“Will you men come inside?” suggested Mr. Gay, realizing how his wife was suffering. “Good-night, Mrs. Frazier. Good-night, Frazier.”
And so another long night passed without any news of Mary Louise. But it was not so terrible for Mrs. Gay as the first one, because her husband was with her. And Max Miller and Norman Wilder comforted her with the assurance that they were going to find Mary Louise the following day.
Somehow, by intuition, perhaps, Mrs. Gay believed them!
CHAPTER XVII
Release
While her parents and her friends at Shady Nook were imagining all sorts of horrors for Mary Louise, the day actually passed peacefully for her. It was a terrible shock to waken up in that bare little bedroom with the iron bars at the window, but after the first realization of it was over, she found comfort in work. For, unlike the previous night, she was not allowed to be idle.
Miss Stone came in at seven o’clock with a tray of breakfast in her hands.
“And how do you feel today, dear?” she inquired cheerfully.
Mary Louise opened sleepy eyes and looked about her, trying to remember where she was. For one ghastly moment she felt as if she would scream as the horror of the whole thing came back to her. But, realizing that such an act would only help to confirm her nurse’s belief in her insanity, she managed to control herself. The sun was shining, Miss Stone was kind – surely Mary Louise would find a way out. So she smiled back at the woman.
“I’m fine, Miss Stone,” she said. “Am I supposed to get dressed?”
“Eat your breakfast first,” was the reply. “After today you’ll probably eat with the other patients. But the doctor is coming in to make an examination this morning.”
Mary Louise nodded. “And then what do I do?”
“You tidy up your own room and then take some part in the household duties. You may have your choice of cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, or sewing. Then you’ll eat lunch in the dining room and spend an hour outdoors in the garden. After that there is a rest period, when you may read or sew, if you like. We have a small library, and there is a class in knitting too, if you prefer. Then supper – and vespers.”
“It sounds fine – so much better than doing nothing,” replied Mary Louise. “I think for my particular work I’ll choose cooking. I’m pretty good at cakes and pies.”
“That’s nice, dear,” concluded Miss Stone, turning towards the door. “Be ready to see the doctor in about an hour.”
“May I have a shower?”
“Yes. I’ll come back in fifteen minutes to take you.”
“But I’m not a baby!” protested Mary Louise. “I’m quite used to giving myself baths.”
“I know, dear, but it’s a rule. Sometimes patients drown themselves if we don’t watch them. Maybe – later on – ”
She did not finish the sentence, but left the room, locking the door behind her. It was very like a nightmare, Mary Louise thought, as she picked up her tray – a dream in which you found yourself locked up somewhere without any means of escape. But she meant to get away just the same, if she had to climb that ten-foot wall to accomplish it!
She decided immediately that she would be an exemplary patient, that she would work hard and do everything she was told to do. Gradually, perhaps, her liberty would be increased as the attendants learned that she could be trusted.
In spite of her blue calico uniform, Mary Louise looked exceedingly pretty that morning when the doctor came in to see her. Her cheeks were glowing with perfect health, and her dark eyes were smiling. The room, as well as her person, was meticulously neat.
She identified the doctor immediately as the man who had received her the day before at the door of the institution.
“Good-morning, Miss Adams,” he said, regarding her with admiration. “You’re looking well today.”
“I’m fine,” replied Mary Louise. “Only my name doesn’t happen to be Miss Adams,” she couldn’t help adding.
The physician smiled, and she detected a shade of pity in his expression. Something like that in Miss Stone’s face when she had humored that patient by calling her “Joan of Arc.”
But he made no reply and went ahead with the examination. When Miss Stone returned he told her that Miss Adams was in perfect physical condition.
“It’s only the brain,” thought Mary Louise in secret amusement. How often she and her young friends had made that remark to each other! She resolved never to speak jokingly of insanity again.
After the doctor’s visit her day proceeded in the orderly manner which Miss Stone had outlined. She cooked and washed dishes and ate lunch with the patients. Then she went out in the garden, where she was assigned a flower bed of her own.
But Mary Louise was not interested in flower beds at the moment. She pretended to work, all the while looking about her at the grounds around the asylum, at the high stone wall below and into the valley beyond. Across this valley, on a level with the institution, she could see a white road that ran like a ribbon along the hill in the distance. This road, she decided, must be a main highway, or at least a drive frequented by automobiles – otherwise it would not be so smooth and white…
Staring at this road in silence, an inspiration came to Mary Louise. An idea that might bring about her longed-for release!
She waited eagerly for the nurse to come over to where she was working, but she was careful to keep her tone matter-of-fact when she did make her request. Miss Stone must not guess her hidden purpose!
“May I break off two sticks from some bush?” she asked indifferently. “I’d like to practice my semaphore.”
“What’s that, dear?” inquired Miss Stone skeptically. “Is it anything dangerous?”
Mary Louise smiled.
“Oh, no. It’s just part of a Girl Scout’s training. You’ve heard of Girl Scouts, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I believe I have. Anyway, I’ve heard of Boy Scouts, so I suppose the Girl Scouts is an organization like theirs – for girls.”
“That’s right,” agreed Mary Louise. “And I have always been very much interested in it. I don’t want to forget all that I have learned. So if I had a couple of sticks and a needle and thread, I could make a pair of flags and – and – practice every day.”
She uttered the last sentence haltingly, fearful lest Miss Stone might guess her reason for wanting them and refuse. But as the nurse had no idea that semaphore meant signaling messages, she was entirely unsuspicious. And it had always been her policy to humor her patients in pursuit of any harmless amusements.
So that afternoon she brought Mary Louise needles and cotton and scissors and sat with her while she cut up her red-and-white sports dress for the flags. It seemed a pity, Miss Stone thought, to destroy such a pretty dress, but it was not likely that Mary Louise would ever need it again. It was a sad fact that few of their patients ever returned to the outside world!
Mary Louise finished her flags just before supper and laid them carefully away behind the washstand. Tomorrow – oh, happy thought! – she would try her luck.
Hope is indeed a great tonic. Mary Louise went right to sleep that night and slept soundly until morning. She performed her duties so quickly and with such intelligence that even Miss Stone began to wonder whether there had not been some mistake in confining the girl to the institution. But as they did not take a daily paper at the asylum, and as they were entirely cut off from the outside world, she had no way of knowing about the desperate search that was going on all over the country for Mary Louise Gay.
“Now that I have finished my work, may I go out into the garden and practice my semaphore for an hour before lunch?” the girl asked her nurse.
“Yes, certainly,” agreed Miss Stone. “I’ll go with you, because I want to spray the rose bushes.”
Mary Louise was not so pleased to be accompanied, but after all, Miss Stone’s presence would mean freedom from other attendants. Nobody would molest her while her own nurse was with her.
She selected a spot high up on the terrace, from whence she could plainly see the ribbon of white road across the valley. Then she began to signal her message:
“I AM MARY LOUISE GAY. HELP!”
Over and over again she repeated the same letters, hope coming into her heart each time a car swung into view, despair taking possession of her when it failed to stop. Perhaps, she thought, she was too far away to be seen. She glanced behind her, at the green bushes, and moved along where she might have the gray wall of the institution for her background. Red and white should show up brilliantly in contrast to somber gray.
Half an hour passed, during which perhaps a dozen cars went by without stopping, and Mary Louise’s arms became weary. But she did not give up. Sometimes, she was certain, one of her own friends’ cars would come over that hill – and stop.
Miss Stone, watching the girl out of the corner of her eye, nodded sadly to herself. She must be crazy after all, she decided, to go through that silly routine over and over again. Intelligent on most subjects as she had discovered Mary Louise to be, she must be unbalanced on this particular obsession.
Still Mary Louise went on trying.
“I AM MARY LOUISE GAY. HELP!”
she signaled again, for the twenty-fourth time, as a small, bright car appeared on the road.
The car was proceeding very slowly; it looked as if it could scarcely climb the hill. Then, to the girl’s intense joy, she watched it stop. Perhaps it was only because of a faulty engine or a puncture – but – oh – it was stopping!
Her heart beat so fast and her hands trembled so that she could hardly repeat the message. But she forced herself to go through it again. This might be her one chance – her vital hope of escape!
She knew now what it must feel like to be abandoned at sea and all at once to glimpse a sail on the empty waters, bringing hope, and rescue, and life – if it stopped. But, oh, the utter despair if it continued on its course unheeding!
Two figures which looked like little dwarfs in the distance jumped out of the car and stood still, evidently watching Mary Louise’s motions. Frantic with excitement, she spelled the message again, this time very slowly, forming the letters carefully and pausing a long second between each word:
“I AM MARY LOUISE GAY. HELP HELP HELP!”
The two tiny figures waited until she had finished and then waved their arms frantically.
She watched them in feverish anguish as they returned to the car and took something from the back of it. For five long minutes they busied themselves in some way which she could not understand, while she waited, tense with emotion.
Miss Stone strolled over and spoke to her, startling her so that she almost dropped her flags.
“Tired, dear?” inquired the nurse sympathetically.
“No! No!” protested Mary Louise. “Let me stay fifteen minutes more. Please!”
Her eyes were still fixed upon the car across the valley. One of the men was stepping away from it now, holding up both arms, which waved two dark flags. Made from clothing, perhaps, on the spur of the moment. And then he began to signal.
Breathlessly Mary Louise watched the letters as they came, spelling out words that brought floods of joy to her heart. Overwhelming her with happiness such as she had never known before. For the message which she read was this:
“WE ARE COMING MARY LOU. MAX AND NORMAN.”
Great tears of bliss rushed to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks; her hands trembled, and her arms grew limp. In the exhaustion of her relief she dropped down weakly to the ground.
Miss Stone came and bent over her anxiously, fearing that some curious spell had come over Mary Louise. A fit, perhaps, which would explain why her brother had wished to confine this girl in the asylum.
“I’ll help you up, dear,” the nurse said, “and we’ll go into the house. You had better lie down for a while.”
“But I’m all right!” exclaimed Mary Louise, jumping happily to her feet. “My friends are coming for me, Miss Stone!” She threw her arms around the woman and hugged her. “Two boys from my home town – in Riverside.”
“Yes, yes, dear,” agreed Miss Stone, sure now that Mary Louise was raving. “But come inside now and rest.”
“No, I don’t want to rest,” objected the girl. “You said I could stay out till lunch, and there’s still ten minutes left. I want to wait for Max and Norman.”
“All right, dear, if you’ll promise to calm yourself. Sit down there on the step while I finish these rose bushes.”
Mary Louise did as she was told, keeping her eyes fixed on the gate, wondering how long it would take for the boys to get across that valley, hoping that they wouldn’t get lost. She picked up her home-made flags and touched them lovingly. “Suppose I had never joined the Girl Scouts – and suppose I had never become an expert signaler!” she thought. She shivered at the very idea.
She did not have to wait long, however. In less than ten minutes she saw the gardener unlock the big iron gate and a dear, familiar green roadster speed up the hill and stop at the door of the asylum. In an instant both boys were out of the car. Max was the first to reach Mary Louise. Without any question of permission, he took her into his arms and kissed her again and again. Then Norman kissed her too, not quite so ardently as Max.
Finally she freed herself laughingly from their embraces and introduced them to Miss Stone. The boys looked questioningly at the woman. If she had been responsible for the kidnaping of Mary Louise, why was the girl so polite to her?
Max took a revolver from his pocket, just to be prepared in case of violence.
Mary Louise laughed merrily.
“You don’t need that, Max,” she said. “Miss Stone won’t do anything desperate. She is a nurse.”
“A nurse? Is this a hospital?” Alarm crept into Max’s voice. “Oh, Mary Lou, you’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, not a bit. Don’t you know what kind of place this is, Max? It’s an asylum for the insane! I’m supposed to be crazy.”
Horrified, Max sprang forward and seized Miss Stone by the arm.
“What kind of diabolical plot is this?” he demanded. “Whose accomplice are you?” He pulled a newspaper out of his pocket and shook it in the nurse’s face. “The whole country’s frantic over the disappearance of Mary Louise Gay!”
Miss Stone gazed at the picture in the paper with increasing fear. Had she – and the rest of the staff at the asylum – been accomplices to a hideous crime?
But Mary Louise replied for her reassuringly.
“Miss Stone’s innocent, Max,” she explained. “Please let her go. So are the others here. They’re just obeying orders. Tom Adams put me in here, calling me his feeble-minded sister Rebecca. He really does happen to have one, you may have heard, and I understand her papers for confinement were filed once before. Mr. Frazier signed my commitment too, pretending to be a cousin. Those two men are the only guilty ones.”
“Tom Adams!” repeated Max and Norman at the same time, and Norman added:
“Yes, that’s what Freckles said. They’re looking for Tom Adams. He ran away from Shady Nook – or wherever it is he lives. The police are after him.”
“How about Frazier?” demanded Mary Louise.
“Is he guilty?” asked Max.
“More so than Tom,” replied the girl. “Oh, I must get back to tell the police before Frazier sneaks away!” She turned to the nurse. “May I go with the boys now?”
“I’ll have to ask the doctor,” replied Miss Stone, hurrying inside to the office.
It took no persuasion at all, however, to obtain the doctor’s consent. As soon as he read the account in the newspaper and saw that Tom Adams was a fugitive from the law, he gladly agreed to let Mary Louise go free. In fact, he was anxious that she should, lest he be blamed for participation in the crime.
So Mary Louise jumped into the car between the two boys, and in less than an hour she saw the dear familiar trees of Shady Nook in the distance. As the car approached her own bungalow, she could distinguish her mother – yes, and her father – sitting on the porch in an attitude of hopeless despair.
Oh, what fun it was going to be to surprise them so joyfully!
CHAPTER XVIII
Return
Both Mr. and Mrs. Gay looked up disconsolately as the green car approached. Suddenly their expressions of listlessness changed to incredulity – then to rapture. Mary Louise was home!
In another second the girl had flown up the steps and was hugging both parents at once. Mrs. Gay could only gasp in her happiness. It was Mr. Gay who asked his daughter whether she was unhurt and unharmed.
“I’m fine!” returned Mary Louise joyfully. “And, oh, so happy!”
“Darling!” murmured her mother, her voice choked with emotion.
“Now praise these wonderful boys,” insisted the girl. “My rescuers.”
Max and Norman tried to look modest and to wave aside their accomplishment with a gesture. But Mr. Gay seized their hands in a fervor of gratitude.
“I can’t find words to tell you what it means to us!” he said. “You two boys have succeeded where four professional detectives failed. It’s – it’s marvelous.”
“Oh, it wasn’t anything at all, except persistence on our part,” explained Max. “The real credit goes to Mary Lou. It was a swell idea she had.”
“What idea?” demanded Mr. Gay.
“Signaling for help. With semaphore flags – just as we all used to do in the Scouts.”
“But where were you, Mary Lou?” asked her father. “Sit down and tell us all about it.”
“First tell me whether you’re hungry,” put in her mother.
“No, not specially,” replied Mary Louise. “They fed us pretty well at the insane asylum.”
It was fun to watch her parents’ startled expressions at this announcement – fun now that the experience was all over.
“Insane asylum!” they both repeated in horror. And then for the first time they noticed her blue calico dress.
Mary Louise nodded and proceeded to tell her story. Briefly and quickly, for she remembered that she wanted to catch the two criminals.
“Has Mr. Frazier run away too?” she inquired, when she had finished.
“No, he’s over at his hotel,” replied Mr. Gay. “I saw him this morning.”
“You must arrest him, Daddy!” cried the girl. “He was the cause of the three fires at Shady Nook. I know it!”
“But how do you know, Mary Lou?” asked her father. “What proof have you?”
“I overheard him and Tom Adams talking in the hotel garage. They didn’t actually mention fires, but I’m sure they meant them. I have their conversation down in my notebook. I left it in my desk. It’s probably still there.”
“Suppose,” suggested Mr. Gay, “that you tell us the story of your suspicions – and clues – from the beginning.”
“While I’m getting lunch,” added Mrs. Gay.
Mary Louise ran into her bedroom and found the little notebook. “I’ll just change my dress,” she called laughingly, “and be with you in a minute… But tell me where Jane and Freckles are.”
“Out hunting for you. With Silky!” was the reply.
A couple of minutes later she returned to the porch, looking more like herself in her own modern clothing. She sat down on the swing and opened her notebook.
“I first suspected Tom Adams the day after Flicks’ Inn burned down,” she began. “All of the people of Shady Nook were over on the little island that night on a picnic, and Hattie Adams told me she expected to have Tom take her. But he wasn’t anywhere to be found. And the boys saw a big fellow in the woods who answered his description.
“But I sort of gave up the idea of his being guilty when I heard he had lost some work by Flicks’ Inn burning down. It threw me off the track for a while; I really suspected his feeble-minded sister Rebecca.
“Then the Smiths’ house caught fire, and Rebecca gave us a warning – so I suspected her all the more. Finding that pack of Cliff’s cards in the can of water didn’t prove a thing to me. I never believed he was guilty.”
“It was absurd to arrest him,” commented Mr. Gay. “The blundering idiot who caused it – ”
Mary Louise’s laugh ran out merrily.
“You and Jane will have to get together, Dad,” she said. “You agree so perfectly about David McCall!”
“Never did care for the fellow,” her father muttered. “Give me men with brains – and sense!” He looked admiringly at Max and Norman. “But get on with the story, Mary Lou.”
“It was the day after the Smiths’ fire that I really seriously suspected Tom Adams,” she continued. “I trailed him to the store at Four Corners and found him gambling. He told a man that he’d pay him a hundred dollars, which he expected to collect immediately. And that set me thinking.”
“Why?” inquired Max.
“Because a farmhand doesn’t earn a hundred dollars so easily, especially from tightwads like Frazier. Everybody knows that man pays miserable wages… Then, besides that, I overheard Tom Adams explaining a card trick, and that fact made me guess that he had gotten hold of one of Cliff’s decks of cards and either accidentally or purposely dropped them at the Smiths’.”
Mr. Gay nodded approvingly. He loved to watch the logical working of his daughter’s mind.
“So I began to put two and two together,” she went on. “Somebody was paying Tom a lot of money – lots more than a hundred dollars, I learned – for doing something. What, I asked myself, could the job be except setting those houses on fire? And who wanted them burned down except Frazier, or possibly Horace Ditmar, who, as you know, is an architect?”
“So you narrowed your suspects down to two people – besides Tom Adams?” inquired Mr. Gay admiringly.
“Yes. And when Adelaide Ditmar got that threat I was positive Frazier was responsible. He wanted the business, and he was doing everything he could to get it. But even then I had no proof.”
“So what did you do?” asked Max. “And why did Tom Adams suspect that you knew anything?”
“It was all because of this conversation,” answered Mary Louise, opening her notebook. “I overheard it near Frazier’s garage, and then I was stupid enough to let them see me. I even told them I was going over to the farm to talk to Hattie.”
“That was a mistake,” remarked Mr. Gay.
“A mistake I paid for pretty dearly,” agreed the girl. “But it’s all right now, so it really doesn’t matter… Now let me read you the conversation between Frazier and Tom Adams on the afternoon I was taken away.”
Quickly, in the words of the two men, she read to her listeners of Tom’s demand for money and Mr. Frazier’s reluctant compliance with his claims. When she had finished she looked eagerly at her father.
“Isn’t Frazier guilty?” she asked.
“Of course he’s guilty,” agreed the detective. “But he won’t ever admit it. He’ll squirm out of it, because we haven’t got proof in so many words. He’ll say he was talking about something entirely different to Tom Adams.”
“But can’t he be arrested?” persisted Mary Louise, a note of disappointment creeping into her voice.
“I don’t see how – until we find Tom Adams. He’ll establish Frazier’s guilt, all right. I can’t see Adams shouldering the blame alone.”
Mary Louise frowned; she hated the idea of the hotelkeeper’s freedom, even though it might be only temporary. But suddenly her face lighted up with inspiration.
“I have it!” she cried. “He can be arrested for signing that paper confining me to the insane asylum, can’t he, Dad?”
Mr. Gay looked startled.
“What paper?” he demanded.
Mary Louise explained that, since the commitment had to be signed by two relatives of the patient, Mr. Frazier had posed as her cousin. That was enough, Mr. Gay said immediately: all that they needed as evidence was the paper itself. They would drive over to the institution that afternoon and secure it.
Luncheon was indeed a happy meal in the Gay household that day. Although Freckles and Jane did not return, the two boys and Mary Louise kept up a constant banter of laughter and merriment. Mr. and Mrs. Gay were quieter, but a light of rapture shone in their eyes.
Just at the conclusion of the meal Mrs. Hunter and Cliff arrived. Prepared to enter a house of misery and fear, they could not believe their ears as they heard the gayety from within.
“Mary Lou!” cried Cliff incredulously.
“Cliff!” exclaimed the girl, jumping up and running to the screen door. “You’re free!”
“And you’re home!” returned the young man, seizing both of her hands.
In spite of his arrest, Clifford Hunter was the same care-free young person. In a few minutes he was showing his card tricks to Max and Norman, delighted to find a new audience.
When the whole story had been retold to the Hunters, with the caution that they say nothing of it to Mr. Frazier, Mary Louise and the three boys walked around the little resort to tell everybody there the glad news. Then she and her father and Max took the car and drove to the Adams farm. Mr. Gay thought it would be wise to take old Mr. Adams with them to visit the asylum, and Mary Louise thought it would be interesting to bring Rebecca – just to let Miss Stone and the other attendants meet the real Rebecca Adams!
With Max at the wheel they had no difficulty in finding the asylum. What fun it was, Mary Louise thought, to pass through those iron gates now – knowing that she was safe! Yet instinctively she reached for her father’s hand and held it securely as the car proceeded up the long driveway.
The same doctor and the same head nurse came out to receive them as upon Mary Louise’s first visit. Mr. Gay displayed his badge at once and explained his errand. The woman nodded and hurried into the office for the paper.
While she was gone, Rebecca Adams, growing restless, stepped out of the car, lugging her heavy water pitcher in her arms. At the same moment Miss Stone, Mary Louise’s special nurse, came out of the building.
“Miss Stone, I want you to meet the real Rebecca Adams,” said Mary Louise, with a twinkle in her eye.
Rebecca turned eagerly to the nurse.
“Can you show me where there is a well of clear water?” she asked immediately.
“Yes,” replied Miss Stone gravely. “Back of the building. We have a fine well.”
“Oh!” cried the woman in ecstasy. “At last!” She looked over at her father, and there were tears of earnestness in her eyes. “Let me stay here, Father! This is my home, where I want to live!” Her voice grew more wistful. “A well of clear water!” she repeated. “Please take me to it, kind lady!”
“Perhaps it is for the best,” agreed old Mr. Adams. “There’s nobody to take good care of Rebecca at home now that her mother’s dead and I’m crippled up with rheumatism. She can stay if she wants to.”
And so, at her own request, Rebecca Adams took up her life at the quiet institution, and the rest of the party, with the paper which was to be used as evidence against Frazier in their hands, drove back to Shady Nook.
Mary Louise went into her bedroom and put on her prettiest dress, awaiting the arrival of Jane and Freckles and her friends. What a glorious evening it was going to be for them all!