The Mystery at Dark Cedars

The car rocked to one side, indicating that Harry Grant had stepped in and was seating himself at the wheel. Jane’s lip trembled.

“It’s so dark in here! So terribly dark! Where’s your hand, Mary Lou?”

“Here – and here’s Silky. Oh, Jane, this is going to be good!”

The motor started, and the car leaped forward with a sudden uneven bound. Jane repressed a cry of terror. It turned sharply at the gate and buzzed along noisily for several minutes before Mary Louise cautiously raised the lid and looked out.

Oh, how good it was to see the lights again, and the sky – after that horrible blackness!

The car had reached the open highway which led out of Riverside, and it picked up speed until it was rattling along at a pace of about sixty miles an hour. Growing bolder, Mary Louise continued to raise the lid of the compartment until it was upright at its full height. The girls straightened up, with their heads and shoulders sticking out of the enclosure.

“Quite a nice ride after all, isn’t it?” observed Mary Louise, gazing up at the stars.

“I don’t know,” returned Jane. “It sounds to me as if there were something wrong with that engine. If we have an accident – ”

“That’s just what I’m hoping for,” was the surprising reply. “Or rather, a breakdown.”

“Whatever would you do?”

“I’ll tell you. Listen carefully, so we’ll be prepared to act the minute the car stops. While Harry gets out on the left – he surely will, because his wheel is on the left – we jump out on the right. If there are woods beside the road, as I remember there are for some distance along here, we disappear into them. If not, we get to the path, and just walk along as if we were two people out for a walk with their dog. He won’t think anything about that, for he doesn’t know us, or know that we came with him.”

“But how will that help us to find out whether he is the thief?” inquired Jane.

“My plan is to grab that satchel, if we get a chance, and run off with it!”

“But that’s stealing, Mary Lou! He could have us arrested.”

“Detectives have to take chances like that. It isn’t really stealing, for we want to get hold of it merely to give its contents to the rightful owner. Of course, if there’s no money in it, we could return it later.”

They were silent for a while, listening to the pounding of the engine. Fifteen minutes passed; Mary Louise saw by her watch when they rode under a light that it was quarter after nine, and she recalled her promise to her mother. But she couldn’t do anything about it now.

They were ascending a hill, and the speed of the car was diminishing; it seemed to the girls that they were not going to make it. The engine wheezed and puffed, but the driver was evidently doing his best. Ahead, on the left, shone the lights of a gas station, and this, Mary Louise decided, must be the goal that Harry was now aiming for.

But the engine refused to go the full distance: it sputtered and died, and the girls felt the car jerked close to the right side, with no sign of civilization about except the lighted gas station about fifty yards ahead.

But, lonely or not, the time had come for action, and there was not a second to be lost. Before Harry Grant’s feet were off the running board both girls were out of the car on the other side, holding Silky close to them and hiding in the shadow.

Mr. Grant stepped forward and raised the hood of his motor, peering inside with a flashlight. Keeping her eye on him through the open window of the car, Mary Louise crept cautiously along the right side towards the front.

The young man turned about suddenly and swore softly to himself. But it was not because he had seen or heard the girls, although Jane did not wait to find that out. Desperately frightened, she dashed wildly into the protecting darkness of the bushes at the side of the road.

Mary Louise, however, remained steadfastly where she was, waiting for her opportunity.

It came in another moment. Lighting a cigarette, Mr. Grant started to walk to the gas station.

“What could be sweeter!” exclaimed Mary Louise rapturously to herself, for Jane was out of hearing distance by this time. “My big chance!”

She reached her hand quickly through the open window and picked up the satchel from the seat. Then, with Silky close at her heels, she too made for the protecting woods. In another moment she was at Jane’s side, breathless and triumphant.

“You’re all right?” demanded her chum exultantly. “Oh, Mary Lou, you’re marvelous!”

“Not so marvelous as you think,” replied the other, feeling for Jane’s hand in the darkness. “Lift that satchel!”

Jane groped about, and took it from Mary Louise, expecting a heavy weight.

But it was surprisingly, disappointingly light!

“It can’t possibly contain any gold,” said Mary Louise, dropping to the ground in disgust. “All our trouble – and we’re only a common pair of thieves ourselves!”

Silky came close to her and licked her hand reassuringly, as if he did not agree with her about the name she was calling herself and Jane.

“Stranded on a lonely road – at least ten miles from home!” wailed Jane.

“Sh!” warned Mary Louise. “They’re at the car – Harry and another man. We might be caught!”

But she stopped suddenly: something was coming towards them, as they could sense from the snapping of a twig close by. Not from the road, however, but from the depth of the woods!

CHAPTER VII

“Hands Up!”

The two girls sat rigid with terror, Mary Louise holding tightly to Silky. In the darkness they could see nothing, for the denseness of the trees blotted even the sky from view. The silence of the woods was broken only by a faint rustle in the undergrowth, as something – they didn’t know what – came nearer.

Silky’s ears were alert, his body as tense with watching, and Jane was actually trembling.

“Got your flashlight, Mary Lou?” she whispered.

“Yes, but I’m afraid to put it on till Harry Grant gets away. He might see it from the road.”

The sudden roar of the motor almost drowned out her words. The noise startled whatever it was that was near them, and the girls felt a little animal pass so close that it nearly touched them. They almost laughed out loud at their fear: the cause of their terror was only an innocent little white rabbit!

Mary Louise took a tighter grip upon her dog.

“You mustn’t leave us, Silky! You don’t want that bunny! We need you with us.”

The engine continued to roar; the girls heard the car start, and drive away. Jane uttered a sigh of relief.

“I wonder whether he missed his satchel,” she remarked.

“Probably he didn’t care if he did,” returned her chum. “I don’t believe it has anything in it but a toothbrush and a change of linen.”

“Let’s open it and see.”

Mary Louise turned on her flashlight and looked at the small brown bag beside them.

“Shucks!” she exclaimed in disappointment. “It’s locked.”

“It would be. Well, so long as we have to carry it home, maybe we’ll be glad that it’s so light.”