“I don’t see how I was taken in so easily,” Penny confessed ruefully. “I couldn’t help liking the boy. I hoped he would turn over a new leaf.”
Alighting at the Nichols home, she invited her chum to remain for dinner.
“I can’t tonight,” Susan told her regretfully. “We’re having guests.”
“I suppose I’ll have to eat alone then. No use expecting Dad home.”
In this she was mistaken. Entering the house, she discovered Mr. Nichols submerged in his favorite easy chair.
“I didn’t look for you home so early, Dad.”
“Nor did I expect to make it when I left the house this morning. However, I must return to the office immediately after dinner.”
“Is it so very important?” Penny demanded.
Her father smiled.
“Lonesome?”
“Not exactly, only the evenings seem so long.”
“Why don’t you go to a moving picture show?”
“I’ve seen every good one in town. Besides, I’m tired of movies.”
“I realize I am being a very poor father,” Mr. Nichols acknowledged, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “You might come back to the office with me.”
“I’d like that,” Penny said instantly.
“It will be very dull,” her father warned.
Directly after dinner, they motored to Mr. Nichols new office opposite the Brunner garage. Since the detective expected to occupy it only a few weeks at the most, it was equipped with the barest of necessities. There was a battered desk, three chairs and two telephones. Nothing more.
“What in the world do you do here?” Penny questioned.
“Mostly sit and wait,” the detective admitted. “I receive reports from some of my men here. During the day I watch the street.”
With a wave of his hand he indicated a powerful field glass which lay upon the desk.
Penny picked it up, training it upon the Brunner garage on the opposite side of the street.
“Why, it brings everything remarkably close! Do you sit here at the window and watch for the auto thieves?”
“Something like that. We’ve set a trap.”
“A trap?” Penny was all interest.
“Yes, we’ve planted several expensive new cars in key positions on the street. Our men are secretly watching them, of course. We hope that the auto thieves will select one of our models to strip.”
“It must be tedious waiting.”
“It is, but if we catch the gang our patience will have been rewarded.”
“But what of Rap Molberg?” Penny questioned doubtfully. “Surely he must delegate the actual thievery to others.”
“I’m not so sure,” Mr. Nichols said slowly. “It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Molberg acts upon orders from someone higher up. However that may be, if we capture some of the lesser fry, they can be made to talk.”
The detective busied himself at his desk. For a time Penny amused herself by watching pedestrians through the field glass. Growing tired of that, she buried herself in a magazine. It was not very interesting. By nine o’clock she was thoroughly bored.
“I think I’ll go home,” she announced. “I don’t believe anything exciting will happen tonight.”
“So that’s why you came,” her father chided. “And I thought it was because you craved my company!”
“I did, but this bare office is too depressing.”
“Then I’ll excuse you,” Mr. Nichols smiled. “Take a taxi home if you like.”
“No, I think I’ll walk.”
It was a pleasant mellow evening and Penny was in the mood for a long stroll. She chose a roundabout route home.
She was absent-mindedly crossing a street, thinking of nothing in particular, when an automobile without headlights shot past her at a high rate of speed. Frightened, Penny sprang backwards.
“The nerve of that driver!” she thought. “He missed me by inches.”
She watched the car swerve around a corner and race up a dead-end street.
“Why, this is the very place where I lost track of Rap Molberg!” she told herself.
She rushed to the corner. Her fascinated gaze followed the retreating automobile. It tore madly to the end of the street where it abruptly halted.
Penny lost sight of it for an instant. Then to her surprise, the headlights were flashed on. In the reflected light she saw the tall walls of a large manufacturing plant.
The beam was turned off again. Darkness swallowed up the car.
While she was straining to see, Penny heard the shrill blast of a warning siren from far up the street. The next instant, a police radio cruiser shot past.
With a loud screaming of brakes, the police car came to a stop not far from Penny.
“Did you see an automobile without headlights come this way?” the driver asked tersely.
Penny was only too glad to offer information.
“It turned into this dead-end,” she began.
The officers did not wait to hear more. With a roar, the cruiser was off again. It reached the end of the street and halted because it could go no farther.
Penny, bent upon missing nothing, followed as fast as she could.
By the time she reached the radio cruiser one of the officers had alighted. He was looking carefully about. Sighting Penny, he walked over to her.
“Say you! I thought you told us that car came this way.”
“It did,” Penny maintained staunchly. “I saw it go to the very end of this street. The lights flashed on for an instant. Then the car seemed to vanish. I think it must have gone into that building.”
She indicated the Hamilton Manufacturing Plant. The officer surveyed it briefly.
“Don’t kid me!” he snapped. “Only a Houdini ever went through solid walls!”
He climbed back into the police car, saying gruffly to the driver: “Get going, Philips. It was a wrong steer. We must have missed that car at the turn.”
Penny waited until the cruiser disappeared around the corner. Then she crossed the street and stood staring meditatively at the tall walls of the Hamilton Plant. There was no doorway leading into the building.
“It’s uncanny,” she murmured. “Yet I know very well that car went in there some way.” The building was entirely dark. There were no windows on the street side. Only a vast expanse of unbroken wall.
“It’s too dark to see anything tonight,” Penny decided after a brief hesitation. “Tomorrow I’ll come back and perhaps make a few interesting discoveries!”
And with that resolution, she turned and walked rapidly toward home.
CHAPTER X
The Vanishing Car
Penny fully intended to tell her father of her experience, but she retired before he came home. She overslept the next morning. When she descended to the breakfast room at nine o’clock, Mrs. Gallup told her that the detective had been gone for nearly an hour.
“Your father wasn’t in a very good mood this morning,” the housekeeper informed as she served Penny with a steaming hot waffle. “He complained about the coffee. When he does that it’s always because something’s gone wrong with his work.”
“You mustn’t mind Dad,” Penny smiled. “We couldn’t get along without you.”
Mrs. Gallup sniffed.
“I do the best I can. The coffee does taste all right, doesn’t it?”
“It’s perfect.”
“When your father’s working on a hard case he always likes it strong as lye,” the housekeeper complained. “But I know he was worried about something this morning.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I heard him muttering to himself. Something about the stupidity of the police. It seems they let some crook get away last night after your father had laid careful plans to catch him.”
“Not Rap Molberg?”
“I think that was the name. Mr. Nichols didn’t tell me anything, I just heard him talking it over with himself.”
“It’s
the only person he will discuss his business with,” Penny chuckled.
After Mrs. Gallup had gone back into the kitchen she mulled over the information which the housekeeper had given her. It struck her as probable that the car which she had seen vanish down the dead-end street had been driven by Rap Molberg or one of his confederates.
“I wish I could have talked with Dad about it before he left the house,” she thought.
Penny had not forgotten her resolution to visit the Hamilton Plant by daylight. As soon as she had helped Mrs. Gallup with the dishes, she left the house, walking directly to the scene of the previous evening’s adventure.
The street was deserted. No one questioned her actions as she made a careful inspection of the old building which had housed the Hamilton Manufacturing Company until its failure. She examined the walls inch by inch, but although she was convinced it was there, she could find no hidden entrance.
Regardless of her failure to find evidence, Penny was unwilling to give up her original theory. She remained unshaken in her belief that the mysterious automobile had disappeared into the Hamilton building.
“There’s no other place it could have gone,” she reasoned. “I’ll talk it over with Dad and see what he thinks.”
When she stopped at his office, Mr. Nichols was not there nor could Miss Arrow tell her when he might return.
The detective did not come home for luncheon and late in the afternoon telephoned to say that he would take dinner downtown. Rather than spend an evening alone Penny called Susan, arranging that they should go to the library together.
The girls spent an hour in the reading room, but for some reason Penny could not interest herself in the magazines. She kept turning through them and laying them aside. She felt unusually restless.
Presently an electrical magazine attracted her attention. She glanced over it carelessly until she came to a particular article which dealt with photo-electric cells and the clever purposes for which they were used.
“Why, these ‘magic-eyes’ are almost human,” she commented in an undertone to Susan. “They turn lights on and off, cook meals, and open doors, when a beam of light strikes the cell—”
“I’ve heard of them before,” Susan interrupted in a tone which clearly implied that she was not in the least interested.
Penny took the hint and dropped the subject. But she became absorbed in the article. When she closed the magazine a half hour later, her face was flushed with excitement.
“Susan, let’s get away from here,” she proposed in a whisper. “I’ve just had an inspiration!”
Grumbling a little at being forced to leave a fascinating story before she had finished it, Susan followed her friend from the building.
“What about this inspiration of yours?” she demanded as they walked to Penny’s parked roadster.
“It’s this way, Susan. I knew there was a logical explanation for the mysterious disappearance of that car Rap Molberg was driving. Let’s go over to the Hamilton Factory this minute and test out my new theory.”
“You may know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure I don’t, Penny Nichols.”
“That’s because you wouldn’t let me tell you about that article I was reading,” Penny laughed. “But I’ll explain everything as we go along.”
Without pausing to consider that it might not be safe to investigate the abandoned manufacturing plant at such a late hour, the girls drove directly into the hilly section of Belton City. Penny turned into the familiar dead-end street and was relieved to find no sign of other vehicles.
She halted her roadster at the very end of the pavement in such a position that the bright headlights played upon the massive walls of the Hamilton building.
“It must be located higher up,” Penny murmured to herself.
“What is?” Susan demanded. “I don’t see what you’re about anyway.”
Without answering, Penny directed the beam of her spotlight upon the stone structure. Inch by inch she moved it systematically over the high wall.
“Perhaps it’s only a silly idea,” she acknowledged at last, “but I believe that somewhere in the wall there must be a secret door—one mechanically operated. No doubt the outline of the opening is disguised by the many irregular cracks in the masonry.”
“If you’re looking for a secret opening, why not come in the daytime when you can see much better?”
“I’ve been here in the daytime and the door can’t be detected—at least not by the eye. I’m hoping to have better luck this time.”
“I can’t for the life of me see how,” Susan began, but ended with a startled gasp.
A portion of the massive wall was slowly moving backward.
“Just as I thought!” Penny chuckled in delight. “Now we know how Rap Molberg escaped from the police the other night.”
In fascination the girls watched the widening gap in the wall. Soon it was large enough for an automobile to easily drive through into the empty building.
“How did you open it?” Susan asked in awe.
“The beam of my spotlight struck a photo-electric cell which was secreted near the eaves,” Penny explained briefly. “You should have read about it at the library.”
“I wish I had now. It’s almost uncanny.”
“Let’s drive in and have a look at the inside,” Penny suggested daringly.
“Won’t it be dangerous?” Susan demurred.
“The place seems to be deserted. But probably it would be wiser if you waited here and I went in alone.”
“No, if you’re going to risk it, so am I!”
“Then here goes,” Penny said.
She drove the roadster through the opening into what appeared to be an empty room. Curiously, the girls glanced about. Suddenly Susan uttered a stifled scream.
“The door! It’s closing!”
Already the opening had narrowed to a mere slit. It was too late to retreat.
“Don’t lose your nerve,” Penny advised, although her own heart was beating at a furious rate. “We’ll find some way to open that door.”
“Someone may have seen us drive in and closed it deliberately!”
“I don’t think so, Susan. It must have closed automatically.”
“Anyway, we’re prisoners inside this horrible place! We’ll starve to death before anyone will suspect we’re here!”
“I got you into this and I’ll get you out,” Penny announced firmly. “There must be some button or lever that opens the door from the inside.”
Although the headlights of the roadster illuminated a portion of the large room, many of the corners and crannies remained dark. Taking her flashlight from the pocket of the car, Penny moved cautiously about searching for some means of escape. Susan remained huddled in her seat, too terrified to move.
Penny examined the door, but it would not budge when she threw her weight against it. She could find no lock or catch.
There were several windows high overhead but without a ladder she could not hope to reach them. She was growing more disturbed than she cared to admit, when Susan called to her.
“Penny, I think there’s some sort of lever over here by the car.”
Penny flashed her beam in that direction and was relieved to see that her chum was right.
“It must operate the door, Susan! We should be out of here in a jiffy!”
Confidently, she grasped the long handle and pulled with all her strength upon the iron lever.
From below came the low rumble of moving machinery. Penny and Susan riveted their eyes hopefully upon the door. It did not open.
Instead, a square of floor upon which the roadster was resting, slowly began to sink.
Uttering a frightened scream, Susan tried to open the car door.
“Save me!” she cried frantically.
Penny leaped nimbly down upon the running board.
“It’s all right,” she laughed shakily. “We’re only descending in an elevator.”
“We’ll be killed be
fore we ever get out of this dreadful place!”
The elevator struck the lower floor with a gentle thud. Penny then climbed into the car and drove it a few feet forward. Relieved of its weight the platform slowly rose again until it had resumed its former position.
“We’re worse off now than we were before,” Susan moaned.
“I think this must be the way out,” Penny comforted.
She indicated a tunnel-like opening directly ahead. Susan who had been looking in the opposite direction had noticed a small room which appeared to be an office. She called her chum’s attention to it. Together, they cautiously peered inside.
Save for a battered desk and several chairs the tiny room was empty. Cigarette ashes and old papers were scattered over the floor, giving evidence that the office had been used recently. Penny tried the desk and found it locked.
She picked up a few scraps of paper from the floor. They were without interest.
A folded newspaper lying upon one of the chairs drew her attention. Opening it, she noticed that an article on the front page had been underscored with pencil lines. The headline read:
“AUTO ACCESSORY THEFTS ON STEADY INCREASE HERE”
The story hinted that Belton City police had been unable to cope with the situation and that local insurance companies long harassed by an organized gang, had turned the case over to private detectives.
Above the latter statement someone had written the name of Christopher Nichols in pencil.
Penny carefully folded the newspaper, replacing it upon the chair exactly as she had found it.
“Let’s get away from here before we’re caught,” she urged. “I suspect we’re in a Molberg hideout.”
“Nothing would please me better than to leave this place,” Susan retorted grimly. “Just lead me to an exit.”
“I think the tunnel probably will take us out. Come on, let’s see.”
Returning to the roadster the dark passage seemed forbiddingly dangerous. Carefully examining the concrete floor, Penny discovered tire patterns in the dirt. Other cars had used the tunnel.
With the engine at idling speed, they drove into it. The tunnel led downward at such a steep angle that soon Penny was forced to use her brakes to keep from going too fast.
“Where will this thing end?” Susan asked.
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