the case. You see, I'm actually lawyer for Zara's father still, and unless I consent to a change of lawyers, he'll have trouble putting Brack in my place. Brack knows that, too, if he doesn't—and he knows, also, that I know one or two things about him that make it a good idea for him to be careful, unless he wants to be disbarred."
"Then you'll keep on working and you'll try to find out what's become of Zara, too?"
"Yes. I looked up the number that Bessie saw—the number of that car. And it's just as I thought. They were careful enough to use a false number. There's no such number recorded as the one that was on the car."
"But don't you suppose you can find anyone who saw it before they had a chance to change the numbers?"
"I'm working on that line now, but we haven't got any reports yet. I've gone to see the district attorney—the one who looks after the counterfeiting cases as well as the other, who's just in charge of local affairs. And I've convinced them that there's something very queer afoot here. Judge Bailey, who will prosecute Zara's father for counterfeiting, agrees with me that it looks as if a case had been worked up against him by someone who wants to make trouble for him, and he's pretty mad at the idea that anyone would dare to use him in such a crooked game. So we'll have a friend there, if I can get any evidence to back our suspicions."
Suddenly Eleanor remembered what Bessie had thought of Mr. Holmes, her suspicion that she had seen him in Hedgeville, and the incident of finding Zara's ribbon. And she made Bessie tell the lawyer her story.
He laughed when he heard it, much to Bessie's distress.
"I don't think very much of that idea," he said. "Mr. Holmes is one of our wealthiest and most respected citizens. He'd never let himself or his car be mixed up in such a business. And I'm sure he doesn't know Brack, and has never had anything to do with him."
"But it is Zara's ribbon! I'm positive of that," insisted Bessie. "And he's the same man I saw at Farmer Weeks' place in Hedgeville, too."
"No, no; I'm afraid you're mistaken, Bessie."
"But the ribbon—why should that be in his car?"
"Let me see it."
She handed him the ribbon, and he looked at it carefully.
"Why, that doesn't seem to be very promising evidence, Bessie," he said. "I suppose you could find ribbon like that in any dry goods store almost anywhere. Thousands of girls must have pieces just like it. Even if it is just the same as the one Zara wore, that doesn't prove anything. You'd have to have more evidence than that. However, I'll keep it in mind. You never can tell what's going to turn up, and I suppose it's easily possible to imagine stranger things than Mr. Holmes being mixed up in this affair. Well, you can depend upon it that everything possible is being done, and no one could do more than that. I wish I knew more, that's all."
So did Bessie, and she was thinking hard as they left his office and made their way toward some of the shops in which, the day before, she had so longed to be. Feminine instinct has more than once proved itself superior to masculine logic, and although both Jamieson and Eleanor seemed inclined to laugh at her, Bessie felt that she was right—that Mr. Holmes, in some queer way, was intimately concerned in the web in which she and Zara seemed to be caught.
She couldn't pretend to explain, even to herself, the manner in which he might be affected, but of the main fact she was sure. She knew that her memory had not deceived her; she had seen the man in Hedgeville. And the fact that he had deliberately lied about that seemed to her good evidence that he had something to conceal.
He knew Farmer Weeks. And in some fashion Farmer Weeks was intimately bound up with the affairs of Zara and her father. Everything that had happened since their flight from Hedgeville proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt. He had run great risks to get Zara back; although he was such a notorious miser, he had spent a good deal of money. And he was mixed up with Brack.
Suddenly a thought came to Bessie. Zara's father! He must know. And if he did, wasn't there a chance that he might be willing to talk to her, if she could only manage to see him? He distrusted Charlie Jamieson evidently, since he had refused to talk to him just when the lawyer had been sure that he was going to get some facts that would throw light on the mystery. But with Bessie he might well take a different stand. He had seen her in the country; he knew that she was a friend of Zara.
"Miss Eleanor," said Bessie, quickly, "I've got an idea and I wish you would let me talk to Mr. Jamieson about it. Will you, please—and by myself? You're angry still at Zara and her father, and perhaps you'd think I was all wrong."
"I'm not exactly angry, Bessie," said Eleanor. "I was hurt, but I'm beginning to see that very likely I am wrong, and that they were honestly mistaken, not deliberately ungrateful. At any rate, if Charlie Jamieson can stand the way Zara's father treats him, I guess I don't need to worry about it."
"Then may I go?"
"Yes, and hurry, or you'll find that he's left his office. You won't be long, will you?"
"No, indeed; only a few minutes. Will you be here in this store, Miss Eleanor, when I come back?"
"Yes, I'll meet you at the ribbon counter."
"Thank you, thank you ever so much, Miss Eleanor! I'll hurry just as much as I can, and I certainly won't be long."
Then she was off, and luckily enough she found that the lawyer had not yet gone. He listened to her suggestion with a smile.
"By George," he said, when she had finished, "maybe you've hit the right idea, Bessie, at that! I'm afraid I can't manage it today, but I'll take you to the jail myself in the morning, and see that you get a chance to talk to him. I doubt if he'll say anything, he's either obstinate or badly frightened. But it's worth the chance, if you don't mind going to the jail to see him. It's not a very nice place, you know."
Bessie laughed.
"I'd do worse than that if I thought I could help Zara, Mr. Jamieson," she said. "Do you know I've got the strangest feeling that she's in trouble? It's just as if I could hear her calling me and as if she were sorry for leaving us, and wanted to be back."
Jamieson smiled grimly.
"I think the chances are that she's feeling just about that way," he said. "She certainly ought to be—if we're at all near to guessing the people she's gone with. They won't treat her as well as the Mercers, I'll be bound."
"That's what I'm afraid of, too," said Bessie.
Then thanking him for his promise she made her way to the street, and started to go back to the store where she had left Eleanor. But she was intercepted. And, to her amazement, the person who checked her, as she was walking swiftly along the crowded street, was Jake Hoover.
"'Lo, Bessie," he said shamefacedly, as she started with surprise at the sight of him. "Say, you're pretty in them new clothes of your'n. I'd never 'a' known you."
"I wish you hadn't, then," said Bessie, with spirit. "I'm through with you, Jake Hoover! You won't have me around home any more, to take the blame for all your wickedness. When things happen now they'll know whose fault it is—and maybe they'll begin to think that you may have done some of the things I used to get punished for, too."
"Aw, now, don't get mad, Bessie," he said, trying to pacify her. "This here's the city—'tain't Hedgeville! Maybe I was mean to you sometimes back home, Bessie, but I was jest jokin'. Say, Bess, here's a gentleman wants to talk to you. He's a lawyer an' a mighty smart man. An' he thinks he knows somethin' about your father and mother."
Another figure had loomed up beside that of Jake, and Bessie was hardly surprised to find that it was Brack who was leering at her.
"He's right. I know something about them," he said. "There's precious little old Brack don't know, my dear—an' that's a fact you can bet your last dollar on."
He chuckled, and made a movement as if he intended to take Bessie's hand, but she brushed his claw-like hand away with a motion of disgust.
"I haven't got time to be talking to you now," she said, decisively. "If you know anything you think I ought to be told, tell it to Mr. Jamieson."
"Oh, ho, tell it to him, eh!" he said. "Maybe you'd better be careful, girl! Maybe you wouldn't like everyone to know why your parents had to run away and leave you in such a hurry. Maybe they're in prison, and deserve to be. How'd you like to have people hear that, eh!"
"I wouldn't like it, but I don't believe it's true!" said Bessie, scornfully. "Not for a minute!" And she pressed on, but Brack followed and walked close beside her.
"Remember this—you'll never see them again, except through me," he said, malevolently.