Mrs. Timms has been our housekeeper for as long as I can remember. She was the one who nursed my late mother through her long—and ultimately fatal—illness. She was also the one who brought my father and me back from the brink of despair after we lost my beloved mother. In short, although Mrs. Timms’ will never take the place of my late mother, she’s become something like a second mother to me. I love her like billy-o despite her tendency to nag and her constant harping on the finer points of the proper grooming and deportment required—in her view—of a respectable young woman.
I’m afraid Mrs. Timms has failed miserably in her attempt to turn me into a well-behaved and well-groomed lady. I fear she’ll never come to terms with my insistence on carrying a cosh and a pocket-knife in my handbag (the former for purposes of self-defense and the latter for purposes of peeling apples and other such sundry little tasks one so often encounters which are made so much easier by carrying one’s own personal cutting implement).
Last spring, when I returned home one evening hours before expected and found Mrs. Timms and my father canoodling on the couch, they were far more horrified than I.
When the truth came out, Mrs. Timms took great pains to assure me that they’d only lit a fire under a pot together after my mother had been gone for years. It had never occurred to me to suspect otherwise, but the oh-so-conscientious Mrs. Timms was mortified that I might believe her to be a woman of low morals. No amount of assurance that I couldn’t be happier that my father thought Mrs. Timms was the tree from which his life’s happiness hung could put her mind at rest.
I looked over at my father sitting in the passenger seat. He looks older when he’s tired. I considered pointing out that if he and Mrs. Timms wanted to enjoy their golden years together as man and wife, they’d best not put it off too long, but instead I said. “Hungry, Dad? I know a dandy new hamburger place not far from here. Wonderful coffee too.”
“Well, all right,” my father said. “It’s pretty late, though. The big clock’s striking midnight.”
As we halted for a traffic light, I listened to the musical chimes which preceded the regularly spaced strokes of the giant clock. I turned my head to gaze up at the Moresby Memorial Tower, a grim stone building which rose to the height of seventy-five feet. Erected ten years before as a monument to one of Greenville’s wealthy citizens, its chimes traveled for nearly a mile on a still night. On one side, its high, narrow windows overlooked the city, while on the other, the cultivated lands of truck farmers.
“How strange,” I said as the last stroke of the clock died away.
“What’s strange?” my father asked.
“Not much, just that the Moresby Tower clock just struck thirteen times instead of twelve.”
“Bunk and bosh.”
“Oh, but it did,” I insisted. “I counted each stroke distinctly.”
“And one of them twice,” scoffed my father. “Or are you spoofing your old Dad?”
“I am most certainly not.” As I pulled forward, I craned my neck to stare up at the stone tower. “I know I counted thirteen. Dad, there’s a green light burning in one of the windows. I never saw that before. What can it mean?”
“It means we’ll have a wreck unless you watch the road,” my father said, reaching over and giving the steering wheel a quick turn. “Where are you taking me, anyhow?”
“Out to Hodges.” Reluctantly I centered my full attention upon the highway. “It’s only a mile into the country.”
“We won’t be home before one o’clock,” my father complained. “But since we’re this far, I suppose we may as well keep on.”
“Dad, about that light,” I said. “Did you ever notice it before?”
My father turned to look back toward the stone tower.
“There’s no green light,” he said. “Every window is dark.”
“But I saw it only an instant ago, And I did hear the clock strike thirteen. Cross my heart and hope to die a million deaths—”
“Never mind the dramatics,” my father cut in. “If the clock struck an extra time—which it didn’t—something could have gone wrong with the mechanism. Don’t try to build up a mystery out of your imagination.”
The car rattled over a bridge and passed a deserted farmhouse that formerly had belonged to a strange man named Paul Firth. My gaze fastened momentarily upon an old-fashioned storm cellar which marred the appearance of the front yard.
“I suppose I imagined all that, too,” I said, waving my hand toward the cement hump. “Mr. Firth never had any hidden gold, he never had a secret pact with tattooed sailors, and he never tried to burn your newspaper plant.”
“I admit you did a nice piece of detective work when you uncovered that story,” my father acknowledged. “Likewise, you brought the Examiner one of its best scoops by getting trapped underneath an alligator pond.”
“Don’t forget that old witch doll, either,” I reminded him. “You laughed at me then, just as you’re doing now.”
“I’m not laughing,” Dad insisted. “I merely say that no light was burning in the tower window, and I very much doubt that the clock struck more than twelve times.”
“Tomorrow, I shall go to the tower and talk with the caretaker, Sam McKee. I’ll prove to you that I was right.”
“If you do, I’ll treat to a dish of ice cream decorated with nuts.”
“Make it five gallons of gasoline to slack the unquenchable thirst of Bouncing Betsy, and I’ll be really interested,” I said, as I affectionately patted the dashboard of my rickety, unreliable and much-beloved Peerless Model 56.
Bouncing Betsy—so named because her suspension is shot to bits—has recently sprung a leak in her fuel tank, and I’ve not been in a position to take her in for the required first-aid.
But now I’m a bonafide lady novelist with a luxurious advance on her second and yet-to-be-actually written novel, a sequel to Perpetua’s Promise (a timeless tale of love, redemption and containing a thrilling scene in which the heroine engages the dastardly villain in hand-to-hand combat armed with only a parasol and a trio of hat pins and from which our brave heroine naturally emerges unscathed and victorious).
Now that I’m a respectable woman-of-letters, I can afford to have all Bouncing Betsy’s ailments tended to promptly and thoroughly by any one of a number of reputable Greenville garages familiar with Old Betsy’s various quirks and complaints, but, what with one thing and another, I’ve been too busy to have her perforated fuel tank tended to.
Soon, an electric sign proclaiming “Fisher’s Cafe” in huge block letters loomed up. I swung into the parking area. We went inside and took a table by the window.
“Coffee and two hamburgers,” I ordered with a flourish. “Everything on one, and everything but, on the other.”
“No onions for the young lady?” the waiter grinned. “Okay. I’ll have ’em right out.”
While we waited, I noticed that another car, a gray sedan, had drawn up close to the building. The two men who occupied the front seat did not get out. Instead, they hunkered down in their seats and conversed as they watched someone inside the cafe.
“Dad, notice those two men,” I whispered, touching his arm and inclining my head toward the window.
“What about them?” he asked, but before I could reply, the waiter came with a tray of sandwiches.
“Not bad,” my father said as he bit into a giant-size hamburger. “First decent cup of coffee I’ve had in a week, too.”
“Dad, watch!” I chided him.
The restaurant door opened, and a muscular man of early middle age went outside. Immediately, the two men in the gray sedan stiffened to alert attention. As the lone diner passed their car, the two lowered their heads, but the instant he had gone on, they turned around to peer after him.
The man who was being observed so closely seemed unaware of he was being subjected to scrutiny. He crossed the parking lot and vanished down a footpath which led into a dense grove of trees.
Both men in the gray
sedan got out and disappeared into the woods after the man they’d had under surveillance.
“Dad, I wish I could hear what they said. They look like they are up to no good.”
“Tough looking customers,” my father agreed.
“I’m afraid we mean to rob that first man. Isn’t there anything we can do?”
My father barely hesitated.
“I may make a chump of myself,” he said, “but here goes. I’ll tag along and try to be on hand if anything happens.”
“Dad, don’t do it. You might get hurt.”
My father paid me no heed. He stood up from our booth and crossed over to the swinging doors at the entrance of the café. I watched as he strode across the parking lot and entered the dark woods.
Chapter Two
Not to be left behind, I abandoned my hamburger and followed my father, overtaking him before he had gotten very far into the forest.
“Jane, you shouldn’t have come,” Dad said. “There might be trouble, and I’ll not have you taking unnecessary risks.”
“I don’t want you to do it, either. Which way did the men go?”
“That’s what I wonder.”
My father paused, listening intently.
“Hear anything?”
“Not a sound.”
“Strange that all three of them could disappear so quickly,” Dad muttered. “I’m sure there’s been no attack. Listen. What was that?”
“It sounded like a car being started.”
I hurried to the edge of the woods and looked down into the parking lot. Bouncing Betsy stood where she had been abandoned, but the gray sedan was missing, and I saw tail lights retreating down the road.
“There go our friends,” my father said. “Their sudden departure probably saved me from making a chump of myself.”
“How could we tell they didn’t mean to rob that other man? You thought yourself that they intended to harm him.”
“Oh, I’m not blaming you,” Dad answered, starting toward the parking lot. “I’m annoyed at myself. This is a graphic example of what we were talking about a while ago—an overactive imagination.”
I followed my father back to the cafe. We finished our hamburgers, which had grown cold, and after Dad paid the bill, started for home.
“I could do with a little sleep.” my father yawned. “After a hard day at the office, your brand of nightlife is a bit too strenuous for me.”
Selecting a short-cut route to Greenville, I paid strict attention to the road, for the narrow pavement was patched in many places. On either side of the highway stretched truck farms with row upon row of neatly-staked tomatoes and other crops.
As I rounded a bend, I was startled to see tongues of flame brightening the horizon. A large wooden barn, situated in plain view on a slight knoll, had caught fire and was fully engulfed in flames. As I slammed on the brakes, my father awoke from his light slumber.
“Now what?” he mumbled drowsily.
“Dad, unless I’m imagining things again, that barn is on fire.”
“Let ’er burn,” he mumbled incoherently in response, but by the time Bouncing Betsy rolled to a stop, Dad was fully awake and swinging open the car door.
There were no firefighters on the scene, in fact, the only person I saw was a woman in dark flannel bathrobe who stood silhouetted in the red glare. As Dad and I reached her side, she stared at us with unseeing eyes.
“We’ll lose everything,” she said tonelessly. “Our entire crop of melons is inside the barn, packed for shipment. And my husband’s new truck.”
“Have you called a fire company?” Dad asked.
“I’ve called, but it won’t do any good,” she answered. “The barn will be gone before they can get here.”
With a high wind whipping the flames, it was obvious that the woman spoke the truth. Already the fire had such a start that even had water been available, the barn could not have been saved.
“Maybe I can get the truck out for you,” my father offered.
As he swung open the barn doors, a wave of heat blasted his face. Coughing and choking, he forced his way into the smoke-filled interior, unaware that I was at his side. When he finally noticed I was right behind him, he tried to send me back.
“You can’t get the truck out without me to help push,” I said, refusing to retreat. “Come on. We can do it!”
The shiny red truck was a fairly light one and stood on an inclined cement floor which sloped toward the exit. Nevertheless, although my father and I exerted every iota of our combined strength, we could not start it moving.
“Maybe the brake is on,” my father gasped, running around to the cab. “Yes, it is.”
We pushed once more, and this time we were able to start the truck rolling. Once in motion, its momentum carried it down the runway into the open, a safe distance from the flames.
“How about the crated melons?” I asked, breathing hard from the strenuous exertion and coughing from inhaling fumes and smoke.
“Not a chance to save them,” my father said, after struggling for breath. “We were lucky to get the truck out.”
Dad and I went to stand beside the woman in dark flannel. She thanked us for our efforts, then told us that her name was Mrs. Franklin and that her husband was absent.
“Thomas went to Greenville and hasn’t come back yet,” she said brokenly. “This is going to be a great shock to him. All our work gone up in smoke!”
“Didn’t you have the barn insured?” Dad questioned her.
“Thomas has a small policy,” Mrs. Franklin replied. “It covers the barn, but not the melons stored inside. Those men did it on purpose. I saw one of ’em riding away.”
“What’s that?” my father asked, on high alert for a scoop. “You don’t mean the fire deliberately was set?”
“Yes, it was,” Mrs. Franklin said. “I was sound asleep, and then I heard a horse galloping into the yard. I ran to the window and saw the rider throw a lighted torch into the old hayloft. As soon as he saw it blaze up, he rode off.”
“Was the man anyone you knew?” I asked, “Were you able to see his face?”
“Hardly, he wore a black hood. It covered his head and shoulders.”
“That sounds like night riders,” I said.
“Mrs. Franklin, do you know of any reason why you and your husband might be made the target of such cowardly action?” Dad asked.
“It must have been done because Thomas wouldn’t join up with them.”
“Join some organization, you mean?”
“Yes, we kept warning him something like this would happen, but Thomas wouldn’t have anything to do with ’em.”
“I don’t blame your husband,” said Dad. “Tell me, what is the name of this disreputable organization? What is its purpose, and the names of the men who run it?”
“I don’t know any more about it than what I’ve told you,” Mrs. Franklin replied. “Thomas never said much about it to me.”
“Are you afraid to tell what you know?” my father asked.
“It doesn’t pay to do too much talking. You act real friendly, and you did me a good turn saving my truck—but I don’t even know your name.”
“Anthony Carter, owner of the Greenville Examiner.”
The information was anything but reassuring to the woman.
“You’re not aiming to write up anything I’ve told you for the paper?” she asked anxiously.
“Not unless I believe that by doing so I can expose these night riders who have destroyed your barn.”
“Please don’t print anything in the paper,” Mrs. Franklin pleaded. “It will only do more harm. Those men will turn on Thomas harder than ever.”
Before my father could reply, the roof of the storage barn collapsed, sending up a shower of sparks and burning brands. By this time, the red glare in the sky had attracted the attention of neighbors, and several men came running into the yard. Realizing that he could not hope to gain additional information from the woman, my father beg
an to examine the ground near the barn.
“Looking for hoof prints?” I asked, falling into step beside him.
“I thought we might find some, providing the woman told a straight story.”
“Dad, did you ever hear of an organization such as Mrs. Franklin mentioned?” I asked as we searched the ground. “I mean around Greenville, of course.”
My father shook his head. “I never did. But if what she says is true, the Examiner will launch an investigation. We’ll have no night riders in this community, not if it’s in my power to blast them out.”
“Here’s your first clue, Dad.” I pointed to a series of hoof marks visible in the soft earth. The tracks led toward the main road.
“Mrs. Franklin told the truth about the barn being set on fire by a man on horseback,” my father said as he followed the trail leading out of the yard. “These prints haven’t been made very long ago.”
“Dad, you look like Sherlock Holmes scooting along with his nose to the ground.” I giggled. “You should have a magnifying glass to make the picture perfect.”
“Never mind the comedy,” my father said. “This may mean a big story for the Examiner, not to mention a worthwhile service to the community.”
“Oh, I’m heartily in favor of your public service work. In fact, I think it would be wonderfully exciting to capture a night rider. Is that what you have in mind?”
“We may as well follow this trail as far as we can. The fellow rode his horse just off the main highway, heading toward Greenville.”
“Be sure you don’t follow the trail backward,” I teased. “That would absolutely ruin your reputation as a detective.”
“Jump in the car and drive while I stand on the running board,” my father ordered, ignoring my attempt at wit. “Keep close to the edge of the pavement and go slowly.”
Obeying instructions, I drove the car at an even speed. Due to a recent rain, which had made the ground very soft, it was possible to follow the trail of hoof prints without difficulty.
Jane Carter Historical Cozies: Omnibus Edition (Six Mystery Novels) Page 58
