Kitabı oku: «Patsy Carroll Under Southern Skies», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XIX
PATSY’S SCHEME

“Bee, wake up! Oh, please wake up!”

Patsy had not only regained her voice, but the use of her arms as well. Hands on Bee’s shoulders, she now shook her companion gently in an effort to waken her.

“What – y-e-s,” Bee mumbled, then opened her eyes.

In the moonlight she could see Patsy quite clearly as her chum sat crouched at her side. Blinking wonderingly up at Patsy, Bee began dimly to realize that something unusual must have happened.

“What is it, Patsy? Are you sick?” she anxiously questioned, sitting up in bed with apprehensive energy.

“No; I’m not sick. I’m scared. I saw it, Bee. I woke up all of a sudden and saw it standing in the middle of the room.”

“Saw what?”

“The ghost; Mammy Luce’s ‘sperrit,’” Patsy returned solemnly.

“You’ve been dreaming, Patsy, dear.” Beatrice dropped a reassuring arm about Patsy’s shoulders.

“No, Bee. I wasn’t dreaming. I was as wide awake as I am now when I saw it. I tell you it woke me from a sound sleep. It didn’t make a sound. Just the same it woke me. I wish now that I’d been brave enough to climb out of bed and follow it. But I wasn’t. It frightened me so I couldn’t move or speak.”

“What was it? What did you see?”

Bee had now become convinced that Patsy had not been dreaming.

“I saw a figure standing right there,” Patsy pointed. “I can’t tell you what it looked like except that it was just an enormous white shape. I tried to call you, but I couldn’t. I did manage to sit up in bed. It raised a long, white arm and started toward me. Then I tried again and made a sort of sound and reached out to you. It didn’t come any nearer. It turned and went out the door. It must have come in that way, for the door stood half open. It was closed when we went to bed. You remember that. Now I believe that Mammy Luce saw what I saw. No wonder it frightened her. It frightened me, too, and I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Well,” Bee drew a long, sighing breath, “whatever you and Mammy Luce saw was not a ghost. Make up your mind to that. It was a real, live person playing ghost. You and I, Patsy, must find out who it is and why the person is doing it. This ghost business has begun, all of a sudden. Nothing of the kind appeared when we first came here. There’s a motive behind it that we’ve got to discover.”

“What can it be?” wondered Patsy. Her brief terror had now given place to curiosity. “Someone might be trying to play a practical joke on us. But who? Not the maids or Dad’s black boys or – ” Patsy stopped. “Bee, do you suppose it could be —Carlos?” she asked with a little gasp. “The figure looked too tall and broad to be him.”

“Still it might be.” Bee had avidly seized upon Patsy’s sudden inspiration. “Draped in a sheet, he’d look ever so much taller and bigger. It was he who told Mammy Luce about the ghost, you know.”

“But why should Carlos want to do such a despicable thing? We’ve never done him an injury. Why, we never even spoke to him except on that one morning when we tried to get him to tell us about Las Golondrinas.”

“We can’t possibly know yet what his object may be. We may be doing him a wrong by suspecting him. Just the same, he’s the only person we have any reason to suspect.”

“He might have done it to get even with us because Mab asked him if Rosita was crazy. I’ve always heard that Latins are very vengeful.”

Racking her agile brain for a motive, Patsy now advanced this theory.

“Let’s go back a little farther,” replied Bee. “Carlos is old Rosita’s grandson. Rosita must hate us or she wouldn’t have called us names and treated us as she did. Granted, she hates us. Maybe Carlos hates us, too. We know he doesn’t like us. He showed us that much and very plainly.”

Bee paused, mentally trying to fit Patsy’s theory to her own.

“There’s more to it than spite because Mab asked Carlos whether Rosita was crazy,” she continued reflectively. “Now I believe I begin to see. Neither Carlos nor Rosita wants us to live here. Why wouldn’t that account for this ghost affair? Carlos might have done it to scare us, believing we wouldn’t stay in a haunted house. He frightened Mammy Luce out of here. I’m sure if Emily or Celia had seen – ”

Bee’s low-toned discourse was suddenly interrupted by a wild shriek of mortal terror from somewhere below stairs. It floated up to the two girls through the half-open door, echoing and re-echoing through the corridors. It was followed by a succession of shrieks, each rising a trifle higher than the preceding one.

“Come on.”

Leaping out of bed, Bee snatched her kimono from a nearby chair, slipped her arms into it and darted, bare-footed, from the room.

Patsy was only an instant behind her. As the two dashed madly along the corridor and downstairs, the sound of opening doors and alarmed voices was heard. That eerie, piercing scream could hardly have failed to rouse the entire household. By the time three frightened women and one considerably startled man had reached their doors and opened them, Patsy and Bee were out of sight.

Straight for the servants’ quarters at the rear of the house the valiant runners headed. Their mad dash received a most unexpected check. A door suddenly opened. A figure bounced into the narrow hallway just in time to collide violently with the advancing duo. A new succession of frenzied yells rent the air, accompanied by a resounding thump as rescuers and rescued went down in a heap.

“Oh, lawsy, lawsy!” moaned a voice. “Oh, please, Massa ghos’, I ain’t done nothin’.”

A prostrate form swathed in a brilliant pink calico night gown writhed on the floor. Above it, Bee and Patsy, now on their feet, stood clinging to each other, speechless with laughter.

“Get – up – Celia!” gasped Patsy. “We – we – aren’t – ghosts. Oh, Bee!”

Patsy went off into another fit of laughter.

Somewhat calmed by the sound of a familiar voice, Celia raised her head. In the pale light shed by a bracket lamp she now recognized “Missie Patsy.” Very slowly, and a trifle sheepishly, she scrambled to her feet.

By this time Mr. Carroll, Miss Martha, Mab and Eleanor had reached the scene of action.

“What on earth is the matter, Celia?” demanded Mr. Carroll. “Was that you we heard screaming? What’s happened to you?”

“I done gwine t’ tell yoh in a minute.”

Overcome by the awful realization that she was not suitably clothed for the occasion, Celia made a wild dive into her room and banged the door.

Meanwhile the door of the next room had opened just enough to allow a chocolate-colored head to peer forth.

“Celie she done see the ghos’,” explained Emily. “I jes’ lock myself in so I done be safe. It am gone now.”

“Naturally. No self-respecting ghost could stand such a racket as I heard,” dryly declared Mr. Carroll. “Now tell me about this so-called ghost. What does Celia think she saw?”

“I done seen it!”

Celia now reappeared, wrapped from chin to toes in the ample folds of a striped summer blanket. Not being the proud possessor of a kimono, she had chosen the blanket as most highly suitable to her present needs.

“I was dreaming nice as anything’, ’bout a gran’ ball I was gittin’ ready foah,” she blurted forth. “Suddin’ like I wakes up ’case I done feel suthin’ cold on my face. It war an ole cold dead hand and a whoppin’ big white ghos’ was bendin’ over me. I lets out a yell, ’case I was skairt to die an’ it jes’ laffs terrible like an’ floats right out the doah. I’m gwine away from heah the minute it gits daylight. I ain’t gwine to live no moah in this place. I reckon I know now what was ailin’ Mammy Luce. She done seen it, too, same’s me.”

Celia having thus put two and two together and announced her departure, it became Miss Martha’s task to endeavor to soothe and cajole the badly-scared maid to reconsider her decision. Her efforts were not a success. Neither did the added coaxing of the Wayfarers have any effect. Celia remained firm in her resolve. Emily, however, was made of firmer stuff. She stoutly reiterated her disbelief in “ghos’es” and, much to Miss Martha’s relief, declared her intent to “stick it out, ’case no ghos’ ain’t gwine to git me.”

In the end, a much disturbed party, consisting of five women and one man, repaired to the sitting-room for a consultation.

During the excitement both Beatrice and Patsy had deemed it wise to say nothing, while in the presence of the maids, of what Patsy herself had seen.

As they were about to go upstairs, Patsy whispered to Bee: “Don’t say a word about – well, you know. I’ll tell you why, later.”

“Robert,” began Miss Martha severely, when the little company had settled themselves in the sitting-room, “I insist now on your speaking to that Carlos man of yours about this ghost story he told Mammy Luce. Someone is evidently trying to play practical jokes upon the servants. I believe he knows something about it. It may be he who is doing it.”

“That can’t be. Only yesterday morning Carlos asked me for two days off. His brother, in Miami, died and he felt it his duty to go there to console the family and attend the funeral. So you see he had nothing to do with to-night’s affair. It’s more likely one of my black boys has done a little ghost walking just to be funny. You notice that no one except the servants has been visited by apparitions.”

“There is no telling how soon the rest of us may be startled half out of our senses,” acidly reminded Miss Martha. “You had better hire a guard to patrol the grounds around the house at night. He ought to be able to catch this scamp who has frightened the servants.”

“I’ll do it,” promised Mr. Carroll. “I’ll have a plain clothes man from Palm Beach up here to-morrow evening. He’ll stay here, too, until we catch the rascal who is causing all this commotion.”

“And will you speak to Carlos?” persisted Miss Carroll. “I am more suspicious of him than of your blacks.”

“As soon as he comes back,” reassured her brother.

The serious part of the discussion having come to an end, Mabel and Eleanor hurled a volley of eager questions at Bee and Patsy concerning what had happened before they reached the hallway. Patsy therewith proceeded to convulse her hearers with a description of Bee’s and her own untimely collision with Celia. Mabel giggled herself almost hysterical and had to be playfully shaken into sobriety by Eleanor, who declared that the ghost walk had gone to Mab’s head.

The will to sleep overcoming their dread of living midnight visitants in ghostly garments, the ways and means committee adjourned in favor of rest. As a last word, Miss Martha cautioned the Wayfarers to lock their doors, which had hitherto been allowed to remain unlocked.

“I don’t know whether it was exactly fair not to tell Auntie about my seeing the ghost,” was Patsy’s first remark to Bee after they had regained their room. “It’s like this, Bee. I’ve thought of a plan I’d like to try. I have an idea the ghost will come back and I’m going to be ready for it. If Auntie knew that I’d actually seen it, she’d probably have our bed moved into her room. Mab and Nellie’s room is almost across the corridor from hers, you know. We’re farther away, so she’d worry if she knew what we know. I’m going to tell her sometime, of course, but not now. Will you stand by me, Bee, and help me catch the ghost?”

“I will,” vowed Beatrice, too much carried away by the scheme to reflect that she and Patsy were perhaps pitting themselves against a dangerous opponent. “Do you believe, Patsy, that Carlos really has gone away?”

“No; I don’t. I think Carlos is the ghost,” calmly asserted Patsy. “Furthermore, he knows a way to get into this house that we don’t. All the men in Florida sent to guard Las Golondrinas won’t catch him. When Dad spoke of getting a guard, I had half a mind to speak up about seeing the ghost. Then I decided not to. I wanted to see what we could do by ourselves.”

“What are we going to do? You said you had a plan.”

“I have. I’m going to lasso the ghost,” Patsy announced with a boyish grin. “I learned to handle a lariat when I was out West three years ago visiting Pauline Barry. One of the cowboys on her father’s ranch taught me the way to do it. There’s a coil of light, thin, tough rope in the stable. I saw it the other day. That’s going to be my lariat. I’ll smuggle it up here and practice with it. This is such a big room I can swing it easily in here.”

“I don’t see how you can carry out that plan,” was Bee’s doubting answer. “How can you possibly know when the ghost is going to appear? Besides, you mayn’t have time, perhaps, or a chance to do any lassoing.”

“That’s the only hard part of it. You and I will have to take turns sitting up and watching, Bee. Suppose we go to bed at eleven o’clock, as we usually do. Well, from eleven until two I’ll sit up and watch. From two until five it will be your turn. After five no ghost will be silly enough to walk. I’ll take the part of the night when it’s more likely to appear, because I know how to swing the lariat. If it appears during your watch – Let me see. I guess I’d better teach you how to lasso. No; that won’t do. It takes a long time to learn the trick. You’d be apt to miss the ghost. Then we’d never catch it.”

“I think we’d both better sit up until a little after two for a few nights,” proposed Bee. “If we’re sleepy the next day we can take a nap. It was just about two this morning when the ghost came. If Carlos is the ghost, he may appear to your aunt or Mab and Nellie another time and not come near us. If he’s trying to scare us away from here, that’s what he’d be apt to do.”

“He may have wandered into their rooms, too, for all we know, only they didn’t happen to wake up and see him,” surmised Patsy. “There’s only a bare chance that anything will come of it, but it will be exciting to try out our plan for a few nights while it’s bright moonlight. Our scheme wouldn’t work during the dark of the moon. Now while the moon’s full you can see for yourself how light it makes this room. Then, too, a big white ghost is an easy mark,” finished Patsy with a giggle.

“All right, Patsy. I pledge myself to become a valiant ghost catcher,” laughed Bee. “Now let’s go bye-bye or we’ll never be able to sit up to-morrow night. The only thing that bothers me is not telling your aunt.”

Bee had begun to feel a belated twinge of conscience.

“It bothers me, too,” admitted Patsy, “but I’m going to stifle my conscience for a few days. If nothing remarkable happens, then we’ll go to Auntie and confess and let her scold us as much as she pleases.”

CHAPTER XX
THE WAY THE SCHEME WORKED OUT

The next morning witnessed the departure of Celia, bag and baggage. Aside from that one item of interest, nothing occurred that day to disturb the peace of the household of Las Golondrinas. With Emily now installed as cook and a very good cook, at that, the loss of Celia’s services was not so vital, particularly as Emily’s sister, Jennie, had promised her services the following week.

What signally worried and annoyed Miss Martha, however, was Mr. Carroll’s regretful announcement at dinner that evening to the effect that he would not be able to obtain the services of a guard for at least three days. An unusually large number of private details had rendered headquarters short of men used for such duty, he explained.

“I’m sorry, Martha, but it can’t be helped,” he consoled. “I’d turn the job over to one of my black boys, but it wouldn’t be advisable. If one of them has really been playing ghost, depend upon it, the others know it. Result, the ghost wouldn’t appear. He’d be warned to lie low. I’ll stay up myself to-night and watch, if you feel in the least afraid. Say the word and I’ll stand guard.”

“Certainly not,” promptly vetoed his sister. “I’m not afraid. I merely wish this disagreeable foolishness stopped. We will lock our doors and barricade them, if necessary. As for the windows opening onto the patio, I hardly know what to do. It’s not healthful to sleep with closed windows. They are so high from the floor of the patio, a ghost, or rather this idiotic person who is playing ghost, would find it hard work to climb up to them. We may as well leave them open.”

“We can set rows of tinware on the inner edge of the window sills in such a way that a touch would upset the whole business. If anyone tries to climb in a window, all the pots and pans will fall into the room with a grand crash and wake us up,” proposed Mabel. “Besides, the ghost won’t linger after such a rattle and bang.”

“A good idea,” approved Miss Carroll solemnly.

Eleanor, Bee and Patsy received it with laughter in which Mr. Carroll joined.

“We’d better make a raid on the kitchen and select our tinware,” said Eleanor gaily. “I’m proud to have such a resourceful sister. There’s nothing like getting ready for his ghostship.”

“I don’t imagine you’ll be troubled to-night by spectral intruders,” Mr. Carroll said seriously. “Such a thing is hardly likely to occur two nights in succession.”

“Emily’s not afraid, that’s certain,” declared Beatrice. “She’s going to sleep all alone downstairs to-night. She says she’s ‘not gwine to git skairt of no ghos’.’”

“I told her she might sleep in that little room at the end of the portrait gallery, but she said she preferred her own room,” commented Miss Martha. “I am agreeably surprised to find her not in the least cowardly or superstitious. It’s fortunate for us.”

“She told me she was going to lock her door and her windows and sleep with a club and a big bottle of ammonia beside her bed,” informed Patsy. “If the ghost comes she’s going to give him a warm reception.”

“We all seem to be planning for the ghost’s welfare,” chuckled Mabel. “Poor ghost. If he knows when he’s well off he’ll stay away from here to-night.”

Much open discussion of the spectral visitor had served to rob the idea of its original horror. Instead of a serious menace to tranquillity the ghost was rapidly becoming a joke.

“We’ve done a little secret preparing of our own,” boasted Patsy in a whisper to Bee as they strolled out of the dining room, arms twined about each other’s waists.

True to her determination, Patsy had slipped down to the stable that morning, commandeered the desired coil of rope and successfully smuggled it into her room. That afternoon, while Mabel and Eleanor were taking a walk about the grounds with Miss Carroll, the two conspirators locked their door and proceeded to test out the most important feature of their plan.

Patsy found the thin, tough rope admirable for her purpose. The sleeping room, spacious and square, also lent itself to her plan. The bed being in one corner left ample room for a free casting of the lariat. With the quaint mahogany center table moved back against the wall, she had a clear field.

For an hour Bee patiently allowed herself to be lassoed, moving from point to point, thereby to test Patsy’s skill. She soon discovered that her chum was an adept at the art. Wonderfully quick of movement and sure of aim, Patsy never failed to land the noose over her head, letting it drop below her shoulders and drawing it taut about her arms with almost incredible swiftness. At the conclusion of the practice both agreed that the ghost’s chances were small against “Lariat Patsy,” as Bee laughingly nicknamed her.

Despite their numerous jests concerning the ghost, the Wayfarers’ hearts beat a trifle faster that night as they went to their rooms. Earlier in the evening the kitchen had been raided and amid much mirthful comment a goodly supply of tin and agate ware had been selected and carried upstairs for window decorations.

Patsy and Bee took part in these preparations merely, as Patsy confided to her chum, “for the looks of things.” Both considered their own private scheme as much more likely to bear fruit.

On retiring to their room for the night the door was dutifully locked. For half an hour the two sat talking with the lamps burning, waiting for the house to grow absolutely quiet. At ten minutes to twelve, Patsy brought forth the lariat from its hiding place in her trunk. Next, both girls slipped out of their white frocks only to don dark gowns which would not betray their presence in the room to the nocturnal intruder they were planning to receive.

“Shall I put out the lights?” whispered Bee.

“Yes. Then stand in that space opposite the door and see if I can rope you,” breathed Patsy.

Quickly Bee extinguished the two oil bracket lamps and a large oil lamp that stood on a pedestal in a corner. Into the room the moonlight poured whitely, lighting it fairly well except in the corners.

“All ready?” softly questioned Patsy, moving back toward the end of the room farthest from the door.

“Yes,” came the sibilant whisper.

An instant and Patsy had made a successful cast.

“It works splendidly,” she softly exulted. “Lets try it again.”

A few more trials of her prowess and she was satisfied to recoil the rope and sit down on the bed beside Bee.

“It’s time to unlock the door, Bee,” she murmured as the chime of midnight rang faintly on their ears from a tall clock at the end of the corridor.

“All right.”

Bee rose, tiptoed softly to the door and turned the key. Stealing back across the room she took up her position of vigilance a few feet from Patsy, seating herself upon a little low stool.

Patsy had posted herself on the edge of her trunk, lariat coiled, ready to spring into action at a moments notice. Over the house now hung the uncanny silence of midnight, so tense in its stillness that the two watchers could hear each other breathe.

For the first half hour neither experienced any Special discomfort. By the time that one o’clock had come and gone, both were beginning to feel the strain of sitting absolutely still in one position.

The distant note of the half hour found them weary, but holding their ground. Patsy was worse off than Bee. Bee could relax, at least a little, while she had to sit on the extreme edge of her trunk, constantly on the alert. Should their expected visitor enter the room, she must act with the swiftness of lightning or all their patient watching would have been in vain.

As she sat there it suddenly occurred to her how horrified her aunt would be, could she know what was going on only a few yards from where she slumbered so peacefully. Patsy could not resist giving a soft little chuckle.

“What is it?” whispered Bee.

“Nothing. Tell you to-morrow. I guess we can go to bed soon.”

“I guess so. It’s almost two o’clock.”

Silence again descended. The clock chimed three-quarters of the hour. Its plaintive voice ceased and the hush deepened until it seemed to Patsy almost too profound for endurance. And then it was broken by a sound, as of a door being softly opened.

Bee’s heart nearly skipped a beat as she listened. Patsy felt the cold chills race up and down her spine. Two pairs of eyes were now fastened in strained attention on the door. Was it opening? Yes, it surely was; slowly, very slowly. It was open at last! A huge white shape stood poised on the threshold. It moved forward with infinite caution. It had halted now, exactly on the spot where Bee had lately stood while Patsy tried out her prowess with the lariat.

Over in the corner Patsy was gathering herself together for the fateful cast. Up from the trunk she now shot like a steel spring. Through the air with a faint swishing sound the lariat sped. She pulled it taut to an accompaniment of the most blood-curdling shrieks she had ever heard. Next instant she felt herself being jerked violently forward.

“Bee!” she shouted desperately. “Take hold. I’m going!”

Bee sprang for the rope and missed it. Patsy shot past her across the room, headed for the door. Stubbornly clinging to the rope, she was bumped violently against the door casing, dragged through the doorway and on into the corridor.

As she shot down the stone passageway she was dimly conscious of doors opening along it and voices crying out in alarm. On she went, propelled by that sinister, terrible force ahead. Now she had bumped around another corner and was entering the picture gallery. At the ends and in the center of it bracket lamps burned dimly.

She could see the enormous white shape. It had paused in the center of the gallery. The relentless force had slackened. The rope now lay in loose coils along the gallery. And then something happened which nearly took Patsy’s breath.

Even in that faint light she saw the picture of the cavalier move forward. The huge white shape leaped straight to meet it. The rope began to move along the floor again. Patsy braced herself and tightened her grasp on the end she still held. Wonder of wonders! The apparition had disappeared.

Patsy heard an oddly familiar sound. Next she realized that the savage jerking of the rope had not begun again. As she stood staring at it, still clutching it tightly, there began again those same awful shrieks, mingled with snarls such as a cornered wild beast might utter.

In the midst of them she was suddenly surrounded by a frantic little group of persons. She heard her father saying: “Thank God, she’s safe!” She felt consciousness slipping from her like a cloak.

“The rope – hold the rope,” she mumbled, and pitched forward into a pair of extended arms.