“Good Lord,” he muttered, “and I’m due in twenty minutes! There’s nothing for it but to take the car again and the girl in it. I’m sorry for Danny’s sake, but I don’t dare leave her to give the alarm.”
Deciding which, he muffled himself in a huge tan duster and cap, and motioned to Mary Louise to follow him. As he stooped to blow out the candle the long envelope slipped from his pocket to the floor. Mary Louise, almost without thought, glanced down at it, and there, glaring and flashing up at her from the envelope, was Danny’s name!
She had no time for puzzling, for already her jailor was halfway down the stairs and calling her to hurry. In her anxiety to obey to the letter, Mary Louise fairly flew down the stairs and found the stranger climbing into her beloved place in her very own car. He ordered her to sit beside him, and Mary Louise did so feeling as if she were in a dream. Here she was at her home and in her own car and yet she was a prisoner. Her captor seemed to have some thought for her welfare, however, for as the car slipped quietly out into the night, he tucked a robe carefully about her shoulders and then in silence the two flew off into the wildness of the night.
CHAPTER XI
THE EMPTY ROOM
There was no depression in the spirits of Josie O’Gorman as she bade Mary Louise good-night at her bedroom door, and jumping up the stairs, two at a time, she entered her own room with a rush of energy.
With a quick twist of her wrist, she flooded the room with brightness. It was a large room, furnished simply with a few splendid old pieces of mahogany, but in some way, Josie in the few hours of her stay had managed to impart an air of activity and alertness to her apartment. A typewriter was installed on the low table at the front of the bed. The telephone had been connected with her room, and files of notes and time tables cluttered up the desk. Even the wonderful old four-posted bed had caught the contagion of hurry and was quite flustered beneath a shower of shirts, hats and dresses that had been tossed upon it.
To Josie the main intent and purpose of life was her work; orderliness and prettiness were considerations that had to follow after. Even as she entered the room the telephone was buzzing.
“Hello,” she called, seizing the receiver with one hand, pushing the odds and ends from the desk chair with the other.
“Yes, this is Josie O’Gorman. You say you haven’t found a trace of the car? Well, you needn’t have rung me up for that. I’d grasped that much already. Oh, you’ve found positively no strangers have left the neighborhood within the last forty-eight hours. That’s something to go on at any rate. Yes, thank you. Good-bye.”