CHAPTER 4 A PROSPECTIVE TENANT

Jerry rolled down the window beside him and, thrusting his head through it, glanced back at the Morning Press building.

“Where do you see a light?” he demanded.

“It was on the third floor,” declared Penny. “I can’t see it myself now.”

Jerry grinned as he settled back into his place between the two girls. “You certainly get a kick out of playing jokes,” he accused.

“But it wasn’t a joke, Jerry. Honestly, I saw a light. Didn’t you, Louise?”

“Sorry, but I didn’t. I’m afraid your imagination works overtime, Pet.”

“I know what I saw,” insisted Penny.

As Jerry and Louise smiled, she lapsed into injured silence. However, she was certain she had not been mistaken. Distinctly she had observed a light on the third floor, a moving light which had been extinguished before her companions had noticed it.

The car presently drew up at the curb in front of the Star building. Anthony Parker, a newspaper tucked beneath his arm, stepped from the vestibule where he had been waiting. He was a tall, slender man, alert and courageous in following his convictions. Under his management the Riverview Star had grown to be one of the most influential papers in the state.

“Hope we haven’t kept you waiting, Mr. Parker,” Jerry greeted him, swinging open the cab door.

“Only a minute or two. Thanks, Jerry, for bringing the girls from the boat. May we offer you a ride home?”

“No, thanks, Chief. I’ll walk from here. Good evening.”

Jerry tipped his hat politely to Penny and Louise as the cab drove away. Mr. Parker asked the girls if they had enjoyed their trip aboard the Goodtime.

“The boat wasn’t very well named, I’m afraid,” answered Penny. “The trip proved to be rather terrible but we met some interesting people.”

During the drive to the Sidell home, she and Louise talked as fast as they could, telling Mr. Parker about Tillie Fellows, the mysterious young woman who had dropped a bundle of clothing into the water, and particularly the man with the strange octopus tattoo.

“You’ll have to tell the rest of it, Penny,” laughed Louise as she bade her chum good-bye. “Thanks for bringing me home.”

The cab rolled on, and Penny glanced questioningly at her father.

“What do you think of the tattoo story?” she asked hopefully. “Won’t it make a dandy feature for the Star?”

“I regret to say it sounds like first-grade fiction.”

“Why, Dad! Louise and Jerry will confirm everything I’ve said.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt your word, Penny. I am sure everything occurred as you report. Nevertheless, were we to use the story our readers might question its veracity.”

“Don’t crush me with such big words, Dad.”

“Veracity means truth, Penny. Now your story is very interesting, but I think you may have placed your own interpretation upon certain facts.”

“For instance?”

“Well, according to John Munn’s statement, he fell from the bridge and was not pushed.”

“But I saw it with my own two eyes, Dad.”

“The night is foggy. You easily could have been mistaken. As for the octopus tattoo, what is so strange about it? Sailors compete in striving for startling decorative effects.”

“Dad, you could rationalize the national debt,” accused Penny. “Very well, since you scorn my story I’ll give it to the High School paper!”

“An excellent idea. That is, if your editor favors highly colored journalism.”

Penny made a grimace, knowing that her father was deliberately teasing her. It was a constant source of irritation that a boy named Fred Clousky had been elected editor of the Riverview High School Chatter instead of Penny by the margin of one vote. She disapproved of Fred, his pimples, and particularly the way he blue-penciled the occasional stories which she submitted.

“The Riverview High Chatter is just as silly as its name,” she announced. “If I had that sheet I’d make it into a real paper.”

“Sour grapes?” inquired her father softly.

“Maybe,” grinned Penny. “But Fred is such an egg, even more conservative than you.”

The cab drew up before the Parker home. A light still burned in the living room where Mrs. Weems, the housekeeper, sat reading a magazine.

“I am glad you have come, Penny,” she remarked, switching on another light. “I was beginning to worry.”

Since the death of Mrs. Parker many years before Mrs. Weems had taken complete charge of the household, caring for Penny and loving her as her own daughter. There were occasions when she found the impulsive girl difficult to restrain, but certainly never dull or uninteresting.

Mrs. Weems soon went to bed, leaving Penny and her father to explore the refrigerator. As they helped themselves to cold ham, potato salad, and celery, Penny spoke of the light which she had seen in the abandoned Morning Press building.

“It may have been a watchman making his usual rounds,” commented her father.

“Jerry tells me the building has no watchman.”

“Could it have been a reflection from a car headlight?”

“I don’t think so, Dad.”

“Well, I shouldn’t lose sleep over it,” remarked Mr. Parker lightly. “Better run along to bed now.”

Penny arose at six-thirty the next morning, and before breakfast had written a two-page story about John Munn for the Riverview High School Chatter. She read it twice and was very well pleased with her work.

“Editor Fred is lucky to get this,” she thought. “He should make it the lead story.”

Off to school at a quarter to nine, Penny deposited her literary treasure in a box provided for journalistic contributions. All that day she went from class to class, warmed by the knowledge that she had accomplished an excellent piece of writing. To Louise she confided that she thought the work might improve her grade in English Composition.

“I’m glad you’ve decided to contribute to the paper again,” declared her chum. “It’s time you and Fred buried the hatchet.”

“Oh, I don’t bear him any grudge,” returned Penny. “Of course, everyone knows he campaigned for the editorship with free candy and soda pop.”

At three-thirty, a minute before the closing bell rang, Fred Clousky sauntered down the aisle. With a flourish he dropped two pages of copy on Penny’s desk, face upward. Across one of the pages in huge blue letters had been written: “Too imaginative for Chatter. Language too flowery. Spelling bad. Try us again sometime.”

A red stain crept over Penny’s cheeks. Her blue eyes began to snap.

“The poisonous little mushroom!” she muttered. “If he thinks he can do this to me—”

The closing bell rang, and immediately a group of sympathetic friends gathered about Penny. They all tried to soothe her feelings.

“Don’t let it bother you,” Louise advised her chum. “Of course, he did it just to make you peeved.”

“‘Spelling bad,’” Penny read aloud. “Look at this word he underlined! Anyone could tell I merely struck a wrong letter on my typewriter!”

Crumpling the page, she tossed it into the waste paper basket.

“‘Too imaginative,’” she muttered. “‘Language too flowery’!”

“Oh, forget it, Penny,” laughed Louise, leading her toward the locker room. “Fred always has been jealous of you because you’ve had stories published in the Star. Don’t let him know that you’re annoyed.”

“I guess I am acting silly,” admitted Penny, relaxing. “What I must do is to give this problem a good, hard think. Editor Fred will hear from me yet!”

Declining an invitation to play tennis, she went directly home. For an hour she lay on the davenport, staring at the ceiling.

“Penny, are you ill?” inquired Mrs. Weems anxiously.

“No, I’m in conference with myself,” answered Penny. “I am trying to arrive at a momentous decision.”

Presently, she began to scribble figures on a sheet of paper. When her father came home at five o’clock he found her engaged in that occupation.

“Well, Penny,” he remarked, hanging up his hat, “how did it go today? The editor of Chatter accepted your contribution I hope.”

Penny grinned ruefully. “If you don’t mind, let’s discuss a less painful subject,” she replied. “Suppose you tell me what you know about Matthew Judson and the Morning Press.”

“Why this sudden display of interest?”

“Oh, I saw Mr. Judson last night at the Bean Pot. He looked rather depressed.”

Mr. Parker sat down on the arm of the davenport. “It’s too bad about Judson,” he remarked. “I always admired him because he was a clever newspaper man.”

“Clever? Didn’t he mis-manage the paper so that it had to close?”

“Not that anyone ever learned. No, I never could figure out why Judson quit. The Press had a large circulation and plenty of advertisers.”

“What became of the building?”

“It’s still there.”

“No, I mean who owns it,” Penny explained. “Not Mr. Judson?”

“The building was taken over a few months ago by a man named George Veeley. Come to think of it, I once brought him home with me. You should remember him, Penny.”

“I do. He was rather nice. I wonder what he plans to do with the Press building and its equipment.”

“Hold it for speculation, I assume. In my opinion he’ll have it empty for a long while.”

“I rather doubt it,” said Penny. “He has a prospective tenant now, only he doesn’t know it.”

“Indeed? Who?”

“You’re looking at her.”

“You!” Mr. Parker smiled broadly.

“I have it all planned,” announced Penny with quiet finality. “What this town needs is a good, live newspaper, and an imaginative editor to run it.”

“Oh, I see.” With difficulty Mr. Parker kept his face composed. “And where do you propose to start your newspaper? In the old Press building?”

“You took the words out of my mouth, Dad. Everything is there, awaiting the touch of my magic wand.”

“There’s a little matter of rent. Several thousand a month.”

“I have a solution for that problem.”

“Your staff?”

“I’ll gather it as I prosper.”

“The necessary capital?”

“A mere detail,” said Penny grandly. “I meet only one obstacle at a time. Tomorrow I shall accost Mr. Veeley with an attractive proposition. If he falls into my net, Riverview’s newest paper, The Weekly Times, makes its bow to the public.”