CHAPTER IV
THE QUEER PEDDLER
For a moment after this surprising discovery had been made no one spoke.Dr. Brown looked oddly from one girl to the other, and at Mrs.Meckelburn.
"There is evidently some mystery here," he said. "I supposed there wasreally some one here who needed my services?" and he glancedquestioningly at Mollie, who had summoned him.
"Oh, indeed there _was_," she said, quickly. "A girl fell out of atree----"
"Out of a tree!" exclaimed the doctor, and for a moment it seemed asthough he believed a joke had been attempted on him.
"Yes," went on Betty, taking up the story, "didn't Mollie tell you that?She really fell from a tree as our auto passed, and at first we thoughtwe had struck her." Betty shot a glance of inquiry at Mollie.
"No, I didn't tell that part," confessed the owner of the new car. "Iwas so flustrated, and I guess Grace didn't say anything either."
"No," answered the willowy one.
"Well, I'm here, at all events, but there is no patient," said thedoctor, with a smile.
"Oh, we'll pay you for your call!" exclaimed Betty, quickly taking outher silver mesh bag. "How much----"
"No, no!" said Dr. Brown somewhat sharply, "you misunderstand me. Inever accept a fee in a simple accident case. What I meant about therebeing no patient was that she has evidently gone away, possibly in adelirium, and in that case we had better search for her, for she may bebadly hurt, or do herself some injury. You say she was in this room?"
"Yes," answered Mrs. Meckelburn.
"And you sat here in view of the door all the while?"
"Yes," spoke Betty. "She never came out of that door, I'm sure." Amysaid the same thing.
"Then the only other possible solution is that she got out of thewindow," went on the physician, "for there is no other door from theroom. We must look outside," and he crossed the apartment to thecasement. It had been raised, and the shutters were open when theunconscious girl had been left alone.
"The window is low--she could easily have dropped to the ground," saidDr. Brown. "It is not more than four feet."
He leaned out to look at the ground underneath, and uttered anexclamation.
"That is what she did!" he cried. "There are the marks of feet landingheavily--small shoes--and unless some of _you_ young ladies have beenindulging in gymnastics."
"And see!" added Betty, standing beside the physician, "here are some ofher long hairs," and she picked some from the window sill. "Oh, she didhave the longest, most glorious hair!" and Betty sighed in memory, forBetty loved long tresses and her own, while they became her wonderfullywell, were not very luxuriant.
"But I don't see how she could have gotten away, unconscious as she was,and injured," said Grace, with a puzzled air.
"She may have regained consciousness," spoke Dr. Brown; "or, as I said,she may have wandered off in a delirium. In that case we must try tofind her. Again, she may not have been as badly hurt as you supposed,and also she may have simulated an injury hoping she would get a chanceto escape unobserved. Was there anything strange about her?"
"Yes, there was," admitted Betty, slowly, and she gave the details ofthe accident, how, most unexpectedly the girl had toppled from thetree, the subsequent swerving of the auto, and how, several times, thegirl had murmured something about not going back to a certain man.
"Hum!" mused Dr. Brown, "it is rather odd, I must admit. What do yousuppose she was doing in the tree?"
"We haven't been able to guess," confessed Amy; "perhaps she climbed upto avoid a dog--we have met several dogs to-day."
"It's possible," Dr. Brown commented.
"And the tree was an easy one to climb," spoke Mollie. "I am not a verygood climber, but that tree offered temptations."
The doctor smiled.
"Well, let us make a search," he proposed. "Is there any special placewhere a girl, who might wish to escape observation for some unknownreason, could hide around here, Mrs. Meckelburn?"
"There's the barn."
"Very good, we will search there, and we may be able to trace herfootprints. Please do not any of you walk under the window, nor in aline from it until we have made some observations. We will play a littledetective game," and he smiled frankly at the girls.
But if he had hoped anything from the clue of the footprints he wasdoomed to disappointment for, though there were plain indications wherethe girl had landed when she jumped from the window, the marks were soonlost sight of on the harder ground a short distance from the house.
A search of the barn revealed no trace of her, and one of the farmhands, coming to the house a little later, joined in the search. Hereported that there had been seen no hatless, injured--or apparentlyinjured--girl crossing the fields.
"Then she must have made a circle about the house, and gone out on theroad," suggested Betty. "She is probably far enough away from here bythis time, poor thing!"
"Perhaps we ought to search for her," spoke Mollie. "Of course it wasnot our fault, since we are sure the car did not hit her; but perhaps itscared her so that she fell."
"I should not blame myself if I were you," said the physician, kindly."It was evidently not your fault. You did all you could for the girl. Ifshe did not want further treatment that is her lookout. Of course, ifshe wandered away in a delirium, that is another story, and perhaps itwould be well to search down the road. She did not pass us, or we wouldhave seen her, coming from my office along the main highway as we did,"he said to Mollie. "A search in the opposite direction would be the onlyfeasible thing to conduct."
"Then let's do it!" cried Mollie. "And you please drive, Dr. Brown, Ihaven't yet gotten over my nervousness."
Mrs. Meckelburn refused an invitation to go in the car, but the fourgirls started off, Dr. Brown at the wheel. They went as far back as thetree which was the scene of the accident and saw no trace of the girl.Nor had any of several other autoists, or drivers of horse vehicles, towhom they appealed, seen her.
"She has just disappeared--that's all," said Betty. "I wonder if we hadbetter notify the police?"
"I will attend to that for you," responded Dr. Brown, kindly. "There isno need for you to be mixed up in this. Sometimes, with the bestintentions in the world, one gets unpleasant notoriety in these cases. Iwill notify the authorities to be on the lookout for the girl, for herown sake alone. Later, if there is need of you----"
He paused suggestively.
"We will leave you our addresses," said Betty, quickly. "Thank you forlooking after this for us."
"I am only too glad to be of service. Well, as long as there is nopatient to be found here, I had better return to those waiting for me atmy office."
"Go there in my car," proposed Mollie, quickly, "and then I will takethe wheel again. I am feeling better now."
"Such a fine car as this ought to make anyone feel fine! It is abeauty!" and he seemed to caress the steering wheel. "I am getting asmall runabout," he went on, "and that is how I happen to know how todrive. I learned some time ago."
They flashed past Mrs. Meckelburn's house, calling to her of theirfailure, and saying that they would be back soon. A little later, havingleft the physician at his home, they were again in the pleasant farmhouse, sipping tea which their hostess had thoughtfully made.
"Isn't it queer?" observed Betty.
"A strange enough happening," Amy commented.
"Quite a mystery," asserted Grace.
"And really she was a pretty girl," declared Mollie. "I wish I had herhair," and she sighed as Betty had done.
Grace strolled into the room where the girl had been, and half idly shelooked about it, as though in that way she might solve the mystery. Apiece of paper in one corner caught her eye and she picked it up.
"I found this in there," she said, coming out. "It has some writing onit. Perhaps this is yours, Mrs. Meckelburn," and she held out the scrap.
"No, I'll guarantee there was not a piece of paper in that room when youcarried that girl in," said the farmer
's wife. "I had just swept," andshe tossed her head in pardonable pride of her housework.
"What does it say?" asked Amy.
"It's evidently a piece torn from a letter," answered Grace, as sheaccepted the paper from the woman, "and all I can make out are thewords--'not go to Shadow Valley even if'--and that's all there is toit."
"How odd!" exclaimed Mollie. "Shadow Valley is not far from here."
"And the queer girl evidently dropped that paper," declared Betty,examining the scrap. "Well, the mystery deepens, but I do not see thatwe can do anything to solve it."
They talked it over for some time, but could come to no otherconclusion. Grace saved the scrap of paper, and soon, having biddengood-bye to Mrs. Meckelburn, they were on their way again, with Mollieat the wheel.
Gradually their nerves, upset by their adventure, resumed their poiseunder the influence of the fresh air and sunshine, and the gloomyatmosphere raised by the girl's accident, passed away.
They had made the turn into a road that would lead them to Deepdale whenthey came in sight of a man standing in the road beside a small, andrather gaudily painted wagon. He seemed to be looking in the dust forsomething, and Mollie, seeing him, slowed up, remarking:
"Perhaps he has a break-down. Let's ask if we can help him."
The appearance of the man, in some ways, was enough to invite theconfidence of four girls, and in others was not. He had long, and verywhite hair, fluffy and wavy, and was dressed in a shabby suit of black,but his face had hard, cruel lines in it, as though he were in the habitof imposing his will on others.
A look at his wagon showed the character of his trade, for it wasbrilliantly lettered with such devices and mottoes as--"Bennington'sHair is All His Own." "Use His Restorer and Be Likewise." Another was:"Bennington's Restorer Really Restores."
"Have you lost something?" asked Mollie, bringing the car to a stop. Helooked up quickly, and smiled, but the smile only seemed to make hisface harder, instead of softening it.
"Yes, ladies," he said with a smirk and bow, taking off his broadbrimmed hat, and running his fingers through his hair, making it fluffout more than ever, "I have lost a bolt out of part of my wagon, and I'mafraid to go on lest I break down. It dropped somewhere in the dust, butI can't find it."
"I have a supply of spare bolts in my tool box," spoke Mollie, "I'llgive you one, and that will save you looking any more."
"Thank you, lady. It will be just what I want." From the tool box on therun board he soon selected a bolt that fitted his wagon.
"And now let me repay your kindness," he said. "I am, as you see, atraveling peddler of hair tonic. May I present you with a bottle?" andhe offered Mollie one.
"No, thank you," and she laughed merrily. "It is something that I neveruse."
"You all have fine hair," returned the peddler; "but at that it would beall the better for Bennington's Restorer--I am Bennington--I make itmyself," and he bowed. "Won't you take it. I can guarantee it harmless."
"No, thank you just the same," repeated Mollie. "And you are entirelywelcome to the bolt. Good-bye," and she started her car.