CHAPTER XIX
A PUZZLING CIRCUMSTANCE
Jessie's parents being away, Amy ran home and announced her desire tokeep her chum company and was back again before ten o'clock. There wasnot much to be heard over the airways after that hour. They had missedMadame Elva and the orchestra music broadcasted from Stratfordtown.
"Nothing to do but to go to bed," Amy declared. "The sooner we areasleep the sooner we can get up and go looking for the mysteriousbroadcasting station. Do you believe that cry for help was from littleHen's cousin?"
"I have a feeling that it is," Jessie admitted.
"Maybe we ought to take Spotted Snake, the Witch, with us," chuckledher chum. "What do you say?"
"I think not, honey. We might only raise hopes in the child's mindthat will not be fulfilled. I think she loves her cousin Bertha verymuch; and of course we do not know that this is that girl whose cryfor help we heard."
"We don't really know anything about it. Maybe it is all a joke or amistake."
"Do you think that girl sounded as though she were joking?" wasJessie's scornful reply. "Anyway, we will look into it alone first. IfChapman can find the stock farm with the red barn----"
"And there are two fallen trees and a silo near it," put in Amy,smiling. "Goodness me, Jess! I am afraid the boys would say we hadanother crazy notion."
"I like that!" cried Jessie Norwood. "What is there crazy about tryingto help somebody who certainly must be in trouble? Besides," she addedvery sensibly, "Daddy Norwood will be very thankful to us if we shouldmanage to find that Bertha Blair. He needs her to witness for hisclients, and Momsy says the hearing before the Surrogate cannot bepostponed again. The matter must soon be decided, and without BerthaBlair's testimony Daddy's clients may lose hundreds of thousands ofdollars."
"We'll be off to the rescue of the prisoner in the morning, then,"said Amy, cuddling down into one of her chum's twin beds. "Good-night!Sweet dreams! And if you have a nightmare don't expect me to get upand tie it to the bed-post."
The next morning Chapman brought around the car as early as half pasteight, when the girls were just finishing breakfast.
"Don't eat any more, Amy," begged Jessie. "Do get up for once fromthe table feeling that you could eat more. The doctors say that is theproper way."
"Pooh! What do the doctors know about eating?" scoffed Amy. "Their jobis to tend to you when you can't eat. Why? honey! I feel lots bettermorally with a full stomach than when I am hungry."
They climbed into the car and Chapman drove out the boulevard andturned into the Parkville road. It was a lovely morning, not too hotand with only a wind made by their passage, so that the dust onlydrifted behind the car. They passed the home of Mr. and Mrs. Brandon'sdaughter and saw the aerials strung between the house and the flagpoleon the garage.
"Keep your eyes open for aerials anywhere, Amy," said Jessie. "Ofcourse wherever that broadcasting station is, the aerials must beobservable."
"They'll be longer and more important than the antenna for the usualreceiving set, won't they?" eagerly asked Amy.
"Of course." Then Jessie leaned forward to speak to Chapman, for theywere in the open car. "When you approach the stock farm you spoke of,please drive slowly. We want to look over all the surroundings."
"Very well, Miss Jessie," the chauffeur said.
Passing through Parkville, they struck a road called a turnpike,although there were no ticket-houses, as there are at the ferries. Itwas an old highway sweeping between great farms, and the country wasrolling, partly wooded, and not so far off the railroad line that thelatter did not touch the race-track Chapman had spoken of.
The car skirted the high fence of the Harrimay enclosure and then theyran past a long string of barns in which the racing horses were housedand trained for a part of the year. There was no meet here at thistime, and consequently few horses were in evidence.
"I like to see horses race," remarked Amy. "And they are such lovely,intelligent looking creatures. But so many people who have anything todo with horses and racing are such hard-faced people and so--soimpossible! Think of the looks of that Martha Poole. She's the limit,Jessie."
"Neither she nor Mrs. Bothwell is nice, I admit. But don't blame it onthe poor horses," Jessie observed, smiling. "I am sure it is not theirfault. Mrs. Poole would be objectionable if she was interested incows--or--or Pekingese pups."
Chapman turned up a hilly road and they came out on a ridgeoverlooking the fenced-in track. The chauffeur shifted his position soas to glance behind him at the girls, the car running slowly.
"Now look out, Miss Jessie," he advised. "We are coming to the oldGandy stock farm. That's the roof of the house just ahead. Yonder isthe tower they built to house the electric lighting plant like whatyour father used to have. See it?"
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Jessie. "But--but I don't see any aerials. No, Idon't! And the red barn----"
"There it is!" cried Amy, grabbing at her chum's arm. "With the siloat the end."
The car turned a corner in the road and the entrance gate to theestate came into view. Up the well kept lane, beyond the ramblinghouse of weathered shingles, stood a long, low barn and a silo, bothof a dull red color. And on either side of the entrance gate were twobroken willow trees, their tall tops partly removed, but most of thetrunks still lying upon the ground where they had fallen.
"Ha!" ejaculated the chauffeur. "Those trees broke down since I waspast here last."
"Do drive slower, Chapman," Jessie cried.
But she drew Amy down when the girl stood up to stare at the barn andthe tower.
"There may be somebody on watch," Jessie hissed. "They will suspectus. And if it is either of those women, they will recognize you."
"Cat's foot!" ejaculated Amy. "I don't see any signs of occupancyabout the house. Nor is there anybody working around the place. Itlooks abandoned."
"We don't know. If the poor girl is shut up here----"
"Where?" snapped Amy.
"Perhaps in the house."
"Perhaps in the barn," scoffed her chum. "Anyway, every window of thattower, both the lower and the upper stories, is shuttered on theoutside."
"Maybe that is where Bertha is confined--if it is Bertha."
"But, honey! Where is the radio? There is nothing but a telephone wirein sight. There is no wireless plant here."
"Dear me, Amy! don't you suppose we have come to the right place?"
The car was now getting away from the Gandy premises. Jessie had toconfess that there was no suspicious looking wiring anywhere about thehouse or outbuildings.
"It does not seem as though that could be the place after all. What doyou think, Chapman?" she added, leaning forward again. "Don't youthink that place looked deserted?"
"It often does between racing seasons, Miss Jessie," the man said."Whoever owns it now does not occupy it all the year."
Suddenly Jessie sat up very straight and her face flamed again withexcitement. She cried aloud:
"Chapman! Isn't there a village near? And a real estate office?"
"Harrimay is right over the hills, Miss Jessie," said the chauffeur.
"Drive there at once, please," said the girl. "And stop at the officeof the first real estate agent whose sign you see."
"For goodness sake, Jess!" drawled Amy, her eyes twinkling, "you don'tmean to buy the Gandy farm, do you?"