Behind the Green Door Part 25

"Not Dad. Usually he just calls up the Personal Shopper at Hobson's store and says: 'She's five-feet three, size twelve and likes bright colors.

Send out something done up in gift wrapping and charge to my account.'"

Penny sighed drearily. "Then after Christmas I have to take it back and ask for an exchange."

"Have you ever tried giving your father a list?" suggested Mrs. Downey, smiling at the description.

"Often. He nearly always ignores it."

"What did you ask him for this year?"

"Only a new automobile."

"Only! My goodness, aren't your tastes rather expensive?"

"Oh, he won't give it to me," replied Penny. "I'll probably get a sweater with pink and blue stripes or some dead merchandise the store couldn't p.a.w.n off on anyone except an unsuspecting father."

Mrs. Downey laughed as she picked up the tray.

"I hope your father will be able to get to Pine Top for Christmas."

"So do I," agreed Penny, frowning. "I thought when I wired him that Harvey Maxwell was here he would come right away."

"He may have decided it would do no good to contact the man. Knowing Mr.

Maxwell I doubt if your father could make any sort of deal with him."

"If only he would come here he might be able to learn something which would help his case," Penny declared earnestly. "Maxwell and Fergus are mixed up in some queer business."

Mrs. Downey smiled tolerantly. While she always listened attentively to Penny's theories and observations, she had not been greatly excited by her tale of the mysterious Green Room. She knew the two men were unscrupulous in a business way and that they were making every effort to force her to give up the lodge, but she could not bring herself to believe they were involved in more serious affairs. She thought that Penny's great eagerness to prove Harvey Maxwell's dishonesty had caused her imagination to run riot.

"Francine Sellberg wouldn't be at Pine Top if something weren't in the wind," Penny went on reflectively. "She followed Ralph Fergus and Maxwell here. And that in itself was rather strange."

"How do you mean, Penny?"

"Fergus must have been having trouble in managing the hotel or he wouldn't have gone to Riverview to see Maxwell. What he had to say evidently couldn't be trusted to a letter or a telegram."

"Mr. Fergus often absents himself on trips. Now and then he goes to Canada."

"I wonder why?" asked Penny alertly.

"He and Mr. Maxwell have a hotel there, I've heard. I doubt if his trips have any particular significance."

"Well, at any rate, Fergus brought Maxwell back from Riverview to help him solve some weighty problem. From their talk on the plane, I gathered they were plotting to put you out of business, Mrs. Downey."

"I think you are right there, Penny."

"But why should your lodge annoy them? You could never take a large number of guests away from their hotel."

"Ralph Fergus is trying to buy up the entire mountainside," Mrs. Downey declared bitterly. "He purchased the site of the old mine, and I can't see what good it will ever do the hotel."

"You don't suppose there's valuable mineral--"

"No," Mrs. Downey broke in with an amused laugh. "The mine played out years ago."

"Has Mr. Fergus tried to buy your lodge?"

"He's made me two different offers. Both were hardly worth considering.

If he comes through with any reasonable proposition I may sell. My future plans depend a great deal upon whether or not Peter Jasko is willing to renew a lease on the ski slopes."

"When does the lease expire, Mrs. Downey?"

"The end of next month. I've asked Mr. Jasko to come and see me as soon as he can. However, I have almost no hope he'll sign a new lease."

Mrs. Downey carried the tray to the door. There she paused to inquire: "Anything I can bring you, Penny? A book or a magazine?"

"No, thank you. But you might give me my portable typewriter. I think I'll write a letter to Dad just to remind him he still has a daughter."

Pulling a table to the bedside, Mrs. Downey placed the typewriter and paper on it before going away. Penny propped herself up with pillows and rolled a blank sheet into the machine.

At the top of the page she pecked out: "Bulletin." After the dateline, she began in her best journalistic style, using upper case letters:

"PENNY PARKER, ATTRACTIVE AND TALENTED DAUGHTER OF ANTHONY PARKER, WHILE RIDING THE TAIL OF A RACING BOB-SLED WAS THROWN FOR A TEN YARD LOSS, SUSTAINING NUMEROUS BRUISES. THE PATIENT IS BEARING HER SUFFERING WITH FORt.i.tUDE AND ANTIc.i.p.aTES BEING IN CIRCULATION BY GLMLFFLS"

Penny stared at the last word she had written. Inadvertently, her fingers had struck the wrong letters. She had intended to write "tomorrow." With an exclamation of impatience she jerked the paper from the machine.

And then she studied the sentence she had typed with new interest. There was something strangely familiar about the jumbled word, GLMLFFLS.

"It looks a little like that coded message I found!" she thought excitedly.

Forgetting her bruises, Penny rolled out of bed. She struck the floor with a moan of anguish. Hobbling over to the dresser, she found the sc.r.a.p of paper which she had saved, and brought it back to the bed.

The third word in the message was similar, although not the same as the one she had written by accident. Penny typed them one above the other.

GLMLFFLS GLULFFLS

"They're identical except for the third letter," she mused. "Why, I believe I have it! You simply strike the letter directly below the true one--that is, the one in the next row of keys. And when your true letter is in the bottom row, you strike the corresponding key on the top row.

That's why I wrote an M for a U!"

Penny was certain she had deciphered the third word of the code and that it was the same as she had written unintentionally. Quickly she wrote out the entire jumbled message, and under it her translation.

YL GFZKY GLULFFLS NO TRAIN TOMORROW

"That's it!" she chortled, bounding up and down in bed.

And then her elation fled away. A puzzled expression settled over her face.

"I have it, only I haven't," she muttered. "What can the message mean?

There are no trains at Pine Top--not even a railroad station. This leaves everything in a worse puzzle than before!"