CHAPTER 23 DESCENT INTO THE CRYPT

Meanwhile, a great fear had taken possession of Penny as she saw Father Benedict leave the chapel bedroom closet and disappear down a corridor leading into the ruins of the church.

The expression of his face and his evil mutterings warned her that the man thoroughly enjoyed his role, despite his insistence that he abhorred violence.

Fearing for Rhoda’s safety, Penny waited only until he had vanished. Then she slipped into the closet of the bedroom and fumbled for the peephole opening.

She found it and peered anxiously into the darkened bed chamber. Rhoda was lying on the canopied bed, apparently sound asleep.

“Rhoda!” Penny called in a loud whisper.

The girl did not stir.

As Penny whispered the name still louder, she saw the bed jerk. The floor beneath it began to move slowly downward.

In horror, Penny recalled what Jake Cotton, the carpenter, had told her about repairing the ancient lift. Rhoda was being lowered into the crypt below!

“Rhoda!” she cried. “Wake up! Quick! Jump out of bed!”

The girl seemed to hear for she moved slightly and made a choking sound in her throat. But she could not extricate herself from the slowly descending bed.

Numb with despair, Penny saw the girl disappear beyond view. There was a whine of machinery as the bed apparently came to a standstill on the subterranean floor below.

Then after a moment, she heard movement again. The bed slowly ascended. A glance sufficed to show Penny that it was empty.

“I’ve got to help her!” she thought. “That fiend will torture her into telling where the sapphire is hidden if I don’t think of some scheme for saving her. But how?”

Quitting the closet, Penny sought the same passageway Father Benedict had taken into the ruined church.

As she cautiously opened the squeaky door, she saw before her shattered Gothic columns which once had supported a magnificent roof. Now dim stars cast a ghostly light over a mass of piled-up rubble.

Walls, however, had proved remarkably sturdy, rising to a height Penny could not hope to scale. There were no visible exits.

“Where did Father Benedict go?” she speculated. “Steps must lead down to the crypt.”

Penny flashed her light about, seeking an opening. Investigating a pile of stone which had tumbled from an archway, she was elated to find her search at an end. Behind the piled up rocks, cleverly concealed, was a vaulted stone passage and stairway leading down.

Though Penny knew it was highly dangerous to venture below, she did not hesitate. A step at a time, and pausing frequently to listen, she stole down toward the inky blackness of the crypt.

The stone walls on either side of the narrow, curving stairway were cold and clammy to the touch. Water dripped from overhead.

Ahead, in a sunken recess amid the stones, the girl suddenly saw a shadowy figure. Startled, she jerked to a standstill. Then, observing that the object was not a human being but a rusty coat of armor, she breathed easier and went on.

A minute later, as she crept around a turn of the stairway, terror gripped her at first glimpse of the dimly lighted burial crypt.

In grim, orderly rows were the elaborately carved stone sarcophaguses of former residents of the monastery.

Beyond the tombs, backed against a wall, sat Rhoda. Sleepy-eyed, her hair in disarray, she faced Father Benedict who held a lighted lantern close to her face.

Jay Highland had doffed his long robes and stood revealed in ordinary gray business suit. In his coat pocket, within easy reach of his right hand, was a revolver.

“Wake up!” he said, giving Rhoda a hard shake. “You’re only pretending now! The drug in the coffee was not strong enough to keep you asleep. Wake up!”

Rhoda stared at him and her eyes widened in horror.

“You fiend!” she accused him. “Don’t you dare touch me! I’ll scream!”

“Scream at the top of your lungs, my dear. Only the dead will hear you.”

“The dead! Oh!” A shudder wracked Rhoda’s thin body as she became aware of the tombs in the crypt. “Why did you bring me here?”

“For one purpose. I want the sapphire. Hand it over and you will not be harmed.”

“I haven’t the gem.”

“But you know where it is.”

Rhoda remained silent.

“You’ll tell,” Highland rasped, losing all patience. “I haven’t all day! You tricked me with that cheap substitute, and you induced your grandmother to hold out against me. Now we are through playing.”

“You’re nothing but a cheap crook!”

“A crook perhaps,” said the man, “but hardly cheap. The sapphire should be worth $50,000 at a conservative estimate. Now where is it?”

“You’ll never learn from me!” Rhoda cried defiantly. “I’ll die before I’ll tell!”

“My! My! Such heroics! However, I think you will change your mind. Let me show you something, my dear.”

Setting the lantern on the floor, Highland grasped Rhoda roughly by the arm and led her to a small doorway at the far side of the crypt.

“Tell me what you see,” he purred.

Rhoda drew in her breath sharply and recoiled from the sight. She was speechless with fright.

“My dear, I was not thinking of mistreating you—certainly not,” Highland purred. “No, instead we will bring your aged grandmother down here.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Rhoda gasped. “Why, she’s sick.”

“The damp and cold will be bad for her, no doubt,” agreed the imposter. “When I saw her tonight, she seemed to have developed a severe cough. The onset of pneumonia perhaps.”

“Oh!”

“You could so easily spare her suffering,” continued the man wickedly. “Merely by telling me where you hid the sapphire. I know your grandmother had it when she came into this house. But you made off with it, substituting a paste gem.”

“It’s true, I did hide the gem,” Rhoda confessed. “Punish me—not Grandmother.”

“Unless you tell me where the sapphire is hidden she shall be brought down here and treated as those others who defied me.” The man jerked his head toward the room beyond Penny’s view. “What do you say?”

“Let me think about it for a few minutes.”

“You’re stalling for time, hoping that Parker girl will bring help!” the man accused. From his pocket he took a stout cord with which he securely bound Rhoda’s hands and feet.

Bracing her back against the wall, he likewise whipped a handkerchief gag from his clothing.

“This is your last chance,” he warned. “Will you tell, or shall I go for your grandmother?”

“I’ll tell,” Rhoda whispered. “The gem is a long ways from here.”

“Where?”

“Down by the river docks.”

“By the river docks! A likely story!”

“You remember I ran away?” Rhoda asked hurriedly. “I took my suitcase, intending not to come back. Then for Grandmother’s sake I returned. I was afraid I might never get a chance to sneak my clothes out again, so I hid the suitcase under a dock by the river.”

“And the gem?”

“I took it with me when I ran away. It was sewed in the hem of a blue skirt packed in the suitcase.”

“Fool!” Highland exclaimed furiously. “Of all the stupid tricks! Where is the suitcase now?”

“Still under the dock unless someone has found it. But it should be there, because I pushed it up high out of sight beneath the underpinning.”

“Which dock?” the man rasped.

“It was just at the edge of Riverview. Dock Fourteen.”

“At least you remember the number!” he snapped. “If I fail to find the gem, I’ll come back here and make you pay! You may be certain of that!”

“I hope you do come back and that the police are waiting at the gate!” Rhoda retorted. “I hope they put you in prison for the rest of your life!”

Picking up the lantern, Jay Highland started toward the stairway where Penny crouched. She moved hurriedly behind the door which opened into the crypt.

Slight as was the sound she made, Highland detected it.

“Who is there?” he called, holding his lantern high. “Answer or I’ll shoot!”

Penny did not doubt that the man would carry out his threat. Her hand closed on a stone which lay on a ledge directly behind her.

“Don’t shoot,” she said, exposing herself to view.

“So it’s you again!” hissed Highland. “I might have known!”

Penny let fly the stone. It struck the lantern. The light went out and oil and flame splattered over the stone floor.

Knowing it was her only chance to escape, Penny made a wild dash up the stairs. But she could not climb swiftly enough.

Jay Highland pounded hard after her. As she neared the top of the circular steps, he seized her arm and pulled her backwards.

Penny fought like a tiger to free herself. Together they stumbled and rolled down the wide stones to the floor of the crypt. There the man pressed his revolver hard into the girl’s ribs, and she knew the game was up.

“Get in there!” he said, giving her a hard push. “This time you’ll stay!”

As Penny reeled backwards into a wall, she heard the door of the crypt close and lock. With despair she realized that she too was a prisoner in the chamber of the dead.