She had retired passively enough, but when the Señora Rodriguez came with her morning coffee, the room was empty. There were no signs of a struggle, the silence had remained unbroken throughout the night, and the front door was found to have been unfastened from the inside, although the Señora Rodriguez asserted that she had locked and bolted it before retiring.
This argued that Tia Juana had of her own volition slipped away from the house on some unknown mission, but to Willa such an hypothesis seemed unlikely. In the first place, the old woman was heart and soul in the plan in which Willa herself was the moving spirit, and well content to leave all things to the guidance of her idolized young friend. Then, too, she had the dread of the strange new city of one who had followed a long and open trail and would scarcely in her right mind have ventured forth to brave it on her own initiative. Had some cajoling or threatening message reached her which induced her to play into Wiley's hands, or could it be that Señora Rodriguez had been bribed to aid in her abduction?
Fierce and implacable as Tia Juana's will was, age had taken its toll of her mental strength and resiliency, and Willa shuddered to think of the coercion which might be brought to bear upon her bewildered and shaken sensibilities.
Dan noted his mistress' profound despondency, but ventured no remark until she addressed him just as they reached the bridge once more.
"Dan, you drove a car once for a detective agency, you told me. Did you ever do any detective work yourself? Do you know anything of their methods?"
"I do, Miss!" he responded promptly, a sparkle dawning in his eyes. "Not that I ever did any of it, but I used to watch the other fellers at work and I'm thinking I could go them one better at it. I've seen them make some bonehead plays, in my time, and some wonderful hits, too, I'll admit that."
"Do you want to try a little of it for me?" Willa asked. "An old Spanish woman disappeared early this morning from that house back on Second Place, and I want her found without delay. It's she whom those other men are after; she used to live with her grandson, a hunchback, in that cottage upon the Parkway. There will be double wages in it for you while you're working on it, and a thousand dollars reward if you find her and bring her to me."
She went on to describe Tia Juana, and Dan listened in rapt attention to every detail, fired with instant enthusiasm for the new job.
"You leave it to me, Miss!" he announced confidently when she had finished. "I'll get into that house to-morrow, one way or another, and have a talk with the landlady and the kid. I'll soon find out if they know more than they've told. In the meantime, I'll make the round of the hospitals to-night and have a look-in at headquarters to see if she's turned up missing. Those fellers trailing us this afternoon don't make it look as if they or the man they're workin' for could have got hold of her already and there's a chance that she just wandered off, like, on her own hook. I'll let you know the minute I've got a line on her. Wish I spoke her lingo!"
"Oh, Tia Juana understands English well enough when she wants to, and speaks it, too, but only when necessity compels it. She hates everything American but me. I—I could not bear to think of her wandering about, destitute and dazed and freezing in this storm! Dan, you must find her for me!"