CHAPTER XVII.A COWARD AND HIS WAYS.
CHAPTER XVII.
A COWARD AND HIS WAYS.
Peggy awoke the next day with a feeling of distinct uneasiness. She and her aunt had sat up till after midnight awaiting Roy’s return, but, as we know, the lad was in a position from which he could not extricate himself. An attempt had been made to communicate with the aviation grounds, but an unlucky aeroplane had blundered against the telephone wire during an afternoon flight, snapping the thread of communication.
In spite of the late hour at which they had retired, however, Miss Prescott and her niece were up betimes. But early as it was they found the little town all astir. Excursion trains were already pouring their crowds into the place and the streets were fairly alive with humanity. Peggy’s first act on awaking was to gaze outof the window, beneath which some fine trees grew. Not a breath of wind stirred their leaves. The air was as clear and undisturbed as it was possible for it to be.
Donning a white duck skirt and a plain shirt waist, and dressing her hair in a becomingly simple style, Peggy hastened to the office of the hotel, and going to the telephone switchboard asked the operator to put her in communication with Roy’s room. But after several minutes spent in a vain attempt to obtain an answer Central had to inform the anxious girl that there was no reply.
Thinking that after his late absence of the night before Roy might have overslept, Peggy despatched a bellboy to his room. But the report came back that the room was empty and that Roy’s bed had not been slept in.
“See if you can get the executive office on the aviation grounds,” said Peggy to the ’phone girl. But although the wire had been repaired and communication was easily established, therewas no news of Roy. Worse still for Peggy’s peace of mind, she learned now, for the first time, that there had been no meeting at the aviation field the night before.
“If your brother got a note to that effect it was a forgery,” said the official who answered the call.
Peggy fairly flew upstairs to her aunt’s room. Rapidly she informed Miss Prescott of what had happened.
“Oh, I’m certain now that that hateful Fanning Harding has something to do with it,” she almost sobbed.
“Hush, dear,” said her aunt, although in the gentle lady’s breast a great fear had arisen, “everything may be all right. At any rate, I do not believe that any one, no matter how anxious they were that you should not compete in the race, would dare to resort to such methods to keep Roy out of the contest.”
“I don’t know so much about that, auntie,” rejoined the girl. “I was in our hangar yesterdayafternoon and I noticed a horrid looking man prowling about with Fanning Harding. If it had not been too improbable I should say that I knew the man’s face.”
“My dear!” exclaimed the good lady in astonishment.
“Well,” rejoined Peggy with conviction, “I’m almost sure that the man was Jukes Dade, a workman who once was employed in his laboratory and workshop by my father. He was a skillful mechanic, but dad had to discharge him because he drank fearfully. He swore at the time that he would get even with us in some way. But we never heard any more of him. Yet if that really was him with Fanning Harding yesterday I’m awfully afraid that there is some mischief stirring.”
“What you say, my dear, makes me also very anxious,” responded Miss Prescott. “Perhaps we had better communicate with the police at once.”
“Not yet, aunt,” breathed Peggy; “you see,Roy may turn up in time for the race, and if he does, everything will be all right.”
“But, Peggy––”
“On the other hand, if we spread an alarm that he is missing we shall be declared out of the contest.”
“I see what you mean, my dear,” was the response, “and I suppose that what you say is best. I feel positive, somehow, that we shall have news of Roy before long, and that no harm has come to him.”
But the morning wore on, and no word came. In the meantime, every available source of information had been canvassed thoroughly without result. Roy Prescott had totally vanished; or so it seemed.
Peggy, as in duty bound, spent all she could spare of the morning at the aviation field, putting the finishing touches on the Golden Butterfly. The big contest was not to be held till the afternoon, and in the meantime, some of the smaller events were flown off. But Peggy wastoo heartsick to watch the aeroplanes thunder around the course, which was marked out by red and white “pylons” or signal towers.
Instead, she remained in the hangar and kept a watchful eye on Fanning Harding, who, with some mechanics and the same man she had noticed about the hangar the day before, was very busy over his machine, apparently. But no one obtained even a glimpse of Fanning’s air craft, for it was not wheeled out, and, except when one or the other of his party dodged in or out, the doors of his hangar were closed.
In the course of the morning Fanning’s father arrived, and not long after, to Peggy’s unbounded delight, Jess and Jimsy and a party of friends drove up to the Prescott hangar.
“Why, Peggy, what is the matter with you? You look positively—er—er—dowdy!” exclaimed Jess, gazing at her friend after first greetings were over.
“And Roy, where is Roy?” demanded Jimsy.
“Yes, where is he? We want him to explainthe points of this gasolene turkey-buzzard to us,” cried Ed. Taylor, one of the gay party.
“I expect him here any minute,” rejoined Peggy, and then drawing Jess and Jimsy aside she related to them, in a voice that shook in spite of herself, the mysterious occurrences of the night, and Roy’s total disappearance.
“I’m going right over now and ask Fanning if he knows anything about it,” announced Jimsy indignantly as soon as the girl had concluded.
“Oh, don’t, please don’t,” begged his sister.
“I don’t think it would be wise to, now,” put in Peggy.
But Jimsy was not to be shaken in his purpose. Fanning was outside his hangar smoking a cigarette and swaggering about when Jimsy approached him. Perhaps the self-assertive youth felt a bit alarmed at the look in Jimsy’s eye as he stepped up, but he assumed an impudent expression and blew out a puff of smoke which he did not try to avert from Jimsy’s face.
“Good morning, Fanning,” said Jimsy, bottlingup his temper at the other’s insulting manners, “can you give me a few minutes of private conversation?”
“Hum, well I don’t know. What’s it about?” inquired Harding more impudently than ever.
“It’s about Roy, Fanning,” said Jimsy seriously. “I want you to tell me on your word of honor that you don’t know where he is.”
“Oh, you do, eh? Well, you have an awful nerve to come to me with such questions. How do I know where he is?”
This question was somewhat of a poser for Jimsy. That impetuous youth had approached the other more or less on an impulse, and now that the direct question was put to him he felt that he could not, for the life of him, put his suspicions into so many words.
“Well—er—you see,” he said somewhat confusedly, “I had an idea that you might have seen him.”
“Well, I haven’t, and what’s more I don’t want to,” snapped Fanning aggressively. Hewas quite cool now that he saw that Jimsy had nothing definite against him in his mind, but only a vague suspicion.
“You really mean that, Fanning?” rejoined Jimsy earnestly. “His sister is terribly worried. He hasn’t been seen since last night.”
“Is that so?” asked Fanning with a sudden accession of interest; “then he can’t race to-day, can he?”
“I wasn’t thinking about the race,” said Jimsy; “it was Roy himself I was worrying about.”
“Well, you may as well stop your anxiety,” chuckled Fanning; “how do you know he isn’t off on a little spree, and––”
“That’s enough, Fanning. Roy Prescott does not do such low-down things. He––”
“Oh, you mean to imply that I do, eh?”
Fanning came forward pugnaciously.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Jim Bancroft, you just take yourself away from this hangar as quickly as possible. I don’t want anything to do with you, do you understand? It’s none of my businessif Roy goes off and forgets to tell you where to find him. How do you know he hasn’t gone off with those jewels?”
“What do you mean?”
Jimsy’s tone was as angry in reality now as Fanning Harding’s had been for effect a few seconds before.
But Fanning, in his bitter enmity toward Roy, could not see the danger signals in Jimsy’s honest gray eyes.
“What do I mean?” he drawled; “why, just this, that the investigation of the police has taken a new turn in the last few days, and that Roy is likely to be arrested within the next twenty-four hours for robbery. I’ll bet he got wind of it and skipped out. I’ll bet––”
“How dare you?”
Peggy, eyes aflame, stepped up. Her bosom heaved angrily.
“How dare you say such things? You—you coward.”
“Well, I ain’t coward enough to steal a girl’s jewels and then––”
“Hold on there, Fanning. Stop right there.”
It was Jimsy’s turn. But Fanning was too much worked up in his vindictive anger to stop.
“I won’t stop,” he shouted. “I’ll say it right out. Roy Prescott is a––”
But before he could utter another word Jimsy’s fist had shot out, and Fanning’s chin happening to be in the way he felt himself suddenly propelled off his feet and elevated into the air. He sought to recover his balance as he reeled, but his foot caught in a bit of turf, and whirling his arms about like one of those figures on the top of a barn he measured his length.
“Had enough?” asked Jimsy mildly, rolling up his sleeves.
“No, you despicable young whelp!” roared Fanning, utterly throwing aside all prudence. “I haven’t.”
He leaped to his feet and rushed toward Jimsy. As he did so Jess gave a shriek. In theangry, half-crazed youth’s hand there glistened a long clasp knife.
“Jimsy! Look out!” cried the girl.
But before the frenzied Fan could spring upon Jimsy, who was utterly unprepared for the production of the deadly weapon, a dainty foot in white canvas outing shoes and silk stockings flashed out from under Peggy’s skirt. It caught Fanning as he sprang, and the next instant, for the second time that day, he fell sprawling on the ground.