The other voice—the woman’s voice—had been Janet Smith’s.
CHAPTER VII
THE HAUNTED HOUSE
A mud-splashed automobile runabout containing two men was turning off Van Ness Avenue down a narrower and shadier side street in the afternoon of the Sunday following the disappearance of Archie Winter. One of the occupants seemed to be an invalid whom the brilliant March sunshine had not tempted out of his heavy wrappings and cap; the other was a short, thick-set, corduroy-jacketed chauffeur. One marked the runabout at a glance as a hardly used livery motor-car; but a moment’s inspection might have shown that it was running with admirable smoothness and quiet. The chauffeur wore goggles, hence his eyes were shielded, but he turned a broad smile upon the pallid cheeks and sharpened profile beside him.
“Colonel, as a health-seeker who can’t keep warm enough, you’re great!” he cried. “Lord, but you look the part!”
“If I can’t shed some of these confounded mufflers soon,” growled the pale sufferer addressed, “I’ll get so red with heat it will come through my beautiful powder. I hope those fellows won’t see us, for they will be on to us, all right.”
“Our own mothers wouldn’t be on to us in these rigs,” the chauffeur replied cheerily; he seemed to be in a hopeful mood; “and let us once get into the house, and surprise ’em, and there’ll be something drop. But I haven’t really had a chance to tell you the latest—having to pick you up at a drug store this way. Now, let’s sum things up! You think the boy got out through Keatcham’s apartment? Or Mrs. Wigglesworth’s?”
“How else?” said the colonel, “he can’t fly, and if he could, he couldn’t fly out and then lock the windows from the inside.”
“I see”—the chauffeur appeared thoughtful—“and the Wigglesworth door was locked. You think that Keatcham is in it, someway?”
“Not Keatcham,” said the colonel. “There was another man in the car—Atkins they called him, though he has disappeared. But Mercer remains. His secretary and that valet of his; I think the secretary is Cary Mercer. The boy might have slipped out in those few moments we were hunting for him inside. Afterward, either Mrs. Melville Winter or I was on guard until your man came. He might go to the Fireless Stove man, slip out of his rooms, and round the corner to the elevator in a couple of seconds. Then, of course, I might see their rooms—”
“Provided, that is, the Fireless Stove drummer is in the plot, too.”