But much less than getting an answer, there wasn’t a sound.
I haven’t a very clear recollection of what happened in the next few minutes. I completely lost my head, I guess. I thought I had the hand lamp, but discovered, when I started down the cellar stairs, that I had the goldfish globe. I got the lamp then. And pretty soon I found myself at the foot of the cellar stairs.
Poppy was gone! There wasn’t a sign of him! That’s why the cellar was so deadly quiet. Wherever the secret door was in these grim stone walls—and no longer could it be doubted that there was such a door—it was through this hidden opening that the cat killer had dragged my captured chum.
I was crazy now. All I could think of was that Poppy was in terrible danger. I ran around and around the cellar, the lamp chimney rocking in its metal socket. “Poppy!” I called again and again. “Poppy!” But there was no answer.
It was during one of these merry-go-round trips of mine that I discovered the cat’s tail. A piece about two inches long, it lay beside the huge chimney base in the center of the cellar. I gingerly picked it up—meaning the tail end and not the chimney base. There was fresh blood on it, proving that it had just been cut off. Ough! I wanted to drop it. But I felt I ought to keep it. I felt I ought to tell poor Mrs. O’Mally about the terrible crime. So, with the lamp in one hand, and the sticky tail in the other, I zigzagged up the stairs on high gear.
“It’s all that’s left of your cat!” I screeched, waving the tail at its horrified owner.
“No, no!” came the shriek, when I put the tail on the center table.
“But what’ll I do with it?” I cried.
“Throw the nasty thing outside.”
Well, I finally got some of my wits back. And I saw that the only way to help my chum was to lay for his captor at the mouth of the tunnel. So I grabbed my willow club. Then I lit out. A thing that helped me was the moonlight. Finally I came to the creek. There was the boat pulled up on the shore! I knew now that the man was still in the tunnel. So I ran along the path. And pretty soon I came to that awful black hole in the ground.