“Let me do the worrying,” interrupted Father Benedict. “We’ll get the sapphire and be away before anyone even sets foot inside the place.”
“What about that Parker girl?”
“She’s only a child!” the monk scoffed. “A very annoying, nosey one, I grant you.”
Taking the lantern with them, Father Benedict and Winkey disappeared in the direction of the monk’s study. Left in darkness, Penny debated her next action.
If only she could telephone her father or Mr. DeWitt at the Star office! This, of course, was out of the question, for the ancient building obviously had no phone service.
“I might go for help,” she reasoned, “but a full hour would be needed for me to reach Riverview and return with anyone. And what can I prove?”
Though Penny was convinced Father Benedict and Winkey were fleecing cult members, she knew the women voluntarily had given up their jewelery. In the event police tried to arrest Father Benedict, the cult members might rise to his defense.
“I’ll have to have more evidence!” she decided. “The one person who should be able to tell me what goes on here is that girl who is locked in the chapel bedroom!”
Stealing across the dark cloister, Penny listened a moment at the passageway leading to the refectory. An undercurrent of conversation and the clatter of tin spoons told her that cult members had not yet finished the evening repast.
From the map Mr. Eckenrod had shown her, the girl knew the location of the chapel bedroom. Tiptoeing down a corridor opening from the cloister, she came to a massive oaken door.