Penny Nichols and the Mystery of the Lost Key Part 16

Penny made no response. She bent down to peer through the keyhole.

"See anything?" Rosanna asked.

"Just a big empty room. But there is something up against the far wall!

Rosanna, it's a pipe organ!"

After a minute she stepped away that her friend might see for herself.

Rosanna agreed that the shadowy outline was an organ and a magnificent one.

"The music came from this room all right," Penny said excitedly. "I wish we could get in."

After trying the door again, the girls returned to the second floor. As Penny closed the stairway door she noticed that it had a key. Upon impulse she turned it in the lock and pocketed the key with a smile of satisfaction.

"That should put a stop to the music for a few nights," she remarked.

"I'll show that ghost I can lock a few doors myself!"

As they reached their own bedroom, Rosanna said that she believed she would lie down for a half hour. The events of the past few days had worn her down, both physically and mentally.

"Do," Penny urged: "A sleep will refresh you. I think I'll go downstairs and see if I can discover what plot is brewing."

She descended the spiral stairway and paused at the library. It was empty. The house was strangely silent. Penny crossed the hall to the living room. Heavy draperies screened the arched doorway. As Penny pulled them aside to enter, she saw Mrs. Leeds standing at the fireplace, her back to the door. Something about her manner aroused Penny's suspicions.

She waited and watched.

Mrs. Leeds had built up a roaring fire on the hearth. She held a paper in her hand. Deliberately, she tore it into a dozen pieces and dropped them into the flames.

Penny hastily entered the room.

Mrs. Leeds wheeled, her cheeks flushing. "How you startled me, Miss Nichols! You surely have a way of coming in quietly."

"Sorry," Penny said, walking over to the hearth. "How nice to have a fire, although it is a little warm today."

"The room seemed damp," Mrs. Leeds said nervously. "I was cold. I think I'll go to my room and get a sweater."

The instant Mrs. Leeds had disappeared, Penny s.n.a.t.c.hed a charred piece of paper from the hearth. It was the only sc.r.a.p which had not been completely consumed by the flames.

Only a few scattered lines with many words missing were visible. The others were blackened or torn away.

Penny distinguished a part of the writing: "Last will and testam-- --do bequeath to my niece, Ro--"

"This must be a portion of Jacob Winters' will!" she thought. "Mrs. Leeds probably found it somewhere in the house and decided to destroy it because she or her daughter weren't mentioned!"

She stared at the word which began Ro----. The remaining letters had been torn away. Had Mr. Winters written Rosanna's name? If only she had entered the living room a minute earlier she might have prevented the doc.u.ment from being destroyed!

In reviewing Mrs. Leeds' actions during the past two days, Penny could not doubt that the woman had actually found the missing will. Since her arrival at Raven Ridge she had spent most of her time poking about into odd corners of the house. The locked drawer of the desk had annoyed her exceedingly.

"I'll just take a look and see if it's still locked," Penny thought.

She opened the desk and tried the drawer. It readily opened.

"Empty," Penny commented grimly. "Just as I suspected."

She examined the lock. It was evident at a glance that it had been broken by a sharp instrument and not unlocked with a key.

"The will was hidden in this drawer," she mused. "I feel confident of it.

And it must have been drawn up in Rosanna's favor or Mrs. Leeds never would have destroyed it."

Penny closed the desk and carefully placed the charred bit of paper in her dress pocket. She was deeply disturbed over the discovery, realizing that Mrs. Leeds, by destroying the doc.u.ment, had gained a great advantage. However, she had no intention of abandoning the fight.

"I'll keep this strictly to myself," she decided. "For the present I'll not even tell Rosanna. It would only disappoint her to learn that the will has been burned."

Since Mrs. Leeds' arrival at Raven Ridge, Penny had done everything in her power to avoid a break with the arrogant society woman. She had ignored snubs and many unkind remarks. Now she felt that if Rosanna's interests were to be safeguarded, she no longer could afford to play a waiting game.

"Mrs. Leeds and Max Laponi have shown their hand," she reflected. "They mean to gain their ends by any possible means. But since they're stooping to underhanded tricks, I may have a few little schemes of my own!"

Penny was unusually silent that evening. Rosanna noticed it at once but thinking that her friend was absorbed in her own thoughts, refrained from questioning her.

At six o'clock the girls motored to Andover for dinner. To their chagrin, Mrs. Leeds and her daughter Alicia chanced to select the same cafe. All during the meal, Penny noticed the woman's eyes upon her. As she and Rosanna arose to leave, Mrs. Leeds hastily followed them.

"Miss Winters, may I speak with you a moment?" she began coldly.

"Why, yes, of course," Rosanna responded.

"I mean alone."

Rosanna hesitated and glanced at Penny. The latter started to move away.

"No, don't go," Rosanna said quickly. "I am sure that anything Mrs. Leeds may wish to say to me can be said in front of you."

"Very well," Mrs. Leeds returned icily. "Evidence has reached me today which proves conclusively that I am Jacob Winters' sole heir."

Rosanna took the blow without the quiver of an eyelash.

"What evidence, may I ask, Mrs. Leeds?"

"I don't feel compelled to go into that, Miss Winters. Certainly not in the presence of strangers or on the street."

"Penny isn't exactly a stranger," Rosanna smiled.

"From the first I have been very tolerant, I think," Mrs. Leeds went on, ignoring the orphan's remark. "By your own admission you have no credentials--we have only your word that you are even related to Jacob Winters."

"I had a letter and key--the same as you," Rosanna faltered. "Either I lost them or they were stolen."

"And Rosanna happens to be a niece of Mr. Winters," Penny added significantly. "I believe you are only a cousin, Mrs. Leeds?"

The woman eyed her furiously.

"Just what is it that you want me to do?" Rosanna asked.

"I think you both should leave immediately."