“Not even if I have lost my card?”
“Orders,” he answered briefly. “You’ll have no trouble getting another.”
Penny started to turn away, and then asked with attempted carelessness:
“What’s going on in there anyway? Are they selling something?”
“I really couldn’t tell you,” he responded.
“Everyone in this hotel seems to be blind, deaf and dumb,” Penny muttered to herself as she retraced her way to the main hall. “And definitely, for a purpose. I wonder if maybe I haven’t stumbled into something?”
She still had not the faintest idea what might lie beyond the Green Door, but the very name had an intriguing sound. It suggested mystery. It suggested, too, that Ralph Fergus and his financial backer, Harvey Maxwell, might have developed some special money-making scheme which would not bear exposure.
Into Penny’s mind leaped a remark which her father had made, one to the effect that Harvey Maxwell was thought to have his finger in many dishonest affairs. The Green Room might be a perfectly legitimate place of entertainment for hotel guests, but the remarks she had overheard led Penny to think otherwise. Something was being sold in Room 22. And to a very select clientele!
“If only I could learn facts which would help Dad’s case!” she told herself. “Anything showing that Maxwell is mixed up in a dishonest scheme might turn the trick!”
It occurred to Penny that the editor of the Riverview Record might have had some inkling of a story to be found at Pine Top. Otherwise, why had Francine been sent to the mountain resort? Certainly the rival reporter was working upon an assignment which concerned Harvey Maxwell. She inadvertently had revealed that fact at the Riverview airport.