Part 3 (1/2)
Mr. Parker kissed Penny and hastened away. Later, Louise Sidell came to the house. Soon after ten o'clock the girls took leave of Mrs. Weems, taxiing to the airport.
”I don't see Dad anywhere,” Penny remarked as the cabman unloaded her luggage. ”He'll probably come das.h.i.+ng up just as the plane takes off.”
The girls entered the waiting room and learned that the plane was ”on time.” Curiously, they glanced at the other pa.s.sengers. Two travelers Penny immediately tagged as business men. But she was rather interested in a plump, over-painted woman whose nervous manner suggested that she might be making her first airplane trip.
While Penny's luggage was being weighed, two men entered the waiting room. One was a lean, sharp-faced individual suffering from a bad cold.
The other, struck Penny as being vaguely familiar. He was a stout man, expensively dressed, and had a surly, condescending way of speaking to his companion.
”Who are those men?” Penny whispered to Louise. ”Do you know them?”
Louise shook her head.
”That one fellow looks like someone I've seen,” Penny went on thoughtfully. ”Maybe I saw his picture in a newspaper, but I can't place him.”
The two men went up to the desk and the portly one addressed the clerk curtly:
”You have our reservations for Pine Top?”
”Yes, sir. Just sign your name here.” The clerk pushed forward paper and a pen.
Paying for the tickets from a large roll of greenbacks, the two men went over to the opposite side of the waiting room and sat down. Penny glanced anxiously at the clock. It was twenty minutes past ten.
A uniformed messenger boy entered the room, letting in a blast of cold air as he opened the door. He went over to the desk and the clerk pointed out the two girls.
”Now what?” said Penny in a low voice. ”Maybe my trip is called off!”
The message was for her, from her father. But it was less serious than she had expected. Because an important story had ”broken” it would be impossible for him to leave the office. He wished her a pleasant trip west and again promised he would bend every effort toward visiting Pine Top for Christmas.
Penny folded the message and slipped it into her purse.
”Dad won't be able to see me off,” she explained to her chum. ”I was afraid when DeWitt called him this morning he would be held up.”
Before Louise could reply the outside door opened once more, and a girl of perhaps twenty-two who walked with a long, masculine gait, came in out of the cold. Penny sat up a bit straighter in her chair.
”Do you see what I see?” she whispered.
”Who is she?” inquired Louise curiously.
”The one and only Francine Sellberg.”
”Which means nothing to me.”
”Don't tell me you haven't seen her by-line in the _Riverview Record_!
Francine would die of mortification.”
”Is she a reporter?”