“But someone may be ill and in need of a doctor.”
“It wasn’t that type of scream,” Louise replied with a shiver. “That cry gave me the creeps!”
Penny allowed herself to be pulled from the gate, only to pause and gaze again at the darkened windows of the ancient monastery.
The only daughter of a newspaper owner, she had been trained to inquire the who, when, why, where, and how of anything unusual. Penny never willingly passed up an opportunity to obtain a good news story for the Riverview Star. She knew that if the old monastery were occupied after standing deserted so many years, the readers of her father’s paper would be interested.
Furthermore, she reasoned, a scream from a darkened house, always called for investigation.
“Louise,” she said with sudden decision. “We can’t leave without trying to find out what’s wrong here! I’m going inside!”
“Oh, Penny—please don’t! This place is so far from other houses. If anything should happen—”
“Something has happened,” replied Penny grimly. “You wait here, Lou. I’ll be right back.”
Despite her chum’s protest, she returned to the big iron gate, and pushing it farther open, stepped inside the grounds.
Intuition warned Penny to proceed cautiously. She sensed rather than saw a dark figure crouching in the arched doorway of the circular stone gatehouse to the right of the snow-banked driveway.