CHAPTER XIV.

THE MAN IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

Mary was the first one to speak and then it was to reassure Renfro, “You needn’t worry about your folks askin’ any questions,” she told him. “They went to the show unexpected like and won’t know what time you get home. I heard your paw tell your maw he’s got the tickets and he bought only two for he thought you needed to go to bed early after bein’ out so late with your route.”

Renfro nodded and felt a bit of relief. He and Mary were near the center of the car. Mary had chosen that spot because there were few passengers there and they could talk without being afraid some one could hear them.

All the passengers and even the conductor had stared at the odd pair when they boarded the car. Several had smiled broadly and Renfro had been indignant until he had happened to look at Mary and someway in her downfall at the fence she had gotten her hat turned completely around. The big red rose directly on the back of her hat was too much for him. And he too giggled.

“Mary,” he whispered, “Your hat’s back slided and--”

Mary Dugan laughed heartily. “Don’t make much difference,” she added, “Me nose and face is so bloomin’ red tonight I don’t need the rose for any further touch of color to me make up.”

And then she began to tell about her experiences. She had moved close to the big house at the corner at which she had arrived, keeping a close look out for the big airedale which she felt sure would turn up at the most unexpected minute. Carefully she had worked her way around the house--the west side, the south side, the east and there she had discovered her first sign of life in the big house.

A glimmer of light thru a torn place in the heavy blind over the window. She had realized in a minute that thru those thick blinds she would not discover anything. So she had felt her way around to the north, found a loose weatherboard, pulled it off and worked the blade of her knife, which she always carried, thru the plastering. A few vigorous, skilful twists and she had worked a hole which made a good peeping place for her right eye.

Her homely face became alight with the joy of success. She had chosen that spot well. It gave her a view into the lighted room. Cautiously then she had worked out another peep hole for the left eye and then she had studied every move in the adjoining room.

After a time she had discovered that there was but one occupant and that he was exceedingly cautious. He moved always so that he was not near the window. He had passed the doorway only three or four times and each of these times Mary had studied him closely. He was short, heavy set, his hair was gray, his clothes of an ancient style and he was what Mary termed “uncouth” getting an “ou” sound which Renfro felt that he would always remember.

But he had never once turned his face toward the open doorway and Mary had not seen his face. So, of course, she knew nothing of the condition of his eyebrows. But she felt sure that they would be missing. His hair had been white. Naturally his eyebrows would be too. His hair looked as if it were very coarse.

And the eyebrows in captivity back in her Bible were so coarse that had they been scattered on the floor they would hardly have been taken for human hair.

Moreover the man was in hiding. That was plainly evident. And Captain Pete? Didn’t that wily old fellow show by his actions that he was helping to conceal some one in the big house?

Renfro clutched his paper bag in which were the rabbits. Yes, indeed, he would watch Captain Pete. But Mary was not thinking much of watching Captain Pete. They must find some way to see that man’s face. No use to knock. They would have to plan some better ruse than that. She would think about it over night, she assured Renfro, re-read some of her correspondence course in “detectiveness” and be ready to have a conference with him on the next day.

“Some plan, partner,” Renfro slapped Mary boyishly on the back completely dislodging her hat. “You’re a brick, a gold one, and a jeweled one and--”

“A plain chimney one,” Mary laughed while she twisted and turned her hat until she felt that from the way it set on her head that the red rose was either directly in front or behind. A cautious search with her fingers made her mind easy on that, and she continued her conversation. “All right, Hooch, only don’t never call me a brick for a foundation. It’ll make me think of that fence and my downfall. All the way to that house I was so frivolous like, that I kept humming over and over. ‘How firm a foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord’, and laughin’ because I, one of the Saints, couldn’t git over a wobbly log fence, and wonderin’ what I would do should I strike a firm foundation in my path.”

They had reached the mission, now, and the choir was in full force of rehearsal. The bass was leading much to Mary’s disgust. She snorted derisively and assured Renfro that when she got in there they wouldn’t ever hear that insurance agent, who put on airs, sing.

At the door when he turned to go home she suddenly clutched at his coat. “Oh. Hooch,” she whispered, “I clean forgot to tell you something very disturbin’ I read. When them detectives looked at them scratches on the window they said right away they had been done by a knife and then they found two of them coarse hairs. They didn’t think much of them, the paper says, but still they are keeping them. And” she pushed him down the steps, “that means we have got to work fast.”

Renfro found that he was trembling when he reached the foot of the steps--not from fear of being apprehended himself but of some other person discovering the kidnapers before he could. His only hope lay in the fact that the detectives had all based their search on the idea that Helen Wier had been kidnaped by persons who would either soon demand a ransom or by some one who wanted to have revenge on Judge Wier.

And neither Captain Pete nor his brother could have that motive in mind he was sure. He had investigated some old newspapers at the Globe office that evening and found that Judge Wier had been a mere stripling of a lawyer when Captain Pete’s brother had been found guilty of counterfeiting and been sent to prison. Also he had not had anything to do with the prosecution.

He looked back over his shoulder, and saw the light in the windows of Mary’s church even down to the basement. It was all a brilliant blaze. “A fire!” He gasped and started to run back.

Then he remembered. Mary had said that the charitable women of the church were going to work there that night to fix Thanksgiving baskets for the poor. They were making clothes for them. The other members of the church would have to donate the food and clothing.

Renfro gave a sudden jump. It was followed by another, and then a wild Highland fling. “I have it, I have it, I have it!” he yelled out loud.

A door opened directly in front of him. An inquisitive head was thrust out, a fretful voice asked, “What’s the matter?”

And Renfro fled.

Half way down the block he stopped to laugh. “But it was worth making some one think I was insane,” he laughed. “And I’ll do it, too.”

Early in the morning he would go to the minister of the church which his mother, his father and himself attended. He would tell him about the turkeys. He would offer three of them to the poor, which the church would feed at Thanksgiving time. There were many people in that wealthy church who bought The Globe on the street instead of being regular subscribers. He would add some of them to his list.

“I’ll do it--I will,” he whispered this time.

But his whisper was full of ardor. “And wait until next week when I see Morrison’s face. Six of those turkeys are mine.”

Just then he decided to go into a little lunch room hardly bigger than the lunch wagons in the west part of town, and get himself something warm to drink. There was one near the corner at which the car stopped. He looked through the door, saw the steaming “hot dogs” on an iron grate and entered.

The place was deserted except for the old man doing the cooking and a dog lying close to his little stove. The big dog was a collie and a very suspicious creature for he barked at Renfro as he entered. The man quieted him with a hoarse growl, took Renfro’s order and filled it all the time frowning sullenly as if he considered a customer an insult.

He was tall and thin and bent and broken. Evidence of a hard life were written all over him. His shrewd eyes spoke volumes about bartering. Renfro was wondering about the methods he used when there sounded on the back door an imperative tapping and the man went back to answer it.

Renfro watched him swing some rabbits into view, heard him quarrel about the shots being in their bodies instead of their heads, and smiled when he paid the person who was selling the rabbits with a handful of small coins. “Seems to lower the price that way,” he thought.

And then he listened closely. The restaurant man has said something about the thickets west of town being full of rabbits and that a fellow who had access to them ought to be a little cheaper on his rabbits to a poor restaurant man than was this old man.

With a careful, quiet movement he was off his stool, and had started toward the front door. But the big dog intercepted his progress, had given a series of growls and stood in a menacing position till the owner slammed the door and came to Renfro’s rescue.

The man was half way down the street before Renfro was to the front door. And it was evident he did not intend taking a car so Renfro skirted around a block and passed him farther down, face to face.

At least Renfro’s face was toward the other’s, whose visage was shaded by a heavy pair of goggles.

But Renfro knew one thing. The man was not Captain Pete. And he was almost sure of another. That he was the man whom he had met face to face the first time he had seen Lang Tammy. But of one thing he was uncertain. Mary had seen a stranger in the big house a short time before. Then how could he have gotten across the town on foot in such a short time?