CHAPTER 8 A CODED MESSAGE
Penny sat in the kitchen of Mrs. Downey’s lodge, warming her half frozen toes in the oven.
“Well, how did you like the skiing?” inquired her hostess who was busy mixing a huge meat loaf to be served for dinner.
“It was glorious,” answered Penny, “only I took a bad spill. Somehow I missed the turn you told me about, and found myself heading for a barbed wire fence. I jumped it and made a one point landing in a snowbank!”
“You didn’t hurt yourself, thank goodness.”
“No, but an old man with a shotgun came out of the woods and said ‘Scat!’ to me. It seems he doesn’t like skiers.”
“That must have been Peter Jasko.”
“And who is he, Mrs. Downey?”
“One of the oldest settlers on Pine Top Mountain,” sighed Mrs. Downey. “He’s a very pleasant man in some respects, but in others—oh, dear.”
“Skiing must be one of his unpleasant aspects. I noticed he had a ‘Keep Out’ sign posted on his property.”
“Peter Jasko is a great trial to me and other persons on the mountain. He has a hatred of skiing and everything pertaining to it, which amounts to fanaticism. A number of skiers have been injured by running into his barbed wire fence.”
“Then he put it up on purpose?”
“Oh, yes! He has an idea it will keep folks from skiing.”
“He isn’t—?” Penny tapped her forehead significantly.
“No,” smiled Mrs. Downey. “Old Peter is right in his mind, at least in every respect save this one. He owns our best ski slopes, too.”
Penny shifted her foot to a cooler place in the oven.
“Not the slopes connected with this lodge?”
Mrs. Downey nodded as she whipped eggs to a foamy yellow.
“I leased the land from Jasko’s son many years ago, and Jasko can do nothing about it except rage. However, the lease expires soon. He has given me to understand it will not be renewed.”
“Can’t you deal with the son?”
“He is dead, Penny.”
“Oh, I see. That does make it difficult.”
“Decidedly. Jasko’s attitude about the lease is another reason why I think this will be my last year in the hotel business.”
“You don’t think Ralph Fergus or Harvey Maxwell have influenced Jasko?” Penny asked thoughtfully, a frown ridging her forehead.
“I doubt that anyone could influence the old man,” replied Mrs. Downey. “Stubborn isn’t the word to describe his character. Even if I lose the ski slopes, I am quite sure he will never lease them to the Fergus hotel interests.”
“While I was down there I thought I saw a girl standing at the window of the cabin.”
“Probably you did, Penny. Jasko has a granddaughter about your age, named Sara. A very nice girl, too, but she is kept close at home.”
“I feel sorry for her if she has to live with that old man. He seemed like a regular ogre.”
Removing her toasted feet from the oven, Penny pulled on her stiff boots again. Without bothering to lace them, she hobbled toward the door.
“Oh, by the way,” she remarked, pausing. “Did you ever hear of a Green Room at the Fergus hotel?”
“A Green Room?” repeated Mrs. Downey. “No, I can’t say I have. What is it, Penny?”
“I wonder myself. Something funny seems to be going on there.”
Having aroused Mrs. Downey’s curiosity, Penny gave a more complete account of her visit to the Fergus hotel.
“I’ve never heard anyone mention such a place,” declared the woman in a puzzled voice. “But I will say this. The hotel always has attracted a peculiar group of guests.”
“How would you like to have me solve the mystery for you?” joked Penny.
“It would suit me very well indeed,” laughed Mrs. Downey. “And while you’re about it you might put Ralph Fergus out of business, and bring me a new flock of guests.”
“I’m afraid you’re losing one instead. Maxine Miller told me she is moving down to the big hotel.”
“I know. She checked out a half hour ago. Jake made an extra trip to haul her luggage down the mountain.”
“Anyway, I shouldn’t be sorry to see her go if I were you,” comforted Penny. “I am quite sure she hasn’t enough money to pay for a week’s stay at Pine Top.”
Going to her room, Penny changed into more comfortable clothing and busied herself writing a long letter to her father. From her desk by the window she could see skiers trudging up the slopes, some of them making neat herring-bone tracks, others slipping and sliding, losing almost as much distance as they gained.
As she watched, Francine swung into view, poling rhythmically, in perfect timing with her long easy strides.
“She is good,” thought Penny, grudgingly.
Dinner was served at six. Afterwards, the guests sat before the crackling log fire and bored each other with tales of their skiing prowess. A few of the more enterprising ones waxed their skis in preparation for the next day’s sport.
“Any newspapers tonight?” inquired a business man of Mrs. Downey. “Or is this another one of the blank days?”
“Jake brought New York papers from the village,” replied the hotel woman. “They are on the table.”
“Blank days?” questioned Francine, looking up from a magazine she had been reading.
“Mr. Glasser calls them that when he doesn’t get the daily stock market report,” explained Mrs. Downey, smiling at her guest.
“And don’t the newspapers always arrive?” questioned Francine.
“Not always. Lately the service has been very poor.”
“I’d rather be deprived of a meal than my paper,” growled Mr. Glasser. “What annoys me is that the guests at the Fergus hotel always get their papers. I wish someone would explain it to me.”
“And I wish someone would explain it to me,” murmured Mrs. Downey, retreating to the kitchen.
In the morning Penny decided to ski down to the village for a jar of cold cream. The snow was crusted and fast but she felt no terror of the trail which curved sharply through the evergreens. Her balance was better, and this time she had no intention of impaling herself on Peter Jasko’s barbed wire fence.
Seldom checking her speed, she hurtled along the ribbon of trail. Racing on to the sharp turn, she shifted her weight and swung her body at precisely the right instant. The slope stretched on past rows of tall trees, towering like sentinels along the snow-swept ridges. Presently it flattened out into an open valley. Penny sailed past a house, a barn, and gradually slowed up until she came to a low hillock overlooking the village.
Recapturing her breath, Penny took off her skis and walked on into Pine Top. She made a few purchases at the drug store and then impulsively entered the telegraph office. To her surprise, Francine Sellberg was there ahead of her.
“How late is your office open?” the reporter was asking the operator.
“Six-thirty,” he replied.
“And if one has a rush message to send after that hour?”
“Well, you can get me at my house,” the man answered. “I live over behind the Albert’s Filling Station.”
“Thank you,” responded Francine, flashing Penny a mocking smile. “I may have an important story to send to my paper any hour. I wanted to be sure there would be no delay in getting it off.”
Penny waited until the reporter had left the office and then said apologetically:
“I don’t suppose you’ve received any message for me?”
“We always telephone as soon as anything comes in,” the man replied. “But wait! You’re Penelope Parker, aren’t you?”
“In my more serious moments. Otherwise, just plain Penny.”
“I do have something for you, then. A message came in a few minutes ago. I’ve been too busy to telephone it to the lodge.”
He handed Penny a sheet of paper which she read eagerly. As she anticipated, it was from her father, and with his usual disregard for economy he had not bothered to omit words.
“Glad to learn you arrived safely at Pine Top,” he had wired. “Your information about H. M. is astonishing, if true. Are you sure it is the same man? Keep your eye on him, and report to me if you learn anything worth while. I am held here by important developments, but will try to come to Pine Top for Christmas.”
Penny read the message twice, scowling at the sentence: “Are you sure it is the same man?” It was clear to her that her father did not have a great deal of faith in her identification. And obviously, he did not believe that anything could be gained by making a special trip to Pine Top to see the hotel man.
Thrusting the paper into the pocket of her jacket she went out into the cold.
“No one seems to rate my detective work very highly,” she complained to herself. “But when Dad gets my letter telling him about the Green Door he may take a different attitude!”
Skis slung over her shoulder, she began the weary climb back to the Downey lodge. Before Penny had walked very far she saw that she was overtaking a man on the narrow trail ahead of her. Observing that it was Ralph Fergus, she immediately slowed her steps.
The hotel man did not turn his head to glance back. He kept walking slower and slower as if in deep thought, and after a time he reached absently into his pocket for a letter.
As he pulled it out, another piece of pale gray paper fluttered to the ground. Fergus did not notice that he had lost anything. The wind caught the paper and blew it down the slope toward Penny.
“Oh, Mr. Fergus!” she called. “You dropped something!”
The wind hurled her words back at her. Realizing that she could not make the man hear, Penny quickened her pace. After a short chase she rescued the paper when it caught on the thorns of a snow-caked bush.
At first glance Penny thought she had gone to trouble for no purpose. The paper seemed to be blank. But as she turned it over she saw a single line of jumbled letters:
YL GFZKY GLULFFLS
“What can this be?” Penny thought in amazement. “Nothing, I guess.”
She crumpled the paper and tossed it away. But as it skittered and bounced like a tumble weed down the trail, she suddenly changed her mind and darted after it again. Carefully straightening out the page she examined it a second time.
“This looks like copy paper used in a newspaper office,” she told herself. “But there is no newspaper in Pine Top, I wonder—?”
The conviction came to Penny that the jumbled letters might be in code. Her pulse leaped at the thought. If only she were able to decipher it!
“I’ll take this to the lodge and work on it,” she decided quickly. “Who knows? It may be just the key I need to unlock this strange affair of the Green Door!”
