Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Twenty-One
I begged to differ with Mr. Pittman, but he’s the man who writes
the checks. I resolved to prevent my latest heroine from getting off on the
wrong foot with my editor by plunging her into a dread delirium in the opening
paragraph of my current installment. I then intended to leave her on her bed of
sickness for the next twenty pages while the villain went off and plotted
dastardly deeds with his band of desperados. I decided that a secret cave would
be involved. Readers of Pittman’s
would surely put their stamp of approval on a secret cave.
At four o’clock Dad came home from the office.
“Did he telephone?” I asked.
“Did who telephone?”
“Mr. Harwood, of course.”
“No, not while I was at the office.”
“I thought surely he would.”
“Mr. Harwood told us he might not telephone before tomorrow.”
“Yes, that is true. You heard nothing more about the
disappearance?”
“No, Jack will get to work on the story tomorrow after he talks
with Harwood. But don’t count upon it developing into anything tremendous,
Jane.”
I slept fitfully that night. I couldn’t stop thinking of what
might develop at Old Mansion. In the morning, I surprised Dad by climbing into
the car beside him when he was ready to start for the newspaper office.
“Why am I thus honored?” he inquired.
“Oh, I’d like to be on hand when that telephone call comes through
from Mr. Harwood.”
“I can let you know from the office.”
“You might forget,” I said. “No, if you don’t mind me being
underfoot, I’ll just tag along.”
I busied myself in Dad’s office with typing up another installment
of “Evangeline: The Horse Thief’s Unwilling Fiancée.” During the first hour, I
wrote the unfortunate Evangeline into a delirium of sufficient dreadfulness to
ensure she’d be confined to bed for at least the next twenty pages. During the
second hour, I worked on getting the dastardly villain from his ranch to the
secret cave. I’d turned out four pages of the villain wandering the trackless
wasteland in search of the secret cave before my poor beleaguered brain
rebelled at the task of describing another cactus.
I wandered out to the pressroom to watch Burt Kissinger draw a
cartoon. I looked over at Jack’s desk, but it was vacant. I wandered into the
photographers’ quarters to see what my friend Shep was doing, but he was also
absent. Finally, I went back into my father’s private office and wrote my
dastardly villain all the way to the sturdy wooden gate which barred entrance
to the secret cave.
“I want your opinion,” I said to Dad. “What do you think of this
password: ‘Death to Traitors’?”
“Really, Jane,” my father said peevishly, “this is a newsroom, not
some sort of spy organization.”
“Imagine you are a vicious desperado masquerading as an upstanding
rancher who has been wandering for three days in a trackless wasteland, you’ve
run out of water, your horse has gone lame from a tangle with a barrel cactus,
but you’ve finally come upon the secret cave you’ve been searching for? Would
you consider ‘Death to Traitors’ to be a sufficiently dramatic password to make
you stick around the entrance for another page and a half until someone opens
the gate for you and lets you in?”
My father did not dignify my query with a reply.
The telephone rang many times, and always I straightened alertly,
but the call was never from Mr. Harwood.
“What do you suppose is the matter with that man?” I said to Dad.
“Here it is eleven o’clock, and not a word from him.”
“He probably forgot,” my father said. “After you’ve been in the
newspaper business for as long as I have, you’ll learn promises don’t mean a
great deal.”
“But he was so emphatic, Dad. I can’t help thinking he would have
telephoned if something hadn’t happened.”
“No doubt your clue about Merriweather was a dud. Possibly, Mr.
Harwood decided to return to Chicago yesterday.”
“That needn’t have prevented him from letting us know.” I walked
over to my father’s desk. “Dad, I have a notion to telephone Emma. She could
tell me whether or not Mr. Harwood went to Old Mansion yesterday.”
“Not a bad idea. Go right ahead.”
I placed the call. Mrs. Earnestine Conrad answered.
“May I speak with Emma?”
“Miss Brown is very busy.” Mrs. Conrad sounded agitated. “Can’t I
take the message?”
“No, thank you, I must speak with Emma,” I insisted. “I assure you
it is important.”
“You’re not a reporter?” Mrs. Conrad demanded.
“No.”
It was a very strange question. Why should she suspect that I was
reporter?
“Just a minute, then,” Mrs. Conrad said.
There was a long wait while I held the receiver. Several times I
glanced at my wristwatch, wondering why Mrs. Conrad delayed in bringing Emma to
the telephone. I should have insisted on making a person to person call, for
the newspaper was now being charged for the elapsed time. I was on the verge of
hanging up the receiver when a voice on the other end said hello.
“Hello, is that you, Emma? This is Jane. I called to ask—”
“I can’t talk now,” Emma interrupted. “Oh, Jane, dreadful things
go on here! Mr. Harwood—”
Then there was a sharp click as if a receiver had been replaced in
its cradle. The connection was broken.
Next Episode
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