The Mystery of Jockey Hollow Part 13

The party, scattering, though the girls kept together, looked all over the first floor. There was no sign of any missing man, though it took some little time to establish this fact, for there were many nooks, corners, pa.s.sages, closets, and rooms in the lower part of the rambling old place.

The second floor, where the "ghosts" had been said to appear, was likewise devoid of any missing person, man or otherwise. They looked, one after another, calling back and forth like scouts in the woods.

"Well, he isn't here," Mr. Callahan finally announced.

"No," Arden was forced to agree, with a sense of disappointment. She had really hoped to find the man and so dispel the unreasoning fears about the place as well as to save Jim Danton.

"Now, we'll try once more to see how it could happen that Jim could possibly have vanished out of a closet that you say hasn't even a rat-hole," spoke the contractor, as they all went up to the third floor like some awkward brigade. Some of the rooms there were open to the weather, their outer walls having been torn away in uneven patches.

"There's where he went in but where he didn't come out!" said the man who claimed to have heard the weird ghostly howling through the ash-chute.

One by one the men, the girls, and the contractor looked and stepped inside the closet. As before, it seemed as solid as any such place always seems. There were rows of old hand-forged iron hooks on the two side walls and the back, but it appeared solid; unbroken in walls and, as had been said, there wasn't even a rat-hole for escape.

"A collector would give a good deal for those hooks," said Dot. "They're real antiques."

"We're looking for a man, not antiques," said Sim, under her breath.

Mr. Callahan and some of the men stamped on the floor and kicked at the baseboards. Everything was solid. The door was the only visible means of egress.

"And Jim didn't come out of the door!" declared several of his companions, at which all of them shook their heads in positive agreement.

"Well, it sure is queer," the contractor had to admit when they had finished inspecting the third floor, including a big room next to the one containing the closet that seemed to be the starting point of the mystery. This room had an immense fireplace, and one of the men even stooped within it and peered up the chimney.

"He isn't up there," he announced, sc.r.a.ping some soot and dirt down the uncovered ash-chute with his foot. "Jim isn't there."

This was terrifying. Workmen might be familiar with accidents, but the girls could hardly stand such suspense.

The entire third floor, at least the undemolished rooms, was thoroughly searched, with no result. The fourth floor and the roof over it were so nearly destroyed that it required but the briefest of inspections to make sure no missing man was there.

Baffled, the party went down to the lower hall, Mr. Callahan becoming more serious and even showing alarm now that his workman could not be traced or located.

"What do you think now, Arden?" asked Terry in a low voice.

"I don't know what to think, but he must be some place."

"There's no use in our staying here any longer, is there?" asked Dorothy.

"I can't see what good we can do," agreed Sim.

The contractor was talking to his men off a little to one side. He was arguing against their desire to quit.

"If you go," he threatened, "you'll lose the bonus I promised to everybody who'd work a week straight here and not be scared away by silly stories. Besides, we've got to keep on looking for Jim."

"A man vanishing isn't a silly story," snarled one man.

Sim, Terry, and Dorothy were interested in the efforts of the contractor and realized that he was trying desperately to keep his force together.

It was a sort of last stand with him, since so many of the more ignorant workers had left previously. Arden, hardly knowing why, wandered out and around to the rear of the old Hall. She was tired of the confusion but did not want to give up.

"I wonder if I could think this out?" she reasoned. "There must be some answer."

In a sort of mental fog, Arden walked on a little farther into the field.

She found herself in a tangle of weeds where once had been beds of flowers. There was one of the entrances to the great cellar under the old mansion, just under a little back porch.

Arden peered down the crumbling stone steps and looked past the sagging, rotting, open door into the blackness. A damp, musty smell floated up to her; perhaps the remains of the aroma that must have clung to the cellar since its days of full and plenty.

As Arden stood there, she was surprised to see a little flickering light in the darkness of the cellar. Suddenly the light, which was bobbing about like a will-o'-the-wisp, came to a stop.

"Somebody's down there!" gasped Arden. "Oh--"

A moment later she heard a scream. It was the high-pitched and frightened voice of a girl.

Then, out of the black cellar, with horror showing on her face, came running-Betty Howe!

"Oh! Oh!" she screamed. "It's terrible! Down there-in the cellar-a dead man!"

"A dead man!" repeated Arden, her mind now working fast. She wanted to be sure of her ground. "Are you sure, Betty?" she asked.

"Yes! Oh, yes! I saw him-as plain as anything!"

Betty rushed toward Arden, all but falling upon her, the flashlight still glowing. At the same moment Arden became aware of the approach of an old woman from around the corner of the house, at the rear.

CHAPTER XIII Betty and the Books

Arden Blake, for a moment, did not know which to attend to first, the strange old woman or the nervous and excited Betty Howe with her gasping declaration of a dead man in the cellar.

Then, in a flash, Arden decided if there was a dead man there he must be the missing Jim. And if he were dead he would remain there. Also Arden knew Betty, but she did not know this strange woman who had so suddenly, and seemingly mysteriously, appeared on the scene.

"Don't be afraid, Betty!" Arden told the trembling girl. "We are here with you-the other girls are around in front, and so is the contractor and his men. But who is this-lady?"

The strange woman was regarding Arden with malevolent eyes, and her mouth seemed to be muttering words. Betty, who, up to this moment, did not appear to have been aware of the other's presence, now turned and looked.

She showed no surprise.

"Oh," she said in a low voice to Arden, "that is Granny's cousin, Viney Tucker. She lives with us. I guess Granny didn't mention her before, because, well-she is a little--"

Betty did not need to add the word "queer," Arden could see that for herself. But there was nothing abnormal about Viney Tucker. She had once been a handsome woman, Arden reasoned, perhaps even more so than Granny Howe.

"Cousin Viney helps Granny with the work, as she used to do when we all lived in the Hall," Betty hurried to say. "But don't bother about her.

She goes and comes as and when she pleases. But the man in the cellar-the dead man. Oh, I was so frightened! What shall we do?"

"This probably explains the whole mystery," said Arden.

"What mystery?"

"About the missing workman, Jim Danton. Didn't you hear all the excitement about him, Betty?"