“Come along. We’ve got to go down to the club house. I’ll tell you about it as we go.”
They had passed Kolinski’s cabin, a one-storied house solidly built of native stone, and struck off down the path toward the bridge before Davis spoke again.
“I don’t want to raise false hopes,” he said, “and this hunch may come to a dead end, too. But here it is for what it’s worth. I was trying to remember if I had ever heard the couple’s name, but I’m sure I haven’t. Half a mile up the valley road from my quarters you come to an abandoned mill on the other side of the highway. The place has an old wheel and stands beside a stream that rushes down a gorge in the hillside. You can see from here that the hill opposite is much higher and steeper than this one. The only path up there is the trail that starts at the mill and runs along the side of the gorge. The stream is the outlet for a small lake up there on the plateau and drops down the gorge in a series of very beautiful falls. The lake and the woods are off the Heartfield’s Club property. They belong to an estate with a good-sized house on it, about half a mile beyond the falls. There’s a sort of path round the lake, I believe, that joins a path leading up to the house from the farther shore. I haven’t been up there for years, but I distinctly remember the woods round the lake were swampy. However, when the last owner bought it, he put a high wire deer fence around his land to prevent trespassing. This club was in full swing then, so you can hardly blame him. But no one has lived there for the last few years. I heard over in Sherman that the whole place, house, land, lake and everything, had been bought by a foreign couple who had moved in. Timkins, in New Milford, brought their furniture over there from the railroad, and there was an awful lot of it, he said. Most of the stuff was packed in big cases and enormously heavy. You see,” he said, as they reached the bridge, “I’m trying to give you every bit of information I can about that place beyond the falls, and the reason is this: several times during the last three weeks, I have seen both Kolinski and his man going up and coming down that path by the mill. Either they had been enjoying the beauty of the falls, which I doubt, or—they’d been visiting the owners of that estate!”
“Humph!” grunted Bill. “I suppose there’s a road up on the top of the hill?”
“Yes, a dirt road that passes the house and joins the highway some miles farther on after it leaves this valley.”
They walked on in silence toward the club house, each of the three busily formulating plans.
“I’ll tell you what,” Bill said suddenly as they reached his car. “Osceola and I will go up to this place you’ve been talking about, and we’ll go by the path near the mill. You wait here for the police, if you don’t mind, Mr. Davis, and pilot them round by road. If these rascals really have Deborah up there, they’re likely to have sentries posted near the house, so advise Mr. Dixon and the police to leave their cars some distance down the road. If you men don’t come across us by that time, surround the house and rush it. Because,” he added, with a grimace, “We’ll probably be needing your help rather badly.”
“But hadn’t you better wait for the police yourselves?” Davis looked worried.
“And have those guys cart Deb off through the woods while the bunch of us come up to the house from the road? No indeed,” Osceola answered vigorously. “Bill can do as he likes, but I’m going up by the mill path. They won’t be expecting visitors from this side.”
“I’m going with you, Osceola,” said Bill. “Thanks a lot for all you’ve done and are doing for us, Mr. Davis. The gang from Hartford ought to be here within the hour.”