“Look!” she commanded. “Isn’t that Henry Sully just ahead of us?”
“It is!” Kitty agreed. “We’ll meet him face to face!”
The man was walking toward the girls, but his head was lowered and he had not seen them. While he was still at least a hundred yards away, he turned into an old tumbledown building which opened off the street.
As Kitty and Doris passed the place a few minutes later, they surveyed it rather curiously and were not surprised to see that it was probably a gambling house.
“So that’s the way he spends his time!” Doris commented. “I guess he knew the Misses Gates were in their rooms and that he would have a good chance to slip away with no questions asked.”
“Did you notice the way he walked, Dory?”
“Yes, I did. His head was down—sort of flopping all around. And he walked with such a precise step as though he were trying not to stagger.”
“I’ll bet he’s had about one drink too many.”
“Probably six would be more like it. Do you suppose the Misses Gates know he drinks?”
“Oh, I’m sure they don’t. You know how strict they are about such things.”
“I think it’s time they find out about their help, then. I don’t see how they can be so blind.”
They continued down the street and presently had forgotten about Henry Sully. The town was soon explored and they were thinking of returning to the mansion when Kitty suggested that they attend a moving picture show.
“All right,” Doris agreed, “if we can find anything good.”
They had noticed a number of theaters near the post office and turned that way.
“We’re coming to one now,” Kitty observed a few minutes later. “Can you make out the sign?”
“Oh, we don’t want to go there,” Doris said hastily. “It’s one of those cheap places that cater to folks with perverted tastes.”
They were about to pass on without a glance at the advertisements when they noticed a familiar figure. Of one accord they paused and pretended to be looking at the window display of a candy shop adjoining the theater.
“It’s Cora Sully!” Kitty whispered to her chum. “She’s buying a ticket.”
Without glancing in their direction, the woman entered the moving picture house.
“Aren’t they a pair!” Doris exclaimed in disgust. “Henry half drunk in a gambling place and Cora here at this cheap movie! I don’t see how Azalea and Iris can tolerate them—they are so refined themselves.”
“Either they don’t know about it, or they must have some very special reason for keeping them. Didn’t they say Cora was the daughter of their former dressmaker?”
“Yes, perhaps they keep the couple out of sheer sentiment. I’m sure if I were in their place I’d send Cora and Henry away in a hurry.”
Farther on down the street the girls found a picture house which satisfied them and they purchased tickets. The show lasted for two hours and when they left the theater, it was nearly supper time.
“We must be getting back to the mansion,” Doris declared. “Before we go, though, I have a notion I ought to put in a telephone call to the bank at Chilton and find out how much money I have there. I’d ask Uncle Ward but he’s still out of town campaigning for that Fresh Air Fund.”
“Then you’ve decided to loan the Misses Gates the money they want?”
“Oh, I haven’t decided anything. I don’t know what to do! I thought if I found out exactly how much money I have, it might be easier to decide.”
“It won’t take very long to put the call through,” Kitty urged. “Why don’t you?”
Doris consulted her wrist watch.
“The bank is closed by this time, but I am sure there will be some one there who can tell me what I want to know. We’ll try it, anyway.”
They turned in at the next drug store and, after a brief wait, Doris was connected with her party. After a few minutes she received the information she sought and came back to Kitty, who was waiting outside the booth.
“Did you find out?” she demanded.
Doris nodded. Her eyes were shining.
“Why, Kit, I have a lot of money. From what Uncle Ward told me the other day I thought I was almost poverty stricken.”
“How much?”
“Nearly six thousand dollars. Five thousand nine hundred and forty-three, to be exact.”
“Why, you’re rich, Dory!” Kitty exclaimed in awe.
“Hardly that, but I’ll have enough to last me for a long time.”
Both girls, blissfully ignorant of how much it cost to live, considered Doris’s little hoard a miniature fortune.
“When I have so much, it seems a shame not to make a small loan to Iris and Azalea,” Doris said thoughtfully.
“They promised you’d get it all back,” Kitty encouraged. “In the end you’ll come into the Trent inheritance.”
“There’s only one drawback.”
“What’s that?”
“Cousin Ronald is to handle the money.” Doris sighed as one who was burdened with great business responsibilities. “Oh, dear, I wish I liked him better. If I could entirely trust him, I’d offer the money in a minute!”
CHAPTER XVI
A Pleasant Adventure
The next morning when Doris and Kitty came downstairs for breakfast, they were relieved to see that the Misses Gates were there ahead of them. However, they noticed at once that for the first time since their arrival at the mansion, the two ladies were dressed differently.
“That means they’ve been quarrelling,” Doris told herself.
Iris and Azalea spoke pleasantly to the girls but their faces were wan and strained. They avoided speaking to each other and scarcely glanced at one another. Kitty and Doris, distressed at the situation, were very glad that they had accepted Dave’s invitation to go for a ride in his plane. It would be a relief to get away from the mansion. The place was beginning to get on their nerves.
Azalea and Iris ate very little, making the girls feel somewhat guilty concerning their own hearty appetites. All mention of the ruby ring was carefully avoided, but the subject was uppermost in the minds of the four. Conversation languished and the Misses Gates obviously were relieved when breakfast was finished.
During the night Doris had tried to make up her mind what was the best thing to do in regard to the loan which the Misses Gates had requested, but she had been unable to reach a decision. Now, as she saw how very unhappy the two ladies were and how strained was the relationship between them, she wished that she might do something to help the situation before she and Kitty left on their outing.
“I’ll lend them the money,” she thought. “Perhaps the news will cheer them a bit.”
Accordingly, as they were leaving the dining room, she turned to Azalea and Iris.
“Yesterday when Kitty and I were in Rumson, I telephoned my bank,” she told them, “and I found that I have more money in my account than I had anticipated. So I’ve been thinking it over and have decided to let you have some of it.”
“Oh!” Azalea exclaimed, her face lighting up. “How very kind of you.”
“You’re sure you can spare the money?” Iris asked.
“The bookkeeper said that I had six thousand dollars,” Doris admitted, “so I can let you have only five hundred. If that will be of any help—”
“Indeed it will,” Azalea declared. “I cannot tell you how grateful we are.”
“And Ronald will appreciate it, too,” Iris added. “It means so much to us just at this time. Of course, in the end you will get it all back.”
“I am glad to do what I can to help,” Doris told them.
Already she was pleased to see that the tension between Iris and Azalea was somewhat relaxed. She hoped that before the day was over they would have forgotten their foolish quarrel.
As Dave had stated that he would call for the girls about one o’clock, they began to watch for him soon after luncheon. As the airport was some distance f
rom the mansion, they expected him to come for them in a car, and accordingly kept close watch of the road.
Presently an automobile drove up, and Doris and Kitty, thinking it must be Dave, snatched up their wraps and started for the gate. Halfway down the path they saw they had made a mistake. Ronald Trent was getting out of his roadster.
“Hello, girlies,” he greeted with a sickening smile as he opened the gate. “Coming to meet me, eh?”
“No, we weren’t,” Doris returned. “We are waiting for a friend of ours.”
“We’re going for an airplane ride,” Kitty added.
“High fliers, eh?” Ronald smirked, and then laughed loudly at his own inane joke.
Doris and Kitty did not even smile. They wished that he would go on into the house and leave them alone.
“Who is that flying sweetheart of yours?” he teased.
“He isn’t a sweetheart and you don’t know him,” Doris replied somewhat coldly. “Come on, Kitty.”
They started to walk to the gate but the man called them back.
“Just a minute. Aren’t you forgetting something?”
The girls paused and looked at him in surprise. Ronald came over to Doris and leaned unpleasantly close.
“Haven’t you forgotten to give Cousin Ronald a goodbye kiss?”
Indignantly, Doris recoiled.
“I’m not in the habit of kissing strangers!” she snapped. “That remark was entirely uncalled for!”
“Come now, don’t be bashful,” Ronald cajoled.
He edged nearer and caught her by the hand. Doris jerked away and faced him with blazing eyes.
“Don’t you dare touch me!”
Undoubtedly, Ronald would have pressed his unwelcome attentions, but just at that instant an automobile drove up to the gate.
“Oh, well, we’ll save it until the next time,” he said with a shrug.
Chuckling gleefully to himself, he went on up the path toward the house.
“Oh, how I hate that man!” Doris muttered in an undertone to her chum. “I wanted to slap his face!”
“I wish you had!”
They said no more, for turning toward the gate they saw that Dave had arrived. Eagerly he sprang from the taxicab and came to meet them. Noticing Doris’s flushed and angry face he asked what was the matter.
“Oh, it was that horrid cousin of mine,” she told him. “He tried to get fresh.”
“He did?” Dave demanded sharply. “Say, I’ll just go after him and tell him a thing or two!”
Doris placed a restraining hand on his sleeve.
“No, you mustn’t do that. Iris and Azalea would never forgive us for creating a scene. I don’t doubt but that it’s just his way.”
“Well, he’d better change it if he doesn’t want to get into trouble with me!”
With a scowl directed at the back of the retreating Cousin Ronald, Dave opened the gate for the girls and helped them into the taxi.
“I thought perhaps you wouldn’t entirely trust me as a pilot,” he declared as they were speeding rapidly toward the airfield, “so I brought along an expert. There isn’t a better pilot to be had than Don Everts. He’s waiting for us at the field.”
“You know we’d trust you,” Doris protested quickly.
Dave grinned.
“Well, anyway, I thought it would give me a better chance to talk with you girls.”
A few minutes later the cab turned in at the flying field and came to a standstill near a row of hangars. Dave helped the girls to alight and paid the driver.
“This way,” he directed, leading them toward a monoplane at the far end of the runway.
Quickly he introduced Don Everts, the pilot, a lean chap in helmet and dungarees. The girls found him very quiet and self-contained, but liked him at once.
They took their places in the cockpit and Dave smiled at them reassuringly. The pilot carefully examined the controls and then nodded to the mechanic who stood waiting to swing the propeller.
“Switch off?”
“Switch off!” the pilot confirmed tersely.
“Contact?”
“Contact!”
The mechanic gave the propeller a mighty swing and the engine began to roar. To Doris and Kitty it was all very thrilling.
“All set?” Dave questioned after the engine had warmed up.
Kitty and Doris nodded grimly.
The monoplane had headed into the wind, and as Don Everts opened the throttle, it moved rapidly across the field. The girls held their breath, but almost before they were aware of it, the plane had taken to the air and leveled off.
It no longer seemed to Kitty and Doris that they were traveling swiftly, for the plane appeared to be almost stationary in the sky.
“Not going very fast, are we?” Doris asked Dave.
“Ninety-eight miles per!” he shouted back.
Glancing down, the girls saw the earth pass slowly in review before them. They made out a few buildings but it was difficult to believe that the miniature structures comprised the town of Rumson.
The day was an ideal one for flying, with very few clouds visible. That the girls might enjoy the novelty of their ride to the utmost, the pilot presently zoomed up above a small bank of mist and permitted them to look down upon the fleece-like floor.
For Doris and Kitty, who were having the thrill of their lives, the time passed all too swiftly. When Dave told them that they had been in the air nearly two hours they were amazed.
“I haven’t had so much fun in ages,” Doris declared enthusiastically, after they had landed safely at the air field.
“I’ll take you up again,” Dave promised, “and now that I know you won’t be afraid, I’ll pilot you myself some time. I should have my license in a little while.”
Leaving the monoplane to the care of an attendant, the two young men escorted the girls to a taxicab and took seats beside them.
“You know, I was thinking perhaps we could get up a picnic one of these days,” Dave suggested as they drove toward the mansion. “Marshmallow has been hinting that he wants to be included.”
“I think a picnic would be lots of fun,” Doris declared, “and by all means let’s have Marshmallow. He always brings the best things to eat! Of course that isn’t my reason for wanting him,” she added hastily, as the others began to laugh.
During the flight Dave had chanced to remark that Don Everts had formerly piloted an air mail plane and had a flying acquaintance with nearly every town and city in the east. Doris had been longing to ask him if he had ever passed over Cloudy Cove and now she broached the subject.
“My cousin comes from there,” she explained.
“Cloudy Cove?” the pilot repeated thoughtfully. “Sure, I remember the place. It’s in Massachusetts. City of about thirty or forty thousand, I’d say.”
The taxicab drew up at the rear gate of the old mansion, and the four alighted. Doris noticed that Ronald Trent’s red roadster was still parked nearby.
“Won’t you come in?” she asked the two young men. “It isn’t late yet.”
They accepted with alacrity and the girls led the way to the house.
“I hope Cousin Ronald doesn’t try any more of his foolishness,” Doris said in an undertone to Kitty.
Entering the house they found the Gates twins and Ronald in close conference. Doris thought Azalea and Iris looked somewhat relieved as the group came into the living room and wondered what her cousin had been saying to disturb them.
The twins were delighted that the girls had brought their friends into the house, and at once made them feel at ease, but Ronald frowned as though he considered it an intrusion. He spoke agreeably enough to Dave when introduced, but it was apparent to the girls that they took an instant dislike to each other.
While the Misses Gates chatted pleasantly with Doris and her friends, Ronald fidgeted in his chair and kept glancing at his watch. After a few minutes he abruptly arose and, with only a few words spoken quietly to Azalea and Iris, depar
ted.
After that, Doris sang a number of songs which met with enthusiastic approval. Azalea rang for the tea things and, as the hour grew late, Dave and his friend regretfully took their departure.
“Don’t forget the picnic,” the girls were reminded by Dave as he said goodbye. “We can decide upon the date and the place later on.”
“We will watch for your message,” assured Kitty.
“A summer without a picnic wouldn’t be a summer at all,” sang Doris, as the two girls waved goodbye and opened the back gate.
CHAPTER XVII
A Dog’s Discovery
Doris and Kitty did not spend a comfortable night. Since the ruby ring had been given into their keeping, they found themselves unable to sleep as soundly as before and the slightest noise caused them uneasiness.
Retiring early as was their custom since coming to Locked Gates, they dropped off almost at once, but some time after midnight they were suddenly awakened by a wild cry. To the frightened girls it sounded strangely like some one in distress.
“This house gets more creepy all the time,” Kitty whispered shakily. “That couldn’t have been the wind.”
“No,” Doris agreed, “it sounded like a human voice to me. I wish we weren’t alone in this wing.”
After that they lay awake for several hours, but the cry was not repeated. Finally they fell asleep again, and when they opened their eyes the morning sun was shining brightly in at the windows.
Somewhat ashamed of their fears, now that it was broad daylight, the girls did not mention the subject at the breakfast table. Azalea and Iris appeared more cheerful than on the previous day and Doris was glad to see that they were both wearing blue dresses, a sign that they had partially forgotten their disagreement.
Before breakfast had been finished, Ronald Trent put in his appearance. The girls were surprised at such an early call, but apparently Iris and Azalea knew what brought him, for they exchanged rather embarrassed glances. For once the man did not flatter and palaver with the ladies but turned his attention to Doris.
“Well, cousin,” he began in his blustering way, “I hear you’ve promised to come across with five hundred dollars.”
“I promised the Misses Gates that amount,” she returned, placing stress upon the name.
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