DARCY SHERWOOD WANTED ON CHARGE OF ABDUCTION
AND MURDER OF JOYCE RADWAY
Who left her home in Meadow Brook one year ago and
has not been heard from since.”
The article went on to state that there were eye-witnesses to the murder and burial of the girl who were willing to testify in the case. It was also rumored that Eugene Massey, the cousin of the murdered girl, had located the grave and exhumed the body which had been identified by portions of clothing worn when Miss Radway left her home. Meantime, Darcy Sherwood had also mysteriously disappeared, some said to Canada, and a reward was offered for any knowledge of him; although it was also stated that the detectives had been right on his track for months, and could easily locate and produce him when he was needed.
For a moment Joyce thought she was going to faint. It went through her mind to wonder if Harrington had known what was in the paper when he gave it to her and took this way to let her know it. But she rejected the idea instantly. His manner had been too pleasant and altogether intimate for that. He was one who could never brook a thing like this publicity in an intimate friend. His life was too well ordered and conventional to make it possible to treat a girl just the same as ever if he knew anything like this had been connected with her name. Her next impulse was to hide the paper where no eye could ever see it. She folded it quickly into a thick square and stuffed it into her handbag. As she did so its date caught her eye, and her heart froze within her. It was more than two weeks back. What might not have happened in that time? Darcy in such awful trouble and she, the only one who could help him, chained to these children.
CHAPTER XXIX
Joyce cast a helpless look around at the busy little figures behind their desks. She glanced at the clock. It was only half past nine. There was a train to the city in three-quarters of an hour. She must make it. She would have to go home for money, too, and to change some of her things. She must get some one to take her place, and she must manage it so that no one would ask her any questions. Her brain seemed fairly burning up with the rapidity of her thoughts.
Miss Beatty was a retired teacher who lived not far away and who sometimes substituted when a teacher was ill. Would she be at home now, and free? And how could she get out to telephone her?
With fingers that trembled so that she could hardly move her pencil she wrote a little note to the teacher of the senior high school class and sent it by one of the children. It read:
“Dear Miss Clayton: Can you let me have Mary Grover to keep order for a little while? I am obliged to be out of the room.”
Mary Grover appeared in three or four minutes. Meantime Joyce had summoned her senses and picked up everything she did not want to leave in her desk, and slipped out to the telephone booth in the hall. She dared not take the time to run across the street to the drug store for more privacy. While she waited for her number she prayed that the Lord would arrange the way before her. Her head was throbbing so that she could scarcely see, and her heart beating wildly. She did not dare to think except just about getting to the train. It seemed if she did, that she would have to cry out and shout the horror of her soul at what had happened.