CHAPTER 22 STRANGER IN THE STORM

Penny squirmed and rolled until her hands were very close to the cocoanut oil lamp on the rocky floor of the cave.

“Be careful!” Lorinda cried fearfully. “If your clothing should catch fire, nothing could save you.”

Penny held her hands, which were bound behind her back, over the flame. The heat seared her flesh and made her wince with pain.

“Keep it up, Penny!” encouraged her companion. “The cord is catching fire! But the lamp is almost out!”

Penny gritted her teeth and endured the pain. Then the lamp sputtered and went out, leaving the cave to darkness.

“Oh!” wailed Lorinda in bitter disappointment.

Penny tugged at the wrist cords. Although not severed, they were half burned through and weakened. A hard jerk freed her hands.

Only a moment then was required to untie the cords which held her feet. Next she freed Lorinda. As the girls started to leave through the passageway, Penny felt a cold blast of air upon her neck. Looking up, she was able to distinguish a small opening in the wall of the cave.

“Maybe we can get out there!” she exclaimed. “Give me a boost and I’ll see!”

Lorinda lifted her up. Scrambling like a monkey, Penny secured a toe hold and crammed her head and shoulders through the opening. A moment later she ducked back to call to her friend:

“We can get out all right! But the storm is getting awful! I’ll crawl out and then help you.”

Scrambling through the narrow opening, Penny found herself amid the high rocks overlooking the beach. The wind was blowing in puffs, each so powerful that she nearly was dislodged from her precarious perch.

Reaching back through the hole, Penny offered her arms to Lorinda who succeeded in joining her. They huddled in the lee of an overhanging rock, rain driving into their faces.

“We must get word to the police!” Penny said breathlessly.

“And I must make certain Mother is safe!” Lorinda added. “She’s been left too long alone. Antón and Celeste may have gone back there, and in that case, anything might happen!”

Slipping and sliding, the girls descended the rocks to the beach. The river, lashed by a sheet of rain, was dark and ugly. Much of the sand had been inundated and water bubbled at their heels as they ran toward the road.

A car swung toward them, its headlights blurred by the rain. It parked at the curb, and the driver tooted several times as if in signal.

“That looks like Jerry’s car!” Penny cried hopefully.

It was, indeed, the reporter. He swung open the automobile door, and as they recognized him, they dashed across the road and gratefully slid into the shelter offered.

“Don’t you girls know better than to be running around at a time like this?” Jerry demanded severely. “Lucky I saw you streaking up the beach!”

“What brought you here?” Penny gasped, taking several deep breaths.

“What brought me? Say, don’t you realize we’re in for a real storm, and it’s almost here! The radio ten minutes ago reported that Oelwein, on the coast, has been completely destroyed! I knew you came here to do a little sleuthing, Penny, and I figured someone ought to look after you.”

“Thanks, Jerry,” she returned gratefully. “We were in trouble—plenty of it.”

As the reporter drove on toward the Rhett mansion, Penny quickly revealed what had happened. Jerry made little comment, but his expression was grim.

“Maybe Antón and Celeste are here,” he said as the car reached the Rhett home. “If they are, we’ll round ’em up.”

Celeste and Antón, however, were not to be found in the mansion. Their rooms remained deserted and there was no indication that they had returned to the house after leaving the cave.

Lorinda lost not a moment in hastening to her mother’s bedroom. To her relief, Mrs. Rhett was sleeping quietly and did not awaken.

“Thank goodness, she is safe,” the girl murmured. “After what happened in the cave, I feared the worst.”

“We ought to get the police on the trail of Antón and Celeste before they make their escape,” Jerry urged. “Once the full force of this storm strikes, no one will be able to stir outside.”

He tried the telephone but the line remained dead. “I’ll drive to the police station,” he decided. “Are you girls coming along?”

“I’ll stay with Mother,” Lorinda said. “She mustn’t be left alone.”

Penny hesitated, intending to remain with her friend, but Jerry seized her by the arm. “Your father sent me out here to round you up, so I’ll take you to the newspaper office,” he declared. “Let’s go!”

As they opened the front door, rain poured in and a great blast of wind nearly swept the pair from their feet.

“Wow!” exclaimed the reporter, holding tight to Penny as with heads lowered, they ran for the car. “This is it!”

The air was filled with flying objects, and a shingle loosened from the mansion roof, hurtled against Penny. Jerry pulled the car door open. The wind seized it, nearly wrenching it off the hinges. Gusts were of greater velocity now, with the intervals much shorter.

For a dreadful moment, Penny and Jerry thought the car would not start. The reporter jammed his foot on the starter again and again and gave it the full choke. Suddenly, the motor caught.

As they drove off along the river road, the force of the wind was so great it required all of Jerry’s strength to keep the car straight on the road.

“We’ll be lucky if we reach the police station!” he exclaimed. “This is a lot worse than I figured.”

“Jerry!”

Seizing the reporter’s arm, Penny pointed to a crouched figure visible on the road ahead. The woman, hair flying in wild streamers, clutched a large object in her arms, and was bent almost double as she sought to move against the wind.

“It’s Celeste!” Penny cried.

Jerry brought the car to the roadside almost beside the servant. Not until Penny and the reporter were out of the automobile and almost upon her, did she see them. Then with a startled cry, she turned to flee. But it was too late. Jerry seized her by the arm.

“You’re coming with us!” he ordered sharply.

Battered and frightened by the force of the wind, Celeste, surprisingly, made no protest. Clutching the big Zudi drum, she allowed Jerry and Penny to pull her into the shelter of the car.

“Where is Antón?” the reporter demanded.

Celeste’s answer was a shrug. She gazed toward the mansion grounds, and ignored the pair.

Jerry drove on. He glanced significantly at Penny who guessed that he intended to take Celeste directly to the police station.

However, as they approached the downtown section, the wind blew with even greater power. Not a vehicle was to be seen on the streets. The Star building loomed up, but the police station was six blocks away.

“We can’t make it,” Jerry decided. “I’m turning in here.”

One of the double doors of the Star garage, where trucks were usually loaded with their papers, stood open. He drove inside, pulling up near the entrance to the newspaper pressroom on the ground floor.

Celeste stirred to life, and made a move to get out of the car.

“Oh, no you don’t!” said Jerry, pushing her back. “You and that drum stay with us.”

Celeste was of a different opinion. Glaring at Jerry, she slapped at him, and again tried to get her hand on the door handle.

“We can’t hold her here,” Jerry said. “But I have an idea! Penny, see if the pressroom door is unlocked.”

Penny ran to test it and found it unlocked. Now that the extra was out, the pressmen had gathered in a far corner of the big room filled with giant rotary presses, to smoke and watch the storm.

Racing back to the car, Penny made her report.

“Good!” exclaimed Jerry.

With Penny’s help, he got Celeste out of the car, separating her from the Zudi drum which they left in the automobile. The woman stubbornly refused to walk, so Jerry lifted her bodily and carried her kicking and struggling into the pressroom.

Near the door was a large storage closet where tools and oil for the presses were kept. Jerry shoved Celeste into this room and turned a key in the lock.

“That will hold her,” he observed. “While you lock the Zudi drum in the car, I’ll talk to the press foreman and tell him what we’ve done. Then Celeste can squawk her head off and it will do no good. We’ll keep her here until the storm lets up and we can get a police squad to pick her up.”

Penny ran back to the loading garage. It was deserted now save for a lone delivery truck which stood directly in front of the paper chute. Although his cargo was loaded, the driver hesitated to try to deliver until the storm abated.

Locking the car, Penny decided she would close the one big double garage door where rain was blowing in.

The hurricane now roared in full fury. Peering out into the deserted street, it seemed to Penny that no person could stand against its strength. Yet as she closed the doors, she was amazed to see a scurrying figure.

The man, his hat gone, overcoat whipped between his legs, grasped a corner of the building for support.

Seeing his face, Penny drew in her breath sharply. A small jagged scar disfigured one cheek. As he struggled past the door, she reached out and grasped his arm.

“Come in here out of the wind,” she urged. As she gazed directly into his eyes, she added distinctly: “We have been looking for you a long while, Mr. Rhett!”