ALICE MAPES.
“Kidnapped! Now we understand! Bud Hyslop is at the bottom of this business, you can be sure of that,” stormed Terry, as she made her way back to the plane.
“But what does mother mean by ‘trouble here. Come’?” asked Prim. “Do you suppose Dad is sick? Maybe we’d better start home right away, Terry.”
“If Dad were sick, Mother wouldn’t just say, ‘trouble here,’ she’d say very decidedly, ‘Your father ill, come at once!’”
Prim laughed and the nerve tension relaxed. “I guess you’re right, Terry. She wouldn’t beat about the bush where Dad is concerned. Then what does she mean? What can be wrong?”
But neither of the girls foresaw that their father would be suspected of the kidnapping and that their absence from home would be taken as a sign that they were mixed up in the plot.
When Bennett Graham received a ransom note, telling him that his son had been kidnapped and demanding the sum of fifty thousand dollars, the man was almost beside himself with anxiety. Threats were made against the two boys and Graham was making arrangements to have the sum paid over. Then he received a mysterious telephone message which hinted that Dick Mapes and his daughter, Terry, were responsible for the kidnapping. He was told that Dick Mapes was in with a gang of criminals and that they would stop at nothing.
It was well known that Dick was having a hard time financially, that his doctor bills had taken every cent he possessed and that he needed money desperately at this particular time. To Allan’s father this seemed motive enough for the kidnapping.
Bennett Graham snapped the receiver of his telephone into place and without waiting to think things over calmly he raced his car toward the Dick Mapes Flying Field.
Here he found Dick in his wheel chair and before the cripple could speak, Allan’s father burst out with a storm of abuse.