Part 24 (2/2)

”Just what I say. Where's young Bill Kingley?” insisted Joe, growing more suspicious every minute.

”Who wants Bill Kingley?” asked a voice from the doorway, and Mr. Bill himself came in. He looked excited and worried. ”I say, dad, have you heard? Queen Teresa has been kidnaped! We've got to find her! There are three reporters out here.”

”Reporters! Why should they come to me?” wondered Mr. Kingley, chafing under the fiery gaze of Joe Cary.

”Tessie was carried off in your car,” Joe reminded him. ”I should think the police, as well as the reporters, would want to talk to you. The Queen of the Suns.h.i.+ne Islands was found in the bas.e.m.e.nt of your store, and now she has been carried off in your car. It sounds----”

”How!” interrupted Mr. Bill, stepping in front of his shrinking father and facing Joe. ”How does it sound to you, Cary?” he asked thirstily.

”Queer!” Joe told him flatly. ”Darned queer! But if you don't tell all you know now, Mr. Kingley, you'll have to come through some day!” He regarded Mr. Kingley with an odd combination of eager hope and hot defiance. Would Mr. Kingley tell all he knew now?

But Mr. Kingley had stood all he was going to stand from Joe Cary.

”You--you--” he stammered furiously and had to stop for breath. ”You're discharged! Discharged! Do you hear? I won't let any employee talk to me as if I were a kidnaper and a thief!”

”Yes, you will!” Joe dared to say to his purple face. ”Unless you prove you aren't a kidnaper and a thief! And you'd better not discharge me! I suspect too much! When I'm ready to leave, I'll resign. You had better go now and talk to your reporters,” he added with contempt. ”You'll miss the afternoon papers if you don't. And that would be too bad, when you have some more publicity for the Evergreen.”

”What do you mean, Joe?” asked Mr. Bill, who could not make anything of the eager words that Joe was uttering, and that made his father so apoplectic that he could only gasp and gurgle and shake his fist at Joe as he left the room. ”What do you mean?” Joe seemed to mean so much more than he said.

”I haven't time to tell you now!” Joe exclaimed brusquely. ”I must find Tessie!” He would have brushed by Mr. Bill, as if Mr. Bill were only a part of the office furniture, but Mr. Bill clutched his arm.

”I'm going to find her, too!” he insisted. ”I'm going to find her! Where do you suppose she is? What could have happened to her?” He s.h.i.+vered as he thought of what might have happened to Tessie. ”I don't suppose those Sons of Suns.h.i.+ne would stop at anything, would they?” His voice shook as he asked the question.

Joe stood still and looked at him curiously. ”Yes,” he said as if he knew what he was talking about. ”I think there are some things the Sons of Suns.h.i.+ne will not attempt--not in Waloo. Come on, if you're going with me. Do you happen to know,” he stopped as a thought flashed through his brain, ”do you happen to know if Tessie had the Tear of G.o.d with her?”

Mr. Bill shook his head, and the anxious look in his face deepened.

Would it make it better or worse for Tessie if she had the royal jewel with her?

”I don't know,” he confessed. ”She usually did have it around her neck or somewhere else in a safety-bag. Mrs. Gilfooly would know,” he suggested when Joe frowned and said nothing.

”Of course,” Joe shrugged his shoulders and threw back his head. ”Of course, Granny will know!”

XIX

When Tessie came out of the big building which housed the offices of Marvin, Phelps Stokes and told Johnny to run into the Bon Bon Box for some chocolates, she saw a big blue limousine draw up to the curb beside her. She recognized the car at once. She had driven in it too many times not to know that it was the Kingley car. When the chauffeur jumped out and came toward her, she did not recognize him, and she thought carelessly that Mrs. Kingley had done what she had threatened to do, hired a j.a.panese chauffeur.

”They look so smart,” Mrs. Kingley had said. ”And they are so clever.”

”And so unreliable,” Mr. Kingley had added, and he had insisted that when all the American men were employed, it would be time enough to hire a j.a.p.

But Mrs. Kingley had evidently had her way, and Tessie smiled as the chauffeur stopped beside her, bowed humbly, and asked her if she would please come to the car. Tessie turned at once. She naturally thought that Ethel Kingley, or possibly Mrs. Kingley--young Mr. Bill's mother--wanted to speak to her. And although she knew that it is not the thing to order a queen to come here or go there, still the Kingleys were more than queens to her, and with a thumping heart she went to the car. She even entered it without a question, all aglow with curiosity to hear what Ethel Kingley or Mrs. Kingley--the lordly Mr. Bill's mother--had to say to her.

Before she really realized that there was no one in the car, the chauffeur had sent the machine leaping forward. It rounded a corner on two wheels, and if the traffic policeman had not been engaged in a warm argument with two men in small cars, each of whom wanted the right of way at the same time, it would never have gone any further, for it was breaking the traffic laws with every revolution of its red wheels.

Tessie could have pounded on the gla.s.s which separated her from the chauffeur, but it never occurred to her to do that. She thought she had misunderstood the chauffeur and that Ethel Kingley or Mrs. Kingley had asked her to come to the Kingley residence. She was sorry she had not had time to tell Johnny where she was going, but Johnny would take the box of chocolates home and would tell Granny that she had gone to the Kingleys, so that Granny would not worry. If Ka-kee-ta had returned, he would make a fuss because she had the Tear of G.o.d. She felt for it in its safety bag around her slim waist. But if Ka-kee-ta wanted to go with her, he should not take all day for a little errand which should have required only half an hour.

She wondered if Ka-kee-ta had returned. Perhaps she should stop at the Waloo and inquire. She leaned forward to speak to the chauffeur. She never could remember to use the silken tube which hung at the side of the car. But the limousine swerved to the left and dashed down a mean little street, which was not on the way to the Kingleys' big plaster-and-timbered mansion. She knew it wasn't. She had never gone that way before. Why--Why----

<script>