Just then she heard Peggy say, “I believe I’ll go up first. I can’t stand this creepy darkness. I keep thinking that smuggler’s hidden down here and——”
“Peggy’s so upset and nervous, she’d better go up first,” Jo Ann admitted to herself reluctantly. Aloud she said, “All right, Peg, you go next. See what you can do to help Manuel.”
“But, Jo, Manuel’s dead!” she wailed.
Jo Ann shook her head as she answered, “I can’t believe that he is.”
Shuddering, Peggy went on: “I’d planned to wait for you two before I took a step when I got up. The lights are off up there. Whoever killed Manuel must’ve cut off the lights.”
“Mr. Eldridge’ll have some kind of a light, surely. If Manuel’s breathing—I can’t help feeling that he is—do everything you can for him.”
Soon the quivering Peggy was inside the bag and being slowly pulled up the shaft. When, however, she had ascended only a short way, something went wrong with the cable, and the bag hung suspended—motionless.
Peggy’s terrified shriek echoed and re-echoed through the shaft.
“Horrors!” gasped Florence. “I hope the cable’s not stuck. Sometimes it’ll get stuck that way for an hour or more.”
“You’ll be all right in a minute,” Jo Ann called up to Peggy. “Don’t get scared.” In a low voice she added to Florence, “I hope I’m telling the whole truth.”