Ghost Beyond the Gate Part 27

Penny left the station feeling none too satisfied. Although she had nothing against Mr. Burns, she sensed that he did not like her. She wondered if she could depend on him to repeat her story as she had told it.

"If that estate house isn't investigated immediately, I'll do something myself!" she thought.

Joe, the cabman, still waited. Signaling him, Penny regretfully explained that she would have no further use for his services.

"Well, if you change your mind and want to do some more ghost huntin'

tonight, just give me a ring," Joe grinned. "My number's 20476."

Penny carefully wrote it down. She then walked to the nearby _Star_ building where many matters awaited her attention. There she worked without interruption until late afternoon, taking only enough time to call the police station. Detective Fuller was not available. So far as she could learn, no investigation had been made of the Harrison estate.

Thoroughly annoyed, Penny tramped home to dinner. Only a cold meal awaited her. Mrs. Weems, ill with a headache, had set out a few dishes on the kitchen table, and gone to bed.

"It's nothing," the housekeeper insisted as Penny questioned her anxiously. "I've just worried too much the past few days."

"Let me call Doctor Barnell."

"Indeed not," Mrs. Weems remonstrated. "I'll be all right tomorrow."

Penny brewed a cup of tea and made the housekeeper as comfortable as she could. By the time she had eaten a snack and washed the dishes it was eight o'clock. Debating a long while, she went to the telephone and summoned a cab.

"Number 20476," she requested.

Penny was zipping on her galoshes when the doorbell rang. Without giving her time to answer it, Louise Sidell marched into the kitchen bearing a freshly baked lemon pie.

"Mother sent this over," she explained. "I slipped on the ice coming over and nearly had a catastrophe!"

Carefully Louise deposited the pie on the kitchen table. Cutting short Penny's praise of it, she inquired alertly: "Going somewhere?"

Penny explained that she intended to motor to the Harrison estate.

"Not alone?" Louise demanded.

"I'll have to, I guess. Mrs. Weems is sick, so I can't take her along."

"You could invite me," Louise said eagerly. "I'll telephone mother to come over and stay with Mrs. Weems while we're gone!"

The arrangement proved satisfactory to everyone. Mrs. Sidell came immediately to the house, and very shortly thereafter the girls sped away in Joe's taxicab.

The night was a pleasant one, mildly cold, but with a bright moon.

"Park before you get to the estate," Penny directed the driver. "We don't want to be seen. It might defeat our purpose."

Joe drew up in a clump of trees some distance from the Harrison grounds.

He then walked with the girls to the spiked fence. There was no sign of activity.

Two hours elapsed. During that time nothing unusual occurred. No lights were visible inside the house. Even Penny began to lose heart.

"This is getting pretty boring," she sighed. "I don't believe the ghost is going to show up tonight."

"We may have been observed," suggested Louise. "One can see very plainly tonight."

After another half hour had elapsed Penny was willing to return to the cab. The three started away from the fence. Just then they heard a door slam inside the house. Instantly they froze against the screen of bushes, waiting.

"There's the ghost!" whispered Louise.

A figure had appeared in the garden beyond the gate. But the one who walked alone was not a ghost. Plainly he was garbed in street clothes rather than white. Over his suit he wore a heavy overcoat. A snap-brimmed hat was pulled low on his forehead.

Penny could not see the man's face, but the silhouette seemed strangely familiar.

"That looks like Dad!" she whispered, clutching Louise's hand. "It is he!

I'm sure!"

"Oh, it can't be--"

Penny paid no heed to her chum's protest. Breaking away, she ran toward the gate.

The man in the garden became suddenly alert. As he heard the approaching footsteps he gazed toward the road. Upon seeing Penny he started to retreat.

"Wait!" she called frantically. "Don't you know me, Dad? It's Penny!"

The words seemed to convey nothing to the man. He shook his head in a baffled sort of way, and walked swiftly toward the house.

Penny ran on to the gate. It was locked, but she vaulted over, landing in a heap on the other side. By the time she had picked herself up, the man had vanished into the house.

"Are you hurt?" Louise cried, hurrying to the gate.

Penny brushed snow from her coat and did not answer.

"That man couldn't have been your father," Louise said kindly. "Do come back, Penny."

"But it was Dad! I'm sure of it!"

"You called to him," Louise argued. "If it had been Mr. Parker he couldn't have failed to recognize your voice."

"It was Dad," Penny insisted stubbornly. "He's being held a prisoner here!"

"But that's ridiculous! Whoever that man is, he could escape from the grounds just as easily as you climbed the gate."

Penny did not wish to believe, yet she knew her chum was right.

"Anyway, I'm going to talk to him," she declared. "Now that I am inside the grounds, I'll ring the doorbell."

Leaving Louise and Joe on the other side of the fence, Penny went boldly to the front door. She knocked several times and rang the bell. There was no response.

"Why doesn't someone answer?" she thought impatiently.

At the rear of the house a door slammed. Suddenly Louise called from the gate: "Penny! A woman is leaving the estate by the back way!"

Penny darted to the corner of the house. The same woman she had met earlier that day had let herself out the rear gate. Holding the skirts of her long black coat, she fairly ran across the snowy fields.